Australia’s ‘Historic’ Submarine Pact Enters 1st Phase; Will Become Only The 2nd Country With US Nuclear Propulsion Tech
Australia’s ‘Historic’ Submarine Pact Enters 1st Phase; Will Become Only The 2nd Country With US Nuclear Propulsion Tech https://eurasiantimes.com/australias-historic-submarine-pact-enters-1st-phase-aukus-uk/ By Sakshi Tiwari 18 Mar 22,
The AUKUS trilateral agreement signed between the US, the UK with Australia to arm the latter with nuclear submarines has been marred with controversies. Aimed at creating effective nuclear deterrence against China, AUKUS has now entered its first phase.
A Congressional Research Service ‘In Focus’ report on AUKUS Nuclear Cooperation was published on March 11, 2022. It analyzed the onset of the maiden phase of nuclear technology transfer to Australia from the United States under AUKUS, based on previous documents submitted to Congress.
According to the contents of the report, In December 2021, American President Joe Biden had sent an agreement titled- “Agreement among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States for the Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information” that outlined a new project for exchanging nuclear propulsion technology with Australia.
An accompanying message to Congress explained that the agreement would permit the three governments to “communicate and exchange Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information and would provide authorization to share certain Restricted Data as may be needed during trilateral discussions” concerning a project to develop Australian nuclear-powered submarines.
In November of last year, Australia inked a nuclear submarine technology-sharing deal with the United States and the United Kingdom as part of the AUKUS defense agreement.
Australian Prime Minister Scot Morrison had lauded the deal and said “The Agreement will provide a mechanism for Australian personnel to access invaluable training and education from our US and UK counterparts, necessary for learning how to safely and effectively build, operate and support nuclear-powered submarines”.
AUKUS – A Historic Pact?
The United Kingdom is the only other country with whom the United States has shared its nuclear propulsion technology, as part of the 1958 Mutual Defense Agreement.
The Agreement between the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the United States of America for ‘Cooperation on the Uses of Atomic Energy for Mutual Defense Purposes’ was signed on July 3, 1958, by the then US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and British Minister Samuel Hood.
Signed in the backdrop of the Cold War and the increasing polarization of the world among the West and the Soviet Union, the agreement represented the close cooperation between the two Western allies. It also allowed the west to consolidate nuclear deterrence against the expanding Communist USSR.On the completion of 60 years of the agreement, U.K. Ministry of Defense Permanent Secretary Stephen Lovegrove had said, “From promoting peace to fighting terrorism, the special relationship between Britain and the U.S. is one built on shared values and years of cooperation. The U.S. is one of our closest allies and we hope to share another 60 years of defending peace and stability throughout the world during such uncertain times.”On the other hand, the AUKUS pact was signed last year amid heightened tensions between the West and nuclear-armed China which has been steadily gaining ground in the Pacific.
In fact, the US fears that China’s long-range nuclear-capable missiles like the DF-26 can put its assets in the Pacific in jeopardy. Apart from arming Australia with nuclear subs, it has also decided to strengthen its presence in the country.
China has been a vocal opponent of the AUKUS agreement, claiming that it violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s principles, poses a threat to regional stability, and contradicts the precedent of a nuclear-free Southeast Asian region.
According to the Lowy Institute’s 2021 Poll, 63 percent of Australians regard China as a security danger, up 22% from the previous year. The rapid worsening of relations with Beijing has only heightened calls for Canberra to do more to strengthen its alliance with the United States. In that respect, AUKUS certainly has China as a goal.
However, despite the controversies, the AUKUS arrangement indeed has been a historical move and a stern departure from the American policy against sharing nuclear technology.
Will Australia Build Nuclear Subs In Record Time?
The AUKUS plan begins with an eighteen-month study period aimed “to seek an optimal pathway to deliver” nuclear propulsion technology to Australia. The research is said to be in its early phases, with the specifics still being ironed out.
