Yet Another Nuke Competition

Our Beloved Supreme Leader has just created another nuke problem for the world……he is just making matters worse in the Middle East…this helps no one that wants a peaceful region.

IST reported a year ago that the Saudis were massaging the Trump ego to get their hands on nuke technology…….https://lobotero.com/2018/02/27/nukes-in-the-middle-east/

Now the efforts of MbS has born fruit….his playing the president and his entourage will give them the tech they need to start a new nuke competition……

The U.S. Department of Energy has approved six authorizations for U.S. companies seeking to conduct nuclear related work in Saudi Arabia, according to two sources with knowledge of those approvals.

Federal law stipulates that companies obtain clearance from the U.S. government for exporting nuclear technology to or engaging in the production or development of special nuclear material in Saudi Arabia.

The authorizations—known as Part 810s, referring to a clause in federal regulations —allow U.S. companies to divulge specific details about plans for working in Saudi Arabia and certain information about the nuclear technology. For example, a company would need a Part 810 to transfer physical documents, electronic media, or the “transfer of knowledge and expertise” to Saudi Arabia, according to the Department of Energy.

It’s been unclear to what extent the U.S. government, and U.S. companies, have communicated with Riyadh about nuclear energy, especially in the wake of the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and amid claims by Democrats on the Hill that individuals in the national security community attempted to discuss a nuclear deal with Riyadh without going through the proper regulatory approval process.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-companies-granted-authorizations-for-nuclear-work-in-saudi

Iran has been standing with the deal that they inked with Obama even though the idiot in the White House has null and voided it……but now with the tension between Iran and Saudi a new competition will erupt that we will be the cause of and any outcome will be on our head.

Saudi’s Nuclear Dream

While you had your attention diverted to a non-story that the investigation may be over soon……a major story was coming to light about the Saudis and their desire for nukes…….and the Trump admin was happy to do their part to help…..

Senior White House officials pushed a project to share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia despite the objections of ethics and national security officials, according to a new congressional report citing whistleblowers within the administration. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns that Saudi Arabia could develop nuclear weapons if the US technology were transferred without proper safeguards, per the AP. The Democratic-led House oversight committee opened an investigation Tuesday into the claims by several unnamed whistleblowers who said they witnessed “abnormal acts” in the White House regarding the proposal to build dozens of nuclear reactors across the Middle Eastern kingdom. According to the report, the effort was pushed by former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired in early 2017.

Derek Harvey, a National Security Council official brought in by Flynn, continued work on the proposal, which has remained under consideration by the Trump administration. (The Washington Post reports that it was discussed as recently as last week.) The committee’s report details how NSC and ethics officials repeatedly warned that the actions of Flynn and one of his senior aides could run afoul of federal conflicts of interest law and statutes governing the transfer of nuclear technology to foreign powers. Congressional investigators are also probing the role of Tom Barrack, a proponent of the nuclear proposal who ran Trump’s presidential inaugural committee. The nuclear proposal—known as the “Marshall Plan for the Middle East—was advocated by a company called IP3 International, which is led by retired military officers and national security officials

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/02/20/democrats-probing-if-kushner-sold-out-the-u-s-in-saudi-nuclear-deal.html/

Wait! Iran is trying to develop nuke weapons but the Saudis will play nice and use it for peaceful purposes…..a country that fears Iranian expansion….and we will trust them……are we that damn STUPID?

So, what is the rush for the Saudis?

The administration of President Donald Trump is bypassing the United States Congress to advance the sale of US nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns it would violate US law guarding against technology transfers, according to a new report by a congressional committee.

Security analysts worry the technology would allow Saudi Arabia to produce nuclear weapons in the future, potentially contributing to an arms race in the Middle East.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/report-trump-rushing-sell-saudi-arabia-nuclear-technology-190219181918317.html

Something to think about……

“Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

—Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/20/when-saudi-arabia-gets-the-bomb/

Does anybody else see the problem here?

Another developing situation in the Middle East that could turn dangerous at the drop of a hat…..and as usual the US will be ass deep in the troubles all in the name of “helping” an ally…..

The most dangerous foreign policy decision of the Trump administration—and I know this is saying a lot—is its decision to share sensitive nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia and authorize U.S. companies to build nuclear reactors in that country. I spent seven years in the Middle East. I covered the despotic, repressive kingdom as the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. And I, along with most other Arabists in the United States, have little doubt that giving a nuclear capability to Saudi Arabia under the leadership of the ruthless and amoral Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would see it embark on a nuclear weapons program and eventually share weaponized technology with Saudi allies and proxies that include an array of radical jihadists and mortal enemies of America. A nuclearized Saudi Arabia is a grave existential threat to the Middle East and ultimately the United States.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/giving-the-bomb-to-saudi-arabias-dr-strangelove/

But wait!

