In order to keep abreast of the weekend nuclear news, I will post Saturday and Sunday’s news, but without editorial comment. If a weekend story warrants a critical review, it will show up on Monday’s posts . . .
If you are not familiar with the weekday daily blog post, this is how the nuclear news post works . . . llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available on this weekend’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
“It’s really going to be a long process just because of the magnitude of the incident and then being able to document everything that we need to make …
In abdicating its responsibility to warn us of the gravity of these dangers, the BAS risks turning Einstein and Oppenheimer’s call for sanity into yet …
… War Games,” you remember? Where the war is triggered by computer. You have all the “Terminator” series, where the computers set up a war, a nuclear …
n order to keep abreast of the weekend nuclear news, I will post Saturday and Sunday’s news, but without editorial comment. If a weekend story warrants a critical review, it will show up on Monday’s posts . . .
If you are not familiar with the weekday daily blog post, this is how the nuclear news post works . . . llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available on this weekend’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
… nuclear weapons. Officials were given hours to fire hundreds of employees … All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:00 PM Fresh Air. 0:00. 0:00. All Things …
… reactor №4 of Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Photo by Andriy Zhyhaylo/ Oboz.ua/ Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images. Experts have said the drone .
Video footage shared by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows the moment of the impact and the damage to the confinement. Read More. A view of …
… threats if it has concerns about its mainland safety, state media KCNA … war exercises with South Korea and sending a nuclear submarine to the Korean …
Kansas Republicans condemn violent threats. Apparently not if they make them, though. Description. Rep. Patrick Penn, a Wichita Republican, joked with …
Experts warn that, if nuclear war occurs, it will likely be unintended, the result of dangerous policies compounded by misdeeds, miscommunication, and …
(See “Axios” article for description of Chernobyl drone attack and photo credits. ~llaw)
LAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY with the RISKS and CONSEQUENCES of TOMORROW
Why would any country’s military or even a terrorist organization attack the cover shelter of the long ago shutdown and current ongoing clean-up of the April 1986 nuclear reactor caused by Russian engineering design error?
I can think of only one reason, and I’m at a loss as to who or what would do this other than to attempt to cause a potentially lethal radiation leak. The IAEA seriously needs to investigate this incident and track down the the responsible party(s) and ensure that such an attack should never be allowed to happen again.
But ultimately, there is only one way to guarantee that nuclear power plants are safe and that is to ban them (old, new, and perceived) from ever operating anywhere in this violent and angry world of humanity. Unfortunately, that will never happen.
Once again, this kind of “all things nuclear” activity — as I have constantly ranted about over the years — is why nuclear power plants and their reactors must be forever banned from our world(s)’ overblown functions and needs right along with nuclear bombs because not only are they life-threatening on their own (along with their poisonous waste), but they are fast becoming an integral part of potential nuclear war and terrorism. ~llaw
Read the “Axios” article below for more details . . .
Russia denies its drone targeted Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine
Ivana SaricThe damage on the protective shelter of the destroyed fourth power unit at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant on Feb. 14. Photo: Volodymyr Zelenskyy/Social media/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
The Kremlin on Friday denied an accusation from Ukraine that a Russian drone had struck the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Why it matters: Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said radiation levels remained stable despite the explosion at the plant.
Driving the news: The IAEA said Friday that an explosion was heard at the plant overnight at the containment structure over the plant’s reactor 4 — the site of the 1986 disaster — causing a fire.
While the IAEA didn’t attribute blame for the strike, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike was caused by a Russian drone that caused “significant” damage.
“The only country in the world that attacks such sites, occupies nuclear power plants, and wages war without any regard for the consequences is today’s Russia. This is a terrorist threat to the entire world,” he wrote.
Both Zelensky and the IAEA said radiation levels in the area remain normal.
The other side: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the accusations that it was behind the attack, telling reporters Friday it was a “fabrication,” Russian state news agency TASS reported.
“The Russian military does not do this,” he added.
The big picture: Throughout the war, which is set to enter its fourth year later this month, Ukraine has accused Russia of risking a nuclear incident.
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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA
(Please note that the Sunday and Saturday NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS are also added below by category, following Monday’s news posts in order to maintain continuity of nuclear news as well as for research for the overall information provided in “LLAW;s All Things Nuclear”.)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera & Other Volcanoes (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in today’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
He said that once “things settle down,” he plans to meet with China and Russia to discuss how all three countries can reduce their military spending, …
A drone attack early this morning caused a fire on the building confining the remains of the reactor destroyed in the 1986 Chornobyl accident, a deeply concerning incident that underlines the persistent risks to nuclear safety during the military conflict, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. Read more →
An IAEA team of experts said Thailand is committed to strengthening its national regulatory framework for safety. The team also identified some areas for further enhancements. Read more →
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Wednesday, as part of his two-day visit to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Read more →
Groundwater accounts for around 30 per cent of the world’s freshwater, making it an important resource for addressing current global issues, such as world population growth, agricultural intensification and increased water use in different sectors. Read more →
Interested contributors have until 1 May 2025 to submit abstracts for the IAEA’s International Conference on Emergency Preparedness and Response. Read more →
(See the “Brookings” article for description and photo credits ~ llaw)
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY with the RISKS and CONSEQUENCES of TOMORROW
The following testimonial and hearing (edited for the media) from the Brookings Institute before the House Armed Services Committee on February 12, 2025 once again demonstrates the great concern about avoiding nuclear war that attempts to do all it can possibly do.
In my estimation, for many reasons — some of them expressed in semi-consecutive previous “LLAWs All Things Nuclear” Posts since Trump’s inauguration — this is not enough, but what else can be done short of all nuclear armed countries laying down their weapons of nuclear war? Of course that is not going to happen.
