Start thinking now about alternatives to AUKUS Pillar 1
The Strategist 30 Apr 2024|, Harlan Ullman
The program to equip the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear submarines is in trouble. The takeaway: Australia must begin thinking now about what to do to avoid program failure.
Why has this situation arisen? First, the prospective program costs are enormous and have been badly underestimated. Second, industrial capacity is inadequate for the tasks of building and supporting a nuclear fleet. Third, the program lacks a powerful leader and an effective management plan to drive it forward.
And, strategically, the planned force of eight nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) armed with only conventional weapons would have minimal deterrent value on Chinese perceptions.
Building the submarines is Pillar 1 of AUKUS, the security partnership of Australia, Britain and the United States. Pillar 2 consists of other technology exchanges among them. It is in Pillar 2 that AUKUS may prove itself.
The United States is to supply three Virginia-class SSNs to Australia—two from the US fleet, which will have to be topped up with newly built vessels, and one straight from a shipyard. Australia has the option to seek to acquire a fourth and fifth Virginia. Britain is to design, in coordination with its partners, a new class, SSN-AUKUS, for the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. The Australians are due to build units of that class to reach a total fleet of eight SSNs by the mid-2050s .
But here is the first constraint. How long does it take to build a new Virginia-class submarine? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the answer is nine years, due to supply chain limitations. Huntington-Ingalls Industries (HII) in Newport News, Virginia, cannot now build enough SSNs for the US Navy. How will it find capacity to build even more to cover acquisitions by Australia?
As well as competing for nuclear talent with General Dynamics, which is constructing the Navy’s top-priority Columbia-class nuclear ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs), HII is building nuclear aircraft carriers. Delays to delivery of the carrier USS Enterprise illustrate the lack of skilled workers for all the required nuclear construction. And the question of huge cost overruns in the Australian SSN program may not have been fully considered.
The first Columbia class boat will cost about $20 billion. Follow-ons are estimated at lower costs. However, the entire nuclear infrastructure is inordinately expensive. Australia must start from scratch. And, as Britain will rediscover, a new SSN class is almost certain to experience large cost overruns.
Maintenance, repairs, logistics, training and recruiting to maintain a nuclear navy are not cheap. While Australia will benefit from using US and British facilities, that will not significantly offset the costs. Plans to deal with these and other challenges are not fully mature.
The question of who is in overall charge is difficult to answer. There is no czar like Admiral Hyman Rickover, who ruled the US nuclear submarine program for decades with absolute authority. Nor is there a Vice Admiral William (‘Red’) Raborn, who did the same for the US Polaris SSBN program.
It is unclear that these obstacles have been fully digested in an overall plan for completing AUKUS Pillar 1. One practical outcome could be—and emphasis is on ‘could be’—the US selling one or two more older Virginias to Australia as an option.
Those who are more optimistic should think about Skybolt.
In the early 1960s, the US was contracted to build an air-launched ballistic missile as the centerpiece of Britain’s strategic nuclear deterrent. But the concept proved too difficult to engineer, and Skybolt was cancelled, leaving Britain scrambling to find a new way of sustaining its deterrent. Will AUKUS suffer the same fate?…………………………
Ironically, in retrospect, a better choice may have been building diesel submarines with long-range strike missiles and air-independent propulsion for extended underwater loitering. But that is no longer re-negotiable.
The crucial question is this: what impact will eight nuclear submarines, if they can be built and delivered, have on China? Unless nuclear weapons are to be carried, the effect will not be significant. And huge impediments threaten development and construction of the nuclear boats.
What is needed now is a plan to save as much of Pillar 1 of AUKUS as possible and to save Pillar 2 at all costs. This is a grim situation that must be confronted now. Otherwise, the spectre of another Skybolt disaster looms large. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/start-thinking-now-about-alternatives-to-aukus-pillar-1/
Bowen says Coalition’s nuclear push would put grid reliability at risk due to delays in coal plant closures
ReNeweconomy, Giles Parkinson, Apr 26, 2024
Federal climate and energy minister Chris Bowen has again lambasted the Coalition’s pursuit of nuclear power and its intention to stop renewables, saying it would put reliability of the grid at risk because it would delay the closure of ageing and increasingly decrepit coal fired power stations.
The federal Coalition has yet to release details of its nuclear power plan, but has made no secret of its intention to halt the rollout of large scale wind, solar and storage, and has even threatened to tear up contracts with the commonwealth should it be returned to government.
