Last week the US agency responsible for building & designing nuclear weapons put out “Remarks” with some new information, including:
 
1. Last year, the US modernised/rebuilt 200 nuclear warheads. Next year it intends to spend US$21billion on them (I think that means on new warheads).
 
2. A new warhead design should begin production in the 2030s (the W87-1).
 
In addition, it was noted that (a) China, which historically had a relatively small nuclear arsenal, is catching up with the US, and (b) civil R&D efforts will put more pressure on the non-proliferation regime. For instance, AI & other disruptive technologies could make nuclear weapon design easier for proliferating states, and the further exploration of nuclear alternatives to fossil fuels might stretch global safe-guards
 
Also, a recent article discusses the new UK designed “sovereign” nuclear warhead, to be called Astraea.

Labor supporters ridiculing the Liberal opposition for advocating nuclear power should remember that:

1. For decades, successive Labor governments have promoted uranium exports, including to countries that either refuse to join the NPT or ratify the test-ban treaty.
 
2. When, for political reasons, the then Labor opposition rushed to embrace the sweeping AUKUS nuclear submarine deal in 2021, it did so without conducting a strategic assessment.
 
3. Labor insists the projected nuclear subs will:
 
(a) be perfectly safe to enter Australian port cities;
 
(b) be well suited for deploying to dangerous waters during crises;
 
(c) safeguard Australian sovereignty, despite deepening dependence on Washington and being hostage to future shifts in US/UK policy and conditions.
 
(d) be good value for money, despite the $300bn-plus cost and despite Canberra’s shockingly bad record of managing large defence projects.
 
(e) present an easily manageable waste problem, without saying how they will do it;
 
(f) provide a fabulous boost to Australian science, education and economic activity; and
 
(g) not encourage nuclear proliferation (e.g. not encourage others to go down a road Canberra says is so great).
 
4. Four years ago, the ALP would have sneered at this questionable package of claims.
Today, it says there’s no real alternative to AUKUS, and that opponents are not serious.

Detailed reports from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Moscow's and Beijing's nuclear arsenals  can be found here for Russia, and here for China. Plus, here is a report on the command and control arrangements for Chinese nuclear weapons.

Hans Kristensen, et al have just produced their latest survey of Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The link is here.

​1. There’s little hard information about the state of the frontlines in the Ukraine-Russian war. In particular, the much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive remains opaque. It seems Ukrainian forces are making slow progress in fighting through mined and entrenched positions. Encounters so far appear relatively limited but nonetheless bloody, with both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers paying an appalling price for Putin’s reckless & cruel decision to invade. 
 
2. Kyiv appears to be holding its main offensive forces in reserve while it tests and stretches Russian defences. It’s unclear to what extent events are moving according to plan. The apparent lack of progress is causing frustration and concern in opinion pages and, perhaps, Western capitals.
 
3. When this war is done, some commentators will look back at the counter-offensive and claim that what happened was, for the gifted like them, easily foreseeable or even inevitable. Mostly, these prophets will have a high self-regard, selective memories and a simplistic grasp of events, including a tendency to read history backwards.
 
4. Meanwhile, away from the opinion pieces and social media, the Ukrainian and Russian high commands know better. At the business end, they see history as in play—for them, the future is open. From where they sit, the war will be decided by the unpredictable interplay of shifting politics, grit, and the application of large-scale extreme violence. There’s an unguaranteed & random element to this interplay. With every major strategic choice, both sets of war leaders roll the dice. Their job is to load these dice as much as they can.

​1. The outside world is none-the-wiser about the inner workings and likely consequences of the recent bizarre & explosive Wagner affair. There's much speculation, but little hard information. 
 
2. The event sign-posted the potential for Russia to degenerate into a failed state. Not just in terms of dysfunction, but in the sense of a collapse of central government an​d the emergence of local anarchies. This, however, is speculation rather than prediction – after all, although somewhat frayed, the Kremlin came out of the Wagner insurrection intact.
 
3. The possibility of state collapse underlines the importance of securing Russia’s nuclear arsenal. On the other hand, historically, Moscow’s control over these weapons appears to have been tighter than in the US. Moscow has apparently had firmer central command arrangements. (For a look at how loose things have sometimes been in the US, see:
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-05/interview-with-eric-schlosser-why-we-cant-trust-the-governments-figures-about-nuclear-close-calls/#post-heading.)
 
4. Indeed, Washington seems to believe that this is one area that Moscow has handled well. There appears to be a stark difference between some of the reckless Russian nuclear rhetoric and Moscow's actual management of the weapons.
 
5. However, it remains to be seen how much strain the nuclear system can withstand if the military fractures further.

This week Canberra released the unclassified version of its Defence Strategic Review, billed as signalling the biggest revamp of defence policy since the 1980s, if not earlier. The Review can be found here.

Contains sweeping calls, but seems to produce less sweeping capability.
​

The (US) Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has published another analysis of the Afghanistan fiasco. Here's the link:  "Why The Afghan Security Forces Collapsed".

My thoughts on the risk of nuclear escalation in the Russo-Ukraine war. Published in Inside Story.