Nuclear War, Germ War, Bio War, Chem War, WMD

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-history-of-a-cold-war-missile-treaty-11549030496?tesla=y&mod=article_inline

[Crafty_Dog]

https://clarionproject.org/cia-iran-nuclear-deal/

[Crafty_Dog]

In Germany, a Cold War Deal to Host U.S. Nuclear Weapons Is Now in Question
Debate about U.S. nuclear weapons in Germany flares up for the first time since the 1980s
By Bojan Pancevski
Feb. 12, 2019 8:00 a.m. ET

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling partners are reconsidering their support for a decadesold arrangement that puts Germany under the U.S. nuclear shield, a development that could further undermine the country’s already-tense relationship with the Trump administration.

The center-left Social Democrats, or SPD, have appointed a commission to re-evaluate their positions on strategic, foreign and security policy, including the merits of “nuclear sharing,” a Cold War-era agreement under which German warplanes would be used to launch U.S. nuclear weapons in case of a Russian attack on Europe, a senior party official said.

The deliberations came partly as a result of President Trump’s withdrawal from a treaty with Russia that regulates the presence of nuclear missiles in Europe, according to SPD officials. The U.S. plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty after accusing Russia of violating it for years.


After Mr. Trump’s repeated criticism of the military alliance and its members, the SPD move shows NATO’s cohesion is now also under threat from a backlash among center-left forces in Europe that had long stopped questioning the alliance.

Ms. Merkel’s party is continuing to back the agreement. Nevertheless, a decision by its junior coalition partner to oppose nuclear sharing would be momentous, putting into question an institution that is as old as Germany’s 1955 membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Consecutive U.S. administrations have criticized Germany for what they called insufficient military spending, but the dispute has escalated under Mr. Trump, who has put Berlin under notice to boost its defense budget.

Parties critical of Mr. Trump tap a rich political vein in Germany. A 2018 Pew Research Center survey for the Munich Security Conference, a global security forum, showed only 10% of Germans thought the U.S. president was doing the right thing regarding world affairs, compared with 35% for Russian President Vladimir Putin and 30% for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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The appointment of the SPD commission will also put additional stress on Ms. Merkel’s fractious coalition. The chancellor’s conservatives back higher military expenditure and want to renew the ailing German air force with an order of U.S.-made aircraft that are certified to carry U.S. nuclear weapons. Leading SPD figures have said they would block the purchase of up to 45 Boeing Co.-made F/A-18 jets recently proposed by Ms. Merkel’s defense minister.

A spokesman for Ms. Merkel said the government would continue to back nuclear sharing, adding that it saw “no reason to debate this aspect of NATO deterrence. We continue to fully support the defensive nuclear strategy of NATO.”

A NATO spokeswoman said the alliance relied on the capabilities and infrastructure of its members in Europe. “Allied aircraft supporting NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission are central to this effort and we welcome the broadest possible participation in our nuclear burden-sharing arrangements,” she added.

Asked about the policy review, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard A. Grenell said, “NATO’s nuclear forces are there for deterrence and defense. This is a commitment the alliance has made together. Germany should live up to its commitment.”

Germany is part of NATO’s so-called nuclear-sharing agreement that goes back to the 1950s. While exact numbers are secret, experts believe U.S. has around 180 B61 tactical nuclear bombs on the continent—some 20 in Germany and the rest spread across Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

“We don’t think that the nuclear-sharing agreement is fit for the times anymore,” said Ralf Stegner, vice chairman of the SPD, following a meeting of the party leadership on Monday. He said the SPD was extremely unlikely to support the F/A-18 purchase.

The procurement would be a key step in maintaining nuclear sharing in coming decades. The only aircraft in the German fleet currently certified by the U.S. to carry nuclear weapons are the German-made Tornados. But some of those are 40 years old and are being retired.

Mr. Stegner added that the mounting U.S. pressure on Germany meant that the country was headed toward a fundamental debate about nuclear armament and military spending of a kind that hadn’t taken place since 1982, when a rebellion within the SPD over the stationing of nuclear weapons in Europe contributed to the ouster of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

“Nuclear sharing doesn’t necessarily mean we need to host nuclear weapons,” said Rolf Mützenich, the SPD’s deputy floor leader and speaker on defense policy. Mr. Mützenich said Germany could follow the example of Canada, a NATO ally that doesn’t keep U.S. nuclear weapons on its soil.

Mr. Mützenich said he believed a majority of SPD lawmakers would reject any proposal to purchase new U.S. aircraft, partly because of the large cost. Growing animosity between NATO and Russia and the likelihood of a renewed arms race were all arguments against nuclear sharing, Mr. Mützenich added.

The looming dispute about military doctrine, military spending and procurement is just one of many now rocking Ms. Merkel’s coalition—a government many analysts think could unravel as early as this year.

Peter Beyer, Ms. Merkel’s coordinator for trans-Atlantic cooperation and a member of her conservative party, said nuclear sharing was indispensable. Failure to revamp Germany’s aging fleet of nuclear-capable bombers would make a farce of the country’s commitment to the NATO nuclear deterrent, he said.

“How we can get Putin to disarm if we fail to confront him in any way,” Mr. Beyer said. “This does not help peace but creates instability. Our allies, including the smaller states in Europe, would then have to wonder whether they can still rely on Germany.”

Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com

[Crafty_Dog]

By George Friedman


Putin, Khrushchev and the Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis


Putin has invoked the crisis to revive the perception of Russia as a superpower.


In October 1964, Leonid Brezhnev, Alexei Kosygin and Nikolai Podgorny removed Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev from office, supposedly because of Khrushchev’s “harebrained schemes.” Most have assumed that this referred to Khrushchev’s plan to turn Siberia into an agricultural heartland, but I have always believed it actually referred to his attempt to slip missiles into Cuba. Given how that plan ended, it would be a logical fit. It is therefore fascinating that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last week that he’s ready for another Cuban missile crisis if the United States decides to deploy medium-range missiles in Europe. Given his comments, it’s important that we understand how the crisis unfolded and its relevance, if any, to what’s happening today.

During the 1960 presidential election, John F. Kennedy sought to discredit the Eisenhower administration by claiming that the Soviet Union’s missile capabilities exceeded those of the United States. The claim was a lie; the U.S. had a substantial lead in deployed missiles and was rapidly deploying nuclear submarines. The U.S. also had an enormous advantage in strategic bombers; the Soviets had only a small number of Bear strategic bombers, which were far inferior to the American B-52s.

Indeed, the U.S. would have an overwhelming advantage in a nuclear exchange. That, combined with its satellite imagery capabilities, meant the U.S. could theoretically launch a first strike on the Soviet Union’s relatively small missile force and render it useless. Theory and practice are very different things. Still, in the Soviets’ worst-case scenario, the U.S. might launch such an attack and force a Soviet surrender. The Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile capability was limited, and the Soviets needed an interim weapon that could guarantee a counterstrike against the U.S. regardless of how successful a U.S. first strike would be. The solution was to put intermediate-range nuclear weapons within range of the United States, and the only possible location was Cuba.

The whole strategy rested on smuggling the missiles in and making them operable before the U.S. could detect them. It was in many ways a harebrained scheme because not only was detection possible but the U.S. response was utterly unpredictable. The U.S. might determine that other installations existed and launch a sudden and powerful attack to destroy them. Moreover, the need for this deterrent was dubious. True, the U.S. had a strategic advantage over the Soviets, but using it in a first strike would be an enormous risk. Given the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy didn’t have much confidence in U.S. intelligence, and certainly not enough to bet the house on a first strike.

Robert F. Kennedy and others have portrayed the crisis as a showdown between two equal powers that was managed with diplomatic brilliance to avoid a disastrous end. However, transcripts of meetings held by the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, which advised John F. Kennedy during the crisis, tell a very different story (see Sheldon Stern’s “The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory” for more details). Certainly, it was a serious episode, but it did not put humanity in danger of nuclear annihilation.

In terms of the nuclear balance, the Soviets had a very weak hand. That’s why they tried to slip missiles into Cuba. The U.S. was running heel-and-toe surveillance on Cuba so the chances of the missiles not being detected by U-2s or human intelligence were low. Once detected, Khrushchev had to back down for the same reason he tried the maneuver in the first place: The Soviets were weak.

The Kennedy narrative of the crisis was that Khrushchev capitulated just before a U.S. invasion. In reality, both sides understood that, unless Khrushchev was nuts, the game was over the minute Kennedy announced the blockade of Cuba following the discovery of Soviet missiles. Indeed, Khrushchev did back down in return for a clever offer to withdraw obsolete U.S. missiles from Turkey and Italy (though the offer was only revealed at a later date). The fact was that Khrushchev had no choice but to capitulate.