The Coalition has also made it clear that it has no intention of meeting its commitment to the Paris climate targets, where the bulk of emissions reductions need to occur in the next decade.
That can’t happen if the transition to renewable energy is stopped and coal fired power plants kept on the grid to wait for nuclear some time in the 2040s. The Coalition appears only focused on the 2050 target for “net zero”.
“They know it’s a fantasy,” Bowen said in an interview with Renew Economy’s Energy Insiders podcast of the delays in the release of the Coalition energy policy. “Of course they do. But they are thinking of ways to avoid action and nuclear is the one they’ve settled on.
“Internally, in the Liberal Party, the National Party, I’m advised it is a miss. There’s a lot of anger that they’ve been foisted with this policy. You are seeing it delayed constantly because they are trying to make it stack up, and they can’t.”
Bowen says the push for nuclear is simply an excuse to keep coal fired power station operating longer, and delay renewables.
“That’s what it’s about. But there are two problems with that,” Bowen say
“There’s emissions. But perhaps even more acutely, there’s reliability. It’s a risk to our energy system, because coal fired power is the most unreliable form the power, because of the ageing nature of our coal fired power stations.
“They’ve done good work. They’ve been engineering masterpieces. But they’re very bloody old now. And they break down a lot, sometimes spectacularly, like Callide, and other times, not as spectacular, but still unexpected, and still with a big impact.
“And if we’re relying more and more on that ageing infrastructure, it’s going to be a big risk to reliability. That’s, again, another argument at the next election. And it’s an argument we’re ready for.”
Bowen also attacked the threats by National leader David Littleproud last week to tear up wind and solar contracts that could be signed under the Commonwealth, which has just announced the biggest ever auction of renewables in the country, six gigawatts of new capacity in a process that begins next month.
“I don’t think they will, and I don’t think they can,” Bowen said.
It’s entirely irresponsible – governments, parties to government, Labor and Liberal at the federal level, have consistently said, ‘we will honour contracts’.
“There’s been contracts that the previous government entered into, which I didn’t love and wouldn’t assign if I was the minister at the time, but we honour them. I don’t know what he’s talking about there, to be honest. It’s not a sensible contribution.”
Bowen says the CIS will help re-boot Australia’s transition to green energy, and meet the federal government’s 82 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, which he insists remains both ambitious and achievable. “No question in my mind,” he says.
The 6 GW CIS auction will begin in May, and will include a minimum 2.2 GW that is reserved for NSW, and 300 MW for South Australia, which is already leading the country, and the world, with a 75 per cent share of wind and solar in its in the past 12 months.
Bowen says the early indications – from the initial smaller tenders in NSW and in Victoria and South Australia – are that the CIS will succeed in getting projects moving.
“The early auction results have been outstanding, just outstanding in New South Wales. And the indications are, in terms of the size of the bids we’ve had come in for South Australia and Victoria, they are very high quality, which really indicates to me the pipeline is very strong, the interest is huge.
“The CIS is what was needed to unlock that risk matrix, to really make sure that Australia’s right at the top of the list for renewable investment decisions that are being made by multinational companies.”……………………………………………………………………………………….more https://reneweconomy.com.au/bowen-says-coalitions-nuclear-push-would-put-grid-reliability-at-risk-due-to-delays-in-coal-plant-closures/
Critical worker shortage menaces nuclear-powered submarine workforce
INDUSTRY, 29 APRIL 2024, By: Liam Garman
The document, sourced through a freedom of information request from former independent senator for South Australia Rex Patrick, examined the civilian nuclear workforce required to maintain a nuclear reactor plant.
According to the document, Australia will require over 75,000 additional electricians, construction managers, metal machinists and welders in its “feeder workforce”, a term for Australia’s pool of workers that are eligible to pursue a career in the submarine workforce.
In particular, by financial year 2030–2031, Australia will require:
- An additional 33,553 electricians;
- An additional 19,364 construction managers;
- An additional 11,753 metal machinists;
- An additional 12,280 welders.
The figures were assessed by calculating the difference between the projected demand and supply of skilled workers.
The document warns that the total shortfall will be even larger than the initial figures, confirming that the totals do not include additional demand produced by the nuclear-powered submarine industry.
The report raises an alarm for policymakers, noting that Australia has neither a skilled nuclear-powered workforce to leverage for the construction and maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines, nor does it have a big enough pool of eligible candidates.
