Edition

Proliferation News 10/15/24

IN THIS ISSUE: Space Nukes Are Bad, Autocrats United: How Russia and Iran Defy the U.S.-Led Global Order, Netanyahu Tells U.S. that Israel will Strike Iranian Military, Not Nuclear or Oil, Targets, Officials Say, Google Backs New Nuclear Plants to Power AI, NATO Tactical Nuclear Weapons Exercise And Base Upgrades, For Atomic Bomb Survivors, a Nobel Prize and a Reckoning, 80 Years Later

Published on October 15, 2024

James M. Acton | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

The danger of space-based nuclear weapons isn’t just that Moscow might actually use them. It’s that Washington knows Moscow might actually use them. As a result, the United States might attack Putin’s space nukes before he can push the button—which, in turn, might incentivize Putin to jab his finger as fast as he can.

Karim Sadjadpour and Nicole Grajewski | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Few geopolitical alignments are more consequential to global security and world order than the Russia-Iran partnership of defiance…Both countries are ruled by embattled autocrats—eighty-five-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran and seventy-one-year-old Vladimir Putin in Russia—who have collectively been in power for over five decades. The two men are united in their opposition to the United States and the liberal international order, in particular eastward NATO expansion and America’s political, military, and cultural influence in the Middle East.

Shira Rubin and Ellen Nakashima | The Washington Post

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the Biden administration he is willing to strike military rather than oil or nuclear facilities in Iran, according to two officials familiar with the matter, suggesting a more limited counterstrike aimed at preventing a full-scale war…When Biden and Netanyahu spoke Wednesday — their first call in more than seven weeks after months of rising tensions between the two men — the prime minister said he was planning to target military infrastructure in Iran, according to a U.S. official and an official familiar with the matter.

Jennifer Hiller | The Wall Street Journal 

Google will back the construction of seven small nuclear-power reactors in the U.S., a first-of-its-kind deal that aims to help feed the tech company’s growing appetite for electricity to power AI and jump-start a U.S. nuclear revival.Under the deal’s terms, Google committed to buying power generated by seven reactors to be built by   nuclear-energy startup Kairos Power. The agreement targets adding 500 megawatts of nuclear power starting at the end of the decade, the companies said Monday.

Hans Kristensen | Federation of American Scientists 

NATO today began its annual tactical nuclear weapons exercise in Europe. Known as Steadfast Noon, the two-week long exercise involves more than 60 aircraft from 13 countries and more than 2,000 personnel, according to a NATO press release. That is slightly bigger than last year’s exercise that involved “up to 60” aircraft. The exercise is co-hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands at the Kleine Brogel and Volkel airbases, respectively. Flight operations are focused over the North Sea and surrounding countries including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. NATO says a total of eight bases are involved.

Hannah Beech, Hisako Ueno and Kiuko Notoya | The New York Times 

On Friday, Nihon Hidankyo, a collective of Japanese atomic bomb survivors, was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its decades-long campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The group was honored by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for “demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.” The survivors of the bombings — more than 100,000 are still living — “help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the committee chairman, said.


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