Chris Buckley | The New York Times
When President Trump called for nuclear testing, shortly before talks with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, he may have inadvertently added a new complication to one of the most difficult issues between their countries: their nuclear weapons rivalry. Mr. Trump declared on Thursday that “because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.” ... If the United States follows through with resuming nuclear testing, “it would effectively give, I think, China and Russia a carte blanche to resume full-yield nuclear testing, which is something that neither country has done in a number of years,” said Ankit Panda, the author of “The New Nuclear Age.”
Josh Smith, David Brunnstrom and Costas Pitas | Reuters/Yahoo
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he has given South Korea approval to build a nuclear-powered submarine, a dramatic move that would admit Seoul to a small club of nations possessing such vessels. The submarine will be built in a Philadelphia shipyard, where South Korean firms have increased investment, Trump wrote on social media. "I have given them approval to build a Nuclear Powered Submarine, rather than the old fashioned, and far less nimble, diesel powered Submarines that they have now," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Thomas Newdick | TWZ
President Vladimir Putin says that Russia successfully tested one of its Poseidon nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped, ultra-long-endurance torpedoes yesterday. The Russian leader’s revelation comes just two days after the announcement of a first long-range test for the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, as you can read about here, and is part of a wider pattern of recent strategic signaling by the Kremlin. Of the Poseidon test, Putin said: “For the first time, we managed not only to launch it with a launch engine from a carrier submarine, but also to launch the nuclear power unit on which this device passed a certain amount of time.
Melissa Bell and Gianluca Mezzofiore | CNN
Iran appears to be stepping up the rebuilding of its ballistic missile program, despite the reintroduction last month of United Nations sanctions that ban arms sales to the country and ballistic missile activity. European intelligence sources say several shipments of sodium perchlorate, the main precursor in the production of the solid propellant that powers Iran’s mid-range conventional missiles, have arrived from China to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas since the so-called “snapback” mechanism was triggered at the end of September.
Christian Davenport, William Neff and Aaron Steckelberg | Washington Post
Since ordering the Pentagon in January to erect a U.S. missile defense shield partly based in space, President Donald Trump has claimed that it would be completed by the end of his term and cost $175 billion. His signature national security effort will have close to a 100 percent success rate, he has pledged, “forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.” But the White House and Pentagon have revealed scant details of the “Golden Dome” project, which defense and budget analysts say is likely to take at least a decade to complete and cost a trillion dollars or more.
Park Su-hyeon | Chosun Biz
Wi Sung-lac, head of the presidential Office of National Security, said in a KBS interview on the 26th that discussions between Korea and the United States are underway to give Korea more authority than now in the areas of uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel reprocessing. He said, Japan has both enrichment and reprocessing authority, adding, We asked the United States to allow the same level as Japan, and there was a positive response from the United States.