Radiant’s Post

After outsourcing most manufacturing to China and other countries for several decades, the U.S. is now striving to revive a skilled workforce to manufacture the machine tools necessary for producing critical assets such as nuclear submarines. Join us for a lecture by Dr. Tony Schmitz on October 11, 1-2 pm to hear about the challenges the U.S. is facing in preparing the workforce to counter supply chain problems, dependency on China, and national security concerns: "Impacts of Limitations of Workforce Development in Machining on U.S. National Security."

📥 Federation of American Scientists team on Pentagon green-lighting continuation of $140B Sentinel ICBM program despite cost overruns. Jon Wolfsthal: "At 81% over budget and $140 billion and climbing, we owe it to consider real alternatives and get modernization right" Hans Kristensen: "What a farce! Despite massively escalating cost projection, having sold the new Sentinel ICBM program to Congress based on unrealistic cost, the Pentagon says go ahead anyway." Mackenzie Knight: "Whether the program is flawed, necessary, or not, Congress and the administration should not allow ostensibly limitless spending on nuclear weapons programs. How much is too much?" Read more ➡ https://lnkd.in/e4HaMSx7

Arms control will always be important and necessary. What we have learned is that arms control success is inextricably linked to our own nuclear capabilities. There is no “either-or”. The adversary must be strongly motivated to come to the negotiating table. All other motives, such as cost-savings, take a back seat to the fear of falling behind. The reason arms control is out of vogue is because the U.S. stockpile, both in capability and will, became stagnant and of little threat to Russia and China. Fortunately we are back on a track to have more and better nuclear weapon options in our quiver to force the adversaries to rethink their lack of arms control interest.

The CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) Live Debate Series is back! Join us on Thursday, January 25, 2024, from 10:00 am - 11:00 am ET for a live debate on U.S. Nuclear Targeting. Debate Question: Should the U.S. maintain its current nuclear targeting policy of holding at risk China’s and Russia’s leaders, nuclear command-and-control capabilities, military forces, and war supporting industry (WSI), or should it shift to an approach that focuses solely on conventional forces and WSI? Dr. Heather Williams will moderate the debate between Mr. Franklin Miller, Principal at The Scowcroft Group, and Dr. James Acton, Jessica T. Mathews Chair and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. PONI Mid-Career Stephanie Stapleton, Research Analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses will be the discussant. Location: CSIS and Livestream Register here: https://lnkd.in/ezecRMpF #Nuclear #NuclearIssues #NationalSecurity #InternationalSecurity #China #Russia #Military #Defense

For what? The US Defense Department has announced that it will develop a new version of the B61 nuclear bomb with 24 times the destructive power of the one dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.  The Pentagon revealed that it would seek Congressional approval and funding for the development of the weapon in a press release on Friday. According to a fact sheet accompanying the announcement, the bomb, dubbed the B61-13, will have a similar yield to the B61-7, which it is intended to replace. The B61-7 has a maximum yield of 360 kilotons, making it 24 times more powerful than ‘Little Boy’, the 15-kiloton bomb that leveled Hiroshima.  The B61-7 is not the most powerful nuclear weapon in the US arsenal. That title goes to the B83, a thermonuclear gravity bomb with a yield of 1.2 megatons of TNT. The B83 replaced the even more powerful B53, which packed a 9-megaton punch and was retired in 2011.

I am very pleased to have contributed a chapter entitled "Dead or Deferred? Nuclear Arms Control in an Age of Revisionism" to a new book by the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. You can find it here: https://lnkd.in/e8CP26Je

As we reflect on the 79th anniversary of the Trinity Test, it's important to remember that nuclear threats are not just history, they are a modern reality.     It's time to end the threat.    This August 6-9, join people around the world to honor the victims of the August atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by demanding a future where these weapons no longer exist. Standing together, we can share a message that our leaders can't ignore. #CranesForOurFuture https://buff.ly/3LndcMF

“It is this generation, then, which Washington must engage to explain why the nation invests in weapons with such awesome power. And it is this generation whose support will be required for the country to run the calculated risks inherent in great-power competition.” “Nuclear weapons are the bedrock of the U.S. defense posture,” Great article by Kyle Balzer. I first learned about Great Power Competition in 2018 studying the Nuclear Posture Review, and the history of nuclear weapons policy during the Cold War. It’s exciting to be part of a career field whose leaders are charged with understanding and making decisions to ensure viability of BOTH conventional and nuclear capabilities.

AUKUS is an important part of a three pronged strategy to make Chinese expansionism impractical if not impossible. 1. Rotational nuclear submarine forces should be part of AUKUS burden sharing that includes sea launch cruise missiles and a rotational base of B-21 bombers and anti-shipping armed B-1s. 2. It needs to be made explicitly clear that in any regional conflict in the region the Chinese will attempt to attively threaten Japan and the ROK along with the sovereign territory of Guam. These bases need a NATO inspired burden sharing plan including dual capable US, Japanese and ROK F-35s augmented by forward based bombers in Guam and Alaska. 3. Finally, we must work overtime to forge stronger ties with India as we move I critical supply chains home, to trusted Allie’s and India. Follow the India lead ZERO Chinese components in any military equipment or critical infrastructure. Focus our economic interests in the area on emerging democratic forces in Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan and the ROK to destroy Chinese economic power.