What US wants for Ukraine must serve as a warning to Taiwan, Australia and others
By Jerry GreyFeb 27, 2025 https://johnmenadue.com/what-us-wants-for-ukraine-must-serve-as-a-warning-to-taiwan-australia-and-others/?fbclid=IwY2xjawItzONleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHcT0lfuEL8oOMiWVfXt6tf52gPFX6pGbQU5vU6uH2Cf7O9ZbQLMfD6Yv7A_aem_2nBT5Nx8EUx9X5fenP72KQ
So, US Secretary of Defence Hesgeth has made it clear that what most of us knew three years ago will come to pass.
Ukraine is getting no more support, Trump has declared he wants their mineral rights and Putin has declared he’s not giving up territory, Ukraine will not become a NATO country and half a million dead people are dead for no reason at all – everything Putin wanted this time three years ago, he’s going to get and everything Ukraine wanted at the same time, they have lost.
This is not just a widely held belief coming true, there was never ever going to be a world in which Ukraine fighting alone was going to prevail against Russia, there was never going to be a world in which Russia was going to fight wars with reportedly untrained personnel equipped with shovels and backed up with cannibalised washing machine parts – the Western world has been conned and very well conned too.
NATO followers are quiet now, everything they were targeting has been lost, every obnoxious insult, every hateful post and every disgusting individual who prayed for more death and destruction has been exposed for what they were, and probably still are – ignorant, racist and obscenely ill-informed. They were either paid to be part of the misinformation, or stupid enough to be used by it.
Of course, we’ll see all kinds of claims of victory from people on the losing side – Zelensky will probably retire with ignominy, or perhaps experience a Hitler moment in his bunker. To be honest, I’ll be surprised if he’s still around this time next year but one thing is certain, he won’t be president of a sovereign nation.
Ukraine faces losing its agricultural rights to US corporations, its mineral rights to the Trump Administration’s supporters and it will be mired in debt for generations to come with no hope whatsoever of repaying that debt since it will be controlled by capitalist corporate vampires, sucking everything it has out for the benefit of shareholders. And, to cap it all off, they will lose the three areas they were fighting for because there is no way Russia is going to give back what it shed blood for. The Russian regions may not become part of Russia, but they sure as heck will not become part of Ukraine again.
Millions of displaced people will return to Ukraine as they were never wanted in surrounding countries, hundreds will be put on trial for war crimes, desertions or worse and in about two years, the matter will be completely forgotten by all but those personally involved, who will never, ever forget.
It doesn’t get any better for the people of Europe – Hesgeth’s statement went on to say he wants to keep Russia sanctioned, keep their largest form of income off the table, and continue to weaken them by ramping up US oil, gas and other fossil fuel supplies so that Europe can remain in fuel debt bondage to the USA.
What’s the greatest lesson to be taken from this?
The greatest lesson is that, if the US is allowed to do it again, which they are now, quite obviously aiming to do, Taiwan supporters will fare a lot worse – the US will not enter a war against China, it will enrol proxies. It is working on getting Vietnam involved but that’ll never work, it wants the Philippines involved but the people are not supportive enough of Marcos. The US currently controls the military of South Korea and Japan, so those two countries will get involved when, not if they’re needed and, based on precedent, Australia is likely to join in – if it does, it will be destroyed, but that won’t bother the US because China has no intention whatsoever of invading Australia, it never has, it never will, despite stupid predictions from stupid people working for Washington’s pet funded think-tank, ASPI.
The real reason ASPI wants us to think this is to deflect from the reality that it’s already happened – the US owns the banking, retail, agricultural and logistics systems of Australia, it also controls defence and seems to have some kind of strong influence over politics. The reality is, Australia is already owned, occupied and controlled by the US.
