A "suitcase" bomb is a very compact and portable nuclear weapon and could have the dimensions of 60 x 40 x 20 centimeters or 24 x 16 x 8 inches. It was fought between the United States of America, Russian Federation, and the People's Liberation and Resistance. H-912 transport container for Mk-54 SADM Weve had several changes of government and actually it would be a great bargaining tool to say see how honest were being, Alexander said. As a benchmark, the uranium fission bomb dropped on Hiroshima was just over ten kilotons. Among these three scenarios, the presence of portable devices in Kazakhstan is the least likely, since it was not a border republic. Wade confirms the U.S. built its own version of the suitcase nuke, a device known as a SADM. I do however, remember, a very senior Clinton administration official saying that with high confidence they could account for 99% of the Soviet weapons. Wade said. It is well known that Mr. bin Laden and others, at least as I read, have tried for some time to buy nuclear weapons. I doubt that terrorists have them but I\'m confident that we This "implosion assembly" will not actually increase the mass of fissile material present, but will increase its density considerably, allowing it to become supercritical. The early 1990s was a period of particularly high risk both due to socioeconomic conditions and also because the massive removal of nuclear weapons to Russia from outside the Soviet Union and from other former Soviet republics put an unusual stress on the system. Quite shockingly, Lebed said that 100 of the Soviet stockpile were missing and unaccounted for. Tank crews learned quickly that little could blunt the explosive forces. This procedure included thorough authentication of each warhead delivered from Ukraine by representatives of both sides, including the checking of serial numbers against the logs kept at the 12th GUMO in Moscow. First, the probability that any portable nuclear devices were lost prior to or after the breakup of the Soviet Union appears low; the scenarios of loss offered by the special commission in 1996 are actually the least plausible among other possible scenarios. Various estimates suggest that weapons-grade plutonium costs around $4000 a gram. According to reports in late 1998, including a detailed one in the London-based, Arab daily,Al-Watan Al-Arabi, Chechens acquired approximately 20 tactical nuclear weapons from Russian facilities, to be subsequently transferred to bin Laden for a sum of $30 million in cash plus two tons of opium. Suitcases Nukes, Improvised Nuclear Device, Terrorist and Cults. The suitcase also includes a list of secret bunkers where the president and his staff can take refuge during a nuclear war. Suitcase Nukes have been a fascination of hollywood and spy television shows, as well as a concern for members of Congress throughout the Cold War and after. The widely used word suitcase is misleading since these devices were quite heavy (no less than 60 lb, probably considerably more), but they could have been moved by one, but more likely, two people. Another potential weak link in the chain of custody is dismantlement facilities, where these devices are kept for some time prior to elimination. [14]For the number of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in 1991 by category, see Alexei Arbatov, Sokrashchenie Nestrategicheskikh Yadernykh Vooruzhenii [Reduction of Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons], in Alexei Arbatov, ed.,Yadernye Vooruzheniya i Bezopasnost Rossii[Nuclear Weapons and Russias Security] (Moscow: IMEMO, 1997), p. 56; and Alexei Arbatov, Deep Cuts and De-Alerting: A Russian Perspective, in Harold Feiveson, ed.,The Nuclear Turning Point(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), p. 311. Lebed claimed that the devices had a yield of 1 kiloton (equivalent to 1000 tons of TNT), measured 60 x 40 x 20 centimetres (24 x 16 x 8 inches) and, prior to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, had been distributed to members of the GRU (foreign military intelligence directorate).That notion such weapons might exist and that examples of them may be unaccounted for is a worrying thought to say the least! All Osama bin Laden will have to do is to purchase the cache site in America, Gritz said. [10], Despite the Russian governments rejection of Lebeds claims however, the resulting public interest from Lebed's television appearances would eventually provoke a congressional hearing held between 1-2 October 1997 intended on discussing "Nuclear Terrorism and Countermeasures. [15]National Report of the Russian Federation on the Implementation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, April 25, 2000; Statement of the Delegation of the Russian Federation at the First Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 NPT Review Conference Under Article VI of the Treaty (New York), April 11, 2002. Lebed stated that these devices were made to look like suitcases, and that he had learned of their existence only a few years earlier. A new think tank report . Not sure why you'd need to import it, though, when there are like ~50 labs around the country that work with or can generate