All posts tagged: Nuclear War

How Trump’s Plot to Grab Iran’s Nuclear Fuel Would Actually Work

How Trump’s Plot to Grab Iran’s Nuclear Fuel Would Actually Work

Published by skeptic

President Donald Trump and top defense officials are reportedly weighing whether to send ground troops to Iran in order to retrieve the country’s highly enriched uranium. However, the administration has shared little information about which troops would be deployed, how they would retrieve the nuclear material, or where the material would go next. “People are going to have to go and get it,” secretary of state Marco Rubio said at a congressional briefing earlier this month, referring to the possible operation. There are some indications that an operation is close on the horizon. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon has imminent plans to deploy 3,000 brigade combat troops to the Middle East. (At the time of writing, the order has not been made.) The troops would come from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, which specializes in “joint forcible entry operations.” On Wednesday, Iran’s government rejected Trump’s 15-point plan to end the war, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the president “is prepared to unleash hell” in Iran if …

AI Is Here to Replace Nuclear Treaties. Scared Yet?

AI Is Here to Replace Nuclear Treaties. Scared Yet?

Published by skeptic

For half a century, the world’s nuclear powers relied on an intricate and complex series of treaties that slowly and steadily reduced the number of nuclear weapons on the planet. Those treaties are gone now, and it doesn’t appear that they’ll be coming back anytime soon. As a stopgap measure, researchers and scientists are suggesting a bold and weird path forward: using a system of satellites and artificial intelligence to monitor the world’s nukes. “To be clear, this is plan B,” Matt Korda, an associate director at the Federation of American Scientists, tells WIRED. Korda has written a report at FAS that outlines a possible future for arms control in a world where all the old treaties have died. In Inspections Without Inspectors, Korda and coauthor Igor Morić describe a new way to monitor the world’s nuclear weapons they call “cooperative technical means.” In short, satellites and other remote sensing technology would do the work that scientists and inspectors once did on the ground. Korda says AI could help this process. “Something that artificial intelligence …

2026 Doomsday Clock Hits An All-Time Record

2026 Doomsday Clock Hits An All-Time Record

Published by Sam Flores

The Doomsday clock has moved closer to midnight, jumping from 89 seconds to midnight in 2025 to 85 seconds this year (2026). “Midnight” on the Doomsday clock symbolises global catastrophe. This is the closest the clock has been to midnight since 1947, when the clock was first introduced. Why has the Doomsday clock time changed? According to members of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who decide the time on the clock, it’s down to a number of factors. “The risks we face from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies are all growing,” Alexandra Bell, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said. “Every second counts, and we are running out of time”. Other threats mentioned included risks of nuclear war and the unmanaged adoption of AI, as well as the climate crisis. Daniel Holz, chair of the group’s science and security board, added that global relations and international trust is being eroded. “Major countries became even more aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic,” he said. This matters, he said, because “if …