Nuclear Weapons

A Lexicon For Disaster

December 20, 2022 Scott Ritter, Consortium News. Educate! Arms Control, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Wars and Militarism

Dec. 8 marked the 35th anniversary of the signing of the intermediate nuclear forces (INF) treaty. This landmark arms control event was the byproduct of years of hard-nose negotiations capped off by the political courage of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev who together signed the treaty and oversaw its ratification by their respective legislatures. The first inspectors went to work on July 1, 1988. I was fortunate to count myself among them. In August 2019, former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the INF treaty; Russia followed shortly thereafter, and this foundational arms control agreement was no more. The termination of the INF treaty is part and parcel of an overall trend which has seen arms control as an institution — and a concept — decline in the eyes of policy makers in both Washington and Moscow.

Israel’s Nuclear Menacing Of The Middle East

December 5, 2022 Ramzy Baroud, Consortium News. Educate! Israel, Middle East, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons

As Western countries are floating the theory that Russia could escalate its conflict with Ukraine to a nuclear war, many Western governments continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s own nuclear weapons capabilities. Luckily, many countries around the world do not subscribe to this endemic Western hypocrisy. “The Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction” was held between Nov. 14-18, with the sole purpose of creating new standards of accountability that, as should have always been the case, be applied equally to all Middle Eastern countries. The debate regarding nuclear weapons in the Middle East could not possibly be any more pertinent or urgent. International observers rightly note that the period following the Russia-Ukraine war is likely to accelerate the quest for nuclear weapons throughout the world.

UN Votes 152 To 5 Telling Israel To Get Rid Of Its Nuclear Weapons

November 3, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. Resistance Report International Law, Israel, Nuclear Weapons, United Nations

The vast majority of countries on Earth voted in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn the Israeli apartheid regime for having nuclear weapons, in flagrant violation of international law. Israel is the only country in West Asia that has nukes. Tel Aviv has not officially acknowledged its possession of the planet-destroying weapons, but experts estimate it has at least 90 nuclear warheads, and perhaps hundreds. On October 28, a staggering 152 countries (79% of all UN member states) adopted a resolution that called on Israel to give up its atomic bombs, join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to supervise its nuclear facilities. Just five countries voted against the measure: the United States and Canada, the small island nations of Palau and Micronesia, and apartheid Israel itself.

What Ever Happened To Our fear Of Armageddon?

October 30, 2022 Jim Walsh, Responsible Statecraft. Educate! Cuba, Cuban Missile Crisis, History, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Ukraine, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

Perhaps the fates (or the laws of probability) are having a bit of fun at our expense, or maybe this is their way of providing yet another warning, but the possibility of nuclear war is once again in the air, as it was 60 years ago this month during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Trying to understand today’s problems through the lens of history and historical example is always fraught. Circumstances change with the times; today is not yesterday. Still, human beings are more or less the same. The biases, impulses, and hubris that influenced decision-making in 1962 are alive and well despite the species’ best efforts. So what can the Cuban Missile Crisis tell us about today’s nuclear dangers? First, it reveals lessons that were obvious then and that have stood the passage of time. But it can also tell us something today that could not have been understood in the moment or even years later.

The Failures Of Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review

October 28, 2022 Stephen Young, All Things Nuclear. Educate! Biden administration, China, Joe Biden, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Wars and Militarism

Released today, the Biden administration’s unclassified Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is, at heart, a terrifying document. It not only keeps the world on a path of increasing nuclear risk, in many ways it increases that risk. Citing rising threats from Russia and China, it argues that the only viable U.S. response is to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, maintain an array of dangerous Cold War-era nuclear policies, and threaten the first use of nuclear weapons in a variety of scenarios. This NPR does not reflect the sensible steps President Biden proposed as a candidate to reduce the nuclear threat. Instead, the document says the United States has no choice but to build all-new nuclear weapons, despite science-based findings that the current warheads in the arsenal will be reliable for decades to come with only modest maintenance efforts.

Russia’s ‘Dirty Bomb’ Scare

October 26, 2022 Scott Ritter, Consortium News. Educate! Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

In the span of a few hours on Sunday, the senior-most Russian defense authorities — Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and General Gennady Gerasimov — called their counterparts in the U.S., U.K., France, and Turkey, with the same message — Ukraine is preparing to detonate a so-called “dirty bomb”— high explosive-wrapped radiological material, designed to contaminate large areas with deadly radioactive isotopes. Russia is not only concerned about the immediate impact of Ukraine detonating such a devise in terms of the harm that would be done to people and the environment, but also about the potential for such an event to be used by Ukraine’s western allies to directly intervene militarily in the ongoing conflict, similar to what occurred in Syria when allegations about the use of Sarin nerve agent by the Syrian government against civilians were used by the U.S., U.K., and France to justify an attack on Syrian military and infrastructure targets.

Back Door Proliferation

September 24, 2022 Binoy Kampmark, Counterpunch. Educate! AUKUS, China, New Cold War, Nuclear Weapons

In Vienna, China’s permanent mission to the United Nations has been rather exercised of late. Members of the mission have been particularly irate with the International Atomic Energy Agency and its Director General, Rafael Grossi, who addressed the IAEA’s Board of Governors on September 12. Grossi was building on a confidential report by the IAEA which had been circulated the previous week concerning the role of nuclear propulsion technology for submarines to be supplied to Australia under the AUKUS security pact. When the AUKUS announcement was made in September last year, its significance shook security establishments in the Indo-Pacific. It was also no less remarkable, and troubling, for signalling the transfer of otherwise rationed nuclear technology to a third country.

