CIA Reportedly Considered Kidnapping, Assassinating Julian Assange
CIA Reportedly Considered Kidnapping, Assassinating Julian Assange
Mike Pompeo was apparently motivated to get even with Wikileaks following its publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/cia-julian-assange-kidnap-assasinate-1232546/
ByWILLIAM VAILLANCOUR The CIA reportedly plotted to kidnap Julian Assange, and some senior officials in the agency and the Trump administration allegedly went so far as to consider options for how to assassinate the WikiLeaks founder, Yahoo! Newsreported Sunday.
According to the report, then-director Mike Pompeo was apparently motivated to get even with Wikileaks following its publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools, which the agency found to be “the largest data loss in CIA history.”
Pompeo and others “were completely detached from reality because they were so embarrassed about Vault 7,” according to a former Trump national security official, referring to the document dump. “They were seeing blood.”
Additional CIA plans allegedly included “extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices.”
The report, based on conversations with more than 30 former officials, notes that the CIA’s plans for Assange reportedly led to strenuous debates regarding their legality. Some administration officials were so concerned that they felt the need to tell members of Congress about Pompeo’s suggestions.
Assange is currently imprisoned in London as courts weigh a U.S. request to extradite him.
Submarine shift puts thousands of jobs at risk: unions
Submarine shift puts thousands of jobs at risk: unions, The Age, By Anthony Galloway, September 28, 2021 The nation’s peak union body has lashed the federal government’s decision to dump a $90 billion submarine contract with France and instead build a nuclear-propelled fleet, warning it has put thousands of jobs at risk.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions said the new AUKUS agreement with the United States and Britain robbed Australia’s shipbuilding and manufacturing communities of “decent jobs for generations to come”.
The position puts the union movement at odds with federal Labor, which has largely backed the move despite raising some concerns about Australia compromising its sovereignty.
In a letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, ACTU assistant secretary Scott Connolly and Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union assistant national secretary Glenn Thompson said the announcement of the agreement earlier this month “understated both the challenge and scale of change required”.
They also raised concerns the arrangement with the US and Britain lacked “the Australian content commitments of the previous contract” with France.
The agreement with French company Naval Group included an agreement that work worth at least 60 per cent of the contract’s value would be done in Australia. The new arrangement is unlikely to involve as much local work because the nuclear-enriched reactors will arrive fully built.
American defence giant Lockheed Martin, which was to have built the combat systems for the French submarines, has already issued termination letters to its subcontractors…….
“We are disappointed with the ‘abrupt and brutal’ termination of Naval Group Australia’s (NGA) contract with the government, which has put thousands of jobs at risk. This decision is an ‘act of betrayal’ and robs Australia’s shipbuilding and manufacturing communities of decent jobs for generations to come,” Mr Connolly and Mr Thompson said……
They said there was an “alarming” lack of detail available about the new arrangement and its impact on the naval shipbuilding workforce and industry.
The union leaders called on Mr Morrison to immediately consult with them on a “strategy to make sure we do not outsource the nation’s defence capability at the expense of Australian shipbuilding manufacturing jobs”……… https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/submarine-shift-puts-thousands-of-jobs-at-risk-unions-20210927-p58uzu.html
AUKUS and the nuclear submarines will have economic effects on Australia, and big defence spending.
Neglected in the flush of enthusiasm that accompanied the AUKUS announcement is the likely cost of Australia’s new defence spending under a “China containment policy”.
New drives to counter China come with a major risk: throwing fuel on the Indo-Pacific arms race SMH, Tony Walker Tony Walker is a Friend of The Conversation.Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe UniversitySeptember 27, 2021 “……………….. Australian defence spending likely to rise
What is absolutely certain in all of this is that an Indo-Pacific security environment will now become more, not less, contentious.
SIPRI notes that in 2020, military spending in Asia totalled $US528 billion (A$725 billion), 62% of which was attributable to China and India.
IISS singled out Japan and Australia, in particular, as countries that were increasing defence spending to take account of China. Tokyo, for example, is budgeting for record spending of $US50 billion (A$68 billion) for 2022-23.
Australia’s defence spending stands a tick over 2% of GDP in 2021-22 at A$44.6 billion, with plans for further increases in the forward estimates.
