A 🧵 on the #G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament, which is both a positive development & fundamentally disappointing. While there are pieces to like, there is also some pot & kettle. Bottom line: The statement does not do enough. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/… Start with the good. Congratulations to Japan for successfully pushing the G7 to make a statement on nuclear weapons issues at all, which has never happened before. Its leaders tried the last time the #G7 met in Japan; this time they succeeded. Sarcastic HT to Russia/Ukraine.

🧵 Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) is an unneeded new #nuclear weapon @POTUS @SecDef @SECNAV decided to cancel. Sadly, in FY23, Congress disagreed, partly because then-@US_STRATCOM strongly supported the SLCM-N. New @US_STRATCOM does not. His letter: ucs-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/global-securit… TL/DR: The letter supports a low-yield, non-ballistic capability that can’t be spotted being deployed, but doesn’t see SLCM-N as the only option to fulfill that desired capability. Instead, @US_STRATCOM would like a study on all options, including conventional, to fill that role.

BREAKING: The Biden administration's #Nuclear Posture Review, just released, is a terrifying document. It not only keeps the world on a path of increasing nuclear risk, in many ways it increases that risk. Here it is: media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/20… Citing rising threats from Russia & China, it argues the only viable U.S. response is to rebuild the entire US nuclear arsenal, maintain an array of dangerous Cold War-era nuclear policies, & threaten the first use of nuclear weapons in a variety of scenarios.

Biden administration's brand new, long-delayed National Security Strategy declares the post-Cold War era "over" reflecting the new, more challenging security environment. It calls for "out-competing" China & "constraining" (not containing) Russia. whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl… On nuclear weapons issues, it declares in the 2030s, US will for the first time "need to deter two major nuclear powers"--reflecting projections China will grow its small nuclear arsenal. However, even after such growth, China's arsenal will remain far smaller that US's.

To put it simply, Putin's #nuclear threats are NOT okay. If Russia continues to lose the war in Ukraine--entirely possible--Putin could use nuclear weapons, with unimaginable consequences. reuters.com/world/europe/p… This is an incredibly dangerous time, a new era of predatory nuclear-armed countries explicitly using their nuclear capabilities as a shield while conducting an illegal, aggressive & atrocious conventional war that seeks to overthrow and/or dismember a neighboring country.

A new @UCSUSA explainer on what "tactical" nuclear weapons are, why they are dangerous, & what steps the US should take to first limit & eventually eliminate them: ucsusa.org/resources/tact… Step 1 is abandoning plans to build new ones, like the Trump administration's new sea-launched nuclear-armed cruise missile that the Biden administration is wisely seeking to cancel: armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/upl…

US proposes to spend $260 billion to build 600+ #nuclear missiles, an unneeded & dangerous plan that intentionally & explicitly makes the US heartland a target for Russian nuclear attack. It is just plain stupid, when we have 100s of nuclear missiles at sea that are invulnerable.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1516047083547070470

It's called the "sponge" theory, because middle America is supposed to absorb a massive Russian nuclear attack, killing untold millions just so Russia won't strike other targets with more people & other nuclear weapons. That's just stupid, more idiotic than a SpongeBob plot.

Top-lines from the NNSA Budget request released today. The request for Weapons Activities - where most #nuclear weapons $$ is - is up $1B to $16.5B from last year's request, or 6%, & up $500M or 3% from the amount Congress actually appropriated. #FY23Budget Notably, we can't compare it to what the NNSA projected last year they would request this year. They are officially required to include such projections in the budget request BUT last year they didn't do it. (Don't know if they will include it this year, bet they won't.)

@russianforces talking about Putin, Ukraine & nuclear weapons, at an event organized by the @PhysCoalition. He notes meaning of the "special mode" alert is fuzzy, as much of the Russian nuclear forces are already on alert. 1200 warheads on ICBMs could be launched quickly any time He notes there have been no obvious steps to increase that alert, or to mobilize Russian submarines or to deploy the road-mobile elements of Russia's nuclear forces.

WSJ reports @POTUS NPR will reject "sole purpose" despite Biden's support for it. Here's the video UCS got of him on the campaign trail endorsing No First Use: My statement in response to the news: “Right now, Putin is effectively holding the world hostage with his own threats of nuclear use. This kind of nuclear brinkmanship is unacceptable, and the U.S. should not validate his stance by replicating it.

Thoughts on Russia's nuclear posture change This is a bad sign, an intentional and unnecessary escalation on Putin's part, seemingly because the invasion of Ukraine is not going as well/quickly as he expected/hoped, as well as the harsh sections put in place by the West.

Here's the APS slide explaining how the US anti-missile system is supposed to work. This is hard work, & it is amazing the system can work even 50% of the time, which is about what it does in testing. Now @LauraEGrego is discussing the challenges of countermeasures to the missile defense system. As she notes, this is not a new problem the APS found. It is well known. Here is the @UCSUSA video from more than two decades ago:

BREAKING NEWS!! Just confirmed by Hill staff: Pentagon has terminated the contract of JASON, the independent science advisory group that Congress & the public rely on for assessment of many technical issues. This is a travesty & will lead to more ill-informed, bad government. JASON is a group of scientists who spend their summers conducting technical studies that Congress or federal agencies have requested. They are impartial, nonpartisan & about as geeky as you can get. You can see many of their studies here: fas.org/irp/agency/dod…