Australians being kept in the dark about Pine Gap expansion
Mark Robinson, June 18, 2024, https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/australians-being-kept-dark-about-pine-gap-expansion—
A massive expansion program at the United States base at Pine Gap has been hidden from the public according to a new investigation in the June 15 Saturday Paper.
Peter Cronau revealed that over the last few years the secretive base has been expanded to now include 10 new satellite, or antennae, dishes.
The work involved clearing 14 hectares of land to accommodate three new radomes. None of the work was announced, or required any normal approval process.
“The lack of transparency surrounding this work is unacceptable,” said Dr Alison Broinowski, spokesperson for Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR).
“Cronau’s investigation makes clear that the community was not informed, nor consulted in any way, about the expanded footprint at Pine Gap.”
According to Cronau: “No announcement was made to the Australian population, no permission sought from parliament, no development application to the regional council for the works.”
“Australians expect sensitive decisions such as these to be made in an open and accountable way, including a discussion in parliament but this report shows the parliament has been side-lined again,” said Broinowski.
“Instead, we discover what is happening via the media who had to access satellite imagery in order to keep the public informed.”
Reports in recent months suggest that Pine Gap is playing a role in the military onslaught in Gaza, which millions of Australians would disagree with.
Cronau’s investigation highlights Pine Gape’s role in the US nuclear weapons program, and how the base would be used in the event of a war between big powers.
“The community and the parliament have never been asked if we want to be involved in this process yet these facilities are being expanded without due process. This should concern everyone,” Broinowski said.
“Without full transparency about Pine Gap and other military bases Australia could easily be dragged into another foreign war before we know it. In fact, we may already be involved in existing conflicts via these bases and because of increasing military interoperability with the US.”
She said Cronau’s investigation “highlights the urgent need for war powers reform”.
Julian Assange Is Finally Free, But Let’s Not Forget the War Crimes He Exposed
Contrary to US government claims, WikiLeaks’s revelations actually saved lives — and drove demand for US accountability.
| By Editor on June 29, 2024 https://truthout.org/articles/julian-assange-is-finally-free-but-lets-not-forget-the-war-crimes-he-exposed/ |
After a 14-year struggle, including five years spent in Belmarsh, a maximum-security prison in London, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is finally free. Under the terms of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, Assange pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to obtain documents, writings and notes connected with the national defense under the Espionage Act. Assange was facing 175 years in prison for 18 charges in the indictment filed by the Trump administration and pursued by the Biden administration.
The plea agreement requires that before entering his plea, Assange must have done everything he could to either return or destroy “any such unpublished information in his possession, custody, or control, or that of WikiLeaks or any affiliate of WikiLeaks.”
As stipulated in the plea deal, Ramona Manglona, U.S. Chief Judge of the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, sentenced Assange to 62 months with credit for the time he served in Belmarsh Prison. The U.S. sentencing guidelines say the range for this “offense” is 41-51 months, so Assange served 11 to 21 months longer than this type of case would typically garner.
Assange was prosecuted because WikiLeaks exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. In 2010, U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who had a “TOP SECRET” U.S. security clearance, furnished WikiLeaks with 700,000 documents and reports, many of which were classified “SECRET.”
These documents included the “Iraq War Logs,” 400,000 field reports documenting 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians, as well as systematic rape, torture and murder after U.S. forces transferred detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad.
They also contained the “Afghan War Diary,” comprising 90,000 reports that documented more civilian casualties by coalition forces than the U.S. military had reported. And they included the “Guantánamo Files” — 779 secret reports containing evidence that 150 innocent people had been held at Guantánamo Bay for years. The reports explain how the nearly 800 men and boys there had been tortured and abused, which violated the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Manning also provided WikiLeaks with the infamous 2007 “Collateral Murder” video, which depicts a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter crew targeting and killing 12 unarmed civilians in Baghdad, including two Reuters journalists, as well as a man who came to rescue the wounded. Two children were injured in the attack. A U.S. Army tank drove over one of the bodies, severing it in two. In a conversation after the attack, one pilot said, “Look at those dead bastards,” and the other responded, “Nice.” The video reveals evidence of three violations of the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual.
WikiLeaks provided material for news outlets around the world to report on U.S.-led atrocities. Informing the public about the illegality of George W. Bush’s “war on terror” resulted in calls for accountability.
“10 years on, the War Logs remain the only source of information regarding many thousands of violent civilian deaths in Iraq between 2004 and 2009,” John Sloboda, co-founder of Iraq Body Count (IBC), wrote in his submitted testimony for Assange’s extradition hearing in October 2020. IBC is an independent NGO that has done the only comprehensive monitoring of credibly reported casualties in Iraq since Bush’s 2003 invasion.
“WikiLeaks cables have contributed to court findings that US drone strikes are criminal offences and that criminal proceedings should be initiated against senior US officials involved in such strikes,” Clive Stafford Smith, co-founder of Reprieve and attorney for seven Guantánamo detainees, wrote in his submitted testimony.
“They took a hero [Assange] and turned him into a criminal,” Vahid Razavi, founder of Ethics in Tech, told Common Dreams. “Meanwhile, all of the war criminals in the files exposed by WikiLeaks via Chelsea Manning are free and never faced any punishment or even their day in court.”
The Iraq War Logs
The Iraq War Logs contained extensive evidence of U.S. war crimes. Several reports of detainee abuse were supported by medical evidence. Prisoners were blindfolded, shackled and hung by their ankles or wrists. They were subjected to punching, whipping, kicking, electrocution, electric drills, and cutting off fingers or burning with acid. Six reports document the apparent deaths of detainees.
Secret U.S. Army field reports revealed that U.S. authorities refused to investigate hundreds of reports of murder, torture, rape and abuse by Iraqi soldiers and police. The coalition had a formal policy of ignoring these allegations, marking them “no investigation is necessary.”
Although U.S. and U.K. officials maintained that no official records of civilian casualties existed, the logs document 66,081 noncombatant deaths out of 109,000 fatalities from 2004-2009.
The log describes video footage of Iraqi army officers executing a prisoner in Tal Afar. It says, “The footage shows approximately 12 Iraqi army [IA] soldiers. Ten IA soldiers were talking to one another while two soldiers held the detainee. The detainee had his hands bound … The footage shows the IA soldiers moving the detainee into the street, pushing him to the ground, punching him and shooting him.”
The Afghan War Diary
The Afghan War Diary also revealed evidence of U.S. war crimes from 2004-2009. The reports describe how a secret “black” unit composed of special operations forces hunted down accused Taliban leaders for “kill or capture” without trial. Secret commando units — classified groups of Navy and Army special operatives — used a “capture/kill list,” which resulted in the killing of civilians, angering the Afghan people.
Moreover, the CIA expanded paramilitary operations in Afghanistan, carrying out ambushes, ordering airstrikes and conducting night raids. The CIA financed the Afghan spy agency, operating it like a subsidiary.
A 2007 meeting between Afghan district officials and U.S. civil affairs officers was documented in the reports. Afghan officials are quoted as saying, “The people of Afghanistan keep loosing [sic] their trust in the government because of the high amount of corrupted government officials. The general view of the Afghans is that the current government is worst [sic] than the Taliban.”
