Wednesday, August 9, 2017

No Nuclear "fire and fury" Ever Again! Preventing the Unthinkable!


Dear Friends of a world free of nuclear weapons,

I wouldn't normally send another GZNonviolenceE-Newsletter so soon, but these are anything but normal times! "Crisis" is not too strong a word to describe the situation!

Yesterday, on the eve of the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, President Trump explicitly threatened to attack the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) with nuclear weapons! Here's the exact quote:


"They [North Korea] will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He [Kim Jong-un] has been very threatening ... and as I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen."

Trump's extremely provocative statement was in response to news earlier in the day that North Korea can now arm its long-range missiles with nuclear warheads.

While it is true that North Korea has nuclear weapons (and says it is prepared to use them in response to any attacks by other nations), and that it can at least reach its neighbors with them, there is NO military solution to this situation.

Trump outrageous and inflammatory statement has brought tensions with North Korea to a new (and extremely dangerous) high. The consequences of any military action against North Korea would be catastrophic, and Trump's words threaten not only North Korea, but potentially millions of people in South Korea, Japan and other nations in the region.
Amid the escalating war of words between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is reportedly visiting Seattle and the Bangor Trident nuclear submarine base 20 miles west of Seattle on the Kitsap Peninsula today and tomorrow.

The August 7th Department of Defense (DoD) news release said Mattis would be visiting Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor within the week to be briefed by Submarine Group 9 leaders, and taking a tour of the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Kentucky
The Bangor submarine base, just 20 miles from Seattle, has the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the U.S.  If Washington state were a sovereign nation, it would be the third-largest nuclear-weapons state in the world.
Ground Zero member Glen Milner spoke of the upcoming visit by the Secretary of Defense and stated, “Hopefully, this is not as ominous as it sounds.  But it should remind citizens of the Pacific Northwest that our area will be in the forefront of any nuclear exchange, whether it involves North Korea, China, or Russia.”
At this moment it is likely that at least two of the eight Trident submarines home-ported at Bangor are on patrol in the Western Pacific region, ready to launch their thermonuclear-armed missiles on the direct order of President Trump.
The USS Kentucky, the Trident submarine that Defense Secretary Mattis will tour at Bangor, is estimated to carry about 108 nuclear warheads.  The W76 and W88 warheads at Bangor are equal respectively to 100 kilotons and 455 kilotons of TNT in destructive force.  One submarine deployed at Bangor is equal to more than 1,400 Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs.

Mattis' visit to the Bangor Trident base underscores the importance that the US Government places on nuclear weapons and particularly on what it calls its "strategic nuclear deterrent," of which Trident is the most important "leg" of the nuclear triad (submarines, bombers and land-based missiles).

"Deterrence" is a relic of the Cold War; a doctrine that no longer applies in a post-Cold War world. And yet, the US continues to justify a more than $trillion nuclear weapons buildup (over 30 years) using this doctrine to justify it. And Trident will ultimately carry roughly 70-percent of the U.S.’ nuclear warheads under the U.S.-Russia New START treaty signed in 2010,
No one knows where this escalating rhetoric of President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will end. To take either leader at his word, a nuclear holocaust is an acceptable event.

The current situation is analogous to two unstable people standing with lighted matches on opposite sides of a swimming pool filled with gasoline. Without a change in course it is only a matter of time.


Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action condemns Trump's statement, and we call on our members of Congress to respond immediately to de-escalate this crisis before the unthinkable occurs.

Please contact your members of Congress today and call on them to demand that President Trump immediately stop threatening North Korea and authorize the State Department to utilize all diplomatic tools at its disposal to reduce tensions with the North and resolve the nuclear crisis.

Click here to find contact information for your members of Congress.


If you live on the Kitsap Peninsula, Representative Derek Kilmer will hold a Town Hall Meeting this evening from 5:30 to 7:00 at North Kitsap High School Auditorium, 1881 NE Postmark St, Poulsbo, WA  98370.

Please also support the effort to restrict the president's authority to launch a nuclear first strike. Although we never want to see nuclear weapons used again, the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act would, at least, prohibit a president from launching a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war by Congress. It's a step in the right direction.