Few have acknowledged, however, that Khrushchev won a huge point in his handling of the crisis. For the heroic narrative of the Kennedy brothers to work, they could not admit the truth – that U.S. nuclear capabilities far exceeded those of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had to be treated as a peer with enormous strength that was compelled to back down not by superior force but by the skills of the negotiators. If they acknowledged that there was no missile gap, and that the Soviets could not match U.S. nuclear power, then the crisis would no longer be seen as a stunning moment in history.

The Kennedy administration needed the heroic tale and therefore had to give something of extraordinary value to Khrushchev: the myth that the Soviet Union could stand toe to toe with the United States on nuclear capabilities. (The Soviets would become peers to the U.S. later on, but they were not in the 1960s.) The Soviets wanted this acknowledgment for three reasons. First, the American public would force caution on U.S. politicians. Second, other powers, especially those in Europe, would question the reliability of the U.S. security umbrella. Third, the Soviet public, enthralled by Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, would believe they were witnessing another Soviet triumph. Yes, the Soviets conceded, but they could write that off as simple prudence. Every self-congratulatory memoir written by in the U.S. about the crisis reinforced the notion that the Soviet Union was a nuclear peer. Obviously, no one in his right might would risk nuclear annihilation over such trivia, but then no one actually did.


 

(click to enlarge)


I do not know if this is what Khrushchev intended or if it was the result of unexpected political needs in the U.S., but I suspect the latter. Khrushchev likely wasn’t clever enough to have planned this scenario the way it played out. But regardless, Kennedy kept the missile gap story in place and conceded equality to the Soviets.

Which brings me to Putin’s recent comments on the Cuban missile crisis. At the moment, Russia is in no way a military challenge to the United States. Any U.S. medium-range missiles stationed in Europe would be meant as a deterrent or possibly used in case of a Russian incursion into Ukraine. It’s unlikely tensions there would escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. And that’s what makes it so attractive to Putin. Putin wants a showdown with the U.S. because it could end with the U.S. treating Russia as a dangerous peer and U.S. allies increasing their importance by maximizing the Russian risk. At a time when your own hand is weak, having your opponent declare you dangerous and powerful is a huge gift. The Soviets received this gift once before. Putin, faced with economic problems at home, a lackluster performance in Ukraine and a growing force to Russia’s west, may be looking to receive it again.

Khrushchev didn’t fully understand the game. But Putin does. He must take the world to an imaginary nuclear brink that will force a negotiation, if in nothing but appearance. The world will breathe a sigh of relief when it ends. And every deputy at the U.S. National Security Council will dine out for the rest of their life on how close the U.S. came to the abyss and how brilliantly the U.S. worked to avoid war with a fearsome superpower. And with that, the thing Putin has always decried, the geopolitical disaster of 1991, can be reversed. But considering that Khrushchev was ousted for such harebrained schemes, the downside could be political oblivion.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/02/india-pakistan-crisis-has-lessons-trump-and-kim/155196/?oref=defenseone_today_nl

[Crafty_Dog]

February 10, 2013

The man who saved the world... 50 years ago, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, second-in-command Vasilli Arkhipov of the Soviet submarine B-59 refused to agree with his Captain's order to launch nuclear torpedos against US warships and setting off what might well have been a terminal superpower nuclear war.

The US had been dropping depth charges near the submarine in an attempt to force it to surface, unaware it was carrying nuclear arms. The Soviet officers, who had lost radio contact with Moscow, concluded that World War 3 had begun, and two of the officers agreed to 'blast the warships out of the water'. Arkhipov refused to agree - unanimous consent of three officers was required - and thanks to him, we are here to talk about it.

His story is finally being told - the BBC is airing a documentary on it.

Raise a glass to Vasilli Arkhipov - the Man Who Saved the World.

[ccp]

I remember this story .

And it was just around that time Kruschev backed down and pulled the nucs out of Cuba.
Later it was revealed Kennedy also backed down and removed nucs in Western Europe I believe.

The latter was apparently covered up so JFK could stick his chest out to the public.

[Crafty_Dog]

The missiles that were removed were in Turkey IIRC.

[Crafty_Dog]

I found the description of the underlying issues here interesting, with thoughts that I had not previously considered.

==========================================
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/03/technological-path-out-missile-defense-security-dilemma/155641/?oref=defenseone_today_nl

A Technological Path Out of the Missile-Defense Security Dilemma

U.S. Army Cpl. Rogelio Argueta, Patriot Launching Station Enhanced Operator-Maintainer, assigned with Task Force Talon, 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command gives commands, during a practice missile reload at Andersen Air Force Base, Feb. 6, 2019.

    By Brian Dunn Read bio

March 19, 2019


As boost-phase defenses become viable, they could reduce the destabilizing effects of longer-ranged defenses on great-power relationships.

It is a curious feature of nuclear strategy that anti-missile systems that deter rogue states also destabilize relations among major powers. But new technology, combined with intensive diplomacy, may offer a way out of this trap.

Let’s start with reviewing how ABM systems are destabilizing. An ideal mutually-assured-destruction scenario — forgive the absurdity — confers no advantages to the nation that shoots first. Sure, a first strike might knock out a good number of nuclear installations, but the remaining arsenal would still be more than capable of delivering annihilation. This means decision-making under pressure is relatively straightforward: don’t fire nuclear weapons first. No matter how suspicious you are of your enemy, restraint always offers a chance for survival. A first strike guarantees your own destruction.

However, when you throw ABM systems into the mix, the situation grows considerably murkier. With sufficient defenses, a nation might just be able to stop (or at least blunt) a weakened second strike. This changes the calculus completely. If confronted with a possible enemy strike, leaders may feel they have no choice but to fire pre-emptively and take their chances at defending against a second strike: “Nuclear war should be avoided, but if you’re going to have one it’s best to shoot first.”

This logic led Nixon and Brezhnev to sign the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, limiting the number of anti-ICBM missiles to a paltry 100 each. Three decades later, George W. Bush withdrew from the agreement, citing the (then-potential) threat from North Korea and (still-only-potentially) Iran. If Pyongyang could develop long-range missiles, then it could invade South Korea while threatening a nuclear strike on the U.S. mainland. Would the United States risk Los Angeles or San Francisco to come to Seoul’s aid? Bush argued that ABMs were needed to protect the United States and allies alike.
Related: Let’s Walk This Through: If North Korea Launches An ICBM, Then…
Related: Missile Defense Review Calls for Protecting US From Cruise Missiles
Related: Pentagon to Study Putting Anti-Missile Laser Weapons in Space

But as these systems deployed — THAAD to South Korea, Aegis Ashore to Europe, Ground Based Midcourse Defense to Alaska and California, and the Navy’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense on the world’s oceans — China and Russia grew increasingly alarmed. These systems may be primarily aimed at North Korea and Iran, but with enough improvement, they might eventually be used to stop (or blunt) a superpower’s second strike.

Russia’s concerns can be seen in its recent proliferation efforts. It has recently announced new hypersonic missiles that can theoretically penetrate any missile defenses and deployed 9M729 missiles on land, violating the INF treaty. China will likely also look to bolster its arsenal if it sees its nuclear forces as increasingly ineffective against U.S. missile defense schemes. So, by seeking to protect itself against smaller, hostile states, the United States is igniting an arms race among the more powerful nuclear states. Or is there another way?

Today’s missile defenses target incoming weapons in their midcourse or terminal phases, thanks largely to technical challenges that have ruled out interception during the boost phase. This phase only lasts a short time, so the interceptors must be positioned close to the launch area and ready to fire instantly.
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However, with recent advances in laser technology and networked communications, viable boost-phase defense is within reach. Lockheed is slated to deliver a 60-150-kilowatt laser for integration with the Aegis system by 2020. An earlier 30-kilowatt model has shown the ability to shoot down drones and disable a truck from a mile away. Indeed, the Defense Department’s 2019 Missile Defense Review says, “Developing scalable, efficient, and compact high energy laser technology holds the potential to provide a future cost-effective capability to destroy boosting missiles in the early part of the trajectory.” Lasers have the advantage of near-instantaneous time to target and are not limited by the number and cost of interceptors. Also mentioned is the possibility of arming F-35s with interceptors, made possible by the improving network-centric coordination of targeting information across multiple platforms.

Boost-phase defenses help solve at least one tactical problem: MIRVs, or Multiple Independently-Targetable Reentry Vehicles, long the bane of ABM developers. Within a few minutes of launch, a MIRV-equipped missile can send its warheads and dummies off on different trajectories. The best way to deal with this is to hit the missile before one target becomes ten.

