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Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet super ecstatic over USA govt’s budget deal.

There you have it folks. Galloping defense spending on perpetual warfare and 835 overseas bases, enriching James Taiclet and his defense CEO comrades. Meanwhile every decent, life enhancing aspect of American life gets the scrapes leftover.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coaliton, Glen Ellyn IL 5 June 23

Only American happier than Biden with budget deal

Everyone knows President Biden is ecstatic over the budget deal which prevents another default crisis during his last 2 years

But few knew the guy even happier than Biden, Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet. He’s super ecstatic the deal provided a 3% bump to $886 billion in defense spending, while other areas of discretionary spending are frozen at current year levels.

Taiclet wasn’t bashful about bragging over the victory garnered in part by $13 million Taiclet speeds every year lobbying Congress to keep defense spending racing upwards toward a trillion bucks in blood money.

He told defense investors at the Annual Strategic Decisions Conference after the fix was in for weapons makers:

“The current agreement…is 3 percent growth for two years in defense where other areas of the budget are being reduced. And I think, again, that’s as good an outcome as our industry or our company could ask for at this point.”

Lockheed Martin, America’s largest defense contractor, receives 73% of its $66 billion annual sales net sales from the U.S. government. Taiclet is equally thrilled personally as well as for his shareholders. His $24 million in annual compensating largely consists of performance related bonuses.

There you have it folks. Galloping defense spending on perpetual warfare and 835 overseas bases, enriching James Taiclet and his defense CEO comrades. Meanwhile every decent, life enhancing aspect of American life gets the scrapes leftover.

June 7, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel simulates Iran war after Tehran cleared of nuclear allegations

The drill is a response to the IAEA recently ruling that near-weapons grade uranium found in Iran cannot be used to build a nuclear weapon

The Cradle, By News Desk- June 05 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renewed his threats of military action against Iran and its nuclear facilities on 4 June while holding an underground mock assessment with the security cabinet in coordination with Israel’s ongoing military drill, dubbed Firm Hand.

The security cabinet meeting, held in a military command bunker in Tel Aviv, aims to “simulate decision-making by the political echelon during a potential multi-front war,” Times of Israel reported.

“We are committed to acting against Iran’s nuclear program, against missile attacks on Israel, and the possibility of these fronts joining up,” Netanyahu said in a video statement from the bunker.

“The reality in our region is changing rapidly. We are not stagnating. We are adjusting our war doctrine and our options of action in accordance with these changes, in accordance with our goals which do not change,” the prime minister said.

He went on to say that Israel is confident that “we can handle any threat on our own,” slamming efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Netanyahu’s comments come just days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) decided to shut down one of its major probes into Iran’s nuclear program, ruling that near-weapons grade uranium found in Iran was merely residual and cannot be used to build a nuclear bomb………………………….. https://thecradle.co/article-view/25605/israel-simulates-iran-war-after-tehran-cleared-of-nuclear-allegations
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June 7, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader: Reverse the Accelerating Warfare State Before It’s Too Late!

when the government talks war, organizes for war, has military bases in a hundred countries and provokes belligerence, wars are likely to happen.

Tell elected officials to stop the arms race and pursue arms control treaties before autonomous weapons of mass destruction and miscalculations lead to World War III – the final world war.

By Ralph Nader / Nader.org  https://scheerpost.com/2023/06/05/ralph-nader-reverse-the-accelerating-warfare-state-before-its-too-late/

The Military Budget, which devours over half of the entire federal government’s operational expenditures, has been exempted by Biden and the Congressional Republicans from any reductions in the debt limit deal just reached. Also exempted are hundreds of billions of dollars in yearly diverse corporate subsidies to big business freeloaders.

Most of the cuts will slash the domestic programs that protect the health, safety and economic well-being of the American people. Cuts will also be made to the starved I.R.S. budget, further weakening its capacity to pursue super-rich tax cheats and giant corporate tax escapees. The GOP insisted on continuing its aiding and abetting of grand-scale tax evasion that fuels bigger deficits.

Biden also agreed not to restore any of Trump’s tax cuts on these same plutocrats and corporatists who refuse to pay for the undeclared wars of Empire from which they massively profit.

