In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
2022 BLOG POSTS
Why Funding for the SLCM Nuclear Warhead Should Be Deleted
Introduction: In 1991, in response to the ongoing collapse of the Soviet Union, President George H. Bush ordered the withdrawal of all nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) from U.S. surface ships and submarines. In 2018 President Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review proposed to redeploy SLCMs on Virginia-class attack submarines, saying they would provide the United States with “a needed non-strategic regional presence” that would address “the increasing need for flexible and low-yield options.”1 Congress subsequently approved $15.2 million in FY 2022 funding for the Navy’s new cruise missile and nuclear warhead.
In March 2022 President Biden transmitted a new classified Nuclear Posture Review to Congress that reportedly canceled the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile. In parallel, his proposed FY 2023 budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has no funding for the SLCM nuclear warhead. This has prompted some congressional pushback, with one suggested compromise being continuing modest research funding. But as a Congressional Research Service analysis put it: “The Navy indicated that the program was “cost prohibitive and the acquisition schedule would have delivered capability late to need.”
The Twisted Myth that Nuclear Weapons Make Us Safer
“Mutually Assured Destruction” has been the MO of the world’s nuclear powers for decades. If Russia points a giant nuclear warhead toward the U.S., we would gear up to point an even more massive missile their way, and then, in theory, Russia shrugs its shoulders and says, “Eh, not worth it.” They would be completely “deterred” from advancing a nuclear attack based on the reality that doing this would mean the entire country, continent, and, ultimately the entire world, would become obliterated as we know it; the cost and the risk greatly outweigh any benefit. Supposedly. According to this thesis, the existence of nuclear weapons makes the cost of war seem frighteningly high and thus “discourage[s] states from starting any wars that might lead to the use of such weapons” (Kenneth Waltz, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Better,”) The idea that nuclear weapons make conventional war safer is widely used as framing for why we need nukes at all, with one specific reason being spread wide and far that nuclear weapons can still be the equalizer against an adversary’s superior conventional forces.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability DC Days 2022: NukeWatch (Virtually) Visits Washington DC
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability held its annual DC Days conference virtually again this year beginning May 16, 2022. Nuclear Watch New Mexico was proud to participate in this week-long event, where we discussed issues related to nuclear waste and nuclear weapons modernization under the Biden Administration, especially regarding expanded plutonium pit production at Los Alamos National Lab and at the Savannah River Site, and the generational problem of nuclear waste storage in the United States.
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New & Updated
Wester warns: ‘We are now in a nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the first’
“…There is a frustration that our world leaders are not listening. The tragedy of the 200,000 killed both in Hiroshima and Nagasaki seems to fall on deaf ears.
We are now in a nuclear arms race arguably far more dangerous than the first. We see countries modernizing their nuclear arsenals and spending scads of money in what appears to be (a move toward) ‘nuclear weapons forever.’”
By OSV News | August 6, 2024 catholicreview.org
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., has traveled to Japan on a “pilgrimage of peace” commemorating the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The pilgrimage, which the archbishop undertook last year as well, was announced Aug. 3 by the Santa Fe Archdiocese.
The attacks on the two Japanese cities — launched by the U.S. on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, in an effort to force the unconditional surrender of Japan and hasten the end of the war — killed an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people. The true number of casualties is “probably fundamentally unknowable,” according to nuclear weapons historian Alex Wellerstein.
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Hiroshima – The Unknown Images
On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., a bright flash set the sky over Hiroshima ablaze. A gigantic column of smoke rises above the city. The first nuclear bomb in history has just been dropped on the largest metropolis in western Japan.
This 2015 documentary shows this tragedy from the inside using photos taken that day.
Nuclear disarmament seemed possible. The imagined destruction of a Kansas town helped get us there.
“While part of the rationale for modernizing the American arsenal is safety — some of the warheads in the stockpile are 50 years old — the other part is deterrence. Despite the end of the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction continues. We find ourselves in a new arms race, one that aims to keep existing stockpiles stable but make new weapons out of them that are more reliable and precise, and hence deadlier.”
By Max McCoy, Kansas Reflector | August 4, 2024 kansasreflector.com
From miles above the midwestern prairies, I got a first-hand look at the machinery of doomsday.
Lying on my stomach in a pod beneath the tail of a KC-135 Stratotanker I watched as the operator next to me guided the flying boom behind us toward an aircraft keeping pace just below. This was a midair refueling mission, and the boom would top off the tanks of the receiving aircraft. That plane, with its white upper fuselage and black nose, was an EC-135 airborne command post, code named “Looking Glass.”
