Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule
In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice.
Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.”
“We are living off his good graces,” a Pentagon official said of Musk’s role in the war in Ukraine. “That sucks.”
How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.
New Yorker, By Ronan Farrow, August 21, 2023
Last October, Colin Kahl, then the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, sat in a hotel in Paris and prepared to make a call to avert disaster in Ukraine. A staffer handed him an iPhone—in part to avoid inviting an onslaught of late-night texts and colorful emojis on Kahl’s own phone. Kahl had returned to his room, with its heavy drapery and distant view of the Eiffel Tower, after a day of meetings with officials from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. A senior defense official told me that Kahl was surprised by whom he was about to contact: “He was, like, ‘Why am I calling Elon Musk?’ ”
The reason soon became apparent. “Even though Musk is not technically a diplomat or statesman, I felt it was important to treat him as such, given the influence he had on this issue,” Kahl told me. SpaceX, Musk’s space-exploration company, had for months been providing Internet access across Ukraine, allowing the country’s forces to plan attacks and to defend themselves. But, in recent days, the forces had found their connectivity severed as they entered territory contested by Russia.
More alarmingly, SpaceX had recently given the Pentagon an ultimatum: if it didn’t assume the cost of providing service in Ukraine, which the company calculated at some four hundred million dollars annually, it would cut off access. “We started to get a little panicked,” the senior defense official, one of four who described the standoff to me, recalled. Musk “could turn it off at any given moment. And that would have real operational impact for the Ukrainians.”
Musk had become involved in the war in Ukraine soon after Russia invaded, in February, 2022. Along with conventional assaults, the Kremlin was conducting cyberattacks against Ukraine’s digital infrastructure. Ukrainian officials and a loose coalition of expatriates in the tech sector, brainstorming in group chats on WhatsApp and Signal, found a potential solution: SpaceX, which manufactures a line of mobile Internet terminals called Starlink. The tripod-mounted dishes, each about the size of a computer display and clad in white plastic reminiscent of the sleek design sensibility of Musk’s Tesla electric cars, connect with a network of satellites.
The units have limited range, but in this situation that was an advantage: although a nationwide network of dishes was required, it would be difficult for Russia to completely dismantle Ukrainian connectivity. Of course, Musk could do so. Three people involved in bringing Starlink to Ukraine, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they worried that Musk, if upset, could withdraw his services, told me that they originally overlooked the significance of his personal control. “Nobody thought about it back then,” one of them, a Ukrainian tech executive, told me. “It was all about ‘Let’s fucking go, people are dying.’ ”
In the ensuing months, fund-raising in Silicon Valley’s Ukrainian community, contracts with the U.S. Agency for International Development and with European governments, and pro-bono contributions from SpaceX facilitated the transfer of thousands of Starlink units to Ukraine. A soldier in Ukraine’s signal corps who was responsible for maintaining Starlink access on the front lines, and who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mykola, told me, “It’s the essential backbone of communication on the battlefield.”
Initially, Musk showed unreserved support for the Ukrainian cause, responding encouragingly as Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian minister for digital transformation, tweeted pictures of equipment in the field. But, as the war ground on, SpaceX began to balk at the cost. “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales told the Pentagon in a letter, last September. (CNBC recently valued SpaceX at nearly a hundred and fifty billion dollars. Forbes estimated Musk’s personal net worth at two hundred and twenty billion dollars, making him the world’s richest man.)
Musk was also growing increasingly uneasy with the fact that his technology was being used for warfare. That month, at a conference in Aspen attended by business and political figures, Musk even appeared to express support for Vladimir Putin. “He was onstage, and he said, ‘We should be negotiating. Putin wants peace—we should be negotiating peace with Putin,’ ” Reid Hoffman, who helped start PayPal with Musk, recalled. Musk seemed, he said, to have “bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker.” A week later, Musk tweeted a proposal for his own peace plan, which called for new referendums to redraw the borders of Ukraine, and granted Russia control of Crimea, the semi-autonomous peninsula recognized by most nations, including the United States, as Ukrainian territory. In later tweets, Musk portrayed as inevitable an outcome favoring Russia and attached maps highlighting eastern Ukrainian territories, some of which, he argued, “prefer Russia.” Musk also polled his Twitter followers about the plan. Millions responded, with about sixty per cent rejecting the proposal. (Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s President, tweeted his own poll, asking users whether they preferred the Elon Musk who supported Ukraine or the one who now seemed to back Russia. The former won, though Zelensky’s poll had a smaller turnout: Musk has more than twenty times as many followers.)
……… . One day, Ukrainian forces advancing into contested areas in the south found themselves suddenly unable to communicate…………………………………….. . The Financial Times reported that outages affected units in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk. American and Ukrainian officials told me they believed that SpaceX had cut the connectivity via geofencing, cordoning off areas of access.
The senior defense official said, “We had a whole series of meetings internal to the department to try to figure out what we could do about this.” Musk’s singular role presented unfamiliar challenges, as did the government’s role as intermediary……………… The Pentagon would need to reach a contractual arrangement with SpaceX so that, at the very least, Musk “couldn’t wake up one morning and just decide, like, he didn’t want to do this anymore.”
……………… To the dismay of Pentagon officials, Musk volunteered that he had spoken with Putin personally. Another individual told me that Musk had made the same assertion in the weeks before he tweeted his pro-Russia peace plan, and had said that his consultations with the Kremlin were regular……………. On the phone, Musk said that he was looking at his laptop and could see “the entire war unfolding” through a map of Starlink activity. ………….Musk told Kahl that the vivid illustration of how technology he had designed for peaceful ends was being used to wage war gave him pause.
After a fifteen-minute call, Musk agreed to give the Pentagon more time. He also, after public blowback and with evident annoyance, walked back his threats to cut off service. “The hell with it,” he tweeted. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.” This June, the Department of Defense announced that it had reached a deal with SpaceX.
The meddling of oligarchs and other monied interests in the fate of nations is not new.……………………………….
But Musk’s influence is more brazen and expansive. There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space. SpaceX is currently the sole means by which nasa transports crew from U.S. soil into space, a situation that will persist for at least another year. The government’s plan to move the auto industry toward electric cars requires increasing access to charging stations along America’s highways. But this rests on the actions of another Musk enterprise, Tesla. The automaker has seeded so much of the country with its proprietary charging stations that the Biden Administration relaxed an early push for a universal charging standard disliked by Musk. His stations are eligible for billions of dollars in subsidies, so long as Tesla makes them compatible with the other charging standard.
In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice.
Current and former officials from nasa, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk’s influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official. One Pentagon spokesman said that he was keeping Musk apprised of my inquiries about his role in Ukraine and would grant an interview with an official about the matter only with Musk’s permission. “We’ll talk to you if Elon wants us to,” he told me. In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’ ”
Musk’s power continues to grow. His takeover of Twitter, which he has rebranded “X,” gives him a critical forum for political discourse ahead of the next Presidential election. He recently launched an artificial-intelligence company, a move that follows years of involvement in the technology. Musk has become a hyper-exposed pop-culture figure, and his sharp turns from altruistic to vainglorious, strategic to impulsive, have been the subject of innumerable articles and at least seven major books, including a forthcoming biography by Walter Isaacson. But the nature and the scope of his power are less widely understood.
