RANT: NUKES AND NUTTS PART ONE

 

  

NEXT WEEK MARKS the eightieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 respectively, the only time nuclear weapons were used in wartime. Today, our planet hosts nine nations who have nuclear weapons in their arsenals. Five of those nations (Britain, China, France, Russia, United States) are signatories to the 1970 NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), along with 191 non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS). The four nuclear weapon possessing states (NWS) that are NOT signatories to the Cold War treaty are: India, Pakistan, North Korea (it left the NPT in 2003 to develop nuclear weapons) and Israel (undeclared). South Sudan is a NNWS that has also NOT signed the treaty.

Under the NPT, only the above five NWS are allowed to possess nuclear weapons since their stockpiles accrued prior to 1970 when the terms of the NPT came into force; the rest must comply with treaty obligations and pledge they will only develop technologies and facilities dedicated to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, eschewing the acquisition of nuclear weapons.* Signatories also agree NOT to share nuclear weapons technology with other states, nor transfer nuclear weapons outside their territories. Signatories to the treaty that violate its terms are subject to sanctions and political pressure from the UNSC (United Nations Security Council). To tamp down the spread of nuclear weapons, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) provides a clearing house for technical information and support for countries that develop civilian nuclear programs. The NPT also requires that treaty members open their nuclear facilities to inspection by the IAEA to ensure no nuclear material is diverted toward weapons production.

 

[On June 12, 1982, the largest protest in American history converged in New York, as an estimated one million protestors marched from Central Park to the United Nations to demand an end to nuclear weapons.]  

 

IN GENERAL, this system has kept in check the “horizontal” spread of nuclear weapons by offering assistance through commercial and financial organizations, and through the IAEA’s nuclear technology training programs. However, the  “vertical” spread of the ‘Big Five’ NWS in creating large stockpiles of warheads and bombs, leaves the NPT open to charges of hypocrisy and unfair treatment, where the ‘Big Five’ have capitalized on their early adoption of nuclear weapons to ‘corner the market’ on nuclear weapons technology, with the IAEA there to ensure certain technologies in nuclear energy production are withheld from signatory nations that might lead them to, for example, enrich uranium to weapons-grade purity. India objected to the closed nuclear ‘club’ and went ahead with its own program in the mid-1970s. Pakistan followed India, developing its nuclear weapons, also outside the NPT. It should be noted that nuclear weapons states are required to adopt policies that would decrease their stockpiles over time. During the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, the USSR and American caches of nuclear weapons were in the tens of thousands. The early SALT1 and SALT2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) treaties and the more comprehensive START and NewSTART (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) between the United States and the USSR (later Russia) brought nuclear armories of both countries down to roughly 5,200 warheads apiece, either deployed, in storage, or in the process of decommissioning.

 

FUN FACT: The NewSTART treaty was renewed during the Obama presidency in 2010, but is set to expire next year, unless Trump and his band of sad-sack clowns are foolish enough NOT to negotiate with the Russians for an extension to NewSTART. Without this treaty, there could very well begin a new arms race, and China—not a signatory to the treaty—may grow its own inventory of nuclear weapons to add to the mix. This is a very disturbing scenario, and one would think there would be growing public concern. But it is not on most people's radar. "Meep-meep!"

 

IN THE POST-WWII YEARS, the ‘Big Five’ nations¹ (Britain, China, France, Russia, United States) had economies large enough to establish both civilian and military nuclear programs.² They had emerged victorious from the war and called the shots from their position on the UN Security Council. Between themselves they established nuclear protocols and agreements. Imperfect treaties though all these were, nevertheless, they acted as a brake on a runaway arms race and promoted saner nuclear weapons arrangements. But times have changed, nine nations have nuclear weapons now and more may follow. We face the possibility that loose cannons in one or more governments may open the proverbial barn door, and we may not be able to close it, this time.

 

I SAW BY OPEN WINDOW

I saw by open window.

I saw a sky so blue.

I saw there in the distance

The line the bomber drew.

I heard the earth still breathing.

And then I heard it sigh.

I heard its heart stop beating,

Beneath an azure sky.