When you are done, please share this E-Newsletter with your network and, if you are in the Puget Sound region, join us this coming weekend to not only commemorate the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but to also speak out and take action to abolish these horrific devices of nuclear extinction that threaten all of humanity. Click here for information on this weekend's events. 

Future generations rely on our actions! We must not let them down.

Let us keep working together to ensure that the horrific "fire and fury" that was unleashed on hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings 72 years ago will never be seen again. No More Hiroshimas! No More Nagasakis!

On behalf of Ground Zero Center,

Leonard Eiger

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Trident Warhead Now Deadlier Than Ever

Experts at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (The Bulletin) recently blew the lid off what the US government has euphemistically called it's “Life Extension Program” for the W76 thermonuclear warhead deployed on the Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile.

The article, “How US nuclear force modernization is undermining strategic stability: The burst-height compensating super-fuze,” authored by Hans M. Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, and Theodore A. Postol, shows how the US military, under the guise of what it calls a “life-extension program” – allegedly intended to increase safety and reliability of nuclear warheads – has vastly increased the ability of warheads to detonate closer to their intended targets.

The heart of the rebuilt W76 and its increased kill capacity is the new MC4700 arming, fuzing and firing system. This new system essentially gives the W76 capabilities it never had before; that is the capability to hit hardened targets – specifically Russian ICBM silos – with three times greater accuracy than before.

The first MC4700 "super-fuzes" were completed in 2007 at the National Nuclear Security Administration's Kansas City  facility that is responsible for manufacturing and procuring nonnuclear components for U.S. nuclear weapons
The authors (in addition to detailed technical descriptions) explain this new capability in clear lay terms: “Before the invention of this new fuzing mechanism, even the most accurate ballistic missile warheads might not detonate close enough to targets hardened against nuclear attack to destroy them. But the new super-fuze is designed to destroy fixed targets by detonating above and around a target in a much more effective way. Warheads that would otherwise overfly a target and land too far away will now, because of the new fuzing system, detonate above the target.”

Steven Starr, a senior scientist at Physicians for Social Responsibility and an expert on the climatic consequences of nuclear war, called the report “the most frightening article I have ever read in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.” Starr has good reason for concern, as should we. This article exposes the US government's continuing pursuit of nuclear dominance over Russia.

The following sentence summarizes that concern, which is centered on the Trident nuclear weapon system: “A decade ago, only about 20 percent of US submarine warheads had hard-target kill capability; today they all do.” This statement refers to the fact that the 100 kiloton W76 warhead previously did not have the capability, due to its relative lack of accuracy, of getting close enough to destroy “hard” targets such as Russian ICBM silos. ”

Because of the new super-fuze, essentially 100 percent of the warheads currently deployed on D5 missiles now have this capability to hit hard targets. This capability was previously reserved for the Minuteman III ICBMs and the relatively small number of W88 (455 kiloton) warheads also used on the D5 missile.

The implications of the development of the super-fuze and its use on the W76 are existential! Whatever the intentions of Pentagon planners, this development is most certainly sending a message to Russia that the US is building a significant first strike capability. As the article says, “by shifting the capability to submarines that can move to missile launch positions much closer to their targets than land-based missiles [and with the addition of the new super-fuze], the US military has achieved a significantly greater capacity to conduct a surprise first strike against Russian ICBM silos.”

And this would be only the opening salvo of a first strike attack. The remaining 80 percent of US ballistic missile warheads would likely be used to destroy mobile missile launchers, hardened command centers and other military and (potentially) civilian targets.

Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the OHIO Class “Trident” ballistic missile submarines have become the central, and most important, element in the US nuclear triad. Based on the New START treaty signed in 2010, roughly 70-percent of the U.S.’ nuclear warheads will be deployed on Trident submarines. Trident has the ability to move undetected while on its deterrent patrols, and can be stationed in strategic locations in the North Atlantic where its missiles would have a very short flight time to Russian targets.

The D5 missile can carry up to eight warheads. Under New START, the D5s carry an average of only four to five warheads. If New Start were to fail, which is becoming an increasing possibility with the current deterioration in relations between the US and Russia, the US could choose to fully load the D5s. In that case, based on the estimates in the article, two fully loaded Tridents (with 192 warheads each) could easily destroy all of the 136 Russian silo-based ICBMs.