Welcome to America – Land of the Free, Home of the Brave sleepwalking its way through Sucker Land. It gets worse, People. Not only did the Pentagon, and indirectly the giant munitions corporations like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics get exempted, they were told by both the GOP and the Democrats to get ready, in the coming years, to receive additional tens of billions of dollars that the Generals and Biden didn’t even ask for. Biden wants to increase last year’s Pentagon budget by $48 billion, and the blank-check solons on Capitol Hill are inclined to match him. Except for a few dozen progressives, the support for this Niagara of dollars is bipartisan even though the Pentagon budget is and has been unauditable.

Yet, since 1992, the Department of “Offense” has been violating the federal law that requires DOD to submit an auditable budget to Congress every year. Every Secretary of Defense has admitted this noncompliance and promised to correct it. Yet year after year the violation of law continues. No one can fathom the waste, redundance and gigantic cost overruns by the coddled big business military contractors with their government-guaranteed arrangements. Without Congressional investigatory hearings, without instructing the Congressional watchdog GAO (Government Accountability Office) to do its neglected, underfunded specialized auditing, and without giving voice to budget experts like William Hartung or knowledgeable military professionals like retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and MIT Professor Emeritus Ted Postol, the Pentagon has gone unchecked. 

The two-Party duopoly has turned Congress into a giant shovel of unaudited money for the military to secure misguided bragging rights for your Representatives and Senators back home about being “strong on defense” rather than watchdogs over your tax dollars.

Meanwhile, back home, schools crumble, existing public transit is dangerously antiquated and in need of repair, as are bridges, roads, clinics, ports, airports, public drinking water systems and waste management facilities. Care for the public lands and national parks suffers massively due to deferred maintenance. Funding to deal with land erosion, toxic water and air pollution is in short supply.

The failure of Congress to provide support for desperately needed programs such as Head Start and other programs to reduce child hunger, homelessness and poverty involving 80 million people, either without health insurance or under-insured, is beyond shameful. Why is the United States, the richest nation on the planet, providing less to its citizens than Western European countries and Canada? Answer: The runaway power of Big Business over public budgets!

Moreover, we are woefully unprepared for the coming pandemics, as we were for COVID-19, and for worsening natural disasters of climate violence perpetuated by the giant fossil fuel companies (e.g. Chevron and Exxon Mobile) that control Congress.

But hey, our war machine can remotely vaporize a cluster of young men idly standing on a dusty road in Yemen with a drone operator pushing buttons in Virginia and Nevada. Over a trillion and a half dollars will be spent on upgrading our nuclear bombs with the same amount being wasted on strategically useless F-35 fighter planes.

And remember citizens, when the government talks war, organizes for war, has military bases in a hundred countries and provokes belligerence, wars are likely to happen.

Not even the money spent on one F-35 is being devoted to waging peace, initiating ceasefire negotiations and launching efforts for international arms control treaties as occurred under former presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

There is no Department of Peace, and the State Department is more bellicose than the Pentagon in its war of words. We’ve been waiting for Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) who has yet to put a bill in the hopper to create such a department – a purported priority of his since long before his election to Congress.

One can hope that the Pentagon Brass – the generals and admirals, some of whom anticipate retiring to become consultants to, or executives of, the corporate weapons industry, would teach the rampaging Congressional Yahoos a lesson in patriotic restraint. Congress must learn to say “no thanks” to more money than requested and use those funds to help save hundreds of thousands of lives in America lost every year to toxic pollution, preventable negligence in hospitals, the opioid epidemic, tobacco, alcohol, occupational hazards and more.

Absent that prospect, the dozens of small citizen peace advocacy groups and organizations such as Veterans for Peace should establish a national “Rein in and Audit the Military Budget and Save American Lives Day” to spark a nationwide grassroots mobilization focused on Congressional offices on Capitol Hill and in the states. There is no time to waste!

Fill the reception rooms of Members of Congress with citizens for peace and justice for a change. Let our elected officials start hearing the rumble from an aroused people conveying irresistible arguments backed by irrefutable evidence. Tell them to stop the arms race and pursue arms control treaties before autonomous weapons of mass destruction and miscalculations lead to World War III – the final world war.

June 6, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Netanyahu convenes Iran war drill, scorns UN nuclear watchdog

Yahoo! News, Dan Williams, Sun, 4 June 2023 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ramped up threats to attack Iranian nuclear facilities on Sunday, convening a rare cabinet war drill after he accused U.N. inspectors of failing to confront Tehran.

