Laurence Norman | Wall Street Journal
Iran has sharply increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in recent weeks, according to a confidential United Nations report, as Tehran amasses a critical raw material for atomic weapons. The increase in Iran’s holdings of uranium enriched to 60%, or nearly weapons grade, gives it enough to produce six nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing enough fissile material in a month for one nuclear weapon, according to the report, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Jeongmin Kim | NK News
Developing nuclear weapons to counter North Korea is not “off the table” for South Korea, foreign minister Cho Tae-yul stated on Wednesday, appearing to shift his rhetoric on the issue amid concerns about the U.S. commitment to the ROK’s defense under Donald Trump…“It’s premature to talk about such a Plan B, but that doesn’t mean it’s off the table,” Cho said. “Given that international situations are developing in unpredictable directions, this is a principled response that we must prepare for all possible scenarios.”
Nicholas Vinocur | Politico
Israel is warning a "military option" could be required to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons and is looking to U.S. President Donald Trump for help in ramping up pressure on the Islamic Republic, according to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar…"I think that in order to stop a nuclear Iranian program before it will be weaponized, a reliable military option should be on the table," he said, when asked about the possibility of strikes during the Trump presidency. Failure to do so would trigger a "nuclear race in the Middle East with Egypt, Saudis, Turkey," he added.
Spencer Kimball | CNBC
A closed nuclear plant on the shores of Lake Michigan is aiming to construct the first small modular reactor in the U.S. by 2030. The owner of the Palisades nuclear plant, Holtec International, signed a strategic agreement with Hyundai Engineering and Construction on Tuesday to build a 10-gigawatt fleet of small modular reactors in North America, starting with two units at the Palisades site. Holtec is aiming to bring the original Palisades reactor back online in October subject to approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It would be the first restart of a closed nuclear plant in U.S. history.
Ian Millhiser | Vox
On March 5, the Supreme Court will hear a case that may involve one of the most toxic examples of NIMBYism in American history. The issue at the heart of Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas arises out of a predictable problem: Absolutely no one wants radioactive waste anywhere near where they live or work, but that waste has to go somewhere…To fully understand what’s before the Supreme Court in Texas, we need to go back to 1982, when Congress passed a law that was supposed to establish a permanent repository for all of the radioactive waste produced by America’s nuclear power plants.
Thomas MacDonald | Journal of Security Studies
Nuclear-armed states have sought to secure their nuclear arsenals from preemptive attack by deploying mobile ground-launched missiles. However, recent developments in remote-sensing technologies have spurred a debate about the survivability of ground-mobile missiles. Current scholarship implicitly assumes that mobile missiles will be operated sub-optimally, underestimating the difficulty of tracking mobile missiles and hence their survivability. In this paper, I analyze how a set of remote sensing technologies, including space-based radar, could track mobile missiles. I find that, today, ground-mobile missiles could defeat tracking through evasive operation and that technological countermeasures could allow them to remain survivable into the near future.