’ve said it before and will say it over and over again, China will never invade Taiwan, but it will defend its sovereignty and Taiwan is part of that sovereignty. If Taiwan, with US instigation, attempts to remove itself from China, the Civil War will be concluded and Taiwan will become the last province to be controlled by the CPC after the conclusion of a 75-year-old unfinished Civil War. Australia, South Korea, Japan and anyone else, even with support from NATO and other “allies”, will not stand a chance against the largest, best trained, best equipped, defensive military in the world. Because China has no ambitions to take anything other than to reunite Taiwan back under the umbrella of one-China. Those countries involved will, like Ukraine, be handing their sovereignty to the US in exactly the way Ukraine is now being humiliated.
Thousands, if not tens or even hundreds of thousands of our young people, do not need to die to prove the US is wrong, Ukraine is the lesson we need to learn from – remembering that all Ukraine had to do is to declare neutrality, abide by an agreement that it had signed in Minsk and hundreds of thousand of its people would be alive, not dead or disabled, millions of its people would have remained in their country and they could, at any time, have sold their mineral rights, their agricultural land and their labour for a profit if they’d wanted to.
As it is now, they are an impoverished, enslaved nation with very limited options and the people of Australia, Japan, South Korea and particularly those residents in Taiwan should sit up, take notice and learn from history – this is what happens when you follow the leadership of a hegemon.
AUKUS ‘impact assessment’ report ignores nuclear submarine risks in SA
By David Noonan, Feb 28, 2025, https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-impact-assessment-report-ignores-nuclear-sub-risks-in-sa/
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has released an EPBC Act ‘Impact Assessment Report’ (IAR) to address the environmental impacts of constructing nuclear submarines at Osborne, Port Adelaide. A deluge of documents — the 200-page IAR with 750 pages of appendices — have been released for “public consultation” running till 17 March. However, the IAR fails to provide answers to community’s “right to know” on nuclear submarine accident risks and radioactive waste storage facing Port Adelaide.
The proponent Australian Submarine Agency ruled a range of lead community safety concerns as “out of scope” of this Osborne assessment. The IAR says: “Information on potential sources of radiation has been provided to inform, however does not form part of the Strategic Assessment as these sources will be managed via separate environmental assessment processes and approvals as necessary.”
Impacts of commissioning and operation of the “power module” (the nuclear reactor) “is considered outside the scope of this assessment” ‒ that assessment is to be “held over” for a new non-independent military nuclear regulator that reports to Defence Minister Richard Marles. The military are to effectively take over public safety at Port Adelaide even though the federal Health Minister Mark Butler is the local MP.
Federal Labor is in denial over nuclear submarine reactor accident risks. The word “accident” does not even appear in the 200-page IAR. Even a visit by a nuclear-powered submarine to a port in Australia requires emergency response planning that sets evacuation zones for potential nuclear reactor accidents. It is at best inept to decide to impose nuclear sub reactor accident risks onto communities across Lefevre Peninsula and Port Adelaide while failing to conduct full impact assessments and limiting “public consultation” to only those aspects that suit Labor’s staged roll-out of the AUKUS nuclear sub agenda.
The management facility for radioactive waste at Osborne, and the disposal pathway for such radioactive waste, “is considered outside the scope of the Strategic Assessment”. Marles is already a year late on his own schedule to announce a “process” for managing AUKUS nuclear waste storage and disposal, due back in March 2024. The IAR radioactive waste management section says: “The facility is to be designed to have the capacity to manage radioactive material over the 50-year Strategic Assessment timeframe.” Thus, radioactive wastes may accumulate and remain ‘stored’ at Osborne for decades.
The IAR also misrepresents nuclear submarine reactor radioactive wastes to be stored at Osborne as “similar to those that occur in over 100 locations nationwide, including hospitals, science facilities and universities” and “similar to the waste generated by hospitals and research facilities around Australia”.
Emergency services workers have a ‘right to know’
SA emergency services workers — first responders, the police, fire, ambulance and hospital personnel — have a right to know what nuclear health risks they face. Federal emergency provisions apply in event of a nuclear sub reactor accident at Port Adelaide. The civilian Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency “Guide for Radiation Protection in Emergency Exposure Situations” and “Nuclear powered vessel visit planning” set out the studies and Emergency response measures that are to be put in place.