However, those projections will now have to be re-worked given the commitments that have been made under AUKUS.
Neglected in the flush of enthusiasm that accompanied the AUKUS announcement is the likely cost of Australia’s new defence spending under a “China containment policy”. It is hard to see these commitments being realised without significant increases in defence allocations to 3-4% of GDP.
This comes at a time when budgets will already be stretched due to relief spending as a consequence of the pandemic.
In addition to existing weapons acquisitions, Canberra has indicated it will ramp up its purchases of longer-range weapons. This includes Tomahawk cruise missiles for its warships and anti-ship missiles for its fighter aircraft.
At the same time, it will work with the US under the AUKUS arrangement to develop hypersonic missiles that would test even the most sophisticated defence systems……………
The price tag for this in terms of equipment and likely continuing economic fallout for Australian exporters will not come cheap. ………….. https://theconversation.com/new-drives-to-counter-china-come-with-a-major-risk-throwing-fuel-on-the-indo-pacific-arms-race-168734
Australia’s Nuclear-Sub Shakeup Hits Shipbuilding Supply Chain
Australia’s Nuclear-Sub Shakeup Hits Shipbuilding Supply Chain, The Maritim Executive By Charlie Turner] 27 Sept 21,
The abrupt announcement by the Australian government that it was scrapping its plans to build a fleet of diesel-electric submarines in favor of nuclear-powered boats will have a ripple effect throughout the defense industry. The sunk cost of five years’ work and $1.7 billion has inflicted greater damage on domestic relations than on bilateral relations with the French government—it has broken the trust between defense leaders and Australian industry………
Industry bodies and lobby groups in Team Defence Australia, the Industry Capability Network and the Australian Industry & Defence Network have spent the past five years encouraging companies to invest time and resources to expand or set up a capability to service the submarine program. There have been multiple government-supported trips to Europe inviting Australian companies, at their own expense, to interact within the supply chain to develop relationships and encourage the coveted ‘knowledge sharing’ between French and Australian companies necessary to find success in such a technology leap. Follow-on trips and other efforts have been undertaken in the development of relationships and strategies centered around the program.
Those investments are a sunk cost for the Australian businesses that provide the critical operational services to support Australia’s defense capability.
Crucially, a significant number of Australian companies investing in these initiatives were small and medium enterprises that wouldn’t hold contracts directly with the defense organization but rather with the large prime contractors. They have no claim for losses—and it’s unlikely that the multinational primes will miss out on any penalty clauses contained in their contracts’ cancellation terms.
The repercussions of these actions will have long-lasting implications for the new program, in whatever form it takes. Initial indications are for a reduction in Australian industry content by 30 percent, down to 40 percent of the total build of the new submarines from the 60 percent under Naval Group. The absence of a commitment to 12 submarines under the AUKUS pact (the statement that there will be ‘at least eight’ is suitably vague) further reduces the market by another 30 percent.
With the Attack-class submarine program failing to survive a change in government leadership, how much confidence can industry maintain for investment when the new program has now apparently bypassed the strategic and political discussions about the requirement for nuclear-powered vessels?
Notably, the current and previous two prime ministers have had different preferred submarine suppliers despite being from the same political party. In the context of a change in government, the opposing major political parties have previously maintained a resolute opposition to any nuclear energy in Australia, and while Labor says it supports the new plan (with conditions), it will potentially be put in jeopardy at each federal election.
The AUKUS announcement gave an 18-month period for the examination of requirements for nuclear stewardship………..
Public discussion on the practical and political ramifications of a nuclear-propulsion solution within the country, our region and globally is the next step. Finally, continued bipartisan support for the program, in its latest form, will be required to avoid another calamity following an election or leadership spill. https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/australia-s-nuclear-sub-shakeup-hits-shipbuilding-supply-chain
No quick fix. Reducing demand is the key to energy supply.
Let’s hope that in the final weeks before vital international climate talks in Glasgow our political leaders show that, although there can be no quick fixes to this crisis, they’ve finally understood the way through.