But boost-phase defenses offer a key strategic advantage as well. They can, and indeed must, be placed close to their targets. Their batteries would be able to intercept North Korean missiles but not launches from deep within mainland China and unlike current forward-deployed regional systems, they can have verifiably limited ranges. China is currently up-in-arms over the deployment of THAAD in South Korea, while Russia is livid about the placement of Aegis batteries in Romania and Poland. As terminal-phase and midcourse-phase systems, these are inherently long-range. THAAD interceptors have a range of over 200 kilometers, while an Aegis-fired SM-6 can fly as many as 240 kilometers. The THAAD-ER and SM-6 IIB upgrades only extend these ranges. On the other hand, a Sidewinder fired from an F-35 has a maximum range of about 35 kilometers. For the foreseeable future, atmospheric lasers will be similarly short-ranged.

This also provides a solution to China’s other gripe with the placement of THAAD: that the accompanying radar system penetrates deep into Chinese airspace. Large radar ranges are a necessary component of any midcourse or terminal-phase system. If THAAD is going to intercept a ballistic missile 200 kilometers out, then it needs to launch the interceptor long before then, and it will need to acquire the missile even further out. As such, the AN/TPY-2 radar that accompanies the THAAD system has an estimated range of at least 1,000 kilometers, which could reach from Seoul to Beijing and would allow the United States to monitor all activity in that part of Chinese airspace. However, boost-phase defenses work on the principle of targeting missiles inside a predetermined area. Therefore, they can use less powerful, more localized radars focused just on North Korean ICBM sites rather than the whole region.

But a technology change alone isn’t enough to extract the United States from its security dilemma; that will require trust and communication. U.S. officials must take the initiative to convince Russia and China that these systems are not aimed at them. Boost-phase defense provides the technical basis for this, but it must be accompanied by openness and transparency. This could include allowing inspections of missile defense installations to verify their short-ranged nature. Unfortunately, current diplomatic trust is not high, as shown by the collapse of the INF treaty. The situation is further hindered by statements such as President Trump’s words at the Missile Defense Review rollout: “Our goal is simple. To ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”

As ABM technology improves, especially the effectiveness of lasers, the United States would do well to focus on localized, surface-based, boost-phase defenses rather than attempting to build a massive Reagan-style missile defense scheme that would serve only to destabilize the current world order. This will provide an effective defense against current and future rogue states, while maintaining the status quo among the major nuclear powers.

[Crafty_Dog]

Defeating A Real Nuclear Threat

In 2014, during the Syrian civil war, ISIS occupied a site in the Syrian desert which once held a nuclear weapons facility. It reportedly had been built for the Syrians with North Korean help. If that reactor had been there, ISIS might have had a capability to inflict terrifyingly massive casualties.

However, seven years earlier, in September 2007, Israel launched a secret air attack against this obscure site in the Syrian desert called Deir es-Zoir. The reactor building was called al-Kibar.

Without that Israeli destruction of this Syrian-North Korean project, the world possibly would have had to deal with a nuclear armed ISIS and become a much more dangerous place.

The amazing story of how the Israelis discovered the secret site, figured out it was a nuclear reactor, connected the North Koreans to the project, and then decided to destroy it is a non-fiction story worthy of Daniel Silva’s great novels.

Yaakov Katz, editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, has spent years pulling together the Israeli, American, Syrian, and North Korean pieces of this amazing story. His book, Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power is one of the most compelling stories I have read in a long time.

The Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, had picked a remote, obscure, and unnoticed part of the Syrian desert to set up a bold (and illegal) project with the help of North Koreans. To this day we do not know if the North Koreans were building a reactor for the Syrians or if the Syrians were allowing the North Koreans to build a reactor for themselves with the payment to Syria being a few nuclear bombs once the reactor was up and running.

This was a remarkable decision by Assad and by the North Koreans. After the American invasion of Iraq and the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s decision to turn over his entire nuclear program (which was much bigger and further along than either the Americans or the Israelis had expected) Assad was running a real risk by building a secret program.

The North Koreans were in the middle of the Six Power talks about disarming their own nuclear program, and yet here they were breaking the most fundamental rule about nuclear weapons –they were helping another country develop a secret program.

Because the Israelis had been shocked by the degree to which they had been ignorant of the Libyan nuclear program, they began reviewing all of their intelligence about nuclear activities – especially in Syria and Iran.

The key breakthrough came when the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission visited Vienna. In an operation worthy of a Silva or Ian Fleming novel, Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, entered his hotel room, downloaded the contents of his laptop, and planted a bug to monitor it.

For people who wonder about security measures, this is a useful tale. It turned out the Syrian physicist had been taking pictures of the building at al-Kibar – including a picture with the North Korean physicist who was helping with their nuclear weapons program.

From the minute the image surfaced Israel faced a crisis.

Israeli doctrine was to never again accept the risk of a holocaust in which millions of Jews could die. When the Iraqis built a nuclear facility near Baghdad, Israel bombed it in 1981. Then Prime Minister Menachem Begin explained to the world that Israel would never accept an enemy possessing a nuclear weapon. They would always preemptively destroy it. This became known as the Begin Doctrine.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert knew he would have to destroy the Syrian reactor before it went online and began creating radioactive material. However, he also knew he had to convince the United States that it was a nuclear facility and therefore unacceptable. He actually hoped that maybe the Americans would decide to destroy it.

The portions of the book that describe the dance in Washington are as fascinating as the scenes in Israel.

President George W. Bush is sympathetic but faced with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was hesitant about taking on a third Muslim country. The American national security establishment was split between those who wanted to pursue diplomacy and those who believed, in the end, the reactor had to be destroyed before it became operational. Only Vice President Cheney had intuited for years that there was a North Korean-Syrian relationship, and only Cheney was adamant about the need to destroy it.

Katz has an enormous range of sources and has written a remarkable story.

Anyone interested in national security in an increasingly dangerous world would learn a lot by reading this extraordinary book.
Your Friend,
Newt

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/05/everyones-nuclear-weapons-are-getting-less-predictable-and-more-dangerous/157052/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/enewetak-atoll-dome-un-antonio-guterres-concerns-marshall-islands-structure-leaking-radioactive-material-pacific/?fbclid=IwAR0newIDK4JvosXsVcj0vwAsAH-fk3FyoVuWGZGCG9x8QNGoVM8EPbzldJ4

[G M]

https://futurism.com/the-byte/bioweapons-kill-people-specific-dna?fbclid=IwAR2WtjbitQpoPXzmPrGwYQDiI8NcSzOaZLj8zz_C2hCR5oR0ESKUid7Oabc

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/18/551792129/stanislav-petrov-the-man-who-saved-the-world-dies-at-77?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170918&fbclid=IwAR0NkPZ-cIitEIxglZksrzcPLVcNKyuzvxgVbZMeDkoPVPWyIgeZEZqAlY4

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/is-nuclear-power-worth-the-risk?source=EDT_NYR_EDIT_NEWSLETTER_0_imagenewsletter_Daily_ZZ&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_122319&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&esrc=&mbid=&utm_term=TNY_Daily

[Crafty_Dog]

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-war-game-that-could-have-ended-the-world

[Crafty_Dog]

Hypersonic Missiles Are a Game Changer
No existing defenses can stop such weapons — which is why everyone wants them.

By Steven Simon
Mr. Simon is an analyst at the Quincy Institute and teaches international relations at Colby College.

Jan. 2, 2020


Last week, President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced the deployment of the Avangard, among the first in a new class of missiles capable of reaching hypersonic velocity — something no missile can currently achieve, aside from an ICBM during reentry.

Such weapons have long been an object of desire by Russian, Chinese and American military leaders, for obvious reasons: Launched from any of these countries, they could reach any other within minutes. No existing defenses, in the United States or elsewhere, can intercept a missile that can move so fast while maneuvering unpredictably.

Whether or not the Avangard can do what Mr. Putin says, the United States is rushing to match it. We could soon find ourselves in a new arms race as deadly as the Cold War — and at a time when the world’s arms control efforts look like relics of an inscrutable past and the effort to renew the most important of them, a new START agreement, is foundering.

Hypersonics represent an apotheosis of sorts for many warfare theorists and practitioners, who have long contended that air power alone can have a decisive effect in a conflict. They have always been wrong. The allies lost about 100,000 aircrew members in an attempt to destroy German industry and the popular will to fight during World War II, but the war in Europe was won with boots on the ground.

