Nuclear Issues / Cold War 2.0

Strategic Demands tracks a new Cold War arms race

2019

2018

The President of the United States (phone in hand)…
July 22, 2018, 11:24 PM EST in the White House. Fingers on his Twitter keypad.

Recalling his “first order”, the US president plays a nuclear card as he tweets a late-night threat to the Iranian President and people of Iran.

Nuclear Chain of Command

Renewed Nuclear Arms Race

US Nuclear Posture Review Released

February 2018: Nuclear Weapons Time, ‘Usable’ Nukes on the Horizon

Two Minutes to Midnight

Green Politics / Nuclear Weapons

Doomsday Machine

2017

Strategic Demands proposes Congressional legislation to limit presidential authority to order first-use of nuclear weapons

Let Us Warn of Consequences

Via Washington Post / Fall 2017

Analysis / Trump’s Request for More Nuclear Weapons

#StratDem Comments

Extremely dangerous. Damaging to national and global security. Accelerant to nuclear proliferation globally.

China-Russia and nuclear states will now, in turn, multiply nuclear weapon systems far beyond current spending …

Cruise nukes are esp threatening. Read former Sec of Defense Bill Perry. The push toward ‘usable’ nukes is serious threat on near horizon.

Stephen F. Cohen / Summer 2017

“We’re at maybe the most dangerous moment in US-Russian relations in my lifetime, and maybe ever. And the reason is that we’re in a new cold war, by whatever name. We have three cold war fronts that are fraught with the possibility of hot war, in the Baltic region where NATO is carrying out an unprecedented military buildup on Russia’s border, in Ukraine where there is a civil and proxy war between Russia and the west, and of course in Syria, where Russian aircraft and American warplanes are flying in the same territory. Anything could happen.”

Nuclear #HairTrigger, Nuclear First Use

President Trump setting the stage

President Trump has called for a new global arms race, and the Pentagon is ready.

Trump’s newly released budget for 2018 contains hundreds of millions of dollars to speed up development of the Long Range Stand Off missile — a jet-propelled nuke designed to be launched from an airborne bomber and stealthily zip to a target virtually anywhere in the world.

It will carry a “variable yield’’ warhead that can be adjusted to deliver an atomic blast ranging from 5 to 150 kilotons — that is, from about one-third of a Hiroshima-sized bomb to as much as 10 Hiroshima bombs…

“This weapon makes fighting nuclear wars even more possible. Its accuracy and potency will be greater. We don’t need it. It’s dangerous. And the weapons that we have already can do the job,’’ said Senator Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat and longtime proponent of a freeze and reduction on nuclear weapons.

“We’re going to ask other countries to engage in restraint while we’re making . . . nuclear war-fighting even more possible, even more imaginable.”

“I miss it, the Cold War. It gave you a reason to get up in the morning.”

— Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, in John Updike’s Rabbit at Rest (1990)

http://billmoyers.com/story/sleepwalking-nuclear-arms-race-russia/

Sleepwalking Into a Nuclear Arms Race with Russia

The nuclear issue boils down to a question of understanding how America’s spending decisions and actions impact patriotic Russians.

BY CHUCK SPINNEY AND PIERRE SPREY | FEBRUARY 27, 2017

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists takes the unprecedented step of moving the Doomsday Clock ahead 30 seconds, moving the nuclear hands of the clock to 2½ minutes to midnight …

Thirty seconds closer to midnight…

Trump’s Nuclear Options

New START. What is it? Trump: It’s a bad deal!
In call with Putin, Trump denounces Obama-era nuclear arms treaty

Hypersonic Nuclear Weapons on the Horizon

Russia has unveiled the first image of a new thermonuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile, the RS-28 Sarmat. The Sarmat, designed to be fitted with a hypersonic glider warhead, is expected to go into production as early as 2018. US and Chinese hypersonic nuclear weapons, land-, sea-based, air-launched, stand-off cruise missiles in accelerated active development/testing

Calculus of War; Hypersonic Arms Race