You will not BELIEVE what the Tories just gave Fujitsu ANOTHER government contract for
The ‘fallout’ could be disastrous.
by Steve Topple, 11 April 2024, https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2024/04/11/fujitsu-nuclear-uk-contract/
Disgraced Fujitsu – the company behind the Horizon software that helped the Post Office wrongly convict hundreds of subpostmasters – has just been given ANOTHER government contract by the Tories. However, that’s not the worst part – because unbelievably, the deal is for software to support UK nuclear experiments.
Yes. The fallout could be disastrous.
As LBC reported:
The National Nuclear Laboratory, which is owned and operated by the government, has awarded the firm a £155k contract for ‘software support’ until 2025…
The contract, published by procurement data provider Tussell, is for “software support” and is due to run until 31 March 2025.
Hairbrained Tories: we’ve got a great idea… why not give Fujitsu a nuclear contract?
The National Nuclear Laboratory does all sorts of stuff with nuclear energy. As it says on its website, this includes:
four strategic areas: Clean Energy, Environmental Restoration, Health and Nuclear Medicine and Security and Non-Proliferation.
That is, the laboratory dabbles in nuclear science and experiments – including nuclear power and weapons; note its ironic oxymoron that it deals with ‘security’ and ‘non-proliferation’. So, you’d think that the government would want to make sure that the National Nuclear Laboratory was a safe and secure environment.
Clearly fucking not, though – as they’ve now given Fujitsu a contract.
People on X were rightly outraged: (several quotes here)
Christopher Head was the youngest victim of the Horizon Post Office scandal. He told LBC:
When there is a pledge not to bid for contracts you kind of expect them to adhere to that. But the problem is these companies have shareholders, and these shareholders demand profitability. It is frustrating.
Fujitsu made this pledge that they wouldn’t voluntarily bid for contracts within the government while the inquiry is going on – but we all know the size of these companies makes it difficult.
Post Office scandal: you must have been in a nuclear bunker if you missed it
Unless you’ve been in a nuclear bunker for the past 12 months, then you can’t have missed the Post Office scandal.
As the Canary previously reported, Mr Bates vs the Post Office has brought the ongoing scandal over the Horizon IT system, and Post Office and politicians conduct at the time, back into the public eye.
More than 700 people running small local post offices received criminal convictions between 1999 and 2005 after faulty accounting software made it appear that money had gone missing from their branches.
The scandal has been described at an ongoing public inquiry as “the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British legal history”.
Fujitsu: giving the UK its very own Hulk moment?
Yet here we are, with the Tories STILL giving Fujitsu another contract. Worse still, they’ve given it to them on the basis of providing tech support for nuclear technology. So, unless the government fancies itself as creating a league of superhumans, then it needs to revoke the contract.
Fujitsu cannot be trusted to run a piss up in a brewery – let alone software support for a nuclear experiments lab. It could barely handle the tech for provincial Post Offices. The Canary can see an Incredible Hulk moment coming on if this goes ahead – and we hope everyone has their nuclear bunkers ready.
Sign the petition against the contract here.
Biden Tells Netanyahu US Won’t Support Attack on Iran
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Biden also told Netanyahu “that the United States is going to continue to help Israel defend itself,” signaling the US would intervene again to help Israel if it does choose to escalate the situation and comes under another attack.
The US is portraying the Iranian attack as an Israeli victory
by Dave DeCamp April 14, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/14/biden-tells-netanyahu-us-wont-support-attack-on-iran/
President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US wouldn’t join Israel in any offensive action against Iran, multiple media outlets have reported.
US officials are touting Israel’s defense of Iran’s attack as a victory, and that’s the message Biden conveyed to Netanyahu, a sign the US doesn’t want the situation to escalate. Iran fired over 300 missiles and drones at Israel, which was a response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus on April 1.
“Israel really came out far ahead in this exchange. It took out the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp] leadership in the Levant, Iran tried to respond, and Israel clearly demonstrated its military superiority, defeating this attack, particularly in coordination with its partners,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters, according to The Times of Israel.
In a statement on the attack released by the White House, Biden said he would convene with other G7 leaders to “coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.”
Israeli officials claimed 99% of the Iranian missiles and drones were intercepted by Israeli air defense systems and with assistance from the US, Britain, and Jordan. Some missiles got through and damaged the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel. Only one person was injured in the attack, a seven-year-old Bedouin girl in the Negev, and nobody was killed.
Iran gave Israel plenty of time to respond to the attack by announcing it fired the drones hours before they reached Israeli territory, and Tehran said it gave other regional countries a 72-hour notice. Iranian officials said the attack was “limited” and made clear they do not seek an escalation with Israel.
But Tehran is also warning it will launch an even bigger attack if Israel responds. “If the Zionist regime or its supporters demonstrate reckless behavior, they will receive a decisive and much stronger response,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a statement on Sunday.
While the US is signaling it seeks de-escalation and won’t support a potential Israeli attack on Iran, it’s unclear what Israel will do next. The Israeli war cabinet convened to discuss the situation on Sunday, and Israeli media reports said they agreed a response would come but didn’t decide on where or when.
Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz vowed Israel would respond but signaled it wouldn’t be imminent. Gantz said the “event is not over” and that Israel should “build a regional coalition and exact a price from Iran, in a way and at a time that suits us.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Biden also told Netanyahu “that the United States is going to continue to help Israel defend itself,” signaling the US would intervene again to help Israel if it does choose to escalate the situation and comes under another attack.
Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria killed 13 people, including seven members of the IRGC. Israel has a history of conducting covert attacks inside Iran and killing Iranians in Syria, but the bombing of the diplomatic facility marked a huge escalation.
Why South Australia will be a nuclear power battleground at the 2025 federal election
Adelaide Now, 15 Apr 24
Crunch time for affordable, reliable electricity is coming fast and SA will be key to deciding nuclear power’s fate, writes Paul Starick.
Crunch time is rapidly approaching in the race to deliver affordable, reliable electricity while transitioning Australia to a net-zero economy.
The next federal election, expected early next year, will be yet another battle in the climate war that has deadlocked politicians and delivered little for voters – other than dramatically higher power prices.
The fundamental choice at this election will be between pumping billions of dollars into building wind and solar farms – or nuclear power plants.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese argues renewable energy will bring cheaper power prices and boost sovereign capability by reviving manufacturing.
A Net Zero Australia report released last July finds $1.5 trillion will have to be spent by the end of this decade, particularly on rolling out transmission networks to support new wind and solar, if Australia is going to meet its emissions reductions targets by 2050.
The group, which included experts form Melbourne, Queensland and Princeton universities, said: “Nuclear power should not be in our plans, because it’s too expensive and slow”.
His rival, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, argues the Coalition could deliver cheaper power prices by installing the first small-modular nuclear power reactors into the grid by the mid-2030s, at a cost of $3.5bn to $5bn each.
They would be built by Rolls-Royce, also the supplier of nuclear reactors for AUKUS submarines to be built in Adelaide as part of $368bn project.
The reported cost and timeline, at the very least, raises strong questions over Labor’s blanket rejection of nuclear as uneconomic, given the amount that is being ploughed into renewables.
I find it amazing that the Advertiser just accepts Peter Dutton’s claims on the timing and costs of the as yet non-existent small nuclear reactors
South Australia will be at the epicentre of this epic battle over electricity generation and prices.
The state has world-leading penetration of renewable energy and the world’s largest uranium resource at Olympic Dam.
