Spinbusting the propaganda of SMR Nuclear Technology’s Tony Irwin as he spruiks for Small Nuclear Reactors for Australia
First to nuclear power, which, we should remember, has been effectively banned in Australia since the late 1990s.
On page three of the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney, columnist Piers Akerman wrote an “exclusive” news
story showing “nuclear energy is cheaper” than coal, gas, solar or wind. Such a claim would overturn pretty much all serious analysis of electricity costs around the globe. So where did it come from? The
International Energy Agency maybe, or perhaps the CSIRO?
No. Akerman quoted “new data” from Tony Irwin, who is a nuclear industry veteran and a technical director at a consultancy company with “specialist industry knowledge on the procurement and development of nuclear technologies” with a focus on small modular reactors (SMR).
But one problem with using Irwin’s numbers is they are based on an estimate of the cost of one
particular SMR design which has not yet been built and won’t produce power until at least 2029.
Guardian 30th June 2022
NATO has completed its post-Cold War transformation from Europe’s guard dog into America’s attack dog
The guard dog had, it seems, been re-trained as an attack dog.
https://www.rt.com/russia/558168-nato-defensive-alliance-global-cop/ Scott Ritter 1 July 22, From an ostensible defensive alliance, NATO has grown into an aggressor designed to promote ‘rules’ dictated by the US,
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, has just wrapped up its annual summit in Madrid, Spain. The one-time trans-Atlantic defensive alliance has, over the past three decades, transformed itself from the guardian of Western Europe into global cop, seeking to project militarily a so-called values- and rules-based posture.
NATO’s first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously noted that the mission of the bloc was “to keep the Russians out, the Germans down, and the Americans in.” In short, NATO served as a wall against the physical expansion of the Soviet Union from the perch it had established in eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War. Likewise, the creation of NATO prevented a treaty from being concluded between Germany and the Soviet Union that would enable the reunification of Germany. And lastly, the existence of NATO mandated that the US retain a significant full-time military presence in Europe, helping break America’s traditional tendency toward isolationism.
At the Madrid Summit, NATO radically redefined its mission to reflect a new mantra which could be encapsulated as “keep the Russians down, the Americans in, and the Chinese out.” It is an aggressive–even hostile–posture, premised on sustaining Western (i.e., American) supremacy.
This mission is to be accomplished through the defense and promulgation of a so-called “rules-based international order” which exists only in the minds of its creators, which in this case is the United States and its allies in Europe. It also represents a radical break from past practice which sought to keep NATO defined by the four corners of its trans-Atlantic birthright by seeking to expand its security umbrella into the Pacific.
The guard dog had, it seems, been re-trained as an attack dog.
Continue readingPreparing for future crises
John Hewson
While the climate debate intensifies over the inevitability of further, even more extreme weather events, and the necessary transitions to a low-carbon Australia, it seems that governments are ignoring or playing down the possibility of further pandemics and the need to be better prepared next time.
Military social media campaigns promote the war in Ukraine, and attack any ”wrongthink” that dares criticise role of USA and NATO
Ukraine Is The Most Aggressively Trolled War Of All Time: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin’s Newsletter, 1 July 22,
There’s a lot going on in America and the people are very stressed out and frightened, but don’t worry, there’s nothing the US government won’t do to make sure more High Mobility Artillery Rocket systems get to Ukraine.
Rest assured Americans: no matter how dark things may seem right now, no matter how insecure and uncertain you may feel, you can sleep soundly knowing your government is moving mountains around the clock to make sure the Ukraine war becomes a strategic quagmire for Moscow.
The Ukraine war is the single most aggressively trolled issue I’ve ever witnessed. As soon as it started, Twitter was full of brand new accounts swarming anyone who uttered wrongthink about Ukraine, and now there are entire extremely coordinated troll factions working to scare people away from criticizing empire narratives about this war. It’s plainly very inorganic, so it’s good to recall what we know about the trolling operations of western militaries.
[Ed. note – several examples given here]
So the western empire is responding to a war that was caused by NATO expansion by greatly expanding NATO, at the same time we learn that the Biden administration doesn’t even believe Ukraine has any chance of winning that war. This is going great, guys. Good job everyone.