The Russians have most certainly been keeping a close eye on US nuclear weapons developments. They have also been closely watching the US military's fascination with ballistic missile defense, which the Pentagon touts as purely “defensive,” but which Russia rightly perceives as the US seeking nuclear dominance. The article says: “The Russians have most recently reacted to this ongoing program by publicly displaying and implementing a new and novel sea-based nuclear weapons delivery device [an underwater drone] as a hedge against US missile defenses.”

Aside from the other current US nuclear weapons developments, the development of the W76 warhead super-fuze will likely be perceived by Russia as the most threatening. This is in large part due to Russia having no satellite early warning system, and relying instead on ground-based radars. Because they are far less sophisticated than US radar systems, the Russians have “less than half as much early-warning time” (15 minutes or less) in the event of a suspected US nuclear attack.

As the authors state, “The combination of this lack of Russian situational awareness, dangerously short warning times, high-readiness alert postures, and the increasing US strike capacity has created a deeply destabilizing and dangerous strategic nuclear situation. When viewed in the alarming context of deteriorating political relations between Russia and the West, and the threats and counter-threats that are now becoming the norm for both sides in this evolving standoff, it may well be that the danger of an accident leading to nuclear war is as high now as it was in periods of peak crisis during the Cold War.”

Both human and mechanical errors are inevitable in any system, and with nuclear weapons there is no margin for error. Accidents have occurred throughout the nuclear age, and more than one has involved false radar warnings. In 1995 a Russian early warning radar system mistakenly identified a scientific rocket launch from Norway as a submarine-launched (Trident) missile. Only at the last minute did officials realize that they were not under attack.

The end of the Cold War brought with it a historic opportunity for the US to begin serious negotiations with Russia leading to nuclear disarmament. Instead, our nation continued to pursue nuclear dominance, and as a result, over 25 years later we are entering into what is unarguably a new Cold War with Russia.

Trident is now three times more deadly than ever before. The US is rapidly moving toward production of a new ballistic missile submarine fleet that will be even more sophisticated than its predecessor. The twelve submarines of the Columbia Class (that will replace the OHIO Class) are being built to sail well into the end of this century. Along with the new submarines, the Navy is already seeking a new missile to replace the Trident II D5.

How long can we go building newer and more sophisticated (and deadly) nuclear weapon systems before they end up being used either accidentally or intentionally? How long can we play this dangerous game of nuclear brinksmanship before something snaps? How can our nations' leaders, in good conscience, continue to put humanity at risk of nuclear extinction?

The Bulletin article ends by quoting Russian President Putin speaking in 2016 about how he perceives (and how Russia will respond to) the West's offensive military posture. “No matter what we said to our American partners [to curb the production of weaponry], they refused to cooperate with us, they rejected our offers, and continue to do their own thing... I don't know how this is all going to end. What I do know is that we will need to defend ourselves.”

If the US is serious about reducing the risk of starting a nuclear holocaust, the President will have to begin repairing diplomatic relations with Russia. Meanwhile, a critical first step would be for President Trump to take all nuclear weapons, including submarine-launched ballistic missiles, off hair-trigger alert. This would demonstrate to the Russians that we have no intention of using our nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive, first strike, and would greatly reduce the risk of accidental launch of nuclear weapons and the resulting nuclear war.

The newly emerging nuclear arms race is a dangerous game that nobody can win; ultimately humanity will be the loser. The nuclear powers are addicted to the myth of nuclear deterrence and are driven to continue their insane pursuit of nuclear dominance. It is up to us as citizens to speak out in mass numbers calling on them to turn back from the brink and seek a path toward disarmament.

Editor's Note: This article was first published in the April 2017 Ground Zero Newsletter, which you can access by clicking here.

Read the entire article,How US nuclear force modernization is undermining strategic stability: The burst-height compensating super-fuze,” at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Puget Sound’s ticking nuclear time bomb

Editor's Note: This is a guest editorial by Glen Milner, a member of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action. It was originally published at Crosscut.com on January 10, 2017. 
In September of 1980, routine maintenance work on a U.S. Air Force Titan II missile near Damascus, Arkansas, became a life-and-death crisis. The trouble started when a 21-year-old airman accidentally dropped a socket from his wrench, which then fell 70 feet and pierced the missile’s side, releasing a rush of explosive fuel.
The W53 warhead on the Titan II missile at Damascus was the most powerful weapon in the U.S. arsenal at the time and was equal to three times the firepower of all the bombs used in World War II, including the two atomic bombs. The initial explosion catapulted the 740-ton silo door away from the missile silo and ejected the second stage and the nuclear warhead. Once clear of the silo, the second stage exploded. The warhead safety devices performed as designed and it did not explode.