“There is no current Australian talent pool with the required mix of qualifications, skills, experience, and behaviours to fulfil the civilian nuclear workforce roles,” the document read……………………………………………………………
Defence may also face additional constraints with the decision to build the SSN-AUKUS at Osborne in South Australia and maintain the capability in Henderson in Western Australia.
The research found the greatest feeder workforce is located in NSW, followed by Victoria and Queensland, while the state with the fewest skills is South Australia. https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/industry/13993-critical-worker-shortage-menaces-nuclear-powered-submarine-workforce
Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors
1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.
2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.
3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.
4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.
5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.
Ed Lyman, April 30, 2024 https://blog.ucsusa.org/edwin-lyman/five-things-the-nuclear-bros-dont-want-you-to-know-about-small-modular-reactors/
Even casual followers of energy and climate issues have probably heard about the alleged wonders of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). This is due in no small part to the “nuclear bros”: an active and seemingly tireless group of nuclear power advocates who dominate social media discussions on energy by promoting SMRs and other “advanced” nuclear technologies as the only real solution for the climate crisis. But as I showed in my 2013 and 2021 reports, the hype surrounding SMRs is way overblown, and my conclusions remain valid today.
Unfortunately, much of this SMR happy talk is rooted in misinformation, which always brings me back to the same question: If the nuclear bros have such a great SMR story to tell, why do they have to exaggerate so much?
What are SMRs?
SMRs are nuclear reactors that are “small” (defined as 300 megawatts of electrical power or less), can be largely assembled in a centralized facility, and would be installed in a modular fashion at power generation sites. Some proposed SMRs are so tiny (20 megawatts or less) that they are called “micro” reactors. SMRs are distinct from today’s conventional nuclear plants, which are typically around 1,000 megawatts and were largely custom-built. Some SMR designs, such as NuScale, are modified versions of operating water-cooled reactors, while others are radically different designs that use coolants other than water, such as liquid sodium, helium gas, or even molten salts.
To date, however, theoretical interest in SMRs has not translated into many actual reactor orders. The only SMR currently under construction is in China. And in the United States, only one company—TerraPower, founded by Microsoft’s Bill Gates—has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a permit to build a power reactor (but at 345 megawatts, it technically isn’t even an SMR).
The nuclear industry has pinned its hopes on SMRs primarily because some recent large reactor projects, including Vogtle units 3 and 4 in the state of Georgia, have taken far longer to build and cost far more than originally projected. The failure of these projects to come in on time and under budget undermines arguments that modern nuclear power plants can overcome the problems that have plagued the nuclear industry in the past.
Developers in the industry and the US Department of Energy say that SMRs can be less costly and quicker to build than large reactors and that their modular nature makes it easier to balance power supply and demand. They also argue that reactors in a variety of sizes would be useful for a range of applications beyond grid-scale electrical power, including providing process heat to industrial plants and power to data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, petrochemical production, and even electrical vehicle charging stations.
Here are five facts about SMRs that the nuclear industry and the “nuclear bros” who push its message don’t want you, the public, to know.
Continue readingNew Book – The Scientists Who Alerted Us to the Dangers of Radiation.
Jim Green, 2 May 24, A new book on radiation risks recently published by The Ethics Press International “The Scientists Who Alerted us to Radiation’s Dangers”. The book was written by myself and a US campaigner Cindy Folkers.
Recent epidemiology evidence clearly shows that radiation risks have increased and that previous denials on radiation risks by successive governments and their nuclear establishment on both sides of the Atlantic were and are wrong. Radiation is considerably more dangerous than official reports indicate, both in terms of the numerical magnitudes of cancer risks, and also in terms of new diseases, apart from cancer, ow shown to be radiogenic.
This is an up-to-date reference book for academics on the dangers and risks of radiation and radioactivity. The book also serves to help journalists and students counter the misrepresentations, incorrect assertions, wrong assumptions, and untruths about radiation risks often disseminated by the nuclear (power and weapons) establishments on both sides of the Atlantic. All scientific statements are backed by evidence via hundreds of references, 14 Appendices, 6 Annexes, a glossary and an extensive bibliography.
