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US Nuclear weapons
UNITED NATIONS -- The United States is likely to maintain and sustain its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons for many years to come, even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly stressed that he stands for nuclear disarmament and global peace, non-proliferation experts believe.
"President Obama is very assertive. But it's not clear how much [more] assertive he chooses to be," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a policy think tank based in Washington that monitors U.S. nuclear policy on ethical grounds.
In an analytical report prepared for FAS last week, Kristensen and his colleague, Robert Norris, warned that President Obama might fail to implement his agenda on nuclear disarmament due to lack of cooperation by the civil and military bureaucracy in Washington.
"There is concern over whether Obama's goals can be realized within the enduring bureaucracies that have a stake in the status quo," Kristensen wrote in the FAS report.
Both Kristensen and Norris think that a "radical break" is needed to set the United States on a new path capable of realizing deep cuts in and the possible elimination of nuclear weapons. That break, they argue, must include abandonment of the concept of "counterforce", the ruling paradigm that focuses on eliminating an enemy's nuclear weapons, infrastructure and war-making abilities.
Currently, the United States and Russia are the world's largest nuclear weapons states. They possess 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank that tracks weapon production and exports worldwide.
In addition, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons. The newest member of the nuclear club, North Korea, has no more than 10 "small" nuclear weapons, according to the institute's estimates.
Many critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for not only failing in its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but also going to great lengths to derail the international discourse on nuclear disarmament in the past.
The Ronald Reagan administration (1981-89), for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear program in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration (2001- 2009) decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.
The Obama administration has signed a new strategic arms treaty with Russia, but it allows the United States to keep at least 3,500 nuclear weapons in its arsenal even after 2020. That, as proponents of disarmament noted at the time, was a step in the right direction, but not enough.
According to FAS researchers, the more general policy concepts are currently traveling through the various departments, offices and bureaucracies in Washington, and will then be translated into highly detailed and "carefully orchestrated strike plans that instruct the war fighter how and when to attack a specific target".
The result, according to Kristensen and Norris, is "a fully articulated war plan".
The FAS report points out that the implementation of Obama's Nuclear Posture Review is now taking place at various levels, but that remains out of public view. "It has potentially enormous implementations, depending on the outcome," the report says.
Obama's agenda on disarmament has five key objectives, which include prevention of nuclear proliferation and terrorism; reduction of the role of nuclear weapons; maintenance of strategic deterrence; strengthening of regional alliances; and sustaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal.
To advance his goals, Obama should issue a Presidential Policy Directive that explains a new nuclear deterrence plan focused on destroying essential enemy infrastructure, Kristensen said.
"The president's guidance is very generic. It has some basic principles," Kristensen told IPS. "It's up to the military to interpret it. Also, there are [several] other actors whose mind-set [is shaped] by the days of the Cold War. It's very hard to change their mind-set."
Reflecting on the FAS analysis, David Krieger, a long-time peace activist and executive director of the Nuclear Age peace Foundation, told IPS that "minimum deterrence would be a significant step forward, if it meant reducing the number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal to 20 to 30 weapons."
On maintaining minimal deterrence, he thinks that moving away from counterforce targeting could be useful, but it is far from sufficient. In his view, it may somewhat reduce the magnitude of the disaster of using nuclear weapons, but it still maintains reliance on nuclear deterrence, a theory that could fail.
"It is deeply immoral and cannot be relied upon for security," said Krieger. "Such a move away from counterforce targeting should be accompanied by a firm commitment to a policy of 'No First Use' of nuclear weapons, to de-alerting the U.S. nuclear arsenal and to the initiation of good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention."
The draft memo the FAS authors prepared for Obama refers to Article VI of the NPT, which calls for "the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons".
"Actually, Article VI calls for pursuing good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament," Krieger said. "The U.S. has viewed it as 'eventual', which may be code for 'never'."
"President Obama's commitment to nuclear modernization continues the nuclear arms race, albeit at a lower level, and his commitment to nuclear weapons elimination appears to be only in the distant future, not in my lifetime," he said.
