Pentagon Admits Risk Of 'Mistakenly' Firing Nukes

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

   Not with a bang but a whimper.

EDITOR - Why do I feel like Dr. Strangelove is in charge?

(ZeroHedge)  -  The Pentagon has made a not-so-comforting admission that its nuclear arsenal is subject to errors and 'mistakes' — namely the potential for land-based missiles carrying nukes to be fired by mistake.

The almost unheard of public acknowledgement of such a danger, which it should be noted (if not already obvious) could trigger global nuclear apocalypse, actually came as part of an argument for why the DoD nuclear weapons program needs much more funding and a 'restart':

The Trump administration, in a closely held memo to lawmakers this spring, justified developing the first new U.S. atomic weapon since the Cold War by citing vulnerabilities and risks in the current nuclear arsenal that are rarely or never acknowledged in public.

In an unclassified five-page white paper sent to Congress in May, the Pentagon and the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, affirm a point they have long minimized: the dangers of land-based missiles ready to launch minutes after a warning of enemy attack.

Recall that in late May of this year it was revealed that the White House is actually mulling conducting the first US nuclear test since the end of the Cold War. The last was conducted 28 years ago.

Administration officials suggested it would send a strong "message" to Russia and China at a moment landmark Cold War era nuclear arms reduction treaties are unraveling, and at a moment the US hopes to revise New START to account for China's high tech arsenal.

"The document, which was obtained by CQ Roll Call and has not previously been disclosed, makes the fullest case yet for the $14 billion W93 submarine-launched atomic warhead program and its MK7 reentry vehicle, which would cost several hundred million more dollars," Roll Call reports.

Citing a "variety of risks" in the current nuclear arsenal and launch processes, officials described that "the W93 warhead must be funded, starting in fiscal 2021, because of what it described as perils and vulnerabilities in the Navy’s inventory of sub-launched weapons, as well as in the Air Force’s land-based missiles and bombers." Fear of a false or accidental fire stem from the US nuclear systems being originally designed to launch minutes after a perceived enemy nuclear attack.

ZeroHedge.com

Chinese Newspaper: "How to Survive a Nuclear Attack"

Do they know something we don't?

(Radio Free Asia)  -  A Chinese newspaper in the northeastern province of Jilin, which borders North Korea, has published a list of readers' tips on how to survive a nuclear attack, as the war of words between Washington and Pyongyang escalated on Thursday.

North Korea on Thursday called large-scale U.S. combat drills over South Korea "confrontational warmongering," saying that the exercises and recent rhetoric from Washington made the outbreak of war "an established fact."

The latest volley of bellicose rhetoric came after 230 American aircraft, including bombers, joined the "Vigilant Ace" joint military exercises with South Korea, just a week after Pyongyang tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) it says can reach the mainland U.S.

The Jilin Daily newspaper made no mention of a potential nuclear attack on North Korea.

But it published a lengthy guide to nuclear weapons and the aftermath of an atomic explosion, advising readers to "shelter behind a wall, preferably lying down in the corner, or under a bed or table, and avoid opening doors and windows ... to minimize the risk of debris injuries."

"After the blast wave has passed, you should immediately remove all dust from your body, and enter the nearest shelter," it said. "If no shelter is available, you can enter any building that has not been destroyed in the blast, and close the doors and windows to prevent contamination by radioactive dust."

Readers are also advised to "dive into any nearby lakes or river and wear light-colored clothing," to avoid initial injuries from the blast.

Anyone entering a shelter or protective space should be decontaminated by wiping, showering, and carefully removing clothing, the article said.

"Rub contamination from people's skin with a towel or gauze wipe, from top to bottom, in one direction, folding the towel after each wipe to prevent recontamination," it said. "Induce vomiting or use gastric lavage, or drink plenty of water for diuretic discharge of contaminated food and water."

"Laxatives may be taken, under direction of a doctor, to speed up the elimination of radioactive material [from the body]," it said.

Officials call for calm

Meanwhile, officials in Beijing called for calm.

"We hope all relevant parties can maintain calm and restraint and take steps to alleviate tensions and not provoke each other," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement.

"The outbreak of war is not in any side's interest. The ones that will suffer the most are ordinary people."

