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How Corporations View (and Own) the U.S. Military

The most famous example in recent years is the 2023 NDAA, which contained several provisions regarding Taiwan. One provision allowed Taiwan to receive foreign military financing (FMF) from the U.S. government. FMF usually goes to independent countries, not breakaway provinces. FMF consists of loans and/or grants from the U.S. government for a country to purchase goods and services from the U.S. war industry.

And, just like that, the 2023 NDAA increased U.S. belligerence toward Beijing and made war more likely, profiting corporations all the while.

Corporate Capture Is Not Just Lobbying

Christian. Dec 27, 2025, https://thebusinessofwar.substack.com/p/how-corporations-view-and-own-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1769284&post_id=179499875&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

A for-profit corporation is a business organization designed to maximize short-term profit. The job of corporate executives is to maximize that profit, while the board of directors makes sure they do so.

The number one way that a corporation maximizes profit is by underpaying its workers.1 Workers create the profit, but don’t receive it. The executives funnel that profit to investors and themselves.

It goes without saying that the workers are not in charge. They are not allowed to make the business decisions in a given corporation. The executives make those decisions. There is no democracy in the workplace.

This is the situation in any industry, including the war industry.

What You Know about Corporate Capture

Big business works hard to influence the U.S. government. Corporate capture happens when it succeeds. Massive corporations work together to influence the government’s institutions and decision-making so that policy and regulation (or lack thereof) increase corporate profit instead of public well-being.

You likely know about think tanks, lobbying, and legal bribery.

  • A think tank issues information favorable to those who fund it. Corporations and the super-rich fund think tanks, which create and inflate threats and justify the broad deployment of U.S. troops and sky-high military and intel budgets.
  • Corporations and the super-rich hire lobbyists to swarm U.S. Congress and the Pentagon. Lobbyists even draft legislation, which they hand over to politicians.
  • Corporations and the super-rich fund the two political parties and individual candidates. Once in office, elected officials pass laws favorable to these big business interests.

Think tanks, lobbying, and legal bribery are a powerful combination, but corporate capture is much more than that. War corporations (known as “military contractors” or “defense companies”) control the mind and the body in several ways.

Control the Mind

  • Corporations regularly open (and close) offices and factories. Corporate executives promise a number jobs at a given location, particularly when seeking state and local tax breaks (though the fine print makes sure they never have to come through with all of those jobs or keep workers employed for the long run). Playing the “jobs” card is a way for big business and its politicians to pretend to care about workers.
  • Legally designated as 501(c) nonprofits, trade groups (e.g., NDIA, AIA, AUSA) excel at networking active-duty military officers and industry officials, further blurring the line between government and corporate. Corporate viewpoints reign supreme at networking events, such as seminars, breakfasts, and arms fairs. (Additionally, 501(c)4 nonprofits are skilled at using dark money to influence politics.)
  • Corporations help to craft policy and strategy on the inside. Corporations have had a hand in strategic initiatives and planning for Navy leadership, strategic plans and policy support for the Air Force, acquisition policy and program development for the Marine Corps, assessments and policy recommendations for the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Logistics, and more!
  • The Pentagon gives corporations free labor from military officers. The corporations are allowed to propagandize these officers with recommendations about military policy, which the officers take with them when they return to their military unit.
  • Greedy tycoons, including prominent war profiteers, sit on different boards that advise the Pentagon. The Defense Policy Board is one such grouping.

Control the Body

  • The U.S. military doesn’t move, bomb, or communicate without corporations. In fact, it doesn’t do anything without corporate goods and services — from the largest aircraft carrier (itself a platform for innumerable goods and services) to the smallest microchip. Comprising the militant body, corporations gobble up more than half of the military budget. There still are uniformed troops (soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians), but they are merely users of corporate products… in the eyes of top executives.
  • Corporate personnel are everywhere. These “contractors” even outnumber the troops in many military locations.
  • The U.S. military isn’t allowed to repair most of its own equipment. Corporations must do it. This is just like corporations preventing farmers from repairing their tractors or you from putting a new battery into your old laptop.
  • In the same vein, corporations do their best to hog the data pertaining to big-ticket weapons. The most famous example is the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet, the most expensive weapon of all time. The corporation owns the software code and the technical data for the jet. The U.S. military therefore is unable to operate, maintain, or upgrade the jet on its own.
  • If you don’t own it, it’s not yours. Many corporations require the U.S. military to license their software, not purchase it outright. Licenses cover everything from accounting software and data integration software to products that monitor communications network and Oracle databases for a massive counterintelligence bureaucracy. Licensing is more profitable than a one-time sale.
  • Capitalists move from industry to government and back again. When in government, they implement profit-over-people policies and they acquire knowledge to profit better whenever they leave government. (Top military officers also flock to war corporations in retirement, often becoming executives.)

Corporations don’t just run the show. Corporations are the show.

The Resulting Behavior

This corporate capture — mind and body — guarantees that government policy will help to maximize corporate profit.

The annual military policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is crafted in the environment described above. Corporate lobbyists and U.S. Congress pack the NDAA with section after section designed to increase corporate profit.

Year after year, the NDAA requires the Pentagon to:

1. Train and arm foreign militaries or paramilitary groups. This increases arms sales and can give the Pentagon some influence over those being trained/armed.

A few examples of many include: training Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga (2024 NDAA); expanding the training of Eastern European “national security forces” (2025 NDAA); and reinforcing Lebanese military training and equipping (2026 NDAA).

2. Maintain or expand the U.S. military’s presence around the world.

The hundreds of U.S. military bases worldwide increase corporate sales — remember, corporations comprise most U.S. military activity2 — and allow the Pentagon to further bully governments/groups that chart an independent foreign policy or resist corporate domination of their land and resources.

No region is off-limits.