At present the book is only available in hardback from the Ethics Press. This is expensive but a 33% discount is available at
In addition, a paperback (~£30) version will be available in November 2024.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scientists-Who-Alerted-Dangers-Radiation/dp/1804414468
In the meantime, the book’s first three chapters may be sampled at
INTERNATIONAL DARK SKY ASSOCIATION vs. FCC AND SPACEX
https://cellphonetaskforce.org/astronomers-in-court-against-fcc-and-spacex/ Arthur Firstenberg, 1 May 24
On December 29, 2022, the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) sued the U.S. Federal Communications Commission over its decision to approve SpaceX’s application for up to 30,000 more low-orbit satellites, in addition to the 12,000 already approved and in process of filling our skies. This is Case No. 22-1337 before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and has not yet been decided by the court.
American plasma physicist Sierra Solter implored the FCC to “please save our night sky… Please, please, don’t take away my stars. To feel that my place of comfort and calm — a starry sky — is being taken away and given to billionaires is suffocating.”
On December 18, 2023, Ms. Solter published a scientific article detailing her fear for our planet. Each of the 42,000 planned Starlink satellites, she wrote, has a design lifespan of only 5 years, after which it will be de-orbited, burned up in the atmosphere, and replaced. She calculated that this will require 23 satellites per day — each the size of an SUV or truck — to be burned up in the atmosphere forever into the future, leaving an enormous amount of toxic chemicals and metallic dust to accumulate in the air we breathe and in the ionosphere
This is already happening, she wrote, and should be stopped if we value our lives. “Since the beginning of the space industry, approximately 20,000 tons of material have been demolished during reentry… This is over 100 billion times greater than [the mass of] the Van Allen Belts.” She estimated that if 42,000 Starlink satellites are deployed and regularly demolished — let alone the 1,000,000 satellites planned by other companies and governments — “every second the space industry is adding approximately 2,000 times more conductive material than mass of the Van Allen Belts into the ionosphere.”
“Unlike meteorites, which are small and only contain trace amounts of aluminum, these wrecked spacecraft are huge and consist entirely of aluminum and other exotic, highly conductive materials,” she explained in an April 16, 2024 article in The Guardian.
Much of the metallic dust will settle into the ionosphere where, she says, it could act as a magnetic shield, reducing the magnitude of the Earth’s magnetic field in space. If that happens, the atmosphere itself could eventually be destroyed, because the Earth’s magnetic field — the magnetosphere — is what deflects the solar wind and prevents it from stripping away Earth’s atmosphere, as she told Teresa Pulterova in an interview on Space.com.
Other astronomers involved in the litigation before the FCC and now the Court of Appeals include Meredith Rawls with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile; Gary Hunt with Action Against Satellite Light Pollution in the UK; Samantha Lawler at the University of Regina in Canada; Graeme Cuffy of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Mark Phillips, President of the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh; Roberto Trotta of the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology in London; Carrie Nugent, Associate Professor of Computational Physics and Planetary Science at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts; and Cameron Nelson of Tenzing Startup Consultants in Virginia.
Other issues are also mentioned in the appeal. For example, the burned up aluminum produces aluminum oxide, which destroys ozone and contributes to climate change. So does the water vapor, soot, and nitrogen oxides in rocket exhaust.
Cameron Nelson told the FCC that “Humans, not to mention all other animal and plant life, have not given our consent for SpaceX to send the signals it is proposing into our bodies and irrevocably alter us.”
The BroadBand International Legal Action Network (BBILAN) mentioned “RF/EMF radiation from linked base and earth stations” in comments sent to the FCC. Starlink earth stations, also called Gateways, are far more powerful than the Starlink dishes that people are putting on their homes. The (as of March 2024) 2.6 million Starlink dishes each send one signal up to the moving network of satellites above them. All of this traffic is coordinated in space by thousands of lasers linking the satellites to one another, and on the ground by Gateways, which relay the thousands of signals in a large geographic area to and from the satellites. This is what a Gateway with 5 antennas (“radomes”) looks like:
Some Gateways have up to 40 radomes. Each of those domes weighs 1750 kilograms. Each aims a narrow beam at moving satellites. According to FCC filings by SpaceX, each beam can have an effective radiated power of more than 1,000,000 watts, which it can aim as low as 25 degrees above the horizon. If you are a bird you do not want to fly anywhere near a Starlink Gateway. And if you are a human you do not want to live near one either. When a satellite aims its beam containing thousands of signals at a Gateway, that beam is about 10 miles in diameter by the time it reaches the Earth.