For his part, Kristensen stresses that the total abolition of nuclear weapons demands a collaborative international effort. "The word 'deterrence' means different things to different people. None of the nuclear powers are expected to go to zero alone."
"While we talk about disarmament, other nuclear countries have to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security," he added, "otherwise, we are not going to get anywhere. It's probably the only and last chance to really influence the U.S. nuclear policy."
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UNITED NATIONS -- The United States is likely to maintain and sustain its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons for many years to come, even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly stressed that he stands for nuclear disarmament and global peace, non-proliferation experts believe.
"President Obama is very assertive. But it's not clear how much [more] assertive he chooses to be," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a policy think tank based in Washington that monitors U.S. nuclear policy on ethical grounds.
In an analytical report prepared for FAS last week, Kristensen and his colleague, Robert Norris, warned that President Obama might fail to implement his agenda on nuclear disarmament due to lack of cooperation by the civil and military bureaucracy in Washington.
"There is concern over whether Obama's goals can be realized within the enduring bureaucracies that have a stake in the status quo," Kristensen wrote in the FAS report.
Both Kristensen and Norris think that a "radical break" is needed to set the United States on a new path capable of realizing deep cuts in and the possible elimination of nuclear weapons. That break, they argue, must include abandonment of the concept of "counterforce", the ruling paradigm that focuses on eliminating an enemy's nuclear weapons, infrastructure and war-making abilities.
Currently, the United States and Russia are the world's largest nuclear weapons states. They possess 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank that tracks weapon production and exports worldwide.
In addition, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons. The newest member of the nuclear club, North Korea, has no more than 10 "small" nuclear weapons, according to the institute's estimates.
Many critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for not only failing in its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but also going to great lengths to derail the international discourse on nuclear disarmament in the past.
The Ronald Reagan administration (1981-89), for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear program in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration (2001- 2009) decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.
The Obama administration has signed a new strategic arms treaty with Russia, but it allows the United States to keep at least 3,500 nuclear weapons in its arsenal even after 2020. That, as proponents of disarmament noted at the time, was a step in the right direction, but not enough.
According to FAS researchers, the more general policy concepts are currently traveling through the various departments, offices and bureaucracies in Washington, and will then be translated into highly detailed and "carefully orchestrated strike plans that instruct the war fighter how and when to attack a specific target".
The result, according to Kristensen and Norris, is "a fully articulated war plan".
The FAS report points out that the implementation of Obama's Nuclear Posture Review is now taking place at various levels, but that remains out of public view. "It has potentially enormous implementations, depending on the outcome," the report says.
Obama's agenda on disarmament has five key objectives, which include prevention of nuclear proliferation and terrorism; reduction of the role of nuclear weapons; maintenance of strategic deterrence; strengthening of regional alliances; and sustaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal.
To advance his goals, Obama should issue a Presidential Policy Directive that explains a new nuclear deterrence plan focused on destroying essential enemy infrastructure, Kristensen said.
"The president's guidance is very generic. It has some basic principles," Kristensen told IPS. "It's up to the military to interpret it. Also, there are [several] other actors whose mind-set [is shaped] by the days of the Cold War. It's very hard to change their mind-set."
Reflecting on the FAS analysis, David Krieger, a long-time peace activist and executive director of the Nuclear Age peace Foundation, told IPS that "minimum deterrence would be a significant step forward, if it meant reducing the number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal to 20 to 30 weapons."
On maintaining minimal deterrence, he thinks that moving away from counterforce targeting could be useful, but it is far from sufficient. In his view, it may somewhat reduce the magnitude of the disaster of using nuclear weapons, but it still maintains reliance on nuclear deterrence, a theory that could fail.
"It is deeply immoral and cannot be relied upon for security," said Krieger. "Such a move away from counterforce targeting should be accompanied by a firm commitment to a policy of 'No First Use' of nuclear weapons, to de-alerting the U.S. nuclear arsenal and to the initiation of good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention."
The draft memo the FAS authors prepared for Obama refers to Article VI of the NPT, which calls for "the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons".
"Actually, Article VI calls for pursuing good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament," Krieger said. "The U.S. has viewed it as 'eventual', which may be code for 'never'."
