US Navy Wants to Turn Australia Into a Full-Service Submarine Hub
Australia is set to spend over $100 billion over the coming decades on submarines under the AUKUS dealby Dave DeCamp , more https://news.antiwar.com/2023/03/09/us-navy-wants-to-turn-australia-into-a-full-service-submarine-hub/
The US Navy wants a full-service submarine hub in Australia that can oversee all underwater activity in the Asia Pacific, including production and repairs, Defense News reported Thursday.
The report cited comments from Navy Secretary Carlos del Toro, whose vision will be possible under AUKUS, the military pact signed between the US, Britain, and Australia in 2021 as part of an effort to build alliances against China.
AUKUS focuses on technology-sharing and will give Australia access to American and British nuclear-powered submarine technologies. Del Toro said that AUKUS is about “being able to repair our submarines much further out, being able to build them in Australia as well, too, and create that much more presence in the Indo-Pacific where we need it the most.”
President Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are expected to unveil the details of AUKUS submarine deals on Monday during a meeting aboard a submarine in San Diego. Australia is expected first to purchase American Virginia class attack submarines, which will be delivered in the early 2030s.
Australia will then purchase a new British-designed submarine, called the SSN-AUKUS, that’s expected to arrive in the 2040s. The ultimate goal is for Australia to be able to build its own SSN-AUKUS submarines with US or British-provided nuclear propulsion. Over the next few decades, Canberra is expected to spend over $100 billion on the plan.
The submarines Australia will acquire are not expected to be armed with nuclear weapons, but that could always change. Either way, China views the submarine buildup as a provocation since the underwater craft will be used to patrol the waters of the South China Sea. The US also has plans to deploy more troops and aircraft to Australia as part of its buildup, including nuclear-capable B-52 bombers.
‘Red Alert’ is a paper tiger
Independent Australia, By John Quiggin | 10 March 2023,
As Nine newspapers attempt to spread panic about a Chinese invasion, Professor John Quiggin explains why the logistics of such an event happening are unrealistic.
“…………………………………………….We are being told that within the next few years, a seaborne invasion that would dwarf D-Day is going to take place. The most extreme version of this claim is the ‘Red Alert’ series now being published by the Nine newspapers.
China, it is claimed, plans to invade Taiwan, a country with 290,000 soldiers under arms and reserves of 2.3 million. To achieve the kind of numerical superiority seen on D-Day, China would need to land nearly a million men in the first days of an invasion.
But unlike D-Day, there could be no element of surprise. With modern technology, any attack would be detected before the ships left port. They would have to travel 170 kilometres across open water, within range of air attack and anti-ship missiles for the entire voyage. On arriving, they would have a choice of eight small beaches, all of which have been fortified over many decades. Assuming the troops somehow got ashore, they would deal with terrain that makes the bocage look like an open plain.
And to achieve this, the PLA Navy has less than 50 operational landing craft, many dating from the 1970s. The rest of the invasion is supposed to be undertaken by converted ferries, which would be virtually defenceless even against small-arms fire.
Any attempt at grinding down defences with a preliminary bombing campaign would be doomed to failure. Taiwan’s air and missile forces are dug deep into mountains. And retaliatory strikes would impose huge costs, even assuming that the U.S. did not take part.
A variety of other strategies (decapitation attacks, blockades and so on) have also been canvassed. All were tried by the Russians in Ukraine and all failed.
How do the fearmongers of the ‘Red Alert’ series respond to this widely known analysis? The answer is that they don’t. Instead, they canvass every possible scary scenario they can come up with (germ warfare, cyber-attacks, even a nuclear strike on Pine Gap) in the hope that Australians will be terrified enough to back a big increase in military spending. The striking contradiction is that the conventional weapons they are pushing for would be of no use in countering the threats they are talking about.