The Coalition wants a nuclear power plant at Port Augusta.
The consequences are huge, as straight-talking Alinta Energy chief Jeff Dimery said on Wednesday, when he argued Australians must face the “hard truth” of having to pay more for electricity to reach net zero by 2050”.
State and federal Labor governments want to rapidly accelerate the renewable push.
Premier Peter Malinauskas in late February said the 100 per cent renewables net electricity generation target would be brought forward three years from 2030 to 2027.
The catalyst, he vowed, would be a clean energy boom underpinned by the state-owned, $593m hydrogen power plant operating in Whyalla from 2026.
This project, a core 2022 election promise, almost certainly will attract federal funding in the May federal budget, as part of massive government investment in the energy transition promised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a landmark speech on Thursday.
Mr Albanese is citing green iron production at Whyalla steelworks, fuelled by green hydrogen from the state-operated plant, as a key example of his Future Made in Australia plan.
But the federal Coalition and state Liberals sense an opportunity to wedge Mr Malinauskas on nuclear energy.
He seems a supporter, frustrated only by a disciplined commitment to implement his hydrogen power plant election promise, plus remain in lock-step with Labor colleagues by insisting it is uneconomic……………….
Whatever the machinations, voters will soon, appropriately, decide nuclear power’s future.
Banks Unwilling To Finance $5 Trillion Global Nuclear Development
Oil Price, By Alex Kimani – Apr 14, 2024,
- Nuclear energy is enjoying a renaissance in the U.S. and many Western countries thanks to the global energy crisis.
- Bankers appear unwilling to finance the $5 trillion the IAEA estimates the global nuclear industry needs for development until 2050.
- Over the past several years, billions of federal dollars have gone into the development and demonstration of next-generation small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced fuel cycle reactors.
……. Back in December, at the COP28 summit, 22 countries including the US, Canada, the UK, and France pledged to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050 (from 2020 levels). Last month, 34 nations, including the United States, China, France, Britain, and Saudi Arabia, committed “to work to fully unlock the potential of nuclear energy by taking measures such as enabling conditions to support and competitively finance the lifetime extension of existing nuclear reactors, the construction of new nuclear power plants and the early deployment of advanced reactors.”
…………………. But nuclear’s revival might be dead in the water with lenders balking at financing what they consider a high-risk sector. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency convened the first ever nuclear summit in Brussels. Unfortunately, bankers appeared unwilling to finance the $5 trillion the IAEA estimates the global nuclear industry needs for development until 2050.
“If the bankers are uniformly pessimistic, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said after listening to a panel of international lenders.
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China Heavily Subsidized BYD to Expand Its EV Market Share
“The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high,” said European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros, adding that countries need to focus more on renewables and energy efficiency. Ines Rocha, a director at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and Fernando Cubillos, a banker at the Development Bank of Latin America, concurred, saying their lending priorities lean toward renewables and transmission grids. “Nuclear comes last,” Cubillos said.
“We need state involvement, I don’t see any other model. Probably we need quite heavy state involvement to make projects bankable,” Ostros said.
State Involvement
As Ostros has noted, at this juncture, the nuclear sector probably requires considerable government support if it’s to really take off. In the past, the U.S. government has been involved in nuclear energy mainly through safety and environmental regulations as well as R&D funding in enrichment of uranium projects like HALEU. However, lately, the federal government is becoming more heavily involved in the nuclear energy sector.
Over the past several years, billions of federal dollars have gone into the development and demonstration of next-generation small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced fuel cycle reactors. U.S. EXIM has been providing financing for overseas nuclear projects for more than a half-century. EXIM has issued Letters of Interest for up to $3 billion for nuclear exports to Poland and Romania. Established in 1934, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), operates as an independent agency of the U.S. Government under the authority of the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945. Similarly, USTDA has committed funding for the export of nuclear power technologies to Poland and Romania, Ukraine and Indonesia. Much of the funding is for technical activities, and includes a significant focus on the potential export of small modular reactors.
Last month, the U.S. federal government agreed to provide a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan, abandoning earlier plans to decommission it. The Michigan plant will become the first ever nuclear plant in the U.S. to be revived after abandonment……………….
Meanwhile, California regulators have given the greenlight for the Diablo Canyon plant to operate through 2030 instead of 2025 as the state transitions toward renewable power sources. Pacific Gas & Electric, the plant’s owner, says it has received assistance from the federal government to repay a state loan………. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Banks-Unwilling-To-Finance-5-Trillion-Global-Nuclear-Development.html
Nuclear – the not so wonderful news this week
Some bits of good news. The Beautiful Place that Stopped Big Bottled Water. A Tidal Wetland Restoration of Epic Proportions.
TOP STORIES.
Annie Jacobsen: ‘What if we had a nuclear war?’
What are the risks at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after drone attack? –ALSO AT … https://nuclear-news.net/2024/04/10/3-a-what-are-the-risks-at-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-after-drone-attack/
What’s Inside the President’s Nuclear Football?
Climate. Heatwaves now last much longer than they did in the 1980s. What if global emissions went down instead of up?- ALSO AT …… https://nuclear-news.net/2024/04/12/2-b1-what-if-global-emissions-went-down-instead-of-up/ Swiss women win landmark climate victory at European Court of Human Rights.
Nuclear. I’m quite fascinated that the UK is using Fujitsu’s software in its nuclear lab – after the total scandal and shemozzle of Fujitsu’s software in the UK Post Offices – more about that next week.
Noel’s notes. Australia is EVER so grateful to the global nuclear lobby! The nuclear lobby’s new “prime wheeze” – Community Interest Companies.
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AUSTRALIA.
- Coalition nuclear plan flips back to SMRs after latest meeting with lobbyists. Dutton’s decaying nuclear energy plans have the briefest half-life. Dutton proposes higher nuclear energy bills. Nuclear lobby manipulates ABC’s 7.30 Report. Coalition nuclear plan would force consumers to wait 20 years longer for 30% higher electricity bills. Cook by-election candidate Simon Kennedy says locals are ‘comfortable’ living near nuclear reactors.
- Former PM Paul Keating on a craven acceptance of US strategic hegemony in Asia.
- The cost of needless secrecy on nuclear. What’s the scam?
- No decisions on site for nuclear waste dump as spin doctor sought – ALSO AT…https://antinuclear.net/2024/04/15/1-a-no-decisions-on-site-for-nuclear-waste-dump-as-spin-doctor-sought/
- Secret Agreements: The Australian-Israel Defence Memorandum of Understanding.
NUCLEAR ISSUES
| CLIMATE. Nuclear energy ‘now an obstacle to delivering net zero’ – Greenpeace. | CIVIL LIBERTIES. Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange. |
ECONOMICS.
- Banks Unwilling To Finance $5 Trillion Global Nuclear Development.
- Fresh blow for UK nuclear as the City snubs Sizewell C. Sizewell C Fiasco Part 4: Much more expensive than renewables- Unknown cost or period for Investors – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4ICw23iYY0
- Rolls Royce misses out on government funding for their small nuclear reactors.