This scene, which is described in horrifying detail in Eric Schlosser’s 2014 book, “Command and Control,” is now the centerpiece of a PBS American Experience documentary of the same name. The film aired on on KCTS 9 public television (Crosscut’s sister organization) January 10. If you missed it, you can stream it, and find bonus videos and articles, on the PBS website here.  
Command and Control” shows what can happen when the weapons built to protect us threaten to destroy us, and it speaks directly to Puget Sound citizens: Locally, we face a similar threat in Hood Canal with the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the United States at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.
An accident at Bangor involving nuclear weapons occurred in November 2003when a ladder penetrated a nuclear nose cone during a routine missile offloading at the Explosives Handling Wharf. All missile-handling operations at the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWFPAC) were stopped for nine weeks until Bangor could be recertified for handling nuclear weapons. Three top commanders were fired but the public was never informed until information was leaked to the media in March 2004.
The Navy never publicly admitted that the 2003 accident occurred. The Navy failed to report the accident at the time to county or state authorities. Public responses from governmental officials were generally in the form of surprise and disappointment.
A major danger at Bangor is the possibility of an accident involving Trident rocket motor propellant while loading and unloading the nuclear-equipped D-5missiles at the Explosives Handling Wharf. Trident propellant is more volatile than TNT and is capable of detonating upon impact. Propellant in one missile has the explosive force equal to 155,000 pounds of TNT. An accident at the Explosives Handling Wharf at Bangor could result in an explosion equal to 3.7 million pounds of TNT involving up to 24 D-5 missiles on one SSBN submarine.

The result of such an explosion likely would not cause a nuclear detonation. Instead, plutonium from the approximately 108 nuclear warheads on one submarine could be spread by the wind.
There is no weapons system in the U.S. arsenal with the operational risks of a Trident submarine. Consider the nuclear reactor on each submarine; the complexity of 25,000 parts in just one D-5 missile; and routine loading operations for explosive missiles and warheads on the Hood Canal waterfront.
Robert Kenner, director of “Command and Control,” states, “Opinions range widely on whether we should have nuclear weapons, but while we have them we can all agree that safety should be paramount. Given how devastating the consequences of an accident could be, we must strive for the lowest possible probability.
“After an accident, everyone will be asking why we didn’t do something,” he adds. “We need to be asking these questions before it’s too late.”
Watching the documentary may help viewers decide whether nuclear weapons are worth the risk.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Leonard Eiger talks about nuclear weapons on Speak Up, Speak Out!

NO To NEW TRIDENT Campaign Coordinator Leonard Eiger was recently interviewed by Ginny Wolff on Speak Up, Speak Out! on KSVR – FM about the work of Ground Zero Center for Non-Violent Action since 1977 to protest the Trident submarines (and their nuclear weapons) based at the Bangor Naval Base in Silverdale, Washington.

They discussed the history of Ground Zero, the bigger picture of U.S. foreign policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons, ongoing international tension, and the agreement between Congress and the Obama administration to spend a trillion dollars over 30 years to rebuild the entire U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons.



You can also click here to listen to this Speak Up, Speak Out! interview.
The interview ends with a simple message listeners can deliver to President Obama. After listening, you can click here to send your message to the President. You can find more important action alerts by clicking here.
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Thanks to KSVR and Speak Up, Speak Out! for covering important issues you won’t hear in the mainstream/corporate media.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

From Trinity to Trident: Moving Back from the Brink

On July 16, 1945 the first experimental atomic bomb was exploded at the site known as Trinity at Alamogordo, New Mexico in the desert called Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) . It marked the beginning of a journey toward what could someday be the ultimate manifestation of death.


The rest is history (and some of it particularly horrific history); and that history is still being written each day as many nations (led by the model of the United States) continue to rely on nuclear weapons while others seek to develop them. Then there are those nations (most of the non-nuclear weapons nations) that are rightly calling for an end to this madness.