 

  

Cheers, Jake.  ____________________________________

 

* INTERESTINGLY, South Africa is the only country to have developed an indigenous nuclear weapons program and then given it up in 1990 to join the NPT. In the 1980s, apartheid SA developed several nuclear bombs (probably with help from Israel) to ward off the USSR which supported liberation movements inside South Africa like the ANC (African National Congress). Today, both countries are partners and founding members of the BRICS coalition. [How times change! Ed.]

 

1. The ‘Big five’ nations also happen to be the five permanent members of the powerful United Nations Security Council. Go figure.

 

2. Eighty years on from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the ‘secrets’ of building nuclear bombs and reactors is pretty much an open secret. There are some tricks-of-the-trade around enrichment processes and configuring nuclear warheads onto missiles that will fly, and so on. But many nations that have mature nuclear programs, like Canada for instance, could enrich U-235 to weapons-grade Pu but choose not to because of cost (it’s expensive to build nuclear weapons that have only one use (hopefully!) and that’s to sit in their silos. Whereas nuclear power stations can contribute to the economy by providing cheap³ electricity to run industries, etc. There are also treaty obligations as in the NPT, for instance, which come with penalties should the terms of the treaty be breached, not to mention complaints and diplomatic rows from concerned neighbours.

WHEN you enter the ‘club’, the rules of the game change, your international relationships change, and not necessarily for the better. For example, Israel has nuclear weapons—an open secret—but hasn’t formally declared itself a NWS. If it did NOT have nukes, it would have had to behave like a normal and relatively sane country, knitting together relations with its neighbours and coming to workable solutions internally on how to govern itself. I see nuclear weapons as a distorting factor in Israeli society and politics. Thus, Israel becomes a threat to its neighbours and moves like a wrecking ball through international law. It gets away with too many things it wouldn’t be able to, under normal circumstances. And that’s not good for anyone, including Israel.

 

FUN FACT: Following the June bombings of its nuclear facilities, Iran, suspicious that the IAEA leaked information to the Israelis about their nuclear program and the names of some of their scientists,  ordered the agency to leave. However, it remains a member of the NPT. Should it be attacked again, it will probably withdraw from the treaty and secretly work on a Bomb. It may then declare itself a Nuclear Weapons State or it may keep its status a secret, like Israel. MIT professor Ted Postol says for all intents and purposes Iran is ALREADY a NWS and should be treated as such, like all NWS are treated—with kid gloves. What a bizarro world we have!

 

3. I’m not so sure how ‘cheap’ nuclear power is when you factor in the humongous construction and maintenance costs, not to mention disposal of the highly radioactive waste, something NO ONE has yet found an answer. (Ship it to Mars, perhaps? Elon, what say ye?) There are approximately 440 reactors in 31 countries operating today. 

 

 

RANT: BULLS EYE!

  

 

FUN FACT: Professor Nick Maynard, a gastrointestinal surgeon from Oxford, England, who volunteered recently at Nassar Medical Centre in Khan Younis in southern Gaza reports: “The medical teams here have also been seeing a clear pattern of people being shot in certain body parts on different days, such as the head, legs or genitals, which seems to indicate deliberate targeting”. Since March, when Israel broke the fragile ceasefire, on average, over one-hundred Palestinians are killed by IDF shells and gunfire every day. Nearly one-thousand Palestinians have been killed seeking food aid at the Gazan Humanitarian Foundations’ (GHF) four feeding stations since late May when the organization began its operation, replacing UNRWA (United Nations Refugee and Works Agency), after Israel claimed the UN agency was infiltrated by Hamas militants. Since October 7/23, seventy-one children have died from starvation. 

  

“The [United Nations] Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reported in June that the entire population is facing acute food shortages with more than one million people at risk of starvation. Children are dying from malnutrition and dehydration.” (Al Jazeera)

 

👉Congratulations, GHF! You’re lousy at feeding people and you're saving the IDF bullets. A win-win, wouldn’t you say?

In addition, over 5,500 Gazans have been wounded seeking food at the militarized aid stations. One commentator suggests the high number of casualties is a deliberate ploy by the IDF to overwhelm the already crippled Gazan health services with large numbers of casualties. Or they could just be doing some target practice. Hey. It’s war. Deal.

 

Cheers, Jake.

 

 

 

NoW UPDATES: DRONES, DRONES, AND MORE DRONES!

