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.”

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?

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.

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

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

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

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!

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.”

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.

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.