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Here Are Trump’s Options For Dealing With An Imminent Nuclear Threat That Festered Under Biden

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Iran has largely been left unchecked by the Biden administration in its goal to become a nuclear power, presenting President-elect Donald Trump with a significant foreign policy challenge that has few easy solutions.

Iran, with its current stockpiles, can make a nuclear weapon with 60% enriched uranium in just one week, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a November bulletin. The president-elect will have to choose a path quickly upon assuming office, such as renegotiating a deal to halt or slow Iran’s progress, military intervention or re-tooling sanctions that have so far been ineffective.

“The United States needs another Middle East war like it needs a hole in the head,” Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told the DCNF. “There are all kinds of angles from which escalation could happen, and Trump openly campaigned as a Peace Through Strength leader, not a warmonger. With that said, a lot turns on what Trump’s closest advisers will do to shape the president’s understanding of the options. Unfortunately, we’re heading to a fork in the road.”

The first, and perhaps most direct option, is a military strike from the U.S. on Iranian nuclear facilities. Trump advisers have reportedly expressed concern that Iran’s progress may be too far in, and a military strike may be the only option, according to Axios. Israel would be a prime candidate to assist with a strike, as it has conducted similar operations in the past.

“The Trump Administration is committed to reestablishing peace & stability in the Middle East. President Trump will keep all options on the table as it relates to the Iran Regime including Maximum Pressure,” Brian Hughes, Trump-Vance transition spokesperson, told the DCNF. (Read more from “Here Are Trump’s Options For Dealing With An Imminent Nuclear Threat That Festered Under Biden” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Report: China Will Deploy Subs that Could Nuke Alaska or Hawaii This Year

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Photo Credit: PLAN China is set to deploy submarines sometime this year armed with nuclear tipped missiles capable of striking Alaska or Hawaii, according to a January assessment from the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI).

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Jin-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine is set to begin patrols in 2014 — armed with the PLAN’s new Ju Lang 2 (JL2), ONI Senior Intelligence Officer Jesse Karotkin told the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission in late January.

“With a range in excess of 4000 [nautical miles], the JL-2 submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM), will enable the JIN to strike Hawaii, Alaska and possibly western portions of CONUS from East Asian waters,” Karotkin said in written testimony to the commission.

The Jin, or Type 94, submarines are a developmental leap over the older Type 92 Xia-class submarines armed with the much less capable JL-1 SLBM.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon: U.S. Not Capable of Detecting Foreign Nuke Threats

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

American intelligence and security agencies are not currently capable of detecting when foreign nations are building nuclear weapons or ramping up their existing programs, according to a newly released Pentagon report that faults a range of U.S. agencies.

“The nation is not yet organized or fully equipped” to detect clandestine nuclear activities across the globe, and in most cases “current solutions are either inadequate, or more often, do not exist,” according to the report, which was compiled over three years by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board.

More nations than ever are pursuing nuclear arms. However, the United States does not have the mechanisms to detect and track these programs, according to the report.

Moreover, U.S. intelligence agencies are not doing enough to rectify the issue, according to the report, which called for a full-scale revamp in how agencies approach the issue of nuclear detection.

The United States “lacks a cohesive, long term, international engagement plan aimed at building cooperation and transparency,” the report warns.

Read more from this story HERE.

Russian Minister: We May Respond with Nukes to US Global Strike Program

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Russia May Answer Conventional Attack With Nukes

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press.

Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional strike and sees them as a “great equalizer” reducing the likelihood of aggression, a senior Russian official said Wednesday.

While Russia amended its military doctrine years ago to allow for the possibility of using nuclear weapons first in retaliation to a non-nuclear attack, the statement by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin reflected Moscow’s concern about prospective U.S. conventional weapons.

Weapons that have been developed in the United States under the so-called “prompt global strike” program would be capable of striking targets anywhere in the world in as little as an hour with deadly precision. Russia, which has lagged far behind in developing such weapons, has described them as destabilizing.

Without naming the U.S., Rogozin told lawmakers in comments carried by Russian news agencies said that those who “experiment with non-nuclear strategic weapons” should remember that “if we come under attack, we will undoubtedly use nuclear weapons in certain situations to defend our territory and state interests.”

