Navy personnel are forbidden to disclose or even discuss the presence or absence of nuclear weapons aboard any U.S. Navy vessel, according to a new Navy Instruction.
“Military members and civilian employees of the Department of the Navy shall not reveal, purport to reveal, or cause to be revealed any information, rumor, or speculation with respect to the presence or absence of nuclear weapons or components on board any specific ship, station or aircraft, either on their own initiative or in response, direct or indirect, to any inquiry.”
See OPNAV Instruction 5721.1F, “Release of Information on Nuclear Weapons and on Nuclear Capabilities of U.S. Forces,” February 3, 2006.
The new Instruction was first spotted by Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.
See his paper “The Neither Confirm Nor Deny Policy: Nuclear Diplomacy at Work,” February 2006.
In recent months, we’ve seen much of these decades’ worth of progress erased. Contracts for evaluations of government programs were canceled, FFRDCs have been forced to lay off staff, and federal advisory committees have been disbanded.
This report outlines a framework relying on “Cooperative Technical Means” for effective arms control verification based on remote sensing, avoiding on-site inspections but maintaining a level of transparency that allows for immediate detection of changes in nuclear posture or a significant build-up above agreed limits.
At a recent workshop, we explored the nature of trust in specific government functions, the risk and implications of breaking trust in those systems, and how we’d known we were getting close to specific trust breaking points.
tudents in the 21st century need strong critical thinking skills like reasoning, questioning, and problem-solving, before they can meaningfully engage with more advanced domains like digital, data, or AI literacy.