With Iran having enriched enough uranium to 60% fissile purity for two nuclear bombs, if refined further – something it denies wanting or planning – Israel has redoubled threats to launch preemptive military strikes if international diplomacy fails. Israel has long maintained that for diplomacy to succeed, Iran must be faced with a credible military threat.

We are committed to acting against Iran’s nuclear (drive), against missile attacks on Israel and the possibility of these fronts joining up,” Netanyahu said in a video statement from Israel’s underground command bunker at its military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The possibility of multiple fronts, Netanyahu said while surrounded by security cabinet ministers and defence chiefs, requires Israel’s leadership “consider, if possible consider ahead of time,” its major decisions.

Netanyahu’s office issued footage of the drill. The publicity around the preparations appeared to depart from Israel’s 1981 strike on an Iraqi nuclear reactor and a similar sortie in Syria in 2007, carried out without forewarning.

UN WATCHDOG SAID IRAN PROVIDED SATISFACTORY ANSWER

Earlier, Netanyahu levelled sharp criticism of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), following a report last week by the U.N. watchdog that Iran had provided a satisfactory answer on one case of suspect uranium particles and re-installed some monitoring equipment originally put in place under a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal……….

The IAEA declined to comment.

On Wednesday, the agency reported that after years of investigation and lack of progress, Iran had given a satisfactory answer to explain one of three sites at which uranium particles had been detected.

Those particles could be explained by the presence of a onetime Soviet-operated mine and lab there and the IAEA had no further questions, a senior diplomat in Vienna said.

In an apparent reference to this, Netanyahu said Iran’s explanations were “technically impossible.”………………………more https://au.news.yahoo.com/israel-accuses-u-n-nuclear-125127358.html

June 6, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Blinken Dismisses Calls for a Ceasefire, Says US Must Build Up Ukraine’s Military

The Secretary of State called for Washington to continue to put militarism before diplomacy, by Kyle Anzalone 

The US will focus its efforts on arming Ukraine and not attempting to bring the war to a negotiated settlement, America’s top diplomat said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out a plan to massively expand Kiev’s military before talks begin.

In a speech delivered in Finland on Friday, Blinken stated, “The United States – together with our allies and partners – is firmly committed to supporting Ukraine’s defense today, tomorrow, for as long as it takes.” He continued, “We believe the prerequisite for meaningful diplomacy and real peace is a stronger Ukraine, capable of deterring and defending against any future aggression.”

Blinken dismissed the idea of even a temporary pause in the fighting. …………………………

The Secretary of State offered an ambitious vision of Kiev’s future military capabilities. “America and our allies are helping meet Ukraine’s needs on the current battlefield while developing a force that can deter and defend against aggression for years to come.” He added, “That means helping build a Ukrainian military of the future, with long-term funding, a strong air force centered on modern combat aircraft, an integrated air and missile defense network, advanced tanks and armored vehicles, national capacity to produce ammunition, and the training and support to keep forces and equipment combat-ready.”

It is unclear how long it would take to build the deterrence force envisioned by Blinken. American arms stockpiles are dwindling as Washington attempts to transfer Kiev enough military equipment to keep its army fighting. The US additionally has plans to significantly increase arms transfers to Taiwan.

Blinken claimed, “Our support for Ukraine hasn’t weakened our capabilities to meet potential threats from China or anywhere else – it’s strengthened them.” In November, the Wall Street Journal reported, “US government and congressional officials fear the conflict in Ukraine is exacerbating a nearly $19 billion backlog of weapons bound for Taiwan, further delaying efforts to arm the island.”

Additionally, the White House may not have the support it needs in the Capitol for such a massive military buildup in Ukraine. Blinken asserted that “in America, this support is bipartisan.” However, at the beginning of May, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said future support for Ukraine would be contingent on success in Kiev’s long-planned counteroffensive.

Since McCaul’s statement, Ukraine has slowly lost more territory to Russian forces, including Bakhmut. Zelensky committed endless resources to the city in a months-long battle despite the advice from his Western backers. The White House is now preparing for the counteroffensive to fail.

Washington’s strategy, as laid out by Blinken, calls for arming Ukraine and weakening Russia. ………..

However, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the commander of US European Command, told Congress in April that Moscow’s ground forces are “bigger today” than before Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last year.

