The Bomb Still Ticks
George Perkovich | Lawfare
“Nuclear books don’t sell,” a New York book editor advised not long ago. “To have a chance, you would have to feature a really interesting central character.” Fred Kaplan’s excellent new volume, “The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War,” will test this proposition. But what drives the story is an unresolvable dilemma: “[h]ow to plan a nuclear attack that [is] large enough to terrify the enemy but small enough to be recognized unambiguously as a limited strike, so that, if the enemy retaliated, he’d keep his strike limited too” (p. 120).
Russia Open for Talks With US on Hypersonic Weapons - Top Diplomat
TASS
Moscow is open for a dialogue with Washington on new advanced developments, including hypersonic weapons, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an online interview with Russian and foreign media on Tuesday. This talk should cover the plans of deploying weapons in outer space, strategic conventional armaments, the future of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and other issues, the Russian foreign minister explained. Moscow is ready to discuss cooperation with Washington in the peaceful use of outer space, Sergey Lavrov stated.
Senate Armed Services Shelves ‘Paper Hearing’ Plans
Rebecca Kheel | Hill
The Senate Armed Services Committee has put its plan to hold “paper hearings” during the coronavirus crisis on ice after one hearing. Last month, the panel said it would hold what it was calling paper hearings in an effort to keep the annual defense policy bill on track despite lawmakers staying out of Washington during the coronavirus pandemic. The committee had also planned to hold a paper hearing on the Energy Department’s nuclear budget Thursday. But late Wednesday it was postponed due, the panel said Thursday, to the decision to put the paper hearings in general on hold. “The issues associated with production of nuclear warheads remains central to modernization of the nuclear triad, and as such, the committee expects to address these critical questions in the future,” Hernandez said.
NNSA Production Sites Hunker Down Amid COVID-19 Crisis
Dan Leone | Exchange Monitor
All but one of the main Department of Energy nuclear weapons production sites have now hunkered down into minimum mission-critical operations because of COVID-19, keeping only the personnel needed to assemble nuclear weapons and components, maintain key infrastructure, or provide security. The Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., both announced the switch to minimum mission-critical operations this week, joining the Savannah River Site of Aiken, S.C., which adopted a similar posture late last month. Only the Kansas City National Security Campus, which sits in the middle of a far worse outbreak than Pantex, Y-12, and Savannah River combined, had not gone down to the minimum mission-critical level of operations.
Russia, China Willing to Fund Nuclear Projects as Several African Countries Explore Controversial Power Source
Farai Shawn Matiashe | City Press
Faced with power shortfalls, demands for greener energy and drought threats to hydropower, a growing number of African countries are considering a shift to an unexpected power source – nuclear energy. South Africa has the continent’s only commercial nuclear power plant. But according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a third of the 30 countries around the world considering adopting nuclear power are in Africa. Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan have engaged with the IAEA to assess their readiness for a nuclear programme. Algeria, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia are mulling the possibility, according to the agency.
Ukraine: Wildfires Dangerously Close to Chernobyl Site
Andrew Roth | Guardian
Wildfires in Ukraine have spread to just over a mile from the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant and a disposal site for radioactive waste, according to activists, as more than 300 firefighters work to contain the blaze. A video posted by a Chernobyl tour operator showed flames and a cloud of smoke rising within sight of the protective shelter over the carcass of Chernobyl’s Unit 4 nuclear reactor, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. The tour operator, Yaroslav Yemelianenko, wrote that the fire had reached the abandoned city of Pripyat and was just 2km (1.24 miles) away from the nuclear power plant and the Pidlisny radioactive waste disposal site.