Therefore, the most important issue of all is to somehow control Donald J. Trump, now the 47th president of the United States, so that straightforward and sound global courtesies and decisions are made during this moment-to-moment day-to-day threat of a nuclear war crisis. How that can be done, I have no idea; but controlling Trump must be the USA’s primary defensive position of all in order to avoid more serious threats of nuclear war and even the possibility of such a war which can never be won. ~llaw
Handout photo dated May 2, 2024 shows Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Launch/Recovery) Airman Tyler Cardamone, from Peak, Delaware, assigned to air department’s V-2 division, gives a thumbs up as an F/A-18F Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 103 takes off from the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) in the Atlantic Ocean. (ABACA via Reuters Connect)
Today’s threats are complex and interconnected.1 Only through serious, thoughtful, and regular assessment can the United States effectively understand and influence this security environment. The plasticity of this period, wherein major regions and conflicts are being fundamentally reshaped, contains challenges and opportunities for U.S. national security interests.
Understanding global threats
For most of the second half of the twentieth century, American strategic planners largely faced a Cold War in which superpower conflict was kept on ice by nuclear deterrence, turning hot in proxy fights that were costly but containable. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought that era to an end. In Washington during the 1990s, war became a matter of assembling coalitions to intervene in discrete conflicts when bad actors invaded their neighbors, stoked civil or ethnic violence, or massacred civilians. After the shock of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, U.S. strategy shifted to terrorist organizations, insurgents, and other nonstate groups. The resulting “war on terror” pushed thinking about state-on-state conflict to the sidelines. For most of this century, the prospect of a major war among states was a lower priority for American military thinkers and planners, and whenever it took center stage, the context was usually a potential conflict with China that would materialize only in the far-off future, if ever.
Now, the relatively narrow scope that defined war during the post-9/11 era has dramatically widened. An era of limited war has ended; an age of comprehensive conflict has begun. What the world is witnessing today is akin to what theorists in the past called “total war,” in which combatants draw on vast arrays of resources, mobilize their societies, attack a broad variety of targets, and reshape their economies to prioritize warfare over all other state activities.
The character of war is changing in three fundamental ways:
1. The continuum of conflict has collapsed
In an earlier era, one might have seen the terrorism and insurgency of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis as inhabiting the low end of a spectrum of conflict intensity; the armies waging conventional warfare in Ukraine as residing in the middle; and the nuclear threats shaping Russia’s war and China’s growing arsenal as sitting at the high end. Today, however, there is no sense of mutual exclusivity between these domains; the continuum of conflict has collapsed. To put it in cinematic terms, when it comes to war, we see “everything, everywhere, all at once.” In Ukraine, “robot dogs” patrol the ground and autonomous drones launch missiles from the sky amid trench warfare that looks like World War I—all under the specter of nuclear weapons. In the Middle East, combatants combined sophisticated air and missile defense systems with individual shooting attacks by armed men riding motorcycles. In the Indo-Pacific, Chinese and Philippine forces face off over a single dilapidated ship while the skies and seas surrounding Taiwan get squeezed by threatening maneuvers from China’s air force and navy.
The prominence of sea-based struggles, in particular, marks a major departure from the post-9/11 era, when conflict was largely fought on land. Back then, most maritime attacks were sea-to-ground, and most air attacks were air-to-ground. Today, the maritime domain has become a major site of direct conflict. Ukraine has taken out more than 20 Russian ships in the Black Sea, and control of that critical waterway remains contested. Meanwhile, Houthi attacks largely closed the Red Sea to commercial shipping.
The multidimensional character of conflict also underscores the risk of being tempted by today’s weapon of choice, which might turn out to be a flash in the pan. Compared with the post-9/11 era, more countries now have greater access to cheaper materials and more research and development (R&D) capacity, allowing them to respond more quickly and adeptly to new weapons and technologies by developing countermeasures. This exacerbates a familiar dynamic that the military scholar J. F. C. Fuller described as “the constant tactical factor”—the reality that “every improvement in weapons has eventually been met by a counter-improvement which has rendered the improvement obsolete.”
2. The demography of war has expanded
The cast of characters shaping war has become increasingly diverse. The post-9/11 wars were defined by the outsize impact of terrorist groups, proxies, and militias. As those conflicts ground on, many policymakers wished they could go back to the traditional focus on state militaries—particularly given the enormous investments some states were making in their defenses. They should have been careful what they wished for: state militaries are back, but nonstate groups hardly left the stage. The current security environment offers the misfortune of dealing with both.
In the Middle East, multiple state militaries are increasingly fighting or enmeshed with surprisingly influential nonstate actors. The Houthis are responsible for the most intense set of sea engagements the U.S. Navy has faced since World War II and their attacks have negatively impacted the global economy. With help from Iran, the Houthis are also punching above their weight in the air by manufacturing and deploying their own drones. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Kyiv’s regular forces are fighting alongside cadres of international volunteers in numbers likely not seen since the Spanish Civil War. And to augment Russia’s traditional forces, the Kremlin has incorporated mercenaries from the Wagner paramilitary company and sent tens of thousands of convicts to war—a practice Ukraine’s military copied.
In this environment, the task of building partner forces becomes even more complex than during the post-9/11 wars. U.S. programs to build the Afghan and Iraqi militaries focused on countering terrorist and insurgent threats with the aim of enabling friendly regimes to exert sovereignty over their territories. To help build up Ukraine’s forces for their fight against another state military, however, the United States and its allies have had to relearn how to teach. The U.S. Department of Defense built a new kind of coalition, convening more than 50 countries from across the world to coordinate materiel donations to Ukraine through the Ukraine Defense Contact Group—the most complex and most rapid effort ever undertaken to stand up a single country’s military.