The logs recorded numerous civilian casualties from airstrikes, shootings on the road, in villages and at checkpoints; many were caught in the cross fire. The victims weren’t suicide bombers or insurgents. Several deaths were not reported to the public.
The Guantánamo Files
The Guantánamo Files say that only 220 of the 780 people held at the prison camp since 2002 were classified as “dangerous international terrorists.” Of the rest of the detainees, 380 were classified as low-level foot soldiers and 150 were considered innocent Afghan or Pakistani civilians or farmers.
Many detainees were held at Guantánamo for years based on paltry evidence or confessions extracted by torture and abuse. Among the detainees, for example, were an 89-year-old Afghan villager with senile dementia and a 14-year-old boy who was the innocent victim of a kidnapping.
The files document a system aimed more at extracting intelligence than detaining dangerous terrorists. One man was transferred to Guantánamo because he was a mullah with special knowledge of the Taliban. A taxi driver was sent to the prison camp because he had general knowledge of certain areas in Afghanistan. An Al Jazeera journalist was held at Guantánamo for six years to be interrogated about the news network.
Nearly 100 detainees were classified with depressive or psychotic disorders. Several joined hunger strikes to protest their indefinite detention or attempted suicide, the files revealed.
No One Was Harmed by WikiLeaks’s Revelations
Although the U.S. government alleged that WikiLeaks’s publication of information had caused “great harm,” they “admitted there was not a single person anywhere that they could produce that was harmed by these publications,” Assange’s attorney Barry Pollack said at a June 26 press conference in Australia.
The plea agreement says, “Some of these raw classified documents were publicly disclosed without removing or redacting all of the personally identifiable information relating to certain individuals who shared sensitive information about their own governments and activities in their countries with the U.S. government in confidence.”
The U.S. government claims that Assange endangered U.S. informants who were named in the published documents. But John Goetz, an investigative reporter who worked for Germany’s Der Spiegel, testified at the 2020 extradition hearing that Assange went to great lengths to ensure that the names of informants in Iraq and Afghanistan were redacted. Goetz said that WikiLeaks underwent a “very rigorous redaction process” and Assange repeatedly reminded his media partners to use encryption. Indeed, Goetz said, Assange tried to stop Der Freitag from publishing material that could result in the release of unredacted information.
Moreover, WikiLeaks’s revelations actually saved lives. After WikiLeaks published evidence of Iraqi torture centers established by the U.S., the Iraqi government refused then-President Barack Obama’s request to grant immunity to U.S. soldiers who committed criminal and civil offenses there. As a result, Obama had to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
Obama took credit for ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq. But he had tried for months to extend it beyond the December 31, 2011, deadline his predecessor negotiated with the Iraqi government. Negotiations broke down when Iraq refused to grant criminal and civil immunity to U.S. troops.
What Assange’s Plea Bargain Means for Free Speech
Before she accepted Assange’s guilty plea, Judge Manglona asked him what he did to violate the law. “Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified,” Assange said. “I believed the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that it was a violation of the espionage statute.” Assange then added, “The First Amendment was in contradiction with the Espionage Act, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all these circumstances.”
Even though Assange will go free, his plea deal raises concerns for First Amendment advocates in the U.S.
“The United States has now, for the first time in the more than 100-year history of the Espionage Act, obtained an Espionage Act conviction for basic journalistic acts,” David Greene, head of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The New York Times. “These charges should never have been brought.”
Charlie Savage, who has covered the Assange case extensively for years, warned that Assange’s plea sets a “new precedent” that “will send a threatening message to national security journalists, who may be chilled in how aggressively they do their jobs because they will see a greater risk of prosecution.” But, Savage noted, since Assange pled guilty and didn’t mount a constitutional challenge to the Espionage Act, that eliminated the risk that the U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately sanction a narrow interpretation of First Amendment press freedoms.
“WikiLeaks published groundbreaking stories of government corruption and human rights abuses, holding the powerful accountable for their actions,” WikiLeaks said in a statement announcing the plea agreement. “As editor-in-chief, Julian paid severely for these principles, and for the people’s right to know. As he returns to Australia, we thank all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.”
There is no doubt that but for the sustained activism of people around the world and the work of his superb legal team, Julian Assange would still be languishing behind bars for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes.
Australian Futures: Bringing AUKUS Out of Stealth Mode, and the true financial costs
June 21, 2024, by: The AIM Network, By Denis Bright
With both sides of the mainstream Australian political divide supporting the AUKUS deal, debate about the merits of this commitment by Scott Morrison has largely gone into recess.
As the third anniversary of Scott Morrison’s announcement of the AUKUS deal on 16 September 2021 approaches, there is growing confidence in the defence establishment that Australians have accepted the need for nuclear-powered submarines. The Defence Special Supplement in The Australian (28 May 2024) is a sign of this confidence. Multinational defence companies have lined up to fund advertisements which demonstrated their patriotic commitment to AUKUS with the support of the South Australia Government.
Each of the defence companies listed maintains a profitable involvement in both military and civilian projects. The KBR engineering company of Houston emphasizes a benign involvement in Australian civilian engineering projects like the Snowy Mountains upgrade and the Adelaide to Darwin Railway. This company is more deeply involved in the military sector globally.
Readers with access to the Defence Supplement can undertake their own research to uncover the ownership and activities of each of the British and US companies listed in the supplement. Here is a sample of the defence outreach from KPR Engineering:
KBR’s Defense Systems Engineering Business Unit goes beyond providing full spectrum engineering and technical solutions across the lifecycle of DoD military systems on land, at sea, in the air, and in space. KBR differentiates itself in the industry by integrating emerging technologies with platform experience to deliver increased value to US DoD and our allies.
Advertising in combination with sensational eyewitness news reporting works in eroding resistance to AUKUS. The Lowy Institute has monitored quite favourable public support for AUKUS arrangements:
Expect concerns about AUKUS to resurface in the future as the cost burdens increase and the encirclement of China by the US Global Alliance takes its toll on longer-term trade and investment relationships between Australia and China. Strategic mishaps are always possible as surface vessels and submarines compete for space in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea. Sabre rattling over uninhabited rock outcrops and remote islands has continued for a couple of decades over rival claims about freedom of navigation. Fortunately. There have been no major mishaps.
Ironically, the US has not ratified the UN’s Freedom of Navigation conventions from the 1980s. Its strategic policies seek alternatives to Chinese trade and investment links with countries across the US Global Alliance as an afford to the peace outreach of China:
The costs of the AUKUS extend well beyond the financial and strategic costs of future naval hardware. Australia’s support for the naval encirclement of our best trading partnership will have an unknown impact on our own regional economic diplomacy. Australia’s Future Fund Chief Executive Dr Raphael Arndt dared to warn that global strategic tensions had intruded into financial decision-making and risk assessments (AFR Weekend 15 June 2024). The longer-term impact on Australian trade and investment with China is still a matter for speculation.
Financial Costs of AUKUS
According to Al Jazeera News (11 June 2022), the Albanese government completed a final payment to France of approximately $850 million for breach of contract over the abandonment of the purchase of twelve Attack-class submarines from Naval Group. Despite cost increases and construction delays, delivery of the diesel-electric submarines should have commenced in the late 2020s at a cost that was a fraction of the AUKUS estimates.