The United Sates should be leading the world toward disarmament and abolition, but instead we continue to utilize the archaic and flawed rhetoric of "strategic nuclear deterrence" and "national security," and have found a host of new enemies since losing the original justifications for our Cold War enemy the Soviet Union. That being said, we are, in fact, re-igniting that Cold War relationship (now with Russia) so many years later. As a result we are re-building the infrastructure that made Trinity - and over the years tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and the systems designed to deliver them to their targets - possible.

Billions have been, and continue to be, spent on the US nuclear weapons complex. These huge investments represent, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, the resources necessary to "to transform a Cold War nuclear weapons complex into a 21st Century nuclear security enterprise." There seems to be no end in sight!

The government is in the early stages of planning for a new nuclear-capable bomber, and proponents of the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) cruise missile are pushing hard to get it approved by Congress. The Air Force is pushing ahead for funding of a new generation of land-based (Intercontinental Ballistic) missiles, as evidenced by the White House's fiscal year 2017 (FY 2017) budget request.

Then there is Trident (the Ohio class submarines), what the U.S. Navy calls “the nation’s most survivable and enduring nuclear strike capability.” Not only is Trident "survivable and enduring," but it is a significant weapon system of mass destruction and ironically, should Trident ever fire its Trident missiles in anything other than one of the many tests conducted by the Navy, the conflagration that follows will threaten the very survival of humanity.

With 24 Trident missiles, each missile carrying up to 8 independently targetable nuclear warheads, and each warhead having an explosive yield of as much as 475 kilotons, just one Trident submarine is capable of incinerating much of any continent and rendering the land uninhabitable for anyone unfortunate to survive the initial blast, heat and radiation effects. The U.S. has 14 Trident subs outfitted for the Trident II D5 missile. Research has concluded that even a small scale, regional nuclear war would result in a nuclear famine of massive proportions.

Advocates of US nuclear modernization point to Russia's and China's modernization efforts to justify the need for new and improved US nuclear weapon systems. In reality, the US has led Russia and China into what is rapidly becoming a new nuclear arms race. As for ballistic missile submarines, the Russian program languished for years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and. Since then the US has added a newer and more capable missile (the Trident II D5), introduced an improved version of the W76 (100 kiloton) warhead, and increased Trident's presence in the Pacific (roughly 60 percent of all Trident patrols are in the Pacific).

With the US currently well into the research and development phase of planning for a new generation of ballistic missile submarines, the SSBN(X), it should be no wonder that Russia is responding. Although Russia stopped building new SSBNs at the end of the Cold War, it has been catching up (slowly) and is currently working to achieve parity, and has been building a new SSBN class (Borei) that has been deploying to the Pacific.   As Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists states it, "Russia is following the examples of the United States and China, both of which have significantly modernized their SSBN forces operating in the Pacific region over the past decade and a half."

All of this, 71 years after the sun rose twice over the New Mexico desert, is moving humanity closer, once again, toward the brink. Rather than lead the way toward a nuclear weapons-free world, President Obama has been leading what will become (should subsequent presidents continue to fund it) "the biggest U.S. buildup of nuclear arms since Ronald Reagan left the White House." Although word is out in just the past week that President Obama may take steps in his final days in The White House to implement nuclear policy changes, this still remains to be seen.

President Obama should take a number of immediate and practical steps to reduce the risk of either accidental or intentional nuclear war.  Beyond that, he should should heed the lessons to be learned from the relationship developed between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (that likely brought the Cuban Missile Crisis to a peaceful resolution) and begin a conversation with President Putin to not only ease tensions, but to begin a meaningful path toward mutual security and disarmament.

It is no understatement to say that the fate of humanity rests in the hands of the nuclear-armed nations, particularly the US and Russia. Should the Presidents of the two largest nuclear-armed begin to show the other nations a path toward abolition, we can begin to move further back from the brink. And then we can begin to have the serious conversation about scrapping Trident (and all nuclear weapons) and ensuring that the sun will never again rise twice some day.


Sunday, April 24, 2016

Shoot First, Don't Ask Questions!

Editor's Note:    Here is a wonderful Earth Day perspective on nuclear weapons, with a focus on Trident, written by Linda Pentz Gunter.  As Linda says, "Threatening to fire off nuclear missiles to deter a nuclear attack is about as psychopathic as you can get." What might be even more psychopathic is that Trident is not only a second-strike weapon system, but also (by its very design) a first-strike weapon system as well.