   

Quad-copters loaded in trailer with retractable roof *

Well, well! Those Ukrainians sure have been busy these last few days, haven’t they? They carried out drone strikes attacking five airbases in Russia, a couple of them several thousand kilometres from the front lines, as well as downing two bridges, one with a passenger train crushed by the falling debris. There was also a report that the Kerch Bridge connecting the Russian mainland with Crimea was attacked, though with only minor damage to a pylon.⁺  The operations were dramatic and audacious, and a big PR win for the NATO-backed Kiev regime. All told, “Operation Spiderweb” took about 1½ years to bring to fruition. It was a devilishly clever ploy, using trailer trucks parked near the airbases which contained “first-person view” (FPV) quadcopter “kamikaze” drones. They were launched and controlled remotely, with the roofs of the trailers automatically opening to allow dozens of drones to fly to their targets. Approximately 117 drones attacked the five air bases, three of which were successfully defended, two report damages to some long-range bombers. Naturally, there are discrepancies in the assessments of how much damage was done at each airfield, with the Ukraine side claiming as many as forty planes destroyed and the Russians saying there were six or seven.

THERE IS drone footage of the attacks at one airfield showing several planes catching fire. The bombers were lined up on the tarmac with spare tires laid along their wings and fuselage to disguise the planes’ profiles and confuse AI identification of the bombers as targets. In this case, drones were controlled by individual operators inside Ukraine who are thought to have ‘piggybacked’ on local Russian mobile networks to control their drones. In one instance, we see Russian civilians unsuccessfully trying to stop the quadcopters as they launch from a parked trailer using bricks and small-arms fire. Another trailer caught fire, exploding and killing its driver. So, there was a lot of Sturm und Drang over last weekend but nothing that will change the battlefield situation. Russia seems poised to make a major to push to the Dnieper River.¹ Then what? Advancing on Odessa? Or perhaps Kiev? Who knows?

 

    Drone footage from last weekend's attacks inside Russia

👉Question: Why were the bombers—Russian Tu-95s and Tu-22Ms, among others—parked on the runway tarmac, exposed and vulnerable to attack from drones or missiles? It seems such a silly thing for the Russians to do. After all, these long-range strategic bombers are part of the Russian Federation's “nuclear triad”, along with land-based ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), and sea-based surface and submarine SLBMs² forming the second and third pillars respectively of Russia’s nuclear deterrence system. Both the United States and Russia have around eighty to one-hundred-and-twenty bombers capable of carrying nuclear payloads (gravity/glide bombs and cruise missiles). Like the Russians, the U.S. also has its heavy bombers parked on runway tarmacs in the continental U.S. They are equally vulnerable to similar attacks. Why is this? It’s because of the "New Start" treaty between Russia and the United States limiting the number of warheads each country may possess, along with their “delivery systems”, i.e., silos, ships and submarines, and heavy bombers (Land, Sea, and Air). With respect to the strategic bomber fleets, they are visible on the tarmacs of both country’s airfields so that their numbers can be counted and verified, using satellite imagery, and stay in compliance with arms control treaty obligations.

 

HERE'S THE RUB: Last weekend’s attacks on Russian airfields hosting nuclear-capable heavy bombers are a threat to Russia’s national security. Imagine the uproar if such a thing were to happen to America’s strategic bomber fleet! Weakening one ‘leg’ of its nuclear triad, by definition, leaves Russia more vulnerable to a “first strike” (nuclear) attack. So, to say the drone attacks by the Zelensky regime were reckless is an understatement in the extreme! No doubt, by attacking Russia’s treaty-compliant strategic bomber fleet, Ukraine is hoping to provoke an over-the-top response from Russia that would convince NATO and Washington that Ukraine must be supported at all costs. On Tuesday, President Putin gave a speech addressing the Ukrainian actions and watching his body language it’s obvious he is angry. Very angry.

Did Trump or the Americans know about the scheme? Who-knew-what-and-when-did-they-know-it is the perennial power-politics board game played in nation capitals around the globe. So far, Trump has said he had no knowledge of the attacks. This plot was hatched a year and a half ago during the Biden administration and may be the horrid love child of the Blinken-Sullivan duo.³ Who knows for sure? Some commentators suggest, along with Ukrainian operators, Britain’s MI6  and the CIA had their hands in constructing this dangerous deal. Targeting Russia’s nuclear deterrence system is about the most provocative action  Ukraine could take short of trying to assassinate President Putin.

