{"id":350723,"date":"2018-03-04T05:28:06","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T04:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/racing-towards-a-low-yield-armageddon\/"},"modified":"2018-03-04T05:28:06","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T04:28:06","slug":"racing-towards-a-low-yield-armageddon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/racing-towards-a-low-yield-armageddon\/","title":{"rendered":"Racing Towards a Low-Yield Armageddon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_100208\" style=\"max-width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-100208\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/03\/Screen-Shot-2018-03-01-at-4.16.00-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"365\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by James Stencilowsky | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>On February 3\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/trumps-request-for-even-more-nuclear-weapons-is-flawed-overkill\/2018\/02\/03\/f962b0b4-083d-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.fc1513b1a273\">the Washington Post observed<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe United States can deliver a [nuclear] strike anywhere in the world in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2016\/08\/05\/our-nuclear-procedures-are-crazier-than-trump\/\">30 minutes<\/a>\u00a0with astounding accuracy\u201d and questioned the need for \u201ca new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons,\u201d quoting the commander of the strategic force, General John Hyten,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/fas.org\/blogs\/security\/2017\/06\/new-nukes\/\">as saying<\/a>\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m very comfortable today with the flexibility of our response options.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0But it appears that no matter the quantity and world-destroying capability of the US nuclear arsenal, there is always room for more \u2014 and more devastating \u2014 weapons of mass annihilation.<\/p>\n<p>General James Mattis, the US Secretary of Defence, discussed Washington\u2019s recently composed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/space\/2018\/02\/02\/nuclear-posture-review-puts-russia-firmly-in-crosshairs\/\">Nuclear Posture Review<\/a>\u00a0(NPR) with the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives on February 6.\u00a0\u00a0He was attempting to justify the upgrading and huge expansion of the US nuclear arsenal which the Congressional Budget Office\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/publication\/53211\">has estimated<\/a>\u00a0 will cost some 1.2 trillion dollars over the next 30 years, and described in detail some of the projects that have been planned. The entire exercise does not fit well with the international\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/ten-nations-urge-new-push-for-non-proliferation\/a-15041365\">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)<\/a>\u00a0in which it is agreed by almost every country in the world that the nuclear arms race should be halted and that all possible measures should be taken towards achievement of nuclear disarmament.<\/p>\n<p>But Washington\u2019s notions of global nuclear disarmament are curiously&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/03\/02\/racing-towards-a-low-yield-armageddon\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by James Stencilowsky | CC BY 2.0 On February 3\u00a0the Washington Post observed\u00a0that \u201cthe United States can deliver a [nuclear] strike anywhere in the world in\u00a030 minutes\u00a0with astounding accuracy\u201d and questioned the need for \u201ca new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons,\u201d quoting the commander of the strategic force, General John Hyten,\u00a0as saying\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m very comfortable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-350723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}