Law & order

Thousands Of Pedophiles Locked Up Under Trump – Media Blackout

Federal authorities have locked up more than 1,500 people on child trafficking and pedophilia charges since President Trump assumed office, however the huge increase in numbers on recent years is being completely ignored by mainstream media.

According to the FBI there were less than 400 sex trafficking-related arrests made in the entirety of 2014, proving that President Trump is serious about using “the “full force and weight” of the U.S. government to break up child sex trafficking rings and lock up sexual predators.

Navigation security

GPS tracking down to the centimeter

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have developed a new, more computationally efficient way to process data from the Global Positioning System (GPS), to enhance location accuracy from the meter-level down to a few centimeters.

The optimization will be used in the development of autonomous vehicles, improved aviation and naval navigation systems, and precision technologies. It will also enable users to access centimeter-level accuracy location data through their mobile phones and wearable technologies, without increasing the demand for processing power.

The research, led by Jay Farrell, professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering in UCR's Bourns College of Engineering, was published recently in IEEE's Transactions on Control Systems Technology. The approach involves reformulating a series of equations that are used to determine a GPS receiver's position, resulting in reduced computational effort being required to attain centimeter

Why Border Controls Won’t Protect Europe Against Terrorism

Border security

Why Border Controls Won’t Protect Europe Against Terrorism

Few national borders are absolutely impermeable, and controls may fail due to fake and stolen documents. The Chicago Tribune reported that in 2015 around 170,000 people escaped detection at the US border with Mexico and 200,000 eluded capture when adding those who entered by sea. This is barely half of people who entered the US illegally. The wall that made Berlin one of the most difficult places to cross the border could not stop illegal crossings. The wall only reduced the number of escapees to 868 per annum during the 1970s and to 334 per annum between 1980 and 1988.

Aviation security measures are considered most tight in the world of travel and transport – but two passengers were able to board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on stolen passports. The Berlin suspect had used at least six different aliases under three different nationalities, reported the Daily Mail.

Poll results

WSJ/NBC Poll: Majority Of American Public Trust Trump Over Media

A new poll conducted by the WSJ and NBC reveals that the majority of the American public trust Donald Trump more than the mainstream media. 

According to the poll, most Americans see the Trump administration as more “truthful” than the mainstream news media, and most people have found the media’s coverage of Trump “too critical”.

Furthermore, a majority of those polled, some 53%, also believes that the news media have exaggerated problems in the Trump administration. 45% say that is not the case.

79% of those whose primary news source is Fox News agreed with the statement that “the news media and other elites are exaggerating the problems of the Trump administration, because they are uncomfortable and threatened by the kind of change that Trump represents.” Even large numbers of more-liberal MSNBC audience, 40%, thought that the media had overstated the problems.

Terror threat

Philippines condemns 'barbaric beheading' of German hostage

The Philippines and Germany condemned on Monday the beheading of an elderly German captive by Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf militants who posted a video of the killing after a deadline for a $600,000 ransom passed.

The video showed a machete-wielding militant behead Jurgen Kantner. The German had appealed for help twice in short video messages, saying he would be killed if ransom were not paid.

Jesus Dureza, presidential adviser on the Philippine peace process, said officials had exhausted all efforts to save Kantner, 70, who was held on the tiny southern island of Jolo.

"We grieve as we strongly condemn the barbaric beheading of yet another kidnap victim," Dureza said in a statement. "There must be a stop to this killing of the innocent and the helpless."

Drones

‘Unmanned warfare is coming,’ says UK Defense Secretary

Unmanned warfare across land, sea, and air will soon be the norm, and the UK is intensively researching cutting-edge drone technology, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said at an event at the University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science.

He was joined on Monday by new members on the Defence Innovation Advisory Panel – a Ministry of Defense (MoD) initiative – including former soldier and astronaut Tim Peake and Ron Dennis, the former head of McLaren F1 racing.

Politics

The globetrotter confined: the hardening of Geert Wilders

Since the evening in 2004 when policemen arrived unannounced to escort him and his wife to safety, Geert Wilders has lived in safe houses under 24-hour guard to protect him from Islamist militants who threatened to kill him.

