Joshua Keating | Vox
Humanity has lived with nuclear weapons for so long — 80 years, this year — without destroying itself, that we sometimes take them for granted. But there’s no guarantee that our run of luck will continue. In fact, the risks are growing and transforming… In an interview with Vox, Panda, the Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a widely cited authority on all things nuclear, discussed the dynamics of our new nuclear world and how President Donald Trump’s return to the White House could raise nuclear risks.
Barak Ravid | Axios
The nuclear deal proposal the U.S. gave Iran on Saturday would allow limited low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil for a to-be-determined period of time, Axios has learned, contradicting public statements from top officials. Why it matters: White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have said publicly that the U.S. will not allow Iran to enrich uranium and will demand the full dismantlement of Iran's nuclear facilities. The secret proposal shows far more flexibility on both points.
Parisa Hafezi | Reuters
Iran is poised to reject a U.S. proposal to end a decades-old nuclear dispute, an Iranian diplomat said on Monday, dismissing it as a "non-starter" that fails to address Tehran's interests or soften Washington's stance on uranium enrichment. "Iran is drafting a negative response to the U.S. proposal, which could be interpreted as a rejection of the U.S. offer," the senior diplomat, who is close to Iran's negotiating team, told Reuters.
Jill Lawless and Pan Pylas | AP News
The United Kingdom will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines, get its army ready to fight a war in Europe and become “a battle-ready, armor-clad nation,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday, part of a boost to military spending designed to send a message to Moscow — and Washington. Starmer said Britain “cannot ignore the threat that Russia poses” as he pledged to undertake the most sweeping changes to British defenses since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.
RFI
In a sign of the growing security nerves in Europe, France has embarked on a $1.7 billion (€1.5 billion) renovation of an air base in remote hills in the east of the country so it can handle nuclear-armed bombers. The work will take a decade but from 2035 the Luxeuil-Saint Sauveur base will be twice the size it is now and it will house new generation hypersonic missiles carried by 50 of France's Rafale fighter jets.
Michael Albertson, Benjamin Bahney, Paul Bernstein, Corentin Brustlein, Brad Clark, Jacek Durkalec, Kayse Jansen, John R. Harvey, Austin Long, Andreas Lutsch, Patrick McKenna, Franklin C. Miller, Brian Radzinsky, Brad Roberts, Braden Soper, Gregory Weaver, Heather Williams | Center for Global Security Research Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
An old debate about U.S. nuclear strategy has been given new life by the need to come to terms with growth in China’s nuclear forces. This is the debate about whether to retain, reduce, or abandon a role for counterforce strikes in U.S. nuclear strategy. The renewed intensity of this debate is due primarily to the fact that retaining a significant role for counterforce will increase the requirements for U.S. nuclear forces beyond current levels and also beyond what the modernization program of record will deliver.