……………………………………………. In April 2022, Biden administration official Derek Chollet admitted that the White House refused to negotiate with the Kremin on Putin’s core concern, Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. “We made clear to the Russians that we were willing to talk to them on issues that we thought were genuine concerns,” Chollet said, adding that the administration didn’t think that “the future of Ukraine” was one of those issues and that its potential NATO membership was a “non-issue.”https://news.antiwar.com/2023/06/02/blinken-dismisses-calls-for-a-ceasefire-says-us-must-build-up-ukraines-military/

June 5, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Warren Report Reveals Vast Pentagon-to-Defense Contractor Lobbying Pipeline

In 2021, there were at least 672 former government officials working for top defense contractors like Lockheed Martin. By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT April 27, 2023  https://truthout.org/articles/warren-report-reveals-vast-pentagon-to-defense-contractor-lobbying-pipeline/?utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons

Hundreds of former government officials, including former Pentagon officials, have been funneled through the infamous public-to-private revolving door to take their insider government knowledge to lobby for top defense contractors, a new report from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) reveals.

According to the report released Wednesday, as of 2021, there were at least 672 former officials who were working for the top 20 defense contractors, with the vast majority — 91 percent — in positions lobbying the very government they formerly worked for. Officials who weren’t lobbyists were in top positions as board members or senior executives. The officials include former members of Congress, senior staffers and military officers.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the companies that employed the most former government officials are also the companies who receive the most from the government in contracts. In 2021 and 2022, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Pfizer were the top 5 federal defense contractors in the U.S. — and in 2021 also employed among the highest numbers of “revolving door hires” out of the top 20 contractors, the report found, each with dozens of former government employees.

Hiring former government employees is extremely lucrative for the private sector. This is especially true for lobbying firms, who can benefit greatly from the knowledge and connections brought by former government employees, but is also true for many industries; for instance, there is a well-established revolving door between jobs at the Treasury Department and other tax-related agencies and top accounting firms, an issue Warren has previously raised.

Defense contractors are especially able to take advantage of such lobbying, as Congress and the president regularly approve huge sums of money for defense each year —– more than half of that money typically goes straight to contractors, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Over the years, this leads to trillions of dollars in profits for defense contractors.

Warren highlighted the dangers of the revolving door in a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Wednesday.

“Why is it they want to hire former Pentagon employees to work for them as lobbyists?” Warren asked Lawrence B. Wilkerson, chief of staff to George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, Colin Powell. “Why is it better to have someone who, for instance, they could hire people whose profession is lobbying, someone who’s lobbied in another field, say for the last 10 years. But they don’t want that — they’ll take somebody who’s never lobbied before, but who’s been employed at the Pentagon. Why is that?”

Wilkerson responded that the former Pentagon official “knows how to work those contacts” within the government and knows what “lies” to tell to sell the company’s services.

“If it’s specific program like the F-35, for example, which I’m somewhat familiar, then you get people who are very familiar with that on the inside, know all about the lies that you’ve been telling the federal government with regard to the program, and will come out and reinforce those lies, deceit, if you will, from their position with your business,” Wilkerson said. “It’s a very insidious, pernicious thing.”

These issues are compounded by the fact that defense spending is rife with fraud and abuse, as those who support reducing the Pentagon budget point out. Despite receiving the vast majority of federal discretionary spending year over year, the Pentagon is the only federal agency to never have passed an audit.

June 4, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

NATO official calls for transparency over nuclear weapons

By Greg Torode  https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-official-calls-transparency-over-nuclear-weapons-2023-06-02/

Singapore, June 2 (Reuters) – A senior NATO official on Friday urged Beijing to be more open about its accelerating nuclear weapons build-up, saying that as a global power, China had a responsibility to improve transparency.

Angus Lapsley, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning, told the Shangri-La regional security conference in Singapore that NATO was willing to talk to China on the issue.

“As a global power it has a global responsibility to be more transparent,” Lapsley said, adding that the scale and pace of the Chinese build-up was “really striking”.

Lapsley said that NATO, with nuclear-armed members the United States, France and Britain, did not want to interfere in the region but wanted to engage, noting that China had a right to modernise and expand its arsenals.

“NATO is open to dialogue, but it can’t substitute dialogue between the U.S. and China,” he said.

Lapsley noted Pentagon reports that China’s arsenal is growing in size and sophistication, and U.S. officials have called for greater dialogue with China.