For example, the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, established through the 2021 NDAA and enhanced in all subsequent ones, is the main way the Pentagon militarizes the Pacific. It focuses on building up military infrastructure in the Pacific, purchasing and placing weaponry there, expanding military training and exercises there, and fostering and co-opting regional leaders.

3. Spend money on goods and services made by U.S. war corporations.3 For example, section 1640 of the 2024 NDAA required the Pentagon to establish a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile program. (Sections 1513 of the 2025 NDAA and 1633 of the 2026 NDAA refined the program’s goals.) Guess which corporations the military will pay to develop this weapon!

4. Assess what the official enemies are doing in a given region.

  • Assess, for example, what Moscow and Beijing are up to in Latin America and the Caribbean (2024 NDAA, section 7342).
  • Devise a strategy for “exposing, and, as appropriate, countering” China’s “malign activities” (2025 NDAA, section 1254).
  • Evaluate [alleged] fentanyl trafficking by the Chinese government (2026 NDAA, section 8313) and plan to “respond” to China’s “global” military bases (section 8367).

These are just a few examples.

The assessments are then used to create fear and hype up such “threats.” Look out! [Country you’re taught to fear] is doing X, Y, and Z in [region U.S.-based capitalists want to dominate]! Bigger budgets follow. More money for war corporations.

5. Spend tax dollars on researching more technology for war and espionage. For example, the past three NDAAs have mandated research in artificial intelligence, microelectronics, nuclear weaponry, and much more. Industry does the research. And charges a pretty penny for it. (Meanwhile, corporations don’t use much of their own profit for R&D. Profit goes to execs and investors.)

The most famous example in recent years is the 2023 NDAA, which contained several provisions regarding Taiwan. One provision allowed Taiwan to receive foreign military financing (FMF) from the U.S. government. FMF usually goes to independent countries, not breakaway provinces. FMF consists of loans and/or grants from the U.S. government for a country to purchase goods and services from the U.S. war industry.

And, just like that, the 2023 NDAA increased U.S. belligerence toward Beijing and made war more likely, profiting corporations all the while.

Every subsequent NDAA increased the likelihood of all-out war with China. The 2026 NDAA, for example, further weaponized Taiwan by $1 billion, accelerated U.S.-Taiwan drone and counter-drone programs, encouraged the Pentagon to invite Taiwan to the massive annual military exercise known as RIMPAC, and more.

Full-court Press

Corporate capture is thorough.

It is lobbying; funding political parties and campaigns; establishing and funding think tanks; lying about jobs; using trade groups to imbricate military and industry; crafting policy and strategy on the inside; using boards to advise the Pentagon; flooding the military with corporate goods, services, and personnel; hogging data and requiring licensing; occupying the top Pentagon positions; and propagandizing military officers directly.

The troops are users of corporate goods and services.

Military bases are avenues of corporate profit.

That is how big business sees the U.S. military. And it has achieved its vision.

Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the U.S.-based corporations profiting from war. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Sorensen is associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), a group of military and intel veterans who disagree with U.S. foreign policy and believe a better world is possible.

December 30, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chris Hedges: Profiting From Genocide


SOTT, Chris Hedges, MintPressNews, Wed, 02 Jul 2025 

Chris Hedges breaks down a damning new UN report by Francesca Albanese exposing how tech giants, arms manufacturers, banks, and universities are profiting from Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

War is a business. So is genocide. The latest report submitted by Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc., Amazon, International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Massachusetts Institue of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as Blackrock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.

The report, which includes a database of over 1,000 corporate entities that collaborate with Israel, demands these firms and institutions sever ties with Israel or be held accountable for complicity in war crimes.

“It describes Israel’s ‘forever-occupation’ as the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely.”

The post-Holocaust industrialists’ trials and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission laid the legal framework for recognizing the criminal responsibility of institutions and businesses that participate in international crimes. This new report makes clear that decisions made by the International Court of Justice place an obligation on entities “to not engage and/or to withdraw totally and unconditionally from any associated dealings, and to ensure that any engagement with Palestinians enables their self-determination.”

Albanese told me:

The report lambasts corporations for “providing Israel with the weapons and machinery required to destroy homes, schools, hospitals, places of leisure and worship, livelihoods and productive assets, such as olive groves and orchards.”

The Palestinian territory, the report notes, is a “captive market” because of Israeli-imposed restrictions on trade and investment, tree planting, fishing and water for colonies. Corporations have profiteered from this “captive market” by “exploiting Palestinian labour and resources, degrading and diverting natural resources, building and powering colonies and selling and marketing derived goods and services in Israel, the occupied Palestinian territory and globally.”

“Israel gains from this exploitation, while it costs the Palestinian economy at least 35 per cent of its GDP. Banks, asset management firms, pension funds and insurers have “channeled finance into the illegal occupation,” the report charges. In addition:

“Universities — centres of intellectual growth and power — have sustained the political ideology underpinning the colonization of Palestinian land, developed weaponry and overlooked or even endorsed systemic violence, while global research collaborations have obscured Palestinian erasure behind a veil of academic neutrality.

“Surveillance and incarceration technologies have evolved into tools for indiscriminate targeting of the Palestinian population. Heavy machinery previously used for house demolitions, infrastructure destruction and resource seizure in the West Bank have been repurposed to obliterate the urban landscape of Gaza, preventing displaced populations from returning and reconstituting as a community.

“The military assault on the Palestinians has also provided testing grounds for cutting-edge military capabilities: air defense platforms, drones, targeting tools powered by artificial intelligence and even the F-35 programme led by the United States of America. These technologies are then marketed as ‘battle proven’.”

Since 2020, Israel has been the eighth largest arms exporter in the world. Its two biggest weapons companies are Elbit Systems Ltd and the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd (IAI). It has a series of international partnerships with foreign weapons firms, including “for the F-35 fighter jet, led by United States-based Lockheed Martin.”

“Components and parts constructed globally contribute to the Israeli F-35 fleet, which Israel customizes and maintains in partnership with Lockheed Martin and domestic companies.”

The report reads:

“Since October 2023, F-35s and F-16s jets have been integral to equipping Israel with the unprecedented aerial power to drop an estimated 85,000 tons of bombs, much of it unguided, to kill and injure more than 179,411 Palestinians and obliterate Gaza.

“Drones, hexacopters and quadcopters have also been omnipresent killing machines in the skies of Gaza. Drones largely developed and supplied by Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries have long flown alongside fighter jets, surveilling Palestinians and delivering target intelligence. In the past two decades, with support from these companies and collaborations with institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, drones used by Israel acquired automated weapons systems and the ability to fly in swarm formation.”

Japan’s FANUC companies sell automation products and provide robotic machinery for weapons production lines, including for IAI, Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin. Shipping companies such as the Danish A.P. Moller — Maersk A/Stransport components, parts, weapons and raw materials, sustaining a steady flow of United States-supplied military equipment post-October 2023.”

There was a “65 per cent surge in Israeli military spending from 2023 to 2024 – amounting to $46.5 billion, one of the highest per capita worldwide.” This “generated a sharp surge in their annual profits, while foreign arms companies, especially producers of munitions and ordnance, also profit.”

At the same time, tech companies have profited from the genocide:

“While providing dual-use infrastructure to integrate mass data collection and surveillance, while profiting from the unique testing ground for military technology offered by the occupied Palestinian territory, they enhance carceral and surveillance services, from closed-circuit television (CCTV) networks, biometric surveillance, advanced tech checkpoint networks, ‘smart walls’ and drone surveillance, to cloud computing, artificial intelligence and data analytics supporting on-the-ground military personnel.”

“Israeli tech firms often grow out of military infrastructure and strategy,” the report reads, “as the NSO Group, founded by ex-Unit 8200 members, did. Its Pegasus spyware, designed for covert smartphone surveillance, has been used against Palestinian activists and licensed globally to target leaders, journalists and human rights defenders. Exported under the Defense Export Control Law, NSO group surveillance technology enables ‘spyware diplomacy’ while reinforcing State impunity.”

IBM, whose technology facilitated Nazi Germany’s generation and tabulation of punched cards for nationalcensus data, military logistics, ghetto statistics, train traffic management and concentration camp capacity, is once again a partner in this current genocide.

It has operated in Israel since 1972. It provides training for Israeli military and intelligence agencies, especially Unit 8200, which is responsible for clandestine operations, the collection of signal intelligence and code decryption, along with counterintelligence, cyberwarfare, military intelligence and surveillance.

“Since 2019,IBM Israelhas operated and upgraded the central database of the Population and Immigration Authority, enabling collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, and supporting the discriminatory permit regime of Israel,” the report notes.

Microsoft, active in Israel since1989, is “embedded in the prison service, police, universities and schools — including in colonies. Microsoft has been integrating its systems and civilian tech across the Israeli military since 2003, while acquiring Israeli cybersecurity and surveillance start-ups.”

“As Israeli apartheid, military and population-control systems generate increasing volumes of data, its reliance on cloud storage and computing has grown,” the report reads. “In 2021, Israel awarded Alphabet Inc. (Google) and Amazon.com, Inc. a $1.2 billion contract (Project Nimbus) — largely funded through Ministry of Defense expenditure — to provide core tech infrastructure.”

Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., and Amazon“grant Israel virtually government-wide access to their cloud and artificial intelligence technologies, enhancing data processing, decision-making and surveillance and analysis capacities.”

The Israeli military, the report points out, “has developed artificial intelligence systems such as ‘Lavender,’ ‘Gospel’ and ‘Where’s Daddy?’ to process data and generate lists of targets, reshaping modern warfare and illustrating the dual-use nature of artificial intelligence.”

There are “reasonable grounds,” the report reads, to believe that Palantir Technology Inc., which has a long relationship with Israel, “has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision-making.”

Palantir’s CEO in April 2025 responded to accusations that Palantir kills Palestinians in Gaza by saying, “mostly terrorists, that’s true.”

The report reads:

“Civilian technologies have long served as dual-use tools of settler-colonial occupation. Israeli military operations rely heavily on equipment from leading global manufacturers to ‘unground’ Palestinians from their land, demolishing homes, public buildings, farmland, roads and other vital infrastructure. Since October 2023, this machinery has been integral to damaging and destroying 70 per cent of structures and 81 per cent of cropland in Gaza.”

Caterpillar Inc. has for decades provided the Israeli military with equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes, mosques, hospitals as well as “burying alive wounded Palestinians,” and killed activists, such as Rachel Corrie………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Genocide requires a vast network and billions of dollars to sustain it. Israel could not carry out its mass slaughter of the Palestinians without this ecosystem.

These entities, which profit from industrial violence against the Palestinians and mass displacement, are as guilty of genocide as the Israeli military units decimating the people in Gaza.

They too are war criminals, They too must be held accountable.

Comment: Israel is a major network operation…locking in every necessity with redundancy and delivery…no stone unturned, no challenge without guarantees and framework. It is jaw-dropping…really. https://www.sott.net/article/503682-Chris-Hedges-Profiting-from-genocide

December 30, 2025 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Turkey Makes Another $9 Billion Bet on Russian Nuclear Power

By Julianne Geiger – Oil Price, Dec 26, 2025,

Turkey just took another very large, very deliberate step deeper into Russia’s energy orbit — and this time it comes with a $9 billion price tag.

Ankara says that Russia has provided $9 billion in new financing for the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, Turkey’s first-ever nuclear facility, which is being built by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom on the Mediterranean coast. According to Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, the bulk of that money will be deployed in 2026 and 2027, with as much as $4–5 billion flowing next year alone. The plant is now expected to come online in 2026, after multiple delays.

While this may look like a straightforward infrastructure update, it’s more about how deeply intertwined Turkish and Russian energy interests remain, despite years of flowery talk about diversification and reduced dependence on Moscow.

Akkuyu has always been different from Turkey’s other energy ambitions. It is a build-own-operate project. This means that Rosatom shoulders the financial risk, owns the plant, and will operate it for decades. That structure is precisely why Akkuyu survived when Turkey’s second nuclear project at Sinop collapsed under runaway costs and political complexity. Only Russia stayed……………………………………. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Turkey-Makes-Another-9-Billion-Bet-on-Russian-Nuclear-Power.html

December 30, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Turkey | Leave a comment

Trump Floundering Efforts to Shore Up US Hegemony

Michael Hudson The Unz Review, December 20, 2025

The National Security Strategy’s Drive to Shed the Costs of Imposing Its U.S. Unipolar Empire

The one area in which the National Security Strategy makes a claim to be realistic is to recognize that the United States cannot directly be seen to impose its control by force. This task is to be delegated more to client oligarchies and their governments, by assigning responsibility (and most important, the military costs) on a regionwide basis along lines similar to how the European Union’s foreign and domestic political policies have been made subordinate to NATO Cold War policy controlled by the United States.

Replacing at least the anti-Russian rhetoric of Biden’s and the EU’s support for the war against Russia, the NSS proposes dividing the world into spheres of influence for the major regional powers: the United States (monopolizing control of all of Latin America and the Caribbean for itself), Russia (with its Central Asian and other former Soviet republics, including what formerly was eastern Ukraine), and China over mainland Asian neighbors. A Pacific NATO-like arrangement to be shepherded (and financed) by Japan, with India as the wild card. The EU under NATO are dismissed as a waning power with little influence.

This plan is not really a division of spheres of regional influence at all, in the sense that World War II’s 1945 Yalta conference was. It does carve out a uniquely U.S. control over Latin America and the Caribbean. European and Asian countries are to keep away from investing in the major resources of these countries.[1] This is Trump’s travesty of the Monroe Doctrine. That doctrine called for a reciprocity with foreign countries: Europe would stay out of political control of Latin American countries, and the United States would not interfere in European affairs. But U.S. officials had no problem with the newly independent Latin American countries going deeply into debt to British and other foreign creditors who imposed debt dependency, much as France did with Haiti as the price of its buying its political freedom to abolish domestic slavery. The effect was for many of these countries obtained political freedom from colonialism only to fall into debt dependency. But the Monroe Doctrine was only concerned with direct political and military control.

The major U.S. violation of the original Monroe Doctrine has been to maneuvere to control Eurasian affairs.  It has meddled in European elections, most notably in Italy and Greece after World War II by mounting right-wing challenges to their rising Communist parties. And it has ringed Eurasia with U.S. military bases and mounted regime change coups. The effect is that U.S. diplomats have been trying for eighty years to turn the entire world into a unipolar U.S. region of influence.

But the military and related costs of this effort have been largely responsible for the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit since the Korean War, and also the U.S. domestic budget deficit (at least until the neoliberal tax cuts on the revenue side of the budget). These costs are to be shifted onto foreign countries. 

The costs of maintaining the U.S. diplomatic empire must be assigned on a region-wide basis under the leadership of particularly loyal U.S. proxies, much as is the case with NATO countries Europe under British, French and German dominance.

In Asia, U.S. diplomacy relies on the Quad (Japan, Australia, India and the United States) along with friendly governments in South Korea and the Philippines to prevent their economies and those of China and other countries in the region from obtaining oil and gas from Russia, Iran and Venezuela to install military basis ringing China. Much as U.S. neocons are trying to convince NATO allies that these adversaries pose an imminent military threat, Asian countries are being mobilized to support a separatist political movement in Taiwan.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Trump’s drive to attract foreign financing to the U.S. debt market via cryptocurrency

In seeking to counter other countries’ moves away from the dollar, the most recent U.S. tactic is to try to surreptitiously get other countries to hold dollars by persuading them to invest in stablecoins – cryptocurrency that is invested in U.S. Treasury securities, not bonds of China or other countries…………………………………….

And a major aim of cryptocurrencies is, of course, to facilitate tax evasion and criminal activities through libertarian “privacy” (that is, secrecy from public authorities) and criminal management of such currencies themselves. The Trump Administration’s support for cryptocurrencies actually is a new version of the U.S. drive to promote offshore banking centers in the 1960s…………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.unz.com/mhudson/trump-floundering-efforts-to-shore-up-us-hegemony/

December 29, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Politico: Despite the war, France will build nuclear fuel in Germany with the help of a Russian company

Can the ambitious plan to phase out Russian nuclear fuel succeed with Russian expertise? Paris believes it can and is pressing Berlin for approval


Protothema, Newsroom, December 22, 2025

Takeawaysby Protothema AI

  • A Franco-Russian joint venture plans to produce nuclear fuel components in Lingen, Germany, operated by Framatome
  • The project faces scrutiny from German authorities due to security concerns and potential espionage risks
  • Framatome is lobbying German officials for approval, arguing it is a European solution despite Russian components
  • German regional authorities remain skeptical, citing past energy vulnerabilities with Russia
  • A final decision on the Lingen plant’s approval is expected in the coming weeks.

A triangular relationship that is close to becoming a reality, despite the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia, will help France produce nuclear fuel for its reactors.

The Franco-Russian joint venture will manufacture nuclear fuel rods and other components in Lingen, Germany.

The plant will be operated by Framatome, a subsidiary of the French state-owned energy company EDF, using Russian components supplied by TVEL, part of the Kremlin-controlled nuclear giant Rosatom. TVEL will not be directly involved in the operation of the plant but will provide the Russian-made components necessary for producing the nuclear fuel.