The ARPANSA Guide authorises very high ionising radiation dose exposures to emergency workers in tasking them to undertake “urgent protective actions” on site at a nuclear accident, at a dose of up to 50 milliSieverts (mSv). That is 50 times in excess of the recommended civilian maximum allowed dose of 1 mSv per year.
Affected members of the public within an “Urgent Protective Action Zone” of 2.8 km radius from the site of a nuclear sub reactor accident also face authorised high ionising radiation dose exposure of up to 50 mSv. In a “Reference Accident” the local population may face evacuation and may require “decontamination” and medical treatment. A wider zone where “the surrounding population may be subject to hazards” is described as having a radius of several kms. ARPANSA also require studies of a local population out to 15 km from a nuclear submarine mooring.
Catastrophic conditions
In an even more severe AUKUS nuclear accident, federal provisions provide for civilian SA emergency workers to face “the development of catastrophic conditions”. Emergency workers and designated shipyard workers are then to be called upon to “volunteer” to risk dangerously high ionising radiation dose exposures of up to 500 mSv. The ARPANSA Guide states female emergency workers are to be excluded: “Female workers who might be pregnant need to be excluded from taking actions that might result in an equivalent dose exceeding 50 mSv”.
The ARPANSA Guide authorises “actions to prevent the development of catastrophic conditions” by civilian workers. “Category 1 Emergency workers” may “receive a dose of up to 500 mSv”, a dangerously high ionising radiation dose exposure that is 500 times the maximum allowed civilian annual dose. The ARPANSA Guide states:
“Emergency workers may include workers employed, both directly and indirectly, by an operating organisation, as well as personnel of response organisations, such as police officers, firefighters, medical personnel, and drivers and crews of vehicles used for evacuation. …
“Emergency workers undertaking mitigatory actions and urgent protective actions on-site, including lifesaving actions, actions to prevent serious injury, actions to prevent the development of catastrophic conditions that could significantly affect people and the environment, and actions to prevent severe tissue reactions. … They may also receive a dose of up to 500 mSv for life saving actions, to prevent the development of catastrophic conditions and to prevent severe tissue reactions.”
Federal and SA governments have a responsibility to be transparent over a required “Emergency Response Plan” for AUKUS nuclear reactor accidents. No government can claim to have a social licence for AUKUS nuclear subs while failing to inform affected community and affected workers of the nuclear accident and ionising radiation health risks they may face.
Further information is online.
Australia’s Nuclear Plan: Climate & Security threat.
The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group, 28 Feb 25
Australia’s proposed nuclear power plan is facing serious pushback from former defence and security leaders, who warn that it increases national and regional security risks and delays climate action.
The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG) has issued a strong statement today highlighting the dangerous vulnerabilities nuclear power plants would introduce:
A Target in Modern Warfare – Nuclear power plants would become high-value, vulnerable targets for missile strikes, sabotage, and cyberattacks. With all proposed sites located within 100 km of the coast, they are easy targets in times of conflict.
A Military Dilemma – Admiral Chris Barrie (Retd), former Chief of the Australian Defence Force, warns that these power stations would divert critical defence resources away from protecting Australian cities and military bases. “Where do we allocate limited national defence capabilities?” he asks.
A Costly Security Burden – Cheryl Durrant, former Defence Department Director, says that Australia lacks a layered missile defence system to protect these plants. “Building one would be complex, expensive, and stretch our security resources even further.”
A Climate Setback – The nuclear plan would perpetuate reliance on coal-fired power for decades, adding two billion tonnes of carbon emissions and derailing our climate targets.
Chinese warships sailing the Tasman Sea expose AUKUS folly
Australia needs to abandon its bankrupting $368B all-eggs-in-one-basket monolithic AUKUS nuclear submarine program and get back to Defence basics.
