Latest news with #U.S.President
CBC
a day ago
- Politics
- CBC
Russia strikes Ukraine with largest aerial attack of the war
Russia launched its largest aerial assault on Ukraine since the war began, hitting Kyiv with over 500 drones and missiles early Friday. Hours later, U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to boost Kyiv's air defence.
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Ukraine: Russia targets Kyiv in record drone attack
The U.S. and Ukrainian presidents spoke Friday after Kyiv endured one of its worst nights of the war. Ukraine's Air Force says Russia launched a record number of attack drones and missiles at the country overnight. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Boeing secures $2.8 billion US satellite contract
(Reuters) -Boeing Co said on Thursday it had secured a $2.8 billion U.S. contract to develop and produce two satellites with options for two more. The Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications (ESS) program will deliver space-based nuclear, command, control, and communications for the U.S. president and joint strategic global forces. Boeing is set to deliver the first of two space vehicles by 2031. When deployed in geostationary orbit, the ESS will provide persistent coverage to strategic warfighters worldwide. Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
6 days ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Could Europe Create An Independent Nuclear Arsenal To Fend Off Russia?
Could a new European alliance produce a nuclear Euro-bomb arsenal to defend against Russia's ... More escalating aggression? (Photo by) As the Kremlin escalates missile blitzes on Ukraine, and threatens to target its Western backers with plutonium bombs, some European leaders have started debating whether they need their own nuclear arsenal as the ultimate shield against a new Russian invasion, says a global expert on atomic arms. Since Russia's last race to take over Eastern Europe, when World War II bullets and Soviet tanks were still whizzing across the region, the United States has extended its nuclear umbrella to cover most of the Continent's democracies. These 'Free World' powers cofounded the NATO military alliance specifically to protect each other against Russian expansionism. But the U.S. president's ongoing cascade of mixed messages over whether he will adhere to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which mandates a collective defense to an attack on any single NATO member, threatens to upend this Pax Americana. The U.S. president's mixed messages on whether Washington will adhere to NATO's mandate that an ... More attack on any member will trigger a collective defense has sparked some European leaders to mull whether to develop a nuclear Euro-bomb. (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP) (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images) Russia's renewed marches beyond its borders, coupled with the prospect of American abandonment of its allies, are triggering more European defense planners to mull the creation of a Euro-bomb, says Alexander Bollfrass, a globally acclaimed scholar on nuclear weaponry at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Yet could a new coalition of European confederates actually produce a nuclear stockpile capable of containing Russia, which holds the planet's most colossal atomic armory? Could they race to perfect the warheads, jet fighters and long-range missiles essential to creating a credible defense to President Vladimir Putin's ambitions to reconstruct the Soviet Union? Dr. Bollfrass, head of strategy, technology and arms control at IISS, tells me in an interview that he war-gamed the potential to create a 'Eurodeterrent' while drawing on EU states' real-life access to uranium-235, and their combined expertise in missile technology, and in designing defense aircraft that could be adapted to carry nuclear payloads. A new European defense confederation that stretches from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, he predicts, might produce a stockpile of nuclear warheads within three years—rivaling the speed of the U.S. Manhattan Project—and assemble an atomic cache perhaps one-tenth the size of the current American arsenal. Scattered across Europe, Bollfrass says, are nearly all the advanced-tech components and know-how, the scientists and weapons designers, that could collectively give rise to a rising world nuclear power. Germany and the Netherlands both conduct uranium enrichment operations, and could in theory refine weapons-grade fissile material for future devices. Germany conducts uranium enrichment operations, and could hypothetically refine weapons-grade ... More fissile material for future devices, says a global expert on nuclear weaponry. Shown here is a centrifuge on exhibit in Berlin used to process uranium (Photo by Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images) Sweden might revive its plutonium extraction program, Bollfrass adds, and turns out leading-edge Gripen combat jets that could join up with Eurofighter aircraft co-developed by Germany in an expanding nuclear delivery system. Creator of the first ballistic missile—the V-2 rocket—Germany might also collaborate with missile designers in Sweden or Italy to perfect another weapons platform. And with Italy's crafting a series of Vega rockets, Bollfrass says, 'the expertise from developing it would be rather valuable in developing an ICBM,' or a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile that could target Moscow from any part of Europe. Expertise honed in perfecting Italy's Vega rocket could aid in the development of a European ICBM. ... More (Photo credit should read JODY AMIET/AFP via Getty Images) Yet which partner in this new nuclear confederation could design the sophisticated warheads to arm the jet-bombers and missiles aimed at defending against the Kremlin's escalating aggression? The United Kingdom and France have already developed nuclear warheads, yet neither is likely to lead the project to build a Eurodeterrent, Dr. Bollfrass says. Both London and Paris 'remain signatories to the NPT [the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], whose first article says: 'Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.'' Parties to the treaty likewise pledge, he adds, 'not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.' 'This limits how much the British and French would be able to share,' he points out. 'Of course, they can assign broader deterrence missions for their own arsenals that would cover the territory of their allies,' Bollfrass says. Yet despite requests from the leaders of Germany and of Poland to be granted shelter under the French and British shields, neither nuclear power has so far formally approved extending its atomic dome. Swedish Gripen jets, shown here on the left, could in theory be enlisted in a new European nuclear ... More force (Photo credit should read JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images) Physicists outside of Britain and France are likely to head any Euro-project to build a bomb, and would likely rely on sophisticated next-generation simulation software—run on supercomputers—to test each advance made in this quest. Any nation joining this campaign that is also a signatory to the NPT would have to withdraw from that treaty, Bollfrass says. As a series of European nations begins quitting the NPT, he adds, Europe as a whole would be rapidly transformed from one of the world's strongest proponents of nuclear disarmament into a new symbol of hard nuclear power. As they progress in the building of an atomic stockpile, allies in this nuclear confederation would also have to agree on a collective nuclear doctrine spelling out the essential preconditions for the use of these weapons, and form a command-and-control center that could issue lightning-speed decisions on launching a retaliatory strike on a first-use attacker. The emergence of an ascendant atomic power, and the mass abandonment of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, he predicts, might spark a new nuclear ams race that ricochets around the world. Any German participation in a race to create a Euro-bomb would face swift opposition by the ... More country's anti-nuclear activists, shown here in a protest headed by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. (Photo by Tobias Schwarz / AFP) (Photo by TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images) Yet how likely is it that Bollfrass's war game—on creating a Euro-bomb—could actually be played out in today's Europe? Would the ultimate decision depend in part on any American moves to pull back from NATO, and from extending its nuclear defenses to cover its allies across Europe? Bollfrass, who as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University designed war games involving Russia, predicts:'The possibility of a new nuclear arsenal in Europe is remote at the moment.' 'For all of its criticism of Europe,' he adds, so far 'the Trump administration has not called its nuclear guarantee to its allies into question.' Yet the spark for galvanizing a nuclear Eurodeterrent project could appear in a fleeting moment. 'If Europe found itself without that [American nuclear] protection in the future, a new independent arsenal might become an option.' And if the founders of a European atomic alliance did amass a weapons stockpile aimed at containing Russia inside its own borders, Bollfrass muses, they might one day extend this nuclear dome to cover Ukraine—in an against-all-odds attempt to swiftly halt Moscow's invasion.
