No, ‘Skyfall’ is not the nickname for the 800 point plummet in the Dow Jones Industrial average on Wednesday in response to signals of an imminent recession not seen since 2007. In the context of today’s BradCast, it’s the nickname given by NATO to an experimental Russian nuclear-propelled cruise missile project that appears to have gone horribly — and tragically — awry a few days ago. The consequences of yet another secretive nuclear accident in Russia have left western nuclear weapons analysts guessing as to what is now actually going on near the disaster site in northern Russia. [Audio link to full show is posted at end of article.]
But, before we get to that story today, a few quick news items of note regarding the 2020 election. Popular Georgia Democrat, Stacey Abrams, has announced the launch of a new project called Fair Fight 2020 to focus on election protection in about 20 swing-states and several (Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi) with gubernatorial elections next year. The effort comes out of Abrams own experience fighting massive voter suppression in her gubernatorial contest last year against Republican Brian Kemp who, as Georgia’s Sec. of State, purged roles and helped suppressed minority voters across the state while overseeing his own reported narrow “victory” on the state’s 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems.
Abrams, who would have become the nation’s first African-American female Governor, has also been seen as a potential 2020 candidate for President. She has announced her plan to roll out this new, much-needed initiative to help Dems prepare well in advance (for a change) before next year’s elections, in hopes of combating the many, inevitable anti-voter tactics expected by Republicans. The project comes in lieu of running for President or Senator in the Peach State, where she would have a very good chance of unseating Republican Sen. David Perdue next year.
While a Senate run would have been welcomed by many (she has said she is still open to a Veep nod), her Fair Fight 2020 effort is both very important and very much needed to help Dems win back both the White House and possibly U.S. Senate next year. We contrast her effort on today’s show with that of California billionaire Tom Steyer, who recently-announced his own, likely-pointless run for the Democratic nod. Steyer has vowed to spend $100 million on his own campaign, instead of using that money to help Democrats — for example, the nearly 1 million voters who are currently being blocked by Republicans from even being allowed to register to vote in the key battle-ground state of Florida.
Then, we are joined by STEPHEN SCHWARTZ, longtime nuclear weapons policy analyst and former Executive Director and Publisher of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (the folks who bring us the infamous Doomsday Clock), where he now serves as a Senior Fellow. He’s here to help us unravel the disturbing nuclear mystery that is currently unfolding in northern Russia.
Last Thursday, an explosion on a Russian missile testing platform in the White Sea resulted in the deaths of at least seven people, including five nuclear scientists. After several days of conflicting information about the incident, Russia finally conceded that an incident with a “nuclear isotope power source” had released radiation during an off-shore test. A town nearby saw a spike in radioactivity at least 16 times its expected normal background radiation and the hospital rooms where the injured were taken were sealed off after patients and the doctors who treated them were mysteriously transported to Moscow for observation.
The accident, as Schwartz details, is believed to have been part of the experimental nuclear-powered missile program that Russian President Vladimir Putin described last year in remarks to Parliament as a cruise missile that is propelled by a small nuclear reactor, allowing it to fly indefinitely on a path too unpredictable to be intercepted by defensive missile systems. The Russians call the project Buresvestnik. NATO has dubbed it Skyfall.
Schwartz cites the lack of information and conflicting details being made available by Russia as a relic of the secrecy mindset of the old Soviet Union. “Old habits die hard,” he tells me. “The Soviet Union is gone, Russia remains. But this reaction is quite reminiscent, not just of Chernobyl, but also of the sinking of the Kursk ballistic missile submarine in August of 2000″ as well as other nuclear accidents going back to the 1950s Cold War era. “Their first approach is admit only what you have to, to try to make the situation seem not so terrible. And then when you can’t do that, you admit as much as you have to, in order to try to deal with whatever the concerns are.”
While western analysts like Schwartz have been pouring over local media reports and grainy satellite photos to learn what may have happened and what the ongoing fallout appears to be, Donald Trump tweeted out a reaction in which he described the incident as “Not good!” and claimed that “we have similar, though more advanced, technology”. That is either a lie, something that Trump misunderstood, or a program that is so highly classified it remains currently unknown outside of the U.S. government, Schwartz explains, citing a long-shelved Cold War project called “SLAM — for Supersonic Low Altitude Missile — that would have been powered by a reactor that had the code name of Pluto“. That, he says, was a “dangerous weapon” believed to have been abandoned as of 1964, given the danger of “spewing highly radioactive exhaust everywhere it goes” as it would fly over allied nations on its way to the Soviet Union, among other concerns.
We also discuss why both Putin and Trump appear to be entering into a new nuclear arms race as Russia responds to U.S. missile defense systems being deployed to nations which border Russia. Why would Russia even want to produce such a weapon that amounts to a “flying reactor”? “We’ve made a lot of claims about our system,” Schwartz says. “Most of them are not true. But the Russians have an undying faith in American technology and a fair degree of paranoia about what we’re going to do with it. And they’ve decided that they need to find a way to counter it. Their fear, their paranoia, their desire to make sure that we cannot destroy them as a country has led them to the point where they’re testing this exceedingly dangerous weapon.”