I’ve been thinking about that flight lately as the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki again approach. On Tuesday, it will be 79 years since the U.S. destroyed Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, followed three days later by the bombing of Nagasaki. More than 200,000 people were killed, mostly civilians. The bombings hastened the end of World War II but heralded the passing of our technological innocence — we finally had the power to annihilate ourselves as a species.
Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Archbishop John C. Wester to Honor the 79th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – Saturday, August 3, 2024 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE—Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Most Rev. John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, are set to embark on a pilgrimage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings. This visit underscores the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s unwavering commitment to advocating for universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.
During this multi-day journey, they will engage with Japanese and Korean bishops, fostering dialogue and solidarity in the shared mission to eliminate nuclear weapons globally. This pilgrimage is a testament to the enduring spirit of peace and reconciliation and a call to action for renewed and serious conversations about disarmament in New Mexico and around the world.
“Standing in the very places where the catastrophic consequences of nuclear warfare were first realized compels us to rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of a world free from nuclear weapons,” said Archbishop Wester. “This pilgrimage is not only a gesture of remembrance but also a commitment to continue our work toward global peace and security.”
He emphasized the critical need for sustained advocacy. “The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are more relevant than ever. As we honor the victims and survivors of these tragedies, we must also challenge the status quo and push for real progress in nuclear disarmament.”
The visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki will include participation in memorial ceremonies, meetings with survivors (hibakusha), and discussions with key religious and civic leaders. These activities will serve as a powerful reminder of the moral and ethical imperatives to dismantle nuclear arsenals and prevent future nuclear catastrophes.
Does the United States Need More Nuclear Weapons?
The United States is estimated to have roughly 3,700 warheads in its active arsenal. This includes 1,670 thermonuclear warheads deployed on 660 powerful long-range missiles on land and at sea or available for delivery on strategic bombers. There are also another 100 tactical nuclear bombs that can be delivered on shorter-range aircraft, according to independent estimates.5 The use of a fraction of these weapons, many primed for launch within minutes, would lead to mass destruction on an unprecedented global scale.
Contrary to the hype, more nuclear weapons would not improve, on balance, the U.S. capability to deter nuclear attack. In fact, significant increases in the U.S. deployed nuclear arsenal would undermine mutual and global security by making the existing balance of nuclear terror more unpredictable and would set into motion a counterproductive, costly action-reaction cycle of nuclear competition.
By Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today | July/August 2024 armscontrol.org
The experience of the Cold War proves that nuclear arms racing produces only losers and increased risks for everyone.
Nevertheless, following more than a decade of deteriorating relations between the United States and its main nuclear rivals, dimming prospects for disarmament diplomacy, and major nuclear weapons modernization efforts, China, Russia, and the United States are now on the precipice of a dangerous era of unconstrained nuclear competition. Concern in U.S. national security circles about Chinese and Russian nuclear capabilities has grown since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine effectively shut down the U.S.-Russian nuclear risk reduction and arms control dialogue. The Kremlin has rejected the White House proposal to negotiate a new nuclear arms control framework to replace the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which expires on February 5, 2026.1 China has declined U.S. offers to continue bilateral discussions on reducing nuclear risk and on nuclear postures.2
Moreover, as the U.S. intelligence community forecasts that China could amass as many as 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030, with several hundred of them deployed on a larger force of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), some members of the nuclear weapons establishment, leading members of Congress, and Biden administration officials have suggested that the massive U.S. arsenal may not be sufficient to deter two “near peer” nuclear rivals.3 China is currently estimated to have some 500 nuclear weapons and 310 long-range, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.4
New York Times: Olympic Surfing Comes to a ‘Poisoned’ Paradise
In 1974, a radioactive cloud from a French nuclear test drifted over Teahupo’o, Tahiti, now the surfing venue for the Paris Games. Villagers still feel the effects.
ByHannah Beech / | July 30, 2024 nytimes.com | Hannah Beech and Adam Ferguson spent a week in French Polynesia, documenting the impact of nuclear testing on a territory that is hosting the Olympic surfing competitions.
Fifty years ago this July, as the waters of the South Pacific rushed toward the shores of Teahupo’o in a perfect, powerful curl, as they have always done, another wave visited the tiny hamlet. This time it was an invisible and airborne one: a surge of radiation escaping from a nuclear weapon test conducted by France in this far-flung reach of their republic.
Navajo Nation plans to test limit of tribal law preventing transportation of uranium on its land
The Navajo Nation plans to test the limits of a tribal law that banned the transportation of uranium ore on its lands
By FELICIA FONSECA, ASSOCIATED PRESS | July 30, 2024 abcnews.com
PHOENIX — The Navajo Nation planned Tuesday to test a tribal law that bans uranium from being transported on its land by ordering tribal police to stop trucks carrying the mineral and return to the mine where it was extracted in northern Arizona.