Linda is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear. "Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. The Beyond Nuclear team works with diverse partners and allies to provide the public, government officials, and the media with the critical information necessary to move humanity toward a world beyond nuclear (from the Beyond Nuclear website)."


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Thought for Earth Day: whether it's badgers or Trident missiles, shooting solves nothing

Why do we humans resort to shooting, whenever a challenging problem confronts us? Whether it's culling badgers to protect hedgehogs, or renewing the Trident missile threat with expensive upgrades, our species seems determined to upset the balance of nature and harmony on Earth by shooting first - and never asking the questions at all.

Threatening to fire off nuclear missiles to deter a nuclear attack is plain psychopathic. Shooting badgers to preserve hedgehogs is just poor science. But either way, if we really want to 'protect and survive', we need to stop all the shooting.

I was recently reminded that hedgehogs climb trees. They do this, apparently, to take naps in presumably vacant birds' nests.

Having been raised on a steady diet of hedgehogs as milkmen (Little Grey Rabbit) or laundresses (Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle,) this tidbit had escaped my memory. I found it when revisiting an old book from childhood: Oddities of Animal Life.

Badgers, meanwhile, are early pioneers of OCD, so obsessive are they about hygiene.

They change their bedding so often, piling the old material outside the set that, according to Oddities, "by the end of the summer, so much old bedding has been turned out that the pile outside the front door will have grown into a huge mound." But they also like to eat hedgehogs.

So Fuzzypeg must be pitted against Brock. Badgers, those connoisseurs of cleanliness, have already been punished as the filthy purveyors of disease in cattle. With hedgehog numbers dwindling, the urchin gourmands must pay again with their lives. The solution to saving hedgehogs is to shoot badgers.

None of this is particularly surprising. For while Nature seems to stay in balance quite nicely thank you - allowing badgers their fair share of hedgehogs to no ill effect - it is disrupted only when humans interfere. And the human answer, from time immemorial, to any problem you can't solve is to shoot it.

When 'controlling' the sick will mean shooting them

In 1980, an article was published in The Guardian, written by Dr. John Gleisner, a founder of the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons. The headline read ominously: "When 'controlling' the sick will mean shooting them."

Gleisner had attended a civil defence glee fest about the 'survivability' of nuclear war, held at Imperial College. There, Gleisner reported, the audience of medical professionals was told that the banned BBC film, The War Game, was "a nonsense which we should get out of our minds."

But then things got sinister. There was, Gleisner wrote, an "underlying theme which stressed the need for pretraining in order to get 'hardened.'" Obviously there would be many sick and injured people after a nuclear attack whom the diminished numbers of medical personnel would not be able to treat. They would need to toughen up.

"Home OffIce speakers made it clear that these people will be 'controlled,' and that training programmes in 'local control' are to be stepped up", Gleisner wrote. "They did not enlarge on 'control', but, like looters, it seems that they must be shot."

Gleisner, a psychiatrist, was well positioned to recognize madness

Gleisner, a psychiatrist from Manchester, was well positioned to recognize madness when he saw it. And the Civil Defence program in Britain was most certainly mad, with the Home Office's infamous booklet, Protect and Survive, its ultimate insanity.

Civil Defence briefings to county councillors included such insights as: "Animals which had died from radiation poisoning would be edible if they were bled first." For desperate survivors of a nuclear holocaust, this presumably would have included badgers and hedgehogs.

Cruise Missiles were even madder, taking the concept of shooting' to its ultimate obscenity. It was Gleisner again, along with his wife who, in 1980, mortgaged their house to fund the booking of a train from Manchester to London to bring people to the first big demonstration against Cruise missiles.

Shooting off Cruise Missiles naturally led to more shooting - the shooting down of nuclear missiles. Or at least the belief that we could shoot down - or intercept - nuclear weapons headed our way.

Obama talks proliferation prevention while his Navy orders new Trident subs

This nuclear ping pong was made popular by US President Reagan and his silly Star Wars program, more properly known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. It still goes on today, largely between US based submarines and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the site of 67 US atomic tests during the Cold War.

