Tracing a Line Between Israeli Pager Attacks and Ukraine Collapse to the Tennessee Munitions Factory Explosion that Killed 16 Workers in an Impoverished Region of the U.S.

On October 10, an explosion ripped through the Accurate Energetic Systems (AES) facility in Bucksnort, Tennessee, killing 16 workers and injuring at least four others.

Officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the National Center for Explosives Training and Research estimate that between 24,000 and 28,000 pounds of explosives detonated and leveled the 15,000-square-foot building. It was as if the facility had been hit by a fabled US MOAB or MOP bomb—two of the military’s heaviest non-nuclear bombs. 

In this post we’ll look at the immediate cause of the explosion, contributing factors, and how the explosion is an indictment of imperial America’s wars abroad and its social policy at home.

Immediate Cause

Here’s what we know so far based on comments from investigators. From The Nashville Tennessean:

Scientists as well as local and federal authorities say they’ve developed several hypotheses for what caused the deadly explosion at the rural munitions plant. But Jamey VanVliet, special agent in charge at the Nashville ATF office, did not say what those hypotheses were.

“I will not speculate on the cause of the explosion or comment on a potential cause, except to say at this point, there is no indication of a threat to public safety,” VanVliet said. He did say that the area of origin for the blast was on the lower floor production level of the pour cast building…

McCracken said the initial explosion happened in one of those production kettles.

“And then we believe that in addition to that, there was a sympathetic detonation of other explosive material stored on that main floor,” he said.

The building was used to manufacture cast booster used in commercial mining and military uses, McCracken explained.

“Commonly, they’re comprised of a mixture of TNT and RDX. (They) are the two explosive compounds combined together to make a cast booster,” McCracken said. “They’re the components mixed together, and then, by hand, they’re poured into a cardboard tube.”

Here is some relevance background on cast boosters, from the Big Chemical Encyclopedia:

An explosive booster is a sensitive explosive charge that acts as a bridge between a (relatively weak) conventional detonator and a low-sensitivity (but typically high-energy) explosive such as TNT. By itself, the initiating detonator would not deliver sufficient energy to set off the low-sensitivity charge. However, it detonates the primary charge (the booster), which then delivers an explosive shockwave that is sufficient to detonate the secondary, main, high-energy charge.

A common form for boosters is to cast the explosive material into a cylindrical shell made of cardboard or plastic; these are accordingly known as cast boosters.

​​Cast boosters are generally a 50/50 mix of TNT and PETN or RDX. The mixture is melted in a steam kettle and poured into molds to harden. Speaking strictly from a performance standpoint, cast boosters are often preferred over other booster products because of their high detonation pressures, insensitivity, water resistance, and ease of priming.

Contributing Factors

While we wait for the official cause, there are other details already available that helped make the explosion more likely.

TNT Shortages and Alternatives

The New York Times in a write up on the Tennessee disaster notes that TNT production in the US has for decades largely relied on foreign suppliers from China, Poland, Russia and Ukraine since the last U.S. government-owned factory in the country closed in the 1980s. Following the elevation of Project Ukraine to a hot war in 2022 and the scramble to arm both sides, as well as the US and allies fueling Israel’s genocide and other destruction projects in West Asia for the past two years, TNT has become more scarce, especially in the US.

If we go back to another piece in the Times on September 1, there’s  more detail on this shortage. It’s titled “Ukraine War Leads to Global Shortage of TNT.” But that’s not really accurate. It’s more of a shortage in the US and for US-aligned states in the New Cold War instigated by Washington:

A second and important source of supply for commercial use had been TNT recovered from munitions like land mines, shells and bombs that the Pentagon regularly decommissions. While the weapons were deemed too old for use by American troops, the explosives inside of them were typically still fully viable and could be recycled.

But according to officials in the civilian blasting industry, those sources have dried up as the U.S. military has elected to keep older weapons in its arsenal since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Poland had been the Pentagon’s sole authorized supplier of TNT. But it has been sending much of what it makes across its border to Ukraine, which is using all that it produces for its own military purposes.

That comes as two of the other main sources of TNT, Russia and China, have stopped exporting to the United States, the officials said.

Yes, nations typically will stop selling you explosives when you’re out to destroy them. Strategic thinkers in the US do not appear to have foreseen this possibility. A Reuters deep dive from 2024 details years of miscalculations that led the US to this current point in which it is scrambling to supply its wars. And the crap runs downhill.

The US, in response, has turned to other, riskier explosives manufacturing while simultaneously relaxing its usual lax oversight even further. Or as the New York Times puts it, “all of this has put pressure on U.S. weapons production.”

That pressure exploded in Bucksnort.

