According to the English language edition of the Asahi Shimbun, an Israeli airstrike against Syria last September targeted a nuclear-related facility that was under construction with technical assistance from North Korea, according to Israel's prime minister...It is apparently the first time that the intended target had been disclosed to the head of a foreign government. Original Japanese link here. Via the wonderful Marmot's Hole.
posted on Apr 1, 2008 - View this thread

Russian cold war bombers - The Tu 95 Bear and Tu 160 Blackjack, based in central Russia, which resumed long range patrols in August.
posted on Dec 23, 2007 - View this thread

Israel not talking. Syria says little. US silent. Syria claimed it chased away the Israeli plane. But since then Syria has said nothing. Nor has Israel. And this news item from BBC says that the intrusion into Syrian airspace is a mystery. But why would N. Korea, Syria, Israel and the US be so reticent to comment? Perhaps because Israel took out a nuke site
posted on Sep 13, 2007 - View this thread

Recent MeFi threads have suggested how easy it is (or not) to build a gun. The comparison to dynamite or ANFO is made, frequently, in these sorts of discussions, supposedly to illustrate another "weapon" which is in the public corpus but largely outlawed. [more inside]
posted on Apr 22, 2007 - View this thread

Video: Nuclear Weapons: Who's Got 'Em?
posted on Feb 23, 2007 - View this thread

Angela Merkel to fire organiser of Munich security conference over Iranian envoy's criticism of the U.S. policies in the Middle East, Der Spiegel reports. (Translated English version) Read the full speech of Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotioator at the conference.
posted on Feb 16, 2007 - View this thread

DEFCON , based off the real alert levels (and Wargames), is a game about killing innocent civilians.
posted on Oct 2, 2006 - View this thread

"We take clowns breaking into a nuclear facility serious in McLean County."
posted on Jul 2, 2006 - View this thread

For those of you suddenly obsessed with Iran and the atom. I wonder how that happened...
posted on Apr 24, 2006 - View this thread

The Iran Plans by Seymour Hersh.
posted on Apr 8, 2006 - View this thread

Jeffrey Lewis: Iran & the Bomb. A comprehensive examination.
posted on Feb 27, 2006 - View this thread

A History of Concealment and Deception

With an hour-long slide show [PDF, 2.4MB] that blends satellite imagery with disquieting assumptions about Iran's nuclear energy program, Bush administration officials have been trying to convince allies that Tehran is on a fast track toward nuclear weapons.

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan - The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. [...] The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations. Hmm, if we nuke them, then I guess we destroy the evidence that they were planning to use WMD against us....
posted on Sep 12, 2005 - View this thread

Operation Crossroads: Bikini Atoll. Paintings from the site of the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests. Some personal favorites. (via)
posted on Aug 22, 2005 - View this thread

Answering the "Glass Mecca" Strategy. Regarding the comments by Rep. Tom Tancredo offering the nuclear terrorist attack response of "nuking Mecca.” …More inside
posted on Jul 19, 2005 - View this thread

Coming Apocalypse? In a forthcoming book by Paul L. Williams, Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, And the Coming Apocalypse, Williams alleges that al Qaeda has managed to obtain nuclear weapons from Russia and has already smuggled the WMDs across the Mexican border and into the U.S.
posted on Jul 16, 2005 - View this thread

The U.S. removes the nuclear brakes Under the cloak of secrecy imparted by use of military code names, the American administration has been taking a big - and dangerous - step that will lead to the transformation of the nuclear bomb into a legitimate weapon for waging war. Ever since the terror attack of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has gradually done away with all the nuclear brakes that characterized American policy during the Cold War. No longer are nuclear bombs considered "the weapon of last resort." No longer is the nuclear bomb the ultimate means of deterrence against nuclear powers, which the United States would never be the first to employ. In the era of a single, ruthless superpower, whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view, nuclear weapons have become a attractive instrument for waging wars, even against enemies that do not possess nuclear arms.
posted on May 27, 2005 - View this thread