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Continue reading the main story
In Asia, the war was won at sea, though surrender was purchased with atomic weapons, delivered by long-range bombers. This seemed to vindicate the role of air power, at least until the superpowers concluded that such destructive weapons could not really be used to fight a war. Their primary strategic role devolved to deterring the other side from using its nuclear bombs in a vast, self-canceling enterprise. If strategic air forces did come into play, it would only be to ensure mutual destruction.


ImageAn image from the Russian Defense Ministry showing an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.
An image from the Russian Defense Ministry showing an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.Credit...Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, via Associated Press
Hypersonic weapons, at long last, appear poised to fulfill the promise of air power. In an era when the use of ground troops has proved costly, unpopular and generally ineffective, and where threats might be real but not necessarily “strategic,” they are a godsend: missiles whose accuracy minimizes the risk of collateral damage, pose no risk to aircrews, are unstoppable and phenomenally accurate, can yield an impact equal to five to ten tons of high explosive with no warhead at all yet be capable of delivering a nuclear bomb, and can reach nearly every coordinate on the surface of the earth within 30 minutes. Death from the air, guaranteed on-time delivery.

The United States has been developing its own hypersonic program, under the project name Prompt Global Strike. But the Russians got there first because they’ve made hypersonics a priority: They offset Russia’s inability to sustain an expansive high-tech military infrastructure, and they represent a direct response to George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Mr. Bush withdrew presumably so America could develop stronger defenses against a nuclear attack; with the Avangard in its arsenal, Russia doesn’t have to worry too much about penetrating whatever defenses the American military had in mind.

It gets worse. China, India, France and others are all developing similar weapons. The age of hypersonics, when even medium-size powers can deliver unstoppable damage on an American (or Russian, or Chinese) city, is a whole new game.

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Martin Scorsese Is Letting Go

‘We Stood Up to Allow a Man and a Woman to Get to Their Seats’

Living as Myself, at Last
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For starters, hypersonics change the way we think about crisis management. Suppose the United States detected an adversary’s launch of a missile — or mistakenly thought it had detected a launch, as American authorities had actually done in January 2018. At a moment like this, the stakes are high, and the time frame for decision making is extremely compressed. Throw in exhaustion, intense emotions and uncertainty about the other side’s intentions, and you have a seriously volatile situation.

If the contending parties are armed with hypersonic missiles, the time frame for deciding what to do is even shorter, and the uncertainty about what your enemy is targeting and the nature of an incoming warhead — is it nuclear or conventional? — is virtually total. In such a situation, the overwhelming incentive is to shoot first. Think of two gunslingers in a dark room.

Moreover, hypersonics are a weaponized moral hazard for states with a taste for intervention, because they erase barriers to picking fights. Is an adversary building something that might be a weapons factory? Is there an individual in an unfriendly country who cannot be apprehended? What if the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to use hypersonic missiles will be many.

Hypersonics also push us toward a slippery slope. They blur the line between conventional and strategic weapons, and their easy, justifiable use — say, to kill a single terrorist leader in a crowded city — could make it easier to accept their widespread use, with much more destructive consequences.

Hypersonics might look like just a zoomier version of existing weapons, but in fact they are game-changing. When the United States used nuclear weapons against Japan, they were thought to be a dramatic advance on bombs already in use, even those used to generate firestorms that had already devoured the cities of Germany and Japan. It was not until later that they were understood to be categorically different and ultimately too destructive to use.

If past is prologue, deployment of the systems is going to take place well before their ramifications are fully understood. By 1950, as the Chinese Army was overrunning American and South Korean forces, the Truman administration had already grasped the dilemmas intrinsic to nuclear weapons; the Soviet detonation of a hydrogen bomb a few years later drove the lesson home. But between the exuberance of acquiring a new military capability and the sobering realization of its dangers, there is plenty of opportunity to use them.

As someone who worked on counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff, I feel my pulse racing just to consider these possibilities. I’ve been in too many situations where I know hypersonics would have been compellingly presented as the best possible response. The allure of such a weapon would be nearly irresistible.

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The biggest threat from hypersonics is that they come at a time when the world’s arm control treaties are falling apart. We need a multilateral agreement to limit hypersonic arsenals and their use, but unfortunately, the United States, which would have to take the lead in orchestrating the negotiation of such an agreement, is uninterested in any deals that might tie its hands.

President Trump, who declared that trade wars are easy to win, has also welcomed an arms race on the grounds that the United States would beat all comers. Congress has only rarely approved arms control treaties — and with the Senate in Republican hands, it seems scarcely likely that an agreement limiting hypersonic weapons would find favor.

Beyond American politics, the multilateral nature of an agreement would in itself impose obstacles, because of the number of countries that would need to be involved and the frictions between them. Such agreements have been hammered out in the relatively recent past, including the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Missile Technology Control Regime, which imposed both range and payload limitations on a variety of missiles. But those already seem part of a different era, when the world agreed on the importance of investing in arms control.

For the time being, it’s more likely that with the Avangard’s debut, other countries will want this capability for themselves. As national programs gain momentum, the development, acquisition, fielding and, ultimately, use of these systems will become very difficult, if not impossible, to stop.

As at the dawn of the nuclear era, when the advent of nuclear weapons became intertwined with an emerging Cold War, a new and radical development in military technology is emerging just as post-Cold War realities give way to new ones. We need to channel the wisdom of the prudent arms controllers of the Cold War, who understood the urgent need to control weapons with terrifying implications.

Steven Simon is an analyst at the Quincy Institute, professor of the practice of international relations at Colby College and a co-author of “Our Separate Ways: The Struggle for the Future of the U.S.-Israel Alliance,” was senior director for the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council from 2011 to 2012 and for counterterrorism from 1995 to 1999.

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Correction: Jan. 2, 2020
An earlier version of this article misidentified the treaty from which Donald Trump withdrew the United States. It was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, not the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

[Crafty_Dog]

In Turkey, the Road to Proliferation Goes Through a Military Base
6 MINS READ
Jan 21, 2020 | 09:30 GMT
Aircraft prepare to take off from Turkey's Incirlik Air Base, home of Turkey's 10th Tanker Base Command, on Oct. 17, 2019.
For the United States, the military fallout of having to leave Incirlik Air Base might not be too severe -- unlike the political ramifications.

(IBRAHIM ERIKAN/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Turkey has threatened to expel the United States from key bases in Turkey if their bilateral ties deteriorate further amid possible U.S. sanctions against Ankara.
While the loss of the Incirlik and Kurecik facilities in Turkey would be disruptive to Washington, it could find alternative locations elsewhere in the region.
The biggest ramification of such an expulsion could be that it prompts Turkey to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
The United States has troops scattered at bases throughout the Middle East, but few are as significant today as its facilities in Turkey — at least in terms of their political significance, if not their military function. Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to retaliate against any U.S. sanctions on Turkey by, among other measures, expelling the United States from Incirlik Air Base and closing down the Kurecik radar base. From an American military standpoint, losing Incirlik and Kurecik wouldn't be the end of the world, as Washington could easily find alternative locations elsewhere in the Middle East. However an explusion, if it happens, could have far-reaching consequences, potentially even precipitating a Turkish nuclear arms program — which could touch off a race for atomic weapons around the region.

The Big Picture
A potential fissure between Turkey, a powerful member of NATO, and the United States could pave the way for a complete transformation of the geopolitical map in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean — particularly in the event of one of the most radical potential outcomes: Turkey's pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

See Turkey's Resurgence
A Base With a Long History
Incirlik has been synonymous with the U.S. military presence in Turkey since the start of the Cold War. The United States initially used the air base, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built near the Mediterranean coast in the early 1950s, to conduct strategic reconnaissance missions and other intelligence operations against the Soviet Union and its allies before turning the facility into a key air transportation and training site. More recently, Incirlik provided a base for aerial refueling during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and a stopover for U.S. troops rotating home from the Iraq war. Today, Incirlik is the main U.S. base for air missions against the Islamic State. Kurecik, meanwhile, was established in 2012 in eastern Anatolia, deploying the AN/TPY-2 radar as part of NATO's early-warning system against potential Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Europe.

Given the importance of Incirlik and Kurecik, the United States would be loath to lose the bases — especially as the country is struggling to continue its fight against the Islamic State at a time when it is facing potential expulsion from Iraq, which would complicate any efforts to maintain its presence in Syria. What's more, tensions with Iran are hardly subsiding, raising the importance of the wider ballistic missile defense network protecting Europe.


Even so, Incirlik and Kurecik are not irreplaceable. The United States has numerous allies in the Middle East that would be happy to offer up air bases as alternatives, including Jordan, from which U.S. aircraft would be only marginally farther from the areas in Syria that are within the immediate proximity of Incirlik. Washington also has alternatives in Europe, such as Greece, which is already negotiating with the United States to expand the U.S. Air Force presence there. As for Kurecik, the United States could mitigate its loss by conducting additional patrols with destroyers armed with ballistic missile defenses in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea until another replacement site is built in Eastern Europe.