Sure the worst case scenario of all this brinkmanship with Russia is nuclear war, but on the other hand the best case scenario is securing planetary domination for an empire that has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression for power and profit. Totally worth the risk!
When you realize the US really only has one political party, you cease seeing one good party protecting people from a bad party and start seeing one giant party threatening to take away people’s civil rights if they don’t obey and submit. You suddenly understand that saying one party is a “lesser evil” is like saying a boxer should want to get hit by his opponent’s left hand because his right cross hurts more. It’s two arms on the same boxer, and they’re both working together to knock you out…………….. https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/ukraine-is-the-most-aggressively?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The impossibility of humans colonising space
Ukraine Is The Most Aggressively Trolled War Of All Time: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Caitlin’s Newsletter, Caitlin Johnstone 30n June 22
”……………………………………………………………………………..One thing we learned from Covid is that being stuck inside sucks. Space colonization would be like being in permanent lockdown with no windows, no Uber Eats, no birdsong or rain on the roof and no chance of ever going home. Even if it somehow became possible, it’s a dumb idea and I hate it.
And there’s no reason to believe it will ever become possible. Science is nowhere near finished learning about all the countless ways the human organism is inseparably intertwined with Earth. The belief that we can solve our problems with space colonization is unscientific. We’re just going to have to change how we function as a species.
The biggest obstacle remains the fact that science has no idea how to sustain human life in a way that is separate from earth’s ecosystem. We don’t even have any evidence that it’s possible. We’re no closer to being able to do it than we were a thousand years ago; today’s space stations are not independent of Earth’s ecosystem in even the tiniest way. They’re still 100 percent dependent on terrestrial supplies, which is an unsustainable model if you’re talking about actual colonization.
The idea of space colonization appeals to the capitalist mentality because it means we can keep expanding our population and keep expanding the economy and keep harvesting and consuming resources in the way we have been. But there’s literally zero scientific evidence that it’s feasible.
A future of space colonization is a fairy tale we tell ourselves so that we won’t have to change. So we can keep up our egocentric way of functioning without adapting and transcending our self-destructive patterns. We’re like a slacker who refuses to get off their parents’ couch and get their shit together who babbles made-up nonsense about NFT get-rich-quick schemes when asked about their plans for the future.
Collective extinction is easier to imagine than collective ego death. https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/ukraine-is-the-most-aggressively?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The IAEA Needs Access to Ukraine’s Nuclear Power Plant. Biden Can Help
https://thedispatch.com/p/the-iaea-needs-access-to-ukraines
Since Russia seized the plant in March, the safety and security of the plant have been in jeopardy. Anthony Ruggiero and Andrea Stricker, 30 June 22,
“Untenable.” That’s how Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), last week described the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which Russia seized in March. He said that every day “the independent work and assessments of Ukraine’s regulator are undermined,” the “risk of an accident or a security breach increases.” Grossi asserted he wants to send an IAEA mission to the ZNPP, which is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. In a twist, however, Ukraine’s atomic energy regulators, presumably at the direction of Kyiv, have rejected Grossi’s request.
Ukraine believes an IAEA visit to the ZNPP would legitimize Russia’s control of the complex. Grossi has rejected that characterization, emphasizing that “it is absolutely incorrect. When I go there, I will be going there under the same agreement that Ukraine passed with the IAEA, not the Russian Federation.” President Joe Biden urgently needs to convince Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to let the IAEA in to ensure the ZNPP is safe and secure.
The ZNPP, located in east Ukraine, is a facility with six light water reactors, and it produced up to one-fifth of Ukraine’s electricity production before the war. To gain control of it, Russia shelled the area with missiles, sparking a widely reported fire. The missile attack spurred fears that Moscow could further damage the facility and cause a nuclear radiological incident that could harm Ukrainian civilians and neighboring countries.