Robert McNamara is worried.
posted on May 10, 2005 - View this thread

Congressional Copy Editors Needed To Prevent Future Diplomatic Incidents A minor typo in an unofficial transcript at a Congressional hearing a couple of weeks ago caused Sudan to think the U.S. had conducted a secret nuclear weapons test there in 1962. As one might expect, they didn't take the news well.
It snowballed: within a day, the Chinese news service was reporting that the Sudanese government held the U.S. responsible for "cancer spread in Sudan" caused by "U.S. nuclear experiments in the African country in 1962-1970."
posted on Mar 16, 2005 - View this thread

Tomahawk® Brand Cruise Missiles Because not all Block II Nuclear Variant cruise missles are alike... Look for the name you can trust!
posted on Jan 20, 2005 - View this thread

U.S. Plans Tidal Wave of Nuclear Proliferation They want to tell all the non-nuclear states: “Y’all must stay non-nuclear, but we’ll have as many nukes as we want. We’ll make new nukes but keep the old. And if you don’t like it, just take a good look at Iraq, because you could be next.” The message coming from the Bush administration and the U.S. media is clear. It’s not about the danger of weapons of mass destruction. It’s about using the fear of that danger, along with our own growing nuclear arsenal, as a club to rule the schoolyard roost.
posted on Jan 6, 2005 - View this thread

Nuclear codes = 00000000 Remember Johnson's Daisy ad, which led to the question whose finger do you want on the button? Well it seems it was not the President's finger alone. SAC took it upon itself (if this article can be believed) to set all the nuclear launch codes to 00000000 and then to tell all of the launch operators. Any one of those crews could have by themselves started WWIII. Apparently, that whole "nuclear briefcase" trick was nothing but a charade for many years. YIKES! (via Geekpress and Slashdot).
posted on Jun 3, 2004 - View this thread

NTI Working for a Safer World Concerned that the threat from nuclear weapons had fallen off most people's radar screens after the end of the Cold War, CNN founder Ted Turner asked former Senator Sam Nunn in the spring of 2000 to help assess whether a private organization could make a difference. After months of discussions and consultations with some of the world's most respected security experts, Mr. Turner and Senator Nunn founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) in January 2001. NTI is supported by a pledge from Mr. Turner and other private contributions. Although originally focused on nuclear threats, the NTI site has areas covering chemical, biological, and other WMDs. They have a well balanced Question the Candidates area. I like the site because it appears to be politically neutral with no agenda past eliminating these global risks.
posted on May 19, 2004 - View this thread

Libya has pledged to dismantle its atomic weapons program. That is obviously good news, in addition to being a victory for George W. Bush's aggressive foreign policy. But what, exactly, is Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi giving up? Not much... Libya may be closing down its nuclear program because it wasn't working anyway. This points to an important reality about nuclear weapons: they are extremely difficult to make. Claims that bomb plans can be downloaded from the Internet, or that fissile material is easily obtained on the black market and slapped together into an ultimate weapon, seem little more than talk-radio jabber. Nations like Libya that have made determined attempts to obtain atomic munitions have not even come close.

If the Bomb Is So Easy to Make, Why Don't More Nations Have It?
posted on Jan 4, 2004 - View this thread

The Bush Administration has advocated, and Congress recently approved , the repeal of a 1994 ban on U.S. research and development on new, low-yield nuclear weapons, setting the stage for pursuit of a new generation of such weapons. "The Administration had sought to remove this restriction because of the chilling effect it has had on nuclear weapons research and development," wrote Linton F. Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration in a December 5 memo(PDF). A detailed Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on "Nuclear Weapon Initiatives: Low-Yield R&D, Advanced Concepts, Earth Penetrators, Test Readiness" was updated last week. (PDF)
posted on Dec 19, 2003 - View this thread

Nuke components found in Baghdad back yard. U.S. officials say it is no smoking gun but investigators point out that there is no way they would ever have found these components buried in a barrel in a back yard under a rose garden for 12 years unless someone such as this Iraqi scientist came forward.
posted on Jun 25, 2003 - View this thread

The Real Dr. StrangeLove?
Last May 9, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to repeal a 10-year ban on the research and development of "low-yield" nuclear weapons—defined as nukes having an explosive power smaller than 5 kilotons. (The House committee will take up the measure this week.) The Bush administration has lobbied heavily for the repeal. Democrats oppose the idea on the grounds that "mini-nukes"—by blurring the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons—make nuclear war more thinkable and, therefore, in the minds of some, more doable.