Only by reducing demand will gas supply no longer be an issue For the electricity the UK will certainly need, we need to rapidly ramp up the rollout of renewable energy projects https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/gas-prices-energy-climate-crisis-b1927213.ht
Doug Parr , 27 Sep 21 As the effect of the gas price shock starts to seep into the lives of ordinary people over the coming weeks and months – causing bills to rise, energy suppliers to go bust and supermarket shelves to empty – many will be left wondering how the government could have allowed this to happen.
While it is true that a global surge in demand, coupled with geopolitical games and electricity supply issues in the UK have resulted in a squeeze on supply and subsequent price hike, this is only half the story.
What ministers are failing to talk about as they reassure us that they do “not expect” supplies to run out this winter, is that it is not supply but the UK’s dependency on gas, and the failure of successive governments to wean us off the stuff years ago, that has left the UK dangerously exposed.
Continue readingTexas sues federal government to block nuclear waste facility along New Mexico border
Texas sues federal government to block nuclear waste facility along New Mexico border, Adrian Hedden, Carlsbad Current-Argus, 27 Sept 21, A lawsuit filed by the State of Texas last week stated a proposal to build a storage facility for nuclear waste in the state “unlawful” and called on a federal appeals court to vacate a federal license issued for the project earlier this month..
Interim Storage Partners (ISP) received the license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods in Andrews, Texas along the state’s western border to New Mexico.
The project, an expansion of the company’s facility in Andrews that holds low-level waste, would ultimately hold up to 40,000 metric tons of the high-level waste temporarily until a permanent repository is available.
There is presently no permanent holding place for the waste and critics of the project feared it could become a “de facto” permanent resting place for the waste.
The lawsuit filed Sept. 23 by Abbott and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals demanded the court review and ultimately vacate the license.
“Petitioners pray that, upon review, the Court will hold unlawful and set aside the order issuing Materials License No. SNM-2515 and vacate the License,” the lawsuit read……………….. https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2021/09/27/texas-sues-block-nuclear-waste-facility-along-new-mexico-border/5883388001/
We’re faffing about here in Australia’: Calls for further climate action aheadof Glasgow conference
We’re faffing about here in Australia’: Calls for further climate action ahead of Glasgow conference
Advocates for action on climate change urge further commitments to reduce Australia’s emissions ahead of the UN COP26 conference in a month’s time, with warnings investors could move their cash elsewhere.
Climate change to loom large in talks to form new German government
Climate change to loom large in talks to form new German government
Strong results for green and liberal parties mean climate and energy policies are expected to feature heavily in upcoming coalition talks.
September 27 Energy News — geoharvey
World: ¶ “Vanuatu Will Seek International Court Of Justice Opinion On Climate Protection” • The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu wants the International Court of Justice to weigh in on the rights of the nation’s current and future residents to protection from climate change. Vanuatu is the home of nearly 250,000 residents, all threatened by […]
September 27 Energy News — geoharvey
Much posturing, but little content, on how AUKUS, and the nuclear submarines, will work
what does not make sense is a decision which, in essence, announces you are going to have a glorified interdepartmental committee look at whether it will actually work (the only missing ingredient from the Prime Minister’s usual modus operandi is mention of his department head Phil Gaetjens).
There are no details on just how this new alliance will work, but vast quantities of posturing, which is presumably designed to show the Chinese that we mean business.
However, a government desperate to avoid a referendum on pandemic management — and now threatened by challenges from independent candidates in blue-ribbon seats such as Kooyong and Wentworth over its inaction on climate change —— desperately needs something else to talk about.
Scott Morrison’s AUKUS submarine deal and ‘BFF theatre’ leaves Australia in a tricky spot, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-25/missing-details-on-australia-uk-us-submarine-deal/1004905647.30 / By Laura Tingle Sat 25 Sep 2021 The federal Coalition have always been keen advocates of contracting things out.
It started in the Howard years, when the delivery of services was contracted out and, over the intervening years, spread to contracting out policy advice — from the public service to richly rewarded consultants who sometimes produce little more than vacuous PowerPoint presentations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the current government is willing to contract out responsibility for things such as quarantine, vaccines and vaccine-mandating rules to the states.
But who would ever have thought it would contract out our national security and defence strategy?
For, in a nutshell, that’s what has happened in the past week with the decision to embrace a new alliance with our old allies and “forever” friends, based on the decision to buy an (unspecified) nuclear submarine that will not go into service until 2040.
