NEWS

The United Kingdom’s King Charles III has stripped his brother, Andrew, of the title of prince and ordered him to leave his lavish residence near Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday. Observers say the Palace is finally taking decisive action over Andrew’s connections to the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations that the two men sexually abused Virginia Giuffre when she was a teenager.

Andrew, 65, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth and younger brother of King Charles, has faced growing scrutiny over his personal conduct and ties to Epstein. Earlier this month, he was pressured into giving up his title of Duke of York.

“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life,” Andrew said at the time. He also said he “vigorously den[ies] the accusations” against him.

Buckingham Palace hopes to be seen as taking a decisive step, drawing a line after years of compromising scandals. In 2022, Andrew was removed from numerous royal duties due to his connections to Epstein.

How did Andrew’s ties to Epstein come to light?

Born in 1960, Andrew was once one of the more popular members of the British royal family, known for his military service as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War in 1982.

For years, however, Andrew’s personal antics have generated embarrassing headlines, testing the patience of the royal family. In 2024, for instance, court documents revealed that a close adviser on Andrew’s business affairs was a suspected Chinese spy.

But it was Andrew’s persistent ties to Jeffrey Epstein that ultimately forced King Charles’s hand and led to Andrew stepping down from his royal duties in 2019. Epstein died by suicide in a US prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

In 2021, Virginia Giuffre – one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein – filed a lawsuit alleging rape and sexual abuse against then-Prince Andrew. She claimed she had been forced to have sex with him on multiple occasions when she was 17, a minor under US law.

Prince Andrew has always denied Giuffre’s allegations, even insisting that a now-infamous photograph that appeared to show them together had been doctored. But in 2022, he agreed to settle the lawsuit, costing him as much as $16m.

Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April this year. She was 41 years old.

Earlier this month, British newspapers reported that Andrew had emailed Epstein in February 2011 – more than two months after the prince told the BBC he had severed all ties with his former associate.

The email was sent at a time of heightened media coverage of the Epstein scandal, with Andrew telling Epstein they were “in this together” and would “have to rise above it”.

These disclosures ultimately prompted Buckingham Palace’s response on Thursday.

What has Buckingham Palace said?

In a statement released on Thursday night, Buckingham Palace said the King’s brother is now to be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

He will no longer be styled “Prince” or “His Royal Highness (HRH)” and he has lost his dukedom, earldom, barony, military ranks and royal patronages.

It also announced that he is to be evicted from his residence, the sprawling Royal Lodge that was once home to the Queen Mother, near Windsor Castle, west of London.

“His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation,” the palace statement said.

“These censures are deemed necessary… Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse,” it added.

A palace source said the decision was taken by King Charles, but that he had the support of the wider family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William, in a bid to limit reputational risks to the monarchy.

Elsewhere, culture secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC’s Question Time programme that the king’s latest decision was a “truly brave, important, and correct step”, sending a “powerful message” to survivors of sexual abuse.

Why has Andrew been evicted from Royal Lodge?

In recent weeks, the British press has been rife with speculation about Andrew’s finances after The Times newspaper reported on October 21 that he had not paid rent on his 30-room mansion – known as Royal Lodge – for two decades.

It was revealed that he had a lease on the property stipulating a “peppercorn rent”: In return for carrying out renovations and maintaining the mansion, Andrew was paying a rent of “one peppercorn” each year.

In a rare political intervention, a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday questioned whether Andrew should still be living in the house, which is owned by the monarch and located 5km (3 miles) south of Windsor Castle.

On October 28, the BBC also revealed that Prince Andrew had hosted Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s associate, later jailed for sex trafficking – and Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced film producer convicted of rape, at Royal Lodge.

The three visited Andrew’s home in 2006 to celebrate his daughter’s 18th birthday, just two months after a United States arrest warrant had been issued for Epstein over the sexual assault of a minor.

Where will Andrew live now?

It is understood that Andrew will move to a property on the private Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, which will be privately funded by his brother, the king.

The wider Sandringham Estate covers approximately 8,100 hectares (20,000 acres) with 240 hectares (600 acres) of gardens, and the Palace has not stipulated which property he will stay in.

It is also understood that Andrew’s move to Sandringham will take place “as soon as practicable”.

His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson – who still lives at Royal Lodge with him – will also move out of Royal Lodge and make her own living arrangements.

Have other royals in the UK been stripped of their titles in the past?

The stripping of Prince Andrew’s royal titles by King Charles III is unusual in modern British history.

Other royals have relinquished titles voluntarily – such as Princess Diana giving up HRH following her divorce from King Charles – and King Edward VIII, who abdicated from the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American woman who had been divorced twice.

Others have lost their privileges for political reasons – such as Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, for siding with Germany in World War I – but there has not been a case of a reigning monarch or immediate family being stripped of their status for scandal-related reasons.

In that sense, Andrew’s case is the most serious demotion of a senior British royal in recent memory.

Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has told Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents they are legally protected from prosecution and local officials cannot arrest them.

Fox News host Will Cain questioned Miller during an October 24 interview. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Cain said, “talked about interfering with, arresting, ICE agents in Illinois”.

Cain asked Miller under what federal authority the Trump administration could arrest Pritzker if the governor tried to arrest ICE agents.

“To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties,” Miller said. “And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you is committing a felony.”

Miller said his answer applied to any local or state official “who conspires or engages in activity that unlawfully impedes federal law enforcement conducting their duties”.

The day before Miller’s comments, Pritzker signed an executive order establishing the Illinois Accountability Commission to document federal law enforcement actions and refer possible law violations to local and state agencies for investigation. Chicago is the latest target in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and agents have arrested more than 3,000 people there.

Pritzker acknowledged in an October 16 interview that “federal agents typically have federal immunity, but they’re not immune from the federal government holding them accountable and responsible”.

His statement is less sweeping than Miller’s, and Pritzker noted that the federal government can prosecute federal agents.

Immigration agents, like other law enforcement officers, have broad protections when conducting official duties. That doesn’t mean they can’t be held legally accountable if they break state or federal law.

“Federal officials are not categorically immune from state criminal prosecution, even while on duty,” Bryna Godar, a lawyer at the University of Wisconsin’s State Democracy Research Initiative, wrote in a July 17 report.

When contacted for comment, the White House pointed PolitiFact to an October 23 letter that US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote to California officials.

“The Department of Justice views any arrests of federal agents and officers in the performance of their official duties as both illegal and futile,” Blanche wrote.

He cited several federal laws and provisions, including the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. The clause limits when states can prosecute federal agents who break state law, but it does not act as blanket immunity, legal experts said.

Miller’s statement is “wrong on its face”, Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown University constitutional law professor, wrote in his October 27 newsletter.

The federal government can prosecute immigration agents who break the law

Federal immigration agents can’t break the law with impunity.

In 2024, a federal judge convicted and sentenced to federal prison a US Customs and Border Protection agent for using excessive force against two people at the southern border. Department of Homeland Security watchdog officers investigated the case.

The federal government has cited its power to hold agents accountable in court arguments. After a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a 15-year-old Mexican boy at the southern border in 2010, the Justice Department said in a 2019 Supreme Court brief that the federal government investigates allegations of excessive force by agents “and may bring a federal criminal prosecution where appropriate”.

Non-government organisations can also sue the federal government for its agents’ actions. Several groups in Chicago, including journalism organisations, sued the Trump administration saying federal agents are using “a pattern of extreme brutality in a concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press and civilians”.

In that case, federal District Judge Sara Ellis ordered immigration agents not to use tear gas and other riot control tactics unless people are posing an immediate threat. If the agents are going to use tear gas, they are required to give a verbal warning first.

After reports that agents weren’t following the court order, Ellis ordered Gregory Bovino, the senior Border Patrol official overseeing the federal immigration actions in Chicago, to meet with her every weeknight to report all confrontations officers have with the public. A federal appeals court has since temporarily paused Ellis’s order.

Vladeck wrote that even if the Trump administration does not investigate or prosecute immigration agents who might have broken the law, it doesn’t mean the federal government doesn’t have the power to do so.

Pritzker said his state’s commission seeks to document actions that could be prosecuted in the future.

State governments aren’t barred from prosecuting federal agents

State governments can also prosecute immigration agents if they break state law. However, there is a limitation known as supremacy clause immunity, which comes from the US Constitution’s clause that says federal law supersedes conflicting state laws.

Protections against state prosecution for federal agents date back to a 1890 Supreme Court decision. David Neagle, a US marshal assigned to protect a Supreme Court justice, shot and killed a man who assaulted the justice. California arrested Neagle and charged him with murder. The Supreme Court ruled that the state couldn’t prosecute Neagle because he was carrying out official duties.

Generally, federal agents are protected from state prosecution if their actions were authorised by federal law, and if the actions were “necessary and proper” for agents to fulfil their duties.

A federal court ruled in 1990 that a customs agent was immune from state charges for speeding while driving during a drug operation. The agent acted under US laws and was justified in concluding speeding was necessary to fulfil his duties, the court said.

But a US marine wasn’t given immunity in 1990 after he killed a person in a car accident while he was driving in a military convoy in North Carolina.

“In short, while Supremacy Clause immunity grants federal officials a partial shield from state prosecution, that immunity is not absolute,” Godar wrote.

Contrary to Miller’s statement, Vladeck wrote, it’s not a felony “for local or state authorities to arrest someone who they have probable cause to believe committed a state crime”.