Although the United States had been building militaries in fragile states since World War II, its record was lackluster. That is no longer the case. The Pentagon’s new system has demonstrated that it can move so quickly that materiel support for Ukraine has at times been delivered within days. The system has surged in ways that many thought impossible. In particular, the technical aspect of equipping militaries has improved. For example, the U.S. Army’s use of artificial intelligence has made it much easier for Ukraine’s military to be able to see and understand the battlefield, make decisions, and act accordingly. Lessons from the rapid delivery of assistance to Ukraine have also been applied to the Israel-Hamas war; within days of the attacks on October 7, 2023, U.S.-supplied air defense capabilities and munitions were in Israel to protect its skies and help it respond. Overall, the technical aspects of providing support to foreign militaries have been streamlined so that the system now consistently works in ways it did not before—particularly in terms of speed.
But even though Washington has demonstrated that it can build a foreign military with alacrity, the question will always remain as to whether it should. The cost of transferring valuable equipment to a partner involves considerations of the U.S. military’s own readiness levels and combat credibility. Moreover, such assistance is not merely a technical effort but a political exercise as well, and the system has occasionally slowed down as it wrestles with dilemmas regarding the full implications of U.S. security aid. For example, to avoid tripping Russia’s red lines, Washington has spent enormous time debating where, when, and under what circumstances Ukraine should use U.S. military assistance. This puzzle is not new, but given the destructive abilities of the rivals that Washington is now facing or preparing to confront, the stakes of solving it correctly are much higher than during the post-9/11 era.
The role of defense industrial bases in rival countries has also shaped the new contours of war-making. In the dozens of countries supporting Ukraine, domestic defense industries have not been able to keep up with the demand. Meanwhile, Russia’s defense industrial base has been revived after speculations about its demise proved to be greatly exaggerated. Although China’s support to Russia appears to exclude lethal assistance, it has nevertheless involved Beijing providing Moscow with critical technologies, representing a stronger partnership. And both Iran and North Korea support their defense industries by selling munitions and other wares to Moscow. The United States is not the only power to recognize the value (both on the battlefield and back home) of supplying partner forces and building up their capacities; its adversaries have, as well.
3. The return of deterrence
During the two decades of the post-9/11 era, the concept of deterrence was rarely invoked in Washington since the idea seemed largely irrelevant to conflicts against nihilistic nonstate actors such as al-Qaida and ISIS. What a difference a few years make: Today, almost every debate about U.S. foreign policy and national security boils down to the challenge of deterrence. This change in conversation is because the global threat environment has evolved such that states like China now pose the biggest threat to U.S. national security interests.
In this new environment, traditional approaches to deterrence are regaining relevance. One is deterrence by denial—the act of making it difficult for an enemy to achieve its intended objective. Denial can quell escalation even if it fails to prevent an initial act of aggression. In the Middle East, Israel was unable to stop Iran’s major conventional attacks on Israeli territory, but it largely denied Iran the benefits it hoped to gain. Israel’s military repulsed almost all of the Iranian missiles and drones thanks to its sophisticated air and missile defense systems and the collaboration of the United States and countries across the Middle East and Europe. (Shoddy Iranian equipment also played a role.) The limited repercussions of the attack enabled Israel to wait to respond and to do so in more limited ways than would have been likely had Iran’s operations been more successful. But the wins were costly: the United States and Israel may have spent 10 times more in responding to Iran’s April 2024 attack than Iran did in launching it.
Another traditional means of deterrence that resurfaced is punishment, which requires credibly threatening an adversary with severe consequences if it takes certain actions. At a few key junctures, Vladimir Putin’s saber-rattling brought the risk of nuclear weapons use to its highest point since the Cold War. During one fraught period in October 2022, experts worried there was a 50% chance that Putin would employ his nuclear arsenal. In calls with Russian counterparts, senior American leaders made stern and timely warnings of “catastrophic” consequences if Moscow made good on its threats. Those warnings worked, as did a broader effort to persuade key Indo-Pacific and European countries, most notably China and India, to publicly and prospectively condemn any role for nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Tugging Putin down the escalation ladder required a baseline understanding of how he viewed threats, serious attention to the signals and noise being sent across the entire U.S. government, and active feedback loops to ensure those assessments were accurate—all paired with robust diplomatic engagements.
A third approach to deterrence is through resilience, which the 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) described as “the ability to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption.” Resilience is the rationale behind the historic and ongoing dispersal of U.S. military bases in the Indo-Pacific, which will allow American forces to absorb an attack and continue fighting. The presence of increasingly capable dispersed U.S. military assets (alongside those of allied and partner militaries) complicates Chinese planning by creating potential pathways to preclude Chinese efforts to overturn the status quo, increases the complexity of those contingencies, and induces uncertainty about which may be the most relevant. It’s true that it will be difficult to know whether any particular U.S. ally or partner will prove willing to use or allow the use of military assets from its territory in a conflict. But that uncertainty is a feature, not a bug, of this approach. Simply put, although the United States may not have full clarity about what role specific allies and partners will play should a conflict erupt, neither does China.
Tackling global threats
To best protect U.S. national security interests amid the most turbulent global security environment in decades, the United States should focus on:
Prioritizing China but not ignoring other threats
No other country has the will, and increasingly the capability, to fundamentally reshape the global security order—a global security order that has benefited U.S. national security interests for 80 years. The tricky strategic question isn’t whether the United States should prioritize the threat posed by China—the answer to that is undoubtedly yes—but instead, how and in what ways to best address other major threats, including Russia, North Korea, Iran, and terrorism. Increasingly, this presents less of a binary choice than previously given the increasing cooperation between and among adversaries. That offers opportunities—such as both Russia and Iran losing strategic ground with the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—but also challenges, as demonstrated by Iranian and North Korean military support to Russia. And of course, there is a ceiling and limits to these relationships among U.S. adversaries. The United States has finite resources, including time, attention, and capabilities, and must take that into account when juggling security challenges; but ignoring threats is shortsighted and nonstrategic. Put simply, the United States cannot do it all nor is it some middling power that can only focus on one issue.
