Recent reporting suggests that the US Department of Defense (DoD) is reviewing its global command structure, amongst which the position of SACEUR, NATO’s most senior military position is under scrutiny to be abolished.
Read my Ariadne’s Dispatches post on this topic here
In the shadow of the Cold War, beneath the icy waters of political tension, the Soviet submarine B-39 once stealthily prowled the oceans of the world. A hulking figure of steel and secrecy, it served as a silent sentinel for its homeland, a tangible embodiment of an era teetering on the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Yet, unlike its sister sub, the infamous B-59, whose actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis may have averted global annihilation, the B-39’s most remarkable story was not one of war but of survival.
Launched in 1967 from the shipyards of Leningrad, the B-39 served the Soviet Pacific Fleet with unflinching dedication. It carried out clandestine patrols along North America’s coasts, ventured to the Arctic, and made port calls in Vietnam’s Danang during the years of Cold War vigilance. But history turned, and the mighty Soviet Union fell. In 1994, the B-39 was decommissioned, its service concluded, and its purpose seemingly extinguished.
The submarine’s journey might have ended in obscurity, consigned to rust and neglect, had it not been for an unlikely twist of fate. Sold to a Finnish entrepreneur with a vision to transform it into a floating restaurant and museum, the plan faltered, leaving B-39 adrift in uncertainty. Then came a lifeline from the West. In 2002, a group of investors brought the submarine to Seattle, where it found new life as a museum exhibit at Pier 48.
There, in the heart of the Pacific Northwest, B-39 shed its veil of secrecy. Thousands of visitors marveled at its labyrinthine corridors and the cramped quarters where its crew once endured long patrols. Supported by a cadre of dedicated volunteers and professionals, the submarine became a bridge to the past—a tactile reminder of Cold War tensions and the men who bore its weight.
Connection to Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
Among the stories revealed during this time was one that cast the submarine’s sister, B-59, and its flotilla commander, Vasily Arkhipov, into the spotlight of history. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, Arkhipov had been aboard B-59 when U.S. Navy destroyers cornered the submarine near Cuba and began dropping signaling depth charges to force it to surface. Unaware that these charges were not intended to destroy them and cut off from communication with Moscow, B-59’s captain and political officer believed war had already begun. The decision to launch a nuclear torpedo rested on a three-man vote.
Amidst the sweltering, air-deprived chaos of the submarine, Vasily Arkhipov stood firm against the tide of panic. Alone in dissent, he argued for restraint, insisting they verify the situation with Moscow before initiating what would have been a nuclear strike. His refusal prevailed, and the torpedo was never launched. The world would not learn of this near-apocalyptic decision until decades later, when declassified documents revealed the critical role Arkhipov played in averting nuclear war. It was also later discovered that Soviet forces in Cuba had tactical nuclear weapons ready to repel any U.S. invasion, underscoring just how close the world had come to catastrophe.
The B-39, like all vessels of its class, carried this haunting legacy of potential destruction. In 2005, the submarine embarked on yet another chapter, this time journeying south to the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Anchored in the sunny harbor, it captivated schoolchildren, history buffs, and casual tourists alike. The submarine, once a symbol of enmity, now inspires curiosity and education. It offered visitors a chance to reflect on the perilous era it represented and the resilience of those who navigated it.
But even steel succumbs to time and tide. Years of exposure to the elements exacted a heavy toll, and the cost of preserving B-39 became insurmountable. In 2021, the museum faced a heartbreaking decision: the submarine had to be retired. Stripped of its final mission, B-39 was sent to a scrapyard in Ensenada, Mexico, where its once-proud hull was dismantled.
Yet the spirit of B-39 endures. Documented extensively, its story is preserved not only in photographs and exhibits but also in the hearts of those who labored to share its legacy. It stands as a testament to the power of historical preservation, to the vision and generosity of museum curators and volunteers who refused to let its story sink into oblivion.
Though it was not B-39 but its sister sub, B-59, that played a pivotal role in averting nuclear war, B-39 remains a potent symbol of the Cold War’s delicate balance. Its journey—from the frigid depths of the Pacific to the warm embrace of museum exhibits and finally to the scrapyard—reminds us of the importance of remembering the past. It is a relic not just of steel, but of history, perseverance, and the shared responsibility of preserving the stories that define us.
As it rests now in pieces, the legacy of B-39, alongside the bravery of Vasily Arkhipov, serves as a stark reminder of how close humanity came to the brink—and how even the smallest acts of courage can alter the course of history.