If a state brought charges against federal immigration agents, the court would have to determine whether an officer reasonably would have thought the actions were necessary to carry out federal duties.

“That’s a generous standard, to be sure,” Vladeck wrote. “But it is by no means a get-out-of-prosecution-free card.”

Our ruling

Miller said: “To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.”

Immigration agents, like other law enforcement officers, have broad protections when they’re conducting official duties. But they’re not immune from prosecution if they break state or federal law.

The federal government can and does prosecute federal officers who break the law.

States can’t prosecute agents for breaking state law if the agents were acting under the reasonable confines of their official duties. But those restrictions aren’t absolute.

The statement contains an element of truth; federal immigration agents have some immunity from state prosecution. But the protections aren’t as sweeping as Miller made them sound, giving a different impression. Federal agents can and have been prosecuted by states.

We rate Miller’s statement Mostly False.

Earlier this year, Ya Jalo Mustapha stayed with her two sons, Ali and Bor, in Njimiya, a village in Sambisa Forest, Borno State, North East Nigeria, an area under the governance of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). 

In Njimiya, as in other villages under its control, ISWAP’s authority is absolute — enforced through rules, fear, and constant surveillance.

One day, Ya Jalao’s sons went out and never returned. No one could say where they had gone or whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, rumours spread that some men from nearby settlements had been seized by the military during raids.

Such disappearances are not uncommon in Borno State, where years of insurgency have blurred the lines between civilians and suspects. In one well-known case, 42 men from Gallari village were arrested by the military on suspicion of being Boko Haram members and detained for 12 years without trial; only three were recently released. Other times, the insurgents also abduct and forcibly recruit young men. 

In October, five months after their disappearance, Ya Jalo’s daughters-in-law remarried Boko Haram terrorists. 

Stranded with her four grandchildren, Ya Jalo knew she could not remain in Njimiya. Her eleven-year-old granddaughter, Magana, was next in line to be forced into marriage. “A suitor was already chosen for her,” Ya Jalo told HumAngle. “I was at the risk of losing her, too.”

Staying in the villages is rarely a sign of loyalty. For most families, it is because they risk execution if they flee, while staying at least allows them to eat from their farms.

Every day brought a deeper fear for Ya Jalo. She worried that her grandsons would slowly absorb the teachings of the insurgents. With no schooling except the sermons of Boko Haram, the risk of their indoctrination weighed heavily on her.

She kept her plan secret until the morning of her escape. That day, Ya Jalo informed neighbours that she was visiting a relative in a nearby settlement with her grandchildren. That began the three-day trek to Bama town. They travelled through bush paths, walking mostly at dawn and dusk until they reached the camp. 

“The journey was full of risks and uncertainty,” she said. “Even the children don’t know where we’re heading.” They eventually arrived. 

A different kind of struggle

For families fleeing Boko Haram-held villages, arriving at the Bama IDP Camp feels like stepping out of a nightmare. Many come with the hope that they are walking into safety, a place where food, shelter, and healing will finally be waiting. 

But what they find is a different struggle altogether. The displacement camp has exceeded its capacity, with hundreds of people living there. In early 2025, the government relocated about 3,000 persons to Dar Jamal, a small fraction that barely reduced the camp’s congestion. 

New arrivals, like Ya Jalo, often sleep in the open because no shelters are available. Since she was with children, Ya Jalo moved in with a relative who lives nearby. 

At the camp, individuals are required to register with the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), which forwards the information to ZOA International. The organisation provides breakfast and lunch for five days and a cash token of ₦11,450 per person for three months. 

However, there is no provision for education, healthcare, and psychosocial support.  

Several others who are fleeing their homes for refuge at the camps are confronted with this reality. “We thought this would be a place to rest, but it is only another kind of struggle,” Hajja Kura lamented. She fled Zarmari in October, another Boko Haram stronghold, in early July to the Bama displacement camp.

The absence of proper shelter and long-term care leaves many returnees questioning whether their escape was worthwhile. Some, disillusioned, quietly return to their villages, where the danger of insurgents still lurks.

Children at risk

In Bama, Ya Jalo’s fears for her grandchildren continue in new ways. She often worries about how years of exposure to insurgent preaching may have shaped their minds.

“The children are like wet clay,” said Abba Kura, a community leader at Bama. “Whoever holds them first will shape them. In many of those villages, it was Boko Haram who held them first.”

The effect is visible across the camp. When HumAngle visited, ten-year-old Modu Abbaye recalled lessons he learned in the forest. “Boko Haram are kind,” he said. “They always preach to us not to cheat people, to be kind, and not to insult others.”

Even though the group killed his parents and his friend’s father, a schoolteacher, Modu still speaks of them with a child’s innocence. He has never attended a formal school and insists he never will because “it is forbidden”.

“I don’t want to go to school,” said Modu. He lives with a relative at the camp.

Due to the absence of structured education and psychological support at the camps, many children remain caught between conflicting identities, victims and vessels of the very ideology that uprooted them.

“Children growing up in displacement camps or conflict zones suffer disrupted education, delayed development, and persistent anxiety. They often struggle to imagine futures beyond survival,” said Mohammad Usman Bunu, an educator at Future Prowess School for displaced and vulnerable children in Maiduguri.

For Ya Jalo, that future feels uncertain too. As she watches her grandchildren adjust to life outside of their hometown, she is haunted by the same questions: what kind of lives will they build without their fathers and mothers, and will they ever know peace again? Her thoughts often drift to Ali and Bor, the sons who vanished months earlier.

“I also came here to wait for news of my sons,” she said. “I feel closer to them in Bama. I believe they are with the military, and one day I will be reunited with them.”

In Borno’s camps, stories like hers echo everywhere. Families are displaced, divided, and still holding on to hope that the war has not taken everything from them.

“You have control.” I grip the control column with my right hand and follow my pilot “Lambo’s” instructions, rolling the M-346 jet trainer into a left-hand turn and applying back stick pressure to ramp up the g-force. “Keep pulling, keep pulling,” he says calmly as I watch the g-meter in the top left of the head-up display tick up past 5g. As he eases the throttles back to idle power, the speed begins to bleed off. As it does, the jet automatically responds by reducing the amount of g-force my stick pressure allows. The jet’s programmable safety system is preventing us from exceeding a pre-selected angle-of-attack limit that means we can’t depart from controlled flight – a critical element of the M-346’s flight control system that enables carefree handling.

TWZ was provided the opportunity to experience many of the M-346’s training-related design safety features first hand during a visit and demonstration flight at the Beech Factory Airport in Wichita, Kansas, in October. Beechcraft, part of Textron Aviation, and its industry partner Leonardo of Italy, shipped a prototype M-346FA (Fighter Attack) variant to the U.S. in September for a series of demos designed to help cultivate awareness of the jet’s capabilities. The two companies are jointly preparing to offer a bespoke M-346N variant in response to the U.S. Navy’s Undergraduate Jet Training System (UJTS) competition, which seeks to replace the aging T-45 Goshawk.

Fly along with us in the M-346 by clicking the video at the top of the story and check out our full walk around tour of the jet in the exclusive video below:

Leonardo test pilot “Lambo” went on to demonstrate what’s known as the Pilot-activated Recovery System, or PARS, which at the touch of a large red button on the console takes control of the jet and returns it to stable flight, should the pilot become disorientated. I was also able to get a feel for the handling performance through a series of aileron rolls and tight turns. Having got a hands-on grasp of the flight control safety features – we moved onto what Leonardo and Beechcraft see as a fundamentally important element of the M-346 – its embedded tactical training system (ETTS).

“Lambo” selected an air-to-air training scenario in the ETTS menu, and a computer-generated radar scope appeared on the left-hand multifunction display. Although the M-346FA variant can be equipped with a real radar, the training variant relies on virtual mission systems generated by the jet’s computers. Acting as my instructor, “Lambo” tee’d up an enemy target on the synthetic radar display on one of the cockpit’s three multifunction screens. Out of beyond visual range, an “Su-27” was now being tracked. He walked me through how to identify and then target and fire upon the hostile aircraft with one of our virtual AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. As well as air-to-air modes, the M-346’s embedded training system can also generate synthetic targets on the ground for attack training with smart munitions, as well as other important air combat scenarios such as engagements by surface-to-air missiles. 

“Lambo” set up another target, this time a C-130 transport aircraft flying within visual range of us. In addition to a radar track, the software can generate a synthetic electro-optical image from a virtual targeting pod. This enables the student to manipulate the pod imagery, in this case to gain a positive visual identification of a target. The set of demonstrations was carefully planned to illustrate some of the many facets of the ETTS, which enables development of mission management skills during flight training and much more, as I’ll explain later.

After 50 minutes, we were back flying the pattern at the Beech Factory Airport before touching down for a full-stop landing.

M-346 development

The baseline M-346 configuration stems from development of the Yak-130, which started in 1991. In search of a technology partner, Russia’s Yalovlev teamed up with Alenia of Italy in 1993 during the improved relations between Europe and Russia in the post-Cold War thaw, and the joint venture resulted in the first flight of a prototype Yak-130/AEM-130 in 1996. This partnership was dissolved in 2000, and both companies parted ways to pursue separate programs.