A resident of Jilin's border city of Yanbian surnamed Cai told RFA on Thursday that local officials are handing out similar instructions to residents on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.

But he said many local people don't believe it will come to war.

"They are being issued by our residential communities here in Yanbian, all about how to protect yourself from a nuclear attack," Cai said.

"But farmers like us don't have cellars, so where are we going to hide in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion? Under the table, I guess!"

According to the Jilin Daily, there are five "killing and destructive factors" involved in a nuclear blast: the flash, the shock wave, radioactive pollution, and early nuclear radiation, as well as a massively powerful electromagnetic pulse.

Around 85 percent of deaths, injury, and destruction caused by a nuclear explosion are dealt out by the initial flash and shock wave, it said.

While the electromagnetic pulse doesn't usually cause direct injury to people, it knocks out computers, digital devices, and power networks across a radius of "thousands of kilometers," the paper warned.

'Pretty worried about it'

A Yanbian resident surnamed Yan said local police have also been sending out mass text messages warning local residents not to shelter anyone "foreign."

"I think the authorities seem pretty worried about it, but ordinary people don't seem to be feeling it," she said. "I heard from civil servants that the government has already set in place preparations in the event of a nuclear conflict in North Korea."

"They have built detention centers to hold all the refugees," she said.

And a university lecturer from Jilin surnamed Wang said the article in the Jilin Daily appeared timed to coincide with joint U.S.-South Korean military drills.

But he said the paper doesn't have the backing of any powerful political figures, so the article is unlikely to be a sign that war is imminent.

"But it does reflect the atmosphere in Northeast China over the Korean peninsula, where people feel despairing, as if they have no control over the situation," Wang said. "They are particularly worried about the current state of mind."

United Nations political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman met with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on Thursday, in a bid to stave off rising tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear program.

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Major Kong Rides the Bomb

A

"Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death."

Cornelius

Planet of the Apes (1968)

DEATH from under the sea - N. Korean sub based nukes

Put your hands behind your head

Put your head between your legs

And kiss your ass goodbye

(The Sun)  -  New satellite images of North Korea bases appear to show the volatile state is overhauling its missile sub fleet as tension rises during the nuclear stand-off between Kim Jong-un and the US.

The pictures show activity at a test site which is scarily similar to preparations before the Stalinist nation’s last test of their Pukguksong-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile in August 2016.

The images emerged after Trump warned North Korea that the US military was “locked and loaded” as Pyongyang accused the U.S. leader of driving the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war.

The Pentagon said the United States and South Korea would proceed as planned with a joint military exercise in 10 days, an action sure to further antagonise North Korea.

North Korean watcher Joseph Bermudez of 38North, which monitors military activity in the Stalinist country, has spotted changes on the boat and the facility it is docked in.

He said: “Recent commercial satellite imagery reveals several developments suggesting that North Korea may be accelerating the development of the sea-based leg of its nuclear forces.

“Since the July report, netting or tarps have been suspended above both the fore and aft decks of the submarine obscuring any activity taking place beneath them.

“The only other time this was seen was during May-July 2016 and prior to the failed July 9, 2016 Pukguksong-1 test.”

Officials told CNN that North Korea is developing its submarine based missile capability.

Researchers believe the threat posed by Kim Jong-un has been underestimated – with the latest missile test soaring seven times higher than the International Space Station.

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Click to enlarge

Ain't Life Fucking Grand?
A North Korean sub with nukes four miles off shore by Honolulu or San Diego.

Idiot Scientists Increase Nuke Killing Power

"Would you like to play a game?"

• When our so-called "best and brightest" are not busy building Terminators they work to increase the killing power of Nukes.
• I guess being able to kill all life on Earth ten times over is just not enough.

(World Net Daily)  -  A little-known change in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal has boosted the killing power of the W-76 warheads used on submarine-based missiles by a factor of three, prompting concern that Russia will “undertake countermeasures that would increase the already dangerously high readiness of Russian nuclear forces,” according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

A report published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Hans M. Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie and Theodore A. Postol explains how a “modernization program” has implemented “revolutionary new technologies that will vastly increase the targeting capability of the U.S. ballistic missile arsenal.”

“This increase in capability is astonishing – boosting the overall killing power of existing U.S. ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three – and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike,” they said.

