Nuclear Weapons

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media captionWhy Iran's election mattersIranians have voted in elections in an exercise widely expected to result in a more hardline parliament loyal to the country's supreme leader.It is the first such poll since the US renewed sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme, battering its…

Key point: The Mediterranean has long been a strategic area for military and commercial maritime traffic. Although NATO has a presence there, so too does Russia- and Moscow is ramping it up.Is the Mediterranean the new playground for the Russian Navy?Russia is expanding its naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean because…

Key point: By bringing an “earth-penetrating” component, the B61-12 vastly increases the target scope or envelope of attack.Back in 2018, the Air Force’s B-2 Stealth bomber test-dropped an upgraded, multi-function B61-12 nuclear bomb that improves accuracy, integrates various attack options into a single bomb and changes the strategic landscape with regard…

The weapon’s smaller destructive power does not mean a smaller risk of catastrophe. A Trident submarine off the coast of Southern California in 2004. The U.S. Navy has deployed a new type of “low-yield” nuclear warhead in some of its Trident submarines. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images Sometime in the past two…

With explosions taking place virtually, how much harder will it be for weapons scientists to confront the destructive power of their work and its ethical implications?The Castle Bravo nuclear test, the detonation of the most powerful thermonuclear device ever tested by the U.S. Source image: Wikimedia CommonsBy: Sherry TurkleThirty years…

Bottom Line: Even the use of a "small" tactical nuclear weapon would mean crossing the nuclear threshold. Why wouldn't you assume that the other side would respond in kind?A RAND wargame several years ago on a potential Russian offensive into the Baltics brought talk of a “new Cold War” into sharp focus. The game made clear…

Key point: The military and intelligence communities in the late 1960s hoped the D-21 would help the United States to spy on strategic targets more reliably than a satellite could do at that time, and without risking a human pilot.Between 1969 and 1971, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office deployed super-fast spy…

MANILA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday announced the termination of a two-decade-old Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States (VFA), delivering on threats to downgrade an alliance important to U.S. interests. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper called the decision “unfortunate” and said it would be a move…

Key point: At 52 years and going strong, the B61 series of bombs are likely the oldest serving nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. One of the longest-serving nuclear weapons in Americas arsenal is the B61 nuclear free-fall bomb. The B61 bomb was first intro…

A bad day — "Like many scientific projects, Failure happened." Eric Berger - Feb 10, 2020 2:02 pm UTC Enlarge / Replica Iranian missiles are shown alongside the Simorgh rocket, left, on display at the Holy/Sacred Defense Museum, a vast complex that commemorates the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, in Tehran, Iran,…