Alenia (today known as Leonardo) developed its own substantially modified and aerodynamically different version of the jet trainer. The resulting M-346 embodied many of the attributes found in modern front-line fighter aircraft such as multifunction displays, hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls, carefree handling and a helmet-mounted display. The first M-346 was rolled out at the now Leonardo plant at Venegono on June 7, 2003, and made its maiden flight on July 15, 2004.

The lead customer for the M-346 was the Italian Air Force, which procured the aircraft to replace the Aermacchi MB339 jet trainer. As the M-346 entered service with the Italian Air Force, it exposed other air forces and NATO air arms to the aircraft, some of which ultimately seized upon the opportunity to train fighter pilots in partnership with the Italian operator. As the overseas requirement gathered pace, the M-346 became the basis for a new International Flight Training School at Decimomannu in Sardinia from 2018 under a collaboration between the Italian Air Force and Leonardo. Leonardo has also secured sales of the M-346 to Israel, Poland, Singapore and Qatar.

Having initially partnered with General Dynamics and then with Raytheon as prime contractors, Leonardo proceeded alone in offering a version of the M-346 – dubbed the T-100 – for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X trainer competition to replace the T-38 Talon. After a long procurement process, Boeing’s clean-sheet design T-7 Red Hawk was selected by the USAF in 2018.

Leonardo is now partnered with Beechcraft to offer the M-346N to the Navy for the UJTS jet trainer competition, which also looks set to invite proposals from Boeing for the T-7, as well as for the TF-50 from Korea Aerospace Industries/Lockheed Martin, and from SNC for its new Freedom Trainer.

Suitability to replace the T-45

The T-45 Goshawk has been in service for three-and-a-half decades, and it soldiers-on as the Navy’s singular fast jet training aircraft. The Goshawk is used to teach student naval aviators coming from the T-6 Texan II basic trainer, taking them to their first fast jet “hop,” to then learning the skills required for taking off and landing from an aircraft carrier, as they navigate the challenging path towards gaining their coveted ‘wings of gold.’ 

The Navy has been exploring replacement options for the T-45 for several years, although the timeline for acquiring this new aircraft was pushed back substantially in 2023. The Goshawk has had its fair share of issues in recent years, from a high-profile onboard oxygen generation issue to a number of crashes and subsequent groundings, which have had a significant impact on training output.

The M-346 is powered by twin non-afterburning Honeywell F124-GA-200 turbofan engines that produce 6,280 pounds of thrust each, which enables transonic speed performance for the aircraft. Having two engines is noteworthy as a significant number of single-engine T-45 losses have been caused by bird ingestion. “This airplane is a fantastic replacement for the Goshawk because it is not only a high performing twin-engine, fly-by-wire jet, but also because it’s part of an entire training system.” says Steven Helmer, a Textron Aviation and Defense Flight Test and Demonstration pilot.

The initial climb rate of the M-346 is in the region of 22,000 feet per minute. After getting airborne, a pilot can raise the gear and flaps and pitch up to 20-25 degrees nose high, and leave it there as the jet climbs away. “A high thrust-to-weight ratio translates to very good turn performance as well – the aircraft will sustain as much as 8g at low altitude, and 5-6g at medium altitudes,” comments Helmer, who is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

Helmer says that despite having two engines, the M-346N is expected to save in the region of 25-30% in fuel costs per hour compared to the T-45. The bespoke Navy variant is also expected to be offered with an Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto-GCAS).

“The twin-engine setup provides built-in redundancy, particularly for critical systems like electrical and hydraulic, which are independently powered by each engine,” Helmer explains. “This design helps eliminate single points of failure, enhancing overall safety. This advantage becomes even more important with modern aircraft, which demand more onboard power. In contrast, single-engine aircraft with afterburners must rely on highly dependable emergency power units and duplicate several systems to meet safety standards.” 

“The U.S. Navy has indicated to us that they will not require supersonic performance for the UJTS aircraft. There is no advantage to having a supersonic aircraft, particularly in the era of digital fly-by-wire flight controls, which compensate for the change in aerodynamics as an aircraft accelerates through Mach one,” says Helmer. “The ability to sustain supersonic flight comes at a cost in terms of fuel and engine complexity, which would negate some of the operational cost advantage of M-346N. It’s also worth noting that the maximum speed for M-346 is 1.15 Mach, yielding transonic training capability and safety margin for students.”

Blending simulation with live flying

Synthetic training has become an intrinsic element of military flying training and a key requirement for any modern training aircraft. This reflects a desire to “download” flying handling and mission systems management to training aircraft, which are cheaper to operate than frontline platforms. It also helps to simplify the path for new aviators as they progress to type conversion for their operational aircraft.

“It’s incredibly important to have a mature synthetic element because that gives you multiple ways to inject different things into the scenario,” says Helmer. “The maturity of it allows you to inject things in a way that’s realistic and that has already been fed back from the customer to the OEM [original equipment manufacturer] to make the system match reality in the best way possible, and that’s going to allow you to have massive cost savings.”

The M-346 aircraft itself sits at the center of a significant integrated training system. Student aviators coming to the M-346 start their fast jet journey with a set of ground-based training aids that promote familiarity with the aircraft, teach safety procedures and mission systems so they are suitably prepared for live flying in the actual aircraft. The simulator elements include desktop procedural training devices and full-motion dome simulators, which afford students realistic handling and a mission systems training environment. 

The live, virtual, constructive (LVC) element of the training system is particularly noteworthy, as it sits across both the simulator and live flying. The simulators can be connected to real M-346s flying missions. This allows live flights to be linked with simulator ‘flights,’ with a student in the air able to “fly” alongside a student wingman in the simulator on the ground, all overseen by an instructor in a real time monitoring station and all connected together via data link.

“Instead of sending up two jets with two red air aggressor jets for perhaps a 2-v-2 mission to generate one student exercise, with this system we can send up a pair of M-346s and generate two virtual jets that are being flown in the simulator. It means we are using half as many actual aircraft,” Helmer says. “With the same number of airplanes on the line, I can generate sorties faster and get students through the syllabus with a lot less friction, or I can have fewer jets and save money that way as well. So either way it’s going to allow a lot more bang for buck for the U.S. taxpayer.”

“The embedded tactical training system, or ETTS, gives us the live, virtual, constructive capability. That’s the live airplane, the virtual part is all of the tracks we can inject synthetically – whether that’s other friendlies, enemy aircraft, enemy ground troops, surface-to-air threats, things of that nature – into the scenario. The constructive part would be having two airplanes [for example], but each one of us has a virtual wingman, either synthetically injected and working in concert, or being flown in the simulator. So, I’m in the airplane and we’re wingmen or we’re fighting each other. It gives the Navy a lot of flexibility in how they train going forward. We’re going to bring in a lot more virtual training and a lot more flexibility to the syllabus to start introducing some advanced concepts sooner.”

The ETTS utilizes a mission computer inside the jet that enables a fully-integrated live virtual constructive menu of options for the instructor and student. It also allows the students to train with simulated stores and sensors, which were demonstrated during our flight. “You can have imagery that looks like you have a [targeting] pod on the airplane even though you don’t. So when I slew around using my HOTAS controls, just like I would in an F/A-18, that’s going to show me an image on the ground that actually matches reality, because we geo-rectify those images based on where we are. So you set up a scenario based on each base you’re at or the en route portion of a flight, for example, and that’s going to show you that relevant imagery,” says Helmer. 

The M-346’s synthetic radar can simulate a mechanically scanned array radar or an electronically scanned radar. It also includes electronic warfare modes that provide a simulated radar warning receiver, missile approach and launch warning system, laser warning system, countermeasures dispensing, and an active electronic countermeasures system. “It really is up to the customer on what they want to see. So you’re bringing in sensors. It’s not just tracks.”

“As far as looking outside is concerned, you’ve got everything on your screens to cue your eyes in the right direction, but what am I actually going to see when I look outside?

From that point, we go forward into augmented reality, which starts with a helmet mounted display, similar to what F-35 and F/A-18 pilots use in the fleet,” says Helmer. Beechcraft says the M-346N is planned to feature computer-generated imagery in the helmet visor for close range air-to-air training. “Now you’re seeing tracks when you look outside, you’re at least seeing a data link track if not seeing some kind of representation of an airplane. So you may be going to the merge [in a dogfight] with an empty piece of sky, but the system is showing you something that’s actually there. There’s a huge training value in that. Granted, we still want pilots to learn how to work with actual other airplanes, but there’s a huge constructive piece that’s allowing you to build a scenario with very few physical assets.”

The maturity of the M-346 ETTS is viewed by Beechcraft as being a very important factor for UJTS, especially as there will be some critical uses of simulation by the Navy as it retires the T-45 and moves to its next jet, particularly when it comes to training for operations from aircraft carriers.

No call to fly from the aircraft carrier

In March this year, the U.S. Navy publicly released new requirements for its T-45 replacement program, which said the new training aircraft would not need to perform Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) to touchdown. The Navy had already eliminated the requirement for the jets to be able to land on or take off from aircraft carriers, as T-45s have done in the past for student carrier qualifications (CQs).

FCLPs are flown at a land base, and as they are currently flown are designed to mimic as closely as possible the experience of touching down on a real carrier. However, the repeated heavy touchdowns impose a significant structural impact on the airframe and the undercarriage. The current UJTS requirement from the Navy says the new trainer will only be required to fly FCLPs to a wave-off. This means that the student would apply power and perform a go-around instead of touching down. This change to the FCLP syllabus – eliminating repeated touchdowns – means that the new trainer will not “bounce” (touch-and-go on the runways) as students build up their carrier landing skills at their training airfield. Removing FCLP to touchdown from the UJTS requirement opens up the competition to existing land-based training jets, without the need for significant structural modifications.