Scary people. How weird can our new overlords get? I'm afraid to speculate.
posted on May 13, 2003 - View this thread

The Thinkable. An epic look at modern nuclear weapons diplomacy and ''counterproliferation'' strategies. (NYT Mag., reg. req.)
posted on May 3, 2003 - View this thread

Get your Armageddon on. North Korea admits vast nuclear weapon program.
posted on Apr 24, 2003 - View this thread

Here are two thoughtful pieces on the North Korean Crisis.

From Foreign Affairs comes How to Deal With North Korea.

From the New York Times comes
Q&A: Should U.S. Launch Direct Talks with North Korea?

Here, by the way, is the fourth footnote from How to Deal With North Korea :

Had the Agreed Framework not been signed in 1994, the North's plutonium-based program would by today have produced enough plutonium for up to 30 nuclear weapons. Critics of the accord should not ignore this fact.
posted on Mar 19, 2003 - View this thread

A list of articles by former weapons inspector Richard Spertzel on current inspections. Also former weapons inspector Bill Tierney says Saddam has nukes and the French sabotaged U.N. WMD searches.
posted on Jan 29, 2003 - View this thread

How to build a bomb isn't all there is to the Internet as press would have you think. Anyway it's harder than just getting some plans, as this guy found out. So why not build a bomb shelter instead? Or build your own train, hovercraft, speedboat, car or plane - can't fly - don't worry build a flight simulator! Toast your success with DIY firewater cooked with your solar furnace. Enjoy your CB radio, listen to MP3s or toy with your sextant. And with all the kinky clothes and loads of pervy toys to make who has time to build bombs? I can see the bumper stickers now "Make leg spreaders, not war!"
posted on Oct 14, 2002 - View this thread

The 6th Largest Nuclear power in the world refuses UN arms inspections and has indicated that it may be prepared to use their nukes. This threatening tone has some experts feeling worried that the nuclear weapons taboo may be broken soon. Once again the UN and the USA are being accused of double standards in terms of the treatment of Israel versus other countries. Does this amount to Nuclear Apartheid ?
posted on Oct 4, 2002 - View this thread

Agency disavows report on Iraq arms "The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was 'six months away' from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist. 'There's never been a report like that issued from this agency,' Mark Gwozdecky, the IAEA's chief spokesman, said yesterday in a telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria."
posted on Sep 29, 2002 - View this thread

Israel has about 400 nuclear weapons, according to an air force report. _{(via fark)}
posted on Jul 6, 2002 - View this thread

Nuking Lincoln (via www.dailygrail.com). Thaddeus McMullen, 1864. "I showed McMullen’s writings to physicists familiar with nuclear fission and they were stunned," Remarsh states. "His bomb was crude, with maybe a tenth of the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, but it would have worked. Maybe. I suspect this is a hoax, but it's interesting enough to post it anyway. Now whether the Confederates could have refined the uranium to make the bomb out of is another question. Any physicists care to express an opinion?
posted on Jul 5, 2002 - View this thread

...the end of existence, the long shadow cast by nuclear weapons. Includes a powerful testimony from a hiroshima survivor.
posted on Apr 13, 2002 - View this thread

Bush prepares nuclear weapons for use. A classified Pentagon report directs the Defense Department to prepare "smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations," such as "targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack." Potential targets listed include China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria. Is the U.S. merely bluffing, or should we begin stocking our fallout shelters?
posted on Mar 9, 2002 - View this thread