The Saudis are playing loose with their ambitions….recently MbS went to Pakistan to improve relations (or so the story went)….but since Pakistan has nukes could he be working on a deal in case the US one falls through?

Visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has expressed optimism about the economic future of Pakistan, saying his country had been waiting for a leadership like that of Prime Minister Imran Khan to partner with Islamabad in various areas.

Addressing a reception dinner on Sunday night at the Prime Minister House hours after he landed in Pakistan, the Crown Prince said Pakistan was a “dear country” to all Saudis and that the two countries “have walked together in tough and good times”, Dawn news reported.

“We believe that Pakistan is going to be a very, very important country in the coming future and we want to be sure we are part of that. Pakistan today has a great future in store with a great leadership,” he said.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/pakistan-will-be-very-very-important-country-in-future-saudi-crown-prince-mohammad-bin-salman-1995098

Important indeed!

Denuclearization–Here And Now

Back in June Our Dear Leader met with Kim of North Korea and after a couple of hours we were told of the deal and desire to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

But first let’s tell everyone what the Hell the term means and to make it easier we have a short vid that will fill in the gaps……

The problem is that the two major parties may be using two different definitions to the term…..

With each passing day, the impending Trump-Kim summit takes another dip toward disaster.

In just a month or so, President Donald Trump will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, an unprecedented event of great risk and opportunity. Yet Trump, who leapt at the offer of a meeting with unstudied speed and enthusiasm, shows no signs of deciding what he wants from these talks—and seems unaware of what Kim’s quite clear objectives are.

As has been clear from the moment the subject came up, one obstacle to a successful summit is that both leaders are going into it with conflicting premises. Kim thinks Trump is caving to the reality of a North Korean nuclear arsenal; Trump thinks Kim is caving to the pressure of U.S. sanctions and threats. Both are probably right to some degree, but it’s hard to see how the talks can produce a lasting peace if each man thinks that he has the upper hand at the outset and that, therefore, any deal must be struck on his terms.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/trump-and-north-korea-are-using-different-definitions-of-denuclearization.html

It seems that the denucleariztion is not as important as it was in a speech given by Trump in June of this year.

In the latest twist in Donald Trump’s shifting strategy on North Korea, the U.S. president on Wednesday backed off a set timetable for Pyongyang to denuclearize, ahead of a planned visit next month to the North Korean capital by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“I think we’re really going to do something that’s going to be very important, but we’re not playing the time game” with North Korea, Trump said during a televised news conference in New York. “If it takes two years, three years or five months — doesn’t matter.”

Trump’s comments marked a stark contrast with a claim a week ago by Pompeo, who said that negotiations would lead to the “rapid denuclearization of North Korea, to be completed by January 2021,” before the end of Trump’s first term.

The administration had earlier given the North a one-year deadline to relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/09/27/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/trump-backs-off-timetable-north-korean-denuclearization-top-u-s-diplomat-announces-trip-pyongyang-next-month/#.W60GSPm1uM8

I have been watching this for awhile and do not see any progress….of course I am not privy to the totality of the negotiations….but as far as I can see it is not going as planned.

Does anyone really think Kim will go it alone?

Speaking at the UN on Saturday, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho warns that North Korea has taken significant goodwill measures toward disarmament in the past year, but does not see any corresponding moves by the US. That’s fueling mistrust.

That’s a problem, and Ri warns that there is no way North Korea is going to go through the entire disarmament process unilaterally without any trust in reciprocation. In particular, he warned there was concern about the US resistance to a phased process.

The US is not only resisting any efforts to offer any reciprocal goodwill efforts, and publicly saying they’ll do nothing until North Korea totally completes denuclearization. They are also pushing for increasing sanctions against North Korea, while other nations seek UN sanctions relief.

US officials argue that the sanctions are what got the process going in the first place, and more sanctions mean more progress. North Korean officials, however, are increasingly seeing this as not a give-and-take diplomatic effort, but just the US issuing increasing demands and giving nothing in return.

(antiwar.com)

Over the months the two, Kim and Trump, have fallen in love. (Trump’s words not mine)

Those Nuclear Constraints

Since we elected Our Dear Leader last November there has been a wealth of nuclear related crises for the White House to contend with….most of which the are problems of their own making…..Iran comes to mind and then there is North Korea and the “summit” and the nuke negotiations that are trying to take place….