- Hinkley Point C Nuclear joins Community Interest Company “Passion for Somerset”. Why you probably shouldn’t become a Community Interest Company.
| EDUCATION. U.S. adds to the $1billion already granted to education for the nuclear industry. | ENERGY. Finland: Grid Limitations Force Olkiluoto-3 to Curtail Output. | HEALTH. St. Louis Residents Seek Compensation for Illnesses Tied to Nuclear Contamination. |
| LEGAL. Kevin Gosztola: Correcting the Record on the Assange Case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2xPL230qCY UK Government decision to withhold nuclear power plant information unlawful. | MEDIA. Books. Nuclear Lies, Cover-Ups and Secrecy |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Past anti-nuclear activists in Europe speak out against current plans.Non-proliferation experts urge US to not support nuclear fuel project. Tax day and war resistance.Sizewell C Nuclear : too destructive, too costly, too late. | PERSONAL STORIES. Five Years At Belmarsh: A Chronicle Of Julian Assange’s Imprisonment. |
| POLITICS.UK government could still replace Fujitsu in key nuclear contract.UK revamps Sizewell C nuclear funding to avoid delays.Hunterston: Scottish National Party see no nuclear future due to terrorism risk – ALSO AT …https://nuclear-news.net/2024/04/13/1-b1-hunterston-scottish-national-party-see-no-nuclear-future-due-to-terrorism-risk/Keir Starmer slammed over staunch defence of nuclear weapons.The Scottish National Party support signing an international treaty banning nuclear weapons, post independence.In an Ontario town split over a nuclear dump site, the fallout is over how they’ll vote on the future. Ballooning costs and secret projects at Canada’s federal nuclear labs | POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY.US Declines Israel’s Invitation To Start WW3 (For Now).There Is No Grudge That Cannot Be Resolved, China’s Xi Jinping Tells Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou in Momentous Beijing Meeting. The Mutually Reinforcing U.S. and Israeli Empires. The US and Japan’s Mission to Push Next Generation Nuclear Power . |
| PUBLIC OPINION. Ukraine fatigue: Kiev and the West are tiring of war and each other | SAFETY. Zaporizhzhia: Russia claims Ukrainian drone hit dome of nuclear powerplant. Nuclear power plants in war zones: Lessons learned from the war in Ukraine. Attacks on Ukrainian nuclear facilities ‘must cease immediately’: UN atomic watchdog. UN nuclear watchdog’s board sets emergency meeting after Zaporizhzhia attacks. Ukraine: Briefing on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant: The ‘Sum Of All Fears’. Towards an international regulatory framework for AI safety: lessons from the IAEA’s nuclear safety regulations. |
| SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Not enough war on the ground, the US is taking it to space. U.S. Space Command adopts multipronged approach to prepare for ‘a conflict that has never happened’. Rolls Royce taps funding for nuclear-powered space missions. | TECHNOLOGY. Getting bigger but not safer or cheaper – the myth of Rolls Royce and its very big non-modular reactor.U.S. nuclear industry upbeat on small reactors, despite setback. Death by Algorithm: Israel’s AI War in Gaza. | URANIUM. Production of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) threatens our environment, health, and safety. | WASTES. First Images Inside Fukushima’s Nuclear Reactor Show “Icicle-Like”Structures |
| WAR and CONFLICT.Amid Serious Iran-Israel Tension, The Nuclear Elephant Is In The Room.US, Philippines, Japan, and Australia Conduct First Joint Military Exercise in South China Sea.Brutal, chaotic war – norms, conventions and laws of conduct are being erased.Israel Prepares For Potential Strike On Iranian Nuclear Sites.Will Biden’s zero sum game approach to foreign conflict bumble US into regional/nuclear war in Europe and Middle East?The Longer it Takes the West to Accept that Ukraine is Losing, the Worse Things Will Get for Ukraine. | WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.Civil and military nuclear mutuality.Increased activity at nuclear test site in northern Russia: expert.Patrick Lawrence: ‘Automated Murder’: Israel’s ‘AI’ in Gaza. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza. Israel’s ‘Where’s Daddy?’ AI system helps target suspected Hamas militants when they’re at home with their families, report says.BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR BRITAIN’S WEAPONS EXPORTS.The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up |
No decisions on site for nuclear waste dump as spin doctor sought
By Karen Barlow – Canberra Times, April 15 2024 – https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8591149/the-nuclear-waste-dump-quest-is-waiting-for-its-spin-doctor/
The Albanese government has confirmed it is searching for, and is yet to settle on, sites for both low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste as it seeks a highly skilled PR team to manage likely “high” outrage over possible sites.
In a series of answers to questions from potential suppliers on the federal tender site, the Department of Industry, Science and Resources also advised that there may be a need to reference the future AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program through the contract, but only in educational materials.
It comes after a major government approach to market was uncovered by The Canberra Times, revealing that a nuclear-specific crisis management team is being sought – six months after the government abandoned plans for a low-level waste dump near Kimba in remote South Australia – to bid for a two-year contract to help manage public discussion of nuclear waste in Australia.
The move has been criticised by the Greens and the Coalition as spin and “steamrolling regional communities,” but the new approach to market appears to address other criticism that nuclear waste dumps are announced and later argued as needed.
Asked by an unnamed potential supplier if the department has a list of sites or communities looking to be engaged over the two-year contract period, the answer is “no.”
“This information is unknown,” the answer reads. “The Australian Radioactive Waste Agency has started work on alternative proposals for the storage and disposal of the commonwealth’s civilian low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste.”
So that is not just the low-level option that was being sought, but abandoned, at Napandee at the top of the Eyre Peninsula.
The answers to the questions of potential suppliers, which have to bid for the contract, offer greater insight to the process for delivering a secure storage facility, but are limited to current timelines.
“No site has been been shortlisted or selected and no benefits package has been determined, this will be a matter for government,” the department stated.
The department also advises that there are not currently “specific deliverables” that the department is looking to complete. It is also advised there may be some stakeholder engagement activities that involve a role in decision making.
The original approach to market, posted March 26, asked for assistance with “nuclear-specific” public relations and professional communications services during the early stages of a new radioactive waste management approach being identified. This is described as the first three to five years of a 100-year project.
It would involve engagement with “impacted communities”, “stringent preparation for technical and challenging questions” from the public, and support for the public’s “comprehensive understanding of the nation’s radioactive waste inventory, origins and need for safe management.”
“This is a highly specialised high-outrage area and there are times of uplift where urgent assistance is required and additional industry-relevant specialist support is needed, including upskilling staff to undertake these activities in a high outrage environment,” the document reads.
It comes as Australia, as well as AUKUS partners the United States and the United Kingdom, continues to be without a long-term solution for radioactive waste disposal.
Asked by a potential supplier if there is consideration for SSN-AUKUS (nuclear powered submarines under the AUKUS trilateral pact) or visiting nuclear-powered naval capabilities, the department said maybe, but not much.
“While information about Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine program may form a small part of ARWA educational materials, the supplier will not be required to undertake engagement work focused on AUKUS or nuclear-powered submarines,” it responded.
There appears to be no willingness to waive the requirement for baseline security clearance, even for a world-leading technical subject matter expert.
Asked if a waiver was possible for the duties which include assisting in preparing “factually correct nuclear technology and radioactive waste engagement materials”, the department responded, “Any specified personnel must be able to obtain and hold a Baseline Security Clearance.”
Asked further if people with equivalent security clearances from other five eyes nations (the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada) are able to work on the project, the response was the same: “Any specified personnel must be able to obtain and hold a Baseline Security Clearance.”
Secret Agreements: The Australian-Israel Defence Memorandum of Understanding
Elbit Systems, Israel’s notorious drone manufacturer and creator of the Hermes 450 aerial device responsible for this month’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers including the Australian national, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, was rewarded with a A$917 million contract. Business, even over bodies, exerts a corrupting force.
