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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Risk of Nuclear War Rises as U.S. Deploys a New Nuclear Weapon for the First Time Since the Cold Wa
in case you missed this (amy goodman on democracy now)
(i heard the show on the drive home--thought OMG! granted, i don't get those highfalutin cable news channels like cnn or msnbc but i'm thinking this story probably slipped under most people's radar)
Risk of Nuclear War Rises as U.S. Deploys a New Nuclear Weapon for the First Time Since the Cold War
"The Federation of American Scientists revealed in late January that the U.S. Navy had deployed for the first time a submarine armed with a low-yield Trident nuclear warhead. The USS Tennessee deployed from Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia in late 2019. The W76-2 warhead, which is facing criticism at home and abroad, is estimated to have about a third of the explosive power of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima.
snip
WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, low-yield is actually a little bit wrong. The United States actually possesses nuclear weapons with even smaller yields than five to six kilotons, which is what this is estimated at. Thats 5,000 to 6,000 tons. And so, that would be if you thought of it in Manhattan terms, it would be probably something on the order of 20 square city blocks obliterated and radiation coming from that area. So, to say low-yield is, of course, a little bit wrong. But it is the lowest-yield missile warhead available to the strategic nuclear forces.
"And the real reason behind deploying a Trident warhead with this low-yield weapon was that the United States, the nuclear planners, felt that they didnt have a prompt and assured capability to threaten Russia or threaten other adversaries prompt meaning that it would be quickly delivered, 30 minutes, or even, if a submarine is close, as low as 15 minutes, and assured meaning that it isnt a bomber or an airplane that has to penetrate enemy air defenses in order to get to the target. So, those two things, prompt and assured, is what they really wanted. And putting a warhead on the missiles on the submarines allowed them both covert deployments as well as getting close to the target.
and... snip
"That makes it a particularly dangerous weapon in the hands of the current president, because Ive heard from many people, more than I expected in my reporting, that they were concerned that Donald Trump, in his own way, might be more prone to accept the use of nuclear weapons as one of options when he was presented with a long list of options. One senior officer said to me, Were afraid that if we present Donald Trump with a hundred options of what to do in a certain crisis, and only one of them is a nuclear option, that he might go down the list and choose the one that is the most catastrophic. And that officer said, In 35 years of my being in the military, Ive never thought before that I had to think of the personality of the president in presenting military options.
more at link
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/2/7/us_new_low_yield_nuclear_weapons
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,343 posts)Was just watching that on broadcast tv -- it's time-shifted here -- and it scares the shit out of me.
Keep Moscow Mitch and the cowards of the Senate in mind as we hope to make it to November.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,586 posts)Donald Trump asked a foreign policy expert advising him why the U.S. cant use nuclear weapons, MSNBCs Joe Scarborough said on the air Wednesday, citing an unnamed source who claimed he had spoken with the GOP presidential nominee.
Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times [Trump] asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them why cant we use them, Scarborough said on his Morning Joe program.
malaise
(268,993 posts)And you know what - M$M and even some people here would cheer him on