Canadians figure out exactly how many nukes it would take. Using the software, researchers estimated it would take 124 weapons to destroy the U.S. and 51 to eliminate Russia as a country. The computer program mimics the U.S. military's SIOP, or Single Integrated Operational Plan, which outlines the targeting of America's nuclear weapons and the likely consequences of each attack. [via dailyrotten.com]
posted on Jan 4, 2002 - View this thread

India, Pakistan and the Bomb. Scientific American says "The Indian subcontinent is the most likely place in the world for a nuclear war." How soon?
posted on Nov 15, 2001 - View this thread

Actor Ralph Meeker portrayed hardboiled private dick Mike Hammer in the Robert Aldrich film "Kiss Me Deadly", a celluloid masterpiece of brutal cold-war paranoia that introduced the filmgoing public to the concept of suitcase nukes back in 1955. For some reason, I find the thought of Conway Twitty films far more disturbing.
posted on Nov 13, 2001 - View this thread

Would you survive nuclear blast? With all the talk of Bin Laden's nuclear capabilities lately, you may be interested in this link again. Its been posted before, but not in this context I presume.... I wonder where the fallout would have the worst affect?
posted on Nov 13, 2001 - View this thread

Paper says bin Laden claims he has nuclear weapons. Pakistan's respected Dawn newspaper said on Saturday bin Laden, in an interview inside Afghanistan, said he had nuclear and chemical weapons and might use them to respond to U.S. attacks. Maybe he read DSSi's strategic scenario analysis.
posted on Nov 9, 2001 - View this thread

Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) We know about the US "elite" special ops - Delta Forces, Navy Seals, CDC (I would argue) - but had you heard of NEST, located inside a small, unobtrusive box under "Dept of Energy, Emergency Response" in the New York Times Office of Homeland Security Org Chart (reg required), "....The primary task of NEST is constantly to be on the lookout for potential nuclear or radiological weapons that might be smuggled onto the U.S. ....After the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, NEST was put on a state of high alert and operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the nation's capital and New York City monitoring for nuclear-related weapons... includes extensive use of deployed sensors and specially equipped vehicles patrolling the streets of both cities..." I can't decide if I feel safer or more paranoid thinking the windowless minivan parked for the last hour outside my window is sniffing for a nuke.
posted on Nov 6, 2001 - View this thread

B61-11 tactical micro-nuke headed for Afghanistan? Though large "theater" thermonuclear devices -- doomsday bombs -- don't fit the Bush administration's war on terrorism, smaller tactical nukes do not seem out of the question in the current mindset of the Defense Department. Rumsfield avoided answering the question of whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons could be ruled out. What kind of nuclear fallout would a weapon like this cause?
posted on Oct 8, 2001 - View this thread

Newest scare meme: Nukes and the al Qaeda Wired news chimes in bin Ladin's attempts to aquire fissionable materials. If true, why is al Qaeda's history full of low tech attacks?
posted on Sep 28, 2001 - View this thread

Is Terrorists For Nukes the 2001 version of Arms For Hostages? President Bush has lifted the sanctions on India and Pakistan imposed by the U.S. in 1998 to protest their "tit-for-tat" nuclear tests. In a memorandum just released by the White House, he states that keeping those sanctions in place "would not be in the national security interests of the United States". Is this an acceptable exchange? Just how far should the U.S. go in appeasing Pakistan, not to mention further fuelling its already explosive confrontation with India?
posted on Sep 23, 2001 - View this thread

Just think of what could be if Bin Laden gets his hands on this stuff. Makes you wonder what he has in the tool shed.
posted on Sep 20, 2001 - View this thread

Interviewing Chomsky Linguist and left-wing icon Noam Chomsky makes some amazing points in this interview by Belgrade Radio B92. Chomsky presents a very plausible summary of Osama's point of view. And his thoughts about who might end up owning Pakistan's nuclear weapons are very sobering indeed.
posted on Sep 18, 2001 - View this thread

The cold war is over so we can just relax. The russians don't lose track of nuclear material because they still use archaic manual methods rather than buggy software the United States gave them. [via comp.risks]
posted on Jul 13, 2001 - View this thread