The United States should smartly apply its resources to those other threats in a sustainable manner. For example, 2024 was the most dynamic year for the Middle East since 1979, which thrust Iran into its most vulnerable position in nearly 50 years. This weakness provides a crucial opportunity to establish criteria for serious negotiations on its nuclear program. Outside of the Middle East, the terrorist threat has metastasized, particularly across the Horn of Africa and broader West Africa. Tackling it requires continuing to work with partner militaries and civilian institutions. And in Europe, where Russia’s military has suffered 700,000 casualties without any American servicemembers engaged in direct fighting, support to Ukraine’s institutions has had a massive impact on a rogue actor seeking to upend the security environment. In these examples, and in many more, the United States should work with other countries and use all its tools of statecraft to press advantages so that it can focus on China.
Strengthening America’s military and other tools of statecraft
The United States must be able to deter threats and, if that fails, to prevail in war. That requires a lethal, resilient, sustainable, and agile military; one that can effectively balance between responding to today’s threats while maintaining the capability to counter tomorrow’s threats. It must take a strategy-driven and resource-informed approach when doing so.
Today, the defense budget is both at the highest level in U.S. history and a historically low level as a percentage of GDP (approximately 3%, which is around the same as the mid-1990s). However, it is more important to focus on what should and should not be funded rather than a single top-line number. Overall, the military must continue modernizing and more quickly integrating and fielding capabilities, particularly by incentivizing innovation to increase in pace and scale. Investments should include nuclear modernization (particularly given the unprecedented nuclear threat environment); undersea platforms; uncrewed systems across domains; resilient space architecture; cyber; artificial intelligence; munitions (a traditionally orphan issue where congressional leadership has been particularly crucial); the submarine industrial base; and R&D. Creating a focused “deterrence fund” to support operations, posture, readiness, and security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, for example, would make it easier to target resources related to the pacing challenge of China. Big bet investments strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base, invest in the American workforce, and ensure American technological competitive edge in critical areas to hopefully deter conflict and prevail in war if it erupts.
Even with more funding, the military requires cuts to maintain its strategic focus and evolve in line with the security environment. Those include relooking excess infrastructure—particularly since it has been almost two decades since the last serious effort to close bases—older ships and aircraft (including A-10s and littoral combat ships), and compensation costs, including personnel and benefits. And as this committee knows well, the Department of Defense (DOD) has gone nearly a decade and a half without on-time appropriations. Continuing resolutions make it very difficult to realize strategy; they are an “own goal” that weakens the U.S. military.
Beyond resources and platforms, there are two key areas of DOD to reexamine. First, talent management. It is often said that the people who serve are our military’s greatest asset. That is indeed true; at its core, our military prowess is an extension of its servicemembers’ capabilities. As the security environment grows more complex, having a force whose members have varied backgrounds and experiences is a strategic and warfighting advantage vis-à-vis adversaries like China and Russia. Second, organizational structures in DOD are unwieldy. Relooking the increasingly sprawling structures, including consolidating combatant commands and military department components, can better align DOD’s objectives and resources.
This committee has a crucial role to play in ensuring DOD is tracking, assessing, and enabling the United States to navigate and thrive in this dynamic security environment. Indeed, the secretary of defense is required to give Congress an update this month assessing the National Defense Strategy. Having led the last NDS and contributed to many others, I recommend the committee ask hard questions about risk—including risk to strategy and risk to force—and seek mitigation; push for assessments on the wars in Europe and the Middle East; request an update on threats to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific; and seek details regarding the use of U.S. troops on the border, the impact on the military’s ability to prioritize China, and broader administration plans to empower the Department of Homeland Security to fulfill its statutory obligations rather than relying on the U.S. military to do so.
But relying solely on the U.S. military to address global threats is a recipe for disaster. The United States has historically had several tools in its statecraft toolkit, including diplomacy, development, and economic carrots and sticks. Dismissing, under-funding, or degrading U.S. soft power means the United States will rely on hard power. Ultimately, that approach is not only inefficient, but it will cost more—in American treasure and American lives. The military is often not the most appropriate tool or fit for purpose. Indeed, during the post-9/11 wars, the military was at times used in ways that did not play to its competitive advantages. Moreover, there is an opportunity cost inherent in using the military in nonstrategic ways; it is unable to focus and prioritize and can lose readiness. That means the military takes its eyes off the most serious threats and at a minimum, cedes the playing field to adversaries like China and Russia; at a maximum, it means the military does not have the capabilities or the readiness to address those threats.
Collaborating with allies and partners
America’s unparalleled network of allies and partners sets it apart from every other great power in history. When international challenges or opportunities arise, many countries turn to the United States to share their assessments and to collaboratively plan the way forward. Today, many U.S. allies and partners across Europe and the Indo-Pacific are turbocharging their defense budgets. Sustaining these investments will be critical given the multiple and varied threats ahead. U.S. diplomacy has brought countries within the Indo-Pacific together and created connections between regions. The former is illustrated by the historic U.S.-brokered progress between Japan and South Korea and by the Quad (composed of the United States, India, Australia, and Japan). The latter is represented by the creation of AUKUS (a major military partnership joining Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), and by the inclusion of four of America’s Indo-Pacific allies in the last three NATO summits. These tighter relationships are a net positive, and increasing the size, scope, and scale of collaboration is a crucial deterrent and an asset. More broadly, working by, with, and through allies and partners to tackle global threats—those of today and tomorrow—is ultimately more effective and less pricey.