But before tribal police could catch up with two semi-trucks on federal highways, they learned the vehicles under contract with Energy Fuels Inc. no longer were on the reservation.
Navajo President Buu Nygren vowed to carry out the plan to enact roadblocks while the tribe develops regulations over the first major shipments of uranium ore through the reservation in years.
“Obviously the higher courts are going to have to tell us who is right and who is wrong,” he told The Associated Press. “But in the meantime, you’re in the boundaries of the Navajo Nation.”
The tribe passed a law in 2012 to ban the transportation of uranium on the vast reservation that extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. But the law exempts state and federal highways that Energy Fuels has designated as hauling routes between the Pinyon Plain Mine south of Grand Canyon National Park for processing in Blanding, Utah.
Still, Nygren and Navajo Attorney General Ethel Branch believe the tribe is on solid legal footing with a plan for police to block federal highways, pull over drivers and prevent them from traveling farther onto the reservation.
New Mexico ‘birth to grave state’ for nuclear, critics say
Jay Coghlan at Nuclear Watch New Mexico read a letter to officials from Archbishop of Santa Fe John Wester, a critic of nuclear proliferation advocating for disarmament. He called for a sitewide environmental review of Los Alamos National Laboratory before the government expands the lab’s activities.
“Nuclear weapons were invented here in my arch dioceses, and thus I feel a responsibility to address this threat,” Coghlan read. “Nuclear disarmament is a right to life issue. The very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. What does this say about expanded pit production without providing the public the opportunity to review and comment?
“You’re very good at creating them, now show us how smart you are by showing us how to get rid of nuclear weapons. Let’s preserve New Mexico’s potential to manifest God’s love for all of his creations.”
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | July 24, 2024 currentargus.com
New Mexico was a fixture in the federal government’s plans to develop more nuclear weapons in the northern part of the state, and that could mean more nuclear waste being sent the southeast corner.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad disposes of transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste, made up of clothing materials, equipment and other debris irradiated during nuclear activities at federal sites around the country. It’s trucked into the site and buried in a salt deposit about 2,000 feet underground.
Meanwhile, the Department of Energy through its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is planning to build up to 30 plutonium pits – triggers for nuclear warheads – per year by 2030, along with 50 a year at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Candice Robertson, senior adviser at the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) said during a Monday townhall in Santa Fe that WIPP did have enough space for “planned TRU waste,” as officials estimated the repository could remain active until about 2083.
NNSA Town Hall July 22nd – Hruby: “We have to limit the growth of Los Alamos Laboratory…”
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) Los Alamos Field Office held a Town Hall event hosted by the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and EM on Monday, July 22, in Santa Fe. The Town Hall was led by NNSA’s Jill Hruby and EM’s Senior Advisor Candice Robertson. The intent according the event flier was to “engage with the community, provide updates, and address concerns related to the DOE’s activities and initiatives.”
The public comment period began with Jay Coghlan, executive director of NukeWatch NM, reading aloud a statement from Archbishop John C. Wester to the DOE, NNSA and EM.
“Nuclear disarmament is a right to life issue. No other issue can cause the immediate collapse of civilization. In January 2022 I wrote a pastoral letter in which I traced the Vatican’s evolution from its uneasy conditional acceptance of so-called deterrence to Pope Francis’ declaration
that the very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. https://archdiosf.org/living-in-the-light-of-christs-peace “Therefore, what does this say about expanded plutonium pit production at the Los Alamos Lab? And what does it say about the obscene amounts of money that are being thrown at pit production, often excused as job creation?
“What does this say about the fact that the [NNSA] is pursuing expanded pit production without providing the public the opportunity to review and comment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act? I specifically call upon NNSA to complete a new LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement.
“I have a simple message for NNSA and the nuclear weapons labs. You’re very good at creating them. Now show us how smart you are by demonstrating how to get rid of nuclear weapons. Stop this new arms race that threatens all of civilization. Let’s preserve humanity’s potential to manifest God’s divine love toward all beings.
READ FULL STATEMENT
NNSA adminstrator Jill Hruby began the event with a spiel about Russia continuing their nuclear saber rattling and China aquiring over 1500 nuclear weapons by 2025. She said NNSA is putting the pressure on to develop 7 weapons
Jill Hruby intro:
A lot has changed in the last 15 months. At the highest level Russia continues its full scale invasion of Ukraine including nuclear Saber rattling and the takeover of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. It has violated most nuclear norms and most recently seems to be exploring using nuclear weapons in space. China is projected to have 1500 nuclear warheads by the year 2035 and continue to express an intent to take over Taiwan, their technology advancement is significant, and the combination of China and Russia now means that parity in the number of nuclear weapons doesn’t make any sense. In addition, we have North Korea and Iran that are still players in this world and the cooperation between all of them is also advancing. But what I want to say is despite these advances, we do not want an arms race, this administration doesn’t want a new arms race, the NNSA doesn’t want an arms race. We’re trying to exercise leadership and transparency, but we also can’t sit on our hands, and so we’re trying to find the balance.