Capability gap
There is a vast amount to unpack in this decision, even amid a sense that, by the end of the week, the political caravan was moving on to climate change.
It is hard to think of a decision by Australia with such profound implications for our future that has been so redolent of symbolism, yet so completely lacking in substance.
A decision driven so much by valid concerns about defence capability, that leaves us so exposed as to not having any of that capability for the next 20 years — the time period when the power balance in our region is going to be decided.
In short, a massive strategic step-up announced to cover a massive capability gap.
The majority view in the political and strategic establishment in Australia says the strategic position has fundamentally shifted in the past five years and continues to rapidly evolve.
China’s capacity to scan the oceans, as well as both its military firepower and assertiveness, have all grown exponentially.
And most think that makes nuclear submarines, rather than conventionally powered ones, a rational decision.
It might also make sense to ramp-up your armaments — such as long-range Tomahawk Cruise Missiles — and talk of more US troops, planes and ships, and even British submarines, being based in Australia.
Looking to the US
However, what does not make sense is a decision which, in essence, announces you are going to have a glorified interdepartmental committee look at whether it will actually work (the only missing ingredient from the Prime Minister’s usual modus operandi is mention of his department head Phil Gaetjens).
There are no details on just how this new alliance will work, but vast quantities of posturing, which is presumably designed to show the Chinese that we mean business.
Things such as getting all our spooks to go to Washington this week.
Things such as emphasising the so-called Quad arrangement between the US, Australia, India and Japan, which makes it look like we have even more friends on our side.
Yet, when the Prime Minister holds a press conference in Washington DC ahead of the Quad meetings, what do you say it is about? Vaccines and energy policy.
No mention of China or strategic alliances here. And that sort of makes sense, given the constraints on Japanese military action, and that India has a very different take on Chinese issues to the Americans.
The implication in all this announcing is that the Americans are now committing to the region. That we can rely on Dad to sort out China for us.
All the talk of the new Cold War in the East raises obvious comparisons with the one in the West that occurred last century — and possibly even the crucial role the US played in Europe at that time.
Enduring questions
However, even among the more hawkish analysts, there is a gnawing question of how we (Australia) actually hold the feet of the Americans — and the British with their splendid history of reliable commitment to Asia and Australia in the 20th century — to the fire if things do indeed escalate with China.
And how do we now, on a day-to-day basis, differentiate ourselves from the US position on China when we have made so much not just of our operational dependence, but also of the whole “BFF theatre”?
This goes to questions of sovereign capability. That is, our capacity to run our own strategic policy, both in an operational sense and a diplomatic one.
Labor has backed the government’s decision on nuclear submarines with three caveats.
However, its foreign affairs spokesperson, Penny Wong, asked some valid questions on the point of sovereign capability in a speech on Thursday, such as: “How will we control the use of technology and capability that is not ours?”
“With the prospect of a higher level of technological dependence on the US, how does the Morrison-Joyce government assure Australians that we can act alone when need be; that we have the autonomy to defend ourselves, however and whenever we need to,” she said.
The alacrity and misrepresentation of Wong’s remarks by the Prime Minister in response only added to the suspicion that there is just a tad too much politics in the way this momentous dogleg in the country’s strategic position has been undertaken.
“Well, I think Australians would be puzzled as to why there can be bipartisan support for this initiative in the United States and within days, within days, the Labor Party seems to be having an each-way bet,” he said.
You can see why Labor has chosen to just stay as far away from this issue as it can, within the constraints of a responsibility to set out some reasonable questions about strategy, rather than nuclear submarines per se.
It is determined not to get wedged as it once was on Tampa.
The fallout
Labor’s determination not to get wedged may have taken away some of the political dividends of this huge shift, as has the debacle over informing the French of the decision, which has embarrassed not just Australia but the US.
And, of course, the Prime Minister’s ever-changing descriptions of how he had informed France’s Emmanuel Macron that he was tearing up a multi-billion dollar contract has been, well, just embarrassing.
“What I said was, is that I made direct contact with him,” he said in Washington on Thursday.
Having been unable to get Macron on the phone the night before the announcement, he said he “directly messaged him Australia’s decision in a personal correspondence”.