"President Obama's commitment to nuclear modernization continues the nuclear arms race, albeit at a lower level, and his commitment to nuclear weapons elimination appears to be only in the distant future, not in my lifetime," he said.
For his part, Kristensen stresses that the total abolition of nuclear weapons demands a collaborative international effort. "The word 'deterrence' means different things to different people. None of the nuclear powers are expected to go to zero alone."
"While we talk about disarmament, other nuclear countries have to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security," he added, "otherwise, we are not going to get anywhere. It's probably the only and last chance to really influence the U.S. nuclear policy."
UNITED NATIONS -- The United States is likely to maintain and sustain its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons for many years to come, even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly stressed that he stands for nuclear disarmament and global peace, non-proliferation experts believe.
"President Obama is very assertive. But it's not clear how much [more] assertive he chooses to be," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a policy think tank based in Washington that monitors U.S. nuclear policy on ethical grounds.
In an analytical report prepared for FAS last week, Kristensen and his colleague, Robert Norris, warned that President Obama might fail to implement his agenda on nuclear disarmament due to lack of cooperation by the civil and military bureaucracy in Washington.
"There is concern over whether Obama's goals can be realized within the enduring bureaucracies that have a stake in the status quo," Kristensen wrote in the FAS report.
Both Kristensen and Norris think that a "radical break" is needed to set the United States on a new path capable of realizing deep cuts in and the possible elimination of nuclear weapons. That break, they argue, must include abandonment of the concept of "counterforce", the ruling paradigm that focuses on eliminating an enemy's nuclear weapons, infrastructure and war-making abilities.
Currently, the United States and Russia are the world's largest nuclear weapons states. They possess 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank that tracks weapon production and exports worldwide.
In addition, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons. The newest member of the nuclear club, North Korea, has no more than 10 "small" nuclear weapons, according to the institute's estimates.
Many critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for not only failing in its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but also going to great lengths to derail the international discourse on nuclear disarmament in the past.
The Ronald Reagan administration (1981-89), for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear program in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration (2001- 2009) decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.
The Obama administration has signed a new strategic arms treaty with Russia, but it allows the United States to keep at least 3,500 nuclear weapons in its arsenal even after 2020. That, as proponents of disarmament noted at the time, was a step in the right direction, but not enough.
According to FAS researchers, the more general policy concepts are currently traveling through the various departments, offices and bureaucracies in Washington, and will then be translated into highly detailed and "carefully orchestrated strike plans that instruct the war fighter how and when to attack a specific target".
The result, according to Kristensen and Norris, is "a fully articulated war plan".
The FAS report points out that the implementation of Obama's Nuclear Posture Review is now taking place at various levels, but that remains out of public view. "It has potentially enormous implementations, depending on the outcome," the report says.
Obama's agenda on disarmament has five key objectives, which include prevention of nuclear proliferation and terrorism; reduction of the role of nuclear weapons; maintenance of strategic deterrence; strengthening of regional alliances; and sustaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal.
To advance his goals, Obama should issue a Presidential Policy Directive that explains a new nuclear deterrence plan focused on destroying essential enemy infrastructure, Kristensen said.
"The president's guidance is very generic. It has some basic principles," Kristensen told IPS. "It's up to the military to interpret it. Also, there are [several] other actors whose mind-set [is shaped] by the days of the Cold War. It's very hard to change their mind-set."
Reflecting on the FAS analysis, David Krieger, a long-time peace activist and executive director of the Nuclear Age peace Foundation, told IPS that "minimum deterrence would be a significant step forward, if it meant reducing the number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal to 20 to 30 weapons."
On maintaining minimal deterrence, he thinks that moving away from counterforce targeting could be useful, but it is far from sufficient. In his view, it may somewhat reduce the magnitude of the disaster of using nuclear weapons, but it still maintains reliance on nuclear deterrence, a theory that could fail.
"It is deeply immoral and cannot be relied upon for security," said Krieger. "Such a move away from counterforce targeting should be accompanied by a firm commitment to a policy of 'No First Use' of nuclear weapons, to de-alerting the U.S. nuclear arsenal and to the initiation of good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention."