Binoy Kampmark, 14 Apr 24, https://theaimn.com/secret-agreements-the-australian-israel-defence-memorandum-of-understanding/
While the Australian government continues to pirouette with shallow constancy on the issue of Israel’s war in Gaza, making vacuous utterances on Palestinian statehood even as it denies supplying the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with weapons (spare parts, it would seem, are a different, footnoted matter), efforts made to unearth details of the defence relationship between the countries have so far come to naught.
The brief on Australian-Israel relations published by the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs is deplorably skimpy, noting that both countries have, since 2017, “expanded cooperation on national security, defence and cyber security.” Since 2018, we are told that annual talks have been conducted between defence officials, while Australia appointed, in early 2018, a resident Defence Attaché to the embassy in Tel Aviv. What is conspicuously absent are details of the Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation both countries signed in 2017.
A little bit of scrapping around reveals that 2017 was something of a critical year, a true bumper return. The Australia-Israel Defence Industry Cooperation Joint Working Group was created that October. A following Australian Defence media release notes the group’s intention: “to strengthen ties between Australia and Israel, explore defence industry and innovation opportunities, identify export opportunities, and support our industries to cooperate in the development of innovative technologies for shared capability challenges.”
The intentions of the group were well borne out. Defence contracts followed with sweet indulgence: the February 2018 contract between Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with Australia’s Bisalloy Steels worth A$900,000; an August 2018 joint venture between the Australian defence engineering company Varley Group and Rafael, behind such “leading weapons systems” as “the Spike LR2 anti-tank guided missile”; and the Electro Optic Systems-Elbit Systems agreement from 2019 responsible for developing “a modular medium-calibre turret that can be configured for a range of platforms, including lightweight reconnaissance and heavy fighting vehicles.”
In February this year, Elbit Systems, Israel’s notorious drone manufacturer and creator of the Hermes 450 aerial device responsible for this month’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers including the Australian national, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, was rewarded with a A$917 million contract. Business, even over bodies, exerts a corrupting force.
In a heartbeat after the outbreak of the latest Gaza War last October, the Australian Greens filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request seeking a copy of the barely mentioned MOU. After a period of three months, the Australian Defence Department reached the boring conclusion that the application should be rejected. It fell, the argument went, within the category of exemptions so treasured by secretive bureaucrats keen to make sure the “freedom” in FOI is kept spare and bare.
What follows is repulsive to intellect and denigrating to morality. “The document within the scope of this request,” went the letter from the Defence Department, “contains information which, if released, could reasonably be expected to damage the international relations of the Commonwealth.” The MOU “contains information communicated to Australia by a foreign government and its officials under the expectation that it would not be disclosed.” Releasing “such information could harm Australia’s international standing and reputation.”
A telling, and troubling role was played by Israel in the process. With characteristic, jellied spinelessness, Australian defence officials notified Israel of the FOI request in December 2023. In February, the Netanyahu government responded with its views, of which we can only speculate. The Greens were duly informed by the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) that the relevant decision maker in Defence “will consider the foreign government’s consultation response to make an informed and robust decision.” With such words, a negative response was nigh predictable.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge, in responding to the decision, was adamant that, “There is no place for secret arms treaties and secret arms deals between countries.” Furthermore, there was “no place for giving other countries veto power over what the Australian government tells the public about our government defence and arms deals.” The case is even more pressing given allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide taking place in the Gaza strip.
This regrettable episode retains a certain familiar repulsiveness. Unfortunately for devotees of open government, a fraught term if ever there was one, Australia’s FOI regime remains stringently archaic and pathologically secretive.
Decision makers are given directions to frustrate, not aid applications to reveal information, notably on sensitive topics such as security, defence and international relations. Spurious notions about damage to international relations are advanced to ensure secrecy and the muzzling of debate. The OAIC has also shown itself to be lamentably weak, tardy and inefficient in reviewing applications. In March 2023, it was revealed that almost 600 unresolved FOI cases had bottled up over the course of three years.
The latest refusal from the Defence Department to disclose the Israel-Australian MOU to members of Parliament, a decision reached after discussions with a foreign power (that fact is staggering and disheartening in of itself), betrays much doubletalk regarding defence ties between Canberra, the IDF, and the Israeli government. More than that, it confirms that those in Canberra are being steered by other interests, longing for the approval of foreign eyes and foreign interests.
Civil and military nuclear mutuality
‘The UK government is pursuing an uneconomic nuclear programme in large part so as to maintain & renew military nuclear capabilities’.
Rishi Sunak backs both civil and military nuclear: ‘Safeguarding the future of our nuclear deterrent and nuclear energy industry is a critical national endeavour’. French president Emmanuel Macron is even more upfront about it all: ‘Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear.’ With the USA, China and Russia also evidently locked into similar paths, the global future doesn’t look too good.
‘The UK government is pursuing an uneconomic nuclear programme in large part so as to maintain & renew military nuclear capabilities’.
backs both civil and military nuclear: ‘Safeguarding the future of our nuclear deterrent and nuclear energy industry is a critical national endeavour’. French president Emmanuel Macron is even more upfront about it all: ‘Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear.’ With the USA, China and Russia also evidently locked into similar paths, the global future doesn’t look too good.
Renew Extra Weekly, 13 Apr 24
Until recently, the UK government has always said that civil and military nuclear technologies were separate things, for example in response to claims that expansion of civil nuclear power capacity could lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons making capacity. But, as researchers at the University of Sussex have relentlessly catalogued, there seems to have been a change of view underway, culminating formally in March in a new policy document from No. 10 Downing Street. Entitled ‘Building the Nuclear Workforce of Tomorrow’ it claims that ‘domestic [civil] nuclear capability is vital to our national defence and energy security, underpinning our nuclear deterrent and securing cheaper, more reliable energy for UK consumers’. So they are intertwined and mutually beneficial- we need both!
UK Prime Minister Sunak says that ‘in a more dangerous and contested world, the UK’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is more vital than ever’ and that civil nuclear power is the ‘perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain- it’s green, cheaper in the long term and will ensure the UK’s energy security for the long term’.
There are many issues raised by these claims. Leaving aside all the major moral and political issues associated with nuclear weapons, it is not at all clear that new nuclear reactors will be as costs effective as renewables. Indeed, the cost of renewables has fallen dramatically in recent years while the cost of nuclear projects has continued to escalate. It could be that, recognising this imbalance in cost, what we are now seeing is the government trying to provide a compensating justification for new civil nuclear- it will aid defence. Even if, arguably, it makes little economic sense as Business Green argued: ‘The UK government is pursuing an uneconomic nuclear programme in large part so as to maintain & renew military nuclear capabilities’.
Basically, as the Sussex University researchers have argued, it does seem that the government is just responding to military pressures. More specifically though, it’s a matter of rapidly expanding skill requirements- and shortages. Matthew Lay, Head of EDF Nuclear Skills Alliance, says that ‘the UK Government’s commitment to nuclear power must be seen in the context of a steady increase of nuclear capacity worldwide as well as growth in defence expenditure,’ and especially the growth in the ‘defence industry’s demand for nuclear skills, to deliver established and new nuclear submarine programmes’. So it’s about expanding nuclear skills for building nuclear sub power plants and civil reactors, including possibly Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which have some similarities. Presumably also about making fuels for them both too.
