US nuclear weapons: first low-yield warheads roll off the production line

[G_j]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-weapons-first-low-yield-warheads-roll-off-the-production-line?CMP=share_btn_fb

New type of weapon, ordered by Trump’s nuclear posture review, could make conflict more likely, say experts

Julian Borger in Washington

The US has begun making a new, low-yield nuclear warhead for its Trident missiles that arms control advocates warn could lower the threshold for a nuclear conflict.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced in an email it had started manufacturing the weapon at its Pantex nuclear weapons plant in Texas, as ordered by Donald Trump’s nuclear posture review (NPR) last year.

The NNSA said the first of the new warheads had come off the production line and that it was on schedule to deliver the first batch – an unspecified number referred to as “initial operational capability” – before the end of September.

The new weapon, the W76-2, is a modification of the existing Trident warhead. Stephen Young, a senior Washington representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said its yield had most likely been cut by taking away one stage from the original two-stage, W76 thermonuclear device.

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[G_j]

1. Under the radar

this is not good!

[fescuerescue]

7. Design of this started long before Trump

In general, weapons development is ALWAYS under the radar.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. impeach the ignorant, treasonous bastard before he kills us all!

The deterrence of the nuclear arsenal is the fact that it represents annihilation. Low yield nuclear weapons encourages the assinine belief that we can wage a little nuclear war and yet not escalate.

Dumb Donald wants to play with thermonuclear devices. He's too ignorant and uncaring to realize the danger to every living thing on the planet.

[spanone]

3. THIS ⇧

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. MAD has worked so far

Mutually Assured Destruction has kept us from a nuclear holocaust so far because every government of a nuclear power knew that to start means an end to us all. Tactical nuclear weapons provide a rationalization of limited use, but it's a path to complete destruction.

Pandora's box should not be opened. Putin's pet should not be allowed nuclear playthings.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. Why simply "impeach" the traitor, when imprisoning him is safer for the entire world?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. imprisonment of that one is assumed to follow impeachment

There is so much -stuff- already publicly known about Putin's pet that imprisonment should follow hard on the heels of impeachment. When the process starts, it should terrify even the Russiapublicans now residing in our Senate. (Their time should come next).

[fescuerescue]

8. Trump didn't invent this or start the design process

That started before Trump.



He shouldn't have access to any nukes. But that's water under bridge from 2016

Unfortunately, it was his predecessor that put these new nukes into Trumps hands.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. nobody imagined Trump and cohorts

Trump and co-conspirators are all the argument needed against more nukes of any kind.

[JCanete]

10. Holy...shit. Yay, the kind of thing fucking idiots might actually be bold enough and sick enough to

want to use. Wonderful.