Iran’s nuclear activity may raise concerns in the US: Weapons and Warfare

Jan 23, 2024 at 11:01 PM CST

In this episode of Weapons and Warfare, learn from an expert about Iran's nuclear activity and what kind of threat that could be to America. — Image credit: Getty Images

In this episode of Weapons and Warfare, we investigate what Iran has been up to with its nuclear program since the United States withdrew from the so-called Iran nuclear deal. Veteran national security policymaker and analyst Dr. Peter Brookes explains how close Iran’s progress may be to making American leadership uncomfortable.

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Also featured in this episode:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Davos, Switzerland, to warn other world leaders that if Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is left unchecked, Putin may start to look for other countries to invade.
The pending sale of Javelin missiles to Kosovo has some of their neighbors unhappy with the U.S. for green-lighting the sale.
Top brass for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are crying foul over delayed deliveries of new aircrafts: the F-35 Lightnings. So what’s the holdup?
The U.S. Army put in a big order for Coyote anti-drone interceptors, which may be a big cost-saver when it comes to protecting American interests.

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Ryan Robertson is the anchor of the Straight Arrow News video podcast Weapons and Warfare. He wore many hats in his career — from photographer to news director — and firmly believes honest journalism will save our Republic.

Tags: Air Force, Drones, Iran, Marine Corps, Navy, Nuclear weapons, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Weapons

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[RYAN ROBERTSON]

Hello again, folks, and thank you for being part of Weapons and Warfare for Straight Arrow News. I’m your host, Ryan Robertson. We have a stacked show on deck for you this week. We talked to a former Navy officer turned spy turned Foreign Affairs expert Dr. Peter Brooks. I had the chance to catch up with the good doctor and get his thoughts on Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions. Spoiler alert, they aren’t good.

Also, our Weapon of the Week is a wee bit wily. We’re talking to the new Coyote anti-drone interceptors, and there’s good news about Guyana. So,a lot to get to, but first, let’s take a look at some stories that you might have missed.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky used the stage at the World Economic Forum’s Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. To remind folks Ukraine’s war against a Russian invasion isn’t just about the former Soviet bloc nations striking a motivated tone President Solinsky took to the podium and laid it out. He thinks a failure to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs on Ukraine would ultimately spell trouble for the other nations within Putin’s reach

[ZELENSKYY]

“if anyone thinks this is only about us. This is only about Ukraine. They are fundamentally mistaken.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

The State Department says Zelinsky also met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, about renewing the U.S.’s economic backing for the war, as well as supporting anti corruption reform efforts within Ukraine. And you know those Javelin anti tank missiles Ukraine is using to decimate Russian tanks and armor. Well, sounds like Kosovo wants some too. But Serbia Kosovo is neighbor to the northeast and chief rival doesn’t like the plan one bit. Needless to say the request from Kosovo to buyJavelins from the United States is being met with a less than enthusiastic response. Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, gained approval from the State Department to buy 246 missiles for $75 million. Development the Serbian president called a deep disappointment. The pending purchase comes on the heels of several Serbian troop movements on Kosovo is border actions deemed by the West as hostile. It’s probably worth noting out here Serbia is backed by Russia, the naval aviators, airmen and marines who maintain and fly the F-35 Lightning have a problem.

To truncate a phrase from famed acting coach Constantine STUN is Lawsky there are no small parts. During recent testimony in the House Armed Services Subcommittee Air Force Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt, detailed how Lockheed Martin and other companies are failing to provide a quote, couple of components needed for F- 35 crews to install an upgrade called TR three.

There were 52 airplanes that contractually if der three was fully ready would have been delivered by the end of by the end of December 21 of those airplanes are let’s say crossed a the last stage in the production line. The rest of the airplanes are being held in general for moving TR three hardware around you upgrade is essentially a bigger faster computer processor than is currently installed. Finally, brace yourself for a dose of some very good boys it’s picture day for the canine officers at an unnamed Air Force Security Police shop posted by the Instagram account dogs are important and set to the George Clinton classic atomic dog. We get a look from behind the scenes as well as their official portraits. Some very good boys indeed.

Alright, time for the debrief. And this week we really have something special. Dr. Peter Brooks is basically a real life Tom Clancy character. He was a naval officer, a spy, he worked directly for the Secretary of Defense, the dude knows his stuff. Now he’s semi-retired but still writes for the geopolitical intelligence services or GIS. I had the chance recently to talk with Dr. Brooks over Zoom about a paper he authored focusing on Iran’s nuclear program and just how soon it might be before they have a nuclear weapon.