nuclear materials. Consequently, the possibility that nuclear weapons could have been intercepted and captured by a local group seems low: Information about such an event could not have been concealed within the MOD and, furthermore, we would have known about the use of force to defend or recapture nuclear weapons. Second, even if any devices were lost, their effectiveness should be very low or maybe even non-existent, especially if the loss occurred during the period of the greatest risk, in the early 1990s. [31]Parliamentary Hearings on the Security and Safety of Nuclear Facilities, inYadernyi Kontrol, No. Both the United States and the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons small enough to . as someone that lived through 9/11 and breathed the ashes that had filled the air im confident when i say there were no bombs of any sort. Representatives from the Caucasus (especially North Caucasus) or Central Asia, as well as non-Slavic people of Russia, were usually avoided. During the 1960s, intelligence agencies received reports from defectors that Soviet military intelligence officers were carrying portable nuclear devices in suitcases. Suitcase nukes have been popularly depicted through two images: a backpack and a . There is a clip from a TV documentary about the M65 \"Davy Crockett\" on YouTube called There have been many instances, especially during the first and the second, ongoing wars in Chechnya. The southern boarder is wide open with a long established smuggling infrastructure, a suitcase nuke could conceivably be brought in although the risk involved to the cartels and Mexico in the aftermath probably out weighs anyone actually allowing it no matter the price, in fact i could see the cartels guarding against such an act survival being There are two important factors to consider when discussing nuclear terrorism. Russian MOD and Minatom officials could be expected to deny anything, regardless of whether allegations were completely or even partially correct. Several broad considerations suggest that the story about portable nuclear devices should be taken seriously, with a caveat that their existence cannot be viewed as an established fact. Much like the American-made TOW, it was wire-guided at launch. nuclear device, the population near the site of the explosion and in the fallout path, and weather con-ditions. As the Sagger flew at a relatively low speed and produced a prodigious smoke and dust signature, it would quickly reveal the position of its unit. They could be, of course, dismantled to extract weapons-grade plutonium, which could then be used in a cruder nuclear device or for a dirty bomb; but in this case, the problem of suitcase nukes is virtually indistinguishable from the broader problem of safety and security of all Russian nuclear weapons and weapons-grade fissile materials. He has collected military small arms and headgear since he was 12 years old. Shortly after the September 11th attacks, the CIA was worried about top-secret intelligence revealing missing Russian nuclear devices, the creation of suitcase nuclear bombs, and that al Qaeda was trying to purchase or build nuclear weapons. Multiple news sources immediately linked this story to the 1997 statement by the late General Alexander Lebed, who claimed that a special commission established by the Russian government in 1996 could not account for about 100 portable nuclear devices (commonly known as "nuclear suitcases"). Russians make cavites for gas with those devices. Consequently, they should be subject to the same risks as other weapons, exacerbated by their small size. One of these tactical nuclear devices is the so-called backpack or suitcase nuke essentially a nuclear device so small, it could be transported in a backpack or in a persons luggage. Soviet production of the 24-lb. [9] Namely, major concerns regarding the new governments overall security and control of its nuclear stockpile came into question on 30 May 1997 when an American congressional delegation sent to Russia met with General Aleksandr Lebed, former Secretary of the Russian Security Council. The Pu-239 weighs 10.5 kg and is 10.1 cm across. Article discussing the development of smaller nuclear weapons in the U.S.A. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suitcase_nuclear_device&oldid=1144538937, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 14 March 2023, at 07:53. The first combat mission of KGB Spetsnaz was in 1979 in Kabul, where they participated in the capture of Amins palace. [1]Indeed, suitcase nukes often seem a matter of fiction rather than that of fact. Stationary nuclear mines with such a short warranty period simply did not make sense, while portable devices for use behind enemy lines could still be acceptable. To . [28]An attempt to acquire suitcase weapons was specifically mentioned in relation to Kazakhstan. Whether it is a nuclear war due to a regional or international conflict, or a lone terrorist with a suitcase nuclear device, surviving a nuclear blast and the ensuing nuclear fallout will present you with the most difficult survival challenge you have ever faced. As it happens, the theoretical device Subltette describes has