The agreement, which the governments signed on November 22, 2021, permits each party to exchange “naval nuclear propulsion information as is determined to be necessary to research, develop, design, manufacture, operate, regulate, and dispose of military reactors.” As noted, this information includes restricted data; the AEA defines such data to include “all data concerning … the use of special nuclear material in the production of energy.”
However, Australia has no nuclear weapons and does not use electricity generated by radioactive materials. While it does include a single nuclear reactor, it is used only for non-military research. Australia, on the other hand, is a major uranium exporter.
Australia does not have any nuclear power plants at the moment, although it does have one research reactor. This agreement “specifically prohibits the transfer of restricted data,” as well as “sensitive nuclear technology, sensitive nuclear facilities, and major critical components.”
A major issue concerning Australia’s construction of a nuclear submarine is the lack of nuclear infrastructure, to begin with. The submarines will be built in Australia, but not the reactor compartments because the country’s current plans do not include establishing a nuclear-power industry capable of sustaining the program, according to Australian PM Scott Morrison.
As a result, one of the most important requirements for Australia would be a reactor design that will not require refueling during the submarines’ estimated service lifespan of up to 35 years, writes Nick Child, Senior Fellow for Naval and Maritime Security at IISS.
He also argues that a large amount of expert shipbuilding investment, as well as supporting infrastructure, will be necessary to assure the submarines’ and their propulsion systems’ safe and effective operation. This will necessitate the use of UK and US expertise, which means diverting engineers and resources.
It could be, thus, pertinent to wonder whether the transfer of nuclear technology from the US and the UK to Australia would be as holistic and smooth as the Mutual Defense Agreement concluded between the two western stalwarts, decades ago.
Even with strong support from the US and the UK, Australia will need years to build cutting-edge nuclear-powered submarines. It has been recommended that Australian submarine sailors train on older American or British submarines that are about to be retired as a workaround.
Another alternative could be to provide nuclear submarines to Australia, either American or British, as a stopgap measure until Canberra can operate its own nuclear submarines. Some experts have speculated that Australia could have a nuclear submarine only by 2030, however, leasing one from the US is always an option.
It could be years before Australia builds its own nuclear submarine from scratch using the technology acquired from the US and UK but the first phase of the agreement could be one step in that direction.
- Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari9555@gmail.com
Nuclear testing in Maralinga, sixty years on
Nuclear testing in Maralinga, sixty years on, First Nations communities have borne the brunt of nuclear testing carried out by the British Government in the 1950s. Forced off their land for 30 years, they have since been tasked with monitoring operations as part of their bid for land back. http://honisoit.com/2022/03/nuclear-testing-in-maralinga-sixty-years-on/?fbclid=IwAR3I0PK-6iZhEgsBzkE4ojkVf9PjgS7h0xJ1fLubi2raItB6A by Katarina Butler. March 17, 2022 In the wake of Hiroshima, every major power on Earth scrambled to develop nuclear weapons to maintain military relevance. One such country was Britain, and in a bid to strengthen Australia’s relationship with Brits, the Menzies government offered swathes of land for nuclear testing. The areas chosen were predominantly inhabited by First Nations people.
Testing in Australia was carried out in three locations: Montebello Islands, Emu Field, and Maralinga, between 1952 and 1957. A total of twelve major atomic detonations occurred, creating large fireballs and mushroom clouds that released radioactive debris that is still detectable today. The explosions were similar in size to those seen at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
March 17, 2022 In the wake of Hiroshima, every major power on Earth scrambled to develop nuclear weapons to maintain military relevance. One such country was Britain, and in a bid to strengthen Australia’s relationship with Brits, the Menzies government offered swathes of land for nuclear testing. The areas chosen were predominantly inhabited by First Nations people.
Testing in Australia was carried out in three locations: Montebello Islands, Emu Field, and Maralinga, between 1952 and 1957. A total of twelve major atomic detonations occurred, creating large fireballs and mushroom clouds that released radioactive debris that is still detectable today. The explosions were similar in size to those seen at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
For the surrounding communities, the testing also posed, and poses, significant health risks.