Australia dumped France, it appears, in a text message: A modus operandi more usually associated with 14-year-olds.
The nuclear subs decision may have all sorts of ramifications, from halting negotiations on a European Free Trade Agreement to entertaining prospects for cooperation between the US and China on climate change.
Its complexities are not best teased out in the lead-up to an election.
However, a government desperate to avoid a referendum on pandemic management — and now threatened by challenges from independent candidates in blue-ribbon seats such as Kooyong and Wentworth over its inaction on climate change — desperately needs something else to talk about.
How AUKUS May Damage NATO
How AUKUS May Damage NATO https://www.pressenza.com/2021/09/how-aukus-may-damage-nato/ 24.09.21 – US, United States – Independent Media Institute The fallout over the AUKUS deal, as we are now seeing, has been a severe rift in relations between two historic allies, the U.S. and France. And the collateral damage may also include NATO.
By James W. Carden
Only weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden courageously ended the war in Afghanistan—in the face of bitter opposition from the media and Congress—came the announcement of the formation of AUKUS, a new trilateral security alliance between the U.S., the UK and Australia.
The creation of AUKUS is only further confirmation—as if more was needed—that the Biden administration intends to wage a new cold war in Asia with China as its target.
This is not a development we should welcome. As the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’s Anatol Lieven has recently observed, a new cold war “with China… will continue to lock in place the power of the U.S. military-industrial complex and squander trillions more on wasteful and unnecessary military programs designed to benefit American corporations rather than defend the actual security of actual American citizens.”
And so, as Biden puts an end to one hot war, he finds himself starting yet another cold war: One step forward, two steps back.
AUKUS’s debut has been marred by a high-profile controversy with France, which believed it had reached a deal with Australia to provide it with 12 diesel-electric submarines. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, meanwhile, noted in a statement that, instead, the Americans and the British will be providing Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
European leaders have come out strongly against AUKUS. Both European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the move. And the French are furious. French President Emmanuel Macron has recalled his ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia, while the former French Ambassador to the U.S. Gérard Araud observed on Twitter, “The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.”
And so, the fallout over the AUKUS deal, as we are now seeing, has been a severe rift in relations between two historic allies, the U.S. and France.
And the collateral damage may also include NATO.
The AUKUS controversy puts the future of the transatlantic alliance in question. Recall that Macron has long been a vocal and perceptive critic of the nearly 75-year-old alliance. A self-described disciple of France’s wartime leader and former President Charles de Gaulle, Macron has criticized the foreign policy of his immediate predecessors as a kind of “imported neoconservatism.” His own foreign policy forays can be characterized as a quest for strategic autonomy, away from the dictates of Washington and London.
Biden’s AUKUS debacle just may give Macron the leverage he needs to move the rest of Europe in his direction, toward a foreign policy that rejects the decades-old Atlanticist consensus in favor of a continental security architecture that takes into account the interests of all of Europe, as de Gaulle once put it, “from the Atlantic to the Urals.”
At a minimum, the AUKUS debacle may have the effect of pushing France closer together with its old ally Russia. Macron may double down on his policy of detente with the Kremlin, which only recently was the target of criticism by his partners in the EU.
This would leave Anglo-American neoconservatives and liberal hawks seething, but such a development might be just what is needed for a stable and peaceful future for Europe.
This article was produced by Globetrotter in partnership with the American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord. James W. Carden is a writing fellow at Globetrotter and a former adviser to the U.S. State Department. Previously, he was a contributing writer on foreign affairs at the Nation, and his work has also appeared in the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft, the American Conservative, Asia Times, and more.
Maralinga – ushered in Australia’s nuclear age
A picture in time: Maralinga, the blinding flash that ushered in Australia’s atomic age. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/27/a-picture-in-time-maralinga-when-the-atomic-age-reached-australia
Nuclear tests conducted in South Australia from 1956 resulted in swaths of countryside obliterated and decades of highly contaminated land.
The atomic age reached Maralinga with a blinding flash. At 5pm on 27 September 1956, a 15-kilotonne atomic device was detonated at the site in the western plains of South Australia.
The ensuing blast had as much explosive strength as the weapon which fell on Hiroshima 11 years earlier.