Film-maker Theo van Gogh had been shot, stabbed and nearly beheaded by a militant Islamist earlier that day, and Wilders, another prominent critic of Islam, was seen as a likely next target.

Nearly 13 years under protective seclusion have only strengthened his convictions. Wilders, 53, now wants to halt Muslim immigration, close all mosques and ban the Koran, which he compares to Adolf Hitler's tract Mein Kampf.

He is on Taliban and al Qaeda hitlists, and blames Islam for the long confinement that ended his life as a cosmopolitan globetrotter.

Weapons

Drones, lasers, and tanks: China shows off its latest weapons

At the International Defense Exhibition and Conference, one of the world's largest arms fairs, weapons-makers from around the world show off their latest. At this year's show in Dubai, China flaunted a range of high-tech weaponry spread across over 16,000 square feet of floor space. Included: S-20 attack submarines, FC-31 stealth fighter jets, and updates to laser and drone weaponry.

Let's start with lasers. Poly Technologies showed off The Silent Hunter, one of the world's most powerful laser weapons. It claims an output of at least 50-70 kilowatts, which would make it more powerful than the 33-kilowatt laser weapon systems (LaWS) currently deployed on the USS Ponce. The laser is probably based on a smaller anti-drone laser, the Low Altitude Guard. That's enough to knock out automobiles by burning out their engines from over a mile away, as the 30-kilowatt Lockheed Martin ATHENA laser demonstrated in 2015... 

Border security

Foliage-penetrating ladar technology may improve border surveillance

The United States shares 5,525 miles of land border with Canada and 1,989 miles with Mexico. Monitoring these borders, which is the responsibility of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is an enormous task. Detecting, and responding to, illegal activity while facilitating lawful commerce and travel is made more difficult by the expansive, rugged, diverse, and thickly vegetated geography that spans both often-crossed borders. To help mitigate the challenges to border surveillance, a group of researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory is investigating whether an airborne ladar system capable of imaging objects under a canopy of foliage could aid in the maintenance of border security by remotely detecting illegal activities. Their work will be presented at the 16th Annual IEEE Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security to be held April 25-26 in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Extremism

'Illegal immigrant,' 69, who killed two young men by blowing up a supermarket and bombed a British consulate wants to organize the 'next women's march' in a day of 'anti-capitalist feminism' across the US

One of the organizers of 'the next women's march' is fighting deportation from America because she lied about having been convicted of terrorism, it has emerged.
In an open letter printed in The Guardian, several authors including 'Rasmea Yousef Odeh' called on women across the US to take part in 'striking, marching, blocking roads' and other activities in a day of 'grassroots, anti-capitalist feminism'.
But what the letter doesn't say is that Odeh, 69, was convicted of killing two young men after bombing an Israeli supermarket and now faces deportation from the US for lying about it in her citizenship application.

Immigration security

ICE arrests Honduran fugitive wanted for machete murders of 2 men

A Fugitive Operations Team assigned to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Atlanta field office arrested an at-large fugitive alien Tuesday who is presently wanted for the murder of two men in Honduras.

Francisco Escobar-Orellana, an unlawfully present Honduran national, was arrested by ICE deportation officers Tuesday morning near his Hope Mills residence during a targeted enforcement operation in concert with ICE Homeland Security Investigations special agents.

Mr. Escobar is wanted in Honduras pursuant to a May 2005 arrest warrant for allegedly hacking two men to death with a machete at a liquor store in 1993. Mr. Escobar subsequently unlawfully entered the United States at an unknown time/place.

Biosecurity

A Bizarre Bacteria Could Be the Key to Controlling Mosquitoes

IN FEBRUARY OF 1967, German biologist Hannes Laven hiked to a village 16 miles north of Yangon, Myanmar. He carried with him 100 mosquitoes from Fresno, California—50 males that had been infected with a bacteria called Wolbachia, and 50 females that had not. He bred these mosquitoes together, separated out the males from the thousands of offspring, and released them around the town’s 150 thatched-roof houses. Twelve weeks and six generations of California-Myanmar cross-breeding later he had eradicated the entire local mosquito population: None of their eggs would hatch.

