Ariel E. Levite and Toby Dalton | The Hill
Iran is now perilously close to acquiring nuclear weapons. It possesses the ingredients for a rudimentary nuclear explosive device in a matter of several months and likely could achieve an arsenal of deliverable warheads within a year. The U.S. intelligence community is losing confidence that Iranian leaders are not getting ready to cross this Rubicon, even though it had until recently assessed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not yet decided to go nuclear. But Iran’s Oct. 2 missile attack on Israel and the latter’s likely retaliation could change this calculus, unleashing a chain reaction in the process. To avoid that outcome, the U.S. must take the lead in seeking an off-ramp with Iran that constrains its nuclear activities well short of a bomb.
Associated Press
Months into Russia’s war in Ukraine, the United States had intelligence pointing to “highly sensitive, credible conversations inside the Kremlin” that President Vladimir Putin was seriously considering using nuclear weapons to avoid major battlefield losses, journalist Bob Woodward reported in his new book, “War.” The U.S. intelligence pointed to a 50% chance that Putin would use tactical nukes if Ukrainian forces surrounded 30,000 Russian troops in the southern city of Kherson, the book says....According to Woodward’s account, President Joe Biden told Sullivan to “get on the line with the Russians. Tell them what we will do in response.”
Reuters
NATO will begin its annual nuclear exercise on Monday, alliance Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Thursday, against a backdrop of heightened nuclear rhetoric from Russian President Vladimir Putin. F-35A fighter jets and B-52 bombers will be among some 60 aircraft from 13 nations taking part in the Steadfast Noon exercise, hosted by Belgium and The Netherlands, NATO officials said…"The whole exercise will particularly focus on the United Kingdom, the North Sea, but also Belgium and the Netherlands," he added.
Reuters
India approved on Wednesday plans to construct two of a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarines, two defence officials said, in a project estimated to cost about 450 billion rupees ($5.4 billion). As India scrambles to modernise its military in the face of China's growing presence in the Indian Ocean region, it is focusing on boosting naval capabilities, and improving domestic weapons-making capacity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet gave the go-ahead for the first two submarines of a new class of six the Indian Navy plans to make, the officials added, speaking on condition of anonymity, but stopped short of providing delivery dates.
Dylan Spaulding | The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Two conflicting developments arose this month in US efforts to produce new plutonium pits for its nuclear weapons: The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced it had produced a warhead-ready pit—the explosive core of a nuclear weapon—for the first time in decades, and a federal court ruled that NNSA will be required to consider the cumulative environmental and health impacts of its pit production program. Overshadowing these events is a vigorous debate over the necessity for new pits at all.
W.J. Hennigan | The New York Times
The spending spree, which the government began planning in 2010, is underway in at least 23 states — nearly 50 if you include subcontractors…Times Opinion spent six months traveling to cities and towns around the nation to discover how this modern Manhattan Project is coming together, interviewing more than 100 residents, workers, community leaders and federal officials. The portrait that emerged is a country that is being transformed — physically, financially and philosophically — by an unprecedented wave of nuclear revitalization. The effort is as flush with cash as it is rife with problems and delays: At least 20 major projects are already years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.