Latest news with #deterrent
Al Arabiya
3 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Is Iran truly an existential threat to Israel or to its own people?
Why is it always the West versus Iran? Iranian American lawyer Elica Le Bon says the Islamic Republic's very ideology is built around opposing the West, reinforced by slogans like 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel.' But what would Iran actually do with a nuclear weapon? Le Bon argues the greater threat isn't an attack, but the regime becoming a powerful deterrent state one that cannot be deterred. Is Iran truly an existential threat to Israel? And why do millions of Iranians oppose the regime so strongly? In this episode of the Riz Khan Show, Le Bon explains how generations have been shaped by repression, executions, and fear under Iran's leadership.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE No nation should dictate who can and cannot have the bomb - Peter Hitchens attacks America's nuclear hypocrisy on new Mail podcast
Atomic powers like the US employ a lot of 'bilge' to justify their nuclear arsenals while condemning other nations who seek the same deterrent, Peter Hitchens tells Sarah Vine on the latest episode of the Mail's Alas Vine & Hitchens podcast. The acclaimed broadcaster argued that misinformation about the Manhattan Project and America's initial motivations for pursuing an atomic bomb provides an all-too-convenient explanation for why some nations are allowed nukes and others are not. While not a 'fantasist' who believes global nuclear disarmament is possible, Hitchens said that the disputes over who can possess nuclear weapons raise questions about whether any country should have access to them. Hitchens said: 'It has been very interesting to watch the US try to explain why Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons, whereas it should. 'Apparently, no one cares that Israel, Pakistan and North Korea have them. You have to wonder what the logic is behind saying who can and cannot have them, apart from who's already got them, and who's biggest. 'We have an elaborate justification for nuclear weapons in our minds. During the Cold War, I was a fairly strong Nato enthusiast because it seemed logical that it was ridiculous for us to give up ours while allowing the USSR to keep theirs. Peter Hitchens: 'The argument that we dropped the bomb on Japan, and that's why they surrendered - is certainly not true.' Listen here 'But since then, it has been nagging at me – should they exist at all? Should any country be allowed to have them?' Hitchens said much of the justification for nuclear weapons stems from the end of the Second World War – specifically the perceived success of the strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to Japan's surrender. He explained: 'There is a wonderful museum at Los Alamos in New Mexico, where the bomb was originally developed – it has this tremendous display inside, which made the same argument over and over again. 'The argument is the bomb saved possibly millions of lives in 1945. That we dropped the bomb on Japan, and they surrendered. The trouble is, it's certainly not true. 'It was Stalin's decision to invade Manchuria that forced a surrender. The Japanese were terrified of a Russian revenge for everything they had done to them since 1904. 'The other justification for developing the bomb was that Hitler would get it first – Nazi scientists were nowhere near a nuclear weapon. It's complete fantasy. 'The West has dodged a big moral question with these justifications. In which case, why do we have it at all?' The ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East prove that nuclear weapons don't deter conflict as was once assumed, Hitchens contended. He added that nuclear weapons actually enable lower-level conflicts by creating a framework where conventional wars can rage without escalating to total destruction, leaving thousands dead. 'So-called conventional weapons are now of such horrifying power,' Hitchens began. 'Look at these Bunker Busters – my point being that nuclear weapons, rather than preventing war, have increasingly permitted lower-level conflicts to take place. 'Who would have thought that a war involving the Russian army could take place in Europe after the invention of nuclear weapons? Yet, here we are.' Speaking specifically about Iran, Hitchens reminded listeners that Israel had acted dishonestly with its own nuclear programme in the 1960s. He said: 'The reason we're in this mess in the Middle East is because the Israelis don't trust the Iranians, the Iranians don't trust the Israelis and the Americans certainly don't trust the Iranians. 'But, when the Israelis built their bomb – they weren't very public about it themselves. It only came out because an Israeli official got drunk at a cocktail party and blabbed to an American diplomat.'
