Accountability After Nuclear War: Why Not Plan Ahead?
George Perkovich | Journal of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament
If nuclear war occurs, non-belligerents want the conductors to take responsibility for providing assistance to deal with harm imposed on them. This harm could take the form of radioactive fallout, climatic change that causes global food shortages and refugee crises. But states and experts preoccupied with winning (or at least not losing) wars that could go nuclear have largely ignored questions of post facto accountability. Nuclear-armed states claim to be responsible, defensive actors; therefore, they should not object if others demand processes to adjudicate the conduct of nuclear war after the fact and provide reparations and remedies to victims in non-belligerent nations. Indeed, international efforts to establish such accountability could strengthen deterrence against aggression and use of nuclear weapons.
U.S. Navy Destroyer Shoots Down an ICBM in Milestone Test
David B. Larter | Defense News
The U.S. Navy has shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean with an SM-3 Block IIA missile in a milestone test that demonstrated a potential scheme to defend Hawaii, the Missile Defense Agency announced Tuesday morning. The test, which comes on the heels of the revealing of a larger North Korean ICBM in October that could potentially strike the U.S. East Coast, is the first time the United States has shot down an ICBM with anything other than a ground-based interceptor, an MDA official said. Just before 1 a.m. Eastern Time, MDA oversaw a test where a missile was fired from Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll toward the open ocean northeast of Hawaii. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer John Finn, equipped with Aegis Baseline 9, received a track from an external sensor through the Command and Control Battle Management Communications network.
Trump Sought Options for Attacking Iran to Stop Its Growing Nuclear Program
Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman, David E. Sanger, Helene Cooper, and Lara Jakes | New York Times
President Trump asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material, four current and former U.S. officials said on Monday. A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike. The advisers — including Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — warned that a strike against Iran’s facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
U.S. Bombers Enter Chinese Air Defence Zone as Beijing’s Navy Mounts Massive Exercises
Kristin Huang | South China Morning Post
The United States sent two long-range bombers into China’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday in an apparent show of force, as the Chinese navy conducted a series of simultaneous massive drills. According to aviation tracker Aircraft Spots, two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers left Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Tuesday morning and entered China’s ADIZ over the East China Sea. Aircraft Spots said the bombers were refuelled in flight during the mission. The B1-B has the biggest payload of any bomber and is a departure from the fighter jets and spy planes the American forces have sent before on missions so close to the Chinese coast. Such heavy aircraft are not known for being deployed on spying missions, suggesting that the U.S. was sending a blunt warning.
New START Looks Finished: Russia’s Lavrov Pessimistic About Future Extension of Nuclear Arms Treaty
Jonny Tickle | RT
Russia believes that the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, due to expire in three months, will not be extended. That’s according to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who blamed the conditions set by U.S. negotiators. Speaking at a virtual press conference on Thursday, Lavrov complained that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is too concerned about winning and losing, which extends not only to elections, but also to negotiations and deals with foreign countries. “Conversations are conducted in terms of the mentality of ‘who will win, who will lose,’” Lavrov said. “When talking about the START treaty, everyone can win if we extend it without any preconditions.”
Saudi Minister Says Nuclear Armament Against Iran ‘An Option’
Al-Jazeera
Saudi Arabia reserves the right to arm itself with nuclear weapons if regional rival Iran cannot be stopped from making one, the kingdom’s minister of state for foreign affairs has said. “It’s definitely an option,” Adel al-Jubeir told the DPA news agency in a recent interview. If Iran becomes a nuclear power, he said, more countries would follow suit. “And Saudi Arabia has made it very clear, that it will do everything it can to protect its people and to protect its territories.” Tehran has been working on the use of nuclear power for decades. In 2015, it signed a landmark nuclear deal with world powers to stop the development of a bomb in exchange for lifting sanctions.