Of course, the idea of an invasion of Taiwan isn’t just a fantasy of the Nine newspapers. It suits all the main players to pretend that it’s a realistic possibility. Chinese President Xi Jinping wouldn’t last five minutes as China’s dictator if he renounced the idea of forcible reunification. U.S. Navy figures like Admiral Michael Gilday, who says an attack might come this year, want an increased share of the U.S. defence budget. And, obviously, the Taiwanese Government has no incentive to understate the threats it faces from the Chinese regime.
The ‘Red Alert’ series marks a new low in Australian journalism, rivalling anything the Murdoch press has produced. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be effective in pushing a message that is convenient to so many in positions of power. https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/red-alert-is-a-paper-tiger,17311?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The Foreseeable End of Ukraine
The days of Ukraine as we know it are now numbered. Sooner rather than later, it will probably sink into insignificance as a greatly diminished rump state. Its tragedy is that it has allowed itself to be instrumentalised by the West, above all by Washington, in an almost suicidal manner for goals that are not its own. The phrase that the US administration is fighting ‘to the last Ukrainian’ has become a common expression
By Karl Richter, 6 March 2023, https://arktos.com/2023/03/06/the-foreseeable-end-of-ukraine/
Karl Richter asserts that Ukraine is facing an imminent end due to Russia’s dominance in the ongoing conflict, weak Western military and economic support, and Ukraine’s own nationalism, citing predictions by several Western military experts and predicting Western governments will soon have to justify the utter failure of their Ukraine policy.
The faces of Ukraine supporters are now visibly getting longer. In fact, things are getting interesting now. In the next few months, the central lie of Western politics will burst: Ukraine is coming to an end. No more billions of dollars sinking into the Kiev quagmire, and certainly no handful of Western battle tanks, should they ever come, will make much difference to events. Russia is in the driver’s seat and has all the means of escalation at its disposal, while the West is on its last legs economically, militarily and not least morally.
At least four Western military experts who know something of their trade have contradicted mainstream reporting in recent weeks and are now predicting the decisive weeks of Ukraine’s survival. Among them is Austrian Colonel Markus Reisner, a convinced Ukraine sympathiser. In one of his latest analyses, Reisner points to the considerable Russian resources and has to concede: ‘Ukraine could win several rounds, but there has been no knockout yet.’ The Russian side, he says, still has stocks of at least ten million artillery shells at its disposal, plus 3.4 million new shells produced each year. ‘So they are in a position to fight this war even longer’, while things are now getting tight for Kiev
Erich Vad, ex-brigadier general and former military policy advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is more explicit. He sees Russia ‘clearly on the advance’ and agrees with US Chief of Staff (!) Mark Milley ‘that a military victory for Ukraine is not to be expected’. He is surprised, however, at the extensive ‘synchronisation of the media, the likes of which I have never experienced in the Federal Republic of Germany. This is pure opinion mongering.’ One wonders, however, in which world the honourable ex-general has been living in the last decades.
The fourth member of the group is the former Pentagon adviser and former US colonel Douglas Macgregor. In several recent interviews (including those of the independent US portal Redacted), he not only addresses the immense losses of the Ukrainians – in some cases up to 70 per cent of the original battalion strength – but also the rampant repression of the Ukrainian domestic intelligence service SBU against its own population – a sure sign that the end is near. If the Kiev leadership does not agree to negotiations soon, there will be little more left of Ukraine than a rump state west of the Dnieper, says Macgregor. He does not want to rule out the possibility of a coup movement against the Kiev junta in view of the horrendous losses at the front – if not, Moscow itself would be forced to finish the ‘job’ and mop up the Selenskyj regime. A new Ukrainian government would probably be sensible enough to enter into peace negotiations. In the best case, Russia would thus also have achieved its wartime goal of ‘denazifying’ Ukraine.