Let’s step into the “Way Back Machine” to the glory days of the Cold War…..nukes were on everyone’s lips…..and the US having been the ONLY nation to ever use nukes had a plan…..

Recently declassified documents shed light on a U.S. nuclear war plan developed in 1964 by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff to bomb Russia – then the Soviet Union – and China with nuclear weapons so extensively that it would destroy them “as viable societies.” The war plan itself, known as Single Integrated Operational Plan 64 (SIOP-64), has not been declassified, as no SIOP has ever been released to the public by the United States government.

However, newly declassified documents that record the Pentagon Joint Staff’s review of SIOP-64 were recently made available through George Washington University’s National Security Archive project. The documents reveal numerous details about the still-classified plan that shine light on the Pentagon’s willingness to wage nothing short of total war against its adversaries at the time.

In particular, the documents show that the plan sought to accomplish the destruction of Russian and Chinese society by targeting and eliminating their industrial potential while also wiping out the majority of their urban populations. Still more troubling, urban civilians were proposed to be the main target and measure of the U.S. nuclear war plan as the Joint Staff sought to use “population loss as the primary yardstick for effectiveness in destroying the enemy society, with only collateral attention to industrial damage.”

https://theantimedia.com/pentagon-plan-drop-nuclear-bombs-ussr-china/

Yes that is right….there was an actual plan to bomb the Soviet Union and China into the Stone Age.

Let’s look at nuclear constraints…….

The United States Army and the Russian Army view each other as potential future adversaries. General Mark Milley, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, has spoken extensively about the threat Russia poses and its adversarial nature.[1] Likewise, the 2014 “Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation” also identifies the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the primary threat to Russia.[2] While the U.S. and Russian militaries view each other in an adversarial way, both have developed different conclusions about future warfare based on the current environment and the constraining impact of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Army has returned to emphasizing large-scale operations against near-peer threats like Russia, as outlined in its recently updated doctrine in Field Manual 3-0: Operations.[3] In contrast, while Russia has retained some large formations—designed to deter attacks and if needed fight under nuclear conditions—Moscow has turned towards more ambiguous methods employing smaller, more agile conventional formations to achieve external political objectives.[4] In fact, General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, has suggested the greatest threat to Russia is from a U.S. sponsored political movement and other U.S. strategic capabilities, but not large-scale conventional operations.[5] Russia’s preparation for future warfare better appreciates the realities of nuclear constraints; rather than preparing for large-scale operations, the U.S. should prepare for small, politically constrained, ambiguous, limited conflict with Russia.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/08/07/nuclear_constraints_and_concepts_of_future_warfare_113692.html

A couple views…..I would like to hear from my readers on their opinion on the nukes and their use.

Jimmy, Thank You

The Far Right thinks that demonizing Pres. Carter is the way to make their policies law…..they are wrong and anyone that criticizes Carter are wrong….from a foreign policy point of view Carter was a success on many levels…..most notably in the Middle east….it is possible that if he had won re-election the complexion of the conflict would be different. He seldom gets credit for the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) which was suppose to eliminate all nukes in the future….and then Reagan shows up and the conflict talk gets louder…..his only “sin” was the failed rescue attempt of the hostages in Iran…..the failure was not the fault of Carter or his plan…weather and malfunctioning equipment caused the failure….but according to many on the Right it was all Jimmy’s fault…kinda like everything these days is Obama’s fault. I will admit that Jimmy crapped in his corn flakes with the neutron bomb fiasco…..

There is no comparison with after presidency activism…Carter is far more down to earth than his wealthy greedy executives that followed…..but that aside let’s look at his foreign policy chops……

When the historian Walter Russell Mead in a Foreign Policy article published in early 2010, sought to criticize the Obama administration and warn it against the risks of “weakness and indecision” and “incoherence and reversals,” the essay’s headline evoked the threat of a “Carter syndrome.” The meaning was clear: a damning allusion to President Jimmy Carter’s famously weak foreign-policy record.

But there was a problem with Mead’s comparison: The conventional wisdom about Carter is wrong. Far from the feckless leader he’s often portrayed as today, Carter racked up more tangible successes in just four years than most other presidents have in eight.

If America Was Not America

AS my reader would guess I do a lot of reading (and none of it fiction…well that is a lie. Most anything positive about Trump could be labeled as fiction) I read some things that make sense and some is not so much…..