He said that it should discourage any potential aggressor.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: RIA Novosti/Sergei Kazak

Photo Credit: RIA Novosti/Sergei Kazak

Russia Warns of Nuclear Response to US Global Strike Program

By RIA Novosti.

A senior government minister warned Wednesday that Russia could retaliate with a nuclear strike if a new US military strategy threatened its security.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that Russia was “preparing a response” to plans by the United States to develop a new fast-strike weapons platform capable of hitting high-priority targets around the globe.

He told the State Duma that the development of a global strike program was “the most important new strategy being developed by the United States today.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Japan Nuclear Body says Radioactive Water at Fukushima an ‘Emergency’

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Photo Credit: ReutersHighly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an “emergency” that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country’s nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters…

“Right now, we have an emergency,” he said…

It was not immediately clear how much of a threat the contaminated groundwater could pose. In the early weeks of the disaster, the Japanese government allowed Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Co] to dump tens of thousands of metric tons of contaminated water into the Pacific in an emergency move…

“Until we know the exact density and volume of the water that’s flowing out, I honestly can’t speculate on the impact on the sea,” said Mitsuo Uematsu from the Center for International Collaboration, Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute at the University of Tokyo.

Read more from this story HERE.

Nuclear Doomsday is Coming Today. You’ll Want to See This.

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Photo Credit: APIt’s Thursday, July 18, and nuclear Armageddon is upon us. Or at least you might be excused for thinking so when you glimpse on your colleague’s computer monitor a compelling simulation of a mushroom cloud rising over your home town.

That’s the 2.0 version of NUKEMAP — now in three dimensions! — expected for launch by late Thursday, the brainchild of a guy named Alex Wellerstein.

A historian with the American Institute of Physics, Wellerstein has had 3 million visitors to the original two-dimensional edition of his website, who have virtually detonated a whopping 17.4 million nuclear warheads over their choice of locations virtually anywhere around the world.

Launched in February 2012, the initial or “classic” version of NUKEMAP featured your choice of 18 preselected cities — from Beijing or Berlin to Tehran or Tokyo — and 23 preset atomic-warhead explosive capacities, or “yields,” numbering in kilotons, or even more stratospheric megatons. A pick of North Korean, Indian, Pakistani, Russian and U.S. bombs was on offer, along with others.

You could have gone wild and plugged in any city across the planet along with a numerical yield for your notional attack, clicked the clearly marked “Detonate” button and wham: A multicolor bulls-eye appeared onscreen, overlaid on your designated city map — described as a “mashup” of Google Maps and algorithms for nuclear blast effects.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Threatens ‘Nuclear Option’ if Senate Doesn’t Confirm His Leftist Judicial Nominees

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Photo Credit: AP

President Obama supports many things he opposed as Senator Obama—such as unlimited terrorist detention—but for flip-flopping with a high degree of artistic difficulty nothing beats his judicial filibuster ultimatum on Tuesday. If Republicans don’t confirm his three, yes, three, new nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he’ll unleash Democrats to gut the Senate’s filibuster rules.

Mr. Obama didn’t explicitly state the threat portion of that ultimatum—he’s leaving that dirty work to the reliable Harry Reid. But everyone knows that’s the subtext of Tuesday’s announcement, which is a political attempt to realign the balance of power on an appeals court that has frustrated the Administration’s regulatory overreach.

The Senate has “a constitutional duty to promptly consider judicial nominees for confirmation,” Mr. Obama averred in the Rose Garden. “Throughout my first term as President, the Senate too often failed to do that.”

He might have added, but somehow didn’t, that the Senate also too often failed to do that “duty” when George W. Bush was President. You could even say that Senate Democrats invented the filibuster against D.C. Circuit nominees. Who can forget the successful Joe Biden-John Kerry effort to defeat the distinguished appellate lawyer Miguel Estrada mainly because he is Hispanic and might make it to the Supreme Court someday?

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon Report: N. Korea Will Eventually Reach US with Nuclear Arms

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Photo Credit: AFPNorth Korea’s continuing development of nuclear technology and long-range ballistic missiles will move it closer to its stated goal of being able to hit the United States with an atomic weapon, a new Pentagon report to Congress said on Thursday.

The report, the first version of an annual Pentagon assessment required by law, said Pyongyang’s Taepodong-2 missile, with continued development, might ultimately be able to reach parts of the United States carrying a nuclear payload if configured as an intercontinental ballistic missile.