More than thirty of Musk’s current and former colleagues in various industries and a dozen individuals in his personal life spoke to me about their experiences with him. Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, with whom Musk has both worked and sparred, told me, “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”
…………………………………………………..officials expressed profound misgivings. “Living in the world we live in, in which Elon runs this company and it is a private business under his control, we are living off his good graces,” a Pentagon official told me. “That sucks.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Of all Musk’s enterprises, SpaceX may be the one that most fundamentally reflects his appetite for risk…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. “He has a long history of launching and blowing up rockets. And then he puts out videos of all the rockets that he’s blown up. And like half of America thinks it’s really cool,” the former nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine told me. “He has a different set of rules.”
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. There are competitors in the field, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, but none yet rival SpaceX. The new space race has the potential to shape the global balance of power. Satellites enable the navigation of drones and missiles and generate imagery used for intelligence, and they are mostly under the control of private companies…………………………………
Several officials told me that they were alarmed by nasa’s reliance on SpaceX for essential services. “There is only one thing worse than a government monopoly. And that is a private monopoly that the government is dependent on,” Bridenstine said. “I do worry that we have put all of our eggs into one basket, and it’s the SpaceX basket.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Officials who have worked at osha and at an equivalent California agency told me that Musk’s influence, and his attitude about regulation, had made their jobs difficult…………………………………………………………………………………. You add on the fact that he considers himself to be a master of the universe and these rules just don’t apply to people like him,” Jordan Barab, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor at osha, told me. “There’s a lot of underreporting in industry in general. And Elon Musk kind of seems to raise that to an art form.” Garrett Brown, a former field-compliance inspector at California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, added, “We have a bad health-and-safety situation throughout the country. And it’s worse in companies run by people like Elon Musk, who was ideologically opposed to the idea of government enforcement of public-health regulations.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. On July 12th, Musk announced xAI, his entry into a field that promises to alter much about life as we know it. He tweeted an image of the new company’s Web site, featuring a characteristically theatrical mission statement: the firm’s goal, he said, was “to understand the true nature of the universe.”
……………………………………………………… Musk has been involved in artificial intelligence for years. In 2015, he was one of a handful of tech leaders, including Hoffman and Thiel, who funded OpenAI, then a nonprofit initiative. (It now has a for-profit subsidiary.)………………………………………………… Musk left the company in 2018, reneging on a commitment to further fund OpenAI……………………………. a lot of my life and time to make sure we had enough funding.” OpenAI went on to become a leader in the field, introducing ChatGPT last year. Musk has made a habit of trashing the company,
……………………..It is difficult to say whether Musk’s interest in A.I. is driven by scientific wonder and altruism or by a desire to dominate a new and potentially powerful industry.
……………………….. In March, Musk, along with dozens of tech leaders, signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause in the development of advanced A.I. technology……………………. Yet in the period during which Musk endorsed a pause, he was working to build xAI, recruiting from major competitors, including OpenAI, and even, according to someone with knowledge of the conversation, contacting leadership at Nvidia, the dominant maker of chips used in A.I. The month the letter was distributed, Musk completed the registrations for xAI.
…………… “His whole approach to A.I. is: A.I. can only be saved if I deliver, if I build it.” …………………………………. more https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule#:~:text=How%20the%20U.S.%20government%20came,struggling%20to%20rein%20him%20in.&text=Last%20October%2C%20Colin%20Kahl%2C%20then,to%20avert%20disaster%20in%20Ukraine.–
Space agency NASA and bro billionaires conspire to trash the moon
Two days before the Lockheed Martin news broke, NASA had announced a literally lunatic plan to trash the Moon with nuclear waste. It’s as if our species has learned nothing at all after ruining our own planet to the point of extinction as a livable organism.
We are arming the heavens
NASA joins the lunatic fringe, By Linda Pentz Gunter, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/08/27/nasa-joins-the-lunatic-fringe/
Russia just crash-landed on the moon. India’s lunar rover is trundling across its surface. Are their intentions purely benign? Just about science? Or something more?
There are no such doubts lingering over US lunar plans, however. The mistakes made on Planet Earth will now be repeated on the moon.
In his fascinating and frightening 2012 book — A Short History of Nuclear Folly — that I somehow maddeningly missed on publication, Rudolph Herzog writes:
“There are places where radioactive substances have no business being. One of them is space.”
Herzog, son of the famous film director Werner, and whose book, written in German, was translated into English in 2013, details a whole panoply of terrifying nuclear accidents and near-misses, including disasters that could have befallen us in and from space.
But no lessons have been learned and no such warnings heeded.
Consequently, we now learn that NASA and the US Defense Department have awarded nuclear weapons company, Lockheed Martin, a contract to build a nuclear powered rocket to speed humans on their way to Mars.
“Higher thrust propulsion” is what Lockheed Martin is seeking to develop, but is travel speed to Mars really the only motivation? Of course not. The Pentagon admits it is also keen to develop nuclear reactor technology that will power satellites with more “fuel-efficient fuel sources” so that they can maneuver in space in such a way as to “make them more difficult for adversaries to target” reported the Washington Post.
As Herzog recounts in his book, we have been here before, and the outcome could have been catastrophic. In his chapter, Flying Reactors, he recounts how in the 1960s, the then Soviet Union developed miniature nuclear reactors to power their RORSAT military surveillance satellites. At the end of their life they were simply blasted into deeper space where their radioactive load would decay far from human exposure risk. Or, at least, that is what was supposed to happen.
Needless to say, eventually one of the Soviet reactor-powered satellites failed to follow orders and instead began plummeting toward Earth. The Soviets warned the US it could crash in North America on January 24, 1978.
Panicked headlines ensued as the media began to speculate on worst case scenario crash landing locations. As Herzog relates, “Time magazine calculated that if the satellite had orbited the Earth one more time it could have crashed in New York City in rush hour.”
Instead, luck prevailed, although not for northwestern Canada where it eventually reached Earth in the middle of the Arctic winter, prompting a challenging and month-long search party to find it and clean up the “mess”.
Despite this, the Soviets continued right on and lost several more of these Cosmos satellites, although none, apparently, crashed on land.
Two days before the Lockheed Martin news broke, NASA had announced a literally lunatic plan to trash the Moon with nuclear waste. It’s as if our species has learned nothing at all after ruining our own planet to the point of extinction as a livable organism.
A total of $150 million in contracts are to be awarded by NASA to “build landing pads, roads and habitats on the lunar surface, use nuclear power for energy, and even lay a high-voltage power line,” reported the Washington Post.
Yes, the USA is going to pave the moon and put up a parking lot.
The endgame is to allow human beings to live on the moon for extended periods of time. And to contaminate it with nuclear waste while they’re about it. And to dig it up and pave it over and, most absurdly, to “Iive off the land” as one NASA administrator put it.
That means implementing an extractive industry to mine the moon for construction materials such as metals, as well as to find water. And, presumably, to dispose of all the waste on other parts of the moon not targeted for human living spaces.
A major recipient of NASA’s lunatic largesse was, needless to say, one of the bro billionaires who are already heavily invested in the futile and expensive space odyssey that will eventually allow human habitation on the moon and Mars (presumably for a handful of other bro billionaires and their cronies.) So Amazon and Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos, is first in line for a $43.7 million handout to support these goals.
Solar arrays for the moon are also in the offing, but this does little to nullify the awful prospect of the moon turning into Thneed-Ville (see Dr. Seuss’s seminal book on industrial destruction, The Lorax).