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Anti-arms groups plan mass protests over expansion of UK nuclear deterrent
The biggest expansion of the UK's nuclear deterrent in a generation will put the nation on the 'nuclear frontline' and mobilise a new generation of anti-nuclear weapons protesters, campaign groups have warned. Anti-nuclear and anti-arms campaign groups are planning mass protests against nuclear weapons – of a kind not seen since the days of the Greenham Common peace camp in the 80s – in response to government plans to significantly expand its nuclear deterrent by buying a squadron of American fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is planning a protest on Saturday at RAF Lakenheath, which is used by the US air force. The base is undergoing a multimillion-pound upgrade and contains old storage vaults for nuclear weapons, and is seen as a potential site for the storage of US nuclear weapons. Campaign groups said the decision to buy 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying conventional arms and also the US B61-12 gravity bomb, a variant of which has more than three times the explosive power of the weapon dropped on Hiroshima, had been taken without parliamentary debate and undermined democracy. Sophie Bolt, the CND's general secretary, said the decision made the British public 'less safe' with the prospect of US-nuclear arms on UK soil for the first time in a generation. 'This move puts us on the nuclear frontline,' she said. 'It means that there's going to be at least one if not two bases now in Britain that will be stationing US nuclear weapons and US capable jets. That puts us on the frontline and it doesn't offer us any protection.' Kirsten Bayes, of the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said the decision amounted to 'nuclear proliferation by any other name' and said it would cost British taxpayers millions. 'We are looking at an outlay of £700m for these jets, plus the same amount again for their maintenance,' she said. 'When we are being told we have to cut back on the money we give to disabled people, and yet we can find these vast sums for aircraft, that is really hypocritical.' US nuclear weapons have not been stored in the UK since the last one left RAF Lakenheath in 2008. Britain has not had its own air-launched nuclear weapons since 1998, when the WE177 freefall bomb was scrapped by the then Labour government. Announcing the expansion of Britain's nuclear armoury, Keir Starmer said: 'In an era of radical uncertainty, we can no longer take peace for granted, which is why my government is investing in our national security.' Bolt said the government should be prepared for a swell of protest not seen in the UK since the Greenham women's peace camp was established at RAF Greenham and became the biggest female-led protest since women's suffrage. 'Local people are outraged at what's going on, with no consultation at all,' she said. 'They are outraged at the fact that they have no say in this action that puts them at risk.' Lakenheath is likely to become a battleground over the plan to place US nuclear weapons on British soil. In November 2018, the Ministry of Defence awarded a £160m contract to Kier VolkerFitzpatrick to prepare RAF Lakenheath for US F-35 fighter jets. Bolt said protests were also planned at RAF Marham in Norfolk. She added: 'This is being done without any parliamentary debate or vote and completely undermines British democracy. It undermines British sovereignty and of course that impacts Britain's economic priorities.' On Wednesday, the defence secretary, John Healey, denied that the decision to buy the new fleet of fighter jets meant a return to the cold war, and insisted it was 'entirely consistent' with the UK's stated commitment to nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. Britain pledged to pursue nuclear disarmament 'in good faith' under article 6 of the 1970 non-proliferation treaty. Bolot accused Healey of 'double speak', adding: 'How on earth can buying nuclear-capable jets which can carry nuclear bombs help bring about the end of nuclear weapons. It's just total hypocrisy.'