SNC says that its newly-unveiled clean-sheet Freedom Trainer is the only UJTS competitor currently being offered with a structural design that would allow it to fly FCLP to touchdown. You can read more about this here.

The Navy has already fundamentally changed the way it trains new naval aviators, many of whom don’t fly off a carrier at all until they reach their Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) in charge of the aircraft type they have been assigned to fly in the fleet. “It’s not new,” one former navy instructor pilot told TWZ. “It was done as an experiment initially, but it has now become the default to do initial CQ in the FRS.”

Naval aviators were previously required to fly manual approaches to aircraft carriers, requiring uncompromising levels of skill and competence, with little margin for error. This required skilled throttle and control column inputs to coax an aircraft down onto the deck with precision in order to catch one of the arresting wires. Delta Flight Path technology was conceived to help make the F-35C Lightning II easier to land on an aircraft carrier, even with a pitching and rolling deck. This led to a spin-off program for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler that is known as Magic Carpet or Precision Landing Mode (PLM). Advances in flight control software using PLM have dramatically reduced the piloting challenges of landing carrier-borne strike fighters on a narrow flight deck. PLM features enhanced flight control logic that is designed to make the carrier landing easier and more predictable for the pilot. This has facilitated an evolutionary change in the way that both new aviators train, and how more experienced fleet pilots maintain their carrier currency.

“The Navy has signaled to us that they are already not taking students to the aircraft carrier in all cases [during training], and that their intention going forward is to not take student naval aviators to the aircraft carrier at all in an advanced jet trainer,” Steven Helmer explains. “So as we understand it, the customer is signaling to us that they do not need a carrier-capable airplane.”

The M-346 doesn’t feature a tailhook, even for use on runway arrestor gear in the event of emergencies. “This airplane has multiple redundant hydraulic systems and multiple redundant braking systems, so a tailhook is actually not required for the aircraft, so it was never built into the aircraft,” comments Helmer. “Could we add one if it was required? Absolutely.” The M-346N that will be offered to the Navy could feature PLM in its flight control software, but this will depend on the final requirements when they are issued later this year.

The M-346’s standard landing gear is set up for regular airfield operations. If the Navy decided that FCLP to touchdown would be needed, it would require modifications. “If you were going to do full-rate FCLP touchdowns, i.e., fly the [meat]ball all the way to touchdown, we would need to reinforce that landing gear structurally,” says Helmer. “That’s certainly something we can do and we’ve done a lot of background engineering for that, so that’s an offering we can give to the customers should those requirements change. But as we understand it now, there will be no shipboard operations and no FCLPs to a touchdown.”

The virtual training in the M-346 system would now introduce the aircraft carrier to the students. “We’re going to be bringing in precision landing modes in the simulator, and we’re going to be teaching students how to operate around the carrier using a virtual environment,” Helmer adds. “Then what they get in the jet is the physical feel of it going fast, the g-forces, actually thinking in that dynamic environment so that they have the experience they need when they get to the fleet.”

Building the M-346N

Having been in operation and training new aircrews for over a decade, the M-346 is promoted by Beechcraft as being a proven option for the Navy. “Leonardo has produced about 140 airplanes and they’re on a hot production line. They’re training a number of different air forces, including pilots that are flying the F-35 today. So the airplane has a proven track record of training pilots for 4th, 5th, and eventually 6th-generation fighters. On top of that, the ETTS has proven its worth as they’re using that every day with all the scenarios that I talked about.”

“We’re jumping in at a really good time too, because the airplane is on the verge of a major avionics upgrade [under Block 20],” says Helmer. The M-346N version would be based on the new Block 20 standard. “Leonardo is changing from a multi-function display format to a single large area display touchscreen, really bringing the airplane into the modern fold for avionics. One of the requirements the Navy has signaled to us is that they want to have a large area display, which makes sense because the advanced Super Hornet and the F-35 both have large area displays as well. So it’s really training the aircrew on the same kind of system they’re going to see in the fleet, and that’s kind of the point of an advanced jet trainer is to do that. You’re introducing a lot of new concepts and bringing them into something that’s more in alignment with what they’re going to see when they actually get to their fleet jet.”

Beechcraft has a notable relationship with U.S. Navy aviator training, as Helmer notes. “I flew the Beech T-34 when I was in flight school in 2006. That airplane was getting close to retiring, and it was replaced by the Beechcraft T-6 Texan II. That’s flown by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, and 14 other countries. We have produced more than 1,000 of those, creating decades of experience in the trainer market. On top of that, Beechcraft has involvement in the multi-engine trainer market with the T-44, the C-12, and now the T-54A that’s servicing the Navy’s future needs. So that really gives us a lot of experience in the fixed wing trainer market.” Leonardo is also connected to U.S. Navy training through its TH-73 Thrasher, which is replacing the TH-57B/C Sea Ranger as the undergraduate rotary and tilt-rotor helicopter trainer for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

M-346s are currently assembled in Venegono, Italy, but Beechcraft revealed on October 28, 2025, that M-346Ns would be assembled by the company in Wichita if selected by the Navy.

Current indications call for a formal request for proposals to be issued this coming December, leading to a contract award in 2027. Leonardo will collaborate with Beechcraft on updates for the new M-346N variant to meet U.S. Navy UJTS specifications. “The M-346 is well positioned to address the U.S. Navy’s requirements for an advanced jet trainer, which are unique to the Navy,” Helmer concludes.

The M-346 is clearly a proven solution as an advanced jet trainer that has been teaching new fast jet pilots for over a decade. The International Flight Training School alone has taught student pilots from Austria, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and now the United States, with 10 USAF cadets having arrived in Sardinia in September 2025 to train on the M-346.

At the same time, the M-346 faces stiff competition. Boeing’s T-7A is already in the U.S. military inventory and hundreds of these aircraft will eventually be in service with the USAF as its advanced jet trainer. Korea Aerospace Industries developed the TF-50 in partnership with Lockheed Martin, and it was extensively evaluated under the USAF T-X competition. It too is proven, with variants of the aircraft in service with seven nations. SNC’s Freedom Trainer is a clean sheet design and not proven, yet it is currently the only contender that is offering a structural configuration that would permit FCLP to touchdown.

The T-45 Goshawk is old, it’s struggling with reliability, and the Navy needs a new jet trainer fast that is capable of preparing pilots for the modern platforms they will be flying. Time will tell if the solution will be the M-346N or not, but it certainly has a strong case to make.

Contact the editor: [email protected]

Follow our live build-up, with toss and team news, ahead of our full text commentary stream of cricket’s World Cup warm-up.

The US president called for Republicans to go for the ‘Nuclear Option’ in order to end the Democratic Senate roadblock.

United States President Donald Trump has called on the Senate to vote to scrap the filibuster custom so that Republicans can end a weeks-long federal government shutdown.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, the US leader chastised “Crazed Lunatics” in the Democratic Party.

“It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option – Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote.

“WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing [end the filibuster], it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN’,” he added.

The filibuster is a longstanding Senate tactic that delays or blocks votes on legislation by keeping debate open. The Senate requires a supermajority – 60 of the chamber’s 100 members – to overcome a filibuster and pass most legislation.

Senate rules, including the filibuster, can be changed by a simple majority vote at any time. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority.

Since October 1, when the new fiscal year began, Senate Democrats have voted against advancing a government bill extending funding to federal agencies.

Democrats have demanded that Republicans reverse planned sweeping cuts to Medicaid, which extends healthcare coverage to tens of millions of low-income Americans, and prevent health insurance premiums from going up.

The deadlock entered its 31st day on Friday. It is set to become the longest deadlock in history if it surpasses the 35-day lapse that took place in 2019 under the first Trump administration.

Federal employees categorised as “essential” continue to work without pay during government shutdowns until they can be reimbursed when it ends.

Most recently, on Tuesday, US air traffic controllers were told they would not receive their paychecks this month, raising concerns that mounting financial stress could take a toll on the already understaffed employees who guide thousands of flights each day.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that the federal government shutdown could cost the US economy between $7bn and $14bn.

Trump has just returned to the US from his Asia tour, in which he visited Qatar, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea – where he held a major summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In his Truth Social post, the US leader said that while the trip was a success, conversations had caused him to consider the filibuster issue.

“The one question that kept coming up, however, was how did the Democrats SHUT DOWN the United States of America, and why did the powerful Republicans allow them to do it? The fact is, in flying back, I thought a great deal about that question, WHY?” he wrote.

The US leader continued that he believed that should the Democrats come back into power, they would “exercise their rights” and end the filibuster on the “first day they take office”.

Announcing the move, staff at the outlet said ‘authoritarian regimes are already celebrating’ its potential demise.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) will shut down its news operations on Friday, citing the government-funded news outlet’s dire financial situation caused by funding cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration and the ongoing US government shutdown.

Bay Fang, RFA’s president and CEO, said in a statement that “uncertainty about our budgetary future” means that the outlet has been “forced to suspend all remaining news content production”.

“In an effort to conserve limited resources on hand and preserve the possibility of restarting operations should consistent funding become available, RFA is taking further steps to responsibly shrink its already reduced footprint,” she said on Wednesday.