As these latest NASA announcements reveal, without actually spelling it out, the agenda here goes well beyond the thrill of human space exploration. We are arming the heavens and that, as Herzog points out, can only go badly.
The madness of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in space has been well documented in War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space by Helen Caldicott and Craig Eisendrath and The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet, by Karl Grossman.We also examine the more sinister agenda behind all this in the Beyond Nuclear Handbook — The U.S. Space Force and the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear war in space.
But there is also another question: What gives the United States the right to decide, unilaterally, that it will colonize the moon and Mars? When did the US annex these celestial territories? Human beings have for centuries waxed lyrical and poetic about the moon as it shines down on us with its magical and ethereal glow. But do any of us own it? Surely it belongs in the commons and we, as a collective species, should decide whether or not it can be plundered and desecrated by one country alone, or, preferably, not at all?
Ironically, after all the sci-fi fantasies about evil Martians invading Planet Earth, it turns out that it is we humans who are about to invade Mars and the moon, bringing our heedless and destructive ways with us. And all this, while we leave a spectacularly beautiful planet behind us to decay and degenerate as a result of our selfish greed.
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Has Failed—It’s Time to Reevaluate.
What makes all of this vastly worse is that the cost to Ukrainians in their lives is staggeringly high. Consider just this one harrowing data point: more Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the first 18 months of this war than the number of American soldiers killed during the decade-plus war in Vietnam.
August 26, 2023 By Glenn Greenwald ,https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/26/ukraines-counteroffensive-has-failed-its-time-to-reevaluate/—
There is no question that the war in Ukraine has radically changed. Even Western media outlets that have been steadfastly cheerleading for this war – and, indeed, even Ukrainians themselves – are now admitting what battlefield realities dispositively prove. The much-vaunted Ukrainian counter-offensive – the imminent dramatic event we were assured for months would be transformative in finally giving Ukraine the upper hand and dislodging entrenched Russian positions inside Ukraine: a claim that doubled as a propaganda tool to assuage a growingly restless Western population about their endless support for this war – is now, no matter how you slice it, a failure.
After months of multi-pronged attacks, Ukraine’s gains are so minimal and trivial as to be barely worth noting. Russia continues to occupy a very significant chunk of both Eastern and southern Ukraine, along with Crimea which they have held since 2014. Even Western intelligence reports acknowledge that the Russians’ defensive positions are more fortified and entrenched than any seen in decades. The U.S. has already depleted its own stockpiles of artillery and other vital weapons and simply does not have to give Ukraine what they need to have any hope of changing this situation in anything resembling the near- or the short-term future.
What makes all of this vastly worse is that the cost to Ukrainians in their lives is staggeringly high. Consider just this one harrowing data point: more Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the first 18 months of this war than the number of American soldiers killed during the decade-plus war in Vietnam. The Ukrainian men who were eager to fight and who volunteered to do so have long ago been used up – killed, maimed, or exhausted. Zelensky’s only option for continuing combat is to increase domestic repression, impose greater and greater punishment for desertion, and use harsher and harsher means to force those unwilling to fight to do so against their will. In so many ways, this conflict resembles some of the worst horrors of World War I, including the need to put unwilling men who do not want to fight the deeply grim choice of either offering themselves up as cannon fodder or facing unimaginably harsh punishments by a government completely unconstrained by basic considerations of human rights or legal process, operating under full-scale martial law.
At this point, debates over who is to blame for this war barely matter. All that does matter is the question of how this will end, and who will end it. It is simply becoming unsustainable – politically, economically, and morally – to justify having Western nations pour their resources into fueling and continuing this war that Ukraine has less and less chance of winning. At the start of the war, many who claim that the real goal of the US was not to save Ukraine and Ukrainians but rather to destroy them – at the altar of their geostrategic goal of weakening Russia – were accused of being callous and conspiratorial. Now, there is little reasonable space to contest that they were right all along.
Joe Biden just asked for another $25 billion to keep this war going – as he offered $700 checks per household to the victims of the Maui fire and as profits for the European arms industry reach such record heights that they do not even bother to conceal their glee. Even if you were someone who supported the US role in Ukraine back in February of 2022 with the best of intentions – namely, you wanted to help a country seeing to avoid Russian domination – the failed nature of this mission has to compel a re-evaluation of perspective and policy. The last thing this war is doing is protecting Ukraine and Ukrainians. It is destroying both of those while imposing suffering among everyone in the U.S. and Western countries other than a tiny sliver of arms dealers and intelligence agencies. In other words, the war in Ukraine is following exactly the same pattern as every other U.S. war fought over the last 50 years.
Why we cannot trust the International Atomic Energy Agency
Well, it’s just so simple. Would you have faith in a doctor who advised a medication, when you knew that his main job was to promote and sell that medication?
Today, as Japan starts to pour the tainted water from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe into the Pacific Ocean, we should take note of Rafael Grossi’s recent statement:
“the future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release,” – Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
You see, whether or not Japan’s release of Fukushima nuclear wastewater is dangerous, is not the main point. Nuclear authorities around the world have been releasing radioactively tainted water into the seas for yonks. They used to just dump barrels of nuclear wastes. Then in 1993, ocean disposal was banned by international treaties. (London Convention (1972), Basel Convention, MARPOL 73/78). But that applies only to containers of wastes, not to liquids emptied via pipelines. The industry, and its promoter, the IAEA, wants this situation to be complacently accepted world-wide. The Fukushima decision is a key milestone in that process of acceptance.
It all really goes back to 1956, when the IAEA was created, in order to create a more friendly face to nuclear science, rather than being just for nuclear weapons. Its role was to promote the peaceful use of nuclear power, and also to regulate the industry – a conflict of interest from the start.
This became problematic for another United Nations Agency – the World Health Organisation (WHO.) On May 28, 1959, an agreement was signed between the IAEA and WHO , an agreement which began the uneasy situation in which the IAEA took over the prime role in radiation research. Article I (3) states that “whenever either organization proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organization has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual consent”.
This has resulted in the IAEA taking the lead role as watchdog over the information about radiation health effects which is distributed to the public, while the WHO has become confined to contributing to medical care and public health assistance.
The result of this agreement was especially obvious after the Chernobyl disaster, where IAEA (not WHO) took the lead in reporting radiation health effects. IAEA, enforcing the philosophy of the International Commission for Radiation Protection (ICRP), denied that any of the catastrophic health problems in the exposed population were related to radiation.
Grossi has been adept at downplaying the dangers of nuclear reactors. For instance, regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine – “the problem there is war, the problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi said. In this way, he quietly glosses over the reality that any nuclear reactor could become a military target, at a time of conflict.
This is all getting pretty serious now. It really is time for the world to ask questions about this conflict of interest. Should the control of information about health and environmental effects of the nuclear industry be transferred to some agency that is NOT committed to promoting that industry ?
Nuclear deterrence is a dangerous fraud
The theory of nuclear deterrence is a feeble excuse for nations to hold onto their weapons of mass destruction and a fraud that must be exposed, writes Dr Sue Wareham. 23 Aug 23 https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/nuclear-deterrence-is-a-dangerous-fraud,17833
Dr Sue Wareham OAM is President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) and a past board member of ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) Australia.