Ryan Robertson: Peter, thank you so much for joining us today. You are a hard man to get a hold of, but I really want to talk to you about an article you had written for GIS, about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. You had some kind of key takeaways in there, but I want to start off with this idea of breakout time. What exactly you mean by breakout time?

Dr. Peter Brookes: Well, I’m not a nuclear physicist, but I think that that term is often used inappropriately, people use it a lot. What it really means is the time it would take a country to produce enough physical material for one bomb. So it’s not the time it would take for them to produce the bomb itself, but the time to produce the physical material.

The building of a bomb itself is a whole other scientific and engineering challenge.

Ryan Robertson: And right now, Iran’s breakout time to get that fissile material is pretty short.

Dr. Peter Brookes: Yes, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action from 2015, the agreement with the P5+1 to five permanent nuclear powers plus Germany/EU and Iran was—

Ryan Robertson: Real quick, the Iran nuclear deal, as it’s commonly called?

Dr. Peter Brookes: Yes, exactly. The Iran nuclear deal, as it’s commonly called. They envisioned that it would take at that point, you know, 2015, they envisioned that it would take a year for Iran to be able to produce enough fissile material for one bomb.

Recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, which monitors this agreement, says that it could only be a couple of weeks that Iran could have enough stockpiled low-enriched uranium, that in a couple of weeks, it could produce enough high-enriched uranium to produce at least one bomb.

Ryan Robertson: Nuclear-armed Iran. Not good for the Middle East, not good for the world.

Dr. Peter Brookes: Now, not at all. We don’t want to see another country join the once-exclusive nuclear club. There’s a lot of reasons to be concerned about Iran. They want hegemony over the Persian Gulf, they want hegemony in the Middle East. They have serious issues with the United States and Israel, as we know, they have a tremendous amount of animus towards the United States and Israel. They also are a radical regime that supports terrorism.

One of the big concerns is, in the context of Russia and Ukraine, Russia has nuclear weapons and Ukraine doesn’t.

Russia may have more freedom of action because of concerns of escalation from the conventional scale to the nuclear scale. So a radical Islamist regime that supports terrorism with nuclear weapons, and has great power aspirations is, in my estimation, not a good thing. Nobody wants it — well, many people do not want Iran to get the bomb. I’m not sure who does, although they do have some relationships with some other rogue states. But certainly the United States does not want to see Iran get the bomb.

Ryan Robertson: Does Iran need to use ICBM or missile to be able to deliver a nuclear device if they have these terrorist proxies that can, dirty bomb, you know, backpack nuke kind of thing? Right?

Dr. Peter Brookes: Well, first of all, it’s important to know that we’re not quite clear as to whether Iran has the technology or capability to build the bomb.

They’re working on the material that’s required. And then there’s a whole other set of scientific and engineering challenges that are required to actually make that warhead, right. Even if they had an underground test, which they’ve tested nothing so far, and they might try to use supercomputers to say, “We have the capability of doing it.” We’re not sure that they actually have a warhead.

So then once you once you do this thing underground, you do this testing underground, then you have to miniaturize that engineering rig to be able to put it in the nose cone of a missile or something else.

A nuke backpack is something that was talked about during the Cold War, that takes a tremendous amount of science and technology. Just getting it down to fit in the nose cone of an ICBM, which can carry a lot of weight is a real challenge.

A dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon, per se. There’s no fission or fusion in that, it just spreads radioactive materials. So it’s important to clarify those things. But yes, ultimately, Iran down the road could certainly put a nuclear weapon in a ship sailing into a harbor, right? They could they could put it on an aircraft, remember, that’s how they started with with us was aircraft. They could put it on a missile at some point in different size range, once they’re able to create that sort of a warhead.

They also could put it on a drone, or a cruise missile. Remember, Iran is a major supplier of drones and a major leading drone power in the world today. And they’re providing them to Russia, and they’ll be used for both ISR intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance as well as weapons delivery.

Right now, there’s a concern that Iran is sharing its weaponry with its allies and proxies in the Middle East, and some of them are terrorist groups. So yes, Iran is the most active supporter state terrorism in the world. And them having the bomb should give us a significant pause, especially the people that they that they work with.

Ryan Robertson: So back in November, when the GIS article came out, you kind of ended it with a sliver of hope that maybe maybe Iran comes to its senses and backs off in the month or two months since the article came out. Now, do you still hold on to that small sliver of hope? Or is it is it gone?

Dr. Peter Brookes: It’s even smaller. I was trying to say, ‘Look, you know, we have a regime in Iran right now, that is led by a particular leader. And there are a lot of hardliners, and Iran has a hardline regime. But there could be a change, right?’ I mean, it’s always possible.