In conclusion, for the United States to prevail in an era of comprehensive conflict requires a sense of urgency and vigilance and, above all, a wide aperture about how threats are evolving—and what we must do to effectively respond to them.
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ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO LLAW’s ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA
(Please note that the Sunday and Saturday NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS are also added below by category, following Monday’s news posts in order to maintain continuity of nuclear news as well as for research for the overall information provided in “LLAW;s All Things Nuclear”.)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera & Other Volcanoes (Note: There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in today’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Trump must modernize America’s regulatory approach by updating the current nuclear reactor permitting process, which is outdated, slow, expensive, and …
Under the guidelines, residents within 5 km of a nuclear plant must immediately evacuate beyond a 30-km radius in the event of a “general emergency,” …
(See image description and photo credits in the “Al Jazeera” article below.)
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY with the RISKS and CONSEQUENCES of TOMORROW
Trump just can’t leave well enough alone. In one breath he mentions cooperation and in the next he serves up threats — or whatever opposing thoughts are rattling around in his own mind. That means that he can never be trusted to do what he says he will do, or even what he might do. And it’s not just to Iran that he provokes these double standards.
His contradictory statements are everywhere, including issues in the country of his own so-called presidency. The truth is that he is a deranged pathological liar who doesn’t mentally understand facts from fiction so he is continuously contradicting himself, meaning that Trump is —to misquote Shakespeare’s view of life in “Macbeth”— “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” ~llaw
(Read the “Al Jazeera” article in today’s Post to see why Iran is so upset with Trump’s new U.S. presidency and what they intend to do about it . . .)
‘Go forward’: Iran’s Khamenei urges military growth amid Trump threats
Trump has suggested using force to stop Iran’s nuclear programme, in statements condemned by Tehran at UN.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the defence achievements exhibition in Tehran, Iran [Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency via Reuters]
Published On 12 Feb 202512 Feb 2025
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for the country to further develop its military capabilities after United States President Donald Trump threatened to use force if Tehran does not negotiate on its nuclear programme.
Speaking on Wednesday after visiting an exhibition in the country’s capital showcasing the latest defence sector developments, Khamenei said “progress should not be stopped”.
“We cannot be satisfied,” Khamenei said. “Say that we previously set a limit for the accuracy of our missiles, but we now feel this limit is no longer enough. We have to go forward.”
“Today, our defensive power is well known, our enemies are afraid of this. This is very important for our country,” he said.
The statements come after Iran’s representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, condemned what he called Trump’s “reckless and inflammatory statements” and warned that “any act of aggression will have severe consequences”.
In a letter to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Iravani referred to Trump’s recent media interviews, in which the US leader suggested stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons could be achieved either “with bombs or with a written piece of paper”.
“I would much rather do a deal that’s not gonna hurt them,” Trump told Fox News on Monday, adding that “I’d love to make a deal with them without bombing them.”
Tensions have ratcheted since Trump took office in January and reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran over concerns the country was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
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(Please note that the Sunday and Saturday NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS are also added below by category, following Monday’s news posts in order to maintain continuity of nuclear news as well as for research for the overall information provided in “LLAW;s All Things Nuclear”.)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
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Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
If it were powered by nuclear energy, one person would die roughly every 33 years. … What’s the reward system all about? Once you send back your Take …
Postol, T. A.: Possible Fatalities from Superfires Following Nuclear Attack. Medical Implications of Nuclear War, F. Solomon and R. Q. Marston (eds), …
Some of us believed that at the end of the Cold War in 1991 American and Soviet nuclear rockets would be left to rust and rot in their silos. Indeed, …
US President Donald Trump (2L) and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wait ahead a meeting in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018. (Photo credit ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY with the RISKS and CONSEQUENCES of TOMORROW
This “Breaking Defense” article is another look at Trump and his “Iron Dome for America” (or more of the same) from yesterday’s Post as well as my personal opinion that it won’t work beyond the ridiculous “deterrence” hope of “eternal delay” by keeping up with the Jones’s, which cannot go on forever. And we have proven over and over again that pacts, agreements, etc., aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
The strictly defensive “Iron Dome for America” is far too late to avoid the possibility of avoiding nuclear war from Russia or any other country and too expensive — I have seen estimates of $3 trillion — as a “nuclear deterrence” defense effort and may even prompt our enemies to attack us sooner rather than later while we are still arguing back and forth whether to build the system, but it would take unavailable years to build anyway.
My question, then, is why are we even talking about this potential “white elephant” as some kind of immediate savior for America when in reality it may never be built and may prove to more likely work as an early invitation to nuclear armed countries to no longer delay an all-out nuclear war.
So, as I see it, there is no solution to the potential of a global nuclear war other than some kind of unknown and unlikely intervention or a change of heart by the very nature of collective humanity about our present depravity of ethnic borders, racial and religious hatred, social and financial inequality, and world peace instead of war — none of which which, in all probably, is likely to happen . ~llaw
“The fundamental point, though, at least in the short term, would be for Trump to send a political message to Russia via allied consultations that American security is indivisible from NATO,” writes Kyle Balzer of AEI in this op-ed.
US President Donald Trump (2L) and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wait ahead a meeting in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018. (Photo credit ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump enters office at a possible inflection point in the ongoing nuclear competition with China and Russia. Though it is a moment of great peril for the US nuclear modernization program, it is also one of great opportunity — should Trump choose to seize it.
Both China and Russia have exploited America’s glacial effortto modernize its aging nuclear arsenal and atrophied defense-industrial base by rapidly expanding their own. Beijing has grown the world’s largest fleet of nuclear-capable land-based missilelaunchers. And Moscow has locked in a glaring theater nuclear advantage in Europe that helped constrain former President Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia. Compounding these developments is the fact that Washington, due to its deficient defense-industrial capacity, cannot reverse these trends in the near term by simply accelerating its troubled nuclear modernization program.