Fang added that RFA would begin closing its overseas bureaus and would formally lay off and pay severance to furloughed staff. She said many staff members have been on unpaid leave since March, “when the US Agency for Global Media [USAGM] unlawfully terminated RFA’s Congressionally appropriated grant”.

On March 14, Trump signed an executive order effectively eliminating USAGM, an independent US government agency created in the mid-1990s to broadcast news and information to regions with poor press freedom records.

Alongside RFA, USAGM also hosts sister publications Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE) and Voice of America (VOA).

Following March’s executive order, RFA was forced to put three-quarters of its US-based employees on unpaid leave and terminate most of its overseas contractors.

Another round of mass layoffs followed in May, along with the termination of several RFA language services, including Tibetan, Burmese and Uighur.

Mass layoffs also took place at VOA in March when Trump signed another executive order placing nearly all 1,400 staff at the outlet – which he described as a “total left-wing disaster” – on paid leave. It has operated on a limited basis since then.

Trump has said operations like RFA, RFE/Radio Liberty and VOA are a waste of government resources and accused them of being biased against his administration.

Since its founding in 1996, RFA has reported on Asia’s most repressive regimes, providing English- and local-language online and broadcast services to citizens of authoritarian governments across the region.

Its flagship projects include its Uighur service – the world’s only independent Uyghur-language outlet, covering the repressed ethnic group in western China – as well as its North Korea service, which reports on events inside the hermit state.

An announcement penned by RFA executive editor Rosa Hwang, published on the outlet’s website on Wednesday, said, “Make no mistake, authoritarian regimes are already celebrating RFA’s potential demise.”

“Independent journalism is at the core of RFA. For the first time since RFA’s inception almost 30 years ago, that voice is at risk,” Hwang said.

“We still believe in the urgency of that mission – and in the resilience of our extraordinary journalists. Once our funding returns, so will we,” she added.

RFE/Radio Liberty, which went through its own round of furloughs earlier this year, said this week that it received its last round of federal funding in September and its news services are continuing for now.

“We plan to continue reaching our audiences for the foreseeable future,” it said.

It’s not immediately clear why RFA and RFE/Radio Liberty – which share the same governing and funding structure, but are based in the US and Europe, respectively – are taking different approaches.

The Trump administration will limit the number of refugees admitted to the US to 7,500 over the next year, and give priority to white South Africans.

The move, announced in a notice published on Thursday, marks a dramatic cut from the previous limit of 125,000 set by former President Joe Biden and will bring the cap to a record low.

No reason was given for the cut, but the notice said it was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.

In January, Trump signed an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Programme, or USRAP, which he said would allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.

The previous lowest refugee admissions cap was set by the first Trump administration in 2020, when it allocated 15,000 spots for fiscal year 2021.

The notice posted to the website of the Federal Register said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.

In February, the US president announced the suspension of critical aid to South Africa and offered to allow members of the Afrikaner community – who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers – to settle in the US as refugees.

South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was later expelled after accusing Trump of “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle”.

In the Oval Office in May, Trump confronted South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and claimed white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.

The White House also played a video which they said showed burial sites for murdered white farmers. It later emerged that the videos were scenes from a 2020 protest in which the crosses represented farmers killed over multiple years.

The tense meeting came just days after the US granted asylum to 60 Afrikaners.

The South African government has vehemently denied that Afrikaners and other White South Africans are being persecuted.

On his first day in office on 20 January, Trump said the US would suspend USRAP to reflect the US’s lack of “ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities in a manner that does not compromise the availability of resources for Americans” and “protects their safety and security”.

The US policy of accepting white South Africans has already prompted accusations of unfair treatment from refugee advocacy groups.

Some have argued the US is now effectively shut to other persecuted groups or people facing potential harm in their home country, and even former allies that helped US forces in Afghanistan or the Middle East.

“This decision doesn’t just lower the refugee admissions ceiling,” Global Refuge CEO and president Krish O’Mara Vignarajah said on Thursday. “It lowers our moral standing.”

“At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the programme’s purpose as well as its credibility,” she added.

Refugees International also slammed the move, saying it “makes a mockery of refugee protection and of American values”.

“Let us be frank: whatever hardships some Afrikaners may face, this population has no plausible claim on refugee status – they are not fleeing systematic persecution,” Refugees International said in its statement.

The South African government has yet to respond to the latest announcement.

During the Oval Office meeting, President Ramaphosa said only that he hoped that Trump officials would listen to South Africans about the issue, and later said he believed there is “doubt and disbelief about all this in [Trump’s] head”.

Earlier this year, Ramaphosa signed a controversial law allowing the government to seize privately-owned land without compensation in some circumstances.

While the country does not release race-based crime figured, figures published earlier this year showed that 7,000 people were murdered in South African between October and December 2024.

Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks and only one of the 12 was a farmer. Five others were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.

President Donald Trump has come out in support of a future fleet of South Korean nuclear-powered submarines. He says he has signed off on the plan and has claimed that at least some of the boats will be built in the United States. Authorities in South Korea have been open about their nuclear-powered submarine ambitions for years, but have faced pushback, including from the United States, particularly over nuclear proliferation concerns.

Trump has made two posts on his Truth Social social media network discussing South Korean nuclear-powered submarine plans in the past day or so. The U.S. President held a summit with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, yesterday, which was centered heavily on trade negotiations. Trump’s visit to South Korea was part of a larger tour of Asia.

“Our Military Alliance is stronger than ever before and, based on that, I have given them approval to build a Nuclear Powered Submarine, rather than the old fashioned, and far less nimble diesel powered submarines that they have now,” Trump wrote in one post on Truth Social.

“South Korea will be building its Nuclear Powered Submarine in the Philadelphia Shipyards, right here in the good ol’ U.S.A.,” he wrote in a second post. “Shipbuilding in our Country will soon be making a BIG COMEBACK. Stay tuned!!!”

The South Korean Navy already has a substantial fleet of diesel-electric submarines, which currently consists of 12 Jang Bogo class, nine Sohn Won-yil class, and three Dosan Ahn Chang-ho class types. The Jang Bogo and Sohn Won-yil class submarines are German-designed Type 209s and Type 214s, respectively. The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho class, also known as the KS-III Batch I, is a domestically developed design. Just this month, South Korea launched the first of a planned subclass of three KS-III Batch IIs, the country’s largest and most advanced submarine to date, which you can read more about here.

In general, compared to even advanced diesel-electric types like the KS-III Batch II, the key benefit that nuclear-powered submarines offer is functionally unlimited range.

The Trump administration has yet to elaborate on exactly what the current South Korean nuclear-powered submarine plan might entail and the roles that the United States may play.

The shipyard in Philadelphia that Trump mentioned is most likely the Hanwha Philly Shipyard. That yard had been Philadelphia Shipyard Inc. until elements of the South Korean conglomerate Hanwha acquired it last year. That yard has never produced a submarine of any kind or any type of nuclear-powered vessel.

“Asked about Trump’s submarine announcement, Hanwha Ocean, which owns the shipyard with another Hanwha affiliate, said it was ready to cooperate with both countries and provide support with advanced technology, but did not mention specifics,” according to Reuters.

General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, and Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) in Newport News, Virginia, are two current producers of nuclear-powered submarines in the United States.

South Korea’s “Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back told lawmakers that plans called for South Korea to build its own submarines and modular reactors, and receive a supply of enriched uranium fuel from the United States,” Reuters also reported. “Seok Jong-gun, the minister for the defense acquisition program administration told the same hearing that South Korea had been developing small nuclear reactors for some time and would be able to build one for a submarine in less than the decade usually needed to develop such nuclear-powered vessels.”

“We believe if we use the technologies we have been preparing for the future…we’ll be able to achieve this within a short period of time,” Seok added, per Reuters‘ story.

The South Korean government is known to have conducted at least one detailed design study relating to a miniature nuclear reactor for use on a future submarine, called the 326 Initiative, in the 2003 timeframe. The country also has an established nuclear power industry that develops reactors for non-military purposes, but which could be leveraged for such work.

A key question, in general, when it comes to nuclear-powered submarine designs, is the level of enrichment of the fuel inside their reactors. U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarines notably have reactors with fuel enriched to the same level as material for nuclear weapons. This is not a requisite, however. The reactors inside current French nuclear-powered submarines use low-enriched uranium. There are reports that Chinese nuclear-powered submarines may also use reactors with LEU fuel.

Still, it is worth noting here that, at least currently, the only countries with operational nuclear-powered submarines are also nuclear weapon states. At the same time, that is already set to change with the Australian Navy’s expected acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines through the trilateral Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) defense cooperation agreement.

Since 2015, South Korea has also faced the unique hurdle of a bilateral agreement that bars it from enriching uranium and reprocessing spent fuel without U.S. government approval. Trump appears to have now given that approval. Defense Minister Ahn’s comments, per Reuters, indicate the hurdle has been further cleared by a plan to source the nuclear material directly from the United States.