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Recently, a majority of the UN General Assembly resolved to study the global effects of nuclear war. Of the nuclear weapons states, only China supported the move forwarded with the study. Russia, France, and the United Kingdom voted against and the United States, Israel, Iran, and North Korea all
abstained. Surprising perhaps, is that the first serious project to examine this issue since the early 1980s should attract so little public interest while at the same time causing some of the nuclear-armed nations to actively campaign against the study, potentially discouraging reporting on the issue.
Another reason influencing the nuclear weapons states perspective on this proposed UN study is that the last time the publication of the report attracted worldwide attention, and as such, a similar result might be anticipated from such a report with access to more data and more powerful computer climate models to work with. Fearing that widespread knowledge of the devastating impacts of nuclear weapons could erode further public support for their nuclear deterrence and the inherent dangers posed by nuclear weapons themselves.
Nuclear weapons are a highly sensitive topic, and countries possessing them may not want the public to be fully informed about the catastrophic consequences of their use, potentially impacting political support for nuclear deterrence. Given this, it’s not so surprising that some nuclear weapons states actively lobbied against the support for the study. The November 2024 resolution for a study on “the physical and societal consequences of nuclear war, including climatic, environmental, and radiological effects, and their impacts on public health, global systems, and ecosystems” is to be undertaken over a three-year period by a twenty-one member panel of experts and is expected to conclude in 2027.
One goal of the study is to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive understanding of the global consequences as a result of the use of nuclear weapons. The motivations for the study are perceived as the need to bring a contemporary interpretation to the highly controversial publication in 1983 in the journal Science of what became to be called the TTAPS study, so named for the initials of the scientists involved: Richard P. Turco, Owen B. Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack, and Carl Sagan, and the UN and US National Academy of Sciences reports that followed it. The TTAPS study was first presented at a conference in Washington, D.C., in October 1983, with it’s subsequent publication in Science. While it’s conclusions, including the introduction of the concept of a nuclear winter, were initially controversial, many of its core conclusions are now broadly accepted by the scientific community.
The predictions by Carl Sagan and his collaborators about the severity and duration of a nuclear winter have been subsequently supported by research, including more recent climate models. However, there is still some debate about the precise extent of the environmental impacts. Since, there have been substantial advances **in climate modeling—**models have become significantly more sophisticated since the 1980s, allowing for more accurate predictions of the potential environmental consequences of the nuclear use of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Winter all over again
Also, increased awareness of climate change and improved understanding of the fragility of Earth’s climate system and the potential for catastrophic impacts from human activities likely play a significant role in motivating further research on nuclear winter. The changing geopolitical landscape with the emergence of North Korea and possibly Iran as nuclear weapons powers and the potential for regional conflicts involving nuclear weapons in the Middle East and/or Asia underscore the continued relevance of understanding the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.
While the TTAPS study was groundbreaking for its time, the need for updated research is driven by the desire to have the most accurate and comprehensive understanding of the potential impacts of nuclear weapons use in the context of our current scientific knowledge and geopolitical realities. It’s significance would be in it’s potential, like it’s predecessors, to attract worldwide public attention to the catastrophic consequences of arising from the use of nuclear weapons. With its goal of intending to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the devastating consequences of nuclear war, it is also connected to raising public awareness and promoting efforts towards nuclear disarmament—ambitions not particularly popular with the nuclear weapons nations.
The past decade has witnessed a steady decline in public confidence in arms control agreements. Most importantly, American and Russian strategic arms negotiations are frozen while the US has withdrawn from the multilateral arrangements that were in place to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program. These and other related events have left observers concerned that studies such as those proposed by the UN will weaken public support for initiatives that seek to modernize and introduce technological innovations to their strategic nuclear arsenals.
No need to test
In 1978, three preeminent nuclear weapons scientists wrote an open letter to then President Jimmy Carter, arguing that maintaining the reliability of the nuclear stockpile did not require explosive nuclear testing. They also argued that a comprehensive test ban treaty was important in arms control, including in support of restricting the proliferation of new nuclear weapons states.
The scientists Richard Garwin, J. Carson Mark, and Norris Bradbury, all legendary names in the history of US nuclear weapons development, believed that the data acquired from the tests conducted in the past, as well as the enormous increase in the power of supercomputers combined with the ability to test components and designs without the need for nuclear explosive tests, Additionally, the US nuclear weapons laboratories each year certify the operational status of the nuclear stockpile and have never raised the need for explosive nuclear testing. This has been the case even when serious problems were identified with the Polaris submarines that launched warheads and similarly with the warheads for the Minuteman ICBMs. Both problems were identified and resolved without explosive nuclear testing.