The draft memo the FAS authors prepared for Obama refers to Article VI of the NPT, which calls for "the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons".
"Actually, Article VI calls for pursuing good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament," Krieger said. "The U.S. has viewed it as 'eventual', which may be code for 'never'."
"President Obama's commitment to nuclear modernization continues the nuclear arms race, albeit at a lower level, and his commitment to nuclear weapons elimination appears to be only in the distant future, not in my lifetime," he said.
For his part, Kristensen stresses that the total abolition of nuclear weapons demands a collaborative international effort. "The word 'deterrence' means different things to different people. None of the nuclear powers are expected to go to zero alone."
"While we talk about disarmament, other nuclear countries have to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security," he added, "otherwise, we are not going to get anywhere. It's probably the only and last chance to really influence the U.S. nuclear policy."
"It seems this is a way to detain people, hold them in custody, instill fear, and discourage people from exercising their First Amendment rights," said a former California state prosecutor.
Documents obtained by The Guardian and reported on Monday further detail how the Trump Justice Department has been forced to drop cases against protesters in Los Angeles because of false claims made by federal immigration agents.
The Guardian's review of federal law enforcement files revealed that "out of nine 'assault' and 'impeding' felony cases the Justice Department filed immediately after the start of the protests and promoted by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, prosecutors dismissed seven of them soon after filing the charges," the newspaper reported.
"In reports that led to the detention and prosecution of at least five demonstrators, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents made false statements about the sequence of events and misrepresented incidents captured on video," The Guardian continued. "One DHS agent accused a protester of shoving an officer, when footage appeared to show the opposite: the officer forcefully pushed the protester. One indictment named the wrong defendant, a stunning error that has jeopardized one of the government's most high-profile cases."
The new reporting builds on a story published last week by the Los Angeles Times, which detailed how interim U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli has struggled to secure grand jury indictments against Los Angeles demonstrators who have taken part in protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in recent weeks.
"Although his office filed felony cases against at least 38 people for alleged misconduct that either took place during last month's protests or near the sites of immigration raids, many have been dismissed or reduced to misdemeanor charges," the Times reported.
Cristine Soto DeBerry, a former California state prosecutor who currently works as director of the criminal justice reform group Prosecutors Alliance Action, told The Guardian that "when I see felonies dismissed, that tells me either the federal officers have filed affidavits that are not truthful and that has been uncovered, or U.S. attorneys reviewing the cases realize the evidence does not support the charges."
"It seems this is a way to detain people, hold them in custody, instill fear, and discourage people from exercising their First Amendment rights," DeBerry added.
"Von der Leyen has just handed Trump the biggest victory he could hope for," said one critic. "We will all pay the price because in the process, she has strengthened him and his fascist project. Deeply depressing."
The leadership of the European Union on Sunday struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that will leave tariffs significantly higher for many of the bloc's exports—including cars, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors—and at 50% for steel and aluminum.
News of the deal was met with sharp criticism, including from some European officials. François Bayrou, France's prime minister, wrote on social media that "it is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission."
Nick Dearden, director of the United Kingdom-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, warned that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen "has just handed Trump the biggest victory he could hope for."
"We will all pay the price because in the process, she has strengthened him and his fascist project. Deeply depressing," Dearden wrote, arguing that the deal "simply empowers the bully" and likely won't last.
In her statement announcing the agreement with Trump, von der Leyen suggested the deal would avert further escalations from the U.S. president and bring "stability" to markets unsettled by his erratic threats.
"Today with this deal, we are creating more predictability for our businesses," she said. "In these turbulent times, this is necessary for our companies to be able to plan and invest."
The sweeping 15% tariff on E.U. products entering the U.S. is half the rate that the president threatened to impose earlier this month, but it is far higher than the estimated 1.5% rate prior to Trump's second White House term. The E.U. is the United States' largest trading partner.
Cailin Birch, global economist at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC that while the deal represents "a climb down from a much worse place," the 15% tariff "is still a big escalation from where we were pre-Trump 2.0."
Wolfgang Niedermark, a board member of the Federation of German Industries, called the deal "an inadequate compromise" that "will have a huge negative impact on Germany's export-oriented industry."