We’re always surprised by these sorts of things. Think about all the color revolutions and things along that line.

So Iran, if it had a change in leadership, I could see it moving. Of course, it’s important to point out that Iran says that their nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes. Okay, so they’re saying, Islam would not allow the creation of a nuclear weapon. But I mean, it’s one of these things where you’re gonna believe them, or you’re gonna believe your own eyes.

But once again, there’s also the drama involved in the geopolitical maneuvering that’s involved where they’re trying to get leverage. So the perception of a bomb program also gives you leverage. There’s a lot of things we don’t know about the Iranian program. So yes, there’s always a chance that they could say, ‘Okay, this is a bad idea. We want to be integrated in the international system. We want all of the all of these sanctions to go away.’ I don’t think Iran is gonna move in that direction. Right now, this is a possibility. Okay, and that’s not a big one, and it’s probably smaller now. That’s a choice for Iran to make.

Countries have continually opened the door to Iran if they were to change their behavior. But they’ve chosen not to, and they’ve stayed the same course. And there’s a lot of reasons be concerned about Iran besides the nuclear weapons. I mean, it’s their support of terrorism. We talked about the human rights situation in the country, things along that line. And there are other things people say, ‘Why is Iran pursuing nuclear weapons or nuclear energy, when they have all that gas and oil?’ So it’s very expensive, if you were to think it in that sort of thing. And for a country that is terribly economically mismanaged and should do quite well, considering its thing. It’s rather impoverished.

Ryan Robertson: Peter, let’s leave it there for now. I’m sure in a couple of months, we’ll probably be circling back and figuring out the latest Iran steps. But thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it, and have a great one!

Dr. Peter Brookes: You too. Take care.

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

If you want to hear more of my conversation with Dr. Peter Brooks, you are in luck. We have some audio exclusives over at our podcast channels. So find that wherever you get your Weapons of Warfare Podcast.

I’m not sure what it is about these two, but they must provide each other some serious motivation. In December, we reported on the road runner from Anduril. Now here comes Raytheon’s coyote and it’s our weapon of the week. Truth be told, the coyote has been here a while the first generation were introduced in 2014. But with age comes refinement. And while it’s looked changed over the years, the coyotes mission like its cartoon counterpart remains the same. See drone killed drone. public contracts show the army wants to buy 6000 of the block two variants, and 700 of the block three variants. What’s the difference? Well, block twos go boom, aka kinetic block threes do not aka non kinetic. So let’s break it down a little further, starting with the block twos. In the simplest possible terms, blocked TOS or Brawlers. When they lock onto a target, they throw a punch. And if the lessons learned during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have taught us anything about drone warfare, you It’s that sometimes a good punch is what you need. But why throw a haymaker when a jab will do so while even cheap off the shelf drones have to be dealt with. Oftentimes that means using expensive surface to air missiles that could cost a million dollars a pop much more than the device they’re eliminating. According to multiple reports, the unit price for a coyote is around $100,000, making it a bargain by comparison. When launched the block two uses a radar seeker to hone in on its target. And when it’s close enough to land to hit, Boom goes the dynamite hopefully knocking its target out of the sky. So if block twos or brawlers block threes are tacticians. There isn’t a whole lot known about the technical specs just yet. But the non kinetic descriptor is a good indication. We’re dealing with a system using electronic warfare countermeasures. The Army also says block threes can engage multiple targets at the same time. Another ew indicator. One other notable difference between the two versions, the block two is a one and done weapon while the block three can be recovered and eventually reused. Both versions of the coyote are fairly mobile that can be fired from ground vehicles, helicopters, surface vessels at sea and from a fixed position. Of course, when it comes to hitting the road, the Army uses the current coyote system mounted to a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, otherwise known as the Oshkosh in a TV. Of course, it wouldn’t be a military purchase if there weren’t a few add ons involved. So the army is also picking up 252 fixed launchers 52 Mobile launchers, 118 fixed radars and 33 mobile radars with the contract for the coyotes.

