May 26, 2020 4:21 PM EDT
D. Meyers/Unsplash
The news that the Trump administration is considering resuming nuclear weapons testing is morally abhorrent. The current US moratorium on nuclear testing was put in place for many reasons, but we must not forget one crucial reason: In conducting explosive nuclear tests, the US government killed thousands of innocent people and sickened untold thousands more.
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May 18, 2020 5:22 PM EDT
View of IS-901 satellite from Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1) during approach from approximately 20 meters with Earth in the background. The MEV successfully docked with the Intelsat 901 satellite on Tuesday, Feb. 25. Northrop Grumman
An updated version of the UCS Satellite Database, which includes launches through March 31, 2020, is now available on the UCS website. This update includes the addition to the database of 486 satellites and the removal of 38, for a total of 2,666 active satellites.
May 8, 2020 11:19 AM EDT
A common hypersonic glide body (C-HGB) launches from Pacific Missile Range Facility during a Defense Department flight experiment, Kauai, Hawaii, March 19, 2020. Oscar Sosa/Navy.
The United States Department of Defense has been actively developing hypersonic weapons—missiles that fly through the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound—since the early 2000s. Read More
May 4, 2020 12:34 PM EDT
On March 1, 1954 the US tested a nuclear weapon 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The blast from the Castle Bravo test over the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands rained down over a 7,000 square mile area. U.S. Department of Energy
The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing us to confront the vast inequities in our society that have made this virus more deadly in some communities than others. This is also true in the world of nuclear weapons policy: US nuclear weapons activities have, and continue to, hurt communities through harmful and sometimes deadly radiation exposure. Now, the survivors of this radiation exposure are also at greater risk from COVID-19. Effective COVID-19 response requires that those who need care can receive it. It also means recognizing who is at greatest risk, and addressing their needs. As we gear up for another stimulus package, UCS and more than 100 other organizations across the country are calling for Congress to include funding for health care access for communities directly harmed by US nuclear activities. Read more >
May 1, 2020 11:31 AM EDT
Japan does not have its own nuclear weapons. The Japanese government considered developing them in the past, but decided this would make Japan less secure. Japanese opinion polls consistently express strong public opposition to nuclear weapons. So do their elected representatives.
There is, however, a small group of non-elected Japanese bureaucrats with close ties to the U.S. defense establishment who insist U.S. nuclear weapons should be “the core of Japan’s security arrangements.” Wonks refer to this supposed core as “extended nuclear deterrence.” Journalists and politicians, especially in Japan, call it a “nuclear umbrella.”