The costs of the AUKUS deal are less transparent. Construction costs alone extending over 30 years were initially set at up to $368 billion (AFR 17 March 2023). The extended delivery dates are a cause for concern. US and British supplied nuclear-powered (SSN) submarines might be deployed here in the late 2020s. At least three Virginia class submarines will be built for Australia with a new class of British submarines arriving in the late 2030s before Australian built SSNs come online in the 2040s.
Strategic Risks
Hopefully, the strategic risks of maintaining a new SSN fleet were considered prior to the AUKUS announcement by Scott Morrison on 16 September 2021. How could this have been achieved competently with a critical review from only three cabinet ministers?
Media concerns should have been raised after Scott Morrison claimed in the 7.30 Report interview with Sarah Ferguson that discussions on the AUKUS alternatives were made with just two other ministers at a time when he held multiple ministerial portfolios with the approval of the Australian Governor General between March 2020 and the election in 2022 (14 March 2023).
Before attending the G-7 Summit in Cornwall as a specially invited guest of the Summit Chair Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison had been sworn into the portfolios of Health, Finance, Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, Home Affairs and Treasury. The 47th G-7 Summit convened a month after Scott Morrison’s last two ministerial appointments. Perhaps Boris Johnson could be quizzed on this issue. Both Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison met in person at the G7 Summit in Cornwall (11-13 June 2021). It is logical for them to have discussed the emergent AUKUS deal which was hardly the brainchild of Scott Morrison as claimed by Sky News (27 February 2024).
New SSN submarines place at risk our currently favourable economic diplomacy with China. There are hazards for extended operations in stealth mode in disputed waters. Readers can always investigate the risks of accidental collisions, mechanical malfunction, radioactive hazards and psychological stress on crew members.
Even in friendly waters off Hawaii, the USS Greeneville (SSN-772) surfaced too close to a Japanese fishery high school training ship Ehime Maru. It sank with the loss of nine people on 9 February 2001.
A show of force to diffuse a territorial dispute is an archaic concept. Such gimmicks belong to the pre-1914 era. Both Britain and the US have a long history of involving middle powers in bolstering their strategic outreach…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Both sides of Australian mainstream politics want to hoist those imperial umbrellas at great financial and strategic costs to future generations. Continuing to quiz political insiders about the consequences of their strategic and diplomatic policies is imperative in these troubled times. Asking questions should be imperative for all political parties. https://theaimn.com/australian-futures-bringing-aukus-out-of-stealth-mode/
Lockheed Martin, Australian Government: joined at the hip
There is a remarkable “revolving door” of top people between Australian government and Defence Department roles and the world’s no 1 weapons-maker
MICHELLE FAHY, JUN 19, 2024
Global weapons giant Lockheed Martin – which has deleted from its website details about Australia’s key role in building F-35 fighter jets – has long had deep ties to the Australian government, investigations show.
Analysis shows a remarkable “revolving door” of people between top government and Defence Department roles and the world’s largest weapons-maker, whose F-35 fighter jets Israel is using to bomb Gaza.
The revolving door between government and corporations is well documented as a factor helping to undermine democracy.
In 2022, Lockheed Martin’s total global revenue was US$66 billion, with 90 per cent of it (US$59.4 billion) from the sale of arms.
Some of Australia’s most senior government officials, military officers, and Defence Department staff have been appointed to Lockheed Martin Australia’s board or have served as its chief executive or in other positions in recent years.
Constantly revolving door
Lockheed’s current CEO for Australia and New Zealand, retired Air Marshal Warren McDonald, officially joined the weapons maker’s ANZ leadership team as chief executive elect on July 1, 2021 having exited his 41-year career in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) just seven months earlier. McDonald formally commenced as Lockheed’s local CEO in November 2021.
McDonald was deputy chief of the RAAF until mid-2017 when he was promoted into a new role as the Defence Force’s inaugural Chief of Joint Capabilities, a group comprising space, cyber and the defence networks tasked with preparing space and cyber power, and logistics capabilities, to serve the modern integrated defence force.
When later asked what had interested him about joining Lockheed Martin, McDonald said: “From all domains – space to the sea floor – Lockheed Martin has in its hands the combat capability of the Defence Force”…………………………………………………………………………more https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/lockheed-martin-australian-government?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=145632377&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Will Port Adelaide, Fremantle or Port Kembla be the Australian Chernobyl?
By Douglas McCartyJul 21, 2023 https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-will-adelaide-fremantle-or-port-kembla-be-the-australian-chernobyl/
While most discussion of the AUKUS Agreement has focussed on the geopolitical implications for Australia’s standing in the world, the escalation of the risk of war and the crippling cost of the nuclear submarine purchases when less expensive and more sensible non-nuclear options are available, little has been said of the risk to the civilian population posed by these nuclear-powered submarines (or other nuclear-powered naval vessels) in Australia’s home ports.
Perhaps we citizens only enter the calculations as ‘collateral damage’. Any such necessarily technical discussion is hampered by military secrecy. Some information has been released officially, but most is from generalised inference, or conjecture, and so subject to uncertainty. However, in this important matter, it is worth attempting to join the dots….
News from the war in Ukraine includes, almost every other night, a report on the situation around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe. Though no longer continuing to generate power for Ukraine, it is always at risk of being shelled or bombed by one side or the other, and regularly just avoiding reactor cooling water pump failure from damaged power transmission lines or lack of diesel fuel for their backup generators for the pumps. How long this situation will continue remains to be seen. And now, after the breaching of the Kakhovka Dam, it is estimated just three months of water for cooling remains.
The consequences of the catastrophic failure of a nuclear reactor are well known to both the Ukrainians and the Russians. To the Northwest of Zaporizhzhia, and just 100 kilometres North of Kyiv, lies the Chernobyl Reactor No. 4, which, on 26 April 1986, underwent meltdown after a coolant and moderator failure, exploded, and caught fire. Radioactive material and fission products were ejected into the air, spreading across the immediate countryside and into Northern Europe. Radioactive rain was reported on the mountains of Wales and Scotland, in the Alps, and contamination in reindeer herds in Northern Sweden. The principal radiological contaminant of concern across this vast area was Caesium-137, one of many fission products and representing some 6% of fission reactor spent fuel. Just 27 kg of Caesium-137, it is calculated, caused this contamination. Some 150,000 square kilometres of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were initially contaminated. Of course, at the time of the accident, all this was part of the Soviet Union. To this day, 2600 square kilometres around the plant are considered unsafe for human habitation, or agriculture, and will remain so for between 300 and 3000 years! The Reactor used 2% enriched Uranium fuel.
Although the loss of life at Chernobyl was a small fraction of the 100,000 deaths from one of the only two uses of nuclear weapons in war, on Hiroshima in 1945, Chernobyl created 400 times more radioactive pollution. The Hiroshima bomb, “Little Boy”, contained 64 kg of enriched Uranium, though less than 2% actually underwent nuclear fission. The bomb was detonated 500 metres above ground (‘airburst’), and the fatalities were the result of blast, heat, and irradiation, in a city centre. Chernobyl occurred at ground level and so ejected debris upwards initially, followed by smoke columns from subsequent fires. . The 31 deaths at Chernobyl were plant operators and, of course, firemen. The G7, the AUKUS Partners and the Quad just met at ‘ground zero’ in a rebuilt Hiroshima City, 78 years after the bombing.