The change, the report explains, comes from a new “super-fuze” device that exploded the bomb in a zone above the target where it is likely to do the most damage.

“The result of this fuzing scheme is a significant increase in the probability that a warhead will explode close enough to destroy the target even though the accuracy of the missile-warhead system has itself not improved,” the authors wrote.

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"Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death."

Cornelius

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Obama threatens war with Russia over phony election "hack"

"Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war." 

Otto von Bismarck

• The insane warmonger Comrade Obama cannot leave office soon enough. He directly threatens Russia with war over the fake CIA report on Internet hacking that no one is allowed to read.

(NBC News)  -  The U.S. used the latest incarnation of an old Cold War communications system — the so-called "Red Phone" that connects Moscow to Washington — to reinforce Obama's September warning that the U.S. would consider any interference on Election Day a grave matter.

This time Obama used the phrase "armed conflict."

"International law, including the law for armed conflict, applies to actions in cyberspace," said part of a message sent over the Red Phone on Oct. 31, according to a senior U.S. official. "We will hold Russia to those standards."

The so-called "Red Phone" system is used to communicate in moments of crisis, such as the September 11, 2001 terror attacks or the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was never a literal phone, instead beginning as teletype more than 50 years ago, then converting to first fax and then email to link the U.S. and Russia through their Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers.

The Obama administration had never used the cyber line before, officials said. Several intelligence officials told NBC News the use of the system communicated just how serious the situation had become.

"It's a dramatic step to pick that 'phone' up and use it," said Ret. Adm. James Stavridis, the former head of NATO.

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Pentagon: "We can fight Russia and China"

"In peace, sons bury their fathers. 

In war, fathers bury their sons." 

Herodotus

484 - 425 BC

• The generals and politicians are always looking for new and better ways to kill millions of people in wars that usually have no real meaning. . . . no meaning except to coffin makers and the Military-Industrial Complex.
• The futility of war can be seen in the moronic Afghan War that never, ever ends. Or the endless other Middle Eastern wars in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Iraq that we have supported.
• In this case it is an act of insanity to even think about war with nuclear powers like China and Russia. . . . by insanity is the middle name of generals and politicians.

From Business Insider

Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson . . . 

Just because China's "carrier-killer" missile has a greater range than the planes aboard a US aircraft carrier doesn't mean the US would shy away from deploying a carrier within that range, Richardson has stated on different occasions. 

Again, Richardson challenged the notion that a so-called A2/AD zone was "an impenetrable keep out zone that forces can only enter at extreme peril to their existence, let alone their mission."

"We can fight from within these defended areas, and we will... this is nothing new and has been done before," said Richardson.

So while Russia and China can develop missiles and radars and declare their ranges on paper, things get a lot trickier in the real world, where the US has the most and best experience in operating.

"Potential adversaries actually have different geographic features like choke points, islands, ocean currents, mountains," said Richardson, who urged against oversimplifying complicated, and always unique circumstances in so-called A2/AD zones. 

"Have no doubt, the US navy is prepared to go wherever it needs to go, at any time, and stay there for as long as necessary in response to our leadership’s call to project our strategic influence," Richardson concluded.

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                                Apocalypse Now
              I love the smell of napalm in the morning

That war worked out well

China’s anti-access area denial defensive layers. Office of Naval Intelligence Image

Obama moves nuclear weapons from Turkey to Romania

Moving Nukes Closer to Russia

The madman in the White House is moving 

us that much closer to World War III

EXCLUSIVE/ Two independent sources told EurActiv.com that the US has started transferring nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey to Romania, against the background of worsening relations between Washington and Ankara.

According to one of the sources, the transfer has been very challenging in technical and political terms.

“It’s not easy to move 20+ nukes,” said the source, on conditions of anonymity.

According to a recent report by the Simson Center, since the Cold War, some 50 US tactical nuclear weapons have been stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, approximately 100 kilometres from the Syrian border.

Obama moves nukes closer to the Russian border.
What could possibly go wrong?

During the failed coup in Turkey in July, Incirlik’s power was cut, and the Turkish government prohibited US aircraft from flying in or out. Eventually, the base commander was arrested and implicated in the coup. Whether the US could have maintained control of the weapons in the event of a protracted civil conflict in Turkey is an unanswerable question, the report says.

