Will We Use the New Nuclear Weapons? | Future of Life – May 26, 2016 |

In 2015, the Pentagon successfully tested the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb as part of a  $1 trillion effort to make the nuclear arsenal more accurate and lethal. This redesigned weapon is equipped with “dial-a-yield” technology, which allows the military to adjust the destructive force of the B61-12 before launch, for an explosive range of 0.3 to 50 kilotons of TNT.  Many government officials believe that not only does rebuilding this bomb violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but that the U.S. is more likely to launch this nuclear weapon at targets.


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According to Zachary Keck from the National Interest, “This combination of accuracy and low-yield make the B61-12 the most usable nuclear bomb in America’s arsenal.” Nuclear attack simulations show that if the U.S. were to counterstrike against China’s ICBM silos using a high-yield weapon, 3-4 million people could be killed. However with a low-yield nuclear weapon, this death toll could drop to as little as 700.* With casualties this low, using a nuclear weapon has become thinkable for the first time since the 1940s.

The government has scheduled the production of 4-500 B61-12s over the next 20 years. However, production has already been postponed once from 2017 to 2020 causing the price to double not once, but twice from $2 million for each bomb to $4 million and again to $8 million. Further delays are anticipated and the costs are expected to increase again to $10 million. According to Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, “The weapon’s overall price tag is expected to exceed $10 billion, with each B61-12 estimated to cost more than the value of its weight in gold.”

In 2009, President Obama pledged a “nuclear-free world” in Prague and was awarded the Peace Prize by the Nobel committee. Though the nuclear stockpile has been reduced, rebuilding this warhead to be the first self-guided weapon makes the B61-12 a new addition nuclear arsenal.

Continued below the fold …

According an article from The New York Times [plus video], James N. Miller, who helped establish this plan before leaving his post as under secretary of defense for policy in 2014, using this accurate weapon is a step in the right direction when it comes to increasing accuracy and deterrence. “Though not everyone agrees, I think it’s the right way to proceed,” Mr. Miller said. “Minimizing civilian casualties near foreign military targets.”  General James E. Cartwright, also quoted in the Times article, agreed these mini-nuclear weapons are useful upgrades, but `”what going smaller does,” he acknowledged, “is to make the weapon more thinkable.”‘

Retired veteran Ellen O. Tauscher, a former under secretary of state for arms control who was also quoted in the Times article, disagreed: “I think there’s a universal sense of frustration. Somebody has to get serious. We’re spending billions of dollars on a status quo that doesn’t make us any safer.”

I doubt Donald Trump will acknwledge previous administrations were already on a path to make America Strong, VERY STRONG!! The Pentago showing POTUS our capablilities in real theater! If you build a BIG stick, why not use it? You don’t want to be seen as a loser (periode 1961-1990) from Vietnam to the liberation of US Armed Might in lashing out at Saddam Hussein under Bush I. Under the Obama administration there was a slide backward by using proxy forces in Libya, Syria and Yemen. The makeover of the U.S. as the policeman in the world to the bully aka the Enforcer. Netanyahu and the State of Israel have been most succesful over the past 70 years now, enforcing a peaceful solution to the Arab problem in the Middle-East. America First and Israel Second. <snark alert>

US Conducts Successful Field Test Of New Nuclear Bomb | Zero Hedge – April 14, 2017 |

With the world still abuzz over the first ever deployment of the GBU-43/B “Mother Of All Bombs” in Afghanistan, where it reportedly killed some 36 ISIS fighters, in a less noticed statement the US National Nuclear Security Administration quietly announced overnight the first successful field test of the modernized, “steerable” B61-12 gravity thermonuclear bomb in Nevada.

In a well-timed statement, just as tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program and potential US airstrikes run wild, the NNSA said that in conjunction with the US Air Force, it had completed the first qualification flight test of B61-12 gravity nuclear bomb on March 14 at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

In the press release, the NNSA said that the “non-nuclear assembly test” was dropped from an F-16 based at Nellis Air Force Base and was intended to evaluate “both the weapon’s non-nuclear functions as well as the aircraft’s capability to deliver the weapon.”  

America’s new, more ‘usable’, nuclear bomb in Europe

The $8 billion upgrade to the US B61 nuclear bomb has been widely condemned as an awful lot of money to spend on an obsolete weapon. As an old fashioned `dumb’ bomb it has no role in US or NATO nuclear doctrine, but the upgrade has gone ahead anyway, in large part as a result of lobbying by the nuclear weapons laboratories.

In non-proliferation terms however the only thing worse than a useless bomb is a `usable’ bomb. Apart from the stratospheric price, the most controversial element of the B61 upgrade is the replacement of the existing rigid tail with one that has moving fins that will make the bomb smarter and allow it to be guided more accurately to a target. Furthermore, the yield can be adjusted before launch, according to the target.

The modifications are at the centre of a row between anti-proliferation advocates and the government over whether the new improved B61-12 bomb is in fact a new weapon, and therefore a violation of President Obama’s undertaking not to make new nuclear weapons. His administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review said life extension upgrades to the US arsenal would “not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.”

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The issue has a particular significance for Europe where a stockpile of 180 B61’s [report by Basic Int’l in Feb. 2014]  is held in six bases in five countries. If there is no change in that deployment by the time the upgraded B61-12’s enter the stockpile in 2024, many of them will be flown out to the bases in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey.

<propaganda alert>

When Russia Violates Nuclear Treaties, Let’s Act Like Reagan | Defense One |

○ NATO needs to upgrade its weapons arsenal, we have in stock … | Forgotten Waters |

Of course we don’t need a reminder it fits in the puzzle of NATO’s push towards the Kremlin: Maidan Uprising and coup d’état of Feb. 27, 2014 and the downing of Malaysian flight MH-17 above Lugansk on July 17, 2014.

Of course the US popular vote did not prevent the Conservatives of the GOP to “elect” their new America First President as a symbol of Democracy to a Free World.

○ James McGill Buchanan: A despot in disguise, one man’s mission to rip up democracy
○ Democracy Crushed © GOP USA In Indiana

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