A South Korean nuclear submarine program could still create proliferation concerns for the country, which is presently a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As TWZ previously wrote when the possibility of South Korea acquiring nuclear-powered submarines came up in 2018:

The need to build enrichment or other nuclear facilities, or otherwise acquire the highly enriched fissile material, could also draw international criticism that South Korea is abiding by the letter, but not the spirit of the NPT, effectively developing a nuclear weapons program in all but name. These issues are at the core of why South Korea conducted the 326 Initiative in secret and why it abandoned it after it became public, attracting the attention of both the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

South Korean officials have talked in the past about the possibility of changing geopolitical circumstances on the Peninsula, and elsewhere, leading it to start its own nuclear weapons program. North Korea is, of course, a nuclear weapons state, and it may now be pursuing its own nuclear-powered submarines with assistance from Russia.

The South Korean Navy would also have to develop suitable infrastructure to sustain a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, as well as train personnel in the operational and maintenance of naval reactors. There could be cost and related industrial base concerns, especially depending on how deeply involved the United States needs to be in any such plan. Questions have already been raised about whether the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine industry can support Australia’s needs and U.S. Navy requirements. The U.S. naval shipbuilding industry, as a whole, has faced serious challenges in recent years and continues to despite government-backed efforts to bolster its capabilities and capacity.

There are still larger questions about South Korea’s practical need for a nuclear-powered submarine capability. South Korean President Lee has said that his country fielding nuclear-powered submarines could help reduce operational demands for its American allies. Especially combined with conventionally-armed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), it could also give the South Korean Navy more of a true second-strike capability to help deter North Korea.

However, North Korea has limited anti-submarine warfare capabilities, while South Korean diesel-electric submarine designs are only getting more and more advanced. The range and other benefits that nuclear propulsion offers for naval vessels generally point to broader, blue water ambitions. This is certainly the case for Australia, which is situated far from the areas it expects its future nuclear-powered boats to operate.

As such, South Korea’s work to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, especially if they are capable of carrying out longer-range strikes on targets at sea and/or ashore, could have broader ramifications. The KSS-III Batch I submarines can already fire conventionally-armed SLBMs (SLBM), a capability that is being expanded upon in the Batch II types.

The Chinese government “hopes that South Korea and the United States will earnestly fulfill their nuclear non-proliferation obligations and do things to promote regional peace and stability, and not the other way around,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry, said in response to the nuclear-powered submarine news, according to Reuters.

China already has a very large submarine force that includes diesel-electric and nuclear-powered types, and which it continues to expand in both size and capability.

Much still remains to be learned about how, and when, South Korea may expect to finally begin operating nuclear-powered submarines. Regardless, the country’s ambitions in this regard have now gotten a major boost in support from President Trump.

Contact the author: [email protected]

The New Reactor Economy

In the twenty-first century, nuclear energy has re-emerged not only as a source of electricity but also as an instrument of geopolitical endurance. Among all global reactor exporters, Russia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporationremains exceptionally resilient. Despite sanctions and fractured supply chains, Rosatom today is involved in the construction of thirty to forty reactor units worldwide, including in Egypt’s El-Dabaa, Bangladesh’s Rooppur, and Turkey’s Akkuyu.

Yet beneath the story of uranium and concrete lies a subtler revolution: the rise of digital-twin technology. A digital twin is a virtual, data-driven replica of a reactor that mirrors every process in real time using sensors, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It enables engineers to simulate performance, anticipate faults, and fine-tune safety systems remotely.

In doing so, Rosatom is no longer merely exporting atomic hardware; it is exporting data architectures and predictive-analytics ecosystems that tether partner nations to Russian digital infrastructures for decades. The company has consolidated these capabilities under its Unified Digital Platform, linking design, construction, and operation through cloud-based modelling and AI-driven monitoring (Rosatom Newsletter, 2025).

This digitalization marks a turning point in nuclear diplomacy: power now flows through algorithms and data, not only through megawatts and materials.

From Hardware Exports to Data Dependencies

Since 2020, Rosatom’s subsidiaries, notably Atomenergomash and Rusatom Service, have begun integrating digital lifecycle systems across their international reactor portfolio. The company’s engineering arm, ASE, has developed what it calls Multi-D IMS, a digital configuration-management platform that creates detailed virtual models of nuclear facilities during design and construction. These models enable real-time collaboration, fault prediction, and workflow optimization across sites, forming the foundation of Rosatom’s emerging digital-twin ecosystem.

Rosatom’s own communications describe these tools as part of a broader Unified Digital Platform, which connects design, manufacturing, and operation through cloud-based modelling and AI-driven analytics. While official statements do not identify specific plants using these systems, Rosatom notes that its “digital infrastructure and twin technologies” are being offered to international partners within its reactor export programs.

This architecture creates a durable maintenance corridor between Moscow and client operators.  Even after physical construction ends, the flow of digital data and software updates ensures that Russian engineers remain integral to plant performance.  In practice, the information layer itself becomes a channel of long-term engagement and influence.

Comparable Western vendors, EDF, Westinghouse, and GE Hitachi, are also pursuing digital-twin technologies. Yet Rosatom’s approach is uniquely state-integrated, aligning with Russia’s national strategy of digital sovereignty and self-sufficient AI infrastructure. The result is a hybrid of engineering innovation and strategic design: a system that embeds Russian digital standards within the nuclear industries of its partners.

For many developing economies, the offer is pragmatic: a single vendor providing financing, turnkey construction, and continuous digital assistance.  But this convenience introduces a subtler dependence, one not of uranium supply or credit, but of algorithmic reliance and data governance.

Kudankulam: India’s Quiet Test Bed

Nowhere is this shift more visible than in southern India. The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP), jointly operated by India’s Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Rosatom, is the first operational complex of VVER-1000 reactors in the Global South.

Originally a hardware partnership signed in 1988, Kudankulam is evolving into a digital interface. In 2020, Rosatom’s fuel subsidiary TVEL supplied India with next-generation TVS-2M fuel assemblies, extending reactor cycles from twelve to eighteen months, a shift managed through digital modelling and predictive maintenance.

Rosatom’s 2024 annual report outlines plans to connect Kudankulam’s operational analytics to its Unified Digital Nuclear Industry Platform, integrating India into the same digital ecosystem that supports Turkey’s and Egypt’s projects.

For India, this offers substantial advantages, higher capacity factors, enhanced safety diagnostics, and exposure to emerging global standards in nuclear AI. Yet it also entwines India’s civilian nuclear operations with Russian data protocols and remote diagnostic tools. Kudankulam thus becomes not only a reactor but also a node in Rosatom’s global digital web, where megawatts are managed by code as much as by turbines.

This duality defines the future of strategic cooperation: efficiency through integration, balanced against data-driven interdependence.

Algorithmic Sovereignty and Strategic Autonomy

Digital integration introduces a new vocabulary of power. Terms once reserved for information technology, data sovereignty, algorithmic control, and cybersecurity now shape energy diplomacy. For countries like India, which prize autonomy, these are practical concerns.

In 2019, a cyber incident at Kudankulam briefly demonstrated how vulnerable nuclear infrastructure can be when administrative networks intersect with global data flows. Although operational systems were unaffected, the episode exposed the need for stronger digital-governance frameworks in critical energy sectors.

Another question concerns ownership of reactor data. Predictive-maintenance algorithms rely on vast datasets, coolant temperatures, pressure levels, and sensor diagnostics gathered continuously during operation. If these datasets are processed on Rosatom’s proprietary cloud, who controls their reuse or replication? India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023) mandates localization for sensitive data, yet nuclear information exists in a legal grey zone, governed more by bilateral contracts than explicit national legislation.

For Russia, digitalization ensures resilience under sanctions. Cloud-based engineering assistance allows specialists in Moscow to monitor reactors abroad even when travel or logistics are constrained. For partners, it delivers cost-efficient expertise, yet it also embeds an asymmetry; operational sovereignty becomes mediated by foreign algorithms.

Rosatom’s approach reflects Moscow’s broader strategy of technological statecraft, using digital ecosystems to sustain global reach despite economic isolation. The outcome is a new form of dependence: not energy insecurity but informational dependency.

Atoms → Algorithms: The Next Frontier of Energy Diplomacy

Rosatom’s digital transformation parallels wider trends in global technology politics. China’s Digital Silk Road, the U.S.-EU “trusted-tech” frameworks, and Russia’s own push for a “Digital Atom Belt” all reveal how infrastructure and information are converging.

India occupies a delicate middle ground. Collaboration with Rosatom at Kudankulam grants access to advanced analytics, but New Delhi also explores partnerships with Western firms on small modular reactors and new fuel cycles. Balancing these engagements will require clear rules on digital interoperability, data governance, and cyber assurance.

India already has the institutions to do so. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) verifies reactor-control software domestically, while CERT-IN supervises cyber-critical infrastructure. Extending such oversight to digital-twin and predictive-maintenance platforms can preserve sovereignty while encouraging innovation.

For Russia, meanwhile, digital twins are both export products and diplomatic instruments. By embedding AI-based support systems in every reactor project, Rosatom ensures long-term relevance. Even if hardware exports slow, its role as a digital-lifecycle provider guarantees enduring engagement. In that sense, Rosatom’s most influential reactor export may no longer be physical; it is virtual.

Conclusion: The Politics of Invisible Power

The shift from atoms to algorithms defines the next frontier of nuclear diplomacy. During the Cold War, power was measured in reactors built or megawatts produced. Today, it is determined by who controls the data that sustains those reactors.

For partner nations, digital twins promise transparency, efficiency, and safety. For exporting powers, they offer a quiet form of leverage that persists beyond physical construction. As India pursues self-reliance through Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat, it must treat data infrastructure with the same strategic weight as fuel supply chains.