HOW IS IT that “homo sapiens” has persisted with an invention that threatens our very survival, strikes fear in the heart of every rational one among us, diverts an unconscionable quantity of our collective time, labour and finances from things that are actually useful, and at the same time could be eliminated?
All we need to do is dismantle the invention and prioritise efforts to ensure that it remains a historic relic. That could all be done. Our failure to do so thus far is such an extraordinary gamble on our future that we must examine the reasons.
The invention is, of course, nuclear weapons. The answer to the opening question is not so straightforward, but given our current all-time high risk of these weapons being used, the question has never been more important. And given Australia’s rapidly growing enmeshment with the only nation that has used these weapons thus far in warfare, we in Australia have a particular interest in it.
The first response to the question that often comes to mind is that of “power”. That’s true, a tiny minority of the world’s leaders – in nine out of the nearly two hundred countries that make up the global community – see the capacity to inflict unimaginable suffering on others as a marker of global prestige and influence in world affairs.
But, as we shall see, translating a capacity for cruelty to military or political advantage is a completely different matter. And, in any event, even such leaders need to explain to their people how having horrific and widely-condemned weapons is actually a good thing. For this, they need a theory that sounds plausible; it doesn’t need to be valid, but it just needs to sound reassuring and humane.
That theory is nuclear deterrence — the theory that having nuclear weapons keeps a nation safe from attack, especially nuclear attack, because others will be too terrified of a possible nuclear response. The more inhumane our weapons appear, the safer we are and the more certain we are to prevail militarily if any armed conflict does occur — or so the theory goes. The Latin origin “terrere”, to terrify or deter by terror, sums up how deterrence is meant to work.
For Australia, the theory is extended nuclear deterrence, a belief that our ally – the U.S. – would launch its own nuclear weapons if needed to “protect” Australia (whatever that means in practice), even risking a nuclear retaliatory strike on its own shores in the process. Like nuclear deterrence itself, extended nuclear deterrence is no more than an unproven theory.
Nuclear deterrence has been so consistently presented as justification for the world’s worst weapons of mass destruction that it is worth unravelling. If it is found to be faulty, then the primary crutch that bolsters nuclear weapons policies is exposed as a dangerous fraud.
The first major problem with nuclear deterrence theory is that it hasn’t worked. Nuclear weapons have proven to be generally useless in preventing military aggression or bringing military victories. As nuclear weapons abolition advocate Ward Wilson argues: ‘It is possible for a weapon to be too big to be useful.’
History recounts multiple occasions in which a nuclear arsenal on one side of a conflict has been irrelevant to the outcome. Examples include the attacks on or by Vietnam, Afghanistan, the UK-held Falklands, Iraq (1991 and 2003), Lebanon, former Soviet republics, multiple confrontations between India and Pakistan (both nuclear-armed), and others. In addition, crises over the deployment of the weapons have triggered periods of extreme danger, such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The war in Ukraine is the latest example of a war involving a nuclear-armed adversary. Whether or not President Putin follows through with his gravely irresponsible threats to use nuclear weapons in this war remains to be seen, but “winning” a nuclear wasteland would be no more than a pyrrhic victory.
Claims that attacks on non-nuclear armed nations, such as Ukraine, would have been prevented if those nations did have “the bomb” are not supported by evidence. In any event, such claims would lead us to the conclusion that the weapons are essential for every nation — including, say, Iran and North Korea. Deterrence cannot work only for “us” and not for “them”.
Have nuclear weapons played a role in preventing a war between two nuclear-armed superpowers? We don’t know, but there is no evidence for such a role. Even if they did, could we rely on this deterrent effect to always work? The answer is a categorical no; such a proposition is not credible.
This leads to the second major problem with nuclear deterrence theory which is that to be reliable, it must work in every conceivable situation for all time. Common features of human behaviour, such as miscommunication, misunderstanding, clouded judgement or plain incompetence in a period of heightened tensions could spell catastrophe.
Irrational or malevolent leaders who care little about human suffering elevate the risks, as do ongoing cyber and computer vulnerabilities. Nuclear deterrence might be fit for a fantasy world where everything goes according to plan, but it is not fit for the real world. The nuclear weapons era has produced over a dozen “near misses” when detonation of a warhead was very narrowly avoided.
Tellingly, even governments for whom the mantra of deterrence is sacrosanct know all this. Repeatedly, official documents in the U.S. and, presumably, in other nuclear-armed nations, refer to measures needed “if deterrence fails”. Events that could be terminal for much of human civilisation are passed off with those few glib words, “if deterrence fails”, to set out what military strategy kicks in next.
Part of the “what next” for the U.S. is its missile defence program, another vast money-guzzling venture that won’t necessarily work but is designed to intercept incoming enemy nuclear missiles, the ones that haven’t been deterred; it just might save “our” side at least. The response of the “other” side, not to be deterred, is obvious — more missiles, thus the race continues.
There is one thing that “if deterrence fails” scenarios steer well clear of, however — what happens to people and the planet when the bombs do hit their target cities? For deterrence advocates, that’s someone else’s problem.
The third major impediment to nuclear deterrence is that pesky constraint on so many nefarious activities — the law. Since the entry into force in January 2021 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), even the possession of these devices, let alone use or threats to use them, have been explicitly prohibited under international law.
While the prohibition is legally binding only for nations that have joined the Treaty (those with the weapons and their supporters, such as Australia, not yet being among them) its purpose goes much deeper. It replaces whatever international prestige might be attached to the weapons with international opprobrium. The treaties prohibiting both landmines and cluster munitions strongly influenced the behaviour of even nations that hadn’t signed them.
Fourthly, and herein lies the crux of all the above problems, nuclear deterrence is a threat to commit morally abhorrent actions. The incinerating of cities condemns millions of people, guilty and innocent alike, young and old, to the same collective unthinkable punishment. To play any role in deterring, a threat must be credible and therefore acceptable to those making it, something they would be prepared to carry through with in some circumstances.
Being the perpetrator of such suffering, or even just aiding and abetting it as extended nuclear deterrence requires, challenges us to consider whether our common humanity means anything at all. If it does, then committing or even threatening acts of savagery on a grand scale against innocent people has no place. It not only destroys the victims but also degrades the perpetrator.
Beyond the fundamental flaws of nuclear deterrence theory – its failure to prevent wars, its unsuitability for an imperfect world, its illegality and its immorality – it brings further risks and harm.
Economically, the cost of nuclear weapons programs is staggering, diverting scarce funds from essential human and environmental needs. In 2022, the nine nuclear-armed nations between them spent $82.9 billion on their nuclear weapons programs, over half of that being spent by the U.S. — all this for devices with the extraordinary purpose of existing so that they are never used.
With such national treasure invested in being able to commit atrocities, an enemy is needed, or a succession of enemies to suit changing circumstances. The enemy must be portrayed as morally inferior to us, less worthy as humans, so that no fate is deemed too terrible for them.
U.S. President Reagan’s “evil empire” speech of 1983 about the Soviet Union exemplified the process of dehumanising the “other”. President George W Bush’s reference in his January 2002 State of the Union address to the “axis of evil” – comprising Iran, Iraq, North Korea and others – did similarly. While more measured in rhetoric, President Biden’s “democracy versus autocracy” speech in February 2021 carried the same message of U.S. moral authority, for which read supremacy, with which it must confront its enemies.