Ukrainian authorities brought the fire under control, but Russia installed officials from its atomic energy agency, Rosatom, to oversee day-to-day work of Ukrainian personnel. The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine warned in a statement that life at Zaporizhzhia has become intolerable under Moscow’s direction: Russia’s military and representatives of Russia’s Rosatom and its subsidiary Rosenergoatom “constantly terrorize and directly threaten the lives of the plant personnel.”
The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Russian military officers have been interrogating ZNPP employees to assess their loyalties to Moscow and reprimanding “workers who speak in Ukrainian rather than Russian and screening their cellphones for evidence of allegiance to Kyiv.” The Russians have also abducted, tortured, or shot workers. Russian officials at the plant have told workers that they intend to connect the ZNPP to Russia’s electricity grid, which would be costly and take years to accomplish, reinforcing Kyiv’s concerns that Moscow is preparing for long-term control of the facility.
Russia has not publicly opposed an IAEA visit. Grossi claimed in a June 6 statement to the IAEA Board of Governors that Ukraine had requested an IAEA mission to the plant and that the agency was ready to go. The day after Grossi’s statement, however, Ukraine’s atomic agency, Energoatom, wrote in a Telegram post that it had not invited the IAEA to visit. “We consider this message from the head of the IAEA as another attempt to get to the (power plant) by any means in order to legitimise the presence of occupiers there and essentially condone their actions,” the post stated.
In March, Grossi said that seven pillars of nuclear plant safety and security were at risk at the ZNPP. Those pillars include: maintenance of physical integrity; functional safety and security systems and equipment; freedom of operating staff to fulfill their safety and security duties and without undue pressure; a secure off-site power supply from the grid for all nuclear sites; uninterrupted logistical supply chains and transportation to and from the site; effective on-site and off-site radiation monitoring systems backed by emergency preparedness and response measures; and reliable communication with regulators and others. In his June 6 statement to the IAEA board, Grossi declared that five of seven pillars had been compromised. “This is why IAEA safety and security experts must go,” he said.
Moreover, the ZNPP stopped transmitting safeguards information to the IAEA on May 30, meaning the agency could not ascertain whether there had been theft or loss of nuclear material. “The Ukrainian regulator has informed us they have lost control of the nuclear material,” Grossi told the board.
President Biden is in a difficult spot: He is focused on fortifying Zelenskyy’s fighting forces against Russia, but Putin’s control of the ZNPP could lead to a safeguards or safety crisis in Ukraine. Biden should urge Ukraine to approve an IAEA visit. He should also insist that Russia stop its intimidation and violence against ZNPP workers and return the plant to Ukraine.
UN Ocean Conference ends with call for greater ambition and global commitment to address dire state of Ocean
Following a week of discussions and events in Lisbon, Portugal, the UN Ocean Conference concluded on Friday, with governments and heads of state agreeing on a new political declaration to Save Our Ocean.
Is Nuclear Power Just Too Dangerous?
The New Republic , 1 July 22,
A survey of the world’s worst nuclear disasters highlights the catastrophic consequences of technical hubris.
On February 24, 2022, Russian troops began occupying Ukrainian territory in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant 26 years earlier remains the worst nuclear disaster the world has yet experienced. …………….Soon enough it became clear that Russian forces were not actively targeting Chernobyl’s facilities, including the sarcophagus that protects the damaged reactor core. Rather, they had chosen the sparsely populated area as the fastest route from Belarus to Kyiv.
……………The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, issued assurances that there was no cause for alarm. But nuclear watchers could be forgiven for their panic. The spotty news emerging from Chernobyl this spring uneasily echoed the trajectory of several of the world’s major nuclear disasters, including Japan’s Fukushima and Three Mile Island in the United States.
……………………None of this had yet transpired when Serhii Plokhy, a professor of history and director of the Ukrainian Institute at Harvard, began writing Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters. Nuclear power has, in fact, been gaining popular support, despite its dangers. In recent years, some climate activists have aligned with the nuclear power industry to argue that nuclear power offers the only off-ramp from the urgent and existential threat of climate change. The World Nuclear Association, an industry lobbying group, wants to raise the share of electrical energy produced by nuclear plants from 10 to 25 percent by 2050.
