Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Dr. Strangelove Indeed: Trump Promotes Offensive Use of Nuclear Weapons




President Trump promotes "flexible use of nuclear weapons":
In shift from Obama policy, Trump plans flexible use of nuclear weapons, including low-yield arms. (2018, January 8). Kyodo. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/08/world/politics-diplomacy-world/shift-obama-policy-trump-plans-flexible-use-nuclear-weapons-including-low-yield-arms/#.WlTENnlG3cc

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will adopt a policy allowing the flexible use of nuclear weapons through the new Nuclear Posture Review to be unveiled as early as February, according to congressional and diplomatic sources.... The Trump administration will consider developing new low-yield, small nuclear weapons intended to ensure military dominance over rival powers like China, Russia and North Korea, the sources said, quoting an outline of the review.... A reflection of Trump’s wish to preserve “peace through strength,” the Republican administration will not limit the role of nuclear weapons to deterrence and counterattacks against a nuclear attack, they said.
To repeat: The US will not limit the role of nuclear weapons to deterrence and counter-attacks. Nuclear weapons are now being coded as "offensive."

While Trump talks nuclear button size, "flexible use of nuclear weapons," and Newspeak such as "peace through strength," North and South Korea agree to de-escalation:
Christine Kim, Hyonhee Shin (2018). North, South Korea agree to resolve issues through dialogue. Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea-talks/north-south-korea-agree-to-resolve-issues-through-dialogue-idUSKBN1EX2CW

SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea on Tuesday agreed on negotiations to resolve problems and military talks aimed at averting accidental conflict, after their first official dialogue in more than two years, as Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program fuels tension.
It is hard to decode South Korea's role in all of this. In addition to pushing for a detente in North-South relations, South Korea is backing down from Japan by agreeing to honor the 2015 legal agreement developed between the two countries regarding reparations for the "comfort women":
Daisuke Kikuchi and Tomohiro Osaki (2018, January 9). South Korea will not seek renegotiation of ‘comfort women’ deal with Japan. The Japan Times, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/09/national/politics-diplomacy/south-korea-will-not-seek-renegotiation-comfort-women-deal-japan/#.WlTC1XlG3cc
South Korea announced Tuesday it will not seek to renegotiate the 2015 landmark deal with Japan on the “comfort women” issue but at the same time indirectly urged Japan to extend a fresh “voluntary, heart-felt apology” for the victims forced to work at Japanese military brothels before and during World War II. The announcement immediately drew strong protests from Tokyo. Under the 2015 deal, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has already expressed “his most sincere apologies and remorse” to all the former comfort women and Japan provided ¥1 billion to South Korean fund for victims, although Tokyo has denied any legal responsibility for compensation.

South Korea has compromised, but Japan will not commit to its share of the compromise, an additional and sincere apology.

In Japan, opinion on the pursuit of peace and war is divided. The LDP forwards constitutional revisions that allow greater flexibility of interpretation in the arena of defense, widening its scope to include military support of allies abroad and infrastructure through high technology weapons development:
Abe: LDP to submit draft constitutional revisions in 2018. (January 4, 2018). The Asahi Shimbun. Available, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201801040044.html
Meanwhile in Japan, the opposition party has raised the issue of de-nuclearization:
Akira Minami (2018, Jan 3). Opposition CDP bringing nuclear energy debate back to the Diet. The Asahi Shimbun, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201801030040.html

Who can say where the power alignments will fall as competing domestic and international forces vie to control decisions and policies. The people [domestic politics] typically want peace, unless war fervor is deliberately inculcated and propagated.

However, peace is not profitable for the most powerful military-industrial organizations. Peace doesn't maintain hegemony unless the imperial subjects are content. Its quite clear that there is a lot of discontent in the world with the legacy of the twentieth century.

For the Trump administration, neoliberal cosmopolitanism is dead. This is the era of brute sovereignty.  President Trump's rhetoric is entirely overt: war is peace. The gloves are off. Totalitarianism is no longer inverted.