Nuclear Fallout
The fallout of the loss of the bases, instead, would be more political. If Turkey kicks the United States out, for instance, the countries' fissure would almost certainly widen. More pertinent, however, is the nuclear question. Throughout the Cold War and since, Washington has managed to kill two birds with one stone. It has both extended nuclear deterrence to NATO allies like Turkey by protecting it with the B61 U.S. nuclear bombs stationed at Incirlik and, in the process, countered nuclear proliferation by dissuading partners like Turkey from pursuing their own nuclear weapons programs.

Ankara might well calculate that, in the event of a de facto divorce from the United States and the potential emergence of more nuclear powers in the neighborhood, the pros of atomic weapons outweigh the cons.

While there is some doubt as to how up to date Turkey's fighter pilots are with their training and ability to deploy these weapons (the United States could allow Turkish fighter jets to arm themselves with some of the approximately 50 nuclear bombs currently at Incirlik if an outside power ever seriously threatened the country with atomic weapons), there is little doubt that the presence of the weapons in Turkey gives Ankara strong reassurance about its wider security. By taking away the nuclear umbrella, however, Washington could spur Ankara to pursue its own atomic weapons, especially at a time when Turkey is at loggerheads with Israel (a nuclear power), Iran could restart its own nuclear program and Saudi Arabia has floated the idea of developing its own bomb too. As it is, Erdogan has long criticized the notion that nuclear-armed states would deign to forbid Turkey from obtaining its own nuclear weapons.

Without question, Turkey would come under significant economic and political pressure if it were to push ahead with any plans to develop its own nuclear deterrent, but Ankara might well calculate that, in the event of a de facto divorce from the United States and the potential emergence of more nuclear powers in the neighborhood, the pros of an atomic weapons program outweigh the cons. Naturally, such a decision would have other severe ramifications; for one, NATO could expel Turkey from the alliance, while it could also galvanize other countries, such as Greece, to pursue their own programs, thereby further destabilizing the region's fragile balance.

More broadly, the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Incirlik during a messy, U.S.-Turkish breakup could drive other U.S. allies under the American nuclear umbrella to question the long-term viability of their own special arrangements with Washington. The circumstances of the U.S. withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Incirlik might not stain the United States' reliability, but it could feed into increasing calls for nuclear self-autonomy in places like South Korea that are facing a growing nuclear threat amid worries about the future of the American military presence in their country. What this all suggests is that what happens at Incirlik isn't likely to stay at Incirlik. 

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/4/pentagon-deploys-new-submarine-launched-nuclear-we/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=lEQTM9JUJ21mM726SynqDl9%2BBhLNm2ClcVl7W59FnY%2B948cwYDVqPI7EB%2BT8XZ10&bt_ts=1580937154174

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/feb/13/trump-revamps-nuclear-arsenal-respond-russia-tacti/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=evening&utm_term=evening&utm_content=evening&bt_ee=BfphNieaxOFmMxrUsDVgEah%2F%2Fuj0ZIVGATMsDn4d5pXwG4rmk8F0RCMr7HdlbgM3&bt_ts=1581714673892

[Crafty_Dog]

https://news.usni.org/2020/02/18/navy-confirms-global-strike-hypersonic-weapon-will-first-deploy-on-virginia-attack-subs

[Crafty_Dog]

Iran Sharply Accelerates its Uranium Enrichment
4 MINS READ
Mar 3, 2020 | 20:25 GMT
The Big Picture
Iran's higher than expected leap in LEU accumulation brings forward the time frame at which it will have enough LEU for a breakout. Iran has meanwhile stonewalled IAEA efforts to inspect other suspect sites that might help inform it of past nuclear activities. The lack of development on advanced centrifuges, however, makes the LEU accumulation rate less alarming than it could have been.

What Happened
The International Atomic Energy Agency distributed its quarterly report on Iran's nuclear activities to member governments March 3, including a second document detailing Iran's alleged stonewalling of IAEA efforts to resolve questions about past nuclear activities. This is the first report since Iran took the position that it is not obligated to provide the IAEA with access to three sites that have not been inspected before. During an inspection in 2019, the IAEA found traces of uranium at Iran's Turquz Abad site. The IAEA also reported that Iranian officials have indicated they will deny access to additional sites.

The report also showed that Iran had increased its stockpile of low enriched uranium (LEU) from 372 kilograms in early November to 1,021 kilograms at present, with monthly production rising to about 170 kilograms per month. Part of this acceleration came from the reactivation of two cascades of IR-1 centrifuges at the hardened Fordow facility. Some additional production capacity also has come from advanced centrifuges at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Not all of the current LEU production is at the maximum 4.5 percent U-235 level, however; some of it is as low as 3 percent.

Why It Matters
The acceleration of enrichment beyond what most observers had previously expected means the point when the United States or Israel might begin to consider preventive military action to stop Iran's nuclear activities has drawn closer. Iran will now achieve enough LEU to make one device sooner, no later than April now. Based on rough calculations assuming current throughput capacity and Iran's ability to reactivate some additional IR-2 centrifuges it is not using at present, the current breakout time — or the time that would be needed to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for one warhead if Iran began processing LEU to HEU — is now probably around four to six months.

The leap in LEU accumulation will reignite the debate in the United States and Israel about where exactly the red line should be, and what can be done to slow Iran's progress.

This report did not, however, contain evidence of breakthroughs on advanced centrifuges. Iran continues to perform research on a number of new models, but has not deployed anything beyond one cascade of IR-6s. It has not added more machines as powerful, or more powerful, than the IR-6 beyond what we knew was possible based on the last IAEA report in November 2019. Evidence of breakthroughs on the development of even more advanced machines or preparations for the deployment of additional IR-6 cascades, combined with having enough LEU for one device, would raise immediate alarms for the United States and Israel due to the potential for an extremely short breakout time of below two months; the new IAEA report does not suggest such a crisis is imminent.

Still, the leap in LEU accumulation will reignite the debate in the United States and Israel about where exactly the red line should be, and what can be done to slow Iran's progress. The high percentage of time Iran's centrifuges are operational indicates that any covert efforts by the United States, Israel or others to take them offline are not very effective. (There is no evidence in this report pointing to a new Stuxnet-like operation.)

U.S. pressure on the Europeans to bring the issue back to the U.N. Security Council and trigger a "snapback" of Security Council sanctions is likely to increase. But this is unlikely to trigger an immediate change of policy on Iran's part. Recent comments by U.S. officials have hinted that the United States will not seek to invoke snapback before the expiration of the Security Council sanctions on conventional arms sales to Iran lapses in October.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr98gE88W60

[G M]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr98gE88W60

Glad they totally won't working on that in the Wuhan BSL-4 lab!

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/possible-chinese-nuclear-testing-stirs-u-s-concern-11586970435

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16293/china-seeds-biological-attack

[Crafty_Dog]

   
    Hiroshima and Moral Revisionism
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman

Last week marked the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the first of two strikes on the Japanese mainland that forever changed the face of war. Since they effectively meant the end of World War II, the bombings were met in much of the world with joy. That general view discounted the death of Japanese and focused instead on the lives the bombings supposedly saved, an attitude owing partly to the attack on Pearl Harbor and partly to the idea that the Japanese were especially barbaric in the Pacific theater. As all people do at all times, we loved our own more than we loved others.

Three arguments were made against the strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First, that the Japanese were prepared to surrender anyway; second, that fears of U.S. casualties in Japan were exaggerated; and third, that the bomb was not dropped to defeat Japan but to intimidate the Russians. All are plausible but none stands up to serious scrutiny.

The Japanese were never going to agree to unconditional surrender, as was demanded by the Potsdam Agreement. Recall that in the day prior to the final surrender and after the atomic attack, elements of the Japanese army attempted a coup to block the surrender. It’s true that they had approached the Soviets and Sweden to resolve the war, but Moscow rejected the idea, and the efforts in Sweden were made by officials that didn’t speak for the Japanese government. The goal, in any case, was to achieve some sort of armistice. Moreover, the Japanese had been engaged in negotiations when they attacked Pearl Harbor, so there was some natural distrust in Washington as to their intentions. Japan meanwhile still occupied large swaths of China, where it killed between 15 million and 20 million people. The violence there continued as Tokyo never seriously discussed withdrawal.

No one knows how many would have been killed in an invasion of Japan. There was a strong case that enormous casualties would have been incurred based on Okinawa, where resistance was brutal. In other places it was less so. To dismiss the fears of American deaths is, I believe, unreasonable. The U.S. had as its primary goal the defeat of Japan at the lowest possible cost to American lives. It had the moral right and obligation to take all radical measures to minimize American casualties.