The US Navy nuclear powered warships, including the ‘Virginia’ Class submarines that Australia would buy under the AUKUS Agreement, principally use Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) reactors. The Uranium is enriched to above 93% fissionable Uranium-235. It is weapons grade material and has in part been sourced from decommissioned nuclear weapons. The submarine reactors are intended to last for the ‘Life of Ship’ (LOS), up to 33 years, without needing refuelling. Low Enriched Uranium reactors need fuel replacement every 5 to 10 years, when, importantly, the containment pressure vessel around the reactor is physically inspected for flaws and deterioration. This is not done for the HEU, LOS reactors.
The US Navy nuclear powered warships, including the ‘Virginia’ Class submarines that Australia would buy under the AUKUS Agreement, principally use Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) reactors. The Uranium is enriched to above 93% fissionable Uranium-235. It is weapons grade material and has in part been sourced from decommissioned nuclear weapons. The submarine reactors are intended to last for the ‘Life of Ship’ (LOS), up to 33 years, without needing refuelling. Low Enriched Uranium reactors need fuel replacement every 5 to 10 years, when, importantly, the containment pressure vessel around the reactor is physically inspected for flaws and deterioration. This is not done for the HEU, LOS reactors. In one year, at full power, (210 x 365 ÷ 940 =) 81.5 kg of U-235 would be required. Along with other decay products from the U-235 (Strontium-90, Iodine-131, Xenon-133 etc.), as noted earlier some 6% (or 4.9 kg) would be Caesium-137. The ‘neutron poisons’ also created are balanced out by ‘burnable’ neutron poisons incorporated into the core when new, to maintain reactor function over the years. So far, simple nuclear physics and thermodynamics.
Operationally, one surmises, the submarine reactor will infrequently run at full power. Actual annual production of Caesium-137 may lie between, say, 0.8 kg for 1/6th capacity operation on average for the whole year, and 2.45 kg at half capacity for the year. As the reactor is designed to not need refuelling for the ‘Life of the Ship’, the Cs-137 would continuously accumulate inside the reactor fuel elements. At the lower bound of 1/6th operation, there would be approaching 27 kg of Cs-137 in the core after 33 years, allowing for the decay of some of the Caesiun-137, given its half-life of 30.05 years. At the upper bound, it would take about 13 years for 27 kg of Caesium-137 to accumulate.
Visiting nuclear-powered submarines, from the US or UK, would be similar. Visiting US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, each with two A1B reactors each of 700MWt, may have 27 kg of Cs-137 in their reactor cores after just two years of operation.
Visiting ships may stay in Australian ports for days or even weeks. Australian submarines will be in port not only between deployments, but also for maintenance, for months and years. The US Navy appears to have about 40 Virginia Class Subs, with some 18 undergoing long-stay maintenance, or about half. We might expect the same. So, at any one time, the AUKUS plan would see naval nuclear reactors, US, or UK, or Australian, or all, in Adelaide, and/or Fremantle, and/or Port Kembla. While peacetime only presents the risk of a nuclear accident, wartime would see these important military assets easily detectable – and targetable – while in port. In the event of a nuclear war, this may be just one of our worries.
In a conventional, non-nuclear conflict, the story may be very different. The situation of the Zaporizhzhia civilian reactors in Ukraine is most instructive. However, as legitimate military targets, would such restraint be shown towards the reactors in the submarines? What would be the impact of a conventional cruise or hypersonic or ballistic missile warhead on the pressure hull and reactor containment vessel (and plumbing) of a nuclear-powered submarine?
Should just 27 kg of the Caesium-137 in the naval reactor cores be released into the air through an explosion (as at Chernobyl) in an accident or deliberate attack, what would be the outcome? In Fremantle, especially if the ‘Fremantle Doctor’ was blowing, would sections of Fremantle and Perth become unsafe for human habitation? In Port Kembla, especially if a ‘Southery Buster’ came through, the Illawarra and, depending on the particular weather conditions, would parts of the South of Sydney become unsuitable for human habitation? For Port Adelaide, especially if a NW change came through, would the Adelaide coastal strip from Gawler to Aldinga become unsuitable for human habitation?
Imagine the number of “single mums doing it tough” who would have to be relocated to emergency accommodation – somewhere! Imagine all that social housing rendered uninhabitable! Even if we ‘won’ the war.
This is a real possibility if we have nuclear reactors in surface ships or submarines in our ports, or in our ship building and maintenance facilities.
Submarine boss refuses to answer questions over multi-billion-dollar AUKUS payments
By defence correspondent Andrew Greene, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-07/submarine-bossmulti-billion-aukus-payments/103952528
The head of the AUKUS submarine program has refused to say whether an almost $5 billion government payment to the United States will be refunded if no nuclear-powered boats are delivered to Australia.
Under the tri-nation agreement, Australia is providing multi-billion-dollar contributions to the United States and United Kingdom to help expand their submarine industrial bases, but for months officials have declined to discuss details of the transfers.
During a Senate estimates hearing, Greens senator David Shoebridge attempted to extract details of the impending $4.7 billion payment to the US from the head of the Australian Submarine Agency, Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead.
Under questioning late on Thursday, the ASA boss repeatedly refused to say if a refund clause was included with Australia’s payment in case the United States fails to transfer Virginia class submarines in the 2030s.
“I just go back to the original statement — the US has committed to providing two US submarines from its submarine industrial base in the early 2030s and a third one on procurement,” the vice admiral told the committee.
What if the United States determines not to give us a nuclear submarine? Is there a clawback provision in the agreement?” Senator Shoebridge then demanded to know.
“That’s a hypothetical and I’m not going to entertain … The US has committed to transferring two nuclear-powered submarines to Australia,” the ASA boss asserted.
“It may be embarrassing that you have entered into an agreement that sees Australian taxpayers shelling out $4.7 billion — which we don’t get back if we don’t get our nuclear submarines,” Senator Shoebridge responded.
Under the final stage of AUKUS the United Kingdom will help develop a new class of nuclear-powered submarine to be known as SSN-AUKUS, with Australia’s boats to be built locally in Adelaide.
Ahead of the ambitious venture, Australia will hand almost $5 billion to British industry over the next decade for design work and to expand production of nuclear reactors that will eventually be installed on AUKUS submarines
Navy apologises to traditional land owners over nuclear expansion
Defence has apologised to traditional land owners in Western Australia who live around the Garden Island naval base for not consulting them about upgrades being made to accommodate visiting nuclear-powered submarines.
During Senate estimates, Greens senator Dorinda Cox, who is a Yamatji-Noongar woman, expressed concerns on behalf of her community about the AUKUS work that will soon occur at HMAS Stirling.
Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mark Hammond told the Senator he wanted to discuss the matter on his next visit, an offer she accepted.
“I’m just surprised that this has been such an oversight for an extended period of time, I do apologise, I’m in Western Australia in a couple of weeks’ time and again in July. I’d like to formally engage with your concurrence.”
A Detectable Subservience – Australia’s ill-fated nuclear submarine deal?
All of this leaves one wondering about just what due diligence was done before Morrison, and the 24-hour copycat decision-maker Albanese, committed us to the folly of paying $A368 billion to purchase a subservient position embedded within the US war machine by means of a soon-to-be fully detectable and therefore likely to be destroyed fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
June 6, 2024 by: The AIM Network, By Michael Willis, https://theaimn.com/a-detectable-subservience/
The first operational outcome of the Pillar 2 AUKUS arrangement between the US, UK and Australia has just been announced.