Another source told EurActiv.com that the US-Turkey relations had deteriorated so much following the coup that Washington no longer trusted Ankara to host the weapons. The American weapons are being moved to the Deveselu air base in Romania, the source said.

Deveselu, near the city of Caracal, is the new home of the US missile shield, which has infuriated Russia.

The Romanian foreign ministry strongly denied the information that the country has become home of US nukes. “In response to your request, Romanian MFA firmly dismisses the information you referred to,”  a spokesperson wrote.

According to practice dating from the Cold War, leaked information regarding the presence of US nuclear weapons on European soil has never been officially confirmed. It is, however, public knowledge that Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy host US nuclear weapons.

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This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.T. S. Eliot

How Long Could the U.S. Go Without Electricity?

Yes, we are that stupid

• Ted Koppel's new book details the end of civilization as the power grid melts down from terrorism, solar flare, cyber attack or an EMP blast.
• Dig your End of the World Cave deeper.

(Reason.com)  -  The power is still out, and things are getting scary.

The house is so cold you can see your own breath. Some of the food in the refrigerator is good, but there's no way to cook it. The water is still running, barely, but it smells bad and tastes worse. The grocery store is open, but it's only taking cash—which you can't get, because the banks are closed. But it doesn't really matter since the shelves have been picked clean anyway.

You went to work on Monday, but after a couple of hours the boss sent everyone home. Come back when the power comes back on, she said.

That was nine days ago.

The family has been warming up in the car for short stints, and you've been charging your cell phone, but the gas gauge is now sitting on Empty. The gas station closed because there's no power to run the pumps.

The emergency numbers you've called are busy or not answering. Nothing on the radio but static. No wi-fi. Your neighbors are just as clueless as you are.

Somebody better get the power back on soon, or you and your family are going to be up the creek.

But suppose they don't. Then what?

George Noory: 

America Vulnerable To EMP Attack

This cheery scenario is the subject of a recent book by Ted Koppel, Lights Out, which discusses the possibility of a major blow to the nation's power grid—either through a cyberattack or an EMP. An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse caused by a high-altitude (as in 30 or 40 miles) detonation of a nuclear warhead. A sufficient blast over Ohio could fry circuits on the Eastern Seaboard down to Florida and as far west as Omaha, Nebraska. A cyberattack would have less far-reaching effects—unless it were either a coordinated, distributed assault or hit nerve centers hard enough to cause a cascading power failure.

Koppel explores the likelihood of such an event. The experts he interviewed, including former heads of Homeland Security,  rate the chances everywhere from minute to almost inevitable. He asks how effective such an attack might be. The answer to that is: It depends. He also asks how well prepared the country is to cope with a long-term, widespread power failure. The answer to that is: Not one little bit.

Experts in the utility industry contend that fears of a nationwide blackout are overblown. Dominion, Virginia's chief supplier of power, will be spending $500 million to harden its critical infrastructure.

The industry spends billions on cybersecurity. There's no way for an outsider to hack into the control systems, they say. Cyber-security experts seem rather less sanguine. Hackers always find a way—just ask Target, or Sony Pictures, or the Office of Personnel Management or countless other major institutions that have the resources to guard against cyber-infiltration, but couldn't stop it. A terrorist or foreign power that hacks into a power company's network might be able to wreck its hardware, just like the Stuxtnet virus developed by the U.S. and Israel wrecked Iran's uranium centrifuges.

An EMP attack, which would affect not just power companies but electronic circuits everywhere, is equally feasible—so feasible that more than a decade ago, Congress established a commission to examine the issue. Its findings are not exactly reassuring. They point out, for instance, that a successful EMP attack does not require an intercontinental ballistic missile. As one commission member testified to the House Armed Services Committee in 2008, "such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the U.S. coast using a short- or medium-range missile... Iran... has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea."

Read More . . . .

400 Chernobyls, Solar Flares, EMP & Nuclear Armageddon with Author Matt Stein

It's the end of the world as we know it
When the electric grid goes down it will be "Mad Max" on steroids.
See our stories:
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The Threat To Melt The Electric Grid
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George Noory: EMP Attack Will Kill 90% of Americans
kk
The EMP Threat: Sending America Back To The 1800s
kk
Iran endorses nuclear EMP attack on United States
kk
It's the end of the world - Are you ready for death by solar flares?

