There is an excellent article at the Federation of American Scientists (a whistle-blower group) on the Pentagon desire to upgrade the B61 nuclear bomb. The B61 bomb is a cold war era gravity dropped tactical nuclear device delivered by jet fighter plane.
This bomb, of which 180 in the USA’s nuclear arsenal are located in Europe under NATO agreements, is proposed for upgrade. The proposed upgrade is intended to refurbish the bombs and reduce their payload from roughly 400 kilotons to 50 kilotons, for purpose of making the use of the bombs ‘more acceptable’ in case of outbreak of war, in a sort of Orwellian logic that if the bomb is more easily used, that will make it less likely to be used.
Reality is, this upgrade converts the B61 into a patent offensive weapon when adapted to the new F-35 stealth fighter-jet proposed for deployment in NATO. Setting aside Iran and looking at the USA and NATO’s ever-growing aggressive stance with Russia (recalling the 180 B61 nuclear devices are located in Western Europe), it does well to examine what reducing the B61 to an ‘acceptable’ nuclear device for use in combat implies.
F-35
The proposed ‘upgraded’ B61 of 50 kilotons is roughly 4 to 5 times the size of the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. According to ‘Homeland Security’, a single 10 kiloton device (smaller than Nagasaki at 12 kilotons) will contaminate approximately 5,000 square kilometers (twice the area of Luxembourg) and displace one half million people.
The math is simple: 5 x Nagasaki x 180 upgraded B61 NATO bombs = up to 4.5 million square kilometers area contaminated and potentially 450 million people displaced. This is one half of all the area of Europe and more than one half of all of Europe’s population.
Supposing only half or so few as a quarter of these weapons were able to be delivered in event of war, one must take into consideration the retaliation of the opposing side with a large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons in its own inventory. In fact the Russian military doctrine calls for deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in event of faced with overwhelming technical superiority (i.e. USA stealth weapons et cetera)
In the estimation of the Pentagon’s ever expanding NATO planners, as Russia is pushed into a corner by the leadership of several Western democracies, most recently by Obama, Merkel, Cameron & Hollande usurping Ukraine’s democratic institutions, Nagasaki x 5 x 180 is ‘acceptable’ with a B61 upgrade:
Bottom line: How many of you are comfortable with our Christian fundamentalist Pentagon & NATO, essentially a Christian Taliban or people who actually believe in literal Armageddon, upgrading tactical nuclear weapons to ‘acceptable’ for use in upcoming conflict?
13 July 2015 update: Pentagon tests the upgraded B61 guidance system, dropped from a F-15 tactical fighter jet at a range in Nevada:
*
Deep State IV (related)
*
Ronald Thomas West 