For 50 years, scientists have known that Wolbachia can cause sterility in mosquitoes and other insects. But now, for the first time, they finally understand exactly how it works. 

Aerospace

USAF mulls multiplatform approach to AWACS, C2 missions

The US Air Force (USAF) is studying its command-and-control (C2) requirements over the next few decades to determine how that battlefield role is to be addressed, and officials so far believe the solution is likely more disaggregated than its current use of specific C2 aircraft.

Service planners are now evaluating 'multi-domain' C2 through an Enterprise Capabilities Collaboration Team (ECCT) that will inform future requirements, USAF's Air Combat Command General Herbert Carlisle told reporters during a 24 February breakfast meeting.

The USAF uses Boeing E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS) aircraft and Boeing E-4B airborne command aircraft for these roles, but its latest generation combat platforms - such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighter and the emerging Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter and Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider bomber - have or will have significant C2 capabilities.

Aerial defense

Air Force Buys Mysterious Israeli Weapon to Kill ISIS Drones


The U.S. Air Force awarded a mysterious contract to an Israeli firm for equipment to counter small drones like the ones used by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

But service officials will not disclose the type of system and whether it uses electronic jamming, conventional missiles, a combination of both, or some other method to down enemy drones.

Here’s what we know: The Air Force awarded ELTA North America Inc. — a U.S. subsidiary of Israeli Aerospace Industries — a $15.6 million contract for “counter-unmanned aerial systems.” The contract announcement specifically references “21 Man Portable Aerial Defense System kits,” which will be delivered by July 28.

Man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS, are shoulder-fired missiles traditionally used to shoot down aircraft. So was that what was purchased? Not so fast.

Regional security

Russia and Pakistan's Reluctant Romance

The expansion of Russia-Pakistan ties will help in bringing stability and prosperity in the region. For Russia, Pakistan is significant in two dimensions. First, it serves as an outlet to the Central Asian Republics and the Kremlin would never desire instability there. Second, the strategic location of Pakistan means it can connect the Central Asian region with the Middle East and Indian Ocean — thus Russian goods can access the international market very conveniently through Pakistan. Moscow also wants to invest in Pakistan’s agriculture technology, including grip irrigation and desert farming.

Pakistan, for its part, can benefit from the Russian defense industry, as Russian military equipment is cheaper than America’s. In addition, Russia has banned agriculture imports, especially food, from Europe. Pakistan in this scenario can be a competitive source of agricultural and textile goods for Russia, which offers a $16 billion market in the agriculture sector alone. Energy is another potential sector where Pakistan can reap huge benefits by fashioning friendly relations with the Kremlin.

International security

Sleepwalking into a New Arms Race

So, how might the Russians react to the threat of increased American defense budgets? Let’s try to look at the nuclear modernization program — and the looming defense spend-up — from the Russian leadership’s point of view.

The Russians, particularly those internal political and industrial factions that benefit from Russian defense spending, are very likely to characterize the American spending program as an aggressive sharpening of the U.S. nuclear sword and a strengthening of its nuclear shield, synchronized with a threatening buildup of America’s conventional force. And that will be used to argue that Russia is spending far too little on defense because it faces an existential threat due to increased American spending.

Don’t laugh, this is a mirror image of the argument used successfully by President Ronald Reagan in a televised address to the nation on Nov. 22, 1982. His subject was also nuclear strategy, as well as the need to increase America’s entire defense budget.

Poll results

Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world

Muslims are the fastest-growing religious group in the world. The growth and regional migration of Muslims, combined with the ongoing impact of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) and other extremist groups that commit acts of violence in the name of Islam, have brought Muslims and the Islamic faith to the forefront of the political debate in many countries. Yet many facts about Muslims are not well known in some of these places, and most Americans – who live in a country with a relatively small Muslim population – say they know little or nothing about Islam.

Here are answers to some key questions about Muslims, compiled from several Pew Research Center reports published in recent years...

Wildlive smuggling

China sees sharp decline in ivory smuggling in 2016

The amount of smuggled ivory tracked down in China fell 80 percent in 2016 from previous peak years, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said Sunday.

Liu Dongsheng, deputy head of the SFA, made the remarks at the opening ceremony of awildlife protection campaign, without specifying detailed numbers.