North Korea launched a multi-stage rocket that delivered a satellite into orbit in December, an advance that “contributes heavily” to the country’s development of a long-range ballistic missile capability, the report said.

It is also continuing to refine its atomic weapons capability, including with a nuclear detonation in February, and is capable of conducting “additional nuclear tests at any time,”the report said.

“These advances in ballistic-missile delivery systems, coupled with developments in nuclear technology … are in line with North Korea’s stated objective of being able to strike the US homeland,” the report said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon Slip May Cause Israel to Fast-Track Plans to Attack Iran

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Analysts fear a dramatic advance in North Korea’s nuclear missile technology, revealed inadvertently during a Congressional hearing Thursday, will quickly find its way to Iran — forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fast-track a long-contemplated attack against Tehran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities.

Pentagon officials are playing down a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that North Korea probably has the ability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon and place it on an ICBM. U.S. officials say that miniaturization capability, if it exists, is untested and unreliable.

In February, North Korea detonated what is described as a “lighter, miniaturized atomic bomb.” At the time, there was speculation this could signal the Hermit Kingdom had developed a nuclear warhead that it could place on its long-range missiles. Pentagon officials, however, continued to insist North Korea was at least a year away from developing that capability.

Jerusalem Post defense analyst Yaakov Katz, author of “Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War,” tells Newsmax that U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials have generally agreed that it would take Iran six to 12 months to build a nuclear device once it tried to break out and enrich its material from the 20-percent to the 90-percent level required. Beyond that, intelligence experts have projected, it would then take Iran another year or two to produce a miniaturized warhead that could be installed on a missile.

Now, Katz says, the time lag between reaching nuclear capability and Iran’s ability to arm a missile with a nuclear warhead appears to have vanished. That means Thursday’s revelation could reduce Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nonmilitary options against Iran, forcing the Jewish state to step up its timetable for attacking the Persian nation should it acquire enough enriched uranium to be a significant threat.

Read more from this story HERE.

North Korea Tells Brit Diplomats to Get Out — then Sets Chilling April 10 Deadline

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By Jack Losh. Crackpot Kim Jong-un’s regime today issued a chilling threat to British diplomats warning them to get out of Pyongyang.

Alarmingly the North Korean government said it would not be able to guarantee the safety of embassies from April 10. Russian diplomats have also been advised to evacuate. Today the Foreign Office added that it is “considering next steps” after the threat.

It is still unclear why next Wednesday has been set as a deadline – but it is sure to spark fears despot Kim Jong-un will launch an attack after that date. This week South Korean workers employed in factories in the North were also told to leave by April 10.

The dramatic development came as North Korea moved a second missile to its east coast in a further threat to Japan, South Korea and US Pacific bases.

The rogue state has already transported a Musudan missile with a range of 1,800 miles (3,000km) to the same area. Read more from this story HERE.

Castro to North Korea: Do not start a war

By Spencer Amaral. Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro warned North Korea against war on Friday, and said that it is primarily the United States’ responsibility to prevent a conflict from breaking out.

Castro wrote the advice in a column — his first in nine months — for Cuban state media. He spoke as an ally, from one communist regime to another, in the wake of North Korea’s mounting threats of direct war with South Korea and the U.S.

Describing the current tensions in the Korean Peninsula as one of the “gravest risks” of nuclear holocaust since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Castro urged North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to back away from the brink of war, and consider the harmful repercussions his actions might have on both Koreas and the world. Read more from this story HERE.

Embassy Staff Face Difficult Decision After North Korea Asks Them to Leave

By Jethro Mullen. Barbara Starr and Laura Smith-Spark. Foreign diplomatic missions in North Korea face an ominous decision after Pyongyang said Friday it could not guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the event of armed conflict.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula remain in a heightened state amid new reports that North Korea has prepared missiles for launch, while South Korea has deployed naval destroyers to its coasts.

The British Foreign Office said North Korea told British officials that it would not be able to guarantee the safety of diplomats in the capital if fighting breaks out.

Several diplomatic missions said the North Koreans held a meeting Friday for ambassadors in which they asked whether anyone needed assistance in evacuating their personnel.

“We are consulting international partners about these developments,” the British Foreign Office said in a written statement. “No decisions have been taken, and we have no immediate plans to withdraw our embassy.” Read more from this story HERE.