What did the US’ inability to arm its Ukraine proxy mean for AES? Some background:

AES is believed to be the primary U.S. manufacturer of TNT for artillery shells, although it is unclear how much of their TNT is sourced from overseas…Reports from February 2025 indicated that Russia was firing up to 10,000 shells a day, while Ukraine was firing approximately 2,000 shells daily.

Issues with 155mm shell production have been noted even before the current conflict. Between summer 2014 and fall 2015, the U.S. produced no shells due to manufacturing mismanagement. In 2021, defects were found in shells produced at an American facility. Over $100 million was reportedly spent on unsuccessful attempts to update the explosives used in Army shells, with materials sourced globally, including from China and areas in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia.

Concerns about production facilities have also been raised. In Tennessee, a $147 million factory dedicated to explosives was found idle, while a Pennsylvania shell-casing factory, dating back to the Korean War, was operating with minimal upgrades. In Iowa, manufacturing flaws led to production line shutdowns. 

The PETN Connection

To make up for the shortage of TNT, the US is increasingly turning to pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN. It is made by three factories in the United States, according to the Times. AES in Bucksnort produced PETN explosives—as well as HMX and RDX— according to an archived version of its website (since it has been partially scrubbed). Again from the Times:

The Accurate Energetic Systems website states that the company also produces several other types of explosives that are in high demand by governments and commercial industries. Those explosives include HMX, which is used in various types of ordnance; PETN, which is used in detonating cord and can also be used in the mining industry; and RDX, which is a main component of C-4 explosive blocks commonly used by the military.

PETN is more expensive and technologically complex to use compared to TNT. It’s also much more powerful:

 

Here’s some more background from Wikipedia:

[PETN] is rarely used alone in military operations due to its lower stability, but is primarily used in the main charges of plastic explosives (such as C4) along with other explosives (especially RDX), booster and bursting charges of small caliber ammunition, in upper charges of detonators in some land mines and shells, as the explosive core of detonation cord.^[22][23] PETN is the least stable of the common military explosives, but can be stored without significant deterioration for longer than nitroglycerin or nitrocellulose.^[24]

PETN is a secondary explosive, meaning it is more difficult to detonate than primary explosives, so dropping or igniting it will typically not cause an explosion (at standard atmospheric pressure it is difficult to ignite and burns vigorously), but is more sensitive to shock and friction than other secondary explosives such as TNT or tetryl.^[17][21]

We don’t know for certain that PETN was involved in the explosion or how AES production and the makeup of its cast boosters was affected by the TNT shortage, but it’s safe to assume it had taken on a larger role. As reported by the Times, the US has increasingly turned to more PETN for military and commercial uses due to the difficulty in sourcing TNT.

What we do know about the explosion is that it occurred in one of the production kettles where explosives are combined to make a cast booster. And more PETN could have made an accident more likely due to its lower stability and sensitivity to shock and friction.

A 1989 explosion involving PETN at the Atlas Powder Company in Joplin, Missouri demonstrates the risks. Here’s the accident report from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration:

A plant was making pentolite, a class of explosive primer. Workers were mixing TNT and PETN in two kettles that were heated to about 212 degrees by hot water and steam. The flow of hot water slowed due to a pump malfunction, solidifying the TNT-PETN mixture in a pipe beneath one kettle. Employees #1 and #2 tried to remove the blockage with the pipe in place using hot water. This did not work, so the pipe containing the solid mix was removed and placed on the floor. One employee tried to pry the stoppage loose using a screw driver and a rawhide mallet. This caused the shock-sensitive TNT-PETN mixture to explode. The explosion killed two employees and injured two others.

PETN is also becoming more in demand in today’s age of “asymmetrical warfare.” From a recent India Today write up:

PETN is highly coveted for a range of uses, from industrial demolition to military applications—and, more disturbingly, as a weapon in terrorist attacks. Its adaptability allows it to be moulded into plastic explosives, easily concealed within everyday objects…

Objects like pagers:

Israeli intelligence, operating through [a shell corporation in Hungary called B.A.C. Consulting], produced for Hezbollah specially designed pagers containing batteries laced with small quantities of the explosive PETN, which is difficult to detect. The explosives were designed to detonate after a specific encrypted message was sent to them, activating an on-switch in the explosive charge. The actual explosion occurred shortly afterwards either by pager holders pressing two buttons manually with both of their hands to view the encrypted message or through a second activating message.

While Israel gifts golden pagers, the attack is being made into a feature film, and the Western media fawns over the “spectacular” “Bond-like” the fact such an “ingenuous” operation disfigured children is of course ignored:

11-year-old Hussein, one among many victims of the pager attacks https://t.co/9jAwdWfwaw pic.twitter.com/GGJfnNeKBh

— Lisa Tilley (@Tilley101) February 6, 2025

According to the archived version of the AES website, it did offer “custom pelletized energetics tailored to meet the unique requirements of each customer,” but while the PETN used by Israel in this instance might not have been sourced from AES, it is at least symbolic of Israel’s major draw on the overstretched “Arsenal of Democracy.” 