China will stop commercial processing and sales of ivory by the end of this year. Last year, it imposed a three-year ban on ivory imports in an escalated fight against illegal trading ofwild animals and plants.

The number of illegal wildlife trade cases has been on the decline since last year, said Liu.

Outerspace

SpaceX wants to send two rich people to the moon by 2018

SpaceX is already on track to make history by becoming the first private company to carry astronauts to the International Space Station in 2018. As if that wasn't ambitious enough, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced on Monday that the company is planning to send two private citizens into orbit around the moon a mere six months after carrying its first crew to the ISS.

"I think this should be a really exciting mission that gets the world excited about sending people into deep space again," Musk said in a teleconference.

The mission, which would mark humankind's first return to the moon in 45 years, will be funded by two private individuals who approached SpaceX with the proposition. At this point those backers remain anonymous, but Musk said they've placed a significant deposit.

Elections in Europe

Why Dutch voters are about to set the stage for Europe’s elections

The Economist recently wrote that Dutch politics are a bellwether for Europe, arguing that developments in the Netherlands tend to be followed in other European countries a few years later. In a similar way, Politico described Wilders as “the man who invented Trumpism”. Both claims hold some kernel of truth.

Wilders is a relative latecomer to the European radical right; Austria’s Freedom party (FPÖ) and France’s Front National (FN) are decades older and their first electoral successes date back to the 1990s, years before Wilders split from the VVD and founded his Party for Freedom (PVV). At the same time, Wilders is literally a one-man show who was dominating Dutch politics through Twitter well before Donald Trump even considered running for president.

Dutch elections

Hostility to immigrants dominates major parties in Dutch election

According to recent polls, the two governing parties taking part in the Dutch parliamentary elections on March 15 will be punished for their drastic austerity policies.

Poised to benefit the most from the losses of the free-market, liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), whose leader is Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and its coalition partner, the social-democratic Labour Party (PvdA), is Geert Wilders’ anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim Party for Freedom (PVV). Current polls place the latter in the lead, just ahead of the VVD.

The elections in the Netherlands are significant. This country of approximately 17 million people has often been the harbinger of trends affecting Europe as a whole. In May there will be presidential elections in France, and parliamentary elections will take place in Germany this September. Here, too, the far right hopes to profit from the politics of the established parties.

Drug smuggling

New drug smuggling schemes challenge police

Illicit drugs have always been a problem in port cities, but experts say the emergence of highly potent synthetic opioids that are fuelling British Columbia’s overdose crisis are slipping through borders in new ways, presenting challenges for law enforcement.

International regulations, online ordering and the potency of the drug are among the factors making it difficult to prevent the drug from slipping through Canada’s borders.

More than 1,000 people have died from illicit drug overdoses in B.C. since January 2016, many as a result of the powerful opioids fentanyl and carfentanil which law enforcement says largely comes from China.

Canada Border Services Agency says seizures of fentanyl at Vancouver International Mail Centre have more than doubled to 54 last year from 23 in 2015.

Nuclear security

Activity at North Korean Nuclear Facility Could Mean Another Test Imminent

Activity at North Korea's Punggye-ri Nuclear Test facility indicates that the country could conduct another nuclear test at any time, a North Korean watchdog warns.

The website 38 North, which monitors commercial satellite imagery for clues to North Korea's actions, says the continued activity in many areas of the Punggye-ri site shown by images from February 18 indicate that work is underway at many of the site's tunnels.

"In particular, the shifting of supplies and equipment, as well as additional changes in the texture and pattern of small sections of the tailings pile at the North Portal, indicate continuing work inside the test tunnels," 38 North said.

Chemical security

‘5 atom bombs’: 3,000 local Israelis protest ammonia facility with potential to kill 600K people

Around 3,000 people gathered outside Haifa District Court on Sunday to demand the closure of an ammonia storage facility that is said to be potentially more deadly than five of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima.

Judges in the district court deliberated for around three hours as a crowd of environmental protesters gathered outside.

