The Nimble Books Blog

U.S. Debates Deterrence for Nuclear Terrorism - New York Times

But it also demonstrated that while the first instinct of government officials after an explosion would be to figure out retaliation, “that would probably give way to an effort to seek the cooperation of a Pakistan or Russia to figure out where the stuff came from, what else was lost, and to hunt down the remaining bombs rather than punish the government that lost them,” said one of the conference’s organizers, Ashton B. Carter of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Wow, this academic comment totally misses the point. What would actually happen if there was a nuclear attack on American soil? Imagine the hurt and anger of the American public, and the utter ruthlessness of the U.S. government’s response. After 9/11, we threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age. After a nuclear attack on America, the U.S. government would give possible proliferators at most 30 days to comply with a bulletproof nuclear material control scheme and allow the inspectors in. (And we’re not talking about Mohamed El-Baradei as the head of the delegation!) Anyone who doesn’t comply is going to get bunker-busted. Not saying this is necessarily a good or wise course of action, but that’s by far the most likely course of events.

Technorati Tags: proliferation, nuclear attack

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Front Page, Proliferated by admin
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trent900a340_flyingtb2.jpg (JPEG Image, 2000×1559 pixels)

The Airbus 380 photo is one of the most popular pages on my blog. Go figure!

I still think this is a horrible idea – an eight-hundred-passenger disaster waiting to happen.

Technorati Tags: airbus 380, a380

Tags: Front Page, Proliferated, Tech Fun by admin
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Enterprise Resilience Management Blog: Singapore’s Resilient Strategy

No one can doubt that Singapore’s economic miracle has become permanent. Its resilient strategy is positioning Singapore for an emerging future rather than trying to get the country to cling to its successful past. It jump started its strategy by importing world-class scientists, building world-class facilities, and ensuring that its standards are as high as any around the globe. It’s a great lesson in resiliency.

Unfortunately for Singapore, it is a classic example of a single point of failure. I respect Steve D. & Enterra, but in the proliferated 21st Century, resilient assets must be distributed assets. Singapore, by definition, isn’t.

Technorati Tags: resilience, Singapore

Tags: Proliferated by admin
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Chron.com | Airlines ponder standing-room ’seats’

The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?

A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only “seats.”

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none has agreed to it yet.

Let’s put more eggs in the basket!

Tags: Proliferated by admin
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The New Yorker: Seymour Hersh on Iran

quoting a “Pentagon adviser in the war on terror”:
The bottom line is that [as a matter of United States national policy] Iran cannot become a nuclear-weapons state. The problem is that the Iranians realize that only by becoming a nuclear state can they defend themselves against the U.S. Something bad is going to happen.”

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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CNN.com - Ahmadinejad: Iran has enriched uranium - Apr 11, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday that Iran has successfully enriched uranium.

“Iran has joined countries with nuclear technology,” he said.

Good for Iran! I don’t care if they build nuclear power plants or even nuclear weapons. What I care about is whether they are responsible enough to manage them –which the current government of Iran obviously is not.

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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These war rumors are a sturdy perennial.

Telegraph | News | Government in secret talks about strike against Iran

The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran.

A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is “inevitable” if Teheran’s leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.

Tomorrow’s meeting will be attended by Gen Sir Michael Walker, the chief of the defence staff, Lt Gen Andrew Ridgway, the chief of defence intelligence and Maj Gen Bill Rollo, the assistant chief of the general staff, together with officials from the Foreign Office and Downing Street.

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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Saudia Arabia working on secret nuclear program with Pakistan help - report - Forbes.com
Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear program, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reported in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.

…

The magazine also said satellite images indicate that Saudi Arabia has set up a program in Al-Sulaiyil, south of Riyadh, a secret underground city and dozens of underground silos for missiles.

According to some Western security services, long-range Ghauri-type missiles of Pakistani-origin are housed inside the silos.

Not a huge surprise to readers of Proliferated.

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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Early Warning by William M. Arkin - washingtonpost.com

Do we really believe that the U.S. military thinks that Russia had a spy in the middle of American war planning for Iraq or that Russia broke some American code and listened in on U.S. war preparations in 2003?

And do we really think that Secretary of State and former national security advisor Condoleezza Rice first heard of this on Friday, as she made believe she did yesterday in television interviews?

The answer to both questions is no.

Welcome to the self-perpetuating world of spy vs. spy.

The nutshell summary of William H. Arkin’s article about the Russia spying disclosures is that Arkin’s mental filters are so finely tuned that they screen out all new information.

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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Why aren’t these documents headline news?

ABC News: Did Russian Ambassador Give Saddam the U.S. War Plan?
March 23, 2006 — Following are the ABC News Investigative Unit’s summaries of seven documents from Saddam Hussein’s government, which the U.S. government has released.

The documents discuss Osama bin Laden, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda and more.

The full documents can be found on the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Web site: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm.

For example:

The first document (CMPC-2003-001950) is a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.

Document dated March 25, 2003

The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state “Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk.” The information was obtained by the Russians from “sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar,” according to the document.

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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U.S. Intelligence and the French Nuclear Weapons Program
The U.S. Intelligence Community devoted significant effort to the collection and analysis of intelligence concerning the French nuclear weapons program beginning in the early days of the Cold War through the mid-1970s, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and archival research and posted on the Web today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

[Well, duh. No story here: they were doing their job.]

The documents also indicate that new technological improvements in U.S. nuclear intelligence gathering were used to closely monitor the French program. The collection effort included the use of overhead reconnaissance systems (including satellites and U-2 aircraft), drones, communications intercepts systems, aircraft to gather debris and signatures from French nuclear tests, and specially-equipped ships stationed near the French Pacific test site.

[Now this is more interesting. Off the top of my head, I wouldn't have guessed that the French program was a technology driver for us.]

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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CNN.com - Cheney: Iran must not have nuclear weapons - Mar 7, 2006
He said the United States joins “other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Until Jan. 20, 2009?

There’s a race against time between forces for “regime change” in both countries. Will a new US administration take an “oh well” stance, or will Iranian moderates pull the country away from its nuclear ambitions? If I had to bet, I’d guess we blink first. The question is whether Bush & Cheney are ballsy enough to take that option away from the next administration.

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Proliferated by admin
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