I wrote an article many years ago about parts of the US were no better than some poverty ridden Third World country…..boy did I catch Hell after that article. But as I explained…..travel to the Delta of Mississippi and tell me that it is not something out of a 3rd world documentary.

I thought of that ancient article after something I read just a week ago….something on the site….theantimedia.org…….

On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for Foreign Policy titled “It’s Time to Bomb North Korea.”

Luttwak’s thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of humanity.

However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.

http://theantimedia.org/united-states-bombing-america/

IT is a fascinating look at the US ……a view that too many refuse to see and then cannot understand why some do not trust or even like us.

Why No Progress Over The Years?

With all the mash up between NK and the US and Trump saying that after many many years of trying and nothing getting done on the nuke front….it is time to face reality.

Listening to Trump got me to thinking about the negotiations between NK and the US and I had to see just what has actually been done over all these years of debate…..

After much research I found a great chronology of the North Korean-US negotiations…..

For years, the United States and the international community have tried to negotiate an end to North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and its export of ballistic missile technology. Those efforts have been replete with periods of crisis, stalemate, and tentative progress towards denuclearization, and North Korea has long been a key challenge for the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.

The United States has pursued a variety of policy responses to the proliferation challenges posed by North Korea, including military cooperation with U.S. allies in the region, wide-ranging sanctions, and non-proliferation mechanisms such as export controls. The United States also engaged in two major diplomatic initiatives to have North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons efforts in return for aid.

In 1994, faced with North Korea’s announced intent to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires non-nuclear weapon states to forswear the development and acquisition of nuclear weapons, the United States and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework. Under this agreement, Pyongyang committed to freezing its illicit plutonium weapons program in exchange for aid.

Source: Chronology of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear and Missile Diplomacy | Arms Control Association

Looks like they have tried to cover all aspects of diplomacy to get NK back in line with the rest of the world…..if so then ….is a military solution all that is left?

Denuclearizing North Korea

For a decade the North Korean situation has been a thorn in the side of the American presidents that chose to deal with it……most have taken the easy way out and pushed through massive sanctions.

Now we have a new president and he has taken NK by the horns and turned it into the major throbbing boil on the international stage……we have had the threat of “fury and fire”…..and the chest thumping just keeps getting louder.

The White House has said that “NO OPTION IS OFF THE TABLE”….of course that is the same rhetoric that has been used on Iran. But we have new plan/proposal…..the “denuclearizing of the Korean Peninsula”….

The US strategy for North Korea remains “all options are on the table,” according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, who today noted that the top priority for US efforts are the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

How the US intends to get to denuclearization is another matter, however. Huckabee-Sanders says that talks are “not the current focus,” which is putting it mildly since President Trump has presented any suggestion of direct diplomacy as “appeasement.”

In recent months the US engagement has been increasing sanctions against North Korea and a growing military buildup along their frontier. On top of that President Trump has refused to rule out attacking North Korea, saying only “we’ll see.”

On top of that, South Korea’s defense minister has proposed deploying US tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea, and US officials aren’t ruling that out. This would be the direct opposite of trying to denuclearize the peninsula, but is very much in keeping with talk of attacking North Korea first

(Antiwar.com)

Good plan (sarcasm)……the problem is NO one has any idea how to do this….another slogan to solve a problem.

Dammit! Iran!

Back in the Dark Ages, the Obama Years, there was a nuke deal that was signed by the world and Iran…a deal which if they stuck to it would eliminate some sanctions and lessen others…..

Then Trump came to the pinnacle of power and his little commie toady, Flynn (before he was caught in a lie and forced to resign) made a statement that the Trump admin was putting Iran on notice.

Notice for what few are sure of….but they were put there anyway.

While grousing about what a “bad deal” they believe it was, Trump Administration officials accused Iran of having violated “the spirit” of the deal, offering absolutely no details on what that even means, or how the administration,which has repeatedly gone on record as not liking the deal in the first place, interprets that spirit.

Then a couple of days ago word came down about Iran and the deal that they signed…..

Facing a deadline of Monday, President Trump is going to have to re-certify to Congress that Iran is totally complying with its obligations under the P5+1 deal, which effectively delays his expected effort to force a “renegotiation,” an idea that no other party of the treaty seems at all interested in.

The fact that Iran is complying with the deal is no surprise, of course, as the IAEA issues monthly reports to that effect anyhow. Still, it wasn’t a slam dunk that the administration was going to tell the truth, and there was speculation that they might withhold the re-certification.