Nuclear fallout is a mix of unfissioned material and radioactive material produced during the explosion (such as cesium-137). Radioactive chemicals do not degrade the way that other explosives byproducts do. Instead, they have ‘half-lives’ which denote the time taken for half of the radioactive material to decay and become inactive (or decay into another lower-weight radioactive compound). Large amounts of plutonium-239 were dispersed during these tests.
Initially, unfissioned plutonium-239 was thought to be relatively harmless. However, recent research from Monash University indicates otherwise. When larger plutonium particles enter the atmosphere, they can release radioactive nanoparticles which spread across the environment attached to dust or rain. As wildlife take up this plutonium from the soil, it is believed to slowly release into other flora and fauna — with dangerous implications for people living on Country. This is particularly concerning considering the 24,100 year half-life of plutonium-239.
In the lead up to the tests, British Armed Forces failed to warn First Nations people of the dangers associated with the program. Only one officer was responsible for covering the thousands of square kilometres to inform whoever he could find. The officer, Walter MacDougall, was then criticised by the Chief Scientists, who wrote that “he is apparently placing the affairs of a handful of natives above those of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”
From 1955 to 1985 the Anangu people of Maralinga Tjarutja were displaced to the nearby Lutheran Mission. While the British’s Operation Brumby attempted to dilute the high concentrations of radioactive material now embedded in the land, concerns about remaining contamination lingered.
In 1985, the McLelland Royal Commission proved that further decontamination efforts were needed. The Royal Commission also criticised the complicity of the Australian Government and its lack of safety concerns. Eight years later, the British Government made a $35 million payment to the $101 million cleanup cost. The process involved the removal and off-site decontamination of hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of soil before its reburial.
The Maralinga Technical Advisory Committee was thus formed to oversee remediation. Decontamination efforts were hindered by the reluctance of the British to accurately disclose the location and extent of testing. Fortunately, only 120 square kilometres of the contaminated 3200 remained unremediated in the year 2000, with clean up and monitoring efforts ongoing today.
Between 2001 and 2009, the South Australian and Federal governments entered negotiations with the Anangu people, ensuring that they would be able to safely return to Country. Anangu people had to prove that they could monitor for erosion, damage or contamination before being officially granted land back.
The disaster of Maralinga is disturbingly familiar. Today, just like in the 1950s, the settler-colonial state of Australia is abusing Country, leaving it victim to climate change-induced fires and floods. We see the deferral of responsibility to Traditional Owners who, yet again, are cleaning up the mess of ongoing colonial violence. In both cases, the struggle for Indigenous land rights must also be a struggle to restore what has been socially and environmentally lost to centuries of colonial damage and abuse.
Record minimum amount of Antarctic sea ice
Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis, National Snow and Ice Data Center, 17 Mar 22, ”………………………….Antarctic sea ice minimum sets a record In the south, Antarctic sea ice recently reached its late-summer minimum, dropping below all previous minimum ice extents in the satellite record (Figure 4a). For the first time since the satellite record began in 1979, extent fell below 2 million square kilometers (772,000 square miles), reaching a minimum extent of 1.92 million square kilometers (741,000 square miles) on February 25. Ice extent declined at a near-average rate through most of the month at about 40,000 square kilometers (15,400 square miles) per day, but the decline significantly slowed to about 15,000 square kilometers (5,800 square miles) per day towards the end of the month.
Following the unusually early and above average sea ice maximum extent on September 1, there was a rapid decline in ice extent through the austral spring and summer, with the most notable feature being the clearing out of ice from the Ross and Amundsen Sea sectors during January and February as well as the loss of ice from the northwestern Weddell Sea region during that period (Figure 4b on original ). Much of the Antarctic coast is still ice-free and sea ice remains well below average in the eastern Ross Sea, western Bellingshausen Sea, and northwestern Weddell Sea. However, persistent patches of high concentration sea ice in the area of Pine Island Bay and in the central Weddell Sea are obstructing research groups trying to work in those areas. The RV Nathaniel B Palmer, operated by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the RV Araon, operated by South Korea’s Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), have been attempting to conduct research near the outlet of Thwaites Glacier. The research teams were forced to work at an adjacent region to the west, the Dotson Ice Shelf, to avoid the heavy ice conditions near Thwaites………… http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
How Much Less Newsworthy Are Civilians in Other Conflicts?