Explosive nuclear tests have not been needed for many years. Indeed, the atomic bomb “Liitle Boy” dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, had not been tested so high was the confidence in the design and the non-nuclear testing of its components. Since then and until 1992, when the US voluntarily halted nuclear testing, it had conducted 1054 explosive nuclear tests. From the perspective of innovation in nuclear weapons design, the accumulation of data from prior tests and the available supercomputer capability tests is not necessary. For example, Israel is assessed to have roughly a hundred warheads, but it has never admitted to testing and has a policy to neither confirm nor deny this capability. In contrast, North Korea probably wished to be acknowledged as a nuclear weapons state and conducted verifiable explosive tests. Even so, North Korea has not conducted an explosive nuclear test since 2017. At present, all nuclear weapons states, whether or not they have ratified the CTBT (the US has not), are observing the testing moratorium. The question of whether Iran can be persuaded to forgo nuclear weapons remains unresolved.
US-Russian collaboaration on Nuclear weapons
In 1991, at the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the separation of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, there was a collaboration between Russia and the United States to ensure the security of the nuclear weapons in the former Soviet states. The program was extremely successful, though short-lived, and demonstrated that collaboration between the nuclear weapons scientists of two countries was possible.
Now laregly forgotten, these cooperative efforts between the US and Russia to secure nuclear weapons in the former Soviet states after the USSR’s collapse was a remarkable achievement, often overshadowed by other events of the time.
Here’s a summary of what took place: The Challenge:
Putting weapons-grade plutonium to peaceful uses
Was the reprocessing of Russian weapons-grade plutonium by the US also part of this effort or was it a separate program?
Another important aspect of US-Russia nuclear security cooperation. While related to the overall efforts to reduce nuclear dangers after the Soviet collapse, the reprocessing of Russian weapons-grade plutonium was a separate, though interconnected, program. Here’s how it worked:
The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA)
Key takeaway: The reprocessing of Russian weapons-grade plutonium was a distinct program from the CTR, but both were integral to the broader effort to reduce nuclear risks after the Cold War. These initiatives highlight the importance of continued US-Russia cooperation in addressing nuclear security challenges.
You’re asking about the countries that have signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and whether any are bound to observe it even though it hasn’t entered into force. Here’s the situation: Signatories and Ratifiers:
It would be fair to say that explosive nuclear weapons testing is not needed to address any change in the perceived threat from Russia or China; new warhead designs do not require explosive testing. Testing is not required to maintain assurance of the reliability of the stockpile. And each year the US nuclear weapons labs provide this assurance. Testing is not required to establish confidence that the weapon will work or with regard to its reliability. Insofar as any innovation in design is required, this too would not need explosive nuclear testing.
Lastly, it is sometimes claimed that scientists will leave the labs in a kind of “brain drain’’ without the opportunity to test their wits with actual tests, despite the complications and possible biological and environmental consequences associated with the nuclear explosive testing. Aside from the devastating legacy of radiation-induced sickness in addition to the shockwave and burn deaths caused instantly by the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US tests in the Marshall Islands and at Los Alamos and the Nevada test site have left thousands of incompensated victims of radiation-induced sickness. The situation is comparable for tests conducted in the former Soviet Union. The implications of radiation accidents have become generally understood as a result of a string of nuclear reactor accidents from the first Plutonium production facilities, such as Hanford, WA and Windscale, Cumbria, to Chernobyl, Ukraine, and Fukushima, Japan.
Over the past decade, there has been a steady negation of international security, both those impacting the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons states and those addressing strategic arms limitations between the United States and Russia. In 2017, the United States withdrew from the INF treaty limiting intermediate-range nuclear forces, citing Russian violations of the agreement restricting the development and testing of new weapons in that category. In 2018, the United States announced that it was unilaterally withdrawing from the multilateral agreement with Iran designed to restrain that country’s development of nuclear weapons. The Russian Parliament declared the nation’s withdrawal from its ratification of the CTBT, citing the United States Congress’s failure to ratify the treaty from the time it was signed in 1996. Both Russia and the United States have new missiles and other weapons systems in an advanced state of development, though President Putin has suspended all strategic arms control negotiations with the US. The existing strategic arms reduction treaty will expire in February 2026 with a dim prospect of being extended or replaced.