The plant will not supply electricity directly; it will focus solely on producing nuclear fuel.

Framatome is putting intense pressure on the German authorities to approve the project, mobilizing the French government at the highest levels. The company argues that what is good for Framatome is good for Europe.

However, as Politico points out, the project comes at a time when the EU is attempting to ban all energy imports from Russia in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the plan raises concerns among state and federal authorities about potential espionage and other security risks.

The French-Russian joint venture has not yet received approval from Berlin. A final decision is expected in the coming weeks, but no timetable has been set……………………………………………………

France–Russia Nuclear Cooperation

The cooperation between Framatome and Rosatom began in 2021, when the two parties signed a long-term partnership and established a joint venture in which Framatome owns 75% and TVEL 25%……………….. https://en.protothema.gr/2025/12/22/politico-despite-the-war-france-will-build-nuclear-fuel-in-germany-with-the-help-of-a-russian-company/

December 28, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

EU launches inquiry into Czech funding plan for new nuclear

WNN, Tuesday, 23 December 2025

The European Commission “has doubts” that the proposed Czech funding plan for its proposed new nuclear units “is fully in line with EU State aid rules”.

In April last year the European Commission (EC), which is the executive arm of the European Union (EU), approved the funding plan for a single new nuclear reactor at the Dukovany nuclear power plant site in the Czech Republic.

In July last year Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) was selected for the project, and in October this year the Czech Republic officially notified the EC it had expanded its plans to two new nuclear units, each with a capacity of 976 MWe

What is the funding plan?

The EC says: “Czechia plans to support the construction of the new nuclear units through three measures: a low-interest repayable State loan of an initial amount currently estimated between EUR23 billion (USD27.1 billion) and EUR30 billion, which will cover the full construction costs; a two-way contract for difference with a proposed duration of 40 years to ensure stable revenues for the nuclear power plant; and a mechanism to protect EDU II in case of policy changes and adverse impacts, to address the risk arising from the longevity of exposure to policy changes.”

EDU II is Elektrárna Dukovany II, a company set up to develop and operate the new nuclear units, which is owned by the Czech state (80%) and the Czech Republic’s nuclear power plant operator ČEZ (20%).

The contract for difference effectively means that if electricity prices are below the agreed level, the nuclear project will receive a subsidy to make it up to the agreed price, and if electricity prices are above the agreed price, the nuclear project would pay money back to the government…………………………………………………..

 The EC has doubts about whether it is fully in line with EU State aid rules and wants to ensure that “no more aid than necessary is ultimately granted. In particular, the Commission has doubts on whether the proposed package achieves an appropriate balance between reducing risks to enable the investment and maintaining incentives for efficient behaviour, while avoiding excessive risk transfer to the State”.

It also wants to look at the impact of the State aid measures on competition in the market “in particular, the Commission has concerns that several essential design elements of the CfD remain insufficiently specified, preventing the Commission from fully assessing whether the mechanism maintains efficient operational and maintenance incentives”.

…………………………………….. Asked about the status of any investigation into foreign state aid, a European Commission spokesperson told World Nuclear News on Tuesday: “The Commission’s assessment of a complaint by EDF under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation regarding the award of a tender to KNHP is ongoing. We do not comment on ongoing investigations.” https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/eu-launches-inquiry-into-czech-new-nuclear-funding-plan

December 28, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE, politics | Leave a comment

Sweden’s Vattenfall Seeks State Funding for New Nuclear Reactors

By Michael Kern – Dec 23, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Swedens-Vattenfall-Seeks-State-Funding-for-New-Nuclear-Reactors.html

Sweden’s power giant Vattenfall announced on Tuesday it is applying for state aid for an investment in small modular reactors (SMRs) as part of a plan by industrial giants to bet on new nuclear power in the country. 

Last month Sweden’s biggest industrial firms signed an agreement with Vattenfall to become shareholders in the power giant’s new company, Videberg Kraft AB, which plans to build SMRs in the country.

One of Europe’s top electric utilities, Vattenfall, created Videberg Kraft AB in April this year as a separate entity to be able to apply for government support.   

Now the company and the industry organization, Industrikraft, plan joint investment and collaboration enabling the development of new nuclear power in Sweden.  

Industrikraft, whose members include Volvo Group, Saab, Alfa Laval, and Hitachi Energy, will become a shareholder in Videberg Kraft with a 20-percent stake. 

The government has previously announced that the state also intends to become a shareholder in the new company. 

The Swedish government moved to phase out nuclear power completely in 1980, but that decision was reversed by Parliament in 2010. Five years later, four aging reactors were shut down. Six of 12 reactors remain in operation in Sweden today.   

The country is now betting on SMRs to expand its nuclear fleet as Stockholm seeks to further reduce emissions with low-carbon 24/7 energy. 

Sweden has tweaked its renewable energy policy, which had called for 100% renewable electricity by 2040, changing the terminology to “100% fossil-free” electricity, paving the way for the construction of more nuclear power plants.

Now Videberg Kraft’s CEO Desirée Comstedt has submitted an application for financing and risk-sharing to the Swedish Government.    

When an agreement between the state and Videberg Kraft has been reached, the government may initiate a formal state aid process with the European Commission, Vattenfall said. 

Videberg Kraft is planning a project with either five BWRX-300 reactors from GE Vernova Hitachi or three reactors from Rolls-Royce SMR, which will provide a total nuclear power output of about 1,500 MW. There is currently an intensive evaluation process of the two remaining suppliers, and a decision on the final supplier is planned for 2026. 

December 27, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics, Sweden | Leave a comment

Studsvik Calls Extraordinary Meeting to Add UK Nuclear Executive Julia Pyke to Board

 Tipranks – Tue Dec 23, 2025

Studsvik AB ( (SE:SVIK) ) has issued an announcement.

Studsvik AB has called an extraordinary general meeting for January 23, 2026, in Stockholm, inviting shareholders to resolve on changes to the board of directors, including registration, proxy and attendance procedures in line with Swedish corporate governance rules. The nomination committee proposes expanding the board to seven members and appointing UK nuclear executive Julia Pyke, noted for her leadership of the Sizewell C and involvement in Hinkley Point C projects, with her remuneration aligned pro rata to the levels set at the 2025 annual general meeting, underscoring Studsvik’s strategic ambition to strengthen its board with international nuclear infrastructure expertise……… https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/markets-news/Tipranks/36764331/studsvik-calls-extraordinary-meeting-to-add-uk-nuclear-executive-julia-pyke-to-board/

December 27, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, Canada | Leave a comment

“Make Iran like Gaza”: Chilling insider view from Israel weapons expo

by Michael West and Stephanie Tran | Dec 23, 2025 , https://michaelwest.com.au/make-iran-like-gaza-chilling-insider-view-from-israel-weapons-expo/

How to make ‘Iran like Gaza’ and describing the genocide in Palestine as a weapons testing laboratory. Michael West and Stephanie Tran with the inside story of a weapons expo.

Inside a conference hall at Tel Aviv University, executives, generals and venture capitalists took turns boasting about “combat-proven” Israeli weapons and surveillance systems.

At Defense Tech Week 2025, senior figures from Israel’s defence establishment openly described how the genocide in Gaza has accelerated weapons development, unlocked new export markets and reshaped Israel’s global identity as a defence powerhouse.

Less than 70 kilometres from where the conference was held, Gaza has been reduced to rubble. More than two years of genocide, indiscriminate bombardment and mass displacement have left at least 70,000 Palestinians dead and 90% of the Strip destroyed. 

Gaza weapons lab

Defense Tech Week advertises itself as a forum connecting startups, investors,  defence primes and policymakers. According to its organisers, the event showcases “practical lessons from Israel’s cutting-edge solutions that are addressing global security challenges”.

MWM has obtained the footage with Drop Site News in the US.

The speakers resembled a roll call of Israel’s military-industrial complex with senior Israeli military leadership, officials from the Ministry of Defense, and executives from Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, including Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

Speaker after speaker framed the war as a lucrative opportunity for weapons development and sales.

“These are not lab projects or PowerPoint concepts,” said Amir Baram, Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

“They are combat-proven systems.”

Gili Drob-Heistein, Executive Director at the Blavatnik ICRC and Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, described defence technology as Israel’s “next big economic engine”.

Israel is known for being the startup nation,” she said. “We all believe that defence tech has the potential to become the next big economic engine for Israel.”

She credited what she called Israel’s “technological leadership” and “out of the box thinking” for results “we’ve seen recently on the battlefield.”

For Boaz Levy, President and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, the war has presented an opportunity to showcase the company’s wares with IAI’s weapons being deployed in Gaza, Iran and Yemen.

“The war that we faced in the last two years enabled most of our products to become valid for the rest of the world,” he said.

“Starting with Gaza and moving on to Iran and to Yemen, I would say that many, many products of IAI were there.”

Real-time combat data

Elbit Systems CTO Yehoshua (Shuki) Yehuda spoke about deploying autonomous systems and mass data collection in real-time combat. He showed a video demonstrating how an AI-powered system developed by Elbit is used to select and track targets “less than a pixel.”

“All of it is done by collecting the data,” he said, describing the ability to track “small targets in a very tough background… less than a pixel.”

He explained that these systems were developed in collaboration with the IDF and refined through continuous data collection during military operations.

Profiting from genocide

The speakers were candid about the scale of the financial opportunity presented by genocide.

According to Amir Baram, more than 300 startups are now working with Israel’s military research directorate, MAFAT, with 130 joining during the current war alone. In 2024, he said, the ministry invested 1.2 billion shekels in defence startups.

Baram oriented Israel’s surge within the global boom in defence spending.

“Global defence spending reached $2.7 trillion in 2024,” he said, pointing to the increase in expenditure from NATO countries and US defence spending exceeding $1 trillion. 

“By partnering with Israel, you gain access to our advanced technologies as well as the valuable insights and experience that make our system truly effective. The world has chosen to partner with Israel because trust in defence must be built on credibility, performance, and shared strategic purposes.”

In 2024 alone, Baram said, Israel signed 21 government-to-government defence agreements worth billions, positioning Tel Aviv as the world’s third largest defence tech hub.

At Israel Aerospace Industries, Levy said 80% of the company’s activity is export-oriented.

“IAI as of now has $27 billion of new orders,” he said, with annual sales of around $7 billion.

Elbit Systems reported $8 billion in annual revenue and a $25 billion backlog, with more than 20,000 employees worldwide.

‘Make Iran like Gaza’

The speakers were explicit about how techniques developed and used in Gaza could be deployed in future conflicts.

Dr Daniel Gold, head of Israel’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development, described scenarios in which Israel would replicate Gaza style control in Iran.

“Once we have operational freedom in the air,” he said, “we inject inside… our UAV fleet controlling Tehran and controlling Iran – which means we make Iran like Gaza.”

Gold highlighted the practicality of “dual use” technology which have both civilian and military applications.

“A swarm of drones that control the traffic in Tel Aviv can be the same swarm of drones that control in Gaza,” he said.

During his presentation, video footage was shown of a semi-autonomous drone targeting an individual inside an apartment building, imagery that bears striking resemblance to documented Israeli strikes that have killed civilians in residential homes, including the attack that killed Dr Marwan al-Sultan and his family.

“It is very simple to operate,” Gold explained. “Semi-autonomous.”

Mounting pressure

In her report on the “Economy of Genocide”, UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese stated that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture.”

the report found.