And yet, despite the long-term structural problems with nuclear modernization, Trump still has readily available options at his disposal. Two near-term options, in particular, stand out. Both are political in nature, dealing with the “software” of nuclear alliances and the mechanics of US domestic leadership. And both would generate immediate deterrence payoffs.
First, Trump should move quickly to initiate political consultations within NATO to integrate Poland, in some form, into the alliance’s nuclear mission. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the deployment of Russian short-range nuclear weapons in Belarus, Warsaw has expressedinterest in joining NATO’s nuclear-sharing program — an arrangement in which forward-stationed gravity bombs remain in US custody in peacetime, but are carried by allied aircraft during crises and wartime.
Poland’s fervor to host US nuclear weapons is undoubtedly a reflection of NATO’s failure to adjust to two transformations in the post-Cold War European security environment: the migration of the alliance’s center of gravity from Germany to Poland, and Moscow’s massive theater nuclear buildup that dwarfs the hundred or so American gravity bombs based in countries far from Russia’s border, like Germany.
Integrating Poland into NATO’s nuclear-sharing system would address NATO’s changing geography and Warsaw’s growing fear of Russia’s theater buildup. Washington would not necessarily have to station gravity bombs in Poland, where they would be more vulnerable to preemptive attack. Polish pilots, after all, could always fly dual-capable aircraft based in Germany, as both nation’s pilots will soon be trained on the F-35A.
A larger wrinkle would be to bring Finland into the nuclear fold and field weapons in both Poland and Finland — whether permanently or only for temporary rotations. This alternative might appeal to Helsinki, which has expressed a nascent interest in revising its long-held prohibition of nuclear weapons transiting its territory. It would mean Poland was not the only nuclear-armed NATO member along Russia’s border. And it would have the bonus effect of creating a nuclearized perimeter on Russia’s frontier that would greatly complicate Kremlin planning.
Of course, one can never know what, exactly, will deter Moscow. But Russia has a historic tendency to pick on the “little guy” — and a nuclear-capable NATO frontline is no small matter. The fundamental point, though, at least in the short term, would be for Trump to send a political message to Russia via allied consultations that American security is indivisible from NATO.
To be sure, this option is not a rationale for dramatically scaling back US conventional forces in Europe — which would only weaken the alliance’s overall deterrence. Nor should it be wielded as a bargaining chip in whatever negotiations Trump might pursue regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. Nuclear consultations should be treated on their own terms: as an effort to reinforce NATO via two allies who are already devotingvast resources to their own defense.
The second option readily available to Trump would be for him to get the White House back in the business of explaining to the American people the mounting threats they face — and what this means for their security. Here, Trump has a tremendous opportunity to outshine Biden, who neglected his duty to make the public case for greater defense spending. The simple act of adequately resourcing the military will have a deterrence effect by showing Beijing and Moscow that Washington is serious about defense. But sending this message will be impossible unless Americans hear from their president why they should support a larger defense budget.
Indeed, Trump can rip a page directly out of the Cold War playbook of Ronald Reagan, the last president to make the case for and oversee a military buildup to counter a nuclear-armed peer adversary. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Reagan hammered home the point that the country was on the wrong end of adverse trends in the Soviet-American strategic balance. And he clearly articulated, in speechafterspeech, why the country required modernized missiles and bombers to penetrate improved Soviet air defenses.
In this episode of The Weekly Break Out, space reporter Theresa Hitchens takes a deep dive into her coverage of how President Donald Trump’s “Iron Dome for America” plan is beginning to form. Plus, The Marine Corps makes a surprise shift in its F-35 strategy.
Reagan’s rhetoric and preparations to deploy these new capabilities ultimately had a demoralizing impact on the Soviets and yielded a landmark arms-control agreement on theater nuclear forces. Indeed, the Kremlin, as one Soviet official later recalled, was “already compromising” before the US nuclear buildup even began to pick up steam in the mid-1980s.
Fortunately for President Trump, the measures discussed above don’t require immediate solutions to America’s troubled defense-industrial base. They simply require the will to speak frankly with allies and the American people.
That nuclear modernization is beset with delays, a work-force shortage, and funding gaps is no reason to surrender to despair. President Trump, like Reagan, can achieve peace through strength if he seizes the opportunities before him.
Kyle Balzer is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
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(Please note that the Sunday and Saturday NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS are also added below by category, following Monday’s news posts in order to maintain continuity of nuclear news as well as for research for the overall information provided in “LLAW;s All Things Nuclear”.)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in today’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
BARBER: Hey, NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel. Why are you darkening my doorstep? BRUMFIEL: To talk about one of my all-time favorite topics, …
President Donald Trump enters office at a possible inflection point in the ongoing nuclear competition with China and Russia. … War European security …
Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launcher takes part in the Victory Day military parade general rehearsal on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 5, 2024. Maxim Shipenkov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY with the RISKS and CONSEQUENCES of TOMORROW
This short briefing from “REUTERS” is why I believe nuclear treaties, agreements, pacts, or other hand-shaking agreements mean nothing to preventing nuclear war. Not even disarmament agreements among nations would be honored because one nation or another (or all of them) could or would not be trusted to do what they ‘promised’ to do.
That is why “nuclear deterrence” exists and is likely the only reason that nuclear war has been avoided thus far. But ‘deterrence’ is fast coming to a financial impossibility to sustain for nuclear nations to continue to build more and more powerful nuclear weapons of mass destruction along with their silos, missiles, submarines, and accompanying systems to stave off one or more nuclear armed country from eventually saying, “to hell with this”, and unilaterally launching the 1st and only required attack, spurring in-kind response(s) and the inevitable apocalyptical no-win nuclear WWIII.