Robin is a subscriber who lives in a remote area of Idaho less than 3 miles from the Starlink Gateway in Colburn. She writes about effects on her family and her animals…………………………….Robin knows many people in her area who are similarly affected. She adds that “when we first moved here in 2019 we had A LOT of birds. We now have a silent spring, it’s like a dead zone.
At last count there were 277 Starlink Gateways in operation or under construction in the world: 181 in North America and the Caribbean, 26 in South America, 2 in Africa, 26 in Europe, and 42 in Asia and the Pacific.
The FCC maintains a webpage listing thousands of licenses that it has handed out to hundreds of companies to operate both fixed and mobile satellite earth stations in the United States. Some of these stations are far more powerful than the Starlink Gateways. SES’s earth station at Bristol, Virginia emits up to 1,900,000,000 watts of effective radiated power, and it is allowed to aim it as low as 5 degrees above the horizon. SES’s earth station at Brewster, Washington is allowed to emit almost 1,000,000 watts in the actual direction of the horizon! SES owns O3b mPOWER, which is the satellite system that had its first radomes on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, the ship that had the famous outbreak of disease blamed on COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic
University Investments: Divesting from the Military-Industrial Complex
The salient warning that universities were at risk of being snared by government interests and, it followed, government objectives, was well noted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his heralded 1961 farewell address, one which publicly outed the “military-industrial complex” as a sinister threat.
The nature of this complex stretches into the extremities of the education process, including the grooming and encouragement of Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students.
Lockheed Martin Day, part of a sweeping national effort to establish defense industry recruitment pipelines in college STEM.”
May 1, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/university-investments-divesting-from-the-military-industrial-complex/
The rage and protest against Israel’s campaign in Gaza, ongoing since the October 7 attacks by Hamas, has stirred student activity across a number of US university campuses and beyond. Echoes of the Vietnam anti-war protests are being cited. The docile consumers of education are being prodded and found interested. University administrators and managers are, as they always tend to, doing the bidding of their donors and funders in trying to restore order, punish the protesting students where necessary and restrict various forms of protest. Finally, those in the classrooms have something to talk about.
A key aspect of the protest centres on university divestment from US military companies linked and supplying the Israeli industrial war machine. (The pattern is also repeating itself in other countries, including Canada and Australia.) The response from university officialdom has been to formulate a more vigorous antisemitism policy – whatever that means – buttressed, as was the case in Columbia University, by the muscular use of police to remove protesting students for trespassing and disruption. On April 18, in what she described as a necessary if “extraordinary step”, Columbia President Minouche Shafik summoned officers from the New York Police Department, outfitted in riot gear, to remove 108 demonstrators occupying Columbia’s South Lawn. Charges have been issued; suspensions levelled.
Students from other institutions are also falling in, with similar results. An encampment was made at New York University, with the now predictable police response. At Yale, 45 protestors were arrested and charged with misdemeanour trespassing. Much was made of the fact that tents had been set up on Beinecke Plaza. A tent encampment was also set up at MIT’s Cambridge campus.
The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce has also been pressuring university heads to put the boot in, well illustrating the fact that freedom of speech is a mighty fine thing till it aggrieves, offends and upsets various factional groups who wish to reserve it for themselves. Paradoxically enough, one can burn the US flag one owns as a form of protest, exercise free speech rights as a Nazi, yet not occupy the president’s office of a US university if not unequivocal in condemning protest slogans that might be seen as antisemitic. It would have been a far more honest proposition to simply make the legislators show their credentials as card carrying members of the MIC.
The focus by students on the Israeli-US military corporate nexus and its role in the destruction of Gaza has been sharp and vocal. Given the instinctive support of the US political and military establishment for Israel, this is far from surprising. But it should not be singular or peculiar to one state’s warring machine, or one relationship. The military-industrial complex is protean, spectacular in spread, with those in its service promiscuous to patrons. Fidelity is subordinated to the profit motive.
The salient warning that universities were at risk of being snared by government interests and, it followed, government objectives, was well noted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his heralded 1961 farewell address, one which publicly outed the “military-industrial complex” as a sinister threat. Just as such a complex exercised “unwarranted influence” more broadly, “the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.” The nation’s academics risked “domination … by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money.”
This has yielded what can only be seen as a ghastly result: the military-industrial-academic complex, heavy with what has been described as “social autism” and protected by almost impenetrable walls of secrecy.