Vladimir Putin’s massive, triple-decker war room

Russian President Vladimir Putin, fifth from right, with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, sixth from right, and armed forces Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, fourth from right, attend a meeting on Russian air force activity in Syria at the national defense control center in Moscow on Nov. 17. (Alexei Nikolskyi/SPUTNIK/Kremlin via Reuters)

While Congress Starves our Military

• The Russians have spent hundreds of billions to modernize their military.
• Meanwhile our anti-military Republican Congress has starved our armed forces since the GOP took over in 1995.

MOSCOW (Washington Post)  -  "Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the war room!"

It could have been a scene straight out of "Dr. Strangelove" when President Vladimir V. Putin stepped into the Russian Ministry of Defense's brand new, three-tiered, multibillion-dollar control center this week, for a war briefing that had its fair share of movie-like pageantry.

The fortified National Control Defense Center was Putin's first stop after officials confirmed that the Russian charter jet crash that claimed 224 lives last month was the result of an act of terror.

On movie-theater-size screens, live broadcasts showed long-range strategic bombers taking off from Russian air bases to fly sorties over Syria. Putin instructed commanders in Syria to "make contact with the French and work with them as allies" as Russia seeks a central role in a proposed anti-terrorist coalition.

LIVE: Putin chairs Defense Ministry meeting after Sinai plane crash confirmed to be terrorist attack

But the real star of the show may have been the building itself, which is designed to be a new nerve center for the Russian military that will coordinate military action around the world, including ballistic missile launches and strategic nuclear deployments.

The building is roughly the equivalent of the U.S. National Military Command Center used by the Pentagon, but as one Russian state news agency noted in a breathless headline this week, "Russian Defense Data Center Outperforms US Facility Threefold: Official."

The center, which is fortified and said to sit on top of a maze of underground tunnels, is on the Frunze Naberezhnaya on the left bank of the Moscow river, a little over two miles from Red Square.

It was finished in 2014 and is part of a massive, decade-long modernization of Russia's army, which has cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but has also produced noted improvements, from the expertise of Russian troops deployed during the Crimea operation to the recent cruise missile strikes launched from the Caspian Sea.

The new national defense center also includes a helicopter pad that was deployed on the Moscow River late last year and can accommodate Russia's Mi-8 transport helicopter. In case of a war, it would be the country's premier communications center, and one Russian commander compared it to the military headquarters of the Soviet Union during World War II.

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50 N.Korean Submarines Vanish from Radar

Missing North Korean Subs

• It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to know that nuclear armed North Korea has subs wondering around the Pacific Ocean.

(Chosun News)  -  North Korea seems to be stepping up preparations for a military provocation even as ongoing high-level talks seek to avert the worst.

More than 50 North Korean submarines have apparently been sent out on mystery missions, and artillery strength and warfare-readiness along the frontline have been raised to the max, a military source said Sunday. 

That suggests the North has embraced a two-prong strategy tempering its traditional brinkmanship with diplomacy. 

"The current sortie rate of North Korean submarines is as high as 10 times the rate in ordinary times," a military official said. "Scores of subs that have left their bases on the eastern and western coasts are off our radar, which is an unprecedentedly serious situation."

About 50 submarines have vanished from South Korean and U.S. radars since they left their bases on Saturday and Sunday, a whopping 70 percent of the North's entire fleet of 70 submarines and submersibles. 

Fears are that they could cross the Northern Limit Line or infiltrate into rear areas to launch surprise attacks on South Korean Navy vessels or send commandos into South Korea.

Military authorities here are especially dismayed since it was a North Korean submersible that sank the Navy corvette Cheonan in 2010.

While most North Korean subs are so noisy that they are easy to detect, the sheer numbers make it impossible to keep track of them all.

South Korean and U.S. military authorities have stepped up patrols with anti-submarine equipment like P-3C maritime patrol aircraft.

The official also said the North has more than doubled its artillery strength along the demilitarized zone since Friday afternoon, when it proposed high-level talks. "They seem ready to shoot."

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