While Plokhy acknowledges the threat of climate change, his study of the history of nuclear accidents has convinced him that the risks are simply too high. His account, which draws on contemporary reports of six radiological disasters as well as government investigations conducted after the fact, argues persuasively that nuclear reactors remain inherently unsafe. Nuclear engineers add new safety features after each disaster, only to be astonished by the devilish and statistically unlikely path of the next one. Citing research based on acknowledged nuclear incidents that predicts “one core meltdown accident every 37,000 reactor years,” Plohky forecasts that we will likely see another large-scale accident before 2036. We may be lucky to make it that long.
America’s first hydrogen bomb test did not go according to plan………………………………………………..
Similar scenarios unfolded in each of the cases Plokhy discusses in the book. …………………………. a storage tank for radioactive waste at the Maiak plutonium production facility had exploded, in September 1957…………………. In the critical hours leading up to a reactor fire at the U.K.’s Windscale facility, one month later, operators struggled to understand the pile’s strange behavior during a maintenance operation that had been postponed several months in the name of plutonium production. ……………….. in March 1979. Plant managers at Chernobyl made the disastrous decision to press pause halfway through a test of the backup generators to satisfy demands made by the regional administrator of the electrical grid. At Fukushima, plant designers located the backup generators below sea level for a facility nestled against the sea in a country vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis
The technical details in these stories matter immensely, and Plokhy excels at breaking them down. …………… The bad news is that the authorities in charge of building nuclear power plants do not always incorporate these safety features into their designs. …………… https://newrepublic.com/article/166949/nuclear-power-just-dangerous-atoms-ashes-serhii-plokhy.
Small modular nukes fall short on climate promises, new study suggests.
SMRs are inherently less efficient, hence the “higher volumes and greater complexity” of the waste, says the study. SMRs leak more neutrons, which impairs the self-sustaining nuclear reaction.
GreenBiz, By Clifford Maynes, 1 July 22, Small modular reactors (SMRs), seen by the beleaguered nuclear industry as a shining hope for a global revival, may have hit a serious snag. A new study finds that mini-nuclear power stations produce higher volumes of radioactive waste per unit of generation than larger-scale traditional ones.
The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada are among the countries investing in SMRs on the hope of a cheaper, faster way to build out nuclear capacity. In Canada, the federal government is leading and funding a “Team Canada” approach involving several provinces, industry players, and others, envisioning SMRs as “a source of safe, clean, affordable energy, opening opportunities for a resilient, low-carbon future and capturing benefits for Canada and Canadians.”
In Ontario, the Ford government selected GE Hitachi to build an SMR at the Darlington nuclear plant site, with a projected in-service date of 2028.
Now, however, the first independent assessment of radioactive waste from SMRs has modeled the waste from three SMR designs, Toshiba, NuScale and Terrestrial Energy. The conclusion: “SMRs could increase the volume of short-lived low and intermediate level wastes… by up to 35 times compared to a large conventional reactor,” New Scientist reports.
“For the long-lived equivalent waste, SMRs would produce up to 30 times more,” the story adds. For spent nuclear fuel, up to five times more.
Stanford University’s Lindsay Krall, who led the research, said information from the industry is “promotional,” echoing past criticisms that SMRs are still “PowerPoint reactors” with no detailed engineering to back up the concept. “SMR performed worse on nearly all of our metrics compared to standard commercial reactors,” Krall said.
SMRs are inherently less efficient, hence the “higher volumes and greater complexity” of the waste, says the study. SMRs leak more neutrons, which impairs the self-sustaining nuclear reaction.
“The study concludes that, overall, small modular designs are inferior to conventional reactors with respect to radioactive waste generation, management requirements, and disposal options,” Stanford News reports.
“The research team estimated that after 10,000 years, the radiotoxicity of plutonium in spent fuels discharged from the three study modules would be at least 50 percent higher than the plutonium in conventional spent fuel per unit energy extracted.”