The three countries will share data from their submarine-hunting PA-8 Poseidon aircraft, manufactured by the troubled Boeing Corporation.
This was announced on May 29 in an “exclusive interview” given to US online website Breaking Defense by Michael Horowitz, whose office serves as the Pentagon’s day-to-day lead on AUKUS issues.
(In a deliciously ironic slip, the website referred to the United Kingdom as the “Untied Kingdom”, true of the political cohesion of both the UK and the US at this time.)
All three AUKUS nations:
“… operate the Boeing-made maritime surveillance aircraft; the US operates 120, Australia 12, and the United Kingdom nine. A key part of the P-8 is its collection of sonobuoys, which are dropped into the water to hunt down submarines. (“Sonobuoys” is the preferred US-spelling of the English language “sonar buoys”.)
According to Horowitz, the Pentagon’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development and Emerging Capabilities, a new “trilateral algorithm” will allow them to share information from P-8 sonar buoys between each other.
According to Breaking Defense, the trilateral algorithm requires a high level of trust between the three countries.
“Even among Five Eyes partners,” it says, “sonobuoy information is highly sensitive, as sharing that data not only makes clear what each country has the ability to gather and where those buoys are deployed, but because it clearly reveals what and where each country is tracking.”
Pillar 2 arrangements build on those of Pillar 1 which are solely concerned with Australia’s acquisition of the hugely expensive nuclear-powered submarines.
At a cost averaged out at $A33 million a day over 35 years, we are promised a fleet of 8 submarines with the apparent advantages of extended range and endurance, higher speed, increased payload capacity, and reduced refuelling needs.
But given our own use of sonar buoys and knowing that our own all-but-at-war with “enemy”, China, has the same or superior detection technologies, it is the claim that SSNs (nuclear-powered submarines) have greater stealth and reduced detectability that is the major sales pitch justifying our $368 billion spend.
SSNs are claimed to have reduced noise and to be able to operate at greater depths, thus making them harder to detect.
Reduced noise will affect passive sonar buoys which listen for sounds generated by submarines. These sounds can include engine noise, propeller cavitation, or other mechanical noises.
Greater depth will affect active sonar buoys, those that send out a sound wave which then bounces off the submarine, allowing the buoy to detect the “ping” that travels back to the buoy. That ping is weaker the greater distance it has to travel.
Former Senator and submariner Rex Patrick was critical of the AUKUS decision for Australia to begin its SSN acquisition with the purchase of three second-hand Virginia Class SSNs from the US.
“The first highly noticeable issue with the Virginia class is a problem that has surfaced with the submarine’s acoustic coating that’s designed to reduce the ‘target strength’ of the submarine (how much sound energy from an enemy active sonar bounces off the submarine, back to the enemy),” he said.
“The coating is prone to peeling off at high-speed leaving loose cladding that slaps against the hull, making dangerous noise, and causes turbulent water flow, which also causes dangerous hull resonance (where the hull sings at its resonant frequency, like a tuning fork) and extra propulsion noise. I know a bit about this as a former underwater acoustics specialist.”
Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) is another method of detection. MAD detects disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by the metal hull of a submarine. MAD sensors are typically deployed on aircraft and can detect submarines at relatively close ranges. The signals weaken with distance.
However, the Chinese are developing the ability to detect extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic signal produced by speeding subs.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter found an ultra-sensitive magnetic detector could pick up traces of the most advanced submarine from long distances away.
The researchers calculated that the extremely low frequency (ELF) signal produced by a submarine’s bubbles could be stronger than the sensitivities of advanced magnetic anomaly detectors by three to six orders of magnitude.
The bubbles are an inevitable consequence of the submarine’s cruising speed, which causes the water flowing around the hull to move faster as its kinetic energy increases and its potential energy – expressed as pressure – decreases. When the pressure decreases sufficiently, small bubbles form on the surface of the hull as some of the water vaporises. This process causes turbulence and can produce an electromagnetic signature, in a phenomenon known as the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect.
Though faint, ELF signals can travel great distances, thanks to their ability to penetrate the water and reach the ionosphere, where they are reflected back to the Earth’s surface.
Detection by ELF turns the advantage of an SSNs higher speed into its opposite, namely the disadvantage of higher detectability.
This ability of science to increase the detection of SSNs led even the pro-US Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) to publish a warning that “the oceans of tomorrow may become ‘transparent’. The submarine era could follow the battleship era and fade into history.”
It titled its article on a study of submarine detection by Australian scientists and academics “Advances in detection technology could render AUKUS submarines useless by 2050.”
According to the authors:
“The results should ring alarm bells for the AUKUS program to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. Our assessment suggests that there will only be a brief window of time between the deployment of the first SSN AUKUS boats and the onset of transparent oceans.”
However, it is the expanding frontier of quantum computing that may be the ultimate nail in the AUKUS submarines coffin.
Quantum computing is the sexy new kid on the block – witness the Australian government’s investment of almost a billion dollars in a bid to build the world’s first commercially useful quantum computer in Brisbane. It’s bound to make the shareholders of US company PsiQuantum very happy, including notorious corporate investors such as Black Rock.
In July 2016, the Australia government awarded a contract to local company Q-CTRL to develop a quantum navigation system can use the motions of a single atom to precisely determine the course and position of a submarine and maintain accuracy to a remarkable degree. This overcomes two disadvantages of navigation by GPS: GPS is vulnerable to jamming by an adversary, and its signals cannot penetrate sea water to any appreciable depth.
That’s the good news story.
The bad news is that China has already funded its multi-billion-dollar National Quantum Laboratories to develop quantum-based technology applications for “immediate use to the Chinese armed forces”, possibly including targeting stealthy submarines.
According to Zhu Jin in The Conversation:
“New quantum sensing systems offer more sensitive detection and measurement of the physical environment. Existing stealth systems, including the latest generation of warplanes and ultra-quiet nuclear submarines, may no longer be so hard to spot.”
Using devices that measure and analyse the gravitational pull exercised by the mass of a submarine on the movement of sub-atomic particles in a sensor would overcome the disadvantages of sonar buoys and magnetometers, rendering any otherwise undetectable object with mass detectable.
The other area in which China is more advanced than its competitors is the use of quantum computing for encryption and decryption of communications.
In a 2022 paper on Quantum Computing and Cryptography, the authors that:
“China has set the pace for creating secure quantum communications that cannot be intercepted or manipulated. Further advances in Chinese quantum communication networks, especially networks designed for military use, will put the Navy at increased risk when deployed to the Indo-Pacific. If Chinese communications are virtually unbreakable and U.S. Navy communications can be exploited by Chinese quantum code-breaking technology, it will quickly lose its ability to safely operate among PLAN forces.”
All of this leaves one wondering about just what due diligence was done before Morrison, and the 24-hour copycat decision-maker Albanese, committed us to the folly of paying $A368 billion to purchase a subservient position embedded within the US war machine by means of a soon-to-be fully detectable and therefore likely to be destroyed fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
Michael Williss is a member of the Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition (AAAC) and the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN).