Last, the United States was not trying to intimidate the Soviets. At the Potsdam Conference, President Harry S. Truman, who had just been informed that the tests in New Mexico were successful, approached Josef Stalin to discuss a major new weapon the U.S. had developed. Stalin wasn’t interested. In retrospect, Stalin’s decision to avoid the discussion made sense. Soviet intelligence had penetrated the Manhattan Project and already knew that the bomb worked. If the U.S. used the weapon to intimidate the Soviets, then Truman would likely not have brought up the subject. He could have intimidated the Soviets easily in many other ways. The charge linked to a claim that the U.S. started the Cold War and initiated it with Hiroshima. This charge is unsupportable.

The dispute over the propriety of Hiroshima and Nagasaki arose neither during nor immediately after the war, when Americans were grateful for the fact that they and their loved ones would not have to fight in Japan. It arose during the Vietnam war. The bomb was taken by a political faction as a symbol of American imperial cruelty. Those who opposed the war tended to demonize the use of atomic weapons, while those who supported the war saw it as a necessary and just action. The debate has subsided since Vietnam, of course, but there is still a sense of illegitimacy of the bombing, and it was born from a struggle for political power by a faction opposed to the Vietnam War that meant to shame the American victory.

The critics' goal was to delegitimize an event that had overjoyed Americans and, in doing so, delegitimize the American experience in World War II. What had been seen as the essence of morality was now presented as the essence of immorality.

The generation of new moral standards that render the past evil, and therefore the society that emerged from it as corrupt, is common enough. But it uses a past that cannot be revised to carry out political agendas of the moment. Few thought in 1945 that Hiroshima was immoral; fewer would have believed that anyone could think it immoral. The revenge of the past, of course, is anticipating how critics will be judged by their descendants. The anti-war movement of the baby boomers will likely face its own judgment when they are no longer alive to defend themselves.   

[Crafty_Dog]

U.S., Russia: What to Make of Washington's Reversal on New START
3 MINS READ
Sep 23, 2020 | 21:23 GMT

The success of the White House’s attempt to score a pre-election foreign policy win by shifting its position in favor of a temporary New START extension will depend on Russia playing along. But Washington’s long-term goal of expanding the nuclear arms control treaty to a trilateral framework still rests entirely on China. In an interview with daily Russian newspaper Kommersant published on Sept. 21, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea said the United States was now open to extending the arms agreement it signed with Moscow in 2010, which is currently set to expire on Feb. 5, but by no more than five years. Washington will only agree to such an extension, however, if Russian President Vladimir Putin agrees to either a joint statement or memorandum of intent (MOI) outlining the framework of a successor treaty with U.S. President Donald Trump prior to the November presidential election. Despite expressing some resistance to the new offer, Russian government officials and legislators have continued to talk in favor of extending New START, even if it’s for less than the five-year period described within the treaty.

The Trump administration initially held off negotiations on a New START extension, despite repeated Russian efforts to guarantee the treaty’s continuation.

U.S. and Russian negotiators failed to make any progress during a July meeting in Geneva due to Washington’s continued insistence on Chinese participation.

Knowing the treaty will likely be extended regardless of whether Trump is re-elected, Russia’s response will depend more on its willingness to grant him a policy win ahead of the ballot, rather Moscow’s future interests in nuclear arms control. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has an overall more hawkish stance on Russia compared with Trump, though he’s stated he would still approve an extension of New START if he were elected. And negotiations over the conditions attached to the newly offered extension could also continue under a second-term Trump administration. Pragmatic calculations related to the impact on and from U.S. elections, as opposed to the actual content of negotiations on future arms control, will thus likely define Russia’s decision on whether to accept the U.S. ultimatum.

Russia’s acceptance of the U.S. ultimatum, however, would hold little more than symbolic value in the United States’ greater quest to include China in the treaty’s next iteration. Given China’s continued refusal to take part in negotiations on nuclear arms control, the United States is now looking for Moscow to provide commitments to the idea of trilateral arms control via its proposed MOI between Putin and Trump. But such a Russian statement on intent to involve China will do little to change Beijing’s actual calculus on the matter, as China still has nothing to gain from entering a treaty that would limit its efforts to expand its arsenal of 300 nuclear warheads, which pales in comparison to the 6,000 warheads that Russia and the United States each possess.

[ccp]

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/11/11/report-north-korea-estimated-have-60-nuclear-warheads/

[Crafty_Dog]

That's just fg great.

[ccp]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/nov/12/china-expanding-nuclear-arms-plants-revealed/

[Crafty_Dog]

Opinion  Commentary
Joe Biden’s Early Test From Moscow and Beijing
An expiring arms-control deal is a chance to address hypersonics and make China come to the table.


By John Bolton
Jan. 17, 2021 4:48 pm ET


President-elect Joe Biden’s advisers have been signaling that they will rely on arms-control agreements with Russia to reduce the Defense Department budget. This is no surprise from a new, liberal administration promising dramatically increased domestic spending. Yet a second Trump term might have been little better. Eager to indulge in Covid-19 stimulus spending and convinced of Pentagon mismanagement, even under his own appointees, Mr. Trump was easy prey for Senator Rand Paul.

But reliance on arms-control deals with Russia is a fool’s paradise. Whatever relatively small near-term fiscal savings might accrue will be outweighed in the long term by increased threats not only from Moscow, but also from Beijing and rogue states aspiring to become nuclear powers.



Mr. Biden’s first arms-control decision will be whether and for how long to extend the New Start treaty. It expires Feb. 5, but can be extended for up to five more years, in whole or in part. The threat of the treaty’s expiration should be negotiating leverage for the U.S., but Mr. Biden appears certain to extend it in some form. Vladimir Putin recently proposed a one-year extension, perhaps worried he had received no signals from the president-elect. Mr. Biden should offer six months, thus keeping the heat on, and showing that his team will be more than stenographers for Moscow’s diplomats.

The hard policy questions are still the ones Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and I discussed in August 2018, continued by Marshall Billingslea until the 2020 election rendered Mr. Trump a lame duck. Whether and how seriously Mr. Biden’s negotiators address these issues will determine whether a revised New Start agreement has any chance of being approved by the constitutionally required two-thirds Senate majority.



New Start has three broad substantive defects: It omits tactical nuclear weapons; it is technologically outdated and doesn’t address developments like hypersonic weapons; and China is not a signatory.

The existing deal doesn’t cover tactical nuclear weapons—those generally intended for battlefield use, as opposed to strategic nuclear weapons, typically more powerful and longer-range, intended for targets in the enemy’s homeland or other essential locations. During the 2010 ratification debate, this omission persuaded two-thirds of Republican senators to vote against the treaty. The global tactical-weapons threat has not eased in the intervening 10 years. Further Russian deployments, typically associated with violations of other treaty constraints on delivery vehicles, and significant increases in China’s tactical nuclear arsenals are serious and continuing.

Even Russian officials acknowledge that capabilities such as hypersonic glide-missile technology weren’t contemplated in New Start and should be addressed. Moscow and Beijing are both ahead of Washington in operational deployment of hypersonics and other advanced technologies. It would be strategic and budgetary malpractice if Mr. Biden believed he could count on Russia’s treaty compliance, let alone China’s, to prevent the U.S. from falling even further behind in this vital field.


Russia is willing to include China in negotiations about New Start’s successor, but Moscow has nonetheless so far accepted Beijing’s demurral that its current strategic nuclear arsenal is too small to warrant participating. But that is precisely the point: Is the U.S. supposed to wait until China reaches its comfort level of strategic warheads, and only then commence negotiations about reducing its capabilities? Contemporary arms control isn’t a serious effort if China is a bystander. To assuage Beijing’s concerns, the administration should invite Paris and London to join the talks. All five legitimate nuclear-weapons states would thus be involved, depriving China of ground to complain.

Mr. Biden’s advisers also seem open to Russia’s desire to revive the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, from which America withdrew in 2019. Whether through a new agreement or by incorporation into a revised Start framework, resurrecting the INF is dangerous. Russian overtures and promises to resolve compliance issues, worth as much as earlier Russian pledges, may appeal to those focused on Europe. But Europe is a secondary consideration. The impetus for INF withdrawal was that it didn’t bind China—the bulk of whose ballistic-missile inventory would violate the treaty—nor the likes of Iran and North Korea. Russia’s noncompliance, China’s absence, and the rogue-state proliferators meant that the U.S. was the only country in the world actually complying with INF limits. Beijing’s surging rearmament won’t stop because of resumed U.S.-Russian constraints on launchers, but that reinforces why China must be included in any follow-on New Start.