MichaelWest Media, by Rex Patrick | Feb 28, 2025
China exposes a fundamental flaw in Australia’s nuclear submarine project. While their navy operates off our coast, AUKUS is sapping funds from capabilities needed today. Former submariner Rex Patrick reports.
Rex Patrick reports.
Many Australians have been disturbed, indeed angered, by Chinese warships operating in our exclusive economic zone over the past weeks. How dare they! But the fact is that the Chinese vessels – a destroyer, a frigate and a replenishment ship – are operating in accordance with international law and simply doing to us what we’ve done to them for decades.
Readers will remember a number of recent incidents in which the Chinese military confronted Australian military assets conducting maritime operations in areas of interest to China.
In April 2018, three Australian Naval vessels operating in international waters off Vietnam were challenged by People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships.
On all of these occasions, Australia asserted the right of our navy and air force to operate freely in international waters and air space.
Maybe we need to contain our anger!
Strategic takeaways
There are a couple of significant takeaways from the Chinese task group deployment.
The first is that PLAN is no longer a ‘brown-water navy‘. It’s a blue-water navy that can project itself at significant range. In months and years to come, we can expect to see more PLAN warships in Australia’s immediate region and, indeed, in our Exclusive Economic Zone. That’s inevitable.
The second thing to recognise is the fact that our AUKUS submarine strategy is fundamentally flawed.
AUKUS flaw
As the Chinese are operating off the coast of Australia now, we might, and it’s a big might, get our first Virginia Class nuclear-powered submarine in a decade, around 2035.
Whilst Australia embarks on a $368B submarine procurement program, money is being sapped from current programs that would deliver relevant capability now. There is also a huge opportunity cost for procuring other relevant capabilities that could be purchased for near-term delivery.
As PLAN warships were conducting live-fire exercises off the coast of Australia, the only possible contribution that the AUKUS project team could have made in response to it would have been to visually identify those ships by one of its team members flying in a commercial jet over the Tasman Sea en route to another taxpayer-funded junket in Washington.
Furthermore, the nuclear submarines we are currently trying to acquire have the capability to operate for extended periods off the coast of China, but that’s simply unnecessary – the PLAN has well and truly arrived off our coast. They’re bringing the party to us. Even a relatively modest PLAN deployment across our sea lanes would keep our modestly sized navy well and truly tied up.
President Trump may well just see the fate of Taiwan as another real estate deal, something to be traded away for the right price.
This PLAN ‘visit’ to Australian waters highlights our current force weakness. Whilst we have been cooperating with New Zealand in shadowing the three-ship task group, we really don’t have much in the way of assets to deal with the PLAN’s enhanced capabilities.
Indeed, the Chief of Defence Force has advised the Senate that, despite having a budget this financial year of $58B, it was a Virgin Australian pilot that first advised the Australian Government that the PLAN was conducting live-fire exercises off the east coast…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
needs to be asking the same questions as the Europeans.
Stand on our own
Two decades ago, Australia had a capable, flexible defence force configured for the defence of Australia with the option of expeditionary deployments where our capabilities complemented a multinational operation.
“The current plan on record has abandoned that sovereign goal and focussed on total integration with the US armed forces.”
Our forces are now so integrated with and reliant upon the US military that not only is our capability to defend Australia gravely weakened but our own sovereign decision-making is compromised.
Maybe it’s not just the Chinese that have done us a favour with their task group deployment. President Trump is helping out too.
Australia needs to abandon its bankrupting $368B all-eggs-in-one-basket monolithic AUKUS nuclear submarine program and get back to Defence basics. We need a modern, capable, flexible and self-reliant Defence force that can meet our own sovereign needs. That is entirely achievable and affordable, provided we make the right decisions now.
Rex Patrick
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and earlier a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is running for the Senate on the Lambie Network ticket next year – www.transparencywarrior.com.au.
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