The nature of this complex stretches into the extremities of the education process, including the grooming and encouragement of Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students. Focusing on Lockheed Martin’s recruitment process on US college campuses in his 2022 study for In These Times, Indigo Olivier found a vast, aggressive effort involving “TED-style talks, flight simulations, technology demos and on-the-spot interviews.” Much is on offer: scholarships, well-paid internships and a generous student repayment loan program. A dozen or so universities, at the very least, “participate in Lockheed Martin Day, part of a sweeping national effort to establish defense industry recruitment pipelines in college STEM.”
Before the Israel-Gaza War, some movements were already showing signs of alertness to the need to disentangle US learning institutions from the warring establishment they so readily fund. Dissenters, for instance, is a national movement of student organisers focused on “reclaiming our resources from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving services, and repair collaborative relationships with the earth and people around the world.”
Such aspirations seem pollyannaish in scope and vague in operation, but they can hardly be faulted for their intent. The Dissenters, for instance, took to the activist road, being part of a weeklong effort in October 2021 comprising students at 16 campuses promoting three central objects: that universities divest all holdings and sever ties with “the top five US war profiteers: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics”; banish the police from campuses; and remove all recruiters from all campuses.
Demanding divestment from specific industries is a task complicated by the opacity of the university sector’s funding and investment arrangements. Money, far from talking, operates soundlessly, making its way into nominated accounts through the designated channels of research funding.
The university should, as part of its humane intellectual mission, divest from the military-industrial complex in totality. But it will help to see the books and investment returns, the unveiling, as it were, of the endowments of some of the richest universities on the planet. Follow the money; the picture is bound to be an ugly one.
The Israel-US game plan for Gaza is staring us in the face
The western media is pretending the West’s efforts to secure a ceasefire are serious. But a different script has clearly been written in advance
JONATHAN COOK, APR 30, 2024, https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-israel-us-game-plan-for-gaza
One does not need to be a fortune-teller to understand that the Israel-US game plan for Gaza runs something like this:
1. In public, Biden appears “tough” on Netanyahu, urging him not to “invade” Rafah and pressuring him to allow more “humanitarian aid” into Gaza.
2. But already the White House is preparing the ground to subvert its own messaging. It insists that Israel has offered an “extraordinarily generous” deal to Hamas – one that, Washington suggests, amounts to a ceasefire. It doesn’t. According to reports, the best Israel has offered is an undefined “period of sustained calm”. Even that promise can’t be trusted.
3. If Hamas accepts the “deal” and agrees to return some of the hostages, the bombing eases for a short while but the famine intensifies, justified by Israel’s determination for “total victory” against Hamas – something that is impossible to achieve. This will simply delay, for a matter of days or weeks, Israel’s move to step 5 below.
4. If, as seems more likely, Hamas rejects the “deal”, it will be painted as the intransigent party and blamed for seeking to continue the “war”. (Note: This was never a war. Only the West pretends either that you can be at war with a territory you’ve been occupying for decades, or that Hamas “started the war” with its October 7 attack when Israel has been blockading the enclave, creating despair and incremental malnutrition there, for 17 years.)
Last night US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken moved this script on by stating Hamas was “the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire… They have to decide and they have to decide quickly”.
5. The US will announce that Israel has devised a humanitarian plan that satisfies the conditions Biden laid down for an attack on Rafah to begin.
6. This will give the US, Europe and the region the pretext to stand back as Israel launches the long-awaited assault – an attack Biden has previously asserted would be a “red line”, leading to mass civilian casualties. All that will be forgotten.
7. As Middle East Eye reports, Israel is building a ring of checkpoints around Rafah. Netanyahu will suggest, falsely, that these guarantee its attack meets the conditions laid down in international humanitarian law. Women and children will be allowed out – if they can reach a checkpoint before Israel’s carpet bombing kills them along the way.
8. All men in Rafah, and any women and children who remain, will be treated as armed combatants. If they are not killed by the bombing or falling rubble, they will be either summarily executed or dragged off to Israel’s torture chambers. No one will mention that any Hamas fighters who were in Rafah were able to leave through the tunnels.
9. Rafah will be destroyed, leaving the entire strip in ruins, and the Israeli-induced famine will worsen. The West will throw up its hands, say Hamas brought this on Gaza, agonise over what to do, and press third countries – especially Arab countries – for a “humanitarian plan” that relocates the survivors out of Gaza.