The Kwajalein base is appropriately named the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site. (Ironically, Kwajalein is now home to the atomic refugees from Bikini and Rongelap atolls.)

Which brings us to Trident. As recently as last November, the US fired two consecutive unarmed Trident II (D5) missiles at Kwajalein. A military spokesperson told the LA Times that Trident II "is a centerpiece of the US military's ability to deter a nuclear attack, and an ongoing effort to modernize the weapon is a top priority."

And yet just this month, we have President Obama, at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC, restating his conviction that "the entire premise of American foreign policy as it relates to nuclear weapons for the last 70 years has been focused on preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons." Except, perhaps, in the United States.

The US Navy is planning to replace its Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, and is seeking $773.1 million in advance procurement funding and $1,091.1 million in research and development funding for that purpose. This would pay for 14 new submarines, each of which would carry 24 Trident II missiles, according to a report prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service.

Each of those Trident missiles would in turn carry eight warheads with yields as high as 36 Hiroshima bombs. The US Navy considers these nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines to represent "a survivable system for carrying out a retaliatory nuclear attack", the CRS report noted.

And so the insanity continues: this idea that we can fight, win and survive a nuclear war. As Gleisner wrote, in such an environment, "'survival of the fittest' becomes 'survival of the most psychopathic.'"

Threatening to fire off nuclear missiles to deter a nuclear attack is about as psychopathic as you can get. Shooting badgers to preserve hedgehogs is just poor science. But either way, if we really want to 'protect and survive', we need to stop all the shooting.

Only then, when we agree there is room for us all, can we start to restore true balance and harmony on Planet Earth.

This opinion piece originally appeared in The Ecologist: http://www.theecologist.org/essays/2987503/thought_for_earth_day_whether_its_badgers_or_trident_missiles_shooting_solves_nothing.html

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Trident is Vulnerable*


*Editor's Note: Paul Ingram, Executive Director, British American Security Information Council (BASIC), wrote this article about potential threats to the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system. The questions and concerns raised by Ingram also apply to the US OHIO Class (Trident) nuclear weapons system, and we should be paying close attention to the reports and briefings being issued by BASIC.

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A debate is now raging over BASIC's exposure of the threat emerging technologies present to the future viability of Trident submarines. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) states they do not believe it is a problem, and that even if it were submarines would still be the best, most stealthy platform for nuclear missiles. The confidence implied in the MoD's public line is unjustified, and must surely cover up a deep concern held by strategists for the future viability of its most expensive weapon system. For if submarines are easily detectable, then they are the very last place the UK should choose to put its nuclear deterrent.

In response to BASIC's questions over the future viability of a nuclear deterrent based upon Trident submarines, MoD's latest factsheet (published 26 February) states:
We believe it is unlikely there will be any radical technological breakthrough which might diminish the current advantages of the submarine over potential anti-submarine systems. In any event, we judge that a submarine will remain by far the least vulnerable of all the platform options.
In a Parliamentary Answer on 7 March, Philip Dunne assures the House, 'We are confident that our submarine fleet remains safe and secure,' after explaining that MoD tracks these technologies.

To state that there is no problem is heroic, in the face of the evidence. Echoing what former Defence Secretary Des Browne has said, the principal justification for renewing the Trident system is the future uncertainty of the strategic environment, yet we are being asked to believe there is a strong certainty that our systems will not be transparent and vulnerable throughout its operational life, up to half a century from now.

BASIC's latest briefing last week by David Hambling, illustrates how developing sensors operating with extraordinary computing capabilities, based upon a large number of relatively cheap drones operating in a massive network could take away the stealth of submarines before the Successor class launches in 20 years' time. It is often claimed that it is as difficult to find a submarine in the sea as it is a needle in a haystack. Both are achievable with the right equipment. A needle can be extracted with a very powerful magnet.

The ocean is, of course, massive, but efforts to detect submarines have until now depended upon a small number of sensors based upon large platforms (aircraft, frigates, hunter-killer submarines) patrolling over huge distances. We stand on the advent of a new era where more effective and far smaller sensors can be based on a very large number of automated platforms in or over the sea in constant real-time communication with each other.