Middle and high schools around Haifa and nearby towns also went on strike, with all classes cancelled from 8am till noon to allow the students to take part in the protest.
“The ammonia tank endangers and threatens hundreds of thousands of citizens living in the Haifa district. I call on all teenagers to ask the hard questions, create a discourse, become actively involved and go and protest for the relocation of the ammonia tank,” said Haifa District Student Council Chairman Noy Krief, as quoted by Ynet.

Nuclear security

Iran complies with nuclear deal, slashes low-enriched uranium stockpile by half – IAEA

Iran has been found in full compliance with a nuclear deal with leading world powers, a UN nuclear watchdog said in a report. It comes amid heightened fears the US may walk out of the milestone pact, with tensions flaring up between Tehran and Washington.

The latest report on the deal’s implementation produced by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and obtained by Reuters and AFP on Friday confirms that the Islamic Republic is far from exceeding the limit for the amount of the low-enriched uranium it is allowed to keep.

The report, citing data as of February 18, puts Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpile at 101.7 kg, only the half of the permitted amount of 202.8 kg.

Such a dramatic decrease can largely be attributed to the recent “downblending” of 99.9 kg of low-enriched uranium at Iran`s Isfahan conversion facility, which has been since exempted from the count.

Military spending

Trump to Ask for Sharp Increases in Military Spending, Officials Say

President Trump will instruct federal agencies on Monday to assemble a budget for the coming fiscal year that includes sharp increases in Defense Department spending and drastic enough cuts to domestic agencies that he can keep his promise to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, according to four senior administration officials.

The budget outline will be the first move in a campaign this week to reset the narrative of Mr. Trump’s turmoil-tossed White House.

A day before delivering a high-stakes address on Tuesday to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Trump will demand a budget with tens of billions of dollars in reductions to the Environmental Protection Agency and State Department, according to four senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the plan. Social safety net programs, aside from the big entitlement programs for retirees, would also be hit hard.

Information security

Spicer cracks down on White House leaks

White House press secretary Sean Spicer recently checked his aides' cell phones to ensure they weren't communicating with reporters as part of an aggressive effort to stem the recent tide of White House leaks.

Spicer called staff into his office last week to reiterate his frustration with the leaks, sources with knowledge of the matter said. He informed them that the use of encrypted texting apps, like Signal and Confide, was a violation of the Federal Records Act.

Then, with White House counsel Don McGahn standing by, Spicer asked his staff to provide him with their cell phones so he could ensure they were not using those apps or corresponding privately with reporters.

War on terror

First Big Test for Mattis: Pitch Plans to Fight ISIS and Not Alienate Trump

As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis prepares to submit his first big pitch to his new boss — options for accelerating the fight against the Islamic State — he is balancing the need to rein in President Trump’s more extreme impulses without distancing himself too much and losing White House favor.

Mr. Mattis, a retired Marine general, has already assumed an outsize role in the administration — part valued aide to the new president, who has quickly come to adore him, and part reassurer in chief to global leaders, who cling to his every utterance in the hope that he will help keep the White House from undoing decades of national security policy.

Nowhere is this juggling act clearer than in the decisions confronting Mr. Mattis about speeding the fight against the Islamic State. Mr. Trump made that fight a centerpiece of his national security strategy during the campaign, saying he would give his generals 30 days to produce a plan to defeat the group, and he has urged an alliance with Russia to combat the militants in Syria. But such a move is anathema to Mr. Mattis, who has said repeatedly that he does not view Russia as a trustworthy partner.

Extremism

France: Deradicalization of Jihadists a "Total Fiasco"

The French government's flagship program to deradicalize jihadists is a "total failure" and must be "completely reconceptualized," according to the initial conclusions of a parliamentary fact-finding commission on deradicalization.

The preliminary report reveals that the government has nothing to show for the tens of millions of taxpayer euros it has spent over the past several years to combat Islamic radicalization in France, where 238 people have been killed in jihadist attacks since January 2015. The report implies that deradicalization, either in specialized centers or in prisons, does not work because most Islamic radicals do not want to be deradicalized.

The report, "Deindoctrination, Derecruitment and Reintegration of Jihadists in France and Europe" (Désendoctrinement, désembrigadement et réinsertion des djihadistes en France et en Europe) — the title avoids using the word "deradicalization" because it is considered by some to be politically incorrect — was presented to the Senate Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs on February 22.