A lot less, particularly when they’re victims of the US, FAIR, JULIE HOLLAR, 18 Mar 22, As US news media covered the first shocking weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some media observers—like FAIR founder Jeff Cohen (Common Dreams, 2/28/22)—have noted their impressions of how coverage differed from wars past, particularly in terms of a new focus on the impact on civilians.
To quantify and deepen these observations, FAIR studied the first week of coverage of the Ukraine war (2/24–3/2/22) on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News. We used the Nexis news database to count both sources (whose voices get to be heard?) and segments (what angles are covered?) about Ukraine during the study period. Comparing this coverage to that of other conflicts reveals both a familiar reliance on US officials to frame events, as well as a newfound ability to cover the impact on civilians—when those civilians are white and under attack by an official US enemy, rather than by the US itself.
Ukrainian sources—no experts
One of the most striking things about early coverage has been the sheer number of Ukrainian sources. FAIR always challenges news media to seek out the perspective of those most impacted by events, and US outlets are doing so to a much greater extent in this war than in any war in recent history. Of 234 total sources—230 of whom had identifiable nationalities—119 were Ukrainian (including five living in the United States.)
However, these were overwhelmingly person-on-the-street interviews that rarely consisted of more than one or two lines. Even the three Ukrainian individuals identified as having a relevant professional expertise—two doctors and a journalist—spoke only of their personal experience of the war. Twenty-one (17% of Ukrainian sources) were current or former government or military officials.
Airing so many Ukrainian voices, but asking so few to provide actual analysis, has the effect of generating sympathy, but for a people painted primarily as pawns or victims, rather than as having valuable knowledge, history and potential contributions to determine their own futures.
Meanwhile, Russian government sources only appeared four times. Sixteen other Russian sources were quoted: 13 persons on the street, an opposition politician and two members of wealthy families.
Eighty sources were from the United States, including 57 current or former US officials. Despite the diplomatic involvement of the European Union, only two Western European sources were featured: the Norwegian NATO Secretary General and a German civilian helping refugees in Poland. There were also eight foreign civilians featured living in Ukraine: three from the US, three African and two Middle Eastern.
And while political leaders certainly bring important knowledge and perspective to war coverage, so too do scholars, think tanks and civic organizations with regional expertise. But these voices were almost completely marginalized, with only five such civil society experts appearing during the study period. All were in the United States, although one was Ukrainian-American Michael Sawkiw (CBS, 2/24/22), who represented the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (an organization associated with Stepan Bandera’s faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which participated in the Holocaust during World War II).
In effect, then, US news media have largely allowed US officials to frame the terms of the conflict for viewers. While officials lambasted the Russian government and emphasized “what we’re going to do to help the Ukrainian people in the struggle” (NBC, 3/1/22), no sources questioned the US’s own role in contributing to the conflict (FAIR.org, 3/4/22), or the impact of Western sanctions on Russian civilians.
The bias in favor of US officials, and the marginalization of experts from the country being invaded—as well as civil society experts from any country—recalls US TV news coverage of another large-scale invasion in recent history: the US invasion of Iraq. A FAIR study (Extra!, 5–6/03) at the time found that in the three weeks after the US launched that war, current and former US officials made up more than half (52%) of all sources on the primetime news programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and PBS. Iraqis were only 12% of sources, and 4% of all sources were academic, think tank or NGO representatives.
n other words, though the bias is even greater when the US is leading the war, US media seem content to let US officials fashion the narrative around any war, and to mute their critics.