As our “security” is built on a capacity to destroy, or euphemistically, “deter”, the critical task of building a common future with all people is marginalised. Foreign policies become stunted and skewed far too heavily towards inflicting collective punishment on whole populations rather than the slow and painstaking work of diplomacy to manage international relationships. Cooperation on global challenges such as climate dwindles as enmity is reinforced. Deterrence policy, with nuclear weapons at the pinnacle, erodes our capacity to survive together on this small and troubled planet.
Nuclear weapons themselves must be abolished. Given that they have proven to be almost useless in deterring anything or winning anything, this goal is achievable. Exposing the fraud of nuclear deterrence and extended nuclear deterrence theories – in promising security and yet delivering existential risk – is a key part of that process.
Seafood war looms after Japan releases nuclear plant water
China became the latest country to ban imports of all types of Japanese
seafood while South Korea has stopped taking fish caught or farmed from the
area around the now abandoned power plant.
Anti-Japanese sentiment is also
on the increase in South Korea. Several people were arrested after
attempting to storm the Japanese embassy in Seoul while hundreds have taken
to the capital’s streets in protest. Public concern remains high in South
Korea over the plan to release more than 1 million metric tons of treated
radioactive water.
Other Asian countries are expected to ban or restrict
Japanese seafood imports in the coming weeks. More than a million tonnes of
treated radioactive water is understood to be stored at the now inactive
power plant.
Fish Farmer 24th Aug 2023
Australian Financial Review’s sloppy journalism makes a nonsense of its case for nuclear SMRs
Why does this matter? It’s lazy journalism, bad editing, and is typical of the inflated hopium of the nuclear booster industry.
Just one example: Coalition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said this week that Canada sources 60 per cent of its power from nuclear. Not true, it is 15 per cent, and falling.
should we expect better from the nation’s business daily?
Giles Parkinson 25 August 2023, https://reneweconomy.com.au/afrs-sloppy-journalism-makes-a-nonsense-of-its-case-for-nuclear-smrs/
The Australian Financial Review has been trying to make a big thing about nuclear power, and small modular reactors in particular. But it seems its ideological enthusiasm for the technology is trumping its fact checking capabilities.
To read the AFR series you’d be forgiven for thinking that SMRs already exist in western grids. Everything is in the present tense, as though the machines are already operating, or in commercial production.
Of course, that’s not the case. The first SMRs are unlikely to be built much before the end of the decade, and it could be years after that before they represent a commercial alternative, if then.
But it’s not just the fake tenses that detract from the AFR’s journalism, it’s the facts, or the lack of them, that grate the most.
Let’s take the latest instalment on the progress of SMRs in Canada, written by the paper’s Washington correspondent. We’ve taken a screen shot of the opening paragraphs of the online article above. [on original]
“By the end of the decade it (the Ontario government utility) expects to begin generation up to 1.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to supply 1.2 million homes with carbon-free energy,” it proclaims.
Er, no. The minister’s statement announcing the expanded program of a single 300MW SMR to four SMRs totalling 1.2GW makes it very clear that the three additional units won’t be online until 2034 or 2036.
That means, by the end of the decade, there might be one, sized at 300MW and it will only serve 300,000 customers.
That’s important because the nuclear fan club likes to make out the SMRs are not far away and mass deployment is at hand, and that we – Australia – can afford to stop wind and solar and wait.
But it’s clear that even in Canada – one of the biggest and most established users of nuclear in the world, with all the experience and regulatory and grid infrastructure – the authorities can’t see a second unit coming on line until the mid 2030s.
That misinformation certainly fooled the person responsible for the “key statistics” box on the right hand side of the AFR article (above on original)) – which is designed to be a ready reference for those not bothered to read the article itself and in this case is completely misleading.
It tells readers that 1.2 million households will be served by the first SMR. No they won’t. The official release makes clear it is 300,000.
The key statistics box in the AFR article says there will be a total of 1.2 million gigawatts of nuclear. No, just 1.2 gigawatts, eventually. That’s one million times less than what is claimed by the AFR. Maybe just a blooper. But it is more than just a few zeros.
Why does this matter? It’s lazy journalism, bad editing, and is typical of the inflated hopium of the nuclear booster industry.
It’s perhaps telling that the only US politician the AFR quotes in support of nuclear is Vivek Ramaswamy – who shares conspiracy theories about 9/11, blames the recent Hawaii bush fires on “woke water” policies, and reckons Donald Trump has been the greatest US president of the 21st Century.
Ramaswamy, like the other seven Republican candidates in their primary debate this week, did not put his hand up when asked if he accepted climate science. “The climate change agenda is a hoax,” he added. Climate denial and nuclear boosterism often go hand in hand, because it is essentially about a delay to renewables.
Ramaswamy went further: “Unlock American energy, drill, frack, burn coal, embrace nuclear,” he declared. And this is the AFR’s go-to man in the US to push the nuclear argument.
Some might argue Ramaswamy’s “drill, frack and burn” mantra could be a fair summary of the AFR’s own view of the world. It’s not a view that is shared by the bulk of its business readers.
But neither is nuclear – it’s a marginal proposition at best. The Australian energy industry has looked its costs and decided no thanks, it’s too slow and too expensive. As the former head of the US nuclear regulatory commission observed, the drive for nuclear is – more than anything – about ideology.
Of course, the AFR is not the only source of misinformation in this new campaign for nuclear, nor is it the most egregious.
The rot starts at the top. The Coalition – which wants wind and solar stopped while we wait for SMRs – is not the least bit bothered by facts. Just one example: Coalition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said this week that Canada sources 60 per cent of its power from nuclear. Not true, it is 15 per cent, and falling.
The Murdoch media does its bit, of course, but it is the social media campaign against renewables and for nuclear that is more insidious, and more outrageous – with sometimes absurd claims about wind turbines (they can’t spin by themselves and have to be powered by coal) and solar doing the rounds.
That campaign, depressingly, has taken root – and little more can be expected from the sometimes toxic nature of social media channels, Sky after Dark and even the “mainstream” Murdoch publications. But should we expect better from the nation’s business daily?
Green light for nuclear ships, submarines in Tasmanian port
Perth Now, Dominic Giannini AAP, August 25, 2023
A Tasmanian port has been given the green light to host nuclear-powered vessels after being verified by the national safety agency.
A quarterly report by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency said staff completed work at the Hobart port to ensure it could host such vessels and respond in an emergency.
Staff also travelled to Western Australia for a visit by two US nuclear submarines………..
American and British nuclear submarines will begin more frequent rotations and visits through Australian ports as part of the alliance known as AUKUS.
Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation said on an “economic self-interest level” there was a strong case for Tasmania to shun nuclear submarines.
“It is known for its food, tourism and clean air, art and cultures – none of these are helped by elevated radioactive risk,” he said.
The City of Hobart council has previously expressed an anti-nuclear stance, with the lord mayor joining the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons………………
The Albanese government established the Australian Submarine Agency to oversee the nuclear submarine program from cradle to grave, including how nuclear waste was managed.
The Australian Conservation Foundation said the government had not yet adequately addressed the nuclear waste issue. https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/green-light-for-nuclear-ships-submarines-in-tas-port-c-11703346
Lauding Lise Meitner, Who Said ‘No’ to the Atomic Bomb
when Meitner was invited to work on the Manhattan Project, she responded, “I will have nothing to do with a bomb.”
The movie ‘Oppenheimer’ makes no mention of the co-discoverer of nuclear fission. But she would have wanted it that way.