Even a mainstream newspaper like the German daily Die Welt had to admit recently (31 January) that in the foreseeable future Russia will emerge from the conflict as the victor not only militarily but also politically: while Ukraine will not achieve any of its goals, certainly not the reconquest of Crimea, Russia will, in the course of an inevitable negotiated settlement, enforce that Ukraine’s NATO membership ‘will be excluded for the foreseeable future’ – nothing else was demanded by Moscow before the war began almost a year ago. And: ‘The result will be an amputated Ukraine.’
One can look forward to how the Western regimes will soon explain the complete failure of their Ukraine policy to their populations. Neither will Ukraine have won nor will Russia be ‘ruined’, which the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has erroneously claimed is the goal of German government policy. When it comes to the end of Ukraine, the Western regimes will not only have sunk gigantic sums of billions into Kiev, but will also have permanently poisoned relations with Russia, destroyed their own energy supply and successfully disarmed their own armed forces. This is truly an unprecedented achievement that can only be described as open treason. It will cost the Europeans dearly. In ‘normal’ times, those responsible would be held accountable. This bill remains open. The current leadership – not only in Germany – will have to be replaced without residue anyway if we want to get back into talks with Russia even halfway sensibly.
The days of Ukraine as we know it are now numbered. Sooner rather than later, it will probably sink into insignificance as a greatly diminished rump state. Its tragedy is that it has allowed itself to be instrumentalised by the West, above all by Washington, in an almost suicidal manner for goals that are not its own. The phrase that the US administration is fighting ‘to the last Ukrainian’ has become a common expression.
Last but not least, Ukraine has become a victim of its own nationalism. In Soviet times, this was only kept under the surface in a makeshift manner, only to be vigorously fanned by American foundations soon after 1991, with an anti-Russian bias from the start. Today, Ukraine is a pseudo-state consumed by national hatred, which is no longer viable in its current form. If one wants to apply historical perspective, similarities with Czechoslovakia and Poland before the Second World War come to mind. Both countries proved incapable of getting along with their ethnic minorities in a sensible way as a result of their nationalism and the Western powers’ agitation. Kiev is currently reaping the consequences of this policy, comparable to Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Poland in 1939.
As far as Poland is concerned, it would be a particularly bitter irony of history if Poland were to take back its former eastern territories in Galicia in the course of the settlement of Ukraine. The preparations for this have been in full swing for months – interestingly enough, in full agreement with the Kiev cokehead regime. One can research this without much effort. It cannot be ruled out that Moscow has long been on board behind the scenes. The Kremlin could be the one laughing, watching Polish and Ukrainian nationalists butting heads in the future. The Volhynia massacres of 1943/44, when the Ukrainians slaughtered up to 300,000 Polish peasants behind the German lines, have not been forgotten. In no time at all, the EU would have another trouble spot on its hands where it could sink its billions in the future. A mature achievement all around.
Biden’s $1 trillion budget for world war
Patrick Martin, 10 Mar 23, WSWS<
The White House unveiled its budget request for the 2024 fiscal year Thursday, with the largest ever proposed spending on the military. It is a $1 trillion budget for world war. The Biden administration wants the resources to fight Russia in Ukraine, intensify its buildup towards war with China in the Far East and sustain US military aggression in the Middle East.
Besides $842 billion for the Pentagon, which will undoubtedly be pushed even higher in Congress, there is $24 billion for the Department of Energy, which maintains the US nuclear arsenal, and $20 billion for military-related programs in the State Department, CIA and other agencies, bringing the total official military spending to $886 billion.
To this must be added the real cost of the war in Ukraine, which is listed as only $6 billion for the 2024 fiscal year, which begins October 1. In the previous fiscal year, the Biden administration requested $6.9 billion but ended up spending $114 billion. Given that there is no sign of the war ending—on the contrary, it is escalating rapidly—the cost of US support for the otherwise bankrupt regime in Kiev is likely to surpass the current level. This would swell total military outlays well above the $1 trillion mark.
Since Biden took office, the budget for the Pentagon alone has jumped from $718 billion in fiscal 2022, the first full year of his administration, to $816 billion last year. The $842 billion requested for this year could rise past the $900 billion mark once Congress and lobbyists for the weapons manufacturers have their say. Congressional Republicans have already denounced the budget for providing too little funding for the military.