Visible and invisible civilians
But there are striking differences as well in coverage of the two wars. Most notably, when the US invaded Iraq, civilians in the country made up a far smaller percentage of sources: 8% to Ukraine’s 45%.
n other words, though the bias is even greater when the US is leading the war, US media seem content to let US officials fashion the narrative around any war, and to mute their critics.
Visible and invisible civilians
But there are striking differences as well in coverage of the two wars. Most notably, when the US invaded Iraq, civilians in the country made up a far smaller percentage of sources: 8% to Ukraine’s 45%.
But on US TV news, antiwar sentiment appeared starkly different in the two conflicts. Of the 20 Russian sources in the study, ten (50%) expressed opposition to the war, significantly higher than the proportion polls were showing. Meanwhile, antiwar voices represented only 3% of all US sources in early Iraq coverage (FAIR.org, 5/03), a dramatic downplaying of public opposition.
Civilian-centered war coverage
The brunt of modern wars is almost always borne by innocent civilians. But US media coverage of that civilian toll is rarely in sharp focus, such that recent reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers an exceptional view of what civilian-centered war coverage can look like—under certain circumstances.
In our study, we looked not just at sources, but also the content of segments about Ukraine. In the first week of the war, the US primetime news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC offered regular reports on the civilian toll of the invasion, sending reporters to major targeted cities, as well as to border areas receiving refugees.
Seventy-one segments across the three networks covered the impact on Ukrainian civilians, both those remaining behind and those fleeing the violence. Twenty-eight of these mentioned or centered on civilian casualties.
Many reports described or aired soundbites of civilians describing their fear and the challenges they faced; several highlighted children. A representative ABC segment (2/28/22), for instance, featured correspondent Matt Gutman reporting: “This little girl on the train sobbing into her stuffed animal, just one of the more than 500,000 people leaving everything behind, fleeing in cramped trains.”
Making the impact on civilians the focus of the story, and featuring their experiences, encourages sympathy for those civilians and condemnation of war. But this demonstration of news media’s ability to center the civilian impact, including civilian casualties, in Ukraine is all the more damning of their coverage of wars in which the US and its allies have been the aggressors—or in which the victims have not been white.
They seem so like us’
Many pundits and journalists have been caught saying the quiet part loud. “They seem so like us,” wrote Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph (2/26/22). “That is what makes it so shocking.”
CBS News‘ Charlie D’Agata (2/25/22) told viewers that Ukraine
isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European—I have to choose those words carefully, too—city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.
“What’s compelling is, just looking at them, the way they are dressed, these are prosperous—I’m loath to use the expression—middle-class people,” marveled BBC reporter Peter Dobbie on Al Jazeera (2/27/22):
These are not obviously refugees looking to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. They look like any European family that you would live next door to.
While US news media have at times shown interest in Black and brown refugees and victims of war (e.g., Extra!, 10/15), it’s hard to imagine them ever getting the kind of massive coverage granted the Ukrainians who “look like us”—as defined by white journalists.
‘Give war a chance’
And one can certainly think of instances in which non-white refugees are given short shrift by US news. Despite their claims of deep concern for the people of Afghanistan as the US withdrew troops last year, for example, these same TV networks have barely covered the predictable and preventable humanitarian catastrophe facing the country (FAIR.org, 12/21/21). More than 5 million Afghan civilians are either refugees or internally displaced……………………………………
‘The booms of distant wars’
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine commenced, NBC anchor Lester Holt (2/25/22) mused:
Tonight, there are at least 27 armed conflicts raging on this planet. Yet so often the booms of distant wars fade before they reach our consciousness. Other times, raw calculations of shared national interests close that distance. But as we are reminded again in images from Ukraine, the pain of war is borderless.