Four Times The US Nearly Killed Us All With Nuclear Armageddon

August 24, 2022 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. Resistance Report China, Nancy Pelosi, Nuclear Weapons, Taiwan, US Imperialism

Nancy Pelosi’s recent trip to Taiwan to try to start a proxy war with China helped remind a lot of Americans that our “leaders” do not have our best interests at heart and, in fact, willfully push us all toward nuclear Armageddon. Of course, this is just the latest moment when the U.S. empire has nearly caused a doomsday scenario. Here are some of the other greatest hits over the past 70 years. One night in 1961, the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on North Carolina! A B-52 crashed in the middle of the night in Faro, North Carolina, but it was more than just a downed aircraft. As National Geographic magazine reported, “…somewhere out there in the winter darkness lay… the remains of two 3.8-megaton thermonuclear atomic bombs.

Sometimes Humanity Gets it Right

August 17, 2022 Scott Ritter, Consortium News. Educate! disarmament, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Wars and Militarism

When it comes to U.S.-Russian arms control, sometimes history should repeat itself President Joe Biden recently called for Russia to resume arms control negotiations aimed at keeping the existing New START treaty, scheduled to expire in 2026, viable. Russia responded by suspending all inspection activity related to New START, declaring that the United States was seeking unilateral advantage by denying Russia access to inspection sites in the US, while demanding that Russia permit American inspectors access to sites in Russia. Arms control, once the cornerstone of U.S.-Russian relations, appears to be on life support, and with it the future of international peace and security. My new book, Disarmament in the time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union, provides an historical precedent which gives hope that the current negative trend in relations between the U.S. and Russia could be reversed if both parties were willing and able to recapture the spirit of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which entered into force on July 1, 198

Activists Mark 77th Anniversary Of Atomic Bombings At Nuclear Sub Base

August 11, 2022 Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Popular Resistance. Resist! Hiroshima, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, Washington

Approximately 40 people were present on August 5th at a flash mob demonstration against Trident nuclear weapons at the Bangor submarine base. The demonstration was in the roadway, and blocked traffic entering the Main Gate of the Trident nuclear submarine base during rush hour traffic. Thirteen demonstrators were detained and cited by authorities. Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor is homeport to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear warheads in the U.S. The nuclear warheads are deployed on Trident D-5 missiles on SSBN submarines and are stored in an underground nuclear weapons storage facility on the base. Activists gathered early Monday morning on August 8th at the the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo to remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 77 years ago and to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

There Is More Media Talk About Using Nuclear Weapons Than Banning Them

August 8, 2022 Karl Grossman, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! Media, Nuclear Ban Treaty, Nuclear Weapons

It’s of critical importance—indeed, existential importance—to the world: the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. And a coalition of peace organizations in the United States is charging that media are acting like the treaty “does not exist.” The Nuclear Ban Treaty Collaborative is waging a campaign to encourage press coverage of the treaty, which, it argues, “provides the only pathway to a safe, secure future free of the nuclear threat” (Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance Newsletter, 6/22). In the words of the UN, the treaty is “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.” It was adopted by the UN General Assembly—with 122 nations in favor—and opened for signature in 2017. It was entered into force in January 2021.

John Pilger: Another Hiroshima Is Coming — Unless We Stop It Now

August 7, 2022 John Pilger, Consortium News. Educate! China, Hiroshima, New Cold War, Nuclear Weapons

When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then I walked down to the river where the survivors still lived in shanties. I met a man called Yukio, whose chest was etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped. He described a huge flash over the city, “a bluish light, something like an electrical short”, after which wind blew like a tornado and black rain fell.

The People In Hiroshima Didn’t Expect It Either

August 5, 2022 David Swanson, World Beyond War. Educate! Hiroshima, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, Wars and Militarism

When New York City recently released a grotesque “public service announcement” video explaining that you should stay indoors during a nuclear war, the corporate media reaction was principally not outrage at the acceptance of such a fate or the stupidity of telling people “You’ve got this!” as if they could survive the apocalypse by cocooning with Netflix, but rather mockery of the very idea that a nuclear war might happen. U.S. polling on people’s top concerns find 1% of people most concerned about the climate and 0% most concerned about nuclear war. Yet, the U.S. just illegally put nukes into a 6th nation (and virtually nobody in the U.S. can name either it or the other five that the U.S. already illegally had nukes in), while Russia is talking about putting nukes into another nation too, and the two governments with most of the nukes increasingly talk — publicly and privately — about nuclear war.

Where We Stand On August 6 And 9, 2022

August 5, 2022 H. Patricia Hynes, Portside. Educate! Hiroshima, Nuclear War, Nuclear Weapons, Wars and Militarism

August 6 and 9 mark the 77th year since the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, annihilating instantly an estimated 170,000 women, men and children and sentencing tens of thousands more to eventual death from radiation poisoning and injuries. American military leaders from all branches of the armed forces strongly dissented from the decision to use the bombs, some before August 1945, some in retrospect, for both military and moral reasons. On Armistice Day 1948, Army General Omar Bradley captured the soulless militarism ruling the US government: “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”

US Threatens War On China Over Taiwan

August 3, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. Resistance Report China, Nancy Pelosi, Nuclear Weapons, Taiwan

The US government has been preparing for war with China over Taiwan. The extremely provocative trip by top official Nancy Pelosi was only the latest US escalation. The Pentagon has made plans for war with China, top CIA officials openly call for fighting Beijing, and US troops are on the ground in Taipei. Washington has sold Taiwan tens of billions of dollars worth of military equipment, and influential DC think tanks are even calling to send it nuclear weapons.

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