Contrary to the image invoked by MoD, we are not talking about some unpredictable, surprise breakthrough. The development of drone technology has accelerated in recent years, so that drones exist today that can travel for many months without refuelling, that can hunt submarines under the surface using a variety of sensors at some range (thousands of metres), and that can communicate with each other. They cannot and will not for the foreseeable future travel at the speed of a nuclear submarine, but that is unnecessary as these drones operate as a pack. The technology needs to mature. The cost needs to come down somewhat. But both these are foreseeable in the next two decades.

Some have responded that in these games of cat and mouse, submarine contractors will simply improve their countermeasures or tactics. But this underestimates the nature of the impact from these developments that effectively bring a hitherto inconceivable level of transparency to the oceans in a relatively short time. Submarines inevitably leave a variety of signatures, and cannot be covered up with the addition of more efficient acoustic tiles, or even some theoretical acoustic cloaking device.

The consequence of this to the manned submarine is far bigger than implied in the second sentence of the MoD factsheet, claiming that even with ocean transparency, submarines would remain the least vulnerable platforms. The submarine's advantage over other platforms is its stealth and the fact that it moves. Take away its stealth and its vulnerabilities become very significant - indeed, the submarine becomes one of the most vulnerable of all options.

Submarines are generally slower than surface ships, and once located and tracked, they are highly vulnerable to attack by missiles capable of hitting targets underwater, or the fast-moving air-launched drone torpedoes under development. An adversary could track the submarine throughout its patrol and hold it at risk, and take it out at the most convenient or critical moment. The UK nuclear posture is based upon a single submarine on patrol, though one can assume that there would be two out in times of crisis. If an adversary were capable of holding those British patrolling submarines at risk, there would be a major incentive to take them out pre-emptively, before the submarine commander would consider launching its nuclear-tipped missiles. In this environment, submarine-based missiles lose their critical stabilising second-strike ability, and contribute to deeply dangerous crisis instability in a similar manner to land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that need to be launched on warning in a use-them-or-lose-them posture. Perhaps it's worse...

Attacking ICBMs or aircraft based on the homeland currently involves massive missile or aircraft strikes, involving explicit attacks on the target country that would invite a proportional response on the state perpetrating the attack. An attack on a submarine in international waters would neutralise it and kill a hundred combatants: an act of war, but would it merit a disproportionate nuclear response against cities? In any case the UK would require an ally to launch such a nuclear response on its behalf because its own capability would be lost, unless there were a second submarine on patrol. A second submarine could be held at risk in the same manner as the first.

What about alternatives? Of course they all have their drawbacks. Surface ships are just as vulnerable as submarines. Land-based ballistic missiles have no stealth at all and also require a launch-on-warning posture in crisis situations. Aircraft are also vulnerable to first strikes and need to be rapidly scrambled into the air if there is a warning of in-coming missiles. They can also be shot down en route to their targets. But where these systems have significant advantage over submarines is in the possibility of spreading the assets over several sites, requiring multiple hits. If the systems are dual-capable there is greater chance of investing in sufficient numbers of aircraft and deploying them in a coordinated attack that nuclear deterrence would be achieved at far lower cost. Or it may be time to consider leaving the nuclear game, acknowledging that Britain does need an independent capability, and instead invest in other capabilities that genuinely contribute to European stability.

Until recently opinions on the debate over Trident renewal was largely determined by security, moral, diplomatic or economic concerns. The viability of the systems involved was taken for granted. But this is no longer a responsible response to the emerging evidence that submarines may not only be the most expensive and sophisticated platforms for nuclear delivery systems, they may become the most vulnerable. Reassurances without evidence from institutions or politicians heavily committed to the renewal project hold little credibility in the face of clear and emerging technologies that could not only undermine the advantage of the submarine, but leave us with an expensive and destabilising system. We need to reopen the Trident Alternatives Review and do a better job this time.

End Note: This article first appeared on the Huffington Post website on 9 March 2016: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/paul-ingram/trident-renewal_b_9415814.html, and can also be found at BASIC's website.

Paul Ingram, Executive Director of the British American Security Information Council has been with BASIC since 2002 and been executive director since 2007. Paul has authored a number of BASIC's reports and briefings covering a variety of nuclear and non-nuclear issues.

Click here to read the most recent BASIC Parliamentary Briefing document: A Primer on Trident’s Cyber Vulnerabilities, by Aleem Datoo & Paul Ingram