Some may be happy about civil-military skill sharing, but it’s a long way from the old rhetoric about ‘atoms for peace’. In 1953 President Eisenhower called for nuclear bomb technology to be turned to peaceful ends around the world, with US help e.g. in transferring nuclear plant technology to developing countries. That had floundered due, in part, to the high cost of nuclear plants. According to a review by Drogan, a State Department Intelligence Report, circulated in January 1954, ‘Economic Implications of Nuclear Power in Foreign Countries’, noted that ‘nuclear power plants may cost twice as much to operate and as much as 50 percent more to build and equip than conventional thermal plants’. So it warned that the introduction of nuclear power would ‘not usher in a new era of plenty and rapid economic development as is commonly believed’. You could say that we are still waiting!
There were also potential conflicts between the ‘atoms for peace’ idea and proliferation issues. Indeed that is now even more of a problem, with some newly developing countries, following the UAE’s lead, looking to have nuclear plants, which, in theory, could give them the ability to make bombs. And (the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty apart!) why not, if nuclear weapons states like the UK are seen as no longer maintaining a clear separation between civil and military nuclear technology? Except of course the high cost of civil nuclear may make renewables a much better deal- especially solar, of which many countries (in the Middle East and Africa for example) have plenty. ……………………………………………………………………………..
Clearly UK Prime Minister Sunak doesn’t see it this way- he backs both civil and military nuclear: ‘Safeguarding the future of our nuclear deterrent and nuclear energy industry is a critical national endeavour’. French president Emmanuel Macron is even more upfront about it all: ‘Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear.’ With the USA, China and Russia also evidently locked into similar paths, the global future doesn’t look too good.
Do we really have to continue with all this? In 1995, Sir Michael Atiyah, then retiring as President of the Royal Society, said ‘I believe history will show that insistence on a UK nuclear capability [weapons and energy] was fundamentally misguided, a total waste of resources and a significant factor in our relative economic decline over the past 50 years’. He may have been right. https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2024/04/civil-and-military-nuclear-mutuality.html
Not enough war on the ground, the US is taking it to space
The military industrial complex is suiting up for a new arms race, far beyond the stratosphere
STAVROULA PABST, APR 05, 2024, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/u-s-space-race/
Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX recently secured a classified contract to build an extensive network of “spy satellites” for an undisclosed U.S. intelligence agency, with one source telling Reuters that “no one can hide” under the prospective network’s reach.
While the deal suggests the space company, which currently operates over half the active satellites orbiting Earth, has warmed to U.S. national security agencies, it’s not the first Washington investment in conflict-forward space machinery. Rather, the U.S. is funding or otherwise supporting a range of defense contractors and startups working to create a new generation of space-bound weapons, surveillance systems, and adjacent technologies.
In other words, America is hell-bent on a new arms race — in space.
Space arms, then and now
Attempts to regulate weapons’ presence and use in space span decades. Responding to an intense, Cold War-era arms race between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established that space, while free for all countries to explore and use, was limited to peaceful endeavors. Almost 60 years later, the Outer Space Treaty’s vague language regarding military limitations in space, as space policy experts Michelle L.D. Hanlon and Greg Autry highlight, “leave more than enough room for interpretation to result in conflict.”
Stonewalling subsequent international efforts to limit the militarization of space (though the U.S. is participating in a new U.N. working group on the subject), Washington’s interest in space exploration and adjacent weapons technologies also goes back decades. Many may recall President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was established to develop land-, air-, and space-based missile defense systems to deter missile or nuclear weapons attacks against the U.S. Cynically referred to by critics as the “Star Wars” program, many SDI initiatives were ultimately canned due to prohibitive costs and technological limitations.
And while the Pentagon established Space Command in 1985, the Space Force, an entirely new branch of the military “focused solely on pursuing superiority in the space domain,” was launched in 2019, signaling renewed emphasis on space militarization as U.S. policy.
Weapons contractors cash in
Long-term American interest in space war tech now manifests in ambitious projects, where defense companies and startups are lining up for military contracts to create a new generation of space weaponry and adjacent tech, including space vehicles, hypersonic rockets, and extensive surveillance and communications projects.
For starters, Space Force’s Space Development Agency recently granted defense contractors L3Harris and Lockheed Martin and space company Sierra Space contracts worth $2.5 billion to build satellites for the U.S. military’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a constellation of hundreds of satellites, built out on tranches, that provide various warfighting capabilities, including the collection and transmission of critical wartime communications, into low-Earth orbit.
The PWSA will serve as the backbone of the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control project, an effort to bolster warfighting capacities and decision-making processes by facilitating “information advantage at the speed of relevance.”
Other efforts are just as sci-fi-esque. Zoning in on hypersonic weapons systems and parts, for example, RTX (formerly Raytheon) and Northrop Grumman have collaborated to secure a DARPA contract for a Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept, where scramjet-powered missiles can travel at hypersonic speeds (Mach 5 or faster) for offensive purposes.
And Aerospace startup True Anomaly, which was founded by military officers and has received funding from the U.S. Space Force to the tune of over $17 million, is developing space weapons and adjacent conflict-forward tools. An example is True Anomaly’s Jackal Autonomous Orbital Vehicle, an imaging satellite able to take on, according to True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers, “rendezvous and proximity operations missions” with “uncooperative” targets.
As True Anomaly finds fiscal success, accruing over $100 million in a December 2023 series B fundraising round from venture capitalists including Eclipse Ventures and ACME Capital, other aerospace start-ups are flooding the market with the assistance of the U.S. government, both in funding and other critical partnerships.
Take how Firehawk Aerospace — which wants to “create the rocket system of the future” to “enab[le] the next generation of aerospace and defense systems” — partnered with NASA in 2021 to test rocket engines at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. It recently secured Army Applications Laboratory and U.S. Air Force Small Business Innovation Research Awards to advance developments in its rocket motors and engines.
And data and satellite-focused American space tech company Capella Space, a contractor for federal agencies including the Air and Space Forces, specializes in reconnaissance and powerful surveillance tools, including geospatial intelligence and Synthetic Aperture Radar monitoring that help national security officials identify myriad security risks. In early 2023, Capella Space even formed a subsidiary, Capella Federal, to provide federal clients with additional access to Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery services.
We need diplomacy, not space superiority
The funding of expensive, futuristic space surveillance and weapons projects indicates the U.S.’s eagerness to maintain superiority, where military personnel posit such advancements are critical within the context of both a “space race” and an increasingly tumultuous geopolitical climate, if not the possibility of war in space outright.
As Space Force General Chance Saltzman declared at the recent Mitchell Institute Spacepower Security Forum: “if we do not have space, we lose.” Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in late February, U.S. Space Force General Stephen N. Whiting explained that the U.S. Space Command must bolster its military capacities through increased personnel training and investments in relevant technologies so that the U.S. is “ready if deterrence fails.”
While upping its own military capacities, however, Washington is simultaneously pushing against other countries’ anti-satellite weapons testing, a capability the U.S. already has.
In any case, such pointing fingers, when coupled with ongoing space deterrence and weapons proliferation efforts, does little to advance genuine diplomacy, where states could instead discuss, on equal terms, how space should be used and shared amongst nations.
Ultimately, weapons and aerospace companies’ efforts have launched a new generation of weaponry and adjacent tech — buoyed by consistent support from a “deterrence”-focused U.S. As a result, the military industrial complex has further expanded into the domain of space, where defense companies have new opportunities to score lucrative weapons contracts and theoretically even push for more conflict.