We are just buying time with broken agreements and “nuclear deterrence” — avoiding the inevitable — until one depraved and deprived nation goes too far with the verbal threats and begins the physical end. ~llaw
Russia warns outlook for extending last nuclear arms pact with US does not look promising
Item 1 of 3 Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launcher takes part in the Victory Day military parade general rehearsal on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 5, 2024. Maxim Shipenkov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
[1/3]Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launcher takes part in the Victory Day military parade general rehearsal on the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 5, 2024. Maxim Shipenkov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Summary
Last nuclear pact due to expire in less than a year
It caps number of warheads Russia and US can deploy
Trump has spoken about talks with Russia and China
Moscow wants Britain and France to be included too
MOSCOW, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Russia warned on Monday that the outlook for extending the last remaining pillar of nuclear arms control between Moscow and Washington, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers, did not look promising and that the situation appeared to be deadlocked.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them, is due to run out in less than a year – on February 5, 2026.
U.S. President Donald Trump, during his first presidential term, withdrew the U.S. from another important treaty – the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty – and the New START agreement is now the only pact remaining.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees U.S. relations and arms control, told a news briefing in Moscow on Monday that the prospects for talks on amending and extending the agreement looked bleak for now.
“As for our dialogue in the field of (nuclear) strategic stability and the post-New START situation, the situation does not look very promising,” said Ryabkov.
“On February 5, 2026, the pact expires and after this it will not exist.”
Trump in January said he wanted to work towards cutting nuclear arms, adding that he thought Russia and China might support reducing their own weapons capabilities.
“We’d like to see denuclearization … and I will tell you President Putin really liked the idea of cutting way back on nuclear. And I think the rest of the world, we would have gotten them to follow, and China would have come along too,” Trump said.
The Kremlin, commenting on Trump’s remarks, said at the time that Russian President Vladimir Putin had made clear he wanted to restart nuclear arms cuts talks as soon as possible.
But Ryabkov said that while the U.S. wanted three-way arms talks – including China – Moscow wanted five-way arms talks.
Russia has said it wants Britain and France – also nuclear powers – to be included in any talks.
“The U.S. is proposing a three-way talks format and we want a five-way format. We are going round in circles,” said Ryabkov.
Ryabkov also linked progress on agreeing a new nuclear treaty to Washington’s wider policy towards Russia at a time when Trump says he is exploring how to end the war in Ukraine as the Russian economy tries to weather the toughest Western sanctions ever.
“As for (renewing) New START, as Putin has said, nothing prevents us from holding talks and we are ready for that. But this depends on whether we’ll see a real shift in Washington’s policy towards Russia,” said Ryabkov.
“But this hasn’t happened yet and it’s therefore premature to talk about this. The clock is running down.”
The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.
Reporting by Dmitry Antonov in Moscow. Writing by Andrew Osborn in London Editing by Guy Faulconbridge
As Russia Chief Political Correspondent, and former Moscow bureau chief, Andrew helps lead coverage of the world’s largest country, whose political, economic and social transformation under President Vladimir Putin he has reported on for much of the last two decades, along with its growing confrontation with the West and wars in Georgia and Ukraine. Andrew was part of a Wall Street Journal reporting team short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. He has also reported from Moscow for two British newspapers, The Telegraph and The Independent.
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(Please note that the Sunday and Saturday NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS are also added below by category, following Monday’s news posts in order to maintain continuity of nuclear news as well as for research for the overall information provided in “LLAW;s All Things Nuclear”.)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
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Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are two Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in today’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Everything started with drawings made by hand, but instead of using them to fabricate physical prototypes, they used generative AI technology to come …
Additionally €54 million would be needed for the development of emergency response and technical capabilities. Antti Tooming, deputy secretary-general …
Yellowstone Volcano receives ample attention for being a large, active, caldera-forming volcanic system. Given the massive eruptions over the last 2.1 …
In order to stay abreast of the weekend nuclear news, I will post Saturday and Sunday’s news, but without editorial comment. If a weekend story warrants a critical review, it will show up on Monday’s posts . . .
If you are not familiar with the weekday daily blog post, this is how the nuclear news post works . . . llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are no Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available on this weekend’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Consider also Google’s announcement to purchase nuclear energy from small modular reactors (SMRs) owned by Kairos Power. Kairos is currently building …
But neither academicians nor the anti-fossil fuels syndicate have come up with a rational solution for the increasing energy gap needed to satisfy the …
A nuclear power plant generates nuclear waste, while coal produces carbon dioxide emissions. Coal produces 36% of the world’s electricity usage, while …
Key to Nuclear Energy ‘Emergency‘ Declaration Among the energy sectors … nuclear power plants, restarting nuclear power plants, and upgrading existing …
This helps reduce the load on the grid,” the press service noted. The water level in the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant pond is adequate to meet the …
Nuclear threats. Vladimir Putin has threatened to restart nuclear testing throughout his invasion of Ukraine. The two nations opposing the WHO health …
In order to keep abreast of the weekend nuclear news, I will post Saturday and Sunday’s news, but without editorial comment. If a weekend story warrants a critical review, it will show up on Monday’s posts . . .