The U.S. exports military explosives, including PETN, to allied countries and NATO members, and DataVagyanik notes that Israel increasingly uses PETN for a variety of weapons, including in micro-explosive arrays for unmanned aerial vehicles and this presents business opportunities for suppliers like AES: 

• Israel is a global leader in developing cutting-edge military technologies, including precision-guided munitions and missile defense systems. PETN is frequently used in these advanced weapons due to its explosive power.

Business Opportunities:

• Explosive Component Manufacturing: Israel’s defense industry requires high-quality explosive materials for its advanced munitions, providing opportunities for PETN suppliers to contribute to local production.

And as is well-known, Israel is largely dependent on the US for supplies to carry out its carnage and will be for the foreseeable future.The Israeli Ministry of Defense earlier this year signed a $275 million deal with Elbit System to, among other things, establish a new national factory for raw materials. Calcalist notes:

The new raw materials factory, to be built in southern Israel, will feature production lines for energetic materials required by all defense industries in the country. According to the Ministry of Defense, this facility is expected to reduce Israel’s reliance on imported raw materials—a critical vulnerability highlighted during the war that began 15 months ago. During that conflict, some countries restricted the export of weapons and key production components, underscoring the need for greater domestic production capabilities.

But that facility is still years away and won’t fulfill all the country’s substantial desire for explosives.

With a Genocide On and Demand Soaring, Production Outpaces Safety More Than Usual

As Military.com notes:

Most of America’s ammunition, propellants, and explosives are made there or by private firms like Accurate Energetic Systems…the explosion in Tennessee is part of a cycle the United States has repeated for more than a century. Each time national or global demand for weapons rises, production expands faster than oversight can. The risks shift from the battlefield to the factory floor.

And the AES plant was no stranger to safety issues. An explosion at the facility in 2014 killed one worker and injured four others. Buried at the bottom of a CNN report on the 2025 explosion (after the usual resiliency bromides) is the following history:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the company $7,200 after a 2019 inspection found violations related to personal protective equipment, employee exposure to contaminants and inadequate safety training, among other citations. The company contested the findings and eventually reached a formal settlement, OSHA records show. 

Cost of doing business. More from WSWS:

…several employees suffered seizures for exposure to cyclonite (RDX), an explosive linked to nervous system damage. Residue was found on worktables and even in the break room, yet fines were quietly reduced to $7,200.

…just a year after [the 2019 violations], on October 30, 2020, there was a near-miss of a catastrophic explosion in the very same Melt-Pour building that exploded last Friday. According to an investigative report by the Daily Mail in the UK, maintenance supervisor Greg McRee was forced to put out a fire using only a garden hose to douse the flames shooting from an industrial chimney.

Had the flames spread to the boiler or ignited the stacks of canisters—high-energy primers used to set off bigger explosives in mining or demolition—“It would have leveled the building. Same thing that happened to the building the other day,” McRee told the Daily Mail. But instead of being rewarded, he was dismissed days later from his $28-an-hour supervisor job for “violating” company prohibitions against “fighting explosive fires.” 

The CNN piece concludes with a brief note on 26-year-old LaTeisha Mays who had worked at AES for less than a year and had raised several safety concerns about her job, and complained about getting nose bleeds at work. She needed to pay off her car before taking another job, though.

Hickman County, Tennessee—where the AES explosion took place—is one of the poorest areas in one the nation’s poorest states. Per capita income is $29,512 and more than 14 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The US’ first TNT factory in decades, which is slated to come online in 2028 in Kentucky’s Muhlenberg County, is also going to a region starved for decent paying jobs with a poverty rate of 22 percent (compared to the 11 percent nationally).

And the local population and future workers are being signed up to take the risk so that mega weapons manufacturers can keep swimming in dough and the wars—largely driven by an attempt by the Western economic elite to remain on top—can continue. From military.com:

Since World War II, and especially after the Cold War, the Pentagon has shifted away from running its own munitions factories and instead contracts private companies to make most of its ammunition, explosives, and weapons. That shift gave the military flexibility to expand or cut production as needed, but it also pushed the risks of that work onto local communities.

Business as usual:

More so, imagine what the hundreds of millions going to AES to build weapons to maim and kill could have done for Hickman County put to other uses.

As Washington shovels a trillion dollars towards its war profiteering, the Bucksnort explosion is a reminder that it doesn’t just bring devastation abroad. But hey, the money is good for some: