Is World War III About to Start? Part II: Are the Military-Industrial Complex and Deep State Driving Us to War?
given the vast exiting of civilian U.S. factories and jobs over the last half-century to cheap-labor countries abroad, the Military Industrial Complex is probably the principal economic engine of the U.S. as a whole.
By Richard C. Cook / Original to ScheerPost.
Why is the U.S. refusing to call a halt to the Ukraine madness? Why can’t an era of “Peaceful Coexistence” in Europe and the world be declared or at least sought? How about détente with Russia? With Russia and China? What is wrong with that?
We’ll start peeling the onion by looking at the U.S. military-industrial complex. Of course, President Eisenhower warned us against the MIC over 60 years ago in his “Farewell Address” of January 20, 1961. Among other remarks he said:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Today about 2.1 million people are employed by the defense industry. According to Acara Solutions, a major MIC recruiting firm, their average annual salary is $106,700, 40 percent higher than the national average. The companies they work for produced revenues in 2022 of $741 billion. How much of their production is high-priced junk, no one knows. The performance of U.S.-produced armaments in the Ukraine conflict does not seem impressive. No modern U.S. weapons have ever been tested in an industrial-type war against an equal adversary.
The MIC also includes active-duty uniformed personnel of 1.37 million and reserves of 849,000. There are 750 U.S. military bases in more than 80 countries outside of the U.S. More than 100,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Europe. Annual salary and benefits of the military are currently $146 billion per year, escalating with COLAs compounded at two to three percent annually, sometimes more. Some former U.S. military personnel are assumed to be fighting in Ukraine as mercenaries or helping direct the fighting from safe locations like Kiev or Lvov.
Then there are the civilian employees. According to the DoD, it employs more than 700,000 civilians “in an array of critical positions worldwide,” with compensation totaling about $70 billion. According to the Government Accountability Office, we may also add 560,000 contractor employees, whose compensation is typically higher than the career workforce.
We can also add hundreds of thousands of executives, managers, employees and contractors of the three-letter Deep State agencies, such as the CIA, NSA, DEA, FBI, and now DHS, etc., who interface with the MIC day in and day out and are part of the same fabric of state-sanctioned force and enemy identification and interdiction.
Added to the above are members of Congress who vote on military budgets and make the laws that protect the MIC from accountability, lobbyists who pressure those members to cast votes favorable to their MIC clients, private sector financial service employees who handle the retirement accounts of the MIC multitude, foreigners who are employed at overseas bases, and various scoundrels and hangers-on. I would include in the latter category the multitude of MIC cheerleaders from Hollywood who produce trashy spectacles like Top Gun.
On top of everything else, there are millions of retirees drawing annuities in excess of what most working-class Americans earn, many of these retirees double- or triple-dipping with lucrative jobs in business or government.
Each of the above individuals supports multiple family members, workers, and vendors within the civilian economy who, with the ripple effect and velocity of money, keep entire towns, cities, states, regions, and industries afloat. An example is building the F-35 that has workers assembling it in 350 congressional districts. It is probably no exaggeration to say that given the vast exiting of civilian U.S. factories and jobs over the last half-century to cheap-labor countries abroad, the MIC is probably the principal economic engine of the U.S. as a whole.
So are we going to tell what adds up to tens of millions of people, sorry, your services are no longer needed? Good luck with that. And isn’t it obvious that all these people, especially the higher echelons, are going to do everything within their power to persuade us that their jobs are so essential that without them we will shortly be overwhelmed and eaten alive by every “enemy” on the planet?
If you doubt what I am saying, ask any retired colonel or general who has hired himself out as a talking head to CNN or MSNBC. It’s also why DoD has formally declared Russia and China our two “adversaries,” because, after all, you have to point the finger at someone and blame them for your own dysfunctional society.
But as I witnessed personally in my NASA days, many MIC personnel never do a lick of honest work, or are mainly occupied with paper shuffling or other busywork, especially with work-at-home now the vogue, with many spending their days surfing the internet, or worse, while drawing a level of pay that puts most civilian workers in the shade.
Not to mention stay-at-home mothers, teachers and caregivers, first responders, law enforcement personnel, food service employees, or the unemployed, underemployed, or homeless. Yet many of these people, while working hard for low pay, if any, have a sense of fulfillment and self-worth that surpasses the swarms of MIC bureaucrats who can’t help but feel degraded in their superfluous and often pointless vocational stagnation.
Is all this enough to create an imperative for World War III? You tell me. It certainly has to be a contributing factor. Plus it saps the nation’s natural strength. We could even say that the U.S. war machine is a cancerous tumor that has metastasized throughout the entirety of American society, polluting and corrupting every aspect of life, including the body politic, the environment, the entertainment industry, the mass media, education, scientific research, etc. ……………………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/26/is-world-war-iii-about-to-start-part-ii-are-the-military-industrial-complex-and-deep-state-driving-us-to-war/
European Commission is ‘willing to consider’ subsidies for nuclear technology, says von der Leyen.
euro news, By Jorge Liboreiro, 26/09/2023 –
Ursula von der Leyen has welcomed the idea of industrial subsidies in the field of nuclear energy, a highly divisive topic in the European Union.
Speaking in the Czech Republic, a country that receives more than a third of its electricity from its nuclear power plants, the president of the European Commission said each member state was free to pave its own path towards climate neutrality.
“And this is why we’re always willing to consider state aid, of course, provided the conditions are right. But this is important.”
As the chief enforcer of competition rules, the European Commission has the power to approve and reject the public money that governments inject into their national industries, which can take the form of grants, discounted prices and lower taxation, among others…………………………….
Notably, the Act’s original draft excludes nuclear technology from its list of “strategic projects” and features only passing mentions of “advanced technologies (that) produce energy from nuclear processes with minimal waste” and “small modular reactors,” which are still under development.
“We support cutting-edge nuclear technology under our Net-Zero Industry Act to boost innovation and cross-border cooperation,” von der Leyen said in Prague.
The act is undergoing negotiations between member states and the European Parliament, where there is a push for nuclear to be listed as a “strategic project.”
But getting there won’t be easy: nuclear is an extremely divisive, even emotional topic across the EU, with most countries bitterly split into pro- and anti-nuclear factions.
The pro-nuclear group is passionately led by France, a country that obtains about 70% of its electricity from its vast network of reactors and is supported by the likes of the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. They argue nuclear is a low-carbon technology that can run 24 hours a day and decrease external dependencies.
By contrast, Germany, the bloc’s industrial powerhouse, has adopted an uncompromising anti-nuclear stance, with the backing of Spain, Portugal, Austria, Denmark and Luxembourg. They believe promoting nuclear energy amounts to green-washing due to the carbon footprint of uranium extraction and the long-lasting radioactive waste.
Both sides have formed alliances and are trying to bring in additional countries to solidify the qualified majority that is required to approve energy and climate legislation……………………….
Over the past decade, the Commission has green-lighted state aid related to nuclear power plants in Hungary, Belgium and the United Kingdom, when the country was still a member. The UK case was contested by Austria before the European Court of Justice, which eventually ruled that subsidies for nuclear energy were compatible with EU law. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/09/26/european-commission-is-willing-to-consider-subsidies-for-nuclear-technology-says-von-der-l
Global Days of Action to End the War in Ukraine.
SCHEERPOST, September 27, 2023 By Medea Benjamin & Macy Winograd / Popular Resistance
Last month CNN published a poll revealing 55% of people surveyed in the United States do not support spending more money on the Ukraine war. A tone-deaf White House responded by requesting another $24 billion, mostly for weapons and military training that would bring the Ukraine war tab for US taxpayers to nearly $140 billion.
CODEPINK, a member of the Peace in Ukraine Coalition that represents over 100 anti-war organizations, is committed to raising up the majority opinion that the U.S. needs to stop fueling this war. We condemn the illegal Russian invasion but we believe that this conflict has no military solution, only stalled counter-offensives, random drone attacks and profound heartache for the families losing their loved ones, their homes and their livelihoods.
That’s why we are participating in the Global Days of Action for Peace in Ukraine, Sept. 30-October 8th, joining with others in the United States and Europe to march, protest, petition, vigil, banner and push our elected officials to publicly advocate for a mutual ceasefire, peace negotiations and weapons freeze.
The call for Global Days of Action emerged from last June’s International Summit for Peace in Ukraine, held in Vienna, Austria and attended by representatives from 32 countries, including Italy where tens of thousands marched in Rome last year to end funding for the war. The Summit produced a declaration urging “leaders in all countries to act in support of an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war in Ukraine” and calling on civil society globally to mobilize.
In this country, events to end the Russia-Ukraine-NATO war are slated for Washington DC, New York City, Albany, Brooklyn, Boston, Milwaukee, Madison, Philadelphia, Portland, Hilo, San Francisco, Seattle, Burlington, Rockville and other locations.
To host an event, sign up here. To join an event, click here.
The Peace in Ukraine Coalition, which includes CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, DSA-International, World Beyond War, RootsAction, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-US, Massachusetts Peace Action, Brooklyn for Peace and others, invites all peace-loving people to join us in DC and become a member of our coalition.
On Tuesday, October 3, we will host a DC rally with professor Dr. Cornel West, People’s Forum Co-Executive Director Claudia De la Cruz, CODEPINK Co-founder Medea Benjamin, journalist Eugene Puryear, and comedian/podcaster Lee Camp. You can join us in person in Washington or join us online here as we broadcast a livestream!
The following day, Wednesday, October 4, we will organize in the halls of Congress to hand deliver this “No more weapons!” petition and dialogue with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as other senators who represent constituents traveling to DC.
If you’re in or around DC, join us for Advocacy Day.
The answer to the war in Ukraine is not more cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions or nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets but a willingness to embrace a diplomatic solution, such as the 15-point peace plan that was drafted by both sides in April 2022 but squashed by Western powers.
While the majority of congresspeople in both parties have ignored public opinion and refuse to call for negotiations, some members of the Republican party have voted against more funds for the war, have called for an audit to follow the billions spent on this war, and have pressed the Biden administration to report on its efforts to seek a diplomatic path. Unfortunately, not one Democrat or Independent in Congress has been willing to join any of these efforts…………………………………………
As we face a war marked by intense suffering and environmental devastation in Ukraine, increasing hunger in Africa, and growing fears of a nuclear catastrophe, it is urgent we promote a ceasefire and negotiations. Join us. https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/27/global-days-of-action-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine/
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Vatican at U.N. : Risk of nuclear war is ‘at its highest in generations’
September 27, 2023, By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service, https://catholicreview.org/vatican-at-u-n-risk-of-nuclear-war-is-at-its-highest-in-generations/
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The international community must cooperate to advance disarmament rather than embrace the “false security” offered by nuclear weapons, the Vatican’s foreign minister said.
Speaking Sept. 26 during a high-level meeting on the elimination of nuclear weapons at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, called eliminating nuclear weapons a “moral imperative.”
“Regrettably, the risk of nuclear war is at its highest in generations, featuring unconscionable threats of nuclear use, while an arms race runs unabated,” he said.
The archbishop lamented how countries “squander resources needed for pressing development concerns on nuclear weapons,” and said countries have “abandoned much of the arms control and disarmament structure that underpins international security.”
“In this context, it is clear that nuclear-weapons states are increasing reliance on nuclear deterrence” rather than disarmament, he said.
Archbishop Gallagher called for states to adopt disarmament measures including no-first-use policies, treaties managing materials that can undergo fission and assurances that nuclear-weapon states will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess them.
The same day, he also spoke during general debate at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly session, criticizing the “crumbling trust among nations” in recent years and how at the United Nations and other international bodies, “richer, more powerful countries attempt to impose their own worldview on poorer countries, promoting alien, cultural values they do not share.”
“The international community must maintain the universality of global multilateral forums and not turn them into clubs reserved for a few elites who think alike, and where some are simply tolerated as long as they do not bother anyone,” he said.
Archbishop Gallagher also called for legal instruments to regulate artificial intelligence, particularly AI-powered lethal autonomous weapons systems, and for religious freedom to be upheld worldwide.
“The true litmus test to see if human rights are being protected is the degree to which people have freedom of religion or belief in a country,” he said. “Religious freedom is one of the absolute minimum requirements necessary to live in dignity.”
‘The World Is at Stake’: Defuse Nuclear War Kicks Off Nationwide Week of Action
SHEERPOST September 26, 2023 By Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/26/the-world-is-at-stake-defuse-nuclear-war-kicks-off-nationwide-week-of-action/
“The need for action to curtail the possibility of nuclear conflict could not be more urgent,” said the campaign’s organizer.
Activists from the Defuse Nuclear War coalition on Sunday launched a week of action to demand the U.S. government take steps to reduce the existential threat of thermonuclear annihilation, including by reinstating arms control treaties, shutting down hair-trigger missiles, and engaging in “genuine diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.”
Defuse Nuclear War is organizing around 40 events across the United States. Demonstrations are planned in Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Tucson, Fresno, and Salt Lake City, pickets are scheduled across Washington state, vigils are set to take place in Hawaii and California, activists plan to unfurl a banner at a Lockheed Martin facility in Pennsylvania, and an interfaith gathering will be held outside United Nations headquarters in New York.
“Our coalition of activists is demanding that the Biden administration seriously consider the consequences of their inaction in addressing this threat.”
“The U.S. has allowed far too many weapons treaties to lapse in recent years, and the Ukraine War threatens daily to plunge the world into nuclear war,” Defuse Nuclear War national campaign organizer Ryan Black said in a statement. “Our coalition of activists is demanding that the Biden administration seriously consider the consequences of their inaction in addressing this threat.”
Chris Nelson of the California group Chico Peace Alliance—which is planning a Monday march through the Chico State University campus and the city’s downtown—said:
The annual obscene “Defense” Authorization Act maintains and grows constant war infrastructure that can only be curtailed by the action of civilians. The revolving door in Congress for the arms contractors now makes representative government ineffective for arms control. Nuclear weapons are illegal under the International Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is up to us to make that normative and create effective pressure to get interim treaties reestablished.
The landmark treaty—which was signed in 2017 and went into effect in 2021—has been signed by 97 nations.
Sean Arent of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Washington Against Nuclear Weapons—which is holding 12 demonstrations around the Evergreen State later this month—said that “Washington state is at the center of the atomic world, with more deployed nuclear weapons than anywhere else in the United States based out of the Kitsap-Bangor Trident nuclear submarine base.”
“The plutonium for some of the very first bombs were made at the ongoing disaster site known as Hanford, still radioactive to this day,” Arent continued. “It is past time that our members of Congress recognize this legacy and lead our country away from nuclear weapons.”
“We’re asking our members of Congress to support justice for communities impacted by these weapons like the Marshallese, support diplomatic negotiations towards arm reductions, and to fight tooth and nail to phase out—not enhance—our nuclear weapons arsenal in the impending National Defense Authorization Act,” Arent added. “The world is at stake.”
This year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientisits’ Doomsday Clock—which tracks the world’s proximity to a possible nuclear war—was set to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has been to thermonuclear armageddon since it was created in 1947.
UN warns of ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in growing nuclear arms race
Guterres says world is plunging into a new nuclear arms race as North Korea accuses US of pushing it to the brink of war.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has warned of “humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions” due to the geopolitical mistrust and competition that has made nuclear risk escalate to Cold War levels.
“Any use of a nuclear weapon – anytime, anywhere and in any context – would unleash a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions,” he told the UN General Assembly on the final day of its yearly session on Tuesday as North Korea warned that the US was pushing it to the brink of war.
With an evolving nuclear order in which armed nations are expanding and modernising their arsenals, the UN chief called on countries to strengthen their commitments to reducing and, eventually, eliminating nuclear weapons.
In a statement released on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Guterres reminded UN member states of the recently launched policy brief on A New Agenda for Peace – which calls for a recommitment to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
“On this important Day, we re-affirm our commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons and the humanitarian catastrophe their use would unleash,” Guterres said in the statement.
“This means nuclear-weapon States leading the way by meeting their disarmament obligations, and committing to never use nuclear weapons under any circumstances.”
North Korea on ‘brink of nuclear war’
Meanwhile, North Korea, in one of the last speeches of the week-long UN General Assembly debate, accused the United States of driving the peninsula “closer to the brink of nuclear war” because of its tighter cooperation with South Korea.
Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, pointed to the recent formation of the Nuclear Consultative Group, through which the US hopes to integrate its nuclear capacity better with South Korea’s conventional forces.
The two allies would increase information sharing and contingency planning, which Kim alleged was to execute a “preemptive nuclear strike” against North Korea.
“Due to its sycophantic and humiliating policy of depending on outside forces, the Korean peninsula is in a hair-trigger situation with imminent danger of nuclear war,” Kim said……………………………………. more https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/27/un-warns-of-humanitarian-catastrophe-in-growing-nuclear-arms-race—
North Korean parliament enshrines nuclear ambitions in constitution
Leader Kim Jong Un says the constitutional amendment will help North Korea hold a ‘definite edge’ in deterring threats.
North Korea’s parliament has unanimously moved to enshrine its nuclear programme in the country’s constitution.
The state news agency KCNA reported on the “crucial agenda item” early on Thursday, explaining that the new constitutional amendment would establish North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear force “as the basic law of the state”.
The news follows a meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday of the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature. The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, addressed the assembly to support the passage of the amendment.
Kim called to “accelerate the modernisation of nuclear weapons in order to hold the definite edge of strategic deterrence” against perceived threats, like the United States and South Korea…………………………………….
The announcement that nuclear weapons would be enshrined in the country’s constitution comes in defiance of multiple UN Security Council sanctions, meant to deter North Korea from pursuing nuclear arms.
Over the past year, North Korea has been escalating the number of weapons tests it conducts, launching an array of ballistic and cruise missiles……………. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/27/north-korean-parliament-enshrines-nuclear-ambitions-in-constitution
US Flouts International Law With Pacific Military Claims
One of these military controls, “the defense veto,” enables the United States to prevent the compact states from forging international agreements that could impede U.S. military priorities. Consequently, the compact states have never joined the Treaty of Rarotonga, which established a nuclear free zone in the region.
There is no legal basis for the United States to prevent ships from other countries from peacefully traversing the compact states’ exclusive economic zones.
Officials argue that Washington has the authority to block enemy navies from an area ‘nearly as large as the continental United States’
Anti-War.com by Edward Hunt
In defiance of international norms and rules, U.S. officials are laying claim to the large oceanic area in the central Pacific Ocean that is home to the compact states.
Now that they are renewing the economic provisions of the compacts of free association with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, U.S. officials are insisting that the compacts provide the United States with exclusive control over an area of the central Pacific Ocean that is comparable in size to the United States.
“We control essentially the northern half of the Pacific between Hawaii and Philippines,” U.S. special envoy Joseph Yun told Congress in July.
For decades, the United States has overseen compacts of free association with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Under the compacts, the United States provides the three countries with economic assistance while it maintains powerful military controls over the islands and their waters.
One of these military controls, “the defense veto,” enables the United States to prevent the compact states from forging international agreements that could impede U.S. military priorities. Consequently, the compact states have never joined the Treaty of Rarotonga, which established a nuclear free zone in the region.
Another U.S. military control is “the right of strategic denial” by which U.S. officials assert that they can prevent other countries from accessing the compact states’ lands, waters, and airspace.
“The compacts do give us full defense authority and responsibility in those countries and provide our ability to strategically deny third country military access,” U.S. diplomat Jane Bocklage told Congress earlier this year.
Although the compacts include language that permits the United States to foreclose access to the islands by third-party military forces, U.S. officials have broadly interpreted this language to mean that they can exclude third parties from the compact states’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs), which extend up to 200 miles around each island’s coastlines.
At a congressional hearing in July, Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) asserted that strategic denial authority “allows us to deny access to any potential adversary in an area of the Pacific comparable in size to the continental United States.” An associate presented a map that portrayed the EEZs as one contiguous area under U.S. control. “It’s nearly as large as the continental United States,” Barrasso remarked.
Defense Department official Siddharth Mohandas agreed with the senator’s interpretation. He claimed that the United States maintains unfettered and exclusive access to the area. “We have the ability to deny foreign militaries access and the ability to operate in the exclusive economic zones of the Freely Associated States,” Mohandas said, referring to the compact states.
This interpretation of strategic denial is inconsistent with international law. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, all countries have the rights of navigation and overflight in the exclusive economic zones of other countries, as stipulated by Articles 58 and 87.
Most countries, including the compact states, are parties to the convention. The United States has never ratified the convention, but high-level U.S. officials have expressed their support for it.
“Although not yet a party to the treaty, the U.S. nevertheless observes the UN LOSC as reflective of customary international law and practice,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains, referring to the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
When U.S. officials say that they have a right to exclude third-party actors from the compact states’ exclusive economic zones, they are making claims that are inconsistent with the UN Convention. There is no legal basis for the United States to prevent ships from other countries from peacefully traversing the compact states’ exclusive economic zones………………………………. more https://original.antiwar.com/Edward_Hunt/2023/09/25/us-flouts-international-law-with-pacific-military-claims/
Antarctic sea ice at lowest winter level ever
Antarctic sea ice has reached a record low, with an area about seven times
the size of the UK effectively missing. The sea ice surrounding the
continent expands during the southern hemisphere’s winter, on average
peaking at almost 19 million sq km by September before beginning to melt
again.
This year, however, the ice reached 16.96 million sq km. Scientists
at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States confirmed the
winter maximum. The new low is more than 1 million sq km below the previous
record set in 1986. “It is shocking to see, as a sea ice physicist,” Dr
Jeremy Wilkinson, from the survey, said.
Times 25th Sept 2023
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/antarctic-sea-ice-lowest-winter-level-ever-record-z9pbvxjvg
Bring radiation regulations up to international standards, say Nuclear Free Local Authorities
https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/bring-radiation-regulations-up-to-international-standards-say-nflas/ Ian Grant 26 Sept 23
Inadequate emergency planning zones, inconsistent iodine distribution, and a lack of public engagement and accountability are some of the criticisms the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities levelled in response to a consultation being conducted by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero about the regulations governing emergency planning for nuclear accidents.
The Department has just conducted a periodic review of the 2019 REPPIR – Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations – in conjunction with its partners in the Ministry of Defence and Health and Safety Executive.
The NFLAs have found that the regulations governing emergency preparedness are ‘wholly inadequate and fail completely to take account of the total area which would be likely contaminated by radiation in the event of a nuclear accident’.
The NFLAs have called on the government to amend the regulations so they meet the standards set out in guidance issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency to countries with nuclear power plants. This would mean that Detailed Emergency Planning Zones would be set at a radius of at least five KMs from the plant, an Outline Planning Zone set at least thirty KMs, and iodine tablets proactively issued as a precautionary measure to all residents in these zones.
The current regulations require a Detailed Emergency Planning Zone to be set, but these are currently below 5 KMs in radius, the setting of an Outline Planning Zone is not even mandatory, and the pre-distribution of iodine tablets for residents to self-administer in the event of an accident can be inconsistent, and not proactive.
The NFLAs are also critical that emergency planning is underfunded, inadequate, inconsistent, and often opaque; with a general failure to engage members of the public and wider stakeholders in its development.
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, Chair of the NFLA Steering Committee, said: “The Windscale Fire and Chernobyl both showed that vast areas can be contaminated by a radioactive plume. Should an accident occur, any resultant radiation will not halt at the modest line recommended for emergency planning purposes to the local authority by the nuclear operator.
“We want to see larger DEPZs and Outline Planning Zones to reflect the true reality, including a recognition that accidents can contaminate large areas and large cities rendering them uninhabitable; the extensive pre-distribution of iodine tablets as a sensible precautionary measure; and an emergency planning regime that is better resourced rather than being a Cinderella service, that is accountable not opaque, and that embraces input from a wider range of stakeholders, including the public.
“To the NFLAs, the current regime appears to be collective hubris on the part of government ministers and industry insiders, each hoping that an accident will not happen and that if it does the worst can easily be contained within a 3 km DEPZ”.
Star-crossed States: No result from the UN Working Group on Reducing Space Threats
The long-standing goal of preventing an arms race in outer space could be slipping away
OPEN CANADA, BY: PAUL MEYER / 24 SEPTEMBER, 2023
It has become a challenge these days to keep up with the exponential growth in the number of satellites orbiting this planet. Current estimates of active satellites are upwards of 6000 with tens of thousands more launches planned by the end of the decade. The private sector is driving this growth with Elon Musk’s Starlink telecommunication constellation constituting almost half of the satellites operating in low earth orbit (the closest and most congested orbital slot).
The world is increasingly dependent on satellites to provide a vast spectrum of services essential for global security and well-being, and it is all the more regrettable therefore that this surge of activity in outer space is coinciding with what appears to be a nadir in the level of cooperation amongst leading space powers. Although objectively it would be in the interests of all spacefaring states, and the entire international community reliant on space-enabled services, to cooperate to ensure the continued safe and secure utilisation of outer space, the current situation is fraught with tension and mistrust. For over 40 years the UN has sought to prevent an arms race in outer space, but besides the repeated declarations that this remains a common goal there is little evidence of meaningful efforts to ensure it.
It was back in 1981 that the “Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space” (aka PAROS) item was added to the agenda of the UN General Assembly and the negotiating forum of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. While member states agreed to put this topic on the UN’s agenda, ever since they have held contending views as to how best to make progress on outer space security. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty (with 112 states parties) provided some common ground in calling for the peaceful uses of outer space and prohibiting the stationing in orbit of weapons of mass destruction, but was silent on other types of weaponry. Although the treaty required its parties to exercise “due regard” for the space operations of other states and to avoid “harmful interference” with such operations these terms have lacked a common understanding as to their import.
The Cold War era development of space weapons including anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) demonstrated that the legal regime established by the Outer Space Treaty was insufficient to ensure that the peace was kept in outer space and almost all states agreed that “further measures” would be required to strengthen it. This broad consensus that the Outer Space Treaty needed to be reinforced with complementary agreements however, quickly broke down over the specific content and form such additional measures should take.
One camp led by China and Russia, although including many other states such as Brazil, India, Mexico and Indonesia, favours legally binding agreements to supplement the Outer Space Treaty. They argue that only legal agreements will have the authority and staying power to ensure compliance with their provisions. Political measures at best might supplement a legally binding instrument, but could never substitute for one.
The other camp led by the United States, supported by many of its allies, argue that at this stage it is best to develop politically binding measures, such as so-called Transparency and Confidence Building Measures .
dherents of this approach argue that the negotiation of a legally binding agreement would take too long and would flounder over issues of definition and verification. In their view, settling on a set of practical measures would be a quicker and more effective means of agreeing “rules of the road” for state-conducted space operations.
This argument over the best diplomatic path to take to prevent armed conflict in space has gone on for decades without a resolution. As a result, in recent years the relations among leading space powers have deteriorated significantly with mutual accusations of “weaponizing” outer space and the development of “counter-space capabilities” in the arsenals of states. ……………………………………………………………… more https://opencanada.org/star-crossed-states-no-result-from-the-un-working-group-on-reducing-space-threats/
Trudeau warned of nuclear weapon risk over emerging small modular reactors
National Observer, By John Woodside | News, Energy, Politics | September 27th 2023
A dozen nuclear energy experts are calling for a formal risk assessment of emerging nuclear technologies and warning Prime Minister Justin Trudeau if a company in New Brunswick were to be successful, its product could be used by other countries to make nuclear bombs.
The open letter sent to the Prime Minister’s Office is dated Sept. 22, and spells out concerns that Saint John-based nuclear startup Moltex is embarking on a risky path. The proposed Moltex reactor is planned to be built at the site of the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station in Saint John, where it would essentially recycle spent nuclear waste sourced from CANDU reactors to produce more energy. The letter, signed by experts like former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commissioner Peter Bradford, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists Edwin Lyman, George Washington University research professor and former State Department official Sharon Squassoni, says the risk is the plutonium in the used nuclear fuel could be separated and used to make weapons.
Despite Moltex claiming its technology is “proliferation-resistant,” the expert letter says there is “every reason to be skeptical of Moltex’s reactor technology.” The letter points to failed attempts in the United States and the United Kingdom to reprocess nuclear waste as a fuel, resulting in hundreds of billions worth of cleanup costs. To date, Moltex has received at least $50.5 million worth of federal government subsidies, $10 million from New Brunswick, and $1 million from Ontario Power Generation –– and is eyeing roughly $200 million more.
……………………………………………………For the experts who wrote the letter, inadvertently creating a product that could be used to make nuclear weapons is a very real concern, and one with precedent. As the letter to Trudeau details, Canada and the United States were both exporting nuclear reactor technology to India decades ago for power generation purposes and ended up increasing the risk of nuclear war.
“Some of the plutonium India produced and separated with that assistance was used in the plutonium-fuelled prototype bomb India tested in 1974, precipitating the South Asian nuclear arms race,” the letter reads.
Canada and its allies are concerned that as new nuclear technologies are developed, the technology could similarly lead to unexpected nuclear weapon development. In May at the annual G7 meeting, Canada committed “to prioritizing efforts to reduce the production and accumulation of weapons-usable nuclear material for civil purposes around the world.”
The letter requests a nuclear weapons proliferation risk assessment of the technology………………………………………………..
As the energy transition unfolds, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as a contentious fuel. While it is non-emitting, making it a potentially valuable tool in the race to decarbonize, nuclear waste is a long-lasting environmental concern with unclear storage options given it can be hazardous for thousands of years. Moreover, preventing the worst impacts of climate change requires slashing fossil fuel use by about half globally by the end of the decade, meaning experimental technology not yet suitable for use does not have any meaningful role to play in near-term emissions reductions.
In fact, a report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded small modular reactor designs like Moltex’s would struggle to be deployed by 2050, and require tremendous large-scale investment to succeed. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/09/27/news/trudeau-warned-nuclear-weapon-risk-over-emerging-small-modular-reactors#:~:text=A%20dozen%20nuclear%20energy%20experts,countries%20to%20make%20nuclear%20bombs.
Democrat congressman Adam Schiff funneled millions to defense contractors after taking donations
The earmarks Adam Schiff delivered for donors
The Democratic congressman for years secured earmarks for defense companies while taking campaign donations from top corporate brass and Washington lobbyists.
Politico, By CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO, 09/25/2023
Adam Schiff is unapologetically touting his commitment to earmarks for local causes — like homelessness and drug treatment programs — as he seeks the Senate seat long held by Dianne Feinstein. The 12-term House Democrat and darling of the anti-Trump left is even calling out his closest rival in the race, Rep. Katie Porter, for her opposition to pork-barrel spending.
But Schiff has offered an incomplete and potentially misleading account of his record on earmarks. A close examination of that record reveals that he secured generous earmarks for corporate beneficiaries early in his career, including at times for recipients who were also major donors to his political campaigns………………
A POLITICO review of congressional earmarks and political contributions found that in addition to the money for homelessness and drug treatment, Schiff also steered millions to for-profit companies and raised tens of thousands for his House reelection campaigns from corporate executives and people connected to them. The review was mostly limited to publicly available data from the brief three-year window when corporate earmarks were disclosed……………………………………………………………
Several of Schiff’s earmarks would be barred under reforms adopted in 2010. Among them, Schiff secured millions in funding for Smiths Detection and Phasebridge, Inc., defense companies based in his district. He steered $6 million to Smiths Detection for military warfare sensors between 2003 and 2006 and earmarked another $3 million to Phasebridge that was developing a radar frequency distribution system for the Navy in 2004………………………………………………………………………………………………more https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/25/adam-schiff-earmarks-001177—
Mainstream “Newsweek” Wakes up to Reality: “$113 Billion in Modern Arms Hardly Dented Russian Lines”
The Gateway Pundit By Richard Abelson Sep. 21, 2023
Writing in Newsweek magazine, Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities think tank, acknowledged what Gateway Pundit has been reporting for months: That Ukraine’s “summer offensive” is “producing little to no meaningful progress toward the objective of evicting Russia from Ukraine’s territory,” even as “American politicians, generals, and pundits continue advocating for open-ended support to Kyiv in their war against Russia.”
Davis’ sobering assessment carries the headline “We Can No Longer Hide the Truth About the Russia-Ukraine War“.
It was not clear why anyone would want to “Hide the Truth” about the US taxpayer-funded border dispute in distant Eastern Europe.
“Despite great hopes for a rapid success, Ukraine’s months-in-the-making offensive has sputtered from the outset”, Davis writes, noting that “That shouldn’t have surprised anyone in the White House.”
Two months before the start of the offensive, Davis warned that “Zelensky’s troops—with little to no air power and a dearth in artillery ammunition—could suffer egregious casualties while gaining little,” he says. “Five days later, The Washington Post revealed the contents of a leaked Top Secret U.S. intelligence assessment which likewise predicted the Ukrainian offensive would probably fall ‘well short’ of expectations, and that ‘enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive.’”
To succeed, Davis explained, Ukraine would “have to conduct the most difficult task in modern land warfare: a combined arms operation into the teeth of a dug-in enemy force that is prepared for an attack,” complicated by the shortage of artillery ammunition along with “limited airpower and minimal air defense. “Nevertheless, on the eve of battle, some Western analysts remained optimistic.”
Once Ukraine’s “spring offensive” began on June 5, Davis writes, “that optimism quickly evaporated. In the first two weeks of the fighting, Ukraine’s spearhead brigades suffered massive losses in armor and personnel while capturing virtually no territory. By the end of the third week, they had lost an estimated fifth of their strike force, requiring Ukraine to dramatically change tactics.”
“Instead of leading with tanks and other armored vehicles (which were predictably getting chewed up in minefields and by Russian anti-tank missiles and artillery shells),” he noted, “Ukraine moved to an infantry-centric attack system.”
While this change did result in some small advances on the battlefield, “the cost was exorbitant,” Davis writes. “On Aug. 29, the BBC reported that new leaked reports suggested Ukrainian battle deaths exploded since the offensive started. Whereas Ukraine was reported to have lost 17,500 troops in the first year of the war, it is presently assessed to have lost a breathtakingly high 50,000 additional deaths, for a total of 70,000 dead and 120,000 wounded.”
Observers including Col. Douglas MacGregor and Robert F. Kennedy claimed Ukraine had lost approx. 350,000 men even before the start of the offensive. On Sept. 5, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Ukraine had lost 66,000 men since the start of its counter-offensive June 4. Since then, according to the Russian figures, Ukraine has lost another 9,000 casualties in the counter-offensive, putting the total casualties at 75,000…………………………………………………….more https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/mainstream-newsweek-wakes-up-reality-113-billion-modern/
UK’s nuclear lobby to take over education site?
South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) has made a move to put
Berkeley Green, its flagship Gloucestershire Science & Technology Park
(GSTP), up for sale. The news of the sale announced today comes in the wake
of a visit to the site by the government’s Great British Nuclear (GBN)
organisation, which is believed to be now likely to earmark Berkeley as a
centre for science and research in the next chapter for the UK’s nuclear
power investment.
GBN has been tasked with finalising six sites in the UK
for the new generation of small-medium nuclear reactors (SMRs). As well as
visiting Berkeley, it has also assessed South Gloucestershire’s nearby
decommissioned nuclear site at Oldbury as a possible location for the
reactors. Sources suggest the most likely scenario is for SMR installation
at Oldbury, with Berkeley’s site, in recognition of the academic investment
there since 2016, becoming a supportive centre for science, research and
training.
Punchline Gloucester 27th Sept 2023
https://www.punchline-gloucester.com/articles/aanews/sgs-berkeley-green-goes-up-for-sale
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