Nuclear subs’ $13bn cost tip of the iceberg
By Kym Bergmann, THE AUSTRALIAN, May 28, 2024
The Defence budget papers for the 2023-24 Financial Year show for the first time that the approved four-year spend on nuclear-powered attack submarines is $13.6bn. This is just the tip of the iceberg because it does not include the submarines themselves, just some of the preparatory costs.
The Defence department is notoriously vague about many details of project funding, and it is only by deduction that this figure involves a gift that will eventually reach a total of $4.6bn to the US submarine industrial base. It also seems to include a smaller, undefined payment to the UK industry for some long lead time nuclear reactor components – but over time that will also reach an identical $4.6bn figure. No one outside a handful of officials knows how these huge numbers were calculated……………………………………..
Also in the US, additional funds are now being committed to submarine construction to boost output. After something of a shaky start, supplemental funding of $3bn has finally been approved by Congress. This is in addition to two lots of $4.7bn in successive financial years which means that funding should no longer be an issue.
It is unknown whether these amounts include the Australian contributions or whether they are treated separately. What is at stake for Australia is a requirement for the USN to have sufficient excess Virginia-class submarines so some can be sold to Australia. The magic number is the construction of 2.33 SSNs per year, an increase in the long-term annual average of 1.4…………………………………….
Another development is that in the complex web of funding negotiations, Congress is now seeking to put the construction of two new Virginia boats back into the budget for the 2025 financial year, which in the US starts on October 1.
Somewhat surprisingly the Presidential Budget Request for next year included just a single Virginia – a move criticised by supporters of the AUKUS deal as slowing down production at a time when it needs to be ramped up.
The summary is that the US is definitely increasing submarine production, with new Colombia-class nuclear missile-firing SSBNs the top priority.
What remains unclear is the date when production will reach the 2.33 level and what happens to the Australian sale if the target slips by a few years. The overall SSN schedule is about three years late and there is a huge maintenance backlog for older boats.
In the next few years, the USN’s fleet of attack submarines declines as older Los Angeles boats face retirement faster than Virginias can be built. There are some work-arounds such as slowing down the retirement process, but numbers will remain tight for a while.
For the sale to Australia to go ahead, a future US president will need to legally certify that the transfer of SSNs will not negatively impact USN capabilities, which is another hurdle that will need to be overcome. In Australia, preparations are under way for the expansion of HMAS Stirling in Western Australia to handle the rotational deployment of nuclear-powered submarines from the US and the UK beginning in 2027.
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy has frequently said this involves a $7bn investment – though that number could not be found anywhere in the budget documents either.
Were Australian weapons used in mass killings by Saudi Arabia?
A report by Human Rights Watch on the mass killing of hundreds, possibly thousands, of defenceless migrants and asylum seekers on the Saudi-Yemen border raises disturbing questions.
MICHELLE FAHY, Undue Influence, MAY 10, 2024. Joint report with Suzanne James (Green Left)
Yemen has been mired in a nine-year civil war between the Saudis and the Houthis which has left the country’s socioeconomic systems teetering on the edge of total collapse. Some 9.8 million children require humanitarian assistance, says Unicef.
The dominant reason for the war given in media reports is that Yemen risks becoming a satellite of Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran. However, the conflict in Yemen is more complex.
The country is also important globally because of its proximity to the Gulf of Aden, a busy global shipping lane that carries an estimated US$1 trillion in goods annually.
Yemen has also been in the news recently because the Houthi government has launched drones and missiles against ships supplying Israel with weapons. The United States and Britain, with Australian government support, have conducted retaliatory attacks on Yemen.
Given these multi-layered conflicts, Yemen has proved to be an arms traders’ paradise, with the multitrillion-dollar global arms industry the biggest gunrunners of all. Australian arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) form a small part of this mix.
Australia’s Defence Department has approved 131 export permits to Saudi Arabia and 257 to the UAE in the 8½ years to January 29, according to Freedom of Information figures obtained by the author. No export applications for the UAE were denied in that period, while the five denied for Saudi Arabia were back in 2019–20 and 2020–21.
The ethics of Australian companies supplying arms to Saudi Arabia is again in the spotlight after Human Rights Watch (HRW) uncovered evidence that at least hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed migrants and asylum-seekers have been killed at the Yemen-Saudi border, allegedly by Saudi officers.
Human Rights Watch demands investigation…………………………………………………………
Have Australian weapons been used?
The report contains satellite images of a Saudi border guard post with what HRW says may be a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle parked nearby. The vehicle was seen in satellite imagery from 10 October 2021 to 31 December 2022.
The report notes the vehicle ‘appeared to have a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on its roof’. This description matches military equipment that Australia sold to Saudi Arabia a couple of years earlier.
Have Australian weapons been used?
The report contains satellite images of a Saudi border guard post with what HRW says may be a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle parked nearby. The vehicle was seen in satellite imagery from 10 October 2021 to 31 December 2022.
The report notes the vehicle ‘appeared to have a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on its roof’. This description matches military equipment that Australia sold to Saudi Arabia a couple of years earlier. ………………………………………………………………………………………………
EOS started exporting its weapons systems to Saudi Arabia in mid-2019. According to Dr Ben Greene, then chief executive of EOS, the equipment was being supplied for US programs to support the Saudi Ministry of Interior for its border operations (emphasis added).
…………………………………………………………….The delivery of 500 EOS weapons systems into this location at this time raises serious questions about whether any of this Australian-made equipment has been used in the atrocities documented by Human Rights Watch.
The Department of Defence did not respond to questions. Dr Andreas Schwer, chief executive of EOS, also failed to respond.
A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said:
The Australian Government is concerned by the reports of violence against Ethiopian migrants crossing the Saudi-Yemen border in a HRW report released in August 2023.
Australian officials raised this report directly with the Saudi Government and with the Saudi Human Rights Commission, emphasising Australia’s commitment to international humanitarian law.
Human Rights Watch has called for a UN investigation into the Yemen-Saudi borderland atrocities.
As concerns grow about Australia’s weapons exports, an urgent and transparent investigation would be appropriate, with results reported to parliament. https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/were-australian-weapons-used-in-mass?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=144491858&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Off the Books: how the Army privatised SAS elite to dark ops outfit Omni
Michael West Media, by Stuart McCarthy | May 4, 2024
Former SAS officers referred to national corruption watchdog over $230 million in government contracts to private security and intelligence “front company” Omni Executive. A Stuart McCarthy investigation.
According to the company’s website, Omni was established in 2012 and focuses on “delivering innovative national security, intelligence and critical infrastructure solutions to further our national interests.”
Since 2015, Omni has been awarded more than $230 million in security and intelligence related contracts by the departments of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Home Affairs, Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.
Omni contracts hidden……………………………………………………………….. more https://michaelwest.com.au/army-privatised-sas-elite-to-dark-ops-outfit-omni/
Australia and the F-35 supply chain: in lockstep with Lockheed
The Australian government has continued arms exports to Israel while assuring Australians it has not sent weapons to Israel for five years
MICHELLE FAHY. MAY 03, 2024, https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/lockstep-with-lockheed-australia?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=143751160&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Australia is one of six western countries that are complicit in the ‘genocidal erasure’ of the Palestinian people by continuing to supply Israel with arms, according to Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon and newly elected rector of Glasgow University.
