You all probably know that the first line in the “executive summary”:http://www.preventwmd.gov/world_at_risk_preface/ of the December “report”:http://www.preventwmd.gov/report/ from the “Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism”:http://www.preventwmd.gov/ states that, in the Commission’s opinion,
bq. unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.
What you may not know is that, as far as I can tell, that claim does not appear again in the report. In any case, there is certainly no methodology to explain where that number came from.
_National Journal_ has a new blog where they pose questions for national security experts to answer. Take a “look.”:http://security.nationaljournal.com/
Confusion reigns in the “press pool”:http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/113301.htm.
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: With regard to the [START] treaty, I think one of the principal differences is over the scope of the treaty. For us in the United States, we would like a treaty which sets limits on strategic nuclear weapons. *Our colleagues in Russia would like a treaty with a broader scope than that, and they would like it to encompass conventional forces as well, conventional strategic forces*.
QUESTION: *Conventional nuclear?*
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: Sorry?
QUESTION: *Conventional nuclear forces?*
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: *That’s a contradictory term, conventional nuclear*. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Well, there is such a – well, so is full tactical nuclear weapons. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’m saying.
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: *Tactical nuclear weapons form a nuclear weapon. I wouldn’t call it a conventional weapon.* But there are —
QUESTION: Are there long-range bombers, then, or something like that?
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: No. *You can have strategic conventional weapons. Long-range bombers that drop a conventional weapon would be one.* Conventionally armed —
QUESTION: They’re talking about – that they’re talking about?
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: Yes, yes.
QUESTION: Okay.
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: *They’d like that sort of thing to become –conventionally armed missiles, other forms of conventional forces.* And whatever means they would be, they would be strategic.
QUESTION: *So when you say conventional, you mean not nuclear?*
UNDER SECRETARY ROOD: Yes.
Now that we got _that_ sorted out… Might I recommend “WMD411”:http://www.nti.org/f_WMD411/f_index.html?
Via “Blogstroyka”:http://blogstroyka.rosatom.ru/2008/12/stroitelstvo-aes-olkiluoto-finlyandiya-2/, here is an awesome video on construction of the Olkiluoto unit 3, an “EPR”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Pressurized_Reactor, in Finland.
Surely you remember “part one”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1635/npps-bikes-and-priests and “part two”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1723/the-church-of-nuclear of the Total WonKerr feature _The Church of Nuclear_. In our third installment, we wanted to briefly note the importance of clergy presence at construction sites of nuclear power plants. Here is a picture from concrete pouring activities at the second unit of the Leningrad nuclear power plant. (“Original here”:http://fotki.yandex.ru/users/mirnyatom/view/113299/.)
I have been meaning to highlight Rosatom’s “Blogstroyka website”:http://blogstroyka.rosatom.ru/ for some time. However, the blog, which has just 6 posts, hasn’t been updated since November 26.
Maybe it’s the credit crunch.
And sadly, there are no Bushehr highlights on the blog… Yet?
But the blog features a neat “post about Kudankulam”:http://blogstroyka.rosatom.ru/2008/10/stroitelstvo-aes-kudankulam/#more-8, which has pictures of the famous (“in my book”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1694/on-your-mark-get-set) wave cutter. And there are also some pics of NPPs that Atomstroyexport is constructing in China (“here”:http://blogstroyka.rosatom.ru/2008/11/metallicheskij-drakon-nezhno-rozovogo-cveta/ and “here”:http://blogstroyka.rosatom.ru/2008/11/kitajskoe-chudo-s-2-serdcami/) that are worth a glance.
There is also this video on NPP construction.
Oh yeah, with all the money Rosatom is dumping into outreach to English-speakers with multiple websites (“this”:http://www.rosatom.ru/en/, “this”:http://www.rosenergoatom.com/, “this”:http://www.atomcon.ru/, “this”:http://www.atomenergoprom.ru/, and more), I really wish they’d invest in a good translator instead. It was funny at one point. But today, “stuff like this”:http://www.rosenergoatom.ru/eng/press/main-themes/article/?article-id=8622C032-9197-42D4-AB9B-F011AF4D99A9 is just sad and embarrassing.
And, while I don’t speak Japanese, this “pdf-based effort to provide some information to Japanese-speakers”:http://www.minatom.ru/News/Main/view?id=59160 on the old Minatom website, which only has _Russian-language navigation_, seems kind of weird.
Rosatom has a “new blog”:http://blogstroyka.rosatom.ru whose English title, according to “this article,”:http://www.rosatom.ru/en/news/13055_08.12.2008 is _NPP Construction Projects_.
As far as I can tell, the blog itself is only in Russian, so Anya will have to tell us what it says.
Check out “this Beeb story”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/8/newsid_3283000/3283817.stm from back in the day when the INF was signed as well as this “ACA Factsheet”:http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty and “the Inventory”:http://cns.miis.edu/inventory/pdfs/inf.pdf on the INF.
Here is a neat video on INF verification:
Also, check out Margaret Thatcher’s comments on a “nuclear-free Europe”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQMo_kRu_mc. And finally, here is a neat video on “the Pershings”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJt7KCB3Jro and a Russian video on “the Spider ^ru^”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2v2JYjlco in all of their pre-INF glory.