These are heavy-duty questions. This is not Mr. Biden’s first arms-control rodeo, but what he does and how he does it could define both his presidency’s ideological direction and its competence.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the U.N., 2005-06.

[Crafty_Dog]

oe Biden’s Old Russia Start
He criticizes Putin on Navalny but offers a gift on nuclear arms control.
By The Editorial Board
Feb. 1, 2021 6:36 pm ET
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin shakes hands with then Vice President Joe Biden during their meeting in Moscow, March 10, 2011.
PHOTO: ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES



Donald Trump went easy on Russia and Vladimir Putin rhetorically while supporting tougher policies than his predecessor. Now President Biden is taking the opposite approach. At least that’s the early message from the Administration’s first decision on arms control and its response to Russia’s growing domestic protests.

On Sunday Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he is “deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown” on Russian protesters and the arrests of thousands demanding the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Mr. Blinken said Russians are fed up with “corruption” and “autocracy” and added that Mr. Biden delivered a similar message in a phone call with Mr. Putin.

Good to hear, but the Administration sent a very different signal by embracing an unconditional five-year extension of the New Start nuclear arms treaty, which Mr. Putin made formal on Friday. The accord is a classic 20th century arms-control treaty that was inadequate when it came into force a decade ago.

New Start limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and bombs at 1,550. It also caps the deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and nuclear-equipped heavy bombers. The deal would have expired Feb. 5, but Mr. Biden took the longest extension possible.


This squanders useful diplomatic work by the Trump Administration. While Washington withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) and Open Skies treaties, which Russia was violating, it tried to negotiate a shorter extension to New Start last year.


Talks began in earnest after Washington demonstrated that it wasn’t afraid of walking away from bad arms-control deals, including the Iran nuclear accord. The U.S.sought improved verification, provisions to address technological developments and a plan for future negotiations to include China. Both sides came close to signing an interim, one-year extension last year before talks were overtaken by the presidential election.

“The New Start treaty is in the national security interests of the United States,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said recently. “This extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is adversarial.” The opposite is true. Arms-control works best between trustworthy governments, not with adversaries like Russia willing to cheat.

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton recently called for a six-month extension, which would have provided time to address issues like tactical nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Victoria Nuland, Mr. Biden’s nominee for the third-highest State Department post, last year suggested a one- or two-year extension.

“Washington should not grant Moscow what it wants most,” she wrote, “a free rollover of New START without any negotiations to address Russia’s recent investments in short- and medium-range nuclear weapons systems and new conventional weapons.” Yet that’s exactly what Mr. Biden has granted.

This is an echo of the Obama Administration Russia policy of criticizing Mr. Putin while refusing to sell lethal arms to Ukraine. Mr. Blinken said the U.S. is reviewing how to respond to Mr. Navalny’s arrest and didn’t rule out more sanctions. After its needless unilateral concession on New Start, Mr. Putin won’t be impressed by critical words alone.

[G M]

Buying the Biden Crime Family was the best money they ever spent.

oe Biden’s Old Russia Start
He criticizes Putin on Navalny but offers a gift on nuclear arms control.
By The Editorial Board
Feb. 1, 2021 6:36 pm ET
SAVE
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TEXT
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin shakes hands with then Vice President Joe Biden during their meeting in Moscow, March 10, 2011.
PHOTO: ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES



Donald Trump went easy on Russia and Vladimir Putin rhetorically while supporting tougher policies than his predecessor. Now President Biden is taking the opposite approach. At least that’s the early message from the Administration’s first decision on arms control and its response to Russia’s growing domestic protests.

On Sunday Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he is “deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown” on Russian protesters and the arrests of thousands demanding the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Mr. Blinken said Russians are fed up with “corruption” and “autocracy” and added that Mr. Biden delivered a similar message in a phone call with Mr. Putin.

Good to hear, but the Administration sent a very different signal by embracing an unconditional five-year extension of the New Start nuclear arms treaty, which Mr. Putin made formal on Friday. The accord is a classic 20th century arms-control treaty that was inadequate when it came into force a decade ago.

New Start limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and bombs at 1,550. It also caps the deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and nuclear-equipped heavy bombers. The deal would have expired Feb. 5, but Mr. Biden took the longest extension possible.


This squanders useful diplomatic work by the Trump Administration. While Washington withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) and Open Skies treaties, which Russia was violating, it tried to negotiate a shorter extension to New Start last year.


Talks began in earnest after Washington demonstrated that it wasn’t afraid of walking away from bad arms-control deals, including the Iran nuclear accord. The U.S.sought improved verification, provisions to address technological developments and a plan for future negotiations to include China. Both sides came close to signing an interim, one-year extension last year before talks were overtaken by the presidential election.

“The New Start treaty is in the national security interests of the United States,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said recently. “This extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is adversarial.” The opposite is true. Arms-control works best between trustworthy governments, not with adversaries like Russia willing to cheat.

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton recently called for a six-month extension, which would have provided time to address issues like tactical nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Victoria Nuland, Mr. Biden’s nominee for the third-highest State Department post, last year suggested a one- or two-year extension.

“Washington should not grant Moscow what it wants most,” she wrote, “a free rollover of New START without any negotiations to address Russia’s recent investments in short- and medium-range nuclear weapons systems and new conventional weapons.” Yet that’s exactly what Mr. Biden has granted.

This is an echo of the Obama Administration Russia policy of criticizing Mr. Putin while refusing to sell lethal arms to Ukraine. Mr. Blinken said the U.S. is reviewing how to respond to Mr. Navalny’s arrest and didn’t rule out more sanctions. After its needless unilateral concession on New Start, Mr. Putin won’t be impressed by critical words alone.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17048/china-gene-editing?fbclid=IwAR2iprtMXRvbJG-mHzmwfiJoGIs_sJYV5HHUyKpY_1aPYVerLl3yJplC7Tg

[ccp]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/genetic-modification-could-protect-soldiers-chemical-weapons

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/03/new-icbm-legacy-system-and-should-be-cancelled/172619/

[Crafty_Dog]

‘Red Line’ Review: The Calculus Didn’t Change
U.S. diplomacy didn’t stop Bashar al-Assad from murdering Syrians with chemical weapons. It only gave him cover.

A poison-hazard sign in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on April 5, 2017.
PHOTO: OGUN DURU/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
By John Bolton
March 15, 2021 6:35 pm ET
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Barack Obama’s 2013 deal to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons was touted at the time as proof that arms-control diplomacy can avert peril without resorting to force. The deal proved many things, but not that. It allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to escape from the consequences of his own malfeasance. It also showed rogue states and terrorists how to survive, and Iran and Russia how to play America. The losers: Syria’s people, America’s credibility, and Middle Eastern peace and security.

President Biden yearns to rejoin his former boss’s Iran nuclear-weapons deal, which was under intense negotiation as the Syria drama unfolded. Before he does that, he may wish to read Joby Warrick’s “Red Line: The Unraveling of Syria and America’s Race to Destroy the Most Dangerous Arsenal in the World.” This study, by a longtime national security reporter at the Washington Post, has important implications for countering proliferation generally.

Syria’s military precipitated the 2013 crisis by bombing Moadamiyeh, outside Damascus, with sarin, a deadly nerve agent, killing over 1,400 people. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the attack “the worst use of weapons of mass destruction in the twenty-first century.” Fortunately a U.N. inspection team was in Damascus to investigate reports of prior chemical-weapons strikes and so brought international attention to it.

How would Mr. Obama respond? In 2011 he had said, “Assad must go.” But despite substantial assistance to anti-government rebels, Mr. Assad remained in power. Then, in August 2012, Mr. Obama casually observed that “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.”

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Not by much. Although Mr. Obama considered responding militarily, he hesitated. He was “uneasy” after German chancellor Angela Merkel urged caution and British prime minister David Cameron lost a House of Commons vote that eliminated Britain as a partner. Trying to shift responsibility, Mr. Obama sought congressional approval, which he didn’t need and didn’t get anyway. At hand were the makings of a humiliating debacle.


PHOTO: WSJ
RED LINE
By Joby Warrick
Doubleday, 346 pages, $29.95

Secretary of State John Kerry saw no diplomatic path for Mr. Assad to surrender or destroy his chemical weapons, saying on Sept. 9 that “he’s not about to do it.” But Mr. Assad did it—albeit not as a result of U.S. negotiations. Although the facts are unclear, the Syrian dictator had delegated authority to use chemicals to his generals, meaning the Moadamiyeh attack might have been ordered without considering the proximity of U.N. inspectors or even knowledge of Mr. Obama’s “red line.” Mr. Assad rapidly concluded he had made a terrible mistake and agreed to a deal.

