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
What’s the Current Status of U.S. and Russian Nuclear Weapons? How Many Exist and Just How Powerful Are They?
The interest in this question has gone up immensely over the past 50 days, since Russia first invaded Ukraine on February 24, and since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country’s nuclear forces had been placed on “high alert” just a few days later on the 27th.
In 1986, there were 70,000 nuclear weapons on the planet—an entirely terrifying number. Nuclear weapons analysts estimate that the world’s nine nuclear states—China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States—have around 13,000 nuclear warheads in total today (Arms Control Association). That build-down started when U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, agreed under the INF Treaty on the Soviet Union destroying 889 of its intermediate-range missiles and 957 shorter-range missiles, and the U.S. destroying 677 and 169 respectively (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).
What are the specifics of where the remaining nuclear weapons possessed by the U.S. and Russia are located? How powerful are they, and, most relevantly, what is the readiness levels of these weapons to launch?
HOW MANY WEAPONS IN THE UNITED STATES?
- WHAT ARE THE LIMITS? On April 8, 2010, the United States and Russia signed New START, a legally binding, verifiable agreement that limits each side to 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 700 strategic delivery systems (ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers) and limits deployed and nondeployed launchers to 800 (Arms Control Association).
- WHAT ARE THE ACTUAL NUMBERS? At the beginning of 2021, the U.S. maintained an estimated stockpile of approximately 3,800 nuclear warheads for delivery by 800 ballistic missiles and aircraft (Arms Control Association).
Millennials Memeing Nuclear War
It seems like my generation has never before experienced this much nuclear fear. And what do we do with it? Laugh any way we can, for one. Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons by increasing Russia’s nuclear forces alertness levels and stating in a national address, “…For those who may be tempted to interfere in these developments from the outside, No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”
Nuclear simulations have come close to capturing the extra-short attention spans of millennials and gen-z, but there’s never been anything like the current real time situation that has ever put this much attention on the reality of the threat of nuclear weapons. And of course the only recourse for a heavy dose of reality is a flood of relevant comedy.
How are we Back Here…? Reflecting on the History of Nuclear Close Calls as Putin’s Threat Reignites Cold War Fears of Nuclear War
“Sadly, we are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again,”
– Fiona Hill, Former Senior Director for Europe and Russia at the United States National Security Council, in an interview with POLITICO, today, February 28, 2022: ‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes
New & Updated
Nuclear Weapons Are Stored on Native Reservations in an Example of Nuclear Colonialism
Why many of America’s nuclear weapons are stored on Native land
Ella Weber | November 27, 2024 teenvogue.com
As we celebrate Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Month, I’m reflecting on an often overlooked area where Native Americans are still harmed by our nation’s violent policies: the realm of nuclear weapons. As an undergrad and a researcher with Nuclear Princeton, I learned, for the first time, that there are 15 operational silos designed to host highly dangerous nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) on Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, home to my tribe: the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. Their presence likely makes us a priority target for nuclear attack in a potential confrontation with an adversary nation — yet another consequence of the continued violence of American colonialism on our Indigenous peoples.
A pie we’re not thankful for
“You might need a magnifying glass to scrutinize the remaining slices, more accurately described as slivers. If your grandma served you up this meager portion at the Thanksgiving table you would have something to say about it. And yet, the majority of Americans swallow this disproportionate deprivation of essential services with nary a murmur.”
Beyond Nuclear | November 24, 2024 beyondnuclear.org
Obscene amounts are spent on US nuclear weapons, but hardly anything to help the people they harmed, writes Linda Pentz Gunter
It’s pie season in America with Thanksgiving fast approaching and pumpkins ready to be pureed into pulp and baked into a delicious confection topped with whipped cream.
But there are other kinds of pies, ones we savor far less happily and that leave a bitter taste in taxpayers’ mouths.
Let’s start with the military pie. Each year, the National Priorities Project (NPP) publishes a US discretionary budget pie for us to sample — sourced from the Office of Management and Budget — and it’s not a pretty sight.
Its most recent version — entitled Militarization of the federal budget in FY 2023 — delivers us a pie guaranteed to cause heartburn if not heartache. A hefty 62% of the pie is sliced off before we even begin to digest the rest, all of it going to militarism to the tune of $1.14 trillion.
Santa Fe New Mexican: Is Acid Canyon clean enough? Depends who you ask
“With the help of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, [Chemist and Northern Arizona University professor emeritus] Ketterer took samples of soil, water and plants from a few locations around Acid Canyon, which he then analyzed using mass spectrometry. He looked in particular at the proportions of two main isotopes, plutonium-239 and plutonium-240, in each sample, which he said can begin to answer questions about where and when the contamination originated.
Alaina Mencinger | November 24, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
Ex-Westinghouse VP sentenced to jail in $9 billion nuclear heist of SC ratepayers
“In both the SC and GA cases, the state governments helped pave the way for the financial mismanagement of the projects by legislating that state electric ratepayers be responsible to pay for the nuclear construction in their monthly bills many years ahead of receiving a single watt of utility services.”