More than a decade after that horror struck Japan, Australia had become tangled up in the UK’s nuclear testing program, which saw swaths of countryside obliterated to further the nuclear arms race.
The atomic test at Maralinga was carried out by the British government as part of Operation Buffalo, run by the UK’s Atomic Weapons Research establishment.
In the moments after the detonation, RAAF personnel flew through the mushroom cloud to carry out tests with little instruction or protective equipment to shield them from the radiation.
For the next seven years, major and minor nuclear tests were carried out at Maralinga. The minor tests led to contamination of the area with plutonium-239, which has a radioactive half-life of 24,000 years.
Prior to the test, very little effort was put into finding and notifying the Anangu Pitjantjatjara people who lived on the land. In addition to the obvious immediate dangers of nuclear fallout in the area, the Indigenous community would endure the long term hazards of poisoned land and water for more than thirty years.
Maralinga was not the first nuclear weapons test conducted on Australian soil. Three years earlier, on 3 October 1952, Britain detonated a nuclear weapon on the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia.
A further two detonations were carried out at Emu Field. Britain moved the testing site to Maralinga after previous locations were deemed to be too remote for nuclear weapons tests.
When Maralinga was eventually closed as a testing site in 1967, the British government began the process of cleaning the 3,200 sq km of contaminated land.
By 1968, the Australian and British governments agreed that Britain has successfully decontaminated the area by covering contaminated debris in concrete and ploughing the plutonium-laden soil into the ground.
In 1984, as the land was slated to be returned to the Tjarutja people, scientists found the land was still highly contaminated.
Nine years later, in 1993, following a royal commission, and after mounting pressure, the British government agreed to pay a portion of the estimated $101m cleanup cost.
It wasn’t until 1994, 38 years after the initial blast, that the Australian government paid $13.5m to the Indigenous people of Maralinga as compensation for what had been done to the land.
No nuclear submarines, say protesters
No nuclear submarines, say protesters https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/no-nuclear-submarines-say-protestersRenfrey ClarkeAdelaideSeptember 27, 2021 A protest on September 24 against the federal government’s decision to build nuclear-powered submarines and join in the new AUKUS pact drew 150 people to the front of Parliament House.
It was organised by a new network of anti-war, anti-nuclear and left activists. Speakers included Arabunna elder Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, Stephen Darley of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network; economist and Greens Senate candidate Barbara Pocock; and Friends of the Earth anti-nuclear spokesperson Jim Green.
AUKUS and talk of conflict with China could torpedo COP26 climate summit
What role will Australia play in Glasgow? Will we go in good faith, promising bold action on climate change and preparedness to help our neighbouring countries in mitigation and adaptation, in recognition of our shared interests, or will we go as a spoiler?
History suggests the latter —
U.S.-China talk could torpedo climate conference https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/us-china-talk-could-torpedo-climate-conference,15558 By Graeme McLeay | 26 September 2021 If the focus favours an uncertain future threat of U.S.-China conflict when world leaders meet in six weeks to address the real danger of climate emergency at COP26, the summit will likely fail, writes Dr Graeme McLeay.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
WHEN “IKE” spoke those words in his 1961 valedictory speech as U.S. President, he would not have dreamt that Australia, 60 years later, would become part of the military-industrial complex of the United States. As someone who understood the horrors of war, he understood the dangers of an arms race while at the same time acknowledging the need for defence at a time when America faced a belligerent adversary. He was cautious.
No such caution is evident in Canberra. In the space of a few days, we have been told we are to have nuclear-powered submarines, a larger presence of American armed forces based in Australia and missiles – presumably of the intercontinental variety – if all the China-talk is to be believed.
The very idea of Australia getting into an arms race with China is risible and preposterous. It will take at least 20 years for Australia to have something like the military capability that China has now and the massive spending involved will impoverish the next generation.
We have not been told whether our neighbours in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Singapore, India and the Pacific Islands have been consulted about the AUKUS deal, which brings a whiff of colonialism about it. New Zealand was quick to make it clear nuclear-powered subs will not be welcome there. It is likely they will also not be welcome in Port Adelaide.
The $90 billion French submarine deal is to be scrapped and bigger, more capable, and almost certainly, more expensive submarines will be built in Adelaide. An uncertain future threat of U.S.-China conflict is the justification for this 20-year program — about the time the world will have tipped into runaway, unstoppable climate change if the world’s present emissions trajectory continues.