The aim should not be isolation from partners like Russia but reciprocal digital governance, shared access protocols, transparent algorithmic audits, and domestic data custody. Rosatom’s digital twin diplomacy exemplifies a future where technological cooperation and strategic caution must coexist.

The next great non-proliferation challenge may not concern uranium enrichment but data enrichment: who holds it, who protects it, and who decides how it is used?

Advocates say new rules let Education Department to politically punish groups working on immigration, transgender care.

The United States Department of Education has finalised new rules that could bar nonprofits deemed to have undertaken work with a “substantial illegal purpose” from a special student loan forgiveness programme.

Those rules, finalised on Thursday, appear to single out certain organisations that do work in areas that President Donald Trump politically opposes, including immigration advocacy and transgender rights.

Under the new rules, set to take effect in July 2026, the education secretary has the power to exclude groups if they engage in activities like the “chemical castration” of children, using a politically charged term for gender-affirming healthcare, including puberty-delaying medication.

It also allows the education secretary to bar groups accused of supporting undocumented immigration or “terrorist” organisations.

The Trump administration has said its decisions “will not be made based on the political views or policy preferences of the organization”.

But advocates fear the move is the administration’s latest effort to target left-leaning and liberal organisations.

Trump has already threatened to crack down on several liberal nonprofits, which the White House has broadly accused of being part of “domestic terror networks”.

Thursday’s rules concern the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programme, created by an act of Congress in 2007.

In an effort to direct more graduates into public service jobs, the programme promises to cancel federal student loans for government employees and many nonprofit workers after they have made 10 years of payments.

Workers in the public sector, including teachers, medical professionals, firefighters, social service professionals and lawyers, are among those who can benefit.

In a statement, the Trump administration defended the updated rules, calling them a necessary bulwark to protect taxpayer funds.

The programme “was meant to support Americans who dedicate their careers to public service – not to subsidize organizations that violate the law, whether by harboring illegal immigrants or performing prohibited medical procedures that attempt to transition children away from their biological sex”, said Education Undersecretary Nicholas Kent.

Critics, however, have denounced the administration for using false claims of “terrorism” or criminal behaviour to silence opposing views and restrict civil liberties.

Michael Lukens, executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said the new rules weaponised loan forgiveness.

Lukens explained that many of the lawyers, social workers and paralegals who work at his organisation handle cases to stop deportations and other immigration litigation.

They count on public service loan forgiveness to take jobs that pay significantly less than the private sector, he said.

“All of a sudden, that’s going away,” Lukens told The Associated Press news agency. “The younger generation, I hope, will be able to wait this out for the next couple of years to see if it gets better, but if it doesn’t, we’re going to see a lot of people leave the field to go and work in a for-profit space.”

Organisations have raised concerns over the education secretary’s broad power to determine if a group should be barred. Short of a legal finding, the secretary can decide based on a “preponderance of the evidence” whether an employer is in violation.

The National Council of Nonprofits was among the associations criticising the change.

It said the rules would allow future administrations from any political party to change eligibility rules “based on their own priorities or ideology”.

After more than 20 years under construction, the Grand Egyptian Museum will finally open this weekend, promising more than 50,000 artifacts showing what life was like in ancient Egypt.

The rare move comes after mounting pressure to act over Andrew’s relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

King Charles III has stripped his brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after weeks of pressure to act over his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Buckingham Palace said on Thursday the king “initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew”.

After the king’s rare move, Andrew will be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and not as a prince, and he will move from his Royal Lodge residence into “private accommodation”.

It is almost unprecedented for a British prince or princess to be stripped of that title. It last happened in 1919, when Prince Ernest Augustus, who was a UK royal and also a prince of Hanover, had his British title removed for siding with Germany during World War I.

Demand had been growing on the palace to remove the prince from Royal Lodge after he surrendered his use of the title duke of York earlier this month over new revelations about his friendship with Epstein and renewed sexual abuse allegations by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, whose posthumous memoir hit bookstores last week.

But the king went even further to punish him for serious lapses of judgement by removing the title of prince that he had held since birth as a child of a monarch, the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” the palace said. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

Giuffre’s brother declared victory for his sister, who died in April at the age of 41.

“Today, an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family, brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage,” her brother Skye Roberts said in a statement.

Andrew faced a new round of public opprobrium after emails emerged earlier this month showing he had remained in contact with Epstein longer than he previously admitted.

That news was followed by the publication of, Nobody’s Girl, by Giuffre, who alleged she had sex with Andrew when she was 17. The book detailed three alleged sexual encounters with Andrew, who she said acted as if he believed “having sex with me was his birthright”.

Andrew, 65, has long denied Giuffre’s claims, but stepped down from royal duties after a disastrous November 2019 BBC interview in which he attempted to rebut her allegations.

Andrew paid millions in an out-of-court settlement in 2022 after Giuffre filed a civil suit against him in New York. While he did not admit wrongdoing, he acknowledged Giuffre’s suffering as a victim of sex trafficking.

The move by the king means Andrew will no longer be a prince or be known as “his royal highness”, “duke of York”, “earl of Inverness” or “baron Killyleagh” – all titles he held until now. Also gone are honours that include Order of the Garter and status as knight grand cross of the Royal Victorian Order.

Andrew is expected to move to a property on the king’s Sandringham estate near the northeast coast and receive private financial support from his brother.

The streets have grown restless since Cameroon announced the results of its Oct. 12 presidential election, which returned 92-year-old Paul Biya as the country’s leader for an eighth consecutive term since 1982.

From Douala to Garoua and the capital, Yaounde, protesters have clashed with police, denouncing what they call a “stolen” and “manipulated” election, revealing the deep anger and mistrust that have defined the country’s politics for decades. 

Biya, who won the election with 53.66 per cent of the vote as declared by the Constitutional Council, is Africa’s oldest and one of the world’s longest-serving leaders. This latest election extends his 43-year rule for another seven years. 

Biya’s main challenger, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, a former ally turned critic, rejected the results, claiming victory based on his campaign’s own tallies. He accused the government of “manipulating the will of the people” and called for nationwide demonstrations. His appeal quickly spread through social media and opposition networks, sparking street protests that soon turned violent.

Other opposition parties and civil society groups have also raised concerns about the credibility of the election. They point to unusually high voter turnouts in some districts, inconsistencies in vote tabulation, and the speed at which results were certified. 

But the anger on the streets is about more than the election. For many, the problem is about a system they say is built to protect incumbency and silence opposition.

Cameroon has been grappling with multiple crises that have weakened its social and political fabric. For nearly a decade, the country has battled separatist insurgencies in the English-speaking North West and South West regions, jihadist attacks in the Far North and the border with Nigeria, and worsening economic hardship in its cities. The election, analysts warned before the vote, could act as a trigger to more instability in the country. Those fears have now materialised. 

The violent ongoing protests have claimed the lives of at least four people, and hundreds have been arrested. Observers suggest the figure may be higher. 

The UN Human Rights Office has since called on security forces to “refrain from the use of lethal force” and urged protesters to demonstrate peacefully. It also reminded authorities of their obligation to respect international human rights law and called for restraint from all political actors.

“We urge the authorities to ensure prompt, impartial and effective investigations into all cases of election-related violence, including the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and to bring those responsible to justice,” the UN statement read. 

Douala, the country’s economic capital and largest city, has been the epicentre of the post-election unrest. Eyewitnesses report scenes of gunfire, barricades, and hurried funerals in the city.

In the north, Garoua has also seen violence after reported attacks near Tchiroma’s residence. Smaller towns have joined in, with reports of arrests and clashes spreading across the country. Observers warn that the tension risks taking on ethnic and regional dimensions — a dangerous trend in an already divided nation.

Ethnic divisions have long shaped Cameroon’s politics, and the 2025 election has further exposed these fractures. President Biya’s support remains anchored in his Beti/Bulu base from the Centre and South, while many Bamiléké and Anglophone communities continue to feel excluded from power. The candidacy of Issa Tchiroma, a northern Fulani politician, introduced another layer to the political landscape but did little to ease existing mistrust. Although some of his support came from northern and western groups united mainly by opposition to Biya, the campaign and its aftermath remained charged with ethnic undertones.

As these divisions deepened, tensions between the authorities and the opposition escalated sharply. The government has accused Tchiroma and his supporters of inciting violence and promised to hold them accountable through legal action. Officials say the state is acting to preserve order, but critics argue that the heavy-handed response risks deepening public resentment. Security operations, arrests, and reported internet restrictions have further strained the situation. Access to several areas has been cut off, making it difficult for journalists and humanitarian workers to verify reports of casualties or destruction. However, Tchiroma promised to continue his push until “final victory”. 

As the unrest spreads, attention has also turned to the country’s conflict-prone Anglophone regions. Separatist movements are watching closely, with many viewing the chaos as proof of the central government’s weakness and are using the moment to push their demands for independence. Local leaders warn that any harsh crackdown by the state could inflame tensions in areas where peace is already fragile. 

“Had Biya and his entourage exercised more care in the months before the vote and understood the depth of the government’s unpopularity, this standoff might have been averted,” wrote the International Crisis Group.

Beyond the immediate crisis, the unrest underscores a deeper issue — the fragility of Cameroon’s democratic institutions. Elections are meant to provide legitimacy and a peaceful means of political competition. Instead, they have become flashpoints for unrest. For many young people who have grown up knowing only one president, the sense of disillusionment runs deep. Unemployment remains high, corruption is endemic, and the promise of reform feels distant.

