Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8664
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by wjfox »

Putin is inching towards his nukes, threatening to annihilate the world if he fails to capture Ukraine, says foreign affairs expert

Sun, May 1, 2022, 4:20 PM

The subject of nuclear weapons is being pushed into the foreground by Russian media and officials.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that the risk of a global nuclear war is very real. This ominous warning came not from some deranged psychopath – like the ones who regularly demand Kyiv to be nuked on Russian state TV. These were the words of the top diplomat of the Russian Federation.

In diplomatic parlance, Lavrov essentially admitted that their vaunted offensive in Donbas is stalling, the war is lost, and Russia has nothing to counter Western weapons pouring in Ukraine. Politically and militarily, Russia is backed into a corner.

Since Putin can’t accept defeat, the Kremlin is indicating that nuclear weapons are on the table as its last resort in this war.

This is nothing less than a threat to unleash an atomic war on the world. Even if Lavrov personally may not be eager to bring the end of days – being but a minister of the Russian state – his overlord is perfectly capable of and ready for the apocalypse. Lavrov merely broadcasts his master’s will.

https://news.yahoo.com/putin-inching-to ... 00734.html
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8664
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by wjfox »

Russia – clearly a totally normal country, with mature and level-headed leaders who use diplomatic language; can be reasoned with, and trusted.

Not in the least bit evil, deranged, or psychopathic.

-----

Russian TV warns Britain will be ‘drowned in radioactive tsunami’ missile strike

Monday 2 May 2022 10:57 am

Britain will be ‘plunged into the sea’ if Russia were to launch a nuclear attack, Kremlin propaganda has warned.

In what would have been unthinkable just three months ago, Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened the West with nuclear war.

Most recently, Russian state TV broadcast a bizarre video threatening to attack Britain with a hypersonic missile, known as Satan-2, and an ‘underwater robot drone’, known as Poseidon.

Dmitry Kiselyov, dubbed Putin’s propagandist-in-chief, said: ‘What will happen after Boris Johnson’s words about a retaliatory strike on Russia?

‘Why do they threaten vast Russia with nuclear weapons while they are only a small island? The island is so small that one Sarmat missile is enough to drown it once and for all. Russian missile Sarmat [aka Satan-2], the world most powerful…is capable of … destroying an area the size of Texas or England. A single launch, Boris, and there is no England anymore. Once and for all. Why do they play games?’

https://metro.co.uk/2022/05/02/russian- ... -16569402/


Image
User avatar
raklian
Posts: 1746
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:46 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by raklian »

@ Certain Russian User - you seriously need to consider pushing for Navalny to be freed from prison and vote for him. Your country has lost its mind. :?
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8664
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by wjfox »

User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Potential U.S. Responses to the Russian Use of Non-strategic Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine
by Jeffrey Edmonds
May 16, 2022

Introduction:
(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) When the rhetoric from the Russian political and military leadership turns to the possibility of a war pitting the United States and its NATO allies against Russia, the mention of nuclear weapons is usually close behind. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently raised the nuclear specter over the Ukraine war, insisting that NATO is engaging in a proxy war with Russia. While insisting that Russia seeks to avoid nuclear war at all costs, he warned that the “danger is serious, real, and we must not underestimate it.”

This is double talk typical of Lavrov; through it, he attempts to paint Russia as a responsible actor, even though Russia is the only actor in this war that would consider using nuclear weapons. The Russian leadership has also used nuclear threats to signal its displeasure with the expansion of NATO, suggesting it will deploy nuclear-capable missiles near Finland and Sweden if they join the alliance.