……………………………………. Proponents hope SMRs will have “small is beautiful” appeal and focus on their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But critics say they sidestep public concerns about accidents, wastes, cost and other impacts, noting that SMRs aren’t small: the Darlington reactor will be rated at 300 megawatts, about a third the size of the existing Candu reactors on the site, and more than half the size of the units at the nearby Pickering station.
SMRs are also new and unproven, critics warn. They say there is no reason to think SMR construction will be exempt from the massive cost overruns and completion delays that typically plague reactor construction, and megaprojects in general. And there is no real-world experience to date to demonstrate that SMRs can be built on time and on budget.
The biggest concern is that SMRs will soak up investment dollars and grid capacity that should go to proven, successful renewables such as solar and wind, which can be rapidly deployed and have falling rather than escalating costs. Because of the time lag, nuclear is not expected to make a large contribution to meeting the immediate, global goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted in its sixth assessment that small-scale, distributed energy sources such as wind and solar had exceeded expectations, while large, centralized technologies such as nuclear had fallen short.
“It takes too long to site and build nuclear reactors, especially compared to solar and wind installations,” said MIT researcher Kate Brown. https://www.greenbiz.com/article/small-modular-nukes-fall-short-climate-promises-new-study-suggests
Macron’s energy plans in tatters, as major flaws cause shutdown’s in France’s nuclear reactors
| Macron’s energy plans in tatters as EDF nuclear reactor flaw deals hammer blow. French President Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious plans to transform energy systems around the world may be scuppered by major flaws in EDF’s nuclear reactors. During a speech at the 48th G7 summit held in Germany, Mr Macron laid out his plans to rid the world of coal and get the planet to net zero emissions by 2050. In his roadmap, he touted the benefits of nuclear energy, which is the largest source of electricity generation in France, accounting for 70 percent of the country’s supply. However, recent reports of cracks being discovered in some of EDF’s nuclear reactors may throw a spanner in the works. The French leader admitted one disadvantage of nuclear energy is the technology is not permanent, as ageing nuclear reactors need to decommission, usually after 40 or 50 years after opening. While France has a large fleet of nuclear reactors, many of them are ageing, with French regulators pushing the scheduled shutdown of over half of EDF’s reactors by over a decade. Express 28th June 2022 https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1632377/emmanuel-macron-energy-crisis-plans-nuclear-edf-reactor-flaw-hammer-blow-g7 |
July 1 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Supreme Court Deals A Massive Blow To The Planet” • The Supreme Court’s limits on the EPA’s power to push for carbon neutrality is a massive blow. It sets the US back in its efforts to eliminate fossil fuel pollution. We already are decades behind on that task, and the world is likely […]
July 1 Energy News — geoharvey
TODAY. Australia slides into the grip of the global nuclear lobby
It sounds so good doesn’t it? The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA) is coming to Australia, to make sure that our new you-beaut nuclear submarines will be safe and healthy!
But let’s be clear on the purpose of the IAEA. It is not a neutral, independent, body. It is not primarily about safety.
The clear and prime purpose of the IAEA is to promote and develop the nuclear industry -it says so in its mission statement.
A 50-year-old agreement with the IAEA has effectively gagged the WHO from telling the truth about the health risks of radiation.
Don’t expect Mr Grossi to mention any of these basic problems. The IAEA is NOT objective – sure – it wants the nuclear submarines to be just safe enough to go ahead. There’ll be no emphasis on wottheheck will be done with the toxic wastes (IAEA has no idea about that), or on the risks to our Pacific neighbours in having these subs go through their supposedly nuclear-free waters.
The IAEA will be another nice-looking con job by the nuclear lobby – furthering our slide into this toxic industry
TODAY. Australia is STILL America’s Deputy Sheriff
And we thought. by getting rid of the bullying blustering Scott Morrison and his war-mongering muse Doomsday Dutton, we were at last to have an intelligent administration, that recognised Australia’s position in the Pacific region, and did not automatically jump to the whim of the American military-industrial-corporate. Albanese sounds like a more diplomatic. intelligent P.M
But no – on our TV screens we witnessed Albanese in Spain, fawning all over NATO. Now, NATO seems to be expanding its great reach to the Southern Hemisphere. Next thing, we’ll be joining NATO , and revving up the warmongers plans for attacking China. AUKUS is the start.
