The US Air Force announced on Wednesday that it will retire the most modern cruise missile in the US nuclear arsenal, a "stealth" weapon developed in the 1980s with the ability to evade detection by Soviet radars.
Known as the Advanced Cruise Missile, the weapon is carried by the B-52 bomber and was designed to attack heavily defended sites. It is the most capable among a variety of air-launched nuclear weapons built during the Cold War that remain in the US inventory even as the Pentagon is reducing its overall nuclear arms stockpile.
The Air Force had said as recently as February last year that it expected to keep the missile active until 2030.
If the retirement is carried out as planned, the Advanced Cruise Missile will be the first group of US nuclear weapons to be scrapped since the last of the Air Force's 50 MX Peacekeeper land-based missiles was retired in September 2005.
The decision to retire the fleet has not been announced. It was brought to light by Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.
He noticed that money for the program was cut in the Air Force budget request for next year, and no money is budgeted for it beyond next year; when he inquired, the Air Force acknowledged the retirement decision.
An Air Force spokeswoman, Major Morshe Araujo, confirmed it on Wednesday. She and other Air Force public affairs officials were unable to provide additional details, including the rationale for the decision.
Araujo indicated that the retirement was part of a "balanced force reduction" being carried out to reduce the number of US strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 by Dec. 31, 2012, as required under a US-Russian arms reduction deal signed in Moscow in May 2002.
The treaty does not require that any specific group of nuclear weapons be retired, only that the total number in the US and Russian arsenals be cut to the prescribed range of 1,700-2,200. The Russians still have a nuclear-tipped cruise missile in active service, according to Robert Norris, an expert in American, Soviet and Chinese nuclear weapons.
The Defense Department does not confirm the location of nuclear weapons, but private nuclear experts said the fleet of more than 400 Advanced Cruise Missiles is at the nation's two B-52 bomber bases.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS