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#USAF B-3 bomber = “unambiguous statements” for “our national leaders”

Fred Zimmerman — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:46:06 +0000

“I would tell you that a long-range, penetrating ISR/strike aircraft yields great advantages over any other kind of system,” Deptula says. “It's about putting flexibility and the ability to introduce unambiguous statements [for the consideration] of our national leaders. When

via New Bomber to Focus Heavily on ISR.

An unambiguous statement like “boom”?

Japan calls for deniable deterrence #naval #nuclear

Fred Zimmerman — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:36:56 +0000

This seems to amount to a call for a deniable flavor of deterrence. A new wrinkle! Not exactly a clarion call of confidence, in anything …

Tokyo sees the Tomahawk, especially submarine-launched cruise missiles, as the most logical weapon of deterrence in the neighborhood, since the last tactical bombs were removed from US bases in South Korea and aboard US Navy aircraft carriers nearly two decades ago.

This summer Japanese embassy officials in Washington quietly but strongly lobbied against American plans to retire the nuclear version of the Tomahawk in the context of the Congressional Commission on Strategic Posture of the United States. Its recommendation will go into Washington's forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review, which will determine the basic nuclear defense, disarmament and proliferation policies for the next decade.

The body, headed by two former defense secretaries, was formed in 2008 and issued its first report in May. It said: “One particularly important ally has argued to the commission privately that the credibility of the US extended [nuclear] deterrence depends on the specific capability to hold a variety of targets at risk in a way that is either visible or stealthy as circumstances warrant.”

It went on to elaborate: “In Asia extended deterrence relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles-class attack submarines… it has become clear that some allies in Asia would be very concerned about [Tomahawk] retirement.”

via Asia Sentinel – Japan: Save the Endangered Tomahawk!.

Ok, I give up on #Obama.

Fred Zimmerman — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:27:24 +0000

When the French and British are more focused on nonproliferation than the U.S. President, there might as well not be a U.S. President.

Mr Obama is said to have been worried the announcement would undermine the impact of his session on nuclear non-proliferation.

Details of the disagreement appeared to explain why Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy, the French president, took a harder line on Iran than the American leader at the meeting

The Prime Minister said it was time “to draw a line in the sand” on Tehran’s nuclear programme while the Frenchman mocked Mr Obama for the naivety of his “dreams” of eliminating nuclear weapons.

According to French officials, Mr Brown and particularly Mr Sarkozy wanted to make a declaration on Sep 24, either at the Security Council meeting chaired by the US president or just afterwards.

The Europeans considered that there was no better stage from which to tell the world that the three countries’ intelligence services had worked together to uncover an underground uranium enrichment facility under construction at Qom.

But Mr Obama did not want to “spoil the image of success” of his disarmament session, which passed a resolution to work towards a nuclear-free world and a host of measures designed to control the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce existing stocks.

After much arm-twisting, Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy were persuaded to delay the announcement until the opening of the G20 summit the next day in Pittsburgh.

via Brown and Sarkozy rowed with Obama over Iranian nuclear announcement – Telegraph.

Iraq/health care style disingenuousness killed Poland’s missile defense

Fred Zimmerman — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:31:26 +0000

As so often seems to be the case, the problem with missile defense was not the actual plan, but the stated rationale.

The net effect of the Eastern European missile defense shield would have been

1) moderately increased security against Iranian nuclear threat (helpful, but not something one would want to rely on …)

2) an infuriated Russia …

3) because it perceived its nuclear influence over Europe to be weakened …

4) closer relationships with the historically oppressed peoples of Eastern Europe.

IMHO, #3 and #4 would be beneficial to the national interests of the United States. the question is whether #2 is worth the benefits of 1, 3, and 4. Reasonable for Obama to say “no,” but sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, b/c #3 was not a publicly admissible rationale.

Netanyahu gives Obama his priorities #Economy #Iran

Fred Zimmerman — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:37:44 +0000

Actually, Obama’s #1 priority is driving General Motors into the grave.

“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told The Atlantic. The Iranian drive for a nuclear weapon was a “hinge of history,” he said, emphasizing that all of “Western civilization” was responsible for preventing an Iranian bomb.

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs,” Netanyahu said of the Iranian regime. “When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

via PM: We may be forced to attack Iran | Iran news | Jerusalem Post .

Conventional Tridents and Expected Value

wfz-admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:00:33 +0000

Here’s another case of people not understanding the concept of expected value.. Considering that the cost of an unexpected nuclear exchange must be assumed to be in the trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, even a very low risk could produce an unacceptable expected value.

Non-Nuclear Warhead Urged for Trident Missile – washingtonpost.com
The panel also said that few countries, other than Russia and perhaps China, would be able to detect a sub-launched missile “in the next five years,” and that because of the few warheads that would be involved, “the risk of the observing nation’s launching a nuclear retaliatory attack is very low.”

Russian nuclear doctrine allows attack against “annoying” countries?

wfz-admin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:44:47 +0000

Russia: Poland risks attack because of US missiles – Yahoo! News

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland’s agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported….

The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn …added, in clear reference to the [U.S. Polish missile defense] agreement, that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them.” Nogovitsyn that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax.

Or if the allied countries are “in some way” annoying?

Patriots in Poland

wfz-admin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:49:27 +0000

Starting the Cold War over with U.S. Patriots in Poland. The Polish start line didn’t do the Germans much good in WWII.

U.S. and Poland set missile deal – International Herald Tribune
A senior Pentagon official described an unusual part of this quid pro quo: an American Patriot battery would be moved from Germany to Poland, where it would be operated by a crew of about 100 American military personnel. The expenses would be shared by both nations. American troops would join the Polish military, at least temporarily, at the front lines — facing east toward Russia.

After a nuclear attack?

wfz-admin — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:42:57 +0000

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

huge Airbus A380 engine photo

wfz-admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:59:22 +0000

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