Its important to remember that although Obama pledged not to deploy nuclear weapons in an offensive manner, he was content to "modernize" the US nuclear arsenal and to support development of experimental nuclear reactors:
Aging U.S. nuclear arsenal slated for costly and long-delayed modernization. By Dana Priest Sep 15, 2012. The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-nuclear-arsenal-is-ready-for-overhaul/2012/09/15/428237de-f830-11e1-8253-3f495ae70650_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
There is no official price tag for the effort to upgrade and maintain the 5,113 warheads in the inventory, to replace old delivery systems and to renovate the aging facilities where nuclear work is performed. A study this summer by the nonpartisan Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, estimated costs would be at least $352 billion over the coming decade to operate and modernize the current arsenal. Others say the figure could be far higher, particularly if the work is delayed even longer.

At the heart of the overhaul are the weapons themselves. Renovating nuclear bombs and missiles to keep them safe and ready for use will cost tens of billions of dollars. Upgrading just one of the seven types of weapons in the stockpile, the B61 bomb, is likely to cost $10 billion over five years, according to the Pentagon. The next two types of bombs in line for modification are estimated to cost a total of at least $5 billion ...

Finally, there are the buildings and laboratories where the refurbishment of weapons and development of new technologies take place. Modernizing those facilities is expected to cost at least $88 billion over 10 years, according to the NNSA, which is part of the Department of Energy...

Some 640 people are designing the new uranium processing plant at Y-12. It will use 10 experimental technologies still being invented. There will be elaborate air filtration systems, duplicative electrical and fire control systems, redundant security barriers, earthquake-proof concrete floors and impenetrable vaults — all required to maintain and work with highly radioactive material...
William Broad and David Sanger. As U.S. Modernizes Nuclear Weapons, ‘Smaller’ Leaves Some Uneasy. The New York Times, January 11, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/science/as-us-modernizes-nuclear-weapons-smaller-leaves-some-uneasy.html?emc=edit_th_20160112&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=32962000&_r=0

As North Korea dug tunnels at its nuclear test site last fall, watched by American spy satellites, the Obama administration was preparing a test of its own in the Nevada desert....

Mr. Obama has long advocated a “nuclear-free world.” His lieutenants argue that modernizing existing weapons can produce a smaller and more reliable arsenal while making their use less likely because of the threat they can pose. The changes, they say, are improvements rather than wholesale redesigns, fulfilling the president’s pledge to make no new nuclear arms.

But critics, including a number of former Obama administration officials, look at the same set of facts and see a very different future. The explosive innards of the revitalized weapons may not be entirely new, they argue, but the smaller yields and better targeting can make the arms more tempting to use — even to use first, rather than in retaliation.

Gen. James E. Cartwright, a retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was among Mr. Obama’s most influential nuclear strategists, said he backed the upgrades because precise targeting allowed the United States to hold fewer weapons. But “what going smaller does,” he acknowledged, “is to make the weapon more thinkable.”
Henry Fountain, “U.S. Acts to Spur Development of High-Tech Reactors” The New York Times, January 19, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/science/advanced-nuclear-reactors-department-of-energy.html?action=click&contentCollection=Science&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
A nuclear reactor under construction in 2014 in Georgia. The government is encouraging the development of new reactor designs, and is giving two companies grants of up to $40 million each. Credit John Bazemore/Associated Press

The Obama administration is providing seed money for two advanced nuclear reactor designs, part of its effort to keep nuclear power in the nation’s energy mix over the next several decades. The Energy Department said it would provide up to $40 million each to two companies, X-energy and Southern Company, over about five years to help develop the alternative reactor designs. As a start, the department, which announced the investments last Friday, is giving each company $6 million this year.
The Cold-War military-industrial state has simply shed its passive disguise. Sovereignty was always there beneath the veil, strengthening its cause.

On the other hand, that passive disguise may be the critical veil that prevents the psychotic madness from overtaking us in all-out nuclear war.
 



17 comments:

  1. Surprisingly many people are allowing themselves, to be relocated back to Fukushima. The most radionuclide saturated place , outside a nuclear reactor, on earth. Three reactor explosions. A fuel pool fire. Enough plutonium , cesium 237/134, strontium 90, iodine 131, cobalt 60, enriched uranium and 194 other radionuclide to wipe out the east  coast on the us in 15 years. There will be no genetically viable.ovum or sperm left for any creatures. 10 in one.
    The elderly, disabled and young, moved back to fukushima now have life expectancies of 1to 5 years. Newborns, little hope. Pets and animals life expectancies of 1 to 2 years. The rest have life expectancies of 3 to 13 years.