Sky News
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Inside Britain's largest nuclear weapons site - as scientists race to build a new warhead by the 2030s
Vaults of enriched uranium and plutonium to make nuclear bombs are dotted about a secure site in Berkshire along with Anglo-Saxon burial mounds and a couple of lakes. Surrounded by metal fences topped with barbed wire, much of the nuclear weapons facility at Aldermaston in Berkshire looks frozen in time from the 1950s rather than ready for war in the 21st century. But a renewed focus on the importance of the UK's nuclear deterrent means the government is giving much of its nuclear infrastructure a facelift as it races to build a new warhead by the 2030s when the old stock goes out of service. Sky News was among a group of news organisations given rare access to the largest of Britain's nuclear weapons locations run by AWE. The acronym stands for Atomic Weapons Establishment - but a member of staff organising the visit told me that the public body, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence, no longer attributes the letters that make up its name to those words. "We are just A, W, E," she said. She did not explain why. Perhaps it is to avoid making AWE's purpose so immediately obvious to anyone interested in applying for a job but not so keen on weapons of mass destruction. For the scientists and engineers, working here though, there seems to be a sense of genuine purpose as they develop and ensure the viability and credibility of the warheads at the heart of the UK's nuclear deterrent, this country's ultimate security guarantee. "It's nice to wake up every day and work on something that actually matters," said a 22-year-old apprentice called Chris. Sky News was asked not to publish his surname for security reasons. The workforce at AWE is expanding fast, with 1,500 new people joining over the past year. The organisation has some 9,500 employees in total, including about 7,000 at Aldermaston, where the warhead is developed and its component parts are manufactured. Designing and building a bomb is something the UK has not needed to do for decades - not since an international prohibition on testing nuclear weapons came into force in the 1990s. It means the new warhead, called Astrea, will not be detonated for real unless it is used - an outcome that would only ever happen in the most extreme of circumstances as explained in a new podcast series by Sky News and Tortoise called The Wargame. The last time, Britain test-fired a bomb was at a facility in Nevada in the US in 1991. With that no longer an option, the scientists at AWE must rely on old data and new technology as they build the next generation of warhead. This includes input from a supercomputer at the Aldermaston site that uses 17 megawatts of power and crunches four trillion calculations per second. Another major help is a giant laser facility. It is built in a hall, with two banks of long cylinders, lying horizontal and stacked one of top of the other running down the length of the room - these are part of the laser. The beams are then zapped in a special, separate chamber, onto tiny samples of material to see how they react under the kind of extreme pressures and temperatures that would be caused in a nuclear explosion. The heat is up to 10 million degrees - the same as the outer edge of the sun. "You take all those beams at a billionth of a second, bring them altogether and heat a small target to those temperatures and pressures," one scientist said, as he explained the process to John Healey, the defence secretary, who visited the site on Thursday. Looking impressed, Mr Healey replied: "For a non-scientist that is hard to follow let alone comprehend." The Orion laser facility is the only one of its kind in the world, though the US - which has a uniquely close relationship with the UK over their nuclear weapons - has similar capabilities. Maria Dawes, the director of science at AWE, said there is a sense of urgency at the organisation about the need to develop and then build the new bomb - which is a central part of the government's new defence review published in early June. "You've probably read the strategic defence review," she said. "There's very much the rhetoric of this is a new era of threat and therefore it's a new era for defence and AWE is absolutely at the heart of that and so a sense of urgency around: we need to step up and we need to make sure that we've got what our customer needs. Yes, there's very much that sense here." It means an organisation that has for years been purely focused on ensuring the current stockpile of warheads is safe and works must shift to becoming more dynamic as it pursues a project that will be used to defend the UK long into the future. In a sign of its importance, the government is spending £15bn over the next four years alone on the programme to build the new warheads. Part of the investment is going into revamping Aldermaston. Driving around the 700-acre site, which was once a Second World War airbase, many of the buildings were constructed into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The construction of new science and research laboratories is taking place. But bringing builders onto one of the UK's most secure nuclear sites is not without risk. Everyone involved must be a British national and armed police patrols are everywhere. No one would say what will be different about the new bomb that is being developed here compared with the version that needs replacing. One official simply said the incumbent stock has a finite design life and will need to be swapped out.