Israel’s relentless bombing campaign has systematically destroyed all of Gaza’s 11 universities plus more than 400 schools, and killed 6,000 students, 230 teachers, 100 professors and deans, and two university presidents.
The elimination of entire educational institutions (both infrastructure and human resources) is ‘scholasticide’ and is a critical component of the genocidal erasure, says Dr Abu-Sittah.
He named the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and France as comprising an ‘axis of genocide’ because they have been supporting the genocide in Gaza with arms, and had also maintained political support for Israel.
Dr Abu-Sittah worked in Gaza for 43 days in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks. His experience was cited in South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In his submission to the ICJ, Dr Abu-Sittah wrote: ‘There was a girl with just her whole body covered in shrapnel. She was nine. I ended up having to change and clean these wounds with no anaesthetic and no analgesic. I managed to find some intravenous paracetamol to give her…her Dad was crying, I was crying, and the poor child was screaming…’
Australia defies the UN
The Albanese government has consistently denied it is supplying weapons to Israel, even as the United Nations pointed a finger directly at Australia, alongside the US, Germany, France, the UK, and Canada, asking these countries to immediately halt all weapons transfers to Israel, including weapons parts, and to halt export licences and military aid.
The Defence Department has refused to answer questions about whether it has halted the arms export permits for Israel that were in place before October 7, the day of Hamas’s deadly attack in Israel.
Defence approved new export permits to Israel after October 7
Defence approved three new export permits to Israel in October 2023, and none in November, December or January (to 29/1), according to figures Defence released following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request I lodged on 29 January.
In a Senate estimates hearing on February 14, the Defence Department revealed it had approved two new export permits to Israel since the Hamas attacks of October 7. Asked for clarification about the timing, Defence’s deputy secretary of Strategy, Policy, and Industry, Mr Hugh Jeffrey, said, ‘Two export permits have been granted since the time of the last estimates’. The previous estimates hearing had been on 25 October 2023.
The Senate Estimates and FOI evidence together show that Defence approved one export permit to Israel prior to October 7 and two in the period October 25–31.
Mr Jeffrey refused to say what items the two new permits covered. Instead he said they ‘would have been agreed on the basis that they did not prejudice Australian national interests under the criterion of the legislation’.
Possible implications
Israel has been using its F-35 fighter jets in its bombardment of Gaza. Australia is one of a number of countries that manufacture and export parts and components into Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet global supply chain. Given this, there are several reasons why the above information may be significant:
- The head of the F-35 joint program office, Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt, a US Air Force officer, said a year ago that the F-35 program was established with a ‘just in time’ supply chain, where parts arrive just before they’re needed and very little inventory is stockpiled. [Emphasis added.] Lt-Gen Schmidt described that situation as ‘too risky’.
In mid-December, a US Congressional hearing on the F-35 program revealed that the F-35 joint program office had been moving ‘at a breakneck speed to support…Israel…by increasing spare part supply rates’. [Emphasis added.]- More than 70 Australian companies are involved in the global supply chain for the F-35. Several of the companies are the sole global source of the parts they produce. Without them, new F-35 jets cannot be built and those parts in existing jets cannot be replaced. The US recently authorised the transfer to Israel of 25 more F-35s.
The F-35 global supply chain is vulnerable to disruption, which is why Australia could be under pressure to continue meeting supply contracts.
In his testimony to the December 12 Congressional hearing, Lieutenant General Schmidt also made clear the role of the F-35 joint program office in closely supporting Israel:
I had the opportunity to talk with [Israel’s] Chief of Staff just yesterday… [Israel is] very satisfied with [the] performance [the] sustainment enterprise is giving them. We could learn a lot from them in terms of the quickness with which they’re turning airplanes, [plus] all of the things we’re learning ourselves with moving parts around the world in support of a conflict. [Emphasis added.]
Defence Department and Australian industry partnering with F-35 program office
Defence issued a media release on October 30, around the same time it approved the two additional export permits to Israel.
The release announced that Melbourne company Rosebank Engineering had established an important regional F-35 capability that would also contribute to the global F-35 program. The release said Australian industry is playing an increasingly important role in the production and sustainment of the global F-35 fleet and that Rosebank and the Defence Department had partnered with the US F-35 joint program office and Lockheed Martin to establish the new facility.
Lockheed Martin removes information from its website
US multinational Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest arms manufacturer and the prime contractor for the F-35 fighter jet. As the horror of Israel’s war on Gaza has unfolded over the past seven months, there have been court cases and protests targeting the F-35 and its global supply chain.
In this context, Lockheed Martin recently edited the Australian page of its F-35 website to remove the ‘Industrial Partnerships’ section. The text had acknowledged that Australian parts were used in every F-35 fighter jet.
The deleted section can be viewed at the Wayback Machine web archive. This was the opening paragraph:[screenshot on original]
Lockheed Martin has also deleted other information from its website. A feature post about Marand Precision Engineering, another Melbourne-based company supplying the F-35 program, has been removed. The page had described how Marand engineered, manufactured, and now sustains ‘one of the most technically advanced mechanical systems’ ever created in Australia. The system, an engine removal and installation mobility trailer for the F-35, comprises 12,000 individual parts. The page said, ‘Marand has worked in close concert with Lockheed Martin on the F-35 program for many years’ and revealed that in 2022 the company had established a maintenance facility for its F-35 trailer in the US, ‘to better meet Lockheed Martin’s sustainment needs’. The deleted page can be viewed at the Wayback Machine web archive.
Sydney-based Quickstep Holdings is another long-term Australian supplier to the F-35 program. In December 2020, it announced it had produced its 10,000th component for the F-35 program. Quickstep estimated it had completed just 20% of its commitment to the program. The company revealed it manufactures more than 50 individual components and assemblies for the F-35, representing about $440,000 worth of content in each F-35.
Last year, Lockheed Martin also acknowledged that Queensland’s Ferra Engineering had been providing products for the F-35 since 2004 and that it remained a vital partner supporting delivery of the aircraft.
Despite the Albanese government’s persistent and misleading claim that no weapons have been supplied to Israel for the past five years, all of the above companies have supplied parts and components into the F-35’s supply chain during this period.
Threshold for genocide met, says UN Special Rapporteur
On March 26, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the West Bank and Gaza, said, ‘Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of, and to present my findings.’
Ms Albanese said there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide… has been met’.
On April 5, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that included a call for an arms embargo on Israel.
Some 28 countries voted in favour of the resolution and 13 abstained. Israel’s two largest suppliers of weaponry, the US and Germany, along with four other countries, voted against it. (The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. Australia is not currently a member.)
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/
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
“History is Calling: Australia and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”
– Melissa Parke, ICAN International Executive Director, 30 Apr 24 https://icanw.org.au/history-is-calling-report/
“History is Calling: Australia and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” sets out in detail the case for Australia to join the global majority of nations in supporting the nuclear weapon ban treaty. It outlines Australia’s progress on implementation, the TPNW’s complementarity with other agreements, nuclear safeguards and disarmament architecture, enforcement, universalisation, victim assistance and environmental remediation, Australia and its alliances, and nuclear deterrence theory.
By early 2024, almost half the world’s nations have already joined the TPNW. More will join. And they are getting to serious, practical work implementing the treaty.
Australia is currently the only nuclear-allied state where the governing party has repeatedly committed to sign and ratify the ban treaty. Under governments both Coalition and Labor, Australia has joined every other treaty banning an inhumane, indiscriminate weapon, but not yet this one banning the worst weapons of mass destruction.