10. The western media will continue describing Israel’s genocide in Gaza in purely humanitarian terms, as though this “disaster” was an act of God.
11. Under US pressure, the International Court of Justice, or World Court, will be in no hurry to issue a definitive ruling on whether South Africa’s case that Israel is committing a genocide – which it has already found “plausible” – is proved.
12. Whatever the World Court eventually decides, and it is almost impossible to imagine it won’t determine that Israel carried out a genocide, it will be too late. The western political and media class will have moved on, leaving it to the historians to decide what it all meant.
13. Meanwhile, Israel is already using the precedents it has created in Gaza, and its erosion of the long-established principles of international law, as the blueprint for the West Bank. Saying Hamas has not been completely routed in Gaza but is using this other Palestinian enclave as its base, Israel will gradually intensify the pressures on the West Bank with another blockade. Rinse and repeat.
That’s the likely plan. Our job is to do everything in our power to stop them making it a reality.
How Israel violates International Law in Gaza: expert report
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/how-israel-violates-international-law-in-gaza-expert-report/
The findings are illustrated by 17 specific, horrific “incidents” and 18 pages of additional incidents. This review of incidents is said to be “supported by both credible media and civil society reporting and statements by Government of Israel officials and IDF uniformed officers.” But the incidents identified are “just the most easily identifiable among a clear pattern of violations of international law, failures to apply civilian harm mitigation best practices, and restrictions on humanitarian assistance,” by Israel and the IDF, often using U.S.-provided arms.
An independent expert report lays out how Israel systematically violated U.S. and International Law in Gaza, concluding that Israel launched indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian areas due to “extremely relaxed rules of engagement.”
BY STEVE FRANCE
Just days after the Biden administration showered the Israeli military with billions of dollars more in lethal aid, still with no apparent effort to restrict its use on non-military populations and structures, Palestinian solidarity activists were gifted with powerful ammunition to challenge Israel’s genocidal disregard for the International and U.S. laws and norms that protect civilians in war situations.
In a sober but scathing 76-page report, publicly released on April 24, the Independent Task Force on the Application of National Security Memorandum-20 (NSM-20), details “multiple credible incidents constituting violations of international humanitarian law, military best practices, and [improper] restrictions on humanitarian assistance.”
The volunteer and unaffiliated task force of prominent experts — including two recently departed senior State Department officials, legal scholar Noura Erekat, and a former senior “joint terminal attack controller,” Wes Bryant — was rapidly formed after President Biden signed NSM-20 on February 8, 2024. The memorandum tasked the Departments of State and Defense to report to Congress by May 8 on the compliance of Israel (and, nominally, other U.S. allies) with International Humanitarian Law and military best practices, as well as on whether it has impeded humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Co-chair Noura Erekat said at a briefing that the task force report has two main goals: first, to “inform” State and Defense officials’ review with a selection of well-documented and assessed incidents of misuse of aid, and second, to put pressure on the agencies and the White House to act vigorously to curb the abuses. The pressure will depend on the report’s ability to focus the understanding of the media, the relevant experts, and activists on specific illustrative cases and to clearly explain the legal framework and standards that are supposed to apply.
The panel reported that its
“aggregate analysis of credible reports involving U.S-provided weapons by Israeli forces indicates a context of systematic disregard for fundamental principles of international law, including recurrent attacks launched despite foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects, wide area attacks without prior warnings in some of the most densely populated residential neighborhoods in the world, direct attacks on civilians…and attacks against civilian objects, including those indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.”
The experts further reported:
“Israeli intelligence sources cited by credible media reports indicate that these patterns of unlawful attacks reflect reliance on an unyielding and unconditioned supply of U.S. weapons, relaxed rules of engagement, application of collective punishment, and the use of artificial intelligence technology to generate thousands of targets (including civilian police and civil defense personnel), at maximum speed and with minimal human oversight.”
The findings are illustrated by 17 specific, horrific “incidents” and 18 pages of additional incidents. This review of incidents is said to be “supported by both credible media and civil society reporting and statements by Government of Israel officials and IDF uniformed officers.” But the incidents identified are “just the most easily identifiable among a clear pattern of violations of international law, failures to apply civilian harm mitigation best practices, and restrictions on humanitarian assistance,” by Israel and the IDF, often using U.S.-provided arms.