Two years into Israel’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza, execs appear to be acutely aware of the mounting international pressure.

Shlomo Toaff, an executive at RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems, lamented that “Israel is experiencing a boycott.”

“I think Israel is experiencing a boycott,” he said, citing the company’s exclusion from the Paris Air Show last year. “This is something that we have to take into account when we’re talking about what we’re doing here in the industry.”

December 26, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Instead of buying Venezuelan heavy crude…Trump just steals it

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL ,22 Dec 25

The US desperately needs Venezuelan heavy crude oil to run its Gulf Coast refineries. But 20 years of failed US sanctions to overthrow last 2 Venezuelan socialist presidents has caused Venezuela to pivot away from US petro dollars to sell their crude to China and Russia, and pay for it in Yuan and Rubles.

The rest of the world is looking at tiny (GDP, defense, population) Venezuela and realizing its cool to push back against America’s weaponized financial system that’s been holding them hostage to petro dollars for half a century. If Venezuela can do it so can many others, weakening America’s grip on them while undermining the US economy. And they are.

The dollar has fallen from 90% of energy transactions to 60% since 2000 and will likely be under 50% by 2035. As petrodollar usage goes bye bye, US debt will sour, interest rates balloon, presaging tough times ahead for the world’s second largest economy.

Maybe that’s why Trump has pivoted away from just sanctions to mass murder of small unarmed boats off Venezuela, seizing two oil tankers and threatening invasion. But Venezuela’s new economic pals China and Russia are rushing in to prop up Maduro’s regime which has essentially told Trump to pound sand. Maduro has the upper hand against the American colossus which can obliterate Venezuela but not without US cannon fodder arriving back at Arlington. That appears to be a criminal war too far even for mass murderer Trump.

Time for the US to drop all sanctions, withdraw the multibillion-dollar armada threatening Venezuela, and make nice with Maduro. Sure beats the economic suicide Trump and his deranged neoconservative advisors have chosen to foist upon the American people.

December 24, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

It was blindingly obvious that Europe wasn’t going to agree to the reparations loan.

It really is time to ditch the dreamers and get back to diplomacy

Ian Proud, Dec 22, 2025, https://thepeacemonger.substack.com/p/it-was-blindingly-obvious-that-europe?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3221990&post_id=182242521&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Brussels was the centre of the pro-war universe on 18 December as the European Commission tried to bludgeon the resistance out of Belgian Prime Minister, Bart de Wever. He had stood firm against the plan to use immobilised Russian assets to underwrite the war in Ukraine and never looked likely to budge. He didn’t budge and the European Commission gamble failed in spectacular fashion. This has left European taxpayers on the hook for a Euro 90 billion loan to Ukraine that, in all likelihood, may never be repaid.

De Wever didn’t dig his sturdy defensive positions out of any particular sympathy with Russia. He did so on the basis of a rational analysis of the significant legal and financial risks his country would face should it agree to an illegal expropriation of assets frozen in Belgium.

Any realist observer of events could see that the EU proposal was illegal, tantamount to theft and would never succeed. It was obvious that De Wever wasn’t going to shift his position, despite the procession of Europe’s finest who beat a path to his door in a bid to convince him to adopt a plan that he had already rejected.

The final denouement had been predictable since the idea of giving Ukraine Russia’s frozen assets with no questions asked was first raised in 2024.

The idea didn’t lose its lustre even after the refusal to ask questions of Ukraine’s leaderships has led to billions in foreign aid being pilfered by those in charge. Right up to the wire, the pro-war lobby was screaming from every vantage point for De Wever to stiffen his sinews and do the right thing.

This idea is really rooted in the need to protect the economic security of the European Union the Commission assured everyone. While at the same time calling it a reparations loan, when it was obvious to impartial observers that the money would simply be tipped into a massive gold rimmed hole of Ukrainian state finances.

That hole, by the way, will remain gaping for as long as the war continues, and for some years after it ends. And the loan the Commission has been forced to take out will only cover two years of budgetary shortfalls in Ukraine, with no one asking who would pay from 2028. Unless the war ends, European taxpayers will have to pay to keep Ukraine on life support.

And they’ll have to pay more than the Commission is letting on as the loan agreed last night will only cover two thirds of Ukraine’s financing needs, and when it runs out the Ukrainians will be back to ask for more.

Continue reading →

December 24, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

EDF faces the financial equation: Bernard Fontana is considering massive asset sales to generate 20 billion euros

December 16, BY Emma Ray

 Barely installed at the helm of EDF, Bernard Fontana is embarking on a
major strategic shift. Faced with unprecedented investment needs and an
already substantial debt, the new CEO is preparing a sweeping adaptation
plan aimed at generating nearly €20 billion in financial flexibility over
three years.

This strategy comes as EDF’s financial situation continues to
be a cause for concern. At the end of 2024, net debt reached €54,3
billion, a level deemed worrying by the French Court of Auditors.

 Entrevue 16th Dec 2025, https://entrevue.fr/en/societe/edf-face-a-lequation-financiere-bernard-fontana-envisage-des-cessions-massives-pour-degager-20-milliards-deuros/

December 23, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Trump row threatens to delay Britain’s nuclear renaissance.

Concerns mount for power plant investment as US pauses tech trade deal.

Matt Oliver Industry Editor. James Titcomb Technology Editor. Matthew Field Senior Technology Reporter, 17 December 2025

Britain’s plans to usher in a “golden age” of nuclear power are at risk of being delayed amid a row with Donald Trump over the UK-US trade deal. Campaigners raised concerns that new projects face being hampered after the US paused the tech prosperity deal, in which Mr Trump and Sir Keir Starmer vowed to deepen co-operation on nuclear energy.