Beyond Nuclear | November 21, 2024 beyondnuclear.org
On November 20, 2024, the ex-Westinghouse Electric Corporation Vice President, who once headed the company’s AP1000 advanced reactor global marketing division, Jeffrey Alan Benjamin was sentenced in the District of South Carolina Federal Court to one year and a day in prison and a $100,000 fine for his role to defraud the South Carolina Public Utility Commission (PUC) and state electric ratepayers out of billions of dollars following the 2017 abandonment of the V.C. Summer units 2 & 3 nuclear plant construction project.
The US Justice Department had originally charged Westinghouse’s senior global nuclear project manager with 16 federal felony counts including conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud by withholding and providing false financial information to South Carolina regulators and state customers while the V.C. Summer AP1000 pressurized water reactor project was financially collapsing from skyrocketing cost overruns and mounting construction delays. After years of legal wrangling, Benjamin entered into a guilty plea deal to a single “information felony charge” for “aiding and abetting the failure to keep accurate corporate records.”
Arms Control Association: Putin’s Decision to Lower Threshold for Nuclear Use Is Irresponsible and Dangerous
“Because nuclear war would affect all people, Russia’s dangerous behavior demands a global response.”
Statement by Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association | November 19, 2024 armscontrol.org
(Washington, D.C.) — As foreshadowed by an earlier statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin issued a decree that revises Russian policies regarding the employment of nuclear weapons in war in a way that further blurs the threshold for Russian use of nuclear weapons and adds significant uncertainty to the already unsteady balance of nuclear terror between Russia and the United States and other members of the NATO alliance.
The new doctrine includes language that asserts that Russia “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons to respond to a conventional-weapons attack that creates a “critical threat” to its “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” whereas the previous doctrine, which was issued in 2020, only reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if an attack on Russia threatens “the very existence of the state.”
Santa Fe New Mexican: Santa Fe County commissioners grill federal official over LANL legacy cleanup
Santa Fe County commissioners on Tuesday pressed an official from the Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office on legacy waste cleanup, including the status of a toxic chromium plume under the area’s canyons.
By Santa Fe New Mexican | November 13, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
The U.S Energy Department office is in charge of the cleanup of the legacy contamination of radioactive and chemical materials and waste resulting from operations during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Jessica Kunkle, manager of the Los Alamos field office, briefed the commissioners in a presentation at the urging of Commissioner Anna Hansen.
At one point, Kunkle noted remediated land known as the “Middle DP Road Cleanup” site had been turned over to Los Alamos County for “continued economic development.” In January, the Department of Energy announced radiologically contaminated materials, including metal items, debris and glass, had been removed from the site, which is located in Los Alamos’ industrial district a little east of downtown.
‘Help us,’ UN nuclear watchdog chief tells Iran ahead of visit
– Grossi seeks more monitoring cooperation at nuclear sites
– Iran enriching uranium to 60%, close to bomb-grade
– IAEA board of governors to meet next week in Vienna
By Richard Valdmanis, Reuters | November 12, 2024 reuters.com
BAKU, Nov 12 (Reuters) – U.N. atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi appealed to Iran’s leadership on Tuesday to take steps to resolve longstanding issues with his agency a day before he arrives in the Iranian capital for crunch talks over its nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency head has for months sought progress with Iran on issues including a push for more monitoring cooperation at nuclear sites and an explanation of uranium traces found at undeclared sites.
But little has come from Grossi’s efforts and with the return of President-elect Donald Trump, who is widely expected to restore a maximum-pressure policy on Iran, Grossi’s trip on Wednesday should provide indications of how Iran wants to proceed in the coming months.
“I am far from being able to tell the international community … what is happening. I would be in a very difficult position. So it’s like they (Iran) have to help us, to help them to a certain extent,” Grossi told Reuters on the sidelines of the COP29 climate summit in Baku.
Y-12 uranium facility delayed to 2030s, costs rise to $10B for national security priority
“The cost estimate changed last year, when the National Nuclear Security Administration submitted a budget request to Congress that revised the cost to between $8.5 billion and $8.95 billion and the completion date to 2029. In the same request, the agency said it would spend more than $200 million on ‘reprogramming to prevent further delays.'”
By Daniel Dassow, Knoxville News Sentinel | November 12, 2024 knoxnews.com
Workers at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge will have to wait several more years before moving uranium processing out of a crumbling Manhattan Project building to a new facility that will not be operational until 2031.
The Uranium Processing Facility, one of the largest construction projects in Tennessee history, will cost around $10.3 billion, and construction will not be complete until 2027, project manager Brian Zieroth said at a Knoxville business and tech conference on Oct. 30.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy agency that owns Y-12, held for nearly a decade that the project would cost no more than $6.5 billion and would be finished by 2025.
DOE’s 2037 Deadlines for SRS: Realistic or Illusory?