The Longer it Takes the West to Accept that Ukraine is Losing, the Worse Things Will Get for Ukraine
Our leaders keep warning us that Putin will roll his tanks into the Baltic States and maybe even Poland should the Russians be successful in beating the Ukrainians. France’s President Macron is even telling us that we may have to send NATO troops to fight in Ukraine. Everyone seems to automatically assume that Putin’s ambition is still to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it in the Russian Federation. This is despite the fact that he said that it was to keep Ukraine out of NATO and to safeguard the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine from Ukrainian nationalist militias.
Well, we do seem to have got ourselves into a bit of a pickle in Ukraine. How we get out of it is not immediately obvious.
Like many wars, this one seems to have started due to catastrophic blunders by the ruling elites on both sides. To simplify a rather complex situation, I believe that there were two massive blunders.
The West’s blunder – for several years Putin has warned NATO “not one inch further” – that he would not accept further NATO expansion eastwards and would not allow countries like Ukraine and Georgia, both with long borders with Russia, to join NATO. In 2008, Putin even attended a NATO summit during which he gave a speech warning NATO that Russia would not accept Ukraine’s and Georgia’s admission to NATO. To me that seems reasonable. After all, the U.S. would hardly accept Russia doing a deal with, say, Mexico which would allow Russia to establish bases close to the U.S.-Mexico border (although it’s also understandable that Ukraine and Georgia wanted to join NATO, given Putin’s sabre-rattling). And, of course, there was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the USA was not too pleased about Russian missiles being situated close to the American mainland. Probably due to stupidity, hubris or a belief that Putin was bluffing, NATO delivered a diplomatic note to the Kremlin reiterating NATO’s view that countries like Ukraine and Georgia could join the Alliance if they wished. The result – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s blunder – Putin seems to have believed that it would only take a couple of weeks for the Russian army to get to Kiev, overthrow and murder the Zelensky Government and install a Russian-friendly regime. He got that one wrong and several hundred thousand Russians have been wounded or killed as a result. Moreover, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted Sweden and Finland to join NATO – another consequence Putin seems to have failed to foresee.
The war seemed to have started well for Ukraine. The Ukrainian army surprised the Russians and the world by fighting off the initial Russian invasion. Then the success of the summer 2022 Ukrainian offensive appeared to suggest that Ukraine might even be able to push the Russians out of Eastern Ukraine, retake Crimea and, by humiliating Putin, maybe even cause a coup in Russia which could overthrow Putin and his mafia cronies.
But after the 2022 Ukraine summer offensive, the Russians built formidable defensive lines protected by miles of minefields, dragon’s teeth and trench systems. So, when the 2023 Ukrainian combined operations offensive was launched, the Ukrainians were caught in a death trap and suffered huge losses of personnel and equipment while making little progress
We are now in a third phase of the war – the war of attrition – in which Russia is gaining the upper hand. Russia can massively out-produce Ukraine (and the quivering West) in terms of munitions, tanks, planes, missiles, artillery systems, drones and numbers of soldiers. Moreover, Russia has also received military material from North Korea, Iran, Syria and probably China. Meanwhile, Ukraine is running out of ammunition and troops. Some sources have suggested that the average age of Ukrainian forces is a worrying 43. And Ukraine doesn’t have time to mobilise, equip and train the numbers necessary to stem the Russian advance. In a war of attrition, the side with the greatest resources usually wins by grinding down its opponent. And that’s what we’re seeing now with small but continual Russian advances and Ukrainian retreats.
Our leaders keep warning us that Putin will roll his tanks into the Baltic States and maybe even Poland should the Russians be successful in beating the Ukrainians. France’s President Macron is even telling us that we may have to send NATO troops to fight in Ukraine. Everyone seems to automatically assume that Putin’s ambition is still to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it in the Russian Federation. This is despite the fact that he said that it was to keep Ukraine out of NATO and to safeguard the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine from Ukrainian nationalist militias.
By the end of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Putin’s forces could have walked into the Georgian capital Tbilisi. Instead, they withdrew and merely stayed on to guard the Russian-speaking enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – the equivalent of the similar enclaves in Ukraine.
Putin has the habit of doing exactly what he says he’s going to do. This is a concept which contemporary Western politicians find so alien to their natures, of course, that they’re totally unable to grasp it (although their distrust of Putin is understandable).
Moreover, if we look at military budgets, you might wonder who is actually threatening whom. The USA’s military budget is around $877 billion. The total NATO military budget in 2023 (including the USA) a cool $1.3 trillion. The Russian Federation military budget prior to the Ukraine invasion? Just $86 billion a year.
Our rulers have repeatedly told us that we must “do whatever it takes” to stop Putin and that the West will support Ukraine for “however long is necessary”. But it seems to be becoming clear to everyone except our rulers that Ukraine is losing and can now never win if winning means expelling all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.
The best Ukraine can now hope for is an untidy truce which involves a loss of the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine – at least 20% of Ukrainian territory. Though the longer this war goes on, the more territory Ukraine will lose.
So, what will our rulers choose – humiliation or annihilation?
Will our rulers accept total humiliation by pushing Ukraine to do a deal with Russia in which Ukraine will have to hand over at least 20% of its land area to the Russian Federation and agree that what little is left of Ukraine will be a neutral country and never join NATO? And how will our rulers explain this defeat to us, their electorates? Moreover, what will the West’s defeat do to the global balance of power? It will, of course, embolden those in the anti-Western bloc – Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – who wish to do us harm. Moreover, it will convince many non-aligned countries that their future lies in alliances with the resurgent and increasingly powerful autocratic anti-Western bloc rather than with the declining, defeated, war-weary, supposedly democratic West.
Or will our rulers decide to try and save face and their own careers by ‘upping the ante’ – getting us more involved in helping Ukraine? Thanks to the incompetence of the head of the German air force, whose unsecured phone conference was recorded by Russian spies, we now know that British troops are apparently in Ukraine already, possibly helping with the loading and targeting of Storm Shadow missiles. It’s a pity our politicians ‘forgot’ to tell us that British troops are actually operating in Ukraine. Moreover, the New York Times recently revealed that the CIA has between 12 and 14 bases in Ukraine where it trains Ukrainian soldiers. If our rulers do get Western troops directly involved in killing Russians, as France’s President Macron has repeatedly proposed, we would risk the possibility of a nuclear war between Russia and the West.
I’m no military strategist. But it seems obvious to me that our rulers have blundered into a situation without any plan for how to extricate us in the event of things not turning out as they planned, thus forgetting the most basic rule of war – that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Or, as boxer Mike Tyson explained, “Everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.”
It will be interesting to see whether our rulers choose humiliation by accepting Ukraine’s and, by extension, NATO’s defeat, or instead go for escalation which could lead to nuclear annihilation.
J.D. Vance – New York Times: The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up
The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque.
Mr. Zelensky’s stated goal for the war — a return to 1991 boundaries — is fantastical.
J.D.Vance, The New York Times, Fri, 12 Apr 2024 , https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opinion/jd-vance-ukraine.html
President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong.
Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.
The Biden administration has applied increasing pressure on Republicans to pass a supplemental aid package of more than $60 billion to Ukraine. I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war. Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.
The most fundamental question: How much does Ukraine need and how much can we actually provide? Mr. Biden suggests that a $60 billion supplemental means the difference between victory and defeat in a major war between Russia and Ukraine. That is also wrong. This $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But this is not just a matter of dollars. Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war.
Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s defense minister estimated that the country’s base-line requirement for these shells was over four million per year but that it could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.