International reactions have been predictable but cautious. Western governments and regional bodies have called for dialogue and restraint. While congratulating Biya on his re-election, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, stated that he “is gravely concerned about the reported violence, repression and arrests of protesters and political actors in connection with the election results.”

Youssouf urged “the Cameroonian authorities to accord topmost priority to inclusive national dialogue and consultation with all political stakeholders in order to reach consensus in the spirit of national unity, peace and collective security.”

Whether those appeals will be heeded remains uncertain. What happens next depends on how the government and opposition respond in the coming weeks. Analysts warn that Cameroon stands at a crossroads. A violent crackdown could trigger a wider crisis, while genuine dialogue might begin to ease the tension. 

The first step, according to the International Crisis Group, should be an independent review of the election results and the violence that followed — a process that includes civil society, opposition representatives, and credible international observers.

Equally critical is the release of protesters detained for exercising their right to peaceful assembly. Restoring communication channels, lifting internet restrictions, and creating safe conditions for independent reporting would also help reduce misinformation and rebuild trust.

But the challenges go far beyond the current unrest. Cameroon’s long-term stability depends on addressing structural grievances, from political exclusion and corruption to the Anglophone crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands. The government’s reliance on military solutions in the separatist regions has failed to end the conflict, while economic inequality and youth unemployment continue to feed discontent nationwide.

Without deep reform, each election risks becoming another trigger for instability. Political analysts argue that the ruling party must open the political space, allow real competition, and engage communities long excluded from decision-making. “Cameroon’s democracy has been reduced to a ritual,” one Cameroonian journalist told HumAngle. “People vote, results are announced, and nothing changes.”

For now, calm remains fragile. Markets have slowed, schools have closed in some regions, and the streets are lined with soldiers. In several cities, families are mourning relatives caught in the violence. Others fear more crackdowns as protests continue.

The coming days will test whether President Biya’s government can navigate the crisis without pushing the country into deeper turmoil — or whether the unrest will harden into yet another chapter of Cameroon’s long struggle between power and the people.

If the country fails to learn from this moment, the cycle of repression and resistance will only deepen. And for millions of Cameroonians weary of conflict, the dream of a peaceful transition of power will remain just an illusion. 

Minutes before he met with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement on social media saying he “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” The reason, Trump explained, was because of “other countries [SIC] testing programs.”

Other countries, he said, “seem to all be nuclear testing” but when it comes to the U.S., “We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don’t do testing. I see them testing and I say, well, if they’re going to test, I guess we have to test.”

Asked where the tests would occur, the president said, “It’ll be announced. We have test sites.”

At this point, it’s unclear if the president is talking about testing out nuclear weapons delivery systems, something that happens on a regular basis, or actual warheads via a detonation, which the U.S. hasn’t done in more than three decades. The fact that this has not been officially clarified is highly problematic. We reached out to the White House for more details, and they referred us back to Trump’s social media post. We also reached out to several experts for their insights, which you can read more about later in this story.

Testing that results in setting off a chain reaction, known as “critical testing,” last took place nearly a decade ago by North Korea on Sept. 3, 2017. The last U.S. critical nuclear weapons test took place on Sept. 23, 1992, according to the Arms Control Association (ACA). While Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile and a nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped torpedo, which could have spurred Trump’s tweet if he really meant testing delivery systems, Moscow last conducted a critical nuclear device test on Oct. 24, 1990, according to the ACA. Meanwhile, China’s last test was on July 29, 1996.

In the interim, however, several nations, including the U.S., have conducted what is known as sub-critical testing, which does not result in setting off a chain reaction. It’s possible that expanding those efforts could be at least part of what Trump is referring to, as well. 

Clearly, restarting live nuclear weapons testing would be a massive departure for the U.S. and a very costly one at that. It would likely prompt other nuclear powers to return to live testing, as well. That is if this is what Trump was truly referring to. Assuming that’s the case, we contacted some of the smartest people we know who work on these issues for a living to give us an understanding of what such a revival would actually entail and how long it would take. Their answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Our participating experts are:

Hans
Kristensen — Director, Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists. Writes the bi-monthly Nuclear Notebook and the world nuclear forces overview in the SIPRI Yearbook.

Jon B. Wolfsthal, Director of Global Risk, American Federation of Scientists.

Daryl G. Kimball has been Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA) and publisher and contributor for the organization’s monthly journal, Arms Control Today, since September 2001.

Q: Can you tell me the process by which this could happen? What is the chain of command, and who has to be involved?

Hans Kristensen

A: The process for this would require the White House to direct the Department of Energy (DOE) to order the nuclear laboratories to start preparing for a nuclear test. And since the United States doesn’t currently have a nuclear weapons test explosion program, Congress would have to appropriate the money first. 

Jon B. Wolfsthal

A: Not sure what “this” is at this point. To conduct operational flight tests of US delivery systems, those are already underway for existing systems and systems in development. For nuclear testing, the US would need to fund the conduct of a nuclear explosive test. It would be conducted by the US Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration.

Daryl G. Kimball

A: The President has the legal authority to do this, but he needs authorization and appropriations for this purpose by Congress, and Congress can block or modify what he can do or under what conditions, etc. It’s the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy that is responsible for maintaining the existing warheads in the U.S. arsenal. They’ve been doing this since the mid-90s, since the U.S. halted nuclear testing in September 1992 through a very well-funded, sophisticated stockpile stewardship program, which uses non-nuclear, or I should say, non-testing methods, to maintain the seven warhead types in US arsenal.

Q: What specifically would be tested?

Hans Kristensen

A: It is hard to understand what Trump is referring to. It might have been triggered by Russia’s two new missile tests over the last week. But the United States already tests its nuclear weapons in similar ways by conducting test launches and laboratory experiments. If by testing he means nuclear explosive testing, that would be reckless, probably not possible for 18 months, would cost money that Congress would have to approve, and it would most certainly [result in] Russian and Chinese, and likely also India and Pakistan nuclear tests. Unlike the United States, all these countries would have much to gain by restarting nuclear testing. Besides, although there have been occasional rumors that Russia and China may have conducted very small-yield tests, I’m not aware of any reports that they have conducted significant nuclear test explosions.

Jon B. Wolfsthal

A: Again, it depends. This is not well explained by the President at this point.

Daryl G. Kimball

A: Well, this is a great question that the president’s people need to answer. Nuclear testing has historically been used to proof-test new warhead designs. Does the device explode? Does it detonate to the desired explosive yield? Does it have the characteristics that you want? That is the main reason why the United States conducted most of its 1,030 nuclear tests. What exactly they will be trying to figure out from a technical standpoint, I do not know, and frankly, there is no reason why the United States needs nuclear test explosions to maintain existing warheads in our arsenal.

So, looking at Trump’s statements, it’s pretty clear that whatever kind of nuclear testing he’s thinking about, it’s for political purposes. It is a juvenile kind of tit-for-tat reaction to what he perceives other countries are doing. And I would note that he claims that this is from an overnight quote on Air Force One, one you know, all other countries seem to be doing this. Well, those of us who follow these issues extremely carefully do not see any other country conducting nuclear explosive tests. So the president and his scientific advisors need to explain what he’s talking about. I would say that he appears to be confused and misinformed about this issue.

Q: How long would it take from the time of this social media posting until the tests take place?

Hans Kristensen

A: It would be expensive because the timeline for doing a simple explosion is six to 10 months, a fully instrumented test in 24 to 36 months, and a test to develop a new nuclear warhead is about 60 months.

Jon B. Wolfsthal

A: It would require anywhere from a few months to conduct a rapid explosive test and 18 months to conduct a fully instrumented test that would yield scientific results.

Daryl G. Kimball

A: I think it would take many months. I would put it at around 36 months to be able to conduct a nuclear explosive test underground that is contained. There are generally two kinds of tests. One is a demonstration test that simply says, ‘We have nuclear weapons and they explode.’ Then there is a test that is designed to derive some data about the weapon’s design to help understand how it’s working. A scientific test requires much more preparation and time than a simple demonstration test. In theory, the United States could fire a Minuteman III missile from the ground. Within an hour, it could detonate a nuclear device high in the atmosphere, and we would see that one of our nuclear warheads works. But that’s not what I think Donald Trump was talking about.

Q: Where could these tests take place?

Hans Kristensen

A: It can practically only be done in Nevada.

Jon B. Wolfsthal

A: The most likely spot is the Nevada National Security Site, which is the former US nuclear weapons test site about 45 minutes north of Las Vegas. No other location is currently capable or legally structured for the conduct of nuclear explosive tests.

Daryl G. Kimball

A: The Nevada National Security Site, which is nearly the size of Rhode Island, is where the United States conducted the majority of its nuclear test explosions, including 100 in the atmosphere, beginning in 1951. That is the site where, if there’s a military scientific need to resume testing, that’s where the United States has been planning for.

With so many questions about Trump’s nuclear testing statements still outstanding, we are waiting for further clarification from the White House. We will update this story with any pertinent details provided.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Support for Geert Wilders’ far-right, anti-Islam Freedom Party has declined as the centrist D66 party made major gains in the Dutch elections. The two parties are now neck-and-neck in the race to become the largest in parliament.