Holt spoke as though journalists like himself play no role in determining which wars reach our consciousness and which fade. The pain of war might be borderless, but international responses to that pain depend very much on the sympathy generated by journalists through their coverage of it. And Western journalists have made very clear which victims’ pain is most newsworthy to them. https://fair.org/home/how-much-less-newsworthy-are-civilians-in-other-conflicts/
Chris Hedges: Waltzing to Armageddon
Consortium News, 18 Mar 22, The Dr. Strangeloves, like zombies rising from the mass graves they created around the globe, are once again stoking new campaigns of industrial mass slaughter.
The Cold War, from 1945 to 1989, was a wild Bacchanalia for arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, the C.I.A., the diplomats who played one country off another on the world’s chess board, and the global corporations able to loot and pillage by equating predatory capitalism with freedom. In the name of national security, the Cold Warriors, many of them self-identified liberals, demonized labor, independent media, human rights organizations, and those who opposed the permanent war economy and the militarization of American society as soft on communism.
That is why they have resurrected it.
The decision to spurn the possibility of peaceful coexistence with Russia at the end of the Cold War is one of the most egregious crimes of the late 20th century. The danger of provoking Russia was universally understood with the collapse of the Soviet Union, including by political elites as diverse as Henry Kissinger and George F. Kennan, who called the expansion of NATO into Central Europe “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.”
This provocation, a violation of a promise not to expand NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, has seen Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia inducted into the Western military alliance.
This betrayal was compounded by a decision to station NATO troops, including thousands of U.S. troops, in Eastern Europe, another violation of an agreement made by Washington with Moscow. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, perhaps a cynical goal of the Western alliance, has now solidified an expanding and resurgent NATO and a rampant, uncontrollable militarism. The masters of war may be ecstatic, but the potential consequences, including a global conflagration, are terrifying.
Peace has been sacrificed for U.S. global hegemony. It has been sacrificed for the billions in profits made by the arms industry. Peace could have seen state resources invested in people rather than systems of control. It could have allowed us to address the climate emergency. But we cry peace, peace, and there is no peace. Nations frantically rearm, threatening nuclear war. They prepare for the worst, ensuring that the worst will happen.
So, what if the Amazon is reaching its final tipping point where trees will soon begin to die off en masse? So what if land ice and ice shelves are melting from below at a much faster rate than predicted? So what if temperatures soar, monster hurricanes, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastate the earth? In the face of the gravest existential crisis to beset the human species, and most other species, the ruling elites stoke a conflict that is driving up the price of oil and turbocharging the fossil fuel extraction industry. It is collective madness.
The march towards protracted conflict with Russia and China will backfire. The desperate effort to counter the steady loss of economic dominance by the U.S. will not be offset by military dominance. If Russia and China can create an alternative global financial system, one that does not use the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, it will signal the collapse of the American empire. The dollar will plummet in value. Treasury bonds, used to fund America’s massive debt, will become largely worthless. The financial sanctions used to cripple Russia will be, I expect, the mechanism that slays Americans, if not immolation in thermonuclear war.
Washington plans to turn Ukraine into Chechnya or the old Afghanistan, when the Carter administration, under the influence of the Svengali-like National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, equipped and armed the radical jihadists that would morph into the Taliban and al Qaeda in the fight against the Soviets. It will not be good for Russia. It will not be good for the United States. It will not be good for Ukraine, as making Russia bleed will require rivers of Ukrainian blood.
Pandora’s Box of Evils
The decision to destroy the Russian economy, to turn the Ukrainian war into a quagmire for Russia and topple the regime of Vladimir Putin will open a Pandora’s box of evils. Massive social engineering — look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya or Vietnam — has its own centrifugal force. It destroys those who play God.
The Ukrainian war has silenced the last vestiges of the Left. Nearly everyone has giddily signed on for the great crusade against the latest embodiment of evil, Vladimir Putin, who, like all our enemies, has become the new Hitler.
The United States will give $13.6 billion in military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, with the Biden administration authorizing an additional $200 million in military assistance. The 5,000-strong EU rapid deployment force, the recruitment of all Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, into NATO, the reconfiguration of former Soviet bloc militaries to NATO weapons and technology have all been fast tracked.