Just this week, the top American military commander in Europe argued that absent further security assistance, Russia could soon have a 10-to-1 artillery advantage over Ukraine. What didn’t gather as many headlines is that Russia’s current advantage is at least 5 to 1, even after all the money we have poured into the conflict. Neither of these ratios plausibly leads to Ukrainian victory.
Proponents of American aid to Ukraine have argued that our approach has been a boon to our own economy, creating jobs here in the factories that manufacture weapons. But our national security interests can be — and often are — separate from our economic interests.The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict.
The story is the same when we look at other munitions. Take the Patriot missile system — our premier air defense weapon. It’s of such importance in this war that Ukraine’s foreign minister has specifically demanded them. That’s because in March alone, Russia reportedly launched over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine. To fend off these attacks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and others have indicated they need thousands of Patriot interceptors per year. The problem is this: The United States only manufactures 550 every year. If we pass the supplemental aid package currently being considered in Congress, we could potentially increase annual production to 650, but that’s still less than a third of what Ukraine requires.
These weapons are not only needed by Ukraine. If China were to set its sights on Taiwan, the Patriot missile system would be critical to its defense. In fact, the United States has promised to send Taiwan nearly $900 million worth of Patriot missiles, but delivery of those weapons and other essential resources has been severely delayed, partly because of shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.
If that sounds bad, Ukraine’s manpower situation is even worse. Here are the basics:Russia has nearly four times the population of Ukraine. Ukraine needs upward of half a million new recruits, but hundreds of thousands of fighting-age men have already fled the country. The average Ukrainian soldier is roughly 43 years old, and many soldiers have already served two years at the front with few, if any, opportunities to stop fighting. After two years of conflict, there are some villages with almost no men left. The Ukrainian military has resorted to coercing men into service, and women have staged protests to demand the return of their husbands and fathers after long years of service at the front. This newspaper reported one instance in which the Ukrainian military attempted to conscript a man with a diagnosed mental disability.
Many in Washington seem to think that hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians have gone to war with a song in their heart and are happy to label any thought to the contrary Russian propaganda. But major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic are reporting that the situation on the ground in Ukraine is grim.
These basic mathematical realities were true, but contestable, at the outset of the war. They were obvious and incontestable a year ago, when American leadership worked closely with Mr. Zelensky to undertake a disastrous counteroffensive. The bad news is that accepting brute reality would have been most useful last spring, before the Ukrainians launched that extremely costly and unsuccessful military campaign. The good news is that even now, a defensive strategy can work. Digging in with old-fashioned ditches, cement and land mines are what enabled Russia to weather Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. Our allies in Europe could better support such a strategy, as well. While some European countries have provided considerable resources, the burden of military support has thus far fallen heaviest on the United States.
By committing to a defensive strategy, Ukraine can preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence. But this would require both the American and Ukrainian leadership to accept that Mr. Zelensky’s stated goal for the war — a return to 1991 boundaries — is fantastical.
The White House has said time and again that it can’t negotiate with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. This is absurd. The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans confront this truth, the sooner we can fix this mess and broker for peace.
Will Biden’s zero sum game approach to foreign conflict bumble US into regional/nuclear war in Europe and Middle East?
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 14 Apr 24, https://heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com/
President Biden continues on his astonishing and disheartening path to regional/nuclear war in both Europe and the Middle East.
In Europe, he plows ahead with his foolish demand to squandering another $61 billion in weapons for the lost cause in Ukraine. Any weapons manufactured will not reach Ukraine before their impending collapse, turning Ukraine into a rump state of abject poverty requiring endless US/NATO assistance.
Biden views the Russo Ukraine war as a zero sum game: US must win, Russia must lose. That requires endless US efforts to reclaim all Russian held Ukraine territory and bring Ukraine into NATO. Biden’s approach? Assisting Ukraine attacks on Russian territory.
Ukraine President Zelensky’s only hope is to widen the war to obtain direct US intervention. He almost provoked that 2 years ago when he claimed an errant Ukraine missile that killed 2 Poles in neighboring NATO Poland, was a Russian strike requiring immediate NATO response. Every day this 26 month long war continues represents another chance for US belligerence to make that happen. But Biden pushes on to possible all out war with his refusal to pivot from military provocation to diplomacy. That would require Biden dropping his zero sum game. Not likely.
The Middle East is more precarious still. The US has been Israel’s go to weapons and diplomatic supporter in their grotesque genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza. That has turned both Israel and America in pariah states worldwide.
Besides the genocide, the possibility of all out regional war between Israel and its Arab neighbors looms daily. Biden remained silent when Israel launched its dastardly bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria, killing 7. But when Iran signaled its intent to reply militarily, Biden invoked his standard zero sum game view that Israel can do no wrong. Iran? They can do no right. That’s a recipe for all out war.
President Biden only learned one thing from his six decades of political leadership: America is 100% right in foreign affairs; our imagined enemies 100% wrong. History is filled with empires that disappeared from that zero sum game.
Will Biden’s America be next?
Five Years At Belmarsh: A Chronicle Of Julian Assange’s Imprisonment
Kevin Gosztola, Apr 11, 2024, https://scheerpost.com/2024/04/12/five-years-at-belmarsh-a-chronicle-of-julian-assanges-imprisonment/
Calls for Assange’s freedom are renewed as the WikiLeaks founder marks five years in Belmarsh prison.
At the behest of the United States government, the British government has detained WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh for five years.
Assange is one of the only journalists to be jailed by a Western country, making the treatment that he has endured extraordinary. He has spent more time in prison than most individuals charged with similar acts.
Since December 2010, Assange has lived under some form of arbitrary detention.
He was expelled from Ecuador’s London embassy on April 11, 2019, and British police immediately arrested him. Police transported Assange to Belmarsh, a maximum-security facility often referred to as “Britain’s Guantanamo.”
Around the same time, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment that alleged that Assange had conspired with U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning to commit a “computer intrusion.” The following month the DOJ issued another indictment with 17 additional Espionage Act charges.
2019
On May 1, Assange was sentenced by a British court to 50 weeks in prison as punishment for seeking political asylum from Ecuador while Sweden was attempting to extradite him. His sentence was longer than the six-month sentence that Jack Shepherd, the “speedboat killer” received for “breaching bail.”
Continue readingCoalition nuclear plan flips back to SMRs after latest meeting with lobbyists
Giles Parkinson, Apr 12, 2024, https://reneweconomy.com.au/coalition-nuclear-plan-flips-back-to-smrs-after-latest-meeting-with-lobbyists/
And then, in a single bound, it was back to small modular reactors. The federal Coalition’s confused nuclear power policy has lurched from SMRs to large scale nuclear and back again to SMRs. It’s as if the policy is decided by the nuclear lobbyist most recently consulted.
Coalition leader Peter Dutton’s latest thought bubble on nuclear, dutifully reported in The Australian newspaper last weekend, is that Australia should sign up to SMRs, and should be able to build the first of them by the middle of the 2030s – faster than even most of the technology’s boosters admit is possible.
And then, in a single bound, it was back to small modular reactors. The federal Coalition’s confused nuclear power policy has lurched from SMRs to large scale nuclear and back again to SMRs. It’s as if the policy is decided by the nuclear lobbyist most recently consulted.
Coalition leader Peter Dutton’s latest thought bubble on nuclear, dutifully reported in The Australian newspaper last weekend, is that Australia should sign up to SMRs, and should be able to build the first of them by the middle of the 2030s – faster than even most of the technology’s boosters admit is possible.