Oh, wait. I forgot. They did try to kill Putin. On a visit to Russia’s Kursk Oblast last month, the site of Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory that began in August of last year,⁴ the Russian president's helicopter was attacked by a swarm of Ukrainian drones. The drones were repelled, but if the helicopter had been shot down and President Putin killed, Kiev stood a good chance of being turned into an ashtray.

Recall what happened last year when Ukraine launched drones deep into Russian territory, attacking an Early Warning Radar site. That bright idea resulted in changes to Russian nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for when a nuclear weapons can be used by Russia. It was as clear a signal of FAFO as you can get. What Russia’s response will be for this recent drone attack on Russian strategic bomber fleet is unclear at this time. But it could be significant.

 

p.s., The peace talks held in Ankara, Turkey seem to be at a dead end, with Zelensky’s drone stunt the day before the talks were to resume putting the kibosh to the deal. It was a short meeting, IIUC, with both sides presenting their formal proposals which are MILES apart, though there may be a deal around a POW exchange and roaming ceasefires so each side can reclaim their dead. But we’ll see. [Thus far, prisoner exchanges and repatriation of the remains of fallen soldiers are on hold, even though Ukraine agreed to the deal last week during the second round of talks held between the two combatants. Ed.]  

Incidentally, Trump has been relatively quiet (for him) with respect to the drone attack on Russian bridges and airfields. Trump said his call with President Putin was a "good one". Keep in mind that that's not how he usually characterizes things ("fabulous", "wonderful") which suggests the call may have been a frosty one where Putin read him the riot act! The jury’s still out as to whether Trump knew about Zelensky's dangerous venture. If he was kept in the dark, that means he’s not in control of his own administration. Which is worrying enough. But, if he did know, he’s destroyed the last shred of credibility he had with the Russians who will, going forward, take matters into their own hands. Instead of fruitless negotiations with untrustworthy interlocutors, Putin will see things decided on the battlefield.⁵ High-five guys!😯

 

CHEERS, JAKE. ____________________________________

 

* Note that the pic is brought to you by Ukraine's SBU ("Security Service of Ukraine"), as they crow about the 'success' of the drone mission into Russia. Putin has stated there will be a demonstrable response coming, so their victory may well prove a pyrrhic one. Stay tuned.   

⁺ While the airfield attacks can be considered legitimate targets in wartime, the attacks on the bridges (using planted explosives, remotely detonated, one as a train was passing underneath) can only be classified as war crimes because civilians were deliberately targeted. There were several deaths and dozens injured in the bridge bombings; no injuries were reported in the airfield attacks.

 

1. From a Russian military perspective, it makes sense moving to the river which acts as a natural barrier and is more easily defended. But, to continue west beyond the Dnieper would be entering territory that is predominately Ukrainian. It’s a safe bet that Russia wants no part in garrisoning and ruling there, given the level of hostility that would engender in the indigenous Ukrainian population. 

👉But, moving on Odessa and linking up with the Russian enclave of Transnistria in neighbouring Moldova, even taking Kiev and ending the Zelensky regime, are very real possibilities.

 

2. “Submarine/Sea Launched Ballistic Missiles”

 

3. Anthony Blinken, former Sec of State; Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor during the Biden administration.💩💩

 

4. And wound down by April of this year, with Russia expelling/destroying the last remnants of the invading Ukrainian army. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were killed or wounded in Zelensky's vainglorious attempt to "bring the war to Putin".    

 

5. If Trump had said from the get-go, when he took office in January, that he was turning off the spigot—no more money or arms for Ukraine; that the U.S. is pulling up stakes and moving on, and if he had told Zelensky to sue for peace and the Europeans to toe the line, the war might be over by now. But he didn’t. And now the albatross called Ukraine hangs heavy around his neck. It’s no longer “Biden’s War”. It's his, now.  

 

    Musk's "Starship" at testing grounds in Texas

FUN FACT: “New Start”, the only remaining nuclear arms limitation treaty between Russia and the United States, is set to expire in 2026. There’s been no indication from Washington that it’s interested in renewing the treaty that put a cap on the number of warheads and delivery systems each country may possess. A new arms race may be in the offing. What the fuck are we doing, people?!

[It’s time to book passage on Mr. Musk’s "Starship" to Mars. Where do I sign up! Ed.]