Skip to main content

Home/ Geopolitics Weekly/ Group items tagged Global Hawk

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Pedro Gonçalves

Pentagon Prefers Blimps to $35M Spy Planes - Technology News Briefs | Newser - 0 views

www.newser.com/...-blimps-to-35m-spy-planes.html

US Military Robert Gates Predator Global Hawk Drones UAVs Blimps

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 06 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Financially grounded by the recession, the Pentagon and governments around the world are launching blimps to spy on their enemies, the Economist reports. Such balloons cost far less than Predator and Global Hawk drones—which can sell for $35 million each—and stay airborne for more than a week, while drones last about 30 hours. Blimps are also hard to shoot down, even when they are hit.
  • Blimps also suit Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who said he wants "75% solutions" enacted in weeks or months, not "exquisite systems” that take years.
Pedro Gonçalves

The Obama nuclear doctrine | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...obama-nuclear-review

US Nuclear Weapons

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 06 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Obama has narrowed the role of nuclear weapons in US defence strategy, but has also left significant loopholes that will disappoint arms control advocates.
  • The biggest change is arguably in the "negative security assurance" contained in the review, a guarantee the US will not use its nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The Bush nuclear posture from 2001 (handily summarised here by GlobalSecurity.org) left open the option of using nuclear weapons against biological, chemical or mass conventional attack.
  • But here is the catch in the Obama doctrine. The tricky word is compliance. The US and its allies argue that Iran is not in compliance with its obligations under the NPT treaty, leaving Iran a potential target in the US nuclear operational plan. Depending on Syria's relations with the IAEA, the review could also be read as a warning to Damascus.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • There is another caveat - a concession to the nuclear hawks at the Pentagon. The negative security assurance is not irrevocable.Given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons and the rapid pace of bio-technology development, the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and US capacities to counter that threat.
1 - 2 of 2
Showing 20▼ items per page