(antiwar.com)

Trump is not happy about having to certify that Iran is in compliance with the deal….

It’s a problematic position, but mostly boils down to the Trump Administration being keen to have some excuse to “rip up” the nuclear deal as they’d long threatened to do, and being incredibly annoyed at the fact that they don’t have a pretext to do so.

This has officials publicly admitting that Iran is complying with the deal, and threatening new sanctions against them anyhow, because that compliance “won’t go unpunished.” This is a confusing position that’s likely to be a problem for the other P5+1 members, who already see the US, and not Iran as the weak link in the deal.

(antiwar.com)

Why would anyone be disappointed in the fact that Iran is in compliance….unless they are looking for an excuse to do something stupid.

Iran is still “one of the most dangerous threats to US interests and to regional stability,” one senior administration official told reporters Monday, per Reuters, detailing all of the ways in which the country remains problematic. Those issues include Iran’s enabling of terrorism in Syria and its continued development of ballistic missiles, which, in combination with other issues, leaves Iran “unquestionably in default of the spirit of the [deal]” signed by the US, the EU, France, Britain, Russia, China, and Germany. The White House plans to handle this, per the official, by tightening the agreement (and then enforcing its mandates), and taking on “the totality of Iran’s malign behavior” beyond the nuclear deal, which could include new sanctions, per CNN. Trump aides tell the Times the president is “frustrated” and won’t keep recertifying compliance if Iran doesn’t get its act together.

Sounds like someone wants to go to war and nothing Iran does will prevent it from happening……is this the new “norm” for American foreign policy?

A better question would be…..who is the true enemy we should fret over?

It is one of the great ironies that the United States, a land mass protected by two broad oceans while also benefitting from the world’s largest economy and most powerful military, persists in viewing itself as a potential victim, vulnerable and surrounded by enemies. In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.

Source: Who Is the Real Enemy? – The Unz Review

Personally, I think he, Trump, is looking in the wrong direction for the “enemy”.

Here A Nuke, There a Nuke

Since those little shits in North Korea have been testing their nuclear capabilities and also their missile technology, which by the way seems to be a bit off……the conversation in this country has been about the concern for our aging nuclear stockpiles…..

Even our president has said that we need to spend some of our “leftover” cash on a nuclear upgrade…..now that Russia is flexing some muscle the debate has gotten louder and louder…..

Lt. Gen. Jack Weinstein the deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence, today argued for the US to advance on a costly proposal to modernize and upgrade their massive arsenal of nuclear weapons, insisting that the “much more aggressive” behavior by Russia justified such a move.

Weinstein, an Air Force general whose puvieww is mostly the US nuclear arsenal, argued that history had shown that keeping huge numbers of nuclear weapons on hand “basically kept the peace” since World War II, and that he sleeps very well at night knowing the US has such a large arsenal.

Weinstein’s argument that the move is “justified” ignores the question of whether it is affordable, as estimates have put the modernization scheme’s overall cost well in excess of a trillion dollars, above and beyond an already massive military budget that continues to grow annually.

But many have pointed out that this upgrade would be expensive…..so expensive that some other program will have to take a hit to pay for this new upgrade (and we all know what that means, right?)…..some say that this new program would need about a trillion dollars (yes that is trillion with a giant “T”)……

US Strategic Command chief Gen. John Hyten continues to argue in favor of massive spending on nuclear weapons upgrades, insisting that despite the $1 trillion estimates the cost is “affordable,” and that “deterrence will always be cheaper than war.”

Hyten also faulted the idea of getting an estimate before starting the spending at all, saying getting the estimate first is “just a crazy way to build things,” and that he thinks the US should be able to build this massive arsenal “for an affordable price,” insisting it is “the most critical thing that we do in the military.”

A trillion dollars is a bit much to spend on a weapons upgrade, right? Next is…..does the USA truly need this expenditure?

Although it has not been specific about its plans, the Trump administration has promised to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability.”¹ This seems to conflict with the assessment of Gen. John E. Hyten, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, who has argued that “we don’t need more nuclear weapons, we just need to modernize.”² Are the two statements consistent? What exactly is nuclear modernization? Where should the United States draw the line as it embarks on a program to replace nearly every bomb, missile, submarine, and warhead in its arsenal?

Source: The Case Against New Nuclear Weapons – Center for American Progress

Does the world really need more nukes? Does America really need to spend a trillion dollars on more weapons?

Please….let sanity return!

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Nuclear Policies