Alright folks, it’s time in the show called comms check. It’s our opportunity to kind of see where your head’s at. We peruse our social media channels, find a comment or a question of yours, or it’s an opportunity for us to kind of update you on a story that we have done previously. So let’s get started. The first comp check this week comes to us on a story that we had done back in November for straight arrow on the Ukrainian claim of having a the world’s new world record for the longest sniper shot at 3800 meters. It’s about 2.3 miles. And that leads us into the comments coming from speed demon here. Why can’t we use units of 5280 feet instead of this meter? Crap? Well, speed demon that’s kind of a two fold question there. Firstly, snipers, they use scopes. And the most common type of scope at the mill scope is based on meters, it’s based on the metric system, it was created back, this style of scope was created back in the 1800s or so for artillery units, when they’re targeting in things, you know, at great distance. And when they zero in their targets. Basically, when when you adjust your scope, you know, one click once to the left one click to the right. Usually that click aligns to a 10th of a meter at a distance, you know, 100 meters. So one click, it’ll drop a 10th of a meter after 100 meters. That’s basically the general idea of it. So that’s why most snipers use meters are there are some scopes out there that are based on yardage, but they’re just not as common. Why does America use the, you know, the imperialist system and not the metric system? Well, it goes back, there’s actually only three countries the US, me and Mar and Liberia, I believe is the third country that is not on the metric system every other country in the world is but the US does use some metrics, system stuff and some of our sports and you know, when when we’re talking about liters of soda, you know, that sort of thing. There is some metric involved, but to your point speed demon. Most of the world does use the metric system snipers use it because it’s the most common way that sniper scopes are are created. And it’s just an easier way to target. You know, a meter is a more accurate you know, you can get more accurate if you’re using meters and say a 10th of a mile I’m within one meter of the target sounds a whole lot better than I am within a 10th of a mile of the target. So hope that answers your question speed demon. Moving on now to our second comps, check. There actually is no question this week. So I’m going to throw away my notes and we are going to answer give you an update really on a situation in Guyana. So we had done a story gained a lot of traction on our tic toc channel about Venezuela’s reform, to annex part of Guyana as its own. That part of Guyana is known as Essequibo or Essequibo or Essequibo. There’s multiple pronunciations I found Multiple pronunciations on it. So if you’re from that area, and I’m saying it incorrectly, I apologize. However, good news to report is Venezuela. And Guyana came out with a joint statement that said neither country will threaten or use force against one another in any circumstances, or will refrain whether by words or deeds from escalating any conflict or disagreement. So, good news. Venezuela said they were going to take part of Guyana, the world said no Guyana said no. The US and the UK, you know, put some military might in the area of Venezuela is backing down and now everybody’s friends again. So good news Venezuela, you know, backed off of its its push to annex part of Guyana, and is now allowing cooler heads to reform. Certainly, good news for everyone involved, the world could absolutely use more of that.

All opinions expressed in this segment are solely the opinions of the contributors.

Okay, folks, we’re nearing the end of the show, which means it’s time for Ryan’s wrap on tap for the wrap the Houthis in Yemen and the decision in Washington to re-designate the terrorist organization as a terrorist organization. Quick little backstory on the Houthis or who T’s depending on how you want to say it. They are 100% backed by Iran. They came to power in Yemen in 2014, when they overthrew the internationally recognized government there. The Houthis were officially labeled a terrorist organization in 2021. As one of the last acts in office by then President Donald Trump. Now there was a lot of pressure from the UN and some other international aid organizations on Trump to not label the Houthis as terrorists. The thinking was if the Houthis received the label humanitarian aid into Yemen, would drop and innocent people would be further victimized, say what you want about his politics and some of his other decisions while in office. But in this regard, President Trump was right groups designated by the US as foreign terrorist organizations, efthimios need to meet three basic requirements. They need to be foreign check. They need to engage in terrorist acts or retain the capability and intent to do so check and the group’s terrorist activity needs to threaten us national security. Another check so the Houthis definitely meet the US definition of an FTO. But President Biden listed the Houthis as terrorists a few weeks into office, the hope was the move would lead to a diplomatic resolution with the group but that was clearly a miscalculation. The Houthis are responsible for dozens of attacks against civilian and US naval ships in the Red Sea. They’ve also attacked people on land and those attacks did not start once the war in Gaza broke out, but pretty much the entire time the Houthis have been in power. In fact, back in 2021, a week after Biden said that the Houthis were not terrorists anymore. The Houthis attacked civilians. So obviously they still met the definition of a foreign terrorist organization and never should have been delisted in the first place. Listen, I grew up with the idea leaders don’t beat around the bush and instead call it like they see it. And leaders don’t let bullies pick on the weak. By relisting, the Houthi says terrorists. The White House is at least using the right terminology again, but they’re still letting bullies ply their trade. And that’s where we’re going to have to leave it for this week. Folks. If you have a question or comments about anything you heard or saw on the show, please reach out to our social media channels. We would certainly love to hear from you. In the meantime for senior producer Brad Baker video editor Brian Spencer and graphics designer Dakota Piteo. I am Ryan Robertson with Weapons and Warfare signing off.

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