Many of these nuclear threats are signals, meant to politically coerce. But what if Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine to change the apparent negative direction of the Russian invasion there? Four response options seem at least plausible: the West could use a nuclear weapon or weapons against Russian forces, in or outside Ukraine; it could conduct a conventional military attack on Russian forces, in or outside Ukraine; it could continue its current policy of supplying Ukraine with weapons while avoiding direct conflict with the Russian military; or it could press Ukraine to settle the conflict, on terms that give Russia a face-saving out.
Read here for further discussion: https://thebulletin.org/2022/05/potenti ... st-heading
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

'Worrying Trend': Global Nuclear Stockpile Set to Grow for First Time Since Cold War
by Kenny Stancil
June 13, 2022

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) The world's stockpile of nuclear warheads is expected to expand in the coming years for the first time since the 1980s and the catastrophic threat of those weapons being used is escalating, a leading arms watchdog said Monday.

"If the nuclear-armed states take no immediate and concrete action on disarmament, then the global inventory of nuclear warheads could soon begin to increase for the first time since the Cold War," Matt Korda, an associate researcher with the Weapons of Mass Destruction Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said in a statement released alongside SIPRI's annual report.

As of early 2022, nine countries—Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea—possessed a combined total of 12,705 nuclear warheads, SIPRI estimates. Together, Russia and the U.S. control more than 90% of this global inventory.
Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... -cold-war
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Amid 'Heightened' Fears of Nuclear War, Dem Lawmakers Urge US to Join Arms Summit
by Brett Wilkins
June 17, 2022

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Amid the looming threat of nuclear escalation in Ukraine, a group of U.S. congressional Democrats on Friday urged the Biden administration to send delegates to a key upcoming nuclear disarmament summit in Austria.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)—the four co-chairs of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group—urged the State Department to send senior officials to participate in the 2022 Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Conference, which is set to begin in Vienna next week.

The lawmakers note that the conference will take place in the shadow of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, "which has heightened concerns about the use of nuclear weapons in conflict."

"Active U.S. participation in the conference will provide an important platform to discuss the current unsettling state of nuclear affairs in the world and demonstrate U.S. leadership in managing the nuclear threat," the authors argue.

They add that nuclear "saber-rattling" by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government and Russia's "vast arsenal of tactical or 'battlefield' nuclear weapons" is a "frightening reminder that the conventional war in Ukraine could turn nuclear—whether intentionally, by miscalculation, or even by accident."

Nearly 70% of respondents to a March survey conducted for the American Psychological Association said they feared Russia's war in Ukraine will escalate to include use of nuclear weapons.
Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... ms-summit
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

Russia-Belarus Nuclear Sharing Would Mirror NATO’s—and Worsen Europe’s Security
by Nikolai N. Sokov,
July 1, 2022

Introduction:
(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) At their meeting on June 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, discussed the deployment of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus—a new and potentially dangerous development in the ever-worsening security situation in Europe. The issue was raised by Lukashenko but the decision was announced by Putin. It had two elements: Belarusian Su-25 attack aircraft will be equipped to carry nuclear weapons, and conversion of the planes and training of pilots will be implemented in Russia. Nothing was said about the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus, but this can be presumed; otherwise, there would be no reason to create a dual-capable aircraft capability, although the transfer of weapons might require a separate decision. Second, Iskander missiles—a dual-capable, short-range (500 kilometers or 310 miles) missile system—will be deployed in Belarus in both its ballistic and cruise-missile versions.

The next day the Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov clarified that the deployment will not necessarily involve the transfer of nuclear warheads and that the systems discussed by Putin were “technically capable” of carrying nuclear weapons.

A NATO official told the Bulletin that planned deployment was not “a strategic game-changer from a regional deterrence perspective,” indicating that the enhancement of the Russian conventional capability was more consequential for NATO than the nuclear implications.