Germany, for the first time since World War II, is massively rearming. It has lifted its ban on exporting weapons. Its new military budget is twice the amount of the old budget, with promises to raise the budget to more than 2 percent of GDP, which would move its military from the seventh largest in the world to the third, behind China and the United States.
Once military forces are deployed, even if they are supposedly in a defensive posture, the bear trap is set. It takes very little to trigger the spring. The vast military bureaucracy, bound to alliances and international commitments, along with detailed plans and timetables, when it starts to roll forward, becomes unstoppable. It is propelled not by logic but by action and reaction, as Europe learned in two world wars.
Staggering Hypocrisy
The moral hypocrisy of the United States is staggering. The crimes Russia is carrying out in Ukraine are more than matched by the crimes committed by Washington in the Middle East over the last two decades, including the act of preemptive war, which under post-Nuremberg laws is a criminal act of aggression. Only rarely is this hypocrisy exposed as when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the body:
“We’ve seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine, which has no place on the battlefield. That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs which are banned under the Geneva Convention.”
Hours later, the official transcript of her remark was amended to tack on the words “if they are directed against civilians.” This is because the U.S., which like Russia never ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions treaty, regularly uses cluster munitions. It used them in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Iraq. It has provided them to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. Russia has yet to come close to the tally of civilian deaths from cluster munitions delivered by the U.S. military.
The Dr. Strangeloves, like zombies rising from the mass graves they created around the globe, are once again stoking new campaigns of industrial mass slaughter. No diplomacy. No attempt to address the legitimate grievances of our adversaries. No check on rampant militarism. No capacity to see the world from another perspective. No ability to comprehend reality outside the confines of the binary rubric of good and evil. No understanding of the debacles they orchestrated for decades. No capacity for pity or remorse.
Elliott Abrams worked in the Reagan administration when I was reporting from Central America. He covered up atrocities and massacres committed by the military regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and by the U.S.-backed Contra forces fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He viciously attacked reporters and human rights groups as communists or fifth columnists, calling us “un-American” and “unpatriotic.” He was convicted for lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. During the administration of George W. Bush, he lobbied for the invasion of Iraq and tried to orchestrate a U.S. coup in Venezuela to overthrow Hugo Chávez.
There will be no substitute for military strength, and we do not have enough,” writes Abrams for the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is a senior fellow:……………………….
Putin played into the hands of the war industry. He gave the warmongers what they wanted. He fulfilled their wildest fantasies. There will be no impediments now on the march to Armageddon. Military budgets will soar. The oil will gush from the ground. The climate crisis will accelerate.
China and Russia will form the new axis of evil. The poor will be abandoned. The roads across the earth will be clogged with desperate refugees. All dissent will be treason. The young will be sacrificed for the tired tropes of glory, honor and country. The vulnerable will suffer and die.
The only true patriots will be generals, war profiteers, opportunists, courtiers in the media and demagogues braying for more and more blood. The merchants of death rule like Olympian gods. And we, cowed by fear, intoxicated by war, swept up in the collective hysteria, clamor for our own annihilation.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. ……….https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/15/chris-hedges-waltzing-to-armageddon/
“Russian Invasion of Ukraine Spotlights the Dangers of Nuclear Reactors in War,” The National Interest
https://npolicy.org/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-spotlights-the-dangers-of-nuclear-reactors-in-war-the-national-interest/March 17, 2022 Nuclear Power Economics and Security, Op-Eds & Blogs, RESOURCE, TOPICS
Earlier this week, in response to Russian assaults on nuclear plants in Ukraine, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called for the creation of a specialized Japanese nuclear security force to secure Japan’s nuclear plants against military attack. The governor of Fukui, which hosts Japan’s largest number of reactors, went further: He requested Japan’s defense ministry build dedicated military bases to halt such attacks.
What’s stunning is how sharply Japan’s response to Russia’s attacks contrasted with Washington’s.