Trump and his team wasted no time bragging in bombastic terms about the agreement. Trump called it "probably the biggest deal ever reached in any capacity, trade or beyond trade," while the president's deputy chief of staff gushed that it is "impossible to overstate what a staggering achievement President Trump delivered for America today."
"Stephen Miller is boasting about Trump hitting us with a HUGE tax increase," responded economist Dean Baker, alluding to the fact that tariffs are often passed to consumers in the form of higher prices.
As part of the agreement, the E.U. pledged to buy $750 billion worth of U.S. energy over three years—including LNG and oil.
Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, said in a statement Monday that "it's deeply shortsighted to see the E.U. strike a so-called 'deal' with the U.S. that locks us into expensive, polluting gas."
"Fossil gas is not only worse for the climate than coal, it comes at a higher cost," said Sieber. "This risks locking Europe into decades of fossil fuel dependence, volatile energy bills, and accelerating the wildfires and flooding already wreaking havoc across the continent. While Trump celebrates this as a win, communities on both sides of the Atlantic are suffering with deadly climate impacts."
"Mr. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is making it impossible for us to regulate these life-threatening emissions," one activist said.
As smoke from Canadian wildfires triggered an air quality alert for New York City and Long Island on Sunday, activists with Climate Defiance disrupted a speech by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in the Hamptons.
The disruption came four days after reports emerged that Zeldin's EPA was set to repeal the 2009 "endangerment finding" that greenhouse gas emissions "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations." It is this finding that has given the EPA the authority to regulate climate emissions under the Clean Air Act.
"We are in a climate crisis largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels," the first activist to disrupt the speech said, according to video footage shared by Climate Defiance. "And Mr. Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is making it impossible for us to regulate these life-threatening emissions."
Zeldin's speech took place at the Global Breakfast Forum, held at The Hamptons Synagogue.
"What are you going to say to your children when the Hamptons are underwater?"
Several of the young Jewish activists who disrupted the speech referenced their faith.
"The Torah commands us to be stewards of the Earth, not the oil industry," one activist said.
The audience largely responded with boos and jeers, and one attacked two of the activists with a chair, according to Climate Defiance video footage.
However, the Climate Defiance activists emphasized that Zeldin and the pro-fossil fuel Trump administration were the forces that would ultimately disrupt life and community in the Hamptons.
"History is going to remember you as a monster," one yelled out to Zeldin.
Another said: "Lee Zeldin, you have taken half of a million dollars from fossil fuels. What are you going to say to your children when the Hamptons are underwater?"
The disrupters also referenced Project 2025 and the broader Trump administration. According to the Project 2025 Tracker, Zeldin's EPA has achieved 57% of the Heritage Foundation road map's objectives.
"Lee Zeldin is carrying out the plans of Project 2025 and fossil fuels to a T," one said. "Your orange overlord does not care about any of you. All of you will be suffering from the rising seas and the worsening climate crisis."
A member of Extinction Rebellion NYC, who assisted with the protest, said in a statement: "Heritage has long been helmed by fossil fuel interests like Koch Industries, which has done some of the heaviest lifting to make sure nothing is done on climate change in the U.S. The majority of these wishes have been executed by Zeldin himself, and through Trump, who asked for $1 billion from oil companies in a dinner at Mar-a-Lago during his campaign. His Big, Beautiful Bill is a wish list directly penned in Project 2025. And when we hit 4°C of warming this century, we will know the true cost of these deadly practices."
Protesters also referenced the repeal of the endangerment finding, climate-fueled extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy, and the smoke pollution clouding the region as Zeldin spoke.
"There is smoke in the air for another summer," one said. "This is only going to get worse and worse."
Both New York City Emergency Management and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued Air Quality Health Advisories through 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Sunday as smoke poured into the region from Canadian wildfires. Air quality was listed as "unhealthy for sensitive groups," and at 11:00 am Eastern Time on Sunday, New York City had the eighth worst air quality of any city on Earth.
The smoke recalled the thick orange haze that blanketed New York and other parts of the Northeast during the record-breaking Canadian wildfire season of 2023. The climate crisis makes wildfires more frequent and extreme.