For a Brief Inglorious Moment, the U.S. Navy Had a Nuclear-Powered Wetsuit
WIB historyWIB sea September 7, 2018
Originally published on Nov. 26, 2014. You get pretty cold pretty fast when you’re wet. Water absorbs more heat than air—and absorbs it 20 times faster. Without some kind of protection, people can suffer hypothermia even in warm tropical seas. There are several ways to stay warm in the... Read more
There are many reasons to keep certain parts of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex a secret. But fraud, waste, and abuse run rampant when the mystique and awe of nuclear bombs gets in the way of effective oversight. And it is the taxpayer who ends up suffering. The secrets... Read more
America Had a Problem With Its Nuclear Warheads Freezing
WIB history October 19, 2017
This story originally appeared on Nov. 5, 2015. The U.S. Air Force is once again pushing for a nuclear-armed cruise missile to “fill the gap” between heavy bombers and ballistic missiles. The W-80 warhead will be the missile’s business end. The flying branch’s push comes during the largest planned overhaul... Read more
Breaking Down the North Korea Crisis
WIB politics August 18, 2017
Whatever you might have heard over the last several days, the United States isn’t about to be engulfed in a ball of nuclear fire, courtesy of Kim Jong Un. It’s a little more complicated than that. That’s not to suggest that the crisis on the Korean peninsula is a... Read more
This story originally appeared on Sept. 14, 2016. If North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un orders a nuclear strike on South Korea, Seoul will attempt to kill him with missiles and devastate Pyongyang in the process. That’s according to a recent report from the Yonhap News Agency citing a military... Read more
This story originally appeared on Oct. 16, 2015. A key component of the U.S. doctrine of mutually assured destruction — commonly and appropriately known as MAD — was that American troops would still be able to retaliate if the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack. But for a time, the Pentagon... Read more
Movies to Help Donald Trump Understand Nuclear War
WIB culture August 14, 2017
U.S. president Ronald Reagan sat down to watch a movie on Oct. 10, 1983 and he didn’t much for care for what he saw. “I ran the tape of the movie ABC is running on the air on Nov. 20,” Reagan wrote in his diary that day. “It’s called... Read more
On July 4, 2017, North Korea tested — for the first time — an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM, capable of hitting U.S. soil with a nuclear warhead. The test was hardly a secret. The North Korean regime announced the trial two weeks in advance. Western missile experts tried to... Read more
Reviving Cold War Doomsday Devices Could Patch America’s Broken Nuclear Controls
WIB politics July 5, 2017
This story originally appeared on Feb. 22, 2017. It’s the third article in a three-part series on how limited foreign attacks could endanger America’s fragile command and control over nuclear weapons. Read parts one and two. As the aging command and control network over U.S. nuclear forces has become increasingly... Read more
It’s Not Just ‘Strangelove’ —Today’s Bombers Rely on America’s Weakest Nuclear Links
WIB politics July 4, 2017
This story originally appeared on Feb. 23, 2017. It’s the second article in a three-part series on how limited foreign attacks could endanger America’s fragile command and control over nuclear weapons. Reads parts one and three. The original screenplay for the 1964 classic film Dr. Strangelove includes a scene in... Read more
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