The name “Department of Defense” is itself a gross distortion since there is not an inch of American soil that needs to be defended against an external enemy. It is rather the world which is under threat from the Pentagon. The US government maintains a global military presence without precedent in history, with more than 700 US bases worldwide, while its main targets, Russia and China, have only one base each outside their own borders.
The department should be renamed the Department of Maintaining America’s Global Empire, or perhaps more simply, the Department of World Destruction. Some $38 billion of the Pentagon budget will go to nuclear weapons modernization, bringing the total spending this year on the US nuclear arsenal, to carry out the worldwide annihilation of civilization and perhaps all life on the planet, to more than $60 billion.
Much of the “non-military” budget also contributes to the US capacity to wage war around the world. ………………………………………………………..
The proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is only the antechamber to an even greater conflict with China, which now takes the form of a rapid military buildup towards what one top general suggested would be open warfare by 2025. The corporate media is doing its part to suppress popular opposition to these wars, seeking to shift public opinion with a propaganda blitz over Russia’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine, and whipping up hysteria over alleged Chinese “spy balloons” and the social media app TikTok, depicted as a nefarious scheme by Beijing to collect intelligence on ordinary Americans………………………………………… https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/03/10/pers-m10.html
Biden’s $1 trillion budget for world war
Is 15 months long enough?
By JEFFREY COLLINS, March 9, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/stephen-byrne-scana-power-plant-prison-c97cb1aaa33c991020551b2ae5c4dd85
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former executive utility who gave rosy projections on the progress of two nuclear power plants in South Carolina while they were hopelessly behind will spend 15 months in prison for the doomed project that cost ratepayers billions of dollars.
Ex-SCANA Corp. Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne apologized in court Wednesday, saying he thinks about how he let down customers, shareholders, employees, taxpayers and his family almost every day.
The two nuclear plants, which never generated a watt of power despite $9 billion of investment, were supposed to be “the crowning achievement of my life,” Byrne said. “But I failed.”
Byrne is the second SCANA executive to head to prison for the nuclear debacle. Former CEO Kevin Marsh was sentenced to two years in prison in October 2021 and released earlier in March after serving about 17 months.
Two executives at Westinghouse, which was contracted to build the reactors, are also charged. Carl Churchman, who was the company’s top official at the Fairfield County construction site at V.C. Summer, pleaded guilty to perjury and is awaiting sentencing. Former Westinghouse senior vice president Jeff Benjamin faces 16 charges. His trial is scheduled for October.
Another executive goes to prison for lying about doomed nuclear project
Is 15 months long enough?
By JEFFREY COLLINS, March 9, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/stephen-byrne-scana-power-plant-prison-c97cb1aaa33c991020551b2ae5c4dd85
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former executive utility who gave rosy projections on the progress of two nuclear power plants in South Carolina while they were hopelessly behind will spend 15 months in prison for the doomed project that cost ratepayers billions of dollars.
Ex-SCANA Corp. Executive Vice President Stephen Byrne apologized in court Wednesday, saying he thinks about how he let down customers, shareholders, employees, taxpayers and his family almost every day.
The two nuclear plants, which never generated a watt of power despite $9 billion of investment, were supposed to be “the crowning achievement of my life,” Byrne said. “But I failed.”
Byrne is the second SCANA executive to head to prison for the nuclear debacle. Former CEO Kevin Marsh was sentenced to two years in prison in October 2021 and released earlier in March after serving about 17 months.
Two executives at Westinghouse, which was contracted to build the reactors, are also charged. Carl Churchman, who was the company’s top official at the Fairfield County construction site at V.C. Summer, pleaded guilty to perjury and is awaiting sentencing. Former Westinghouse senior vice president Jeff Benjamin faces 16 charges. His trial is scheduled for October.
Antinuclear 