In Southern California (11:45 p.m. on Election Day), a joint team of Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen and Navy aircrew launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with multiple targetable re-entry vehicles from aboard the Airborne Launch Control System (ALCS) at the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Activists from around California, including Tri-Valley CAREs Executive Director, Scott Yundt, gathered at the gates of the Space Force Base to witness and protest the tests with signs and microphones. Following the launch, two protestors were moved to cross the property line into the base as a protest and were promptly detained, cited and released by the Military Police.
At these tests, which occur several times a year, the weapons are launched from the Vandenberg base near Lompoc, California, and aimed at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, nearly 4,800 miles away, damaging human communities and ecosystems. The Marshall Islands are forced to bear the overwhelming environmental costs of U.S. nuclear weapons testing.
Maintaining these weapons is a huge waste of resources. The U.S. has committed to spending hundreds of billions of dollars to “modernize” its ICBM force, which in practice means replacing the entire system. The ICBM program is now an astonishing 81% over budget and years behind schedule, not including the expense for its new W87-1 nuclear warhead development being done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the new plutonium pits that will be built at Los Alamos National Laboratory and/or the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The plutonium pits for the W87-1 are the subject of Tri-Valley CAREs’ recent litigation victory with colleague groups against the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Today, nuclear tensions and the risk of nuclear use are considered to be at their highest in decades. Introducing these tests is a risk of nuclear escalation and the possibility of misinterpretation of a test into the mix.
The use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic consequences for humanity, the environment, and future generations. The only way to prevent this is through complete nuclear disarmament.
By Raiza Marciscano, Livermore
To learn more visit https://trivalleycares.org/