The Reagan Vision

The secret laser-toting Soviet satellite that almost was

bobcatou — Thu, 16 May 2013 09:49:48 +0000

On the evening of Wednesday, March 23, 1983, Ronald Reagan delivered a televised address about defense and national security. “Let me share with you a vision of the future,” the president began in what was a last-minute addition to the half-hour speech. In Reagan’s vision, we would “embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive.” It was the first mention of Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the plan to change America’s nuclear posture from offensive to defensive. His goal was to render the Soviet nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” – More

Missile defense turns 30 By C. Dean McGrath Jr

bobcatou — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:37:28 +0000

North Korea is preparing to test a long-range missile, and the Defense Department believes that the nation may soon be capable of building a nuclear-armed missile.

Meanwhile, Iran remains a serious threat — the nation already has missile capability, it’s working to develop inter-continental missiles (ICBMs) and it’s committed to developing nuclear weapons.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/299811-missile-defense-turns-30

Kazakhstan’s Painful Nuclear Past Looms Large Over Its Energy Future

bobcatou — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:12:43 +0000

As international attention continues to focus on the nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran, a less-discussed Asian country has quietly emerged as a leader in responsible nuclear development: Kazakhstan. In addition to its much-praised stint hosting last month’s international talks on the Iranian nuclear program, Kazakhstan is now in talks with the – More

U.S. Nuclear Warheads Set to Get a Facelift

bobcatou — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:17:01 +0000

When he took office in 2009, US President Barack Obama bolstered efforts to secure nuclear materials around the globe. That spring, speaking in Prague, he said that he would push Congress to ratify a long-pending treaty to ban nuclear testing. By 2010, he had reached an agreement with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in both countries’ arsenals to historic lows. – More

Abolish nuclear weapons before it’s too late By Robert E. Frye

bobcatou — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:57:08 +0000

How often do we hear “well that can’t happen here.” Whether it is a small event of violence or one that captures the attention of the entire world. As this is being written, the world’s attention is focused on Boston where on Monday, April 15, two men carried out a heinous attack on runners and spectators at the finish line of the Boston Marathon — changing a moment of victory into one of horror and mayhem, changing more than 260 lives, and snuffing out the lives of three individuals including an 8-year-old boy. The brief 21st century has seen these moments too many times. – More

Nuclear arms card for Japan

bobcatou — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:39:38 +0000

The United States is still haunted by a nightmare of 2006, says an insider of the Defense Ministry. But the “nightmare” he refers to is not the first nuclear test by North Korea in October that year, but rather an internal report compiled by the Japanese government a month earlier on “the possibility of domestically producing nuclear weapons.” North Korea carried out its third nuclear test on Feb. 12, 2013. - More

North Korea: Radioactive gases ‘consistent with’ nuclear test detected

bobcatou — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:34:33 +0000

A nuclear monitoring station in Japan has recorded what could be the first radioactive noble gases from February’s nuclear test in North Korea.

The station in Takasaki, about 1,000km from North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, is operated by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which made the announcement yesterday.

Radioactive isotopes of the noble gas xenon – xenon-131m and xenon-133 – were detected, something the organisation called “rather unusual.”

- More

Destroying Nuclear Weapons Takes A Little Moxie

bobcatou — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:02:28 +0000

There was a reason that potential Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’ confirmation hearings ended in just a single vote against. Besides indicating Moniz is eminently qualified, that dissenting vote came from Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and it had to do with nuclear weapons and something called Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX). MOX is a blend of uranium and plutonium (U and Pu) into a new fuel that can be burned in nuclear power reactors but is unsuitable to make nuclear weapons.

From Non-Proliferation To A Total Ban On Nukes – OpEd By Tim Wright

bobcatou — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:20:12 +0000

At the beginning of March, the Norwegian government hosted a landmark conference in Oslo on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and the inability of relief agencies to respond effectively in the event of a nuclear attack. More than 120 governments, the Red Cross and several UN agencies participated. Their message came through loud and clear: the only way to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again is to outlaw and eliminate them without further delay. – More

NNSA Nuclear Weapons Budget Ignores Fiscal Realities; Congress Should Re-Examine B61 Project By By Daryl G. Kimball and Tom Z. Collina

bobcatou — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:09:58 +0000

The Barack Obama administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget request proposes spending $7.87 billion for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Weapons Activities, which would be an increase of $654 million, or nine percent above the 2012 enacted level, and $300 million more than the Continuing Resolution for fiscal year 2013. – More