BY OLIVIA CAMPBELL , 08.24.2023 https://undark.org/2023/08/24/lauding-lise-meitner-who-said-no-to-the-atomic-bomb/?utm_source=Undark%3A+News+%26+Updates&utm_campaign=ae4e66ce7b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5cee408d66-185e4e09de-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
THE FILM “OPPENHEIMER,” which tells the story of the Manhattan Project’s development of the atomic bomb, has made quite a splash this summer, with audiences and critics alike hailing it as a riveting slice of scientific history. But it also has some viewers asking: Where are the women? In the film, Lilli Hornig is the only woman scientist named and portrayed working on the project, though she was not the only one involved. Charlotte Serber, shown as project leader J. Robert Oppenheimer’s secretary, actually did far more. Some scholars argue that physicist Lise Meitner, co-discoverer of nuclear fission, should have been included. As a biographer of historical women scientists, I should be the first in line to decry the erasure or minimization of women’s contributions. But should women be written into stories merely for the sake of representation, without first considering the context and the person? Is this what they would have wanted?
In Meitner’s case, the answer is “no.” Her discovery may have been crucial to creating the atomic bomb, but she wanted nothing to do with it nor wanted to be depicted in films about it. And I believe Meitner’s refusal to participate in the weaponization of her work on moral grounds makes her more worthy of commemoration than Oppenheimer. She chose humanity over notoriety.
According to Ruth Lewin Sime’s detailed biography, “Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics,” Meitner was likely the first female professor in Germany and the head of physics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin. In 1934, she became so intrigued by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi bombarding elements with newly discovered particles called neutrons that she decided to do some tests of her own. After performing a few experiments, Meitner could tell that something exciting lay on the other side of her digging. She also knew she’d need an interdisciplinary team to properly conduct the research and interpret the results, so she recruited her chemist colleague Otto Hahn and later his assistant Fritz Strassmann. Little did she comprehend that they were on the cusp of upending the principles of nuclear physics.
Over the next four years, Meitner and her team spent their days irradiating various elements with neutrons and identifying the decay products. Meitner would use physics to explain the nuclear processes, and Hahn would conduct chemical analyses. In late 1938, Hahn and Strassmann discovered that neutron-bombarded uranium-235 samples seemed to contain barium — a much lighter element than expected, which the pair could not explain.
Meitner was headed toward the zenith of her career. But she had Jewish ancestry, so while making scientific history, she was also desperately searching for a way to make it out of Nazi Germany alive. With the help of a vast network of colleagues, she fled to Sweden in the summer of 1938. Meitner continued collaborating with colleagues via telephone, letters, and secret meetings for several months after her covert escape, but she would never move back to Germany.
In December 1938, Hahn wrote to Meitner about the puzzling barium results. This led Meitner and her nephew, nuclear physicist Otto Robert Frisch, into a discussion in which they calculated that bombarding uranium with neutrons could split the uranium atom’s nucleus in half, releasing 200 million electron volts of energy. Meitner and Frisch published their results in the scientific journal Nature on Feb. 11, 1939, proposing the process should be called “fission,” named after the biological term used to describe cell division. But Hahn and Strassmann published their own analysis in the journal Naturwissenschaften on Jan. 6. (And Hahn alone was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission.)
Within a few short months of the papers, dozens of physicists had confirmed the process: uranium-235 atoms absorbed loose neutrons, causing them to become unstable and split. The process, some thought, might prompt a chain reaction. If so, the fission of just one pound of uranium-235 would release the same amount of explosive energy as roughly 8,000 tons of TNT.
The potential practical applications were many, but Meitner refused to be a part of the weaponization of her work. She’d experienced the horrors of war up close during her stint as a nurse at a military hospital near the Russian front in World War I and didn’t want to be involved in the creation of something that would bring pain, suffering, and death. Few scientists refused to help their side create weapons during the war, yet when Meitner was invited to work on the Manhattan Project, she responded, “I will have nothing to do with a bomb.”
When Meitner heard the news of the bombing of Hiroshima, she went for a five-hour walk. What had her science wrought? Rumors flew about her role in the project, despite her clear lack of participation. The Stockholm Expressen newspaper surmised that the bomb had been invented because a Jewish scientist escaped Germany and passed her secrets along to the Allies. Time magazine proclaimed Meitner a “pioneer contributor to the atomic bomb.” But she knew nothing of its creation and deplored this sensationalized, largely false publicity.
In January 1946, Meitner traveled to the U.S. to present lectures and teach classes at several universities across the country, as well as visit old friends and family who had immigrated there when fleeing the Nazis. At the airport in New York, she was met with a horde of photographers and reporters. At a Women’s National Press Club banquet where she was awarded “Woman of the Year,” Meitner sat next to President Harry Truman. When discussing the bomb, both agreed they wished for it never to be used again.
And yes, there were movie offers. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer asked Meitner to approve of her depiction in the script for “The Beginning or the End,” a film about the development and use of the atomic bomb. Meitner wrote to Frisch that the script was “nonsense from the first word to the last” and that she “answered that it was against my innermost convictions to be shown in a film, and pointed out the errors in their story.” Oppenheimer, on the other hand, approved of the use of his likeness in the movie, apparently welcoming of the media attention.
MGM hoped a bigger payday might persuade Meitner to reconsider. In response, she gave three friends power of attorney and advised them to sue MGM on her behalf if any woman scientist appeared in the film. Meitner continued to refuse permission to use her name in films and plays.
Despite her work being corrupted to create death, Meitner never lost sight of the good that could come of the pursuit of scientific knowledge. “Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity,” she asserted in 1953. “It teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration, not to mention the deep joy and awe that the natural order of things brings to the true scientist.”
History loves to laud the Oppenheimers: the ones who push the envelope, who puzzle through conundrums in the face of challenges, and who say “yes.” Saying “no” — choosing not to participate — is much less cinematic. But in this case, I think a moral objection is much more worth celebrating.
#StepUp4Disarmament on International Day against Nuclear Tests
August 29: International Day Against Nuclear Tests
#StepUp4Disarmament – youth and young at heart
Right to Life without Nuclear Threats
August 29 Commemoration event at the UN in Geneva
| Nuclear Taboo from Norm to Law https://nofirstuse.global/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Nuclear-Taboo-from-Norm-to-Law-Declaration-plus-list-of-endorsers.pdf |
August 29 is the United Nations International Day Against Nuclear Tests. The day was established in 2009 to increase awareness “about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.” The day was proposed by the Republic of Kazakhstan, which continues to suffer from the 456 nuclear test explosions conducted by the Soviet government at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site in Eastern Kazakhstan. 29 August is the day when Kazakhstan closed down the test site in1991.
#StepUp4Disarmament – youth and young at heart
#StepUp4Disarmament is an action commemorating the day and coordinated by Youth Fusion, UN Youth 4Disarmament the government of Kazakhstan and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization.