For a while there, China and Russia had some disagreements. But good old NATO is now succeeding in joining them together. I mean, why fight Russia, or ight China, if you can take on both of them at once?
Does that make sense? Does Australia really have to make enemies of both Russia and China?
These days – we seem to a be afflicted with Prime Ministers intoxicated by being seen on the big stage with the US President, kow-towing to whatever is the current USA whim.
Oh, for a Prime Minister honest about Australia’s security!
https://johnmenadue.com/oh-for-a-prime-minister-honest-about-australias-security/1 By Mike Gilligan, Jun 29, 2022,
How did it come to this? Australia’s defence policy has been baldly sacrificed to US interests via AUKUS with little public discourse.
Mostly, those that present as security experts have mumbled support as the US entangles Australia in its planning for war with China. Not a word from the serried rows of professors, publicly funded, who otherwise jostle for public exposure.
For five decades Australia’s security policy has centred on defending our territory independently. Self-reliance has been the prudent and rational posture for Australian governments with ANZUS deliberately avoiding a commitment to armed response by the US in the event of attack on Australia.
Implementing that strategy has been a big task – intellectually, financially and managerially, requiring all our defence spending to be directed to that objective. Whenever we have chosen to join the US in its global wars we did so with modest contributions drawn from forces created for our own priorities, measured to signal political support but not detract from our own objective. Now that policy has been abruptly buried with AUKUS requiring our taxes to heavily fund US strategic denial of China – building nuclear submarines of little value for our own needs to fit with US planning for military conflict with China.
How could Australia’s security policy move largely unremarked from an earnest and internationally respected self-defence policy to mounting aggressive deployments into China’s adjacent waters, at mind numbing cost? Former Prime Minister Paul Keating was an early and insightful critic of AUKUS. Just a few weeks after it was announced, Keating addressed the National Press Club, in November last year. He began by inferring that it was because mainstream media coverage of security is so weak in Australia he felt compelled to share his perspective. Keating’s reservation was reinforced by the level of questions from the floor at the end. Keating made the then striking claim that Australia was to build nuclear submarines specifically to attack China in its waters. He observed that this had been admitted effectively by Australia’s ambassador to Washington, Arthur Sinodinos. The submarines would be designed to attack China’s nuclear missile submarines which are China’s second-strike deterrent to US nuclear attack on China.
So, Australia is being set up as a key factor in the nuclear war equation of the US and China. Broadly, Keating argued that China deserves respect. It now has a bigger economy than the US by 25% and can be expected to expand that gap in coming decades. China has shown it wants to participate in global structures and be part of reform. China has a lot to offer and is not contriving to run the world. Its security concern is to push US sea and air military forces away from its borders, noting US and other forces (including Australian) exercise in the South China Sea. The more senior of the serried professors, Paul Dibb, quickly took up the pen disparagingly against Keating, observing that Keating “gave the strong impression of being a sleepwalker”. Dibb is thereby suggesting it has long been common knowledge that Australia is preparing for war against China. If so, that is news to most Australians, including those who have a more-than-cursory interest in our security affairs.
On Thursday last week, Dibb was delivered by ABC TV into the living rooms of Australians via the 7:30 Report, unannounced and without context, just prior to Leigh Sales’ interview with Prime Minister Albanese. His hectoring message was that Defence should have first priority from the Government, to ensure that it counters an “aggressive and expansionist” China. Urgency was implied as China could exploit a “window of opportunity” with the US distracted by the Ukraine. I suspect most viewers thought that this was just more of the banality we enjoy on Thursday nights from Sammy J. But it was shabby, ABC.
Dibb’s professional pedigree lies in Cold War intelligence. It has been claimed that he enjoyed unusual access to sensitive classified material for years. In this regard Dibb should now be obsolete. These days he writes for an online ASPI platform where his paragraphs settle comfortably alongside trademarks of weapons systems purveyors. The tone is invariably unsettling and receptive to greater defence spending. Yet big media conduits such as the Press Club and ABC television, which provide him a national platform at prime time, offer no declaration of interests.