     Is that really living? Children cannot go outside. Respiratory Asian flies, will wipe people out, in waves. Most people there are already chronically ill, children too. It's is not life. It is genocide. Japan should be held accountable. Government fired. Most jailed, and a new regime. The ghouls that run things now, only plot genocide and further world nuclear contamination/destruction. A dangerous gangreous infection, that should be rooted out, but probably will not be.



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  2. First use of nuclear weapons has been official US policy for decades. But the use of low-yield weapons in an offensive manner makes a global strategic exchange of nuclear weapons far more likely.

    The US is leading the way in worldwide nuclear proliferation, which means more and more radioactive pollution involved in producing weapons. This will happen even if these weapons are not used.

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  3. Trump slimed its way in. The worst thing, that could have happened to the earth, and life on it. Totally evil, entitity, along with the really stupid, evil, psychotic, sad sacks of shit, that continue to support it and bankroll it. Nihilistic and psychotic murder and criminality taken to new heights. The nightmare is worse than the most grotesque things imaginable. Humans deserve the horrible suffering and.pain they are putting on themselves , if they allo2 this sad sack of shit and it's ill to continue. The purveors should be locked up and or exiled to Mars

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You might want to proof read your comments as they are usually difficult to follow! Not that the other comments are works of literary brilliance or full of interesting ideas.

      Delete
    2. Ad hominem nonsense.

      Delete
  4. Watching Rome burn
    One of the biggest nuclear blunders of all time. Several million lbs of hi level nuc waste in thin steel drums , right by coast in San Diego area
    https://watchingromeburn.uk/news/biggest-nuclear-blunder-time/

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  5. https://youtu.be/E5u5l-X0QtE

    This is what the earthquake by Vera cruz did to its homes. Just think what the magnitude 7.3 did to the two shitty old he reactors there and elevated fuel pools.

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  6. The generals, the psychotic idiots must love this. Putin and Trump will start a nuclear weapons race to create weapon that the United States can actually use against each other and the world. That's from the stable genius trump.

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  7. We are not privy to what Trump has in mind. I feel like using terms like psychotic no longer mean much as they are too generously applied. Everyone now is characterized as a psychopath unless he or she behaves according to someone's standard. The result is that what is stated can not be taken seriously . . .

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    Replies
    1. You do not think putting more radionuclides into the biosphere is pysychotic. Means you are psycho. You should look in India for a radiothor equivalent. It will give you hormesis and, chase the psycho devils out of ya permanently, willy.

      Delete
  8. https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/italian-neofascist-leaders-message-to-local-business-invest-in-crimea-i-e-yet-another-make-putins-russia-great-again-candidate/

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  9. A draft of Trumps nuclear policy. Trump want a lot more nuclear bombs.

    Full of of b's as usual per see Trump zombie us already has 1000 low yield nukes
    https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a4d4773e4b06d1621bce4c5?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

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  10. For the magpies: “If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks.”
    ― François Rabelais

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hard core fascism is on the rise and Trump troll, racist bots like will only make that apparent.

      https://nuclear-news.net/2018/01/12/the-new-media-landscape-allows-donald-trumps-lies-and-brutal-language-to-be-normal/

      Delete
    2. "Article about a Russian linked Italian fascist candiate spouting the same lies that Trump (and Hitler) did: “new deal for Italy’s workers and small businesses, free from the threat of globalisation.“. Like Hitler, Trump has sold out the workers and small businesses to big business. (Trump is globalisation/global elite personified). Like Trump, this Italian candidate is a fan of Putin’s Russia. "
      From mining awareness article above
      The biggest lie Trump and his supporters push, is that he is antiglobalization antielite. A terrible lie

      Delete
  11. http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/nuclear-launch-officers-write-open-letter-about-president-trump-amid-claims-cyberhacks-could-lead-to-unintended-nuclear-launch/news-story/31e82d4451a4d398a7fce3b7e785dbde#.cgf1v


    Nuclear screeners write letter asking for limitation of Trumps access to Nuclear strike authorization. The letter is based on Trumps instability and refusal to acknowledge 5th full consequences of a nuclear strike. Cyberhacks could lead this rash and ignorant, guy into an unprovoked, Nuclear war.

    Terry

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