American Nuclear Weapons Are a Booming Business

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/WA/2015/10/03/american-nuclear-weapons-are-a-booming-business/

The United States is beginning a modernization program for the deployment of nuclear weapons at its installations in Germany. The German government should oppose that with all available means, but instead, it seems totally passive.

American Nuclear Weapons Are a Booming Business
Published in Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany) on 24 September 2015 by Xanthe Hall [link to original]
Translated from German by Ron Argentati. Edited by Laurence Bouvard.
Posted on October 3, 2015.

The modernization program for Germany was announced some time ago, but now the U.S. is getting down to brass tacks at the nuclear weapons station at Büchel in Germany's Eifel mountains. The German military base will be updated to ensure that nuclear weapons can be accommodated there in the future. The runway will be equipped with a modern instrument approach system, security fences will be strengthened, new vehicles will be procured to make maintenance of the weapons easier, and special new software for the bombers themselves will be installed. The reason: New U.S. nuclear weapons are to be stationed in Europe.

The new B61 bomb is a precision-guided weapon with better accuracy that might reduce the likelihood of accidents. That nuclear weapons play a well-known deterrent role is shown by the recently announced results of U.S. government simulations in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. According to Michael Steiner, the former foreign policy adviser to then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the Bush administration had considered a nuclear attack on Afghanistan in the days subsequent to 9/11.

To date, the nuclear “smart bomb” has yet to make an appearance. It is still being developed, and deployment isn't expected for another five years. Modernization of the B61 atomic bomb — euphemistically referred to as its “life expectancy extension” — is fortunately progressing slowly. That means more time for Europeans to convince their politicians that a modernization program runs afoul of disarmament obligations contained in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Therefore, the European Union nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey should fight against stationing new U.S. atomic weapons in Europe.

This discussion is currently already ongoing in the Netherlands. The Dutch parliament has demanded the government decide against the stationing of the updated nuclear arsenal in Europe. The German government should finally take action and implement the Bundestag's bipartisan 2010 decision and enact it when the U.S. nuclear weapons have been withdrawn from Büchel. Instead, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told parliament at the beginning of this year that the decision would be put off indefinitely.