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Inside Britain's largest nuclear weapons site - as scientists race to build a new warhead by the 2030s
Vaults of enriched uranium and plutonium to make nuclear bombs are dotted about a secure site in Berkshire along with Anglo-Saxon burial mounds and a couple of lakes. Surrounded by metal fences topped with barbed wire, much of the nuclear weapons facility at Aldermaston in Berkshire looks frozen in time from the 1950s rather than ready for war in the 21st century. But a renewed focus on the importance of the UK's nuclear deterrent means the government is giving much of its nuclear infrastructure a facelift as it races to build a new warhead by the 2030s when the old stock goes out of service. Sky News was among a group of news organisations given rare access to the largest of Britain's nuclear weapons locations run by AWE. The acronym stands for Atomic Weapons Establishment - but a member of staff organising the visit told me that the public body, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence, no longer attributes the letters that make up its name to those words. "We are just A, W, E," she said. She did not explain why. Perhaps it is to avoid making AWE's purpose so immediately obvious to anyone interested in applying for a job but not so keen on weapons of mass destruction. For the scientists and engineers, working here though, there seems to be a sense of genuine purpose as they develop and ensure the viability and credibility of the warheads at the heart of the UK's nuclear deterrent, this country's ultimate security guarantee. "It's nice to wake up every day and work on something that actually matters," said a 22-year-old apprentice called Chris. Sky News was asked not to publish his surname for security reasons. The workforce at AWE is expanding fast, with 1,500 new people joining over the past year. The organisation has some 9,500 employees in total, including about 7,000 at Aldermaston, where the warhead is developed and its component parts are manufactured. Designing and building a bomb is something the UK has not needed to do for decades - not since an international prohibition on testing nuclear weapons came into force in the 1990s. It means the new warhead, called Astrea, will not be detonated for real unless it is used - an outcome that would only ever happen in the most extreme of circumstances . The last time, Britain test-fired a bomb was at a facility in Nevada in the US in 1991. With that no longer an option, the scientists at AWE must rely on old data and new technology as they build the next generation of warhead. This includes input from a supercomputer at the Aldermaston site that uses 17 megawatts of power and crunches four trillion calculations per second. Another major help is a giant laser facility. It is built in a hall, with two banks of long cylinders, lying horizontal and stacked one of top of the other running down the length of the room - these are part of the laser. The beams are then zapped in a special, separate chamber, onto tiny samples of material to see how they react under the kind of extreme pressures and temperatures that would be caused in a nuclear explosion. The heat is up to 10 million degrees - the same as the outer edge of the sun. "You take all those beams at a billionth of a second, bring them altogether and heat a small target to those temperatures and pressures," one scientist said, as he explained the process to John Healey, the defence secretary, who visited the site on Thursday. Looking impressed, Mr Healey replied: "For a non-scientist that is hard to follow let alone comprehend." The Orion laser facility is the only one of its kind in the world, though the US - which has a uniquely close relationship with the UK over their nuclear weapons - has similar capabilities. Maria Dawes, the director of science at AWE, said there is a sense of urgency at the organisation about the need to develop and then build the new bomb - which is a central part of the government's new defence review published in early June. "You've probably read the strategic defence review," she said. "There's very much the rhetoric of this is a new era of threat and therefore it's a new era for defence and AWE is absolutely at the heart of that and so a sense of urgency around: we need to step up and we need to make sure that we've got what our customer needs. Yes, there's very much that sense here." It means an organisation that has for years been purely focused on ensuring the current stockpile of warheads is safe and works must shift to becoming more dynamic as it pursues a project that will be used to defend the UK long into the future. In a sign of its importance, the government is spending £15bn over the next four years alone on the programme to build the new warheads. Part of the investment is going into revamping Aldermaston. Driving around the 700-acre site, which was once a Second World War airbase, many of the buildings were constructed into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The construction of new science and research laboratories is taking place. But bringing builders onto one of the UK's most secure nuclear sites is not without risk. Everyone involved must be a British national and armed police patrols are everywhere. No one would say what will be different about the new bomb that is being developed here compared with the version that needs replacing. One official simply said the incumbent stock has a finite design life and will need to be swapped out.
