This is what ratcheting up looks like. This time ratcheting is three-sided. China’s in the nuclear game and the new nuclear arms race extends from cruise missiles with ‘usable’ nuclear warheads to hypersonic nuclear re-entry vehicles. The US, Russia and China — and alliance partners — are racing, each pushing the other, toward strategic disaster
The new Nuclear Posture Review signals a new nuclear arms race. Luck of the draw. “Do you feel lucky?” The question of generational, existential risk takes on new dimension as strategic arms experts ask deadly end game questions. Nuclear tensions are turning to nuclear threats, an international ramp up of nuclear weapons development, ‘usable’ nukes, […]
Making America Nuclear Again Trump’s Gamble Inside the Doom Factory “Fire & fury like the world has never seen“
Via the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
At the front lines of the Cold War, a green political movement was launched in Europe. Today, green parties exist in over 1/2 the countries of the world — as nuclear nonproliferation education continues at the front of a green agenda
The U.S. needs new oversight on the unlimited power of the president to order nuclear use on any day at any moment for whatever reason. The singular nuclear launch authority one person has is an extreme and potentially cataclysmic authority. Now is the time for a sane nuclear launch system
Deterrence in nuclear capabilities? North Korea’s gamble, and the world’s gamble, is that their offensive force will deter devastation in the vein of the first war in North Korea, when the US air campaign of General LeMay leveled nearly every building. Today’s NK ‘gamble’, ratcheting up, is in no country’s interest
In the US Congress survival is being debated. Nuclear weapon use, first use, is up for debate for the first time in over 40 years. A point of view brought forward by StratDem before the presidential election and more actively since July 2016 is now world news. Now is the time to change first-use policy […]
Today we wake to the US President touting his own IQ, having been called a “moron” by the US Secretary of State, and complaining via Tweets that US Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) gave a recorded interview to the NY Times, as the Senator and his staff previously acknowledged, questioning the President’s mental fitness
In what is arguably one of the more threatening addresses since the creation of the United Nations, the US president lays out his vision of nations, “sovereignty”, and what he sees as “America First” within the international community. He goes on, lecturing, warning, threatening the use of US force
The US Nuclear Arsenal What is it there for, if it can’t be used? – The U.S. President
We’ll see … President Trump says “we’ll see” whether he’ll order strikes on North Korea in response to its nuclear test… a barrage of news stories on a Sunday morning does nothing to address the question of the hour… One person has #hairtrigger power to order US forces to attack North Korea, potentially initiating nuclear war […]
Questions of command and control are circulating. The former US Director of National Intelligence goes on record to worry about the President’s access to nuclear codes. Erratic decisions, speeches, and behavior of the US Commander in Chief are continuing to produce concern as the public and international community react
The U.S. nuclear arsenal should not be under the control of one person. No decision of one person should be able to initiate nuclear weapons conflict and potentially a humanity-ending nuclear war. Humanity is at a precipice, we need to draw back from the brink of disaster
Article VI of the NPT: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”
For many years the editor of Strategic Demands has continued an association with the Los Alamos Study Group. Their team of scientists and public/civil representatives continues to address critical issues involving US nuclear weapons development. Currently at the UN, the LASG reports on the historic “Convention to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons”
The “button” can morph into a perverse temptation for an unstable leader. In 1974, during his impeachment proceedings, President Richard M. Nixon said to reporters: “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes, 70 million people will be dead.”