Another professor, Rory Medcalf, head of the “National Security College “ at the ANU with staff of about sixty, writes and comments regularly. His recent book “Contest for the Indo-Pacific” is engaging but the substance is a worry. In discussing Australia, Medcalf shows poor comprehension of the realities of Australia’s defence policy post ANZUS: “ Australia relies acutely on … in the ultimate crisis, the expectation under the ANZUS Treaty that overwhelming (US) force would come to its aid “. In fact Australia’s policy has been quite the reverse – to have no such expectation of US force intervening on our behalf under ANZUS . Even security hobbyists know Medcalf Is at odds with decades of Australian defence policy centred on self-reliance, deriving from the ANZUS negotiation by Spender, its ratification by Congress and subsequent affirmations. This failure is not of some slippery nuance. Ignorance of a key risk factor in our security is more than disappointing at his level. Only by getting ANZUS right can we address our security risk.
In public commentary Medcalf seems as anchored ideologically as the daily media, lining up with China as a threat to be constrained. How can Australians understand security without credible public thought leaders? Recognising the deficiency is a start. Balanced analytical commentary should aim for Australians to be confident that their governments comprehend and are dealing with the risks in ANZUS. At present few realise that any Australian government joining with the US in applying military force against China on the assumption that the US will be with us “all the way”, is foolhardy.
What an achievement it would be for a serving prime minister to inform Australians honestly of our ultimate security risk under ANZUS. Prime Minister Albanese might ponder that as he sits amongst NATO leaders in Madrid, none of whom carry similar risk to him because they share a real security treaty with the US. And perhaps the Prime Minister might realise that Australia, in being treated differently, can learn from Ukraine’s experience as a qualified friend of the US.
Dr Mike Gilligan worked for 20 years in defence policy and evaluating military proposals for development, including time in the Pentagon on military balances in Asia.
Biden officials privately doubt that Ukraine can win back all of its territory
Biden officials privately doubt that Ukraine can win back all of its territory https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/28/politics/white-house-ukraine-projection/index.html
By Natasha Bertrand, CNN, June 28, 2022 White House officials are losing confidence that Ukraine will ever be able to take back all of the land it has lost to Russia over the past four months of war, US officials told CNN, even with the heavier and more sophisticated weaponry the US and its allies plan to send.
Advisers to President Joe Biden have begun debating internally how and whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should shift his definition of a Ukrainian “victory” — adjusting for the possibility that his country has shrunk irreversibly.
US officials emphasized to CNN that this more pessimistic assessment does not mean the US plans to pressure Ukraine into making any formal territorial concessions to Russia in order to end the war. There is also hope that Ukrainian forces will be able to take back significant chunks of territory in a likely counteroffensive later this year.
A congressional aide familiar with the deliberations told CNN that a smaller Ukrainian state is not inevitable. “Whether Ukraine can take back these territories is in large part, if not entirely, a function of how much support we give them,” the aide said. He noted that Ukraine has formally asked the US for a minimum of 48 multiple launch rocket systems, but to date has only been promised eight from the Pentagon.
And not everyone in the administration is as worried — some believe Ukrainian forces could again defy expectations, as they did in the early days of the war when they repelled a Russian advance on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. National security adviser Jake Sullivan has remained highly engaged with his Ukrainian counterparts and spent hours on the phone last week discussing Ukrainian efforts to recapture territory with Ukraine’s defense chief and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, officials familiar with the call told CNN.
The growing pessimism comes as Biden is meeting with US allies in Europe, where he will try to convey strength and optimism about the trajectory of the war as he rallies leaders to stay committed to arming and supporting Ukraine amid the brutal fight.
“We have to stay together. Putin has been counting on from the beginning, that somehow NATO and the G7 would splinter, but we haven’t and we’re not going to,” Biden said Sunday while at the G7 summit in the Bavarian Alps.