Australia must step up and do its part to wind back the looming nuclear danger. Let’s get on the right side of history, not add to the risk of ending it. It’s time Australia joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
– Melissa Parke, ICAN International Executive Director
Washington Syndrome: Australia’s sovereignty sell-out hidden in plain sight
“The process is almost complete. The Australian Defence Force’s integration into the US military to serve the needs of Washington has been announced, albeit without announcement, this week.”
Arguably the only thing left to do is to adopt American spelling and replace the letter ‘c’ with the letter ‘s’ in ‘Department of Defence’.
by Rex Patrick | Apr 21, 2024 https://michaelwest.com.au/washington-syndrome-marles-defence-plan-sovereignty-sell-out/
Defence Minister Richard Marles rolled out some glossy new brochures this week spelling out the composition of the Australian Defence Force in the decades ahead. As media quibbled about this equipment purchase or that one, former Senator and submariner Rex Patrick explains the sovereignty sell-out hidden in plain sight.
Washington Syndrome
It’s confirmed. All the evidence points to the Defence Minister suffering from Stockholm Syndrome (or more accurately Washington Syndrome), except that he hasn’t just formed a bond with his Defence Department, where he won’t challenge them. He’s swallowed the whole kit and caboodle; adopting Defence lingo and lines as his own.
Marles has expressed Defence’s wishes beautifully, without revealing explicitly what that wish is. But it’s sitting there in plain sight.
National Defence Strategy
The use of smokescreens is a longstanding battlefield tactic, and it’s often employed by bureaucrats too. To get a clear and truthful picture from the National Defence Strategy released this week, you have to peer through a dense cloud of verbiage to get a clear sense of what’s really going on.
Early in the document the strategic framework is laid out.
Our Alliance with the US remains fundamental to Australia’s national security. We will continue to deepen and expand our defence engagement with the US, including by pursuing greater scientific, technological and industrial cooperation, as well as enhancing our own cooperation under force posture initiatives.
So, we’re joined at the hip to the United States, and we intend to stay that way.
The document spells out why Defence thinks we need to do that. The optimism at the end of the Cold War has been replaced by uncertainty and tension of entrenched and strategic competition between the US and China.
It is accompanied by an unprecedented conventional and non-conventional build-up in our region, taking place without strategic reassurance or transparency.
…
This build up is also increasing the risk of military escalation or miscalculation that could lead to a major conflict in the region.
Indeed, it zooms in with on the specifics. The risk of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait is increasing, as well as other flashpoints, including disputes in the South and East China Seas and on the border with India.
The Government will continue to strengthen its defence engagement with the US to:
- ensure joint exercises and capability rotations with the US are focused on enhancing collective deterrence and force posture cooperation.
- Acquire the technology and capability required to enhance deterrence, including through increasing collaboration on defence innovation, science and technology.
- Leverage Australia’s strong partnership with Japan in its trilateral context, including opportunities for Japan to participate in Australia-US force posture cooperation activities, to enable interoperability and contribute to deterrence; and
- Progress enabling reforms to export controls, procurement policy and information sharing to deliver a more integrated industrial base.
- Meanwhile, the US is increasing its military footprint in Australia in terms of facilities in the north (mission briefing/intelligence centre and aircraft parking aprons) at RAAF Darwin, fuel storage at Darwin Port, infrastructure at RAAF Tindal near Katherine and logistics storage in both Victoria and Queensland).
- This is on top of the long established top secret signals intelligence base, the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, and Australian support for US naval communications through the very low-frequency receiving and transmission facility at North West Cap. As far as American strategists are concerned, Australia has long been “a suitable piece of real estate”.
But now there’s a new dimension to the alliance with Australian taxpayers are sharing the alliance love by pouring billions into the US submarine industrial base.
US Seventh and a Half Fleet
Of course, it’s hard to fight a conflict in Taiwan Straights with an army. That’s reflected in the distribution of future expenditure outline in the Integrated Investment Program, released alongside the National Defence Strategy.
The Navy will receive almost 40% of all Defence expenditure. The Royal Australian Navy will become the seventh and a half fleet of the US Navy, supported by what are being referred to as the expeditionary air operations by the Royal Australian Air Force.
Again, hidden in plain sight.
Taiwan
Taiwan is a democracy of 22 million people. I might like to think we would come to their aid in the event their democracy was threatened.
But sending our sons and daughters to engage in a northern hemisphere conflict is a matter which should be decided upon by our Parliament at some future time.
We should seek to have a balanced and flexible Defence Force optimised first for Defence of Australia and second for near regional security (a deployment to Taiwan, if approved by our elected members, should draw from an order-of-battle optimised for Defence of Australia).
Sovereignty Stolen
But that’s not what’s happening.
It’s all too tempting to suggest that the sovereignty sell-out started at with AUKUS, announced by Scott Morrison on 16 September 2021 and adopted by Anthony Albanese at the Kabuki show in San Diego on 15 March 2023. But it didn’t.For those astute enough to have picked up and read a copy of Professor Clinton Fernandes’ book “Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena”, they’ll know AUKUS is just natural and obvious. So too is the even greater embedding of the ADF into the US military to serve the needs of Washington that has been announced this week, albeit without announcement.
“The process is almost complete. The Australian Defence Force’s integration into the US military to serve the needs of Washington has been announced, albeit without announcement, this week.”
Arguably the only thing left to do is to adopt American spelling and replace the letter ‘c’ with the letter ‘s’ in ‘Department of Defence’.
History repeats
We have been down this road before.
n the 1920s and 1930s conservative Australian Governments saw Australian security as part of that of the British Empire as a whole. As a consequence, they implemented defence programs that were designed to produce forces, especially the Royal Australian Navy, that were hopelessly unbalanced and only made sense as a subset of British forces. Imperial Defence was prioritised ahead of national defence in a ‘strategy’, if you can call it that, that compromised Australia’s then very new national sovereignty and almost came to disaster in 1942.
Bureaucratic and political self-interest
Australia’s new “National Defence Strategy” really is nothing of the sort. It’s a sub-set of strategic planning made in Washington, not an Australian national perspective.
AUKUS has devoured whatever vestiges of independent strategic thought that might have been lingering in our Defence Department.
But don’t imagine that there’s any dissent about this in Defence Headquarters.
Those in Defence bureaucracy guiding our politicians are be happy, uproariously happy, because they’ll personally benefit from the arrangement.
AUKUS and this latest steerage will serve as a tremendous career and institutional opportunity for them. They’ve cemented their position in an alliance arrangement that involves important meetings and conferences, important decisions, trips overseas, and, for some, exchange postings. For them, they’ve got ringside seats and the opportunity to be occasional players in the big league.
Which brings me back to Defence Minister Marles, who can’t really be blamed for the sell-out.
Marles isn’t, and never was, the sort of political figure that could develop much of an understanding of what is going on around him, let alone be the one to lead with strategic vision and agenda forward. He’s too busy learning the lingo, enjoying the photo opportunities, and impressing upon his ‘sub-ordinates’ in Defence Headquarters that he’s not to be referred to as the Defence Minister, but rather as the Deputy Prime Minister. Surely he deserves that courtesy!
1 This month
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