physical dimensions closely resembling that of a weapon tested by the United States. Ralph L. Seifer, Long Beach, California. [17]M. Rastopshchin, Inzhenernyye Boepripasy,Tekhnika i Vooruzhenie,No. [18]Alexander Shirokorad, Makaya Bomba Dlya Maloi Voiny,Nezevisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie,March 6, 1998, p. 6. The first is a statement in 1995 by the director of the Ministry of Defense Ecological Center, Col. Boris Alexeev, about nuclear devices that weighed 90 kilograms (kg). [12] The devices, "identified as RA-115s (or RA-115-01s for submersible weapons)" weigh from fifty to sixty pounds. The uncertainty about classification could also explain the silence of non-governmental experts. MW INTERVIEW: Desert Oracle author Ken Layne, MW INTERVIEW Rey Hernandez discusses changes after, MW INTERVIEW: Dr. Dan Laird on Opioid Conspiracy, MYSTERY WIRE Animal medical testing interview with, Hidden Las Vegas History: the Hughes House (aka:, MYSTERY WIRE DMT: The Spirit Molecule Dr David, Mystery Wire Wild horse advocate Jerry Reynoldson, Nevada landed in UFO spotlight 75 years ago, Skinwalker Ranch and the hitchhiker effect. According to one Russian expert, the size of these shells (15 cm in diameter and 50 cm in length) apparently represents the smallest size of the nuclear device Russian designers were able to achieve (the 130-mm naval guns did not have nuclear shells).[18]. Warheads produced in the late 1960s or in the 1970s should have undergone major maintenance at least once by the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union. There is also the eerie acronym, SADM, or Special Atomic Demolition Munitions. Even today, should a tank crew see an enemy with a suitcase, they should be concerned! This method of assembling a supercritical mass is known as "two point linear implosion". Without scheduled maintenance, these devices apparently can produce only minimal yield and eventually possibly no yield at all, and can only serve as a source of small amounts of weapons-grade fissile materials. [10], Official and semi-official Russian sources immediately denied Lebeds and Yablokovs stories, but their testimonies gradually revealed bits and pieces of information, raising suspicion that small nuclear devices did exist and even providing a glimpse of their properties. MYSTERY WIRE A Pakistani journalist who interviewed Osama bin Laden says the terrorist leader claimed to have his own nuclear and chemical capabilities. Without additional data, it is impossible to say with an acceptable level of certainty whether any number of these weapons was stolen during and following the breakup of the Soviet Union, as Alexander Lebed and a few other Russians claimed. However, it appears only rarely are the launcher controls including the joystick unit included but for collectors, it would appear the rocket is the true curiosity piece. One uncorroborated report in December 2000 claimed that the intelligence agency of an unnamed European country intercepted a shipment of approximately 20 nuclear warheadsoriginating from Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraineintended for bin Laden and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. The threat was too scary to stay secret, government officials said, and word leaked out. And, you know, I suppose thats theoretically achievable, Wade said. Yet, the worse case so far was limited to the burying of a container with radioactive isotopes in a Moscow park. Based on the various media reports and articles I have examined, the alleged nuclear "backpacks" or "suitcases" would appear to be in the one to ten kiloton range. [6]Yuri Fedorov, Substrategicheskoe Yadernoe Oruzhie i Interesy Bezopasnosti Rossii, Nauchnye Zapiski (Research Papers) No. With my background, that is not a very comfortable answer.. Sometimes people exaggerate, or are genuinely mistaken, but the claims of these two men appear to be the only "evidence" supporting the notion of missing suitcase nukes. Thus, it would be safe to assume that without proper maintenance, portable nuclear devices might still produce chain reaction, but yield would be minimal, and with time, possibly non-existent. [30]Report Links Bin-Ladin, Nuclear Weapons,Al-Watan Al-Arabi, November 13, 1998 (FBIS FTS19981113001081); Emil Torabi, Bin Ladens Nuclear Weapons,Muslim Magazine(Winter 1998), www.muslimmag.org,accessed on July 13, 1999, no longer available; Michael Binyon, Osama Bin Laden Said to Have Acquired Tactical Nuclear Weapons,Times(London), October 7, 1998. Papers ) No a nuclear war subject to the same risks as other weapons, by... Is dismantlement facilities, inYadernyi Kontrol, No in relation to Kazakhstan Kazakhstan. Union developed nuclear weapons small enough to and his staff can take refuge during a nuclear.. 17 ] M. Rastopshchin, Inzhenernyye Boepripasy, Tekhnika i Vooruzhenie, No of! March 6, 1998, p. 6 a supercritical mass is known ``., were usually avoided much like the American-made TOW, it was fought between the United States America. M. Rastopshchin, Inzhenernyye Boepripasy, Tekhnika i Vooruzhenie, No Pakistani journalist who interviewed Osama Laden... 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