Youth (and young at heart) are encouraged to complete a distance of 8.29 km (symbolising August 29) by running, walking, biking, wheelchair, skateboard or an equivalent human-powered means. Youth who register can receive a certificate recognising the effort. Everyone participating is encouraged to take photos and use the hashtag #StepUp4Disarmament when posting on social media. You can also download the design for a bib to wear.
| Right to Life without Nuclear Threats August 29 Commemoration event at the UN in Geneva |
Nuclear Taboo from Norm to Law
Invitation to endorse (if you have not already done so)
Ukraine Providing an Important Testing Ground For Space-Based Weapons
Covert Action Magazine, By Jeremy Kuzmarov, August 23, 2023
Weapons Straight Out of a Science Fiction Novel Have Not Been Able to Turn the Tide on the Battlefield
In his 1988 book War Stars: The Superweapon in the American Imagination, H. Bruce Franklin traces a deep-rooted cultural belief in the magic of futuristic weapon systems that would enable the U.S. to defeat any foreign adversary.
Franklin dates the infatuation to the era of the revolutionary war with the development of the combat submarine by Robert H. Fulton to pulverize the British Navy.
He in turn shows a direct line through World War I and World War II and the development of air power and the atomic bomb, through the Vietnam War where sophisticated U.S. war machines could not defeat the guerrilla warfare tactics of the Vietcong.
Franklin could easily include a new chapter on Ukraine, whose summer counteroffensive has fizzled despite the country’s function as a testing ground for new American weapon systems.
These include space-based satellites and sensors that have been used by the Ukrainians to track Russian troop movements and assist in navigation, mapping and electronic warfare, and positioning systems that guide precision weapons and drones.
A webinar in mid-July hosted by the War Industry Resistance Network placed the U.S. strategy in Ukraine in the context of a broader attempt by the U.S. to militarize space and use it to destroy its leading geopolitical rivals—Russia and China.
The first speaker, Dave Webb, a retired engineering and peace studies professor from England, emphasized that the 1991 Operation Desert Storm set the groundwork for Ukraine as the first space war in which the U.S. showed off new satellite and precision guided missiles that wound up devastating Iraq.
In 1997, the U.S. Space Command outlined its goal of obtaining full-spectrum military dominance over land, sea, air and space by the year 2020—which achieved partial fulfillment with the Trump administration’s creation in 2019 of a new Space Force as a branch of the U.S. military.
By 2024, the budget of the Space Force reached $30.3 billion, a 15% increase over 2023 and a doubling of the budget from 2020.
Congress has in a not so veiled way tried to legitimate these budget increases by holding hearings raising alarm about the threat of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO’s).
One in late July featured a former intelligence officer, David Grusch, who claimed that he faced retaliation at the Pentagon for his confidential disclosure that “non-human beings” had been retrieved from spacecraft.[1]
On August 11, the 75th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Squadron (ISRS) was activated at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado. It has been tasked with identifying and destroying or disrupting adversary satellites and ground-based lasers aimed at preventing the U.S. from using its own satellites during a conflict.
Space.com reported that the U.S. Space Force has conducted multiple training exercises to practice “live fire” satellite jamming [of Russian and Chinese space based satellites] and “simulated on-orbit combat training” as part of a growing commitment to space-based war.
The Space Force’s operations have been made possible by a $1.5 billion space surveillance radar center built by Lockheed Martin in an atoll in the Marshall Islands, which became operational in March 2020. The center now tracks more than 26,000 objects in space, some the size of a marble.
Additional surveillance centers have recently been built in Texas, Australia and Great Britain while Boeing is building a secret military space plane, the X-37B, which can carry out orbital space flight missions.
Webb ended his talk by noting that the spirit of a 1967 Outer Space Treaty that was designed to prevent the militarization of Outer Space is not being followed.
Space exploration is giving way to space exploitation and growing competition with Russia, which has developed its own space-based weapon systems in response to what the U.S. is doing.
The second speaker at the webinar, Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, pointed out that, for the last quarter century, Russia has presented its demand for a new cooperative space treaty before the United Nations but has been blocked by the U.S., Israel and a few of their allies.
The Russians have stated unequivocally, as have the Chinese, that they do not want to devote their countries’ resources to a destructive and fruitless arms race in space, though the U.S. believes it can be master in space and has been taken over totally by the military-industrial complex.
When the creation of the new Space Force came up for a vote in 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives supported it, though it had wanted to call it Space Corps.
………………………………………….Gagnon’s concern about the militarization of Outer Space began when he read a book by Linda Hunt called Secret Agenda, which detailed the CIA’s recruitment of Nazi scientists under Operation Paperclip who helped found the U.S. space program.
Chief among them was Wernher von Braun, who had helped develop the V-2 rocket in Germany using slave labor.
Gagnon said he finds it chilling that the U.S. Space Force carries out yearly war-game exercises where they simulate fighting using space-based weapons right out of science fiction novels. Among these is the “Rod from God,” a weapon in which tungsten steel rods are fired from orbiting satellites, smacking the Earth from the sky as if sent by God.
Right now, Gagnon says, we are living through a Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse as the U.S. has pointed nuclear weapons directly at Russia from a U.S. military base in Deveselu, Romania, and another in Redzikowo, Poland off the Baltic Sea.
The U.S. goal is to break up Russia as it did Yugoslavia in the 1990s because Russia is the world’s largest resource base and threatens the ability of the U.S. to extract resources from the Arctic unencumbered.
Along with World War III, the current U.S. space strategy is threatening to unleash a major environmental catastrophe as space-based satellites and weapons are leaving debris that cannot be cleaned up.
According to Gagnon, exhaust from escalating numbers of rocket launches is diminishing the ozone layer, and the growing space debris could even cause the Earth to go dark as collisions become more likely………………….. more https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/08/23/ukraine-providing-an-important-testing-ground-for-space-based-weapons/
All the way with Anthony A – Labor locks in AUKUS support despite union opposition
by Zacharias Szumer | Aug 19, 2023
The Labor Government’s continuation of the Morrison-era AUKUS agreement, and a $350 billion spend on nuclear-powered submarines, was expected to be the most contentious issue at the Labor conference this week. After a minor scuffle, the PM emerged victorious. Zacharias Szumer reports.
Going into the conference, the way AUKUS debates would proceed still seemed a partially open question. Most presumed backroom deals would minimise any open conflict, but there was still a few unknowns.
As it played out, delegates were only able to vote on whether those submarines should be nuclear, and after the Government’s side prevailed, another motion that proposed removing all references to AUKUS from the platform was shelved.
In the end, debate over AUKUS came down to two different amendments.
The first was a proposal for a 1,300-word pro-AUKUS “statement in detail” to be added to that party’s platform, which was brought by Defence Minister Richard Marles and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy.
The other – brought forward by Electrical Trades Union (ETU) national secretary Michael Wright and supported by Member for Fremantle Josh Wilson – was essentially that statement with all references to nuclear technology taken out.
One proposed amendment was:
“Making our contribution to the collective security of our region … is at the heart of Australia’s strategic intent behind acquiring a conventionally-armed, modern and fit for purpose nuclear-powered submarine capability.”
And another:
“Labor will ensure that the nuclear-powered submarine program will deliver secure, well-paid unionised jobs…”
There’s plenty more for those interested in plumbing the depths. They can read the entirety of the amendments here and here.
After a day and a half of largely frictionless procedure, the AUKUS debate saw not just the first moment of open conflict, but the first animated audience participation of conference proceedings.
Marles’ received a strong round of applause from delegates when moving to the lectern to make his opening statement, but was met with boos from some as soon as he mentioned the word “nuclear.”
The obligatory Curtin references
Marles said AUKUS followed in the footsteps of WWII Labor prime minister John Curtin, who “made the decisions which gave Australia its independence.”