To resume explosive nuclear testing in these circumstances is simply for the purposes of sabre rattling. It is hard to see what political purposes such a resumption of testing acheives. While the prospective negative outcomes from a resumption of testing are easy to identify.
For instance, if the reason given for the resumption of testing is concern over nuclear weapons development by China, that country can proceed to develop new warheads without redorting to testing while using the American resumption to cast the US in a negative light.
By initiating a resumption of nuclear testing, the US’s diminished standing internationally means that the near nuclear states would be even less willing to respond to American pleas for restraint.
There is a widely perceived need for an urgent resumption of negotiations for strategic arms control.
September 19, 1995, the date of the last US nuclear weapons test. It was conducted at the Nevada Test Site.
Israel maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying its nuclear capabilities. Estimates suggest they possess around 90 nuclear warheads.
You’re asking about the countries that have signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and whether any are bound to observe it even though it hasn’t entered into force. Here’s the situation: Signatories and Ratifiers:
A resumption of testing by the United States may lead to renewed testing by Russia and China, but this would not necessarily follow automatically. Certainly, a decision by the United States to resume explosive nuclear testing would generate international condemnation, including the likelihood of initiating protest movements to bring the planned testing to a halt; after all, it is a result of a worldwide protest movement that the present restraint on explosive nuclear testing brought about in the first place.
References
“The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on Earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the Earth.”
David Attenborough
Two incredible people passed away this year: Roger Payne, whose groundbreaking work recording the “Songs of the Humpback Whale” brought attention to these and other majestic cetaceans, many of which were then and are still under threat, and Karen Bakker, whose work, as presented in her book “Sound of Life,” is a fascinating exploration of the hidden world of nature’s sounds made available through the use of digital technologies.
The idea that it might be possible for people to communicate with animals has been part of literature since ancient times. The idea that other animals may possess feelings, consciousness and minds that are not exclusive to humans was largely a philosophical question until the development of behavioral sciences in the mid-twentieth century. Various scientific attempts to communicate with different species, particularly primates and dolphins, began in the 1960s. This discussion explores the individuals and efforts that have been made to establish intelligence and communications in other species on our planet
I would not have known about this film had Niki van de Beek not mentioned it in her blog. It proved easy enough to find on YouTube, was free to watch, and was Sundance nominated for 2020. Having recently visited Luxor I was quickly caught up in the sheer beauty and mystery of the place that the movie captures perfectly. It feels as if you’re there, or at least in the midst of a tourist board travelogue.
Written and directed by Zeina Durra with Andrea Riseborough playing the central character. Hana is returning to Egypt to spend a short vacation at the Winter Palace in Luxor. She’s a doctor whose been working in war torn Syria which has wrought havoc on her emotional state. She travels light, arriving at the fabled Winter Palace hotel with only a large but half empty purse.
It doesn’t take a moment to become enchanted with Riseborough’s portrayal of the enigmatic Hana, but the story becomes quite a challenge to follow as it slowly wanders along. There is a completely out of character part of a one-night stand with a hotel guest who is besotted with her on her first evening at the bar of the hotel. She later needs the hotel manager’s help to avoid being seen by him in the hotel.
If you are listening for the dialogue there’s mostly an extraordinarily effective communication of what’s going on in Hana’s head with the camera’s capture of her expression. But there are curious moments too, as when Hana’s ex takes her to meet his boss none other than Salima Ikram. The Prof appears I guess, as the celebrity Egyptologist she is, while being Hana’s ex’s boss in the movie. In this cameo she first explains the purpose of faience shabtis to Hana followed later over lunch by an explanation of Freud’s interest in Egyptology. It’s during this over lunch chat that Hana without a word abruptly leaves the table to gaze out over the landscape. And who can blame her?
By this time I’ve taken to stalking Hana around Luxor, King’s Valley – there were very few people when I visited recently, but Hana hit the place when there were more guards than tourists. She visits Karnak at night with her ex who she has run into again – quite by chance. He is unsurprisingly mad keen on rekindling their romance but anyone would take the bet that he’s not going to get there. However, his efforts to lead to a funny scene with him and Hana in the hotel pool with him swimming in his underpants to the dismay of the hotel concierge.
Zeina Durra is a widely respected film maker, and Luxor is entirely due it’s critical success. Andrea Riseborough’s performance is also superlative. And of course, there is Luxor and Egypt beautifully captured by the director and cinematography. The films quirkiness has not settled well with audiences and I get that, but Luxor has a friend in me.