Korea

Navy fleet commanders: The next conflict hotspot is going to be in Korea

Two top Navy fleet commanders said Tuesday that the next potential conflict hotspot would likely be in Korea.

"If there’s a fight tonight, it’s probably going to happen on the Korean peninsula," said Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, commander of 7th Fleet, in a panel discussion at the AFCEA West 2017 conference. 

Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, commander of 3rd Fleet, agreed with that assessment, saying that hostilities with the North Korean regime would be the "number one probability."

The fleet commanders made their comments on a panel discussion titled, "Are we ready to fight — today and in the future?"

Weapons

France, UK fund Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missile overhaul

France and the United Kingdom have signed contracts with MBDA to update their Storm Shadow/SCALP EG long-range air-launched cruise missiles, it was announced on 22 February.

Under the deal, MBDA will refurbish the country's remaining stocks of the missile, which has been in service since 2003, in order to "sustain the missile until its planned out of service date in 2032", the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

According to the MoD, "The regeneration will consist of a midlife refurbishment of current missile parts, such as the turbo-jet engine, an upgrade of the navigational system, and a like-for-like replacement of items such as the cabling, seals, and gaskets."

Arms trade

One of Russia's Most Powerful Tanks Is Coming to the Middle East

Russia has found a buyer in the Middle East for its advanced T-90MS main battle tank. However, while the Russians have apparently signed a contract, Moscow is not disclosing which nation is buying the powerful new tank.

“A large-scale contract was signed with a Middle East country in December. Another contract on this type of military output is expected to be signed soon," the Kremlin’s industry and trade minister Denis Manturov told the Moscow-based Tass news agency.

The new tank—which is geared toward the export market—is currently in low rate production. “We have established the low-rate initial production of these vehicles,” Gen. Alexei Maslov told Tass. “The technological processes that allow increasing of the serial production volumes have been fine-tuned.”

Politics

Media Leaks Indicate Intelligence Bureaucracy Operates in So-called 'Deep State'

The White House has denied media reports that a so-called "deep state" of the United States government is withholding information from President Donald Trump in an effort to undermine his administration.

The "deep state" – a term apparently first used in Turkey in the 1990s – refers to a secretive, informal network of officials in a country's military, intelligence and security services, and other parts of the government, who have influence, regardless of the administration formally in power. The term has been used to describe the situation in countries with a history of rule by the military, like Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt.

Citing current and former officials, a recent Wall Street Journal story reports that U.S. intelligence officials – considered to be part of an American "deep state" – have withheld sensitive intelligence from the president over concerns it could be leaked or compromised. An unnamed White House official denied this in the Journal piece, saying, "There is nothing that leads us to believe that this is an accurate account of what is actually happening."

International security

Will Trump Be Forced into War with Russia?

The propaganda war being waged by the well-fed mainstream Western media has received a boost since it became clear that President Trump’s chief counsellors and associates are almost without exception relentlessly anti-Russian. His newly-appointed National Security Adviser, General HR McMaster, was noted by Reuters as believing Moscow to be “an adversary rather than a potential partner.”

In the run-up to the presidential election it had been hoped by supporters of international trade, solid borders and mutual trust that Mr Trump would continue his policy of guarded amicability towards Russia. Nobody expected that on his entry to the White House a magic wand would be waved that would cancel out the Obama Administration’s insulting and entirely counter-productive attitude to President Putin and set relations on an even keel; but it was certainly hoped that common sense and realism would overcome blind malice.

Nuclear security

President Trump Flunks Nuclear 101

President Donald Trump in an interview with Reuters today demonstrated an astounding lack of knowledge about basic nuclear weapons issues.

According to Reuters Trump said he wanted to build up the US nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the “top of the pack.” He said the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear weapons capacity.”

Building up the US nuclear arsenal would be an unnecessary, unaffordable, and a counterproductive move. It is unnecessary because the US military already has more nuclear weapons than it needs to meet US national and international security commitments. It would be unaffordable because the Pentagon will have problems paying for the nuclear modernization program initiated by the Obama administration. And it is counterproductive because it would further fuel nuclear buildups in other nuclear weapon states.