It was accompanied by pledges of investment in Britain by US-based X-Energy and
Centrica, the owner of British Gas, as well as the American nuclear company
Last Energy and the London port operator DP World.

Some nuclear industry
sources played down the dispute on Wednesday as a “negotiating tactic”,
but others said it could slow the deployment of American-designed mini
reactors in the UK if it was not resolved. It comes amid growing
frustration in Washington over Britain’s Online Safety Act, which critics
claim will stifle free speech and stymie American artificial intelligence
companies. Sam Dumitriu, of the pro-nuclear campaign group Britain Remade,
said: “This will undoubtedly concern Britain’s nuclear communities, who
have been promised new projects and the jobs that came with them.

 Telegraph 17th Dec 2025, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/12/17/trump-row-threatens-to-delay-britains-nuclear-renaissance/

December 23, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

‘Huge conflict of interest’: Trump’s $600 million windfall after nuclear deal.

ByMatt O’Brien and Jennifer McDermott, Sydney Morning Herald, December 19, 2025 

The parent company of US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social media platform is merging with a fusion power company, an unusual pairing of the Trump name with a futuristic clean energy venture that aims to power the next wave of artificial intelligence. Trump Media & Technology announced its merger with TAE Technologies in an all-stock deal that the companies said was valued at more than $US6 billion ($9.1 billion).

The combined company says it plans to find a site and begin construction next year on the “world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant,” with aims to provide the electricity needed for artificial intelligence.

Nuclear fusion is seen as a promising solution to climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, but one that is a long way off compared to today’s clean technologies like wind and solar. It will need huge investment as well as regulation to advance, which makes Trump’s ties a major conflict, said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration.

“He’s jumping into this industry just like he jumped into cryptocurrency a couple of years ago,” Painter said. “Just as the United States government is gonna get all involved in it. And it’s so obvious that there’s a huge conflict of interest.”

Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman who resigned in 2021 to become the chief executive of Trump Media, will be co-CEO of the new company with TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology have tumbled 70 per cent this year but jumped 34 per cent in afternoon trading on Thursday.

Trump is by far the largest stakeholder in Trump Media, owning 41 per cent of all outstanding shares. The share surge has added about $US400 million ($605 million) to Trump’s net worth, according to Forbes.

Backed by Google and other investors, TAE is a private company and the merger with Trump Media would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.

“We’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations,” Nunes said in a prepared statement.

TAE focuses on nuclear fusion, a technology that combines two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one. It releases enormous amount of energy, a process that occurs on the sun and other stars, according to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.

TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each own approximately 50 per cent of the combined company.

In October, the US Department of Energy released what it called a “road map” for fusion technology, with the aim of fostering “a burgeoning fusion private sector industry in the US toward maturity on the most rapid timeline.” A number of tech companies, including Google, Microsoft and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, have shown interest in fusion technology as a way of powering the energy-hungry data centres needed to build and run their AI products…………………………………………

Holland said the Trump administration has said it strongly supports fusion, but has yet to make any new financial support available.

In the association’s surveys of the industry, companies are saying they expect to see fusion energy on the electricity grid in the 2030s, with most saying they expect it in the first half of the 2030s, Holland said.

TAE and Trump Media say the transaction values each TAE common stock at $US53.89 per share.

At closing, Trump Media & Technology Group will be the holding company for Truth Social and TAE, along with its subsidiaries TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/huge-conflict-of-interest-trump-media-to-merge-with-nuclear-fusion-company-in-9-1-billion-deal-20251219-p5nowl.html

December 22, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Let the investor beware: why buying UK government Green Savings Bonds now means backing nuclear.

15th December 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/let-the-investor-beware-why-buying-government-green-savings-

In commercial transactions, prospective purchasers are often urged to exercise caution before signing on the dotted line with a Latin phrase, ‘caveat emptor’ or ‘let the buyer beware’. The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities would like to warn  future purchasers of government savings products to be wary that they might be investing in nuclear projects.

The UK’s Green Financing Programme raises financing from investors through the issuance of green gilts via the Debt Management Office and the sale of retail Green Savings Bonds to the public via National Savings and Investments. This money has been invested in projects which help the government move toward their ambition to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Many savers desiring to help tackle climate change will have invested their hard-earned money into the three-year, interest-bearing bonds which were first launched in October 2021.

To date, the Green Financing Programme has raised over £51 billion.

The Green Financing Framework issued in 2021 included guidelines on the projects that could be backed; these fell into six categories: clean transportation, renewable energy, energy efficiency, pollution prevention and control, living and natural resources, and climate change adaptation.

Every year the government publishes a report identifying which projects have been backed into the last twelve months and their impact on climate emissions[i]. Typically this has including building offshore wind farms, investing in electric buses, offering discounts on electric vehicles, installing electric vehicle charging points, planting masses of trees, and insulating homes.

Now in a retrograde step, the government, obsessed with funnelling as much public money as possible into nuclear power, has issued a revised Green Financing Framework, with future investment in nuclear energy projects now included in the list of Eligible Green Expenditures.[ii]

The Framework makes clear that ‘the proceeds from sales of green gilts or Green Savings Bonds issued prior to 27 November 2025 will not be allocated to nuclear energy related expenditures’, but there will be no restriction on such investment after this date.

In the new supposedly ‘Green’ Category: Nuclear Energy, investment can be made in: ‘Electricity and/or heat (including cogeneration); support for the design, development, construction, commissioning, safe operation, lifetime extension, or supporting infrastructure of new or existing nuclear power generation assets (including enabling fuelcycle activities; radioactive waste and spent fuel storage, management and final disposal), and research and development for future fission and fusion energy technologies

Nuclear is NOT a green energy technology, but permitting the use of money raised from green investors in the management and disposal of high-level radioactive waste, which poisons people and our planet for millenia, must surely be the ultimate travesty. Our advice: avoid.

December 18, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

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