Victor Gilinsky and I spotlighted this in the The National Interest piece, “Russian Invasion of Ukraine Spotlights the Dangers of Nuclear Reactors in War.” In it, we note how our Energy Department has been more intent in reassuring Americans about how little radiation was released from the plants in Ukraine than in clarifying what their military vulnerabilities are. As we explain, this penchant for downplaying the military vulnerabilities of nuclear facilities is as old as commercial nuclear power in the United States. The department, in fact, is still keen to export reactors to Jordan, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, and — until last month — Ukraine.
If we are serious about nuclear security, this has got to change. At a minimum, Congress should follow Japan’s lead and ask the Pentagon to clarify what the military vulnerabilities of civil nuclear plants are and identify what, if anything, can be done to reduce them. Meanwhile, instead of pushing reactor exports to potential war zones, our government and others should tap the brakes.
Russian Invasion of Ukraine Spotlights the Dangers of Nuclear Reactors in War
By Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, 17 Mar 22,
The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the predecessor of the Department of Energy, concluded that it was not practicable to build protection for reactors against military attacks. In 1967, it rejected a public request for such protection against Cuban missiles for the Turkey Point reactors in south Florida on grounds that the AEC’s established policy was not to require special design features to protect against enemy attacks. The Court of Appeals agreed with the AEC’s decision in 1968.
“What the Commission has essentially decided is that to impose such a burden would be to stifle utterly the peaceful utilization of atomic energy in the United States,” the Court of Appeals decision said.
Even though a condition for every nuclear plant license is that its issuance is not inimical to the “common defense and security,” the AEC, with the approval of the Court of Appeals, claimed that Congress never intended that to encompass anything having to do with enemy actions.
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GE produces world-first prototype of fully recyclable wind turbine blade — RenewEconomy
A prototype of a world-first 100 per cent recyclable wind turbine blade has been produced at a manufacturing facility in Spain, marking a big step towards “closing the loop” for wind power. The post GE produces world-first prototype of fully recyclable wind turbine blade appeared first on RenewEconomy.
GE produces world-first prototype of fully recyclable wind turbine blade — RenewEconomy
Australia’s green bank celebrates $10bn investments, still has another $5bn to spend — RenewEconomy
CEFC hits $10 billion investment milestone, and still has nearly $5 billion to spend on energy transition, including electric vehicles and hydrogen. The post Australia’s green bank celebrates $10bn investments, still has another $5bn to spend appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Australia’s green bank celebrates $10bn investments, still has another $5bn to spend — RenewEconomy
Will offshore wind get the same favourable regulatory treatment as oil and gas? — RenewEconomy
Many regulatory hurdles still standing in the way of offshore wind development. Meanwhile, in the oil and gas sector… The post Will offshore wind get the same favourable regulatory treatment as oil and gas? appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Will offshore wind get the same favourable regulatory treatment as oil and gas? — RenewEconomy
“Huge moment:” Australia’s Sundrive claims new solar cell efficiency milestone — RenewEconomy
SunDrive, an Australian solar start-up backed by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, claims new solar cell efficiency record. The post “Huge moment:” Australia’s Sundrive claims new solar cell efficiency milestone appeared first on RenewEconomy.
“Huge moment:” Australia’s Sundrive claims new solar cell efficiency milestone — RenewEconomy
Global rooftop solar installations to double by 2025 to nearly 100GW a year — RenewEconomy
New analysis by Rystad Energy predicts global rooftop solar PV installations will surge to 95GW a year by 2025. The post Global rooftop solar installations to double by 2025 to nearly 100GW a year appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Global rooftop solar installations to double by 2025 to nearly 100GW a year — RenewEconomy
March 18 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “EU: Help Households, Take Socially Just Measures, Don’t Cut Taxes For Wealthy SUV Drivers” • As EU economics and finance ministers meet to discuss high energy costs and fuel taxes, T&E urges governments to avoid a blanket reductions in fuel taxes. In a letter to ministers, T&E says they should instead pursue more […]
March 18 Energy News — geoharvey
1.This month.
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 