That effort, he explains today, has now become a disaster with very serious consequences that we are only beginning to learn about as the world’s latest nuclear tragedy continues to unfold….
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[audio:http://BradBlog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_AbramsFairFight2020_StephenSchwartz-SkyFallDisaster_081419.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Scary.
There was also an atomic airplane project in the Eisenhower administration that sought to use the heat of fission as a sort of jet engine. This would have enabled the Strategic Air Command to have constant patrols on the Soviet border without refueling (or less refueling). It never got off the ground because, in part, lead shielding for the crews is heavy (they even proposed having older pilots who were unlikely to have kids due to the genetic damage irradiation causes). It was tested on a train track at the Idaho nuclear lab but I don’t think it ever got airborne.
President Kennedy canceled this boondoggle.
This just underscores the need for the US and Russia to sit down and have real, substantive talks about the crap going on between the 2 countries.
Unfortunately, this is impossible with this ignorant and compromised president, but might happen after 2020, if the Dems win.
The only problem is the current anti-Russian tough talk we get nonstop from the mainstream Democrats who use Russia as part of their anti-Trump strategy (it conveniently keeps the centrists safe from a lot of policy discussions they want to avoid).
Hell, even the likes of Ronald Reagan (not 1 of my faves by a longshot), had the nerve to talk to the Russians and work out a deal.
We need our next real president to be able to sit down with countries like Russia and hammer out a new generation of treaties (nuke non-proliferation, missile treaties, cyber-war limitations, etc etc). Obviously Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and other Rulers-Of-America will hate this and fight it with all their awesome power. And their allies in both parties will help them.
America must move in the direction of treaties and agreements with purported rivals instead of a pointless and mind-bogglingly expensive nmew cold war.
If we don’t, the mega-cost of a new cold war with Russia or China or both (our elite$ would prefer BOTH), would be leveraged against any hopes of a Green New Deal, or other progressive plans to help average Americans, and hopefully pull us out of the tailspin into fascism.
And weapons-related accidents like the recent one in Russia will become more frequent and deadly in all countries involved in the buildup.
And if cold war breaks out
into (oops!) HOT war?
‘Nuff said.
Does anyone know whose idea it was to name this Russian missile project, in English, after a James Bond movie?
BRAD,
Thank you for those last 3 1/2 minutes, where you discuss the raw truth about US/NATO policy (and lies)which have contributed greatly
to Russian paranoia and the problems between our 2 countries.
I would bet that DNC and mainstream centrist Democrats would not appreciate those 3 1/2 minutes, as it goes against their “Russia is the culprit and we are blameless” narrative.
I find it reassuring when your comments reinforce the idea that, as reasonable as you constantly try to be on the issues, you are definitely NOT the mainstream, corporate media, by a longshot.
And I sure appreciate that!
DonL @ 4:
And thank you, Don, for listening all the way to the last 3 1/2 minutes! 🙂
BRAD,
I did a couple satire blog posts on the “Russian threat” a while back that you might get a kick out of.
Check out the 2 maps, especially for some supreme irony.
https://thegarlicwww.blogspot.com/2018/04/circle-of-iron-russian-military-bases.html
and:
http://thegarlicwww.blogspot.com/2018/04/supplemental-report-close-up-view-of-1.html
I like the last 2 minutes of this BradCast so much I just had to do a transcript of it.
It really speaks for me, too.
==============================================
Excerpt/transcript from approximately the last 2 minutes of the 8-14-2019 show —-
Brad:
“Over the break we were chatting with [atomic scientist and nuclear analyst] Stephen Schwartz , and Des, you had a question for him …”
Desi:
” Yes. I had asked him, essentially, so … why is Russia doing this? Do they really believe that the US is going to attack them? Is that why they are developing a new missile weapons system?”
Brad:
“And yeah, he essentially said, ‘Well, It’s paranoia that’s been in place in Russia for a long time’, and we got to chatting very quickly about, the fact that when you talk about Russian paranoia, please remember, the US has for years been building missile defense systems on the border of Russia since the Soviet Union broke up. We told them that NATO would not encroach on the border, but NATO has encroached on the border, and we’ve been building these missile systems literally on their border. And he pointed out that while we told them, the Obama administration told them, ‘these would not be used to attack you’.
But … do you think that the US … would WE accept that, if Russia, let’s say, decided to start installing missile systems, DEFENSIVE missile systems, in Mexico on the border, in Canada on the border, pointed in our direction?”
Desi/Brad (combined comment):
“Right. And it seems there’s no way we would accept that from Russia. Right”.
Desi:
“So it is surprising to me that he also mentions the rhetoric from Trump administration officials like Sec of State Pompeo and national security advisor John Bolton who have been sabre-rattling about the nuclear weapons and nuclear missile capabilities, as if people are concerned that somehow the US is not strong enough.”
Brad:
“And then add to that, the Democrats and Hillary Clinton in 2016 election, going after Putin and going after Russia, doing that same sabre-rattling. You know what? If they’re paranoid in Russia, I’d say they have a right to be. That’s just me.”