The administration announced another $450 million in security assistance to Ukraine last week, including additional rocket launch systems, artillery ammunition and patrol boats. The US is also expected to announce as soon as this week that it has purchased an advanced surface-to-air missile defense system, called a NASAMS, for Ukrainian forces. Biden indicated in an op-ed earlier this month that he is committed to helping Ukraine gain the upper hand on the battlefield so that it has leverage in negotiations with Russia.
The mood has shifted over the last several weeks, though, as Ukraine has struggled to repel Russia’s advances in the Donbas and has suffered staggering troop losses, reaching as many as 100 soldiers per day. Ukrainian forces are also burning through their equipment and ammunition faster than the West can provide and train them on new, NATO-standard weapons systems.
A US military official and a source familiar with Western intelligence agreed it was unlikely that Ukraine would be able to mass the force necessary to reclaim all of the territory lost to Russia during the fighting — especially this year, as Zelensky said on Monday was his goal. A substantial counteroffensive might be possible with more weapons and training, the sources said, but Russia may also have an opportunity to replenish its force in that time, so there are no guarantees.
“Much hinges on whether Ukraine can retake territory at least to February 23 lines,” said Michael Kofman, a Russian military expert at the Center for Naval Analyses. “The prospect is there, but it’s contingent. If Ukraine can get that far, then it can likely take the rest. But if it can’t, then it may have to reconsider how best to attain victory.”
Russian forces gaining ground
Russian forces now control more than half of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region military administration, said Thursday. Ukrainian forces retreated from the key eastern city of Severodonetsk on Friday after weeks of bloody battle.
Russian forces last week also captured ground around Lysychansk, the last city in the eastern Luhansk region still controlled by Ukraine. Ukrainian military commanders are now grappling with the reality that they may have to withdraw from the area to defend territory further west.
In the meantime, Russian oil revenues have only been going up as oil prices have skyrocketed, even amid the harsh sanctions imposed by the West. US officials said on Monday that the US and its allies are going to try capping the price of oil so Russia does not profit from it anymore, but how and when that cap will take effect remains to be seen.
Internally, there is a sense among some in the Biden administration that Zelensky will need to start moderating expectations for what Ukrainian forces can realistically achieve. Zelensky said late last month that he would “consider it a victory for our state, as of today, to advance to the February 24 line without unnecessary losses.”
He reiterated that goal last week.
“We don’t have any other choice left but to move forward — move to liberate all of our territories,” he said in a Telegram post. “We need to kick the invaders out of the Ukrainian regions. Though the width of the frontlines is as long as over 2,5000 km, we feel that we hold the strategic initiative.”
And on Monday, he put a timeline on it: He wants the war over, and for Ukraine to win, by the end of 2022, he told G7 leaders.
Russia is suffering acute combat losses as well, losing as much as a third of its ground force in four months of war, US intelligence officials estimate. Officials have also said publicly that Russia will struggle to make any serious gains further west, using the Donbas region as a staging ground, without a full mobilization of its reserve forces.
But Russia believes it can maintain the fight, wearing down Ukrainian and western resolve as the global economic effects of the war become more severe, officials have told CNN.
The hunt for Soviet-era weaponry
As CNN has previously reported, Russia is looking in particular to exploit the gap between how much Soviet-style ammunition Ukraine and its allies have in their stockpiles, and how long it will take the west to provide Ukraine with modern, NATO-standard weapons and munitions that require time-consuming training.
A senior defense official acknowledged to CNN that the Soviet-era stocks are “dwindling,” but haven’t yet reached “rock bottom.” The official said that some eastern European countries still have more they could provide — but only if they continue to be backfilled by allies with more modern equipment.
The US and its allies, meanwhile, have been scrounging the world for the kind of Soviet-era ammunition that fits the equipment Ukraine already has, including 152 mm artillery ammunition. NATO-standard weapons fire larger, 155mm rounds. But another US defense official told CNN that effort is effectively reaching its end, with almost everything available that countries are willing to provide having already gone in.
Given the prodigious rate at which the Ukrainians have gone through their older ammunition in the bruising artillery fight in the Donbas, the official said, “Soviet-era weapons are being wiped off the earth.”
CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis, Oren Liebermann and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.
1 This month.
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