Just as important for non-experts is the report’s outline of exactly how the U.S. and international legal systems are supposed to protect civilians from harm — and how they are flouted. Thus, the experts point to three “fundamental rules [that] govern targeting decisions in armed conflict”:
1 Distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives, with a presumption that persons or objects are protected from attack unless the information available at the time indicates that they are military objectives.
2. Take all feasible “precautions” in planning and conducting attacks to avoid or at least minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects.
3. Respect “proportionality,” i.e., conduct no attacks that are excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. The greater the foreseeable harm to civilians and civilian objects, the greater the foreseeable military advantage necessary to justify a particular attack. International humanitarian law (IHL) gives special protection to hospitals, clinics, and ambulances, as well as to humanitarian relief operations, and UN premises.
The report outlines the basics of “civilian harm mitigation practices,” including U.S. Defense Department practices. A key concept is “no-strike entities” (NSEs), which DOD says “may include, but are not limited to, medical, educational, diplomatic, cultural, religious, and historical sites, or other objects that do not, by their nature, location, purpose, or use, effectively contribute to the enemy’s war-fighting or war-sustaining capability.” The task force charges that Israel has “routinely and repeatedly” targeted six fundamental categories of NSEs, plus a broad array of slightly less protected entities.
Proportionality ‘rendered meaningless’
A common excuse the Israelis advance for the death and wounding of civilians is that they are being used by Hamas as “human shields.” The report notes that “taking advantage of the presence of civilians or other protected persons with intent to shield a military objective from attack constitutes a war crime.” However, U.S. military rules “affirm that an attacker shares responsibility for civilian harm with its enemies if it fails to take feasible precautions” to avoid killing shields.
NSM-20 itself spells out that its allies must “facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede . . . the transport or delivery of [U.S.] humanitarian assistance and U.S. Government-supported international…humanitarian assistance.”
Outlining the “context” of Israel’s “systematic disregard for IHL,” the report cites “recurrent attacks launched despite foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects, wide-area attacks without prior warnings in some of the most densely populated residential neighborhoods in the world, direct attacks on civilians or otherwise protected persons…and attacks against civilians objects, including those indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.” A high-ranking former IDF officer is quoted as condemning Israel’s “reckless conduct,” which he says “reflects an absolute assumption that the U.S. will continue to arm and finance it.”
“Extremely relaxed rules of engagement” inconsistent with IHL also explain much of the harm done to civilians. Thus, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Air Force, Omar Tishler, has stated that neighborhoods have been attacked “on a large scale and not in a surgical manner.”
Such attacks are facilitated by an expansion of the concept of “military advantage” in its proportionality assessments to weigh civilian harms against the advantages of “an operation as a whole,” rather than against each individual attack. That move “renders the proportionality rule meaningless,” the report says, as it’s impossible to compare the harms of a single specific attack with all the military advantages allegedly achieved or sought by the whole Gaza operation, which has lasted more than six months.
Similarly, former U.S. Air Force drone controller Bryant noted how Israel blurs the requirement of taking precautions to protect civilians “by employing precautions it knows are ineffective,” such as texting populations whose phones are not functional.
Also “relaxed” is Israel’s use of the term terrorist. Thus, a reserve officer told Ha’aretz, “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.” The extensive, open-ended imposition of “kill zones” is another way to disguise genocide, an Israeli intelligence officer has explained. With a “kill zone” lasting a month or two, “you could stick with an order that anyone approaching should be shot…But we’ve been there for six months, and people have to start coming out; they are trying to survive, and that leads to very serious incidents.”
Lastly, Israel asserts it can block humanitarian aid, if it has “serious reasons for fearing” that relief consignments “will be diverted from their civilian destination or otherwise provide a definite advantage to the enemy’s military efforts” — a position the task force says relies on a “defective rule” from 1949 that was modified in 1977 and superseded by a rule of customary international law. Recent UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions confirm that Israel “must allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded humanitarian relief and may not deny such relief based on fears that a small portion of aid may be seized by armed groups.”
In conclusion, the report warns that “the Task Force’s findings raise grave concerns regarding the Administration’s compliance with both U.S. and international law, particularly with respect to security assistance and arms transfers.” It then identifies the laws in question, as well as citing “obligations under customary international law to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and to cooperate to bring serious violations of peremptory norms of general international law to an end through lawful means.
1.This month.
13 July Webinar: Don’t Nuke The Climate: how to counter the nuclear disinformation
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