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Santa Fe New Mexican MY VIEW: On Trinity test anniversary, U.S. should rethink national priorities
By John C. Wester, SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | July 21, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
My archdiocese, home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is the birthplace of the atomic bomb. Yet 79 years after Oppenheimer’s Trinity test, our state still hosts the nuclear weapons complex, while New Mexicans’ needs go unaddressed. This fiscal year, the Department of Energy is spending $7 billion in New Mexico on nuclear weapons. This is more than what the whole state spends on education, in which we rank dead last in the nation.
Some $2 billion of this nukes money is for producing brand new plutonium pits — bomb cores for nuclear warheads — to arm the Air Force’s controversial and exorbitant new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. But many experts believe the program is a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and, in fact, makes Americans less safe. Congress should cancel Sentinel and instead compensate New Mexicans and thousands across the nation harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons production and testing and address urgent challenges like education, economic inequality, homelessness and addiction.
Countless New Mexicans — many of whom are my parishioners — have suffered from generations of cancers due to radioactive fallout from the Trinity test. One of my parishioners and a survivor of radiation-induced cancer, Tina Cordova, just last year experienced the tragedy of her 23-year-old niece being the fifth generation in her family to get cancer.
“We don’t ask ourselves if we’re going to get cancer; we ask when,” says Tina. And her family is far from alone.
After over 200 above-ground U.S. nuclear tests, in 1990 Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to provide limited medical help for some communities harmed by the tests. Yet the first victims of nuclear testing, New Mexicans — along with many other Americans — have been arbitrarily excluded from RECA.
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Santa Fe New Mexican MY VIEW: Speak out for earth and water this Monday
BY MARIAN NARANJO AND KATHY SANCHEZ, SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | July 21, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
On Monday, top officials from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Office of Environmental Management will host a town hall on cleanup priorities.
A limited public question-and-answer period will be allowed, and it’s unclear whether the security administration will respond to written submissions. With only one town hall hosted annually, the public — especially fenceline New Mexicans and Indigenous community members — must be heard and considered.
A growing number of DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration projects are amassing joint public and tribal concern. At a February public meeting, Pueblo leadership, local officials, environmentalists, and community members voiced overwhelming opposition to the security administration’s Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project, a transmission line proposed to span the sacred Caja del Rio landscape.
The three-hour meeting saw no public support for the project and instead featured widespread concern agencies aren’t following legal requirements for environmental and cultural review. The All-Pueblo Council of Governors recently urged a pause in the project pending a tribally-led ethnographic study of the Caja del Rio.
Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration is developing Los Alamos National Laboratory’s sitewide environmental impact statement to evaluate potential impacts of expanded lab operations over the next 15 years. Given that the statement should have been completed in 2018 and LANL’s budget has doubled in the last five years to $5.15 billion, public concerns are growing about the lack of opportunity to review expansion plans.
After the fallout: Oppenheimer’s Trinity test has US civilians seeking compensation today
Following the anniversary of the Trinity test on July 16, we’re revisiting an interview with Tina Cordova. She is a co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, which advocates for those affected by radiation exposure from the Trinity nuclear weapon test. Watch here.
Federal watchdog reports ongoing safety concerns at WIPP
‘Near miss’ incident reported at nuclear waste site near Carlsbad
By Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus | July 21, 2024 currentargus.com
Federal nuclear oversight staff reported several safety problems at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a monthly report, despite a “safety stand down” in April that was intended to pause work while WIPP officials retooled various protocols.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNSFB) reported “ongoing safety culture challenges” in its June 7 report on WIPP activities as the facility near Carlsbad disposes of transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste from federal facilities around the country.
The monthly report covered observations and incidents from May, noting a “near miss” incident which saw a waste handler improperly using a forklift instead of a crane to reposition weights in the parking lot waste storage area.
The May 20 event saw the waste handler using two forklifts to reposition a “six-ton” calibration weight, read the report, without proper documentation or analysis or the awareness of a shift supervisor.
The forklift sling broke while rotating the weight, read the report, causing it to fall on its side and send a shackle flying “a significant distance” away from the lift and past a spotter.
In another incident, all routine work was paused May 23 to 28 after a bolter contacted an electrical box near WIPP’s exhaust shaft, read the report, causing a bulkhead to lose function, rendering sump pumps inoperable and creating potential exposure to “hazardous energy.”