“This isn’t giving us independence … It’s tying us to the US,” shouted a voice from the stands………………………………………..
Rank and file opposition to AUKUS
With that motion carried, it was declared that the conference wouldn’t hear a third amendment that would remove all reference to AUKUS from the party’s platform. That motion was brought by NSW Legislative Council member Anthony D’Adam, who told MWM that the outcome was “predictable” but still “disappointing.”
Nevertheless, he said forcing AUKUS onto the agenda “was a victory for the rank and file.”
Around 50 of Labor’s roughly 800 branches have passed broad anti-AUKUS motions, and two former federal senators, Doug Cameron and Margaret Reynolds, have signed on as the founding patrons of Labor Against War (LAW).
National convenor of LAW Marcus Strom told MWM that it was only a “partial victory” for his group because “what we’re having is a partial debate.”
In addition to not hearing the stridently anti-AUKUS motion, the party also reportedly knocked back an application from LAW to hold a stall and event at the conference fringe, which hosted a series of panel discussions on the sidelines of the main proceedings.
However, Strom said that the anti-nuclear proposal received support from “a broad coalition, and it’s something to build on.”
Around 50 of Labor’s roughly 800 branches have passed broad anti-AUKUS motions, and two former federal senators, Doug Cameron and Margaret Reynolds, have signed on as the founding patrons of Labor Against War (LAW).
National convenor of LAW Marcus Strom told MWM that it was only a “partial victory” for his group because “what we’re having is a partial debate.”
In addition to not hearing the stridently anti-AUKUS motion, the party also reportedly knocked back an application from LAW to hold a stall and event at the conference fringe, which hosted a series of panel discussions on the sidelines of the main proceedings.
However, Strom said that the anti-nuclear proposal received support from “a broad coalition, and it’s something to build on.”………………………………………………
MWM reached out to Marles’ office on Friday afternoon to discuss the merits of Marles’ approach but didn’t receive a reply.
Fukushima waste-water decision disregards scientific evidence, violates the human rights of Pacific region communities
Japan announces date for Fukushima radioactive water release
Greenpeace International, 22 August 2023 https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/61364/japan-announces-date-for-fukushima-radioactive-water-release/
Tokyo – Greenpeace Japan criticises the Japanese government’s announcement of the start date for radioactive water discharges from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station into the Pacific Ocean.
The decision disregards scientific evidence, violates the human rights of communities in Japan and the Pacific region, and is non-compliant with international maritime law. More importantly it ignores its people’s concerns, including fishermen. The Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) – the nuclear power plants’ operators – falsely assert that there is no alternative to the decision to discharge and that it is necessary to move towards final decommissioning. This further highlights the failure of the decommissioning plan for the nuclear plants destroyed in the 2011 earthquake, stating that tens of thousands of tons of contaminated water will continue to increase with no effective solution.
“We are deeply disappointed and outraged by the Japanese Government’s announcement to release water containing radioactive substances into the ocean. Despite concerns raised by fishermen, citizens, Fukushima residents, and the international community, especially in the Pacific region and neighboring countries, this decision has been made,” said Hisayo Takada, Project Manager at Greenpeace Japan.
The increasing volumes of and the pending release of the radioactive water demonstrate the failure of the decommissioning plan for the Fukushima Daiichi. The contaminated water will continue to accumulate for many years without effective measures to stop it. The Japanese Government and TEPCO falsely claim that discharge is the only viable option necessary for eventual decommissioning. Nuclear power generation, which experiences shutdowns due to accidents and natural disasters, and perpetually requires thermal power as a backup, cannot serve as a solution to global warming.
“The deliberate pollution of the Pacific Ocean through these radioactive waste discharges is a consequence of the 2011 nuclear disaster and Japan’s decades long nuclear power program. Instead of acknowledging the flaws in the current decommissioning plan, the ongoing nuclear crisis, and the massive amount of public funds required, the Japanese government intends to restart more nuclear reactors despite evidence of major earthquakes and safety risks. The current government energy plan fails to deliver secure and sustainable renewables such as wind and solar energy that the climate emergency demands,” said Takada.
As of 8 June 2023, there were 1,335,381 cubic meters of radioactive wastewater stored in tanks[1], but due to the failure of the ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) processing technology, approximately 70% of this water will have to be processed again. Scientists have warned that the radiological risks from the discharges have not been fully assessed, and the biological impacts of tritium, carbon-14, strontium-90 and iodine-129, which will be released in the discharges, have been ignored.[2]
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) endorsed Japan’s plans for discharge. However, the IAEA has failed to investigate the operation of the ALPS, has completely ignored the highly radioactive fuel debris that melted down which continues every day to contaminate ground water – nearly 1000 cubic meters every ten days. Furthermore, the discharge plan has failed to conduct a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment, as required by its international legal obligations, given that there is a risk of significant transboundary harm to neighboring countries. The IAEA is not tasked with protecting the global marine environment but it should not encourage a state to violate it.
“The myth is being perpetuated that discharges are necessary for decommissioning. But the Japanese government itself admits that there is sufficient water storage space in Fukushima Daiichi.[3] Long-term storage would expose the current government decommissioning roadmap as flawed, but that is exactly what needs to happen. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station is still in crisis, posing unique and severe hazards, and there is no credible plan for its decommissioning,” emphasized Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia.
Member states at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, as well as UN Special Rapporteurs, have opposed and criticized Japan’s discharge plans.[4] Japan’s discharge plans also disregard the groundbreaking Human Rights Council resolution 48/13, which in 2021 determined that it is a human right to have a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.[5] Furthermore, Japan has failed to comply with its legal obligations under the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to protect the marine environment including its legal requirement to conduct a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment into the discharges into the Pacific Ocean, given the risk of significant transboundary harm to neighboring countries.[6]
“Instead of engaging in an honest debate about this reality, the Japanese government has opted for a false solution – decades of deliberate radioactive pollution of the marine environment – during a time when the world’s oceans are already facing immense stress and pressures. This is an outrage that violates the human rights of the people and communities of Fukushima, and other neighboring prefectures and the wider Asia-Pacific region,” said Burnie.
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station is still continuing to release radioactive materials
A new argument for considering the issue of contaminated ALPS water release .
This brief examines the amount of radioactive material that has been
leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station ever since the
meltdowns occurred more than 12 years ago.
It is huge. Both TEPCO and the
government are undoubtedly aware of this reality. Despite this, they are
now attempting to release even the radioactive materials they have been
able to manage in tanks to the outside world. While attention focuses on
this release, this brief attempts to highlight the even larger problems of
Fukushima Daiichi and the irresponsible way the authorities are dealing
with them.
CNIC 23rd Aug 2023
The nuclear lobby is gearing up for a takeover of COP 28
The various nuclear front groups are organising to have a prominent role in promoting nuclear as the cure for global heating. What a lie! Surrounded by packs of lies – the most glaring being their pretense of being “not for profit” organisations.
By all possible means – academic lectures, art and culture, displays – whatever – they will be allout to control the propaganda emanating from the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Of course, the nuclear industry might be expected to get strong competition from the oil industry, seeing that COP28 will be held in the United Arab Emirates, (Thu, 30 Nov 2023 – Tue, 12 Dec 2023)
Still, these two unrelenting propagandising, and polluting industries, will probably work together.
The one voice that’s sure to be excluded is the voice of degrowth, conserving energy, cutting down on consumerism.
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 