Moscow applied pressure but clearly never intended to jettison Mr. Assad. Two years later, Russia significantly increased its air presence at Syria’s Khmeimim air base, complementing its nearby Tartus naval facility. Mr. Obama was again surprised. “Oh God, they’re getting ready to go in. They’re not going to let Assad lose,” said one adviser. Mr. Kerry, having been told that Russian planes were deploying to Syria, remarked cluelessly that “the level and type [of aircraft] represents basically force protection.” He was wrong. If the Russians only wanted to protect their assets, they could have kept them at home.


Mr. Assad didn’t surrender everything. In 2015, following the destruction of Syria’s declared chemical-weapons materials, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons investigators found indications in Syria’s records that Mr. Assad may have concealed assets. This is critical. The OPCW and the U.N. depended on what Syria declared; they had little capability to gather additional evidence, and foreign intelligence in Syria was obviously inadequate. Mr. Warrick enumerates not only sarin, but considerable amounts of other nerve agents and toxic chemicals that went unaccounted for.

Mr. Assad simply switched chemicals. Instead of using sarin, the regime carried out scores, perhaps hundreds, of strikes using chlorine, not explicitly banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention but nonetheless used as an asphyxiant, which the Convention generically prohibited. This was, as Mr. Warrick puts it, “a perfect loophole.” Said one expert, “It’s brilliant . . . Low-casualty, but psychologically effective.”

Mr. Assad, Mr. Warrick demonstrates, was not “chastened or deterred.” At Khan Sheikhoun, in April 2017, Syria’s military again used sarin, proving either that it still had the nerve agent or had resumed production of it. President Trump’s military retaliation was inadequate. Mr. Assad subsequently used chlorine, striking several times, including a significant attack in Douma, one year later. After a confused internal debate, Mr. Trump retaliated again. He had learned nothing about Syria, Iran or Russia, concluding instead that the U.S. ought to withdraw its forces from the region completely, which he tried unsuccessfully to do for two years.

It is therefore wrong to conclude, as Mr. Obama’s admirers still do, that successful diplomacy ended Mr. Assad’s chemical-weapons threat. Mr. Warrick acknowledges that “ultimately neither president succeeded in changing Assad’s behavior or shortening Syria’s war.” The Syria case proves that mere physical destruction of mass-destruction weapons and materials is insufficient. While Syria (or Iran) possesses the knowledge and ability to produce them, it can always rebuild what it “destroys.”

Iran emerged victorious from two presidents’ failures against Mr. Assad’s chemical bellicosity. For America, Mr. Assad is not the central threat; the real menace is Tehran, which has emerged even more dominant inside Syria, buttressing its arc of control from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean. The mullahs almost certainly saw Mr. Obama’s hesitancy to use force in Syria as fear of undercutting the ongoing Iran nuclear negotiations. They correctly surmised that the American president wanted a nuclear deal more than he wanted to guarantee eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons.


The ayatollahs now watching Mr. Biden can discern this desire anew. Messrs. Obama and Biden both proceed, despite their denials, as if deals themselves are the objectives, not whether they are effective or ineffective. Their blinkered focus on the “deal” is very Trumpian, and correspondingly damaging to American national security. That is the real lesson.

Mr. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., served as national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the March 16, 2021, print edition as 'The Calculus Didn’

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.foxnews.com/world/top-state-official-coronavirus-bioweapon-accident

[ccp]

https://www.hudson.org/experts/1299-david-asher

the LEFT -->>>

he must be a racist, white supremacist,  proud boy, maga, conspiracy theorist, orange hair cultist, pig!     

pay him no mind!

To think our greatest doctor Fauci was sending them money
   this would be the most perfect illustration how they make total fools and idiots of us

thanks Brock/and his dull dim witted protege   

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17191/china-what-to-do-about-it?fbclid=IwAR1oE1Bwc6UkhNaBwKgqjUflttHcvJwNsCUO0s-2ppQL1I3P4elotcWOdJk

[G M]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17191/china-what-to-do-about-it?fbclid=IwAR1oE1Bwc6UkhNaBwKgqjUflttHcvJwNsCUO0s-2ppQL1I3P4elotcWOdJk

An important read. China plays the long game, and plays to win.

[DougMacG]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17191/china-what-to-do-about-it?fbclid=IwAR1oE1Bwc6UkhNaBwKgqjUflttHcvJwNsCUO0s-2ppQL1I3P4elotcWOdJk

An important read. China plays the long game, and plays to win.

Yes.

"If you want to find the largest collection of genetic information of Americans, you do not go to America. You go to Beijing."

  - Wake . Up. People.  The communist regime of China is not your friend and is not an innocent storefront on the edge of tbe Pacific. The Hitler analogies fail because China is so much more powerful.

[Crafty_Dog]

The rapidity of change in the evolution of war is turning a lot of our previous strengths into Maginot Lines.

[G M]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17191/china-what-to-do-about-it?fbclid=IwAR1oE1Bwc6UkhNaBwKgqjUflttHcvJwNsCUO0s-2ppQL1I3P4elotcWOdJk

An important read. China plays the long game, and plays to win.

Yes.

"If you want to find the largest collection of genetic information of Americans, you do not go to America. You go to Beijing."

  - Wake . Up. People.  The communist regime of China is not your friend and is not an innocent storefront on the edge of tbe Pacific. The Hitler analogies fail because China is so much more powerful.

https://visiontimes.com/2020/10/07/a-chinese-defector-exposes-beijings-bioweapons-program.html

In May, a senior U.S. official revealed that China was working on developing bioweapons that can target people based on their ethnicity. He expressed worries that Beijing might conduct biological experiments on ethnic minorities. China has even admitted to such a possibility. Back in 2017, a publication released by the Chinese military categorized biology as a new warfare domain. It also suggested that future wars could involve genetic attacks.

In 1972, leaders from more than 180 nations established the biological weapons convention according to which the development of such weapons was banned. However, there are serious concerns that several countries are not abiding by the restrictions. At least 6 nations are believed to be currently invested in bioweapon programs — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, and Libya. In 2015, U.S. intelligence classified gene editing as a potential weapon of mass destruction. The fact that you can create viruses that only affect specific races or ethnicities makes such weapons even scarier.

[G M]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17191/china-what-to-do-about-it?fbclid=IwAR1oE1Bwc6UkhNaBwKgqjUflttHcvJwNsCUO0s-2ppQL1I3P4elotcWOdJk

An important read. China plays the long game, and plays to win.

Yes.

"If you want to find the largest collection of genetic information of Americans, you do not go to America. You go to Beijing."

  - Wake . Up. People.  The communist regime of China is not your friend and is not an innocent storefront on the edge of tbe Pacific. The Hitler analogies fail because China is so much more powerful.

https://visiontimes.com/2020/10/07/a-chinese-defector-exposes-beijings-bioweapons-program.html

In May, a senior U.S. official revealed that China was working on developing bioweapons that can target people based on their ethnicity. He expressed worries that Beijing might conduct biological experiments on ethnic minorities. China has even admitted to such a possibility. Back in 2017, a publication released by the Chinese military categorized biology as a new warfare domain. It also suggested that future wars could involve genetic attacks.

In 1972, leaders from more than 180 nations established the biological weapons convention according to which the development of such weapons was banned. However, there are serious concerns that several countries are not abiding by the restrictions. At least 6 nations are believed to be currently invested in bioweapon programs — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, and Libya. In 2015, U.S. intelligence classified gene editing as a potential weapon of mass destruction. The fact that you can create viruses that only affect specific races or ethnicities makes such weapons even scarier.

[Crafty_Dog]

GM:

Your VisionTimes post brings to mind the serious interview on youtube presumably in Mandarin with subtitles in front of an auditorium audience in China that I posted a few years back only to find it deleted when I went back to it recently wherein the Chinese scientist discussed quite seriously being able to target by ethnicity.

[G M]

Just imagine what the PRC could do if they had a million people with Caucasian DNA in their genetic makeup to test an ethnic bioweapon upon...

GM:

Your VisionTimes post brings to mind the serious interview on youtube presumably in Mandarin with subtitles in front of an auditorium audience in China that I posted a few years back only to find it deleted when I went back to it recently wherein the Chinese scientist discussed quite seriously being able to target by ethnicity.

[G M]

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-strategic-command-issues-random-warning-over-nuclear-strike-enemys-least-bad-option

[ccp]

our enemies
taking advantage of and flaming our domestic political problems

sometime soon we may look like those scenes in War of the Worlds were society just falls apart