Dutton says the new plan will be fully sketched out before the federal Labor government’s budget in early May – and according to The Australian this latest plan follows meetings last week with executives of Rolls Royce SMR and its Australian partner Penske.
Renew Economy decided to check all this out with Rolls Royce SMR itself, and got some surprising answers.
“It wasn’t a representative of ours (who met with Peter Dutton),” a company spokeswoman said by email. “I believe it was a potential partner of ours that met with Peter Dutton who spoke about RR SMR on our behalf.”
Dutton and other Coalition boosters like to talk about SMRs in the present tense, and most mainstream media dutifully follow suit, as if they are already operating.
This is deception. A group of my friends chatting over coffee this week was stunned to hear that SMRs are not actually a thing, despite what they read in the press. A few smaller nuclear reactors exist, such as in China and Russia, but they are in no way modular, which is the supposed key selling point of this new technology.
“One of the biggest problems for SMRs is that they don’t exist,” Allison Macfarlane, director of the school of public policy and global affairs at the University of British Columbia and a former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told the Financial Times this week.
“We’re still at the paper stage, the computer model stage. To get to demonstration models and then a full-scale model when you are ready to commercialise will take billions of dollars,” she added.
Rolls Royce SMR is still at least two years away from obtaining a licence, and the spokesperson told Renew Economy this week that the company is hopeful that the first SMR can be completed “in the early 2030s.”
However, Simon Bowen, the chair of Great British Nuclear, the government agency that is trying to lead the technology’s revival and find ways to replace its existing ageing fleet, told the FT this week the first SMR won’t likely be seen until the mid 2030s.
That time line is important, because it goes to the fantasy nature of the Coalition’s nuclear policy. Is Dutton seriously suggesting that Australia, with no civil nuclear power industry, can match the UK on timing on their proprietary nuclear technology.
And first-of-their-kind technologies are always considerably more expensive than those that follow. But more on the timing later, because that goes to the heart of what the Coalition is trying to do – not so much build nuclear, but to stop renewables in their tracks.
But it is impossible to think that Australia would commit to an SMR before it is built in its host country, with all the embedded infrastructure and know-how. And no country is going to commit to more SMRs until the first one is built, and can prove itself. Which straightaway pushes the Coalition timeline back into the 2040s.
On costs, Dutton is trying to convince everyone that nuclear – contrary to all available evidence – is low cost, which The Australian, unsurprisingly, reported as a matter of fact.
The Coalition’s energy spokesman Ted O’Brien engages in some impressive verbal calisthenics by claiming that they might be expensive for investors, but are low cost for consumers.
But if new-build nuclear is to be low cost to consumers it will be the result, as it is in France, of massive government subsidies. And given the Coalition’s horrified reaction to Labor’s “Made in Australia” green manufacturing plan, they are definitely not in favour of government subsidies.
The Australian reported that the Rolls Royce SMR is priced at around $5 billion for a 470 MW facility, which appears an heroic assumption given it is less than one third of the price of the only SMR to actually obtain a licence to date, the NuScale project in the US that was cancelled last year because it was too expensive for consumers.
Rolls Royce SMR’s own web page describes a study produced last year that claimed its technology could reduce wholesale prices in the UK by between three per cent and 13 per cent, depending on how many SMRs were rolled out.
Curiously, the study – according to the detailed Rolls Royce summary of it – arrives at these numbers by comparing SMRs to the cost of peaking gas plants, the most expensive generation on the grid, and which – in reality – is rarely used. They are only switched on around 1 to 2 per cent of the time.
These peaking gas plants are not seen as the usual competitor to nuclear or SMRs, because nuclear is designed to be baseload, not the fast response and flexible capacity needed to fill in the gaps of a grid dominated by wind and solar.
And, it should be noted, nuclear itself is highly dependent on fast-response capacity – peaking gas and pumped hydro – to make up for its own lack of flexibility.
The Rolls Royce spokesperson told Renew Economy that this analysis was conducted in the winter of 2022/23, when the energy crisis was at its worst, gas prices had soared, and energy consumers were being hit by huge bills.
It begs a question, which Rolls Royce didn’t answer: If SMRs are only able to undercut peaking gas power plant prices by a small amount, what does that imply when those costs are spread across the whole day?
The spokesperson confirmed that Rolls Royce SMRs will indeed be focused on “baseload” power, and its SMRs are designed not to displace renewables, but replace “the loss in low-carbon electricity … caused by our ageing existing reactor fleet going offline in the years ahead.”
The spokesperson said SMRs do have a degree of flexibility to load follow and respond “when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine,” and can use its thermal output to produce hydrogen or process heat, which might be attractive in the northern hemisphere.
But they have little ability to ramp up to fill in gaps of wind and solar because, as the spokesperson told Renew Economy in their email: “SMRs work most cost-effectively when ‘always on’.”
And this is important because it goes to the heart of why the Coalition nuclear plan makes absolutely no sense and is more about destruction of one industry, rather than construction of another.
Australia is heading towards 82 per cent renewables by 2030, and even if it doesn’t meet that deadline, it will be above 90 per cent by the mid 2030s, and likely close to 100 per cent.
A fleet of “always on” nuclear power plants will struggle to find a role in that scenario, particularly as daytime demand will be almost entirely met by the anticipated ongoing boom in small-scale solar on the roofs of household and business consumers.
But the Coalition policy, and it makes no secret of this, is not about compatibility. O’Brien’s own energy advisor admits that nuclear and renewables are effectively an “either-or” because the system is either going to be baseload or renewables and storage.
And the Coalition’s fundamental stand is that it refuses to believe that wind and solar can power a modern economy. “The lights will go out,” says Dutton, or “your fridge goes off at home” he added this week.
Which is why they are calling for a moratorium on the roll out of wind, solar, battery storage and transmission, and why they want coal-fired power stations to stay open until nuclear can arrive.
And it’s why their proxies in the mainstream and social media – and so-called think tanks and ginger groups backed by billionaires such as Gina Rinehart and Trevor St Baker – spend so much time demonising the technologies that are currently available, and which can do the job, such as solar, wind, battery storage and electric vehicles.
Dutton’s rhetoric is also liberally splattered with outright falsehoods. A check of his media transcripts this week reveals a number of common false statements.
The first is the claim that Australia is the only OECD country not to have or want nuclear. Not true. Germany closed down the last of its nuclear generators a year ago, and Italy voted against the technology in a referendum a decade ago after shutting down the last of its reactors. A number of other EU countries are following suit.
Dutton also claims that the federal government is planning “28,000 kms of new transmission lines by 2030.” Again, not true. The Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan models 10,000km by 2030 in its core step change plan. That’s still a lot, but little more than one third of what Dutton claims.
The 28,000km number is a 2050 target, not 2030, and only in the scenario where Australia becomes a renewable energy superpower by exporting green hydrogen and other green products, most likely from vast wind and solar projects in the middle of the country that will need to link into the grids or production facilities.
Dutton says he wants to have a “mature” discussion about the energy mix. But that can’t happen if his rhetoric is based around obvious lies.
1 This month
7 April – WEBINAR – Australia and the Doomsday Clock – Preventing nuclear war through NoFirstUse and other policies
Online | Tuesday April 7, 4:00-5:30pm, Australian Eastern Time / 8:00-9:30am Central Europe Time
– Access the registration link
15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 