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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 12th to June 18th - Hex(anitrohexaazaisowurtzitane)bear

Image is a ball-and-stick model of a molecule of CL-20, alternatively known as hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane, taken from Wikipedia.

Much of this preamble is taken from this article.

CL-20 is the most deadly non-nuclear explosive that humanity has yet discovered, capable of generating detonation velocities and pressures higher than other military explosives like TNT, RDX, and HMX. If you have a more powerful explosive, you can make your missiles travel further and/or make them smaller. It also helps the creation of nuclear missiles, as to start the nuclear chain reaction, you need a powerful shockwave to get all the atoms in there to mingle. The problem is that it's a little too explosive, making it exceedingly difficult to not only manufacture, but transport. I mean, America can hardly transport some chemicals across the country without poisoning entire towns. Thus, it isn't really used in many known military applications.

In 1994, in China, Professor Yu Yongzhong synthesized the first CL-20 compound in his laboratory. America came along and said 'Actually, we did it first, in 1987.' The US team said that despite it being such a powerful explosive, the cost of making and testing it was too high, and the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that there wasn't really much interest in that kind of weapons arms race anymore. Production therefore fell to the wayside, while China kept at it, investing in its production and testing.

China has recently found a way to synthesize it to make it five times as shock-resistant. This shock resistance is essentially measured by dropping an object onto it and measuring the height you need to drop it from to make it explode. The previous record was 13 cm / 5 inches, whereas now it is 68 cm, or about 27 inches. US military experts already fear that China has designed its weaponry to use CL-20 and thus this will give them an advantage in missile technology.

(Also, fun fact, CL-20 is called that because it was developed in the China Lake facility in California.)

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

This week's second update is here in the comments.

This week's third update is here in the comments.

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704 comments

  • U.S. Warned Ukraine Not to Attack Nord Stream -Wall Street Journal

    This is an odd article. Is the US getting ready to throw Ukraine under the bus?

    “It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.” - Henry Kissinger (Age 100)

    • No mention of Hersh, obviously.

      We're back to the Six Dudes in a Yacht story basically.

      I really hate it when an unknown entity, in a sea which is surrounded by NATO countries and monitored constantly, drives over my major gas pipeline and dives down and blows it up, and then gets away without being apprehended. Happens to me literally all the time.

      The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warned the Ukrainian government not to attack the Nord Stream gas pipelines last summer after it obtained detailed information about a Ukrainian plot to destroy a main energy connection between Russia and Europe, officials familiar with the exchange said.

      The message, delivered by CIA officials in June, followed a tip the CIA received from the military intelligence service of the Netherlands, these officials said.

      While the CIA took the warning seriously, these officials said, it had questions over whether Ukraine had the capacity to carry out such an attack, which would require placing explosive charges deep beneath the Baltic Sea.

      Weeks later, on Sept. 26, the pipelines were hit. Ukraine has vehemently denied that it had anything to do with the attack on the pipelines.

      Dutch military intelligence officials told the CIA that a Ukrainian sabotage team was looking to rent a yacht on the Baltic coastline and use a team of divers to plant explosives along the four pipes of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.

      The plan was to stage the attack after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s exercise called Baltic Ops that took place in the area above the pipelines and ended on June 17, European intelligence officials said.

      The CIA quickly notified a group of allied countries, including Germany, the landing site of the pipelines, via a secure cable sometime in June. Other countries along the Baltic coastline were also warned, though not necessarily in the same detail.

      CIA officials asked their counterparts in Kyiv if they were mounting an attack. It couldn’t be determined how the Ukrainians responded.

      The CIA then received information that Ukraine had called off the original plan, according to a U.S. official.

      In late summer, the CIA told Germany and other allied nations that the threat level from such an operation had diminished because the U.S. no longer believed Kyiv would undertake such an attack, said European officials who received or were briefed on that assessment.

      The following month, a series of powerful underwater explosions tore apart three of the four main Nord Stream pipes.

      Andriy Chernyak, spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, denied that Ukraine was involved in the blasts when asked Tuesday about the CIA’s inquiry.

      In a recent interview with the German newspaper Bild, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “I believe that our military and our intelligence did not do it, and when anyone claims the opposite, I would like them to show us the evidence.”

      At a meeting with a European counterpart in October, CIA Director William Burns told his counterpart that available evidence didn’t point to Russia. When asked if it was Ukraine, he said, “I hope not,” according to an official present at the meeting.

      Western officials, including in the U.S. and Germany, have said they suspect a “pro-Ukrainian group” orchestrated and executed the sabotage. Some details of the CIA’s warning, including disclosing the role of the Dutch military intelligence in tipping off the CIA, were published earlier on Tuesday by a media consortium led by Germany’s Zeit newspaper.

      Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that German investigators were examining evidence that suggested a Ukrainian sabotage team had used Poland, a European Union neighbor and NATO ally, as a hub for the logistics and financing of last year’s attack. Investigators haven’t accused Poland’s government or any Polish individuals of involvement.

      Previously, the Journal reported that German investigators believe those responsible rented the Andromeda, a 50-foot-long sailing yacht, using a Warsaw-based travel agency, to plant bombs along the pipelines.

      Its passengers returned the boat unwashed, allowing investigators to recover fingerprints, and traces of explosives—as well as DNA that they have tried to match to at least one Ukrainian soldier, through his son, who lives in Germany.

    • This story still somehow gets funnier every time the narrative changes.

      This is like, iteration #84. I will probably post a similar version of this comment another 100 times before the story finally dies.

      :sus-deep:

704 comments