My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.
Blog
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Nuclear Weapons 87 – The Unites States Accuses Russia of Violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
In my last post, I discussed the groups that are encouraging the federal government to develop a new nuclear warhead and launch vehicle called the Long-Range Stand Off cruise missile. Ironically, just after writing that post I came across an article that said Obama was accusing the Russians of violating a treaty when they tested a new ground launched long range nuclear cruise missile. So presumably, if the U.S. developed the new missiles it would be in violation of the same treaty that the U.S. is accusing the Russians of violating.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed in 1987 by the United States and the Soviet Union. The U.S. Congress ratified the treaty in 1988 and it went into effect on June 1 of that year. The treaty calls for the elimination of nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between three hundred and thirty four hundred miles.
The Soviet Union fell in 1991 and Russia assumed control of the old Soviet nuclear arsenal. In 2007, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, stated that he did not believe that the INF Treaty “served Russia’s interests.” A week later, the Russian military’s chief of general staff said that Russia could pull out of the INF Treaty. He said that the Russian decision on the INF Treaty would depend on the actions of the U.S. with respect to a proposed Ground-Based Midcourse Defense missile defense system, parts of which the U.S. had been planning to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic. Those plans were abandoned in favor of a different missile system. The American Enterprise Institute has suggested that the real reason that the Russians are concerned about the INF Treaty is that China is not a signatory. China continues to develop missile systems that are banned in the U.S. and Russia.
In 2012, the U.S. accused the Russians of violating the treaty. The missiles that triggered the U.S. charges were the R-500 cruise missiles and a short range ICBM. This month, the U.S. formally notified the Russians that they were in violation of the INF Treaty. Russian official responded by reiterating that the INF treaty was unsuitable for Russia because other Asian countries were not bound by the treaty and were developing the banned weapons systems.
The U.S. is working on the Prompt Global Strike (PGS) system in an attempt to get around the INF Treaty provisions. Currently, a nuclear attack could hit any target in the world in under an hour. Any conventional weapons response to hostilities could take days to weeks to mobilize. The PGS project is dedicated to developing the ability to strike any target in the world in an hour with conventional weapons.
While I applaud treaties to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons, our experience seems to be that treaties are often broken or circumvented at the whim of the signatories. The complete elimination of nuclear weapons should be our focus, not the banning of very specific types of warheads and delivery systems.
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Radiation News Roundup July 29, 2014
On 7/26/2014, a Fukushima resident posted a video on Youtube to report the actual contamination situation in Kohriyama city. fukushima-diary.com
India’s Additional Protocol for nuclear safeguards has been brought into force after the country handed over the instrument of ratification to the International Atomic Energy Agency. world-nuclar-news.org
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Geiger Readings for July 29, 2014
My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.
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Nuclear Weapons 86 – Push for Creation of New U.S. Nuclear Weapon
I have posted before on attempts to remove nuclear weapons from the arsenals of nations. Nuclear disarmament was once a major political issue with hundreds of thousands of people across the world gathering to protest nuclear weapons. As the focus shifted from the Cold War to the “war on terror,” public concern over nuclear weapons has waned.
As I have said in previous posts, a fraction of the nuclear arsenals on Earth today would be enough to destroy human civilization and cause the death of billions of people. No one can “win” a nuclear war. The U.S. and Russia still each have around forty five hundred operational nuclear warhead which is a major reduction for the more than twenty thousand warheads that each had during the height of the Cold War. The U.S. and Russian arsenals are pointed at each other and can launch in minutes.
Accidents and mistakes have almost triggered nuclear war several times. The Obama administration has been a strong supporter of nuclear disarmament. There is a five year moratorium on allocating any U.S. federal funds for designing an “interoperable” warhead that could be used on both ICBMs and submarine launched missiles.
The supporters of nuclear weapons in the federal government, nuclear weapon laboratories and the nuclear arms industry have been lobbying recently for a new type of warhead and delivery vehicle called the Long-Range Stand Off Weapon (LRSO). The cruise missile is a standoff weapon. A pilot can launch a cruise missile in the air and the missile will fly below radar to hit a far away target. The pilot and his plane will not be close to or threatened by the nuclear blast. The LRSO is a new version of a cruise missile vehicle that would be launched by our fleet of B-52 and B-2 heavy bombers.
The Air Force sent out a solicitation to defense contractors requesting new approaches for manufacturing the new LRSO missile. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrup Grumman and Raytheon have all begun to investigate the possibilities of manufacture and sale of LRSO missiles.
The U.S. has been a strong supporter of nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War. The U.S is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Unfortunately, while reducing nuclear warhead inventories, the U.S. has simultaneously supported various programs intended to “maintain and modernize” our nuclear arsenal which will not reduce the number of warheads and may lead to the creation of new warheads and delivery vehicles such as the LRSO. Russia is also claiming to support nuclear disarmament while “modernizing” its arsenal. In addition, other countries that have sworn off nuclear weapons such as Japan and Ukraine are now talking about the possible need for them to develop their own nuclear arsenals.
All nuclear weapons on Earth should be eliminated before a tragic accident or misunderstanding leads to global nuclear war, nuclear winter and the end of human civilization. “Modernization” is not a reasonable alternative to disarmament and the U.S. should not spend another dollar to develop new nuclear weapons.
B-2A Bomber:
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Geiger Readings for July 28, 2014
My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.
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Radiation News Roundup July 27, 2014
Arakawa river in Fukushima city was awarded a prize as the clearest river in Japan by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. fukushima-diary.com
Companies in France and the U.S. have recently developed RFID tags with potential applications in nuclear plant welding inspections and nuclear medicine. nuclearstreet.com
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Radiation News Roundup July 26, 2014
TEPCO admitted a few weeks ago to METI that the trench freezing operation underway for units 2 and 3 was not working. fukuleaks.org
Southern Co. CEO Tom Fanning has said he hopes to announce plans to expand the utility’s fleet of power reactors by the end of the year. nuclearstreet.com
South Carolina’s V.C. Summer nuclear plant tripped offline Tuesday as it was powering up. nuclearstreet.com
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Geiger Readings for July 27, 2014
My Geiger counter is in the shop for maintenance.