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) has two major milestones to achieve by 2037. One is legally binding, the other is a commitment that remains negotiable.
By Don Moniak, The Aiken Chronicles | November 12, 2024 aikenchronicles.com
Surplus Weapons Plutonium
DOE is legally bound to removing 9.5 metric tons of surplus military plutonium to another state. While any state will do, the plan is to ship the plutonium in a diluted waste form to the underground transuranic waste dump in New Mexico known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
This commitment is enshrined in the $600 million Settlement Agreement between the State of South Carolina and the federal government; more commonly known as “The Plutonium Settlement.”
Any failure of DOE/SRS to remove all or part of the 9.5 metric tons* of surplus plutonium (Pu) metals and powders will trigger new financial penalties that could be worth billions of dollars to South Carolina. The potential penalties involve two formulas.
First, the percentage of the 9.5 tons remaining on January 1, 2037 will be multiplied by $1.5 billion. Thus, five tons remaning could yield the state $7.5 billion, if the agreement is enforced.
Second, $1 million per day, but only up to $100 million per year, will be awarded to the State for any plutonium not removed after January 1, 2037; and for each year thereafter.
However, the loophole is that the agreement cannot be enforced until 2042 if DOE/SRS has removed more than half, or 4.75 MT, of surplus Pu by 2037.
The surplus Pu is currently being converted to a more stable waste form via a process called “dilute and dispose.” Plans to increase production through the development of a second glovebox processing line remain as tentative as the funding that is required—in this case upwards of $880 million.
Why America Can’t Afford A New Nuclear Buildup In 2025
“The real test of Trump’s stance on all-things nuclear will be his approach to the Pentagon’s multi-year effort to build a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines, plus new warheads to go with them, a plan that some experts suggest could cost up to $2 trillion in the next three decades.
The nuclear plan has already been plagued by major cost overruns, including an 81% increase in the projected cost of the new intercontinental ballistic missile, dubbed the Sentinel, and developed and produced by Northrop Grumman. The cost overrun prompted a government review of the program, but the assessment ended up pronouncing that the program was too important to cancel.”
By William Hartung, Forbes | November 11, 2024 forbes.com
Donald Trump’s return to power raises serious questions about the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. His statements on nuclear weapons have been all over the map, but a 2017 review by Anthony Zurcher of The Guardian of Trump’s statements since the 980s concluded that “his thoughts on atomic weaponry reflect a certain strain of Cold War arms-race enthusiasm and diplomatic brinkmanship.” And in 2016, after he was challenged when he said ‘possibly, possibly” nuclear weapons could be used, Trump went on to say that if they weren’t to be used, “Then why are we making them?” On the flip side, he has also called nuclear war “the ultimate catastrophe.” It’s unclear what his administration’s nuclear policy will be in 2025.
As for his actions in office during his previous term, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which by all objective accounts had been working to stop Tehran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. And in 2019, the Trump administration withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces in Europe treaty (INF), which had banned ground-based ballistic missiles and cruise missiles in the range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
…
The review of the Sentinel was a missed opportunity. Former secretary of defense William Perry has called ICBMs “some of the most dangerous weapons we have,” because the president would have only a matter of minutes to decide whether to launch them on warning of attack, increasing the risk of a nuclear confrontation sparked by a false alarm.
Families living in shadow of Cold War facility blame government for their cancer, death
“Do you believe the Department of Energy; our own government is telling the truth?” asked Duane Pohlman.
“Nobody believes that. If you do, you’re a fool,” said Guy Reynolds.”
PIKETON, Ohio (WKRC) – In the communities surrounding the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS), a decommissioned Cold War-era facility near Piketon that enriched uranium for nuclear reactors and atomic weapons, cancer has become a devastating reality for many families, leaving a trail of grief and loss.
By Duane Pohlman WKRC | November 4 local12.com
THE FAMILIES AND FACES OF FALLOUT:
Guy Reynolds survived melanoma and is keenly aware of the tragic cancer landscape in the area he calls home.
“Seems like anybody who dies, they die from cancer,” Reynolds said.
Heather Blanton, a 42-year-old mother from Piketon who’s battling stage four metastatic breast cancer, explained that there’s no hope for her recovery.
“It’s terminal,” Heather said.
Joanne Ross of Piketon lost her 13-year-old son Aaron to kidney cancer in 1994 and still mourns his loss every day.
“I’ll always be his mother,” Ross said.
Shawna Houston, who now lives in Hillsboro, watched her 15-year-old son Garrett suffer and die from acute myeloid leukemia on March 4, 2016, 11 months after he was first diagnosed.
“It’s something I don’t wish on any parent,” said Houston.
Interfaith Panel Discussion on Nuclear Disarmament - August 9
New Nuclear Media
Tactical Nukes: One Little Nuclear Weapon Can Ruin Your Whole Day
Some people believe smaller nuclear weapons can be used to fight battles. But nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons, and contemplating their use on the battlefield opens the door for full-scale nuclear war.