In six weeks, world leaders come together in Glasgow to address the existential threat of climate emergency. As the war drums beat louder it appears unlikely they will meet in a spirit of cooperation and harmony. Without both China and the United States on board, there is the possibility of a disastrous failure, much worse than the Copenhagen fiasco because the urgency for action is so much greater.
Climate change and conflict are not unrelated. In a recent report from the Climate Council, ‘Rising to the Challenge: Addressing Climate and Security in Our Region’, authors describe climate change as a driver of insecurity.
Conflicts will arise over water, rising seas, salination, fisheries and crop failures. India, Pakistan and China – not always the best of pals – rely on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers for the survival of millions and internal conflicts over water have the potential to trigger war among neighbours which could drag the United States in, and Australia with it.
Much of Bangladesh, a country with a population of 166 million, is low lying and already experiencing inundation and salination from sea level rise. Food shortages are almost certain to occur when climate-related crop failures happen in multiple regions at the same time.
According to Climate Council spokeswoman and former Australian Defence Department Head of Defence Preparedness Cheryl Durrant:
‘Australia’s unwillingness to deal with climate change is already affecting our security, leading to a loss of geopolitical influence, particularly in the Pacific.’
What role will Australia play in Glasgow? Will we go in good faith, promising bold action on climate change and preparedness to help our neighbouring countries in mitigation and adaptation, in recognition of our shared interests, or will we go as a spoiler?
History suggests the latter — a history that goes back to the last century and the first Kyoto agreement. A belated promise of zero emissions by 2050 with no change to our weak 2030 target, with talk of future technology fixes, will convince no one.
The World Health Organization has described climate change as the greatest global health threat. Disruption of Earth’s stable climate and the biodiversity which protects us is an immediate health and security risk. A sober assessment of the risk which China poses to Australian security is common sense but failure to address the real and present danger of climate emergency, clearly set out in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, is negligence — negligence which will not go unnoticed by our young.
In his 1961 farewell speech, President Eisenhower also said:
“The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
New Natrium Fast Reactors’ Also Present a Fast Path to Nuclear Weapons
This is worse than hypocrisy. Once nations have easy access to nuclear explosive material, no inspections can prevent them from making bombs.
‘Fast Reactors’ Also Present a Fast Path to Nuclear Weapons, New “fast reactors” promise sustainable nuclear energy. They also pose serious proliferation risks because they can make lots of plutonium. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/%E2%80%98fast-reactors%E2%80%99-also-present-fast-path-nuclear-weapons-194272, by Victor Gilinsky Henry Sokolski 6 Sep 21, The Energy Department’s choice for the leading reactor design for reviving nuclear power construction in the United States is so at odds with U.S. nonproliferation policy that it opens America to charges of rank hypocrisy. The Biden administration is proposing to use nuclear fuels that we are telling others—most immediately Iran—not to produce. It will make it difficult to gain the restraints the United States seeks to limit nations’ access to bomb-grade uranium and plutonium.
We are talking here about the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) enthusiastic support of TerraPower’s proposed Natrium “fast reactor” demonstration plant and similar fast reactor projects, which DOE has showered with grants and supports with department-funded enrichment, test reactor, and spent nuclear fuel recycling programs. TerraPower and DOE expect to build hundreds of fast reactors for domestic use and export.
Unlike conventional nuclear plants that exploit fission reactions triggered by slow neutrons, fast reactors maintain nuclear chain reactions with much more energetic fast neutrons. These reactors are billed as advanced technology, but they are an old idea. The first fast reactor designs date back to post-World War II.
Fast reactors’ main advantage is that they can make lots of plutonium, which can be extracted and used as reactor fuel instead of mining and using more uranium. This sounded good, so good to the Nixon administration that it set a goal to shift electric generation to plutonium-fueled fast reactors by the turn of the century. But the project came a cropper when it ran into safety hurdles that escalated costs. And then the increased awareness of the dangers of putting plutonium—one of the two key nuclear explosives—into the world’s commercial channels finally caused President Gerald Ford to announce the United States would not rely on plutonium fuel until the world could cope with it.
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1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 