Unsurprisingly, Russia’s justified the nuclear-sharing decision by citing the growing threat of NATO. It is noteworthy, though, that Putin used highly inflated and outdated estimates of NATO nuclear capability—200 nuclear bombs in six countries and 257 aircraft to carry them. The director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, Hans Kristensen, corrected Putin on Twitter, noting that NATO currently has about 100 bombs deployed in five countries and probably about 100 dual-capable aircraft. The numbers matter little in this case, but they do illustrate Moscow’s willingness to distort reality to justify its policy decision.
Read more here: https://thebulletin.org/2022/07/russia ... t-heading
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

How Disagreements Over Russia’s Nuclear Threats Could Derail the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
by Jamie Kwong
July 1, 2022

Introduction:
(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) Members of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), also known as the ban treaty, met June 21-23 in Vienna for the treaty’s first meeting of states parties. As the first formal gathering since the treaty entered into force in 2021, the meeting set the course for implementing the treaty’s bans on nuclear weapons and related activities and its positive obligations on victim assistance and environmental remediation. The meeting also shed light on what to expect at the second, highly anticipated nuclear meeting of the summer: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

For context, the ban treaty is intimately linked to the NPT—although supporters and opponents of the TPNW disagree on exactly how. Critics of the ban treaty—which include nuclear-armed states recognized by the NPT and their allies—contend that the treaty is an unrealistic approach to disarmament that threatens to disrupt the NPT, the cornerstone of the global disarmament and nonproliferation regime. Members of the ban treaty instead argue that the treaty complements the NPT and provides practical mechanisms for implementing the NPT’s commitment to disarmament—and reaffirmed as much in Vienna.

Perhaps their surest link, both treaties have designated Summer 2022 as an auspicious meeting time. NPT members will gather in New York City in August for the treaty’s 10th Review Conference to identify and address challenges facing the treaty and its larger regime.

Last week’s ban treaty meeting provides useful insight into what issues might be most pressing—and simultaneously presents its own challenges. NPT members can anticipate contention around Russia’s war on Ukraine, disagreement on how to address the Vienna meeting in New York, and continued divides over the NPT’s disarmament remit.
Read more here: https://thebulletin.org/2022/07/how-di ... t-heading
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6474
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Nuclear Weapons Watch Thread

Post by caltrek »

How Nuclear War Would Affect Earth Today
July 7, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the threat of nuclear warfare to the forefront. But how would modern nuclear detonations impact the world today? A new study published today provides stark information on the global impact of nuclear war.

The study’s lead author LSU Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences Assistant Professor Cheryl Harrison and coauthors ran multiple computer simulations to study the impacts of regional and larger scale nuclear warfare on the Earth’s systems given today’s nuclear warfare capabilities. Nine nations currently control more than 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

In all of the researchers’ simulated scenarios, nuclear firestorms would release soot and smoke into the upper atmosphere that would block out the Sun resulting in crop failure around the world. In the first month following nuclear detonation, average global temperatures would plunge by about 13 degrees Fahrenheit, a larger temperature change than in the last Ice Age.

“It doesn’t matter who is bombing whom. It can be India and Pakistan or NATO and Russia. Once the smoke is released into the upper atmosphere, it spreads globally and affects everyone,” said Harrison, who has a joint appointment at the LSU Center for Computation & Technology.

Ocean temperatures would drop quickly and would not return to their pre-war state even after the smoke clears. As the planet gets colder, sea ice expands by more than 6 million square miles and 6 feet deep in some basins blocking major ports including Beijing’s Port of Tianjin, Copenhagen and St. Petersburg. The sea ice would spread into normally ice-free coastal regions blocking shipping across the Northern Hemisphere making it difficult to get food and supplies into some cities such as Shanghai, where ships are not prepared to face sea ice.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/958087

From the study:
(AGU Advances) In all scenarios, the ocean cools rapidly but does not return to the pre-war state when the smoke clears. Instead, the ocean takes many decades to return to normal, and some parts of the ocean would likely stay in the new state for hundreds of years or longer. When the cooling event ends, Arctic sea ice is left in a new state, a sort of “Nuclear Little Ice Age.” Marine ecosystems would be highly disrupted by both the initial perturbation and the resulting new ocean state, resulting in impacts to ecosystem services worldwide, lasting for decades. This study underscores the danger of nuclear war and the long-term impacts to humans and our environment.
Read more here: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.co ... 1AV000610
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
Post Reply