If you are not familiar with the weekday daily blog post, this is how the nuclear news post works . . . llaw
ABOUT THE FOLLOWING ACCESS TO “LLAW’S ALL THINGS NUCLEAR” RELATED MEDIA”:
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War
Nuclear War Threats
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available on this weekend’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
None of that is true at all,” the energy secretary told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan Friday. But Trump administration officials haven’t been honest with the …
Furthermore, with both China and North Korea developing greater incentives and capabilities for limited nuclear attacks, the risk of a nuclear war in …
Apparently, an earthquake of 1.8 on the Richter Scale had occurred. Earthquakes are common in Big Sky Country thanks to the Yellowstone Caldera, which …
An air defense system in Israel. Photo: Depositphotos
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY with the RISKS and CONSEQUENCES of TOMORROW
Or, speaking of speeding up Ukraine peace talks involving Ukraine, Russia, NATO and the U.S., the “iron dome” possible white elephant might cause the opposite reaction as described by “Forbes” and reviewed by this analytical article from European Maiden and authorYevheniia Martyniuk!
The idea that a huge new “nuclear defense system” could delay or even end the Russia/Ukraine war is ridiculous because such a system (at a cost of perhaps $3 trillion) would take years in the making and it would only defend the northern hemisphere of America, and that makes me wonder how such a “defensive” system would prevent nuclear war at all. To me, the whole idea is just a glorified money sink that could possibly do nothing more than continue the “deterrence” game that simply cannot last forever. Logically, the effort to build such an “iron dome” over only America’s heads would only speed up the possibility of global nuclear war rather than slow it down. So why bother . . . ?
More likely, if the U.S. were to embark on such a defense system, doing so could speed-up Russia’s attempt to annex the Ukraine, and that could very well quickly involve the use of Russian nuclear weapons. We forget, also, that any immediate use of nuclear weapons would be referred to as “strategic” nukes directed at Ukraine.
Otherwise we would surely have Word War III breathing down our international necks, although no more than such a minimal “strategic” use of nuclear arms, WWIII could well happen regardless if any nuclear-armed country were to use such “minimal” weapons — which are, in reality, likely to be no less minimal than, say, the atomic bombs used by the U.S. on Japan in 1945 to end WWII.
Any use of any kind of nuclear weapons of mass destruction, large or small, anywhere on planet Earth would likely be the beginning of the end of us and our innocent animal friends . . . ~llaw
Forbes: Trump’s space shield “Iron Dome” could pressure Putin into Ukraine peace talks
As Russia threatens nuclear retaliation against nations backing Ukraine, Trump’s proposed missile defense initiative could reshape strategic dynamics—if it can overcome the immense challenges of implementation.
President Trump’s newly announced space-based missile defense system could serve as leverage against Russian nuclear threats and its ongoing war in Ukraine, defense experts tell Forbes. The initiative, outlined in an executive order titled The Iron Dome for America, comes as Moscow continues to brandish its nuclear capabilities amid its invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, Trump’s efforts to mediate peace in Ukraine face significant challenges. While his team is reportedly working behind the scenes to arrange talks, no official details of his plan have been made public.
“Russia has been threatening nuclear weapons use and claiming to have developed new weapon types,” Elena Grossfeld, a space arms race expert at King’s College London, tells Forbes in an interview.
She suggests that the countervailing Space Age missile defense project could be aimed at halting Putin’s belligerence or even pressuring him to enter talks on withdrawing his troops from Ukraine.
The proposal’s timing is significant, coming just days after Trump revealed at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he had discussed nuclear arms reductions with Russian President Putin.
“We want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible,” Trump said, adding that “President Putin wanted to do it.”
The initiative mirrors President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which sought to render nuclear weapons obsolete through space-based defenses. However, Victoria Samson, Chief Director of Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation, warns of significant technical hurdles.
“The US would need thousands of interceptors in orbit just to ensure one was in place to hit a launch,” she said, noting that interceptors would have only ‘about 3-5 minutes’ to react to solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently set its Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight, citing heightened nuclear tensions. The organization warns that Russia’s repeated threats to use nuclear weapons against nations supporting Kyiv could lead to catastrophe—whether by a rash decision, accident, or miscalculation.
A space defense analyst interviewed by Forbes adds that sharing this defensive technology with nuclear powers willing to reduce their stockpiles—similar to Reagan’s offer to the Soviet Union—could be crucial to avoiding a new arms race.
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(Please note that the Sunday and Saturday NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS are also added below by category, following Monday’s news posts in order to maintain continuity of nuclear news as well as for research for the overall information provided in “LLAW;s All Things Nuclear”.)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
All Things Nuclear
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power Emergencies
Nuclear War Threats
Nuclear War
Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There are three Yellowstone Caldera bonus stories available in today’s Post.)
IAEA Weekly News (Friday’s only)
Whenever there is an underlined link to a Category media news story, if you press or click on the link provided, you no longer have to cut and paste to your web browser, since this Post’s link will take you directly to the article in your browser.
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
Since the 1990s, the United States has used science to verify its nuclear weapons are working properly … All Things Considered · Here & Now · Morning …
Planning inspectors recommended against a Hitachi-built nuclear power plant in Anglesey on the basis that it could dilute the island’s Welsh language …
They make statements about us, express opinions and issue threats.” “If they threaten us, we will threaten them. If they act on those threats, we will …
Cancer care is a global challenge, especially in those parts of the world where the number of cancer patients requiring radiotherapy is outpacing access to this technology. Read more →
Interested contributors have until 31 May 2025 to submit synopses for the IAEA’s first International Conference on Resilience of Nuclear Installations against External Events from a Safety Perspective. Read more →
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi is in Ukraine to assess damage to key electricity infrastructure that is critical to the country’s nuclear safety. Read more →
An IAEA team of experts assessed that Spain showed a strong commitment to nuclear and radiation safety, and confirmed that Spain has successfully enhanced its regulatory framework, fully implementing recommendations made during the Agency’s 2018 mission. Read more →
Through our fast-growing programmes and the Rays of Hope initiative, the IAEA is expanding access to nuclear medicine and cancer treatment in low- and middle-income countries, supporting care to patients around the world with little or no access to treatment. Read more →