The Pentagon’s annual China report, released in November 2022, noted that Beijing’s nuclear programme had gathered pace and now has more than 400 operational nuclear warheads – a figure still far below U.S. and Russian stockpiles.

By 2035 – when China is aiming for its military to be fully modernised – China will likely possess a 1,500 nuclear warhead stockpile and an advanced array of missiles, the Pentagon says.

Although China was not represented on the panel, officers from the People’s Liberation Army in the audience questioned recent moves by the U.S. and its allies to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia and enhance South Korea’s protection.

One said estimates of its longer-term build-up were “imagination”.

A nuclear power since the early 1960s, China for decades maintained a small number of nuclear warheads and missiles as a deterrent under a “no first use” pledge that remains its official policy despite Beijing’s broader military modernisation under President Xi Jinping.

In a keynote speech of the three-day forum’s opening night, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament remained an important cause.

“The citizens of this region have shown an unflinching commitment to preventing the spread of these destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons,” he said.

June 4, 2023 Posted by | China, weapons and war | Leave a comment

We are going backwards: we now face a new wave of nuclear weapons manufacturing 

we now face a new wave of nuclear weapons
manufacturing and a new era in the shadow of catastrophic accidents and
nuclear war, writes BILL KIDD MSP. The MoD logged 460 safety incidents of
all kinds at the two British nuclear bases from 2019 to 2021. With a
further 117 low-potential releases, that sets an adverse trend. So if we
don’t get blown away before one of these splendid sunsets, we could still
be poisoned by radiation leaks due to equipment failures or human errors.
Enjoy your summer!

Morning Star 30th May 2023

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/bringing-nuclear-danger-all-back-home

June 1, 2023 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Disconnecting War from Its Consequences, (cut welfare spending, increase weapons)

Common Wonders, By Robert C. Koehler, 31 May 23

Twenty-two years ago, Congress put sanity up for a vote. Sanity lost in the House, 420-1. It lost in the Senate, 98-0.

Barbara Lee’s lone vote for sanity — that is to say, her vote against the Authorization for the Use of Military Force resolution, allowing the president to make war against . . . uh, evil . . . without congressional approval — remains a tiny light of courageous hope flickering in a chaotic world, which is on the brink of self-annihilation.

Militarism keeps expanding, at least here in the USA. If there’s a problem out there, option one is to kill it quickly. Problem solved! This simplistic (and utterly false) mindset, which is always present — the companion of fear — may have a grip on American politics like never before, as demonstrated in the recent debt-ceiling standoff, in which President Biden came to an agreement with the Republicans that social spending will be slashed but “defense” spending must continue to expand.

You know. It’s the only thing that’s truly crucial. Poverty? Collapsing infrastructure? Underfunded schools? Climate disaster? We can worry about that stuff later, but as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy explained to reporters recently:

“Look, we’re always looking where we could find savings . . . but we live in a very dangerous world. I think the Pentagon has to actually have more resources.”

In other words, the USA is not a country with the maturity to discuss and analyze complex issues, such as the future of the world. Hey, it’s dangerous out there! It’s full of terrorists and dictators. That’s all you need to know. “Weak on defense” is the equivalent of “wants to defund the police” — a politician’s death sentence by advertising. No matter how much hell war creates — no matter how many families it displaces, no matter how many children it kills — we’ve got to be ready wage it, you know, whenever we feel like it. And the mainstream media, in its basic coverage, doesn’t question this or delve into a complex analysis of the world.

But we are still a country that is slowly and complexly evolving — no matter that the powers that be, for the most part, don’t know it. Let’s return to that AUMF vote, passed in the wake of the 9/11 devastation. Barbara Lee, whose father was in the Army, serving in both World War II and the Korean War, knew about the human costs of war. After 9/11 she was deeply uncertain what the nation’s immediate response should be. She attended the memorial service at the capital, held the day of the vote (and attended by four former presidents plus the sitting president, GWB).

There, as she told Politico, the Rev, Nathan Baxter, as he led the attendees in prayer, called on the nation’s leaders, as they considered how to respond, to “not become the evil we deplore.”…………………………………………………………… more http://commonwonders.com/disconnecting-war-from-its-consequences/

June 1, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Belarusian president offers nuclear weapons to those willing to join his alliance

29 May 23

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is offering nuclear weapons to countries willing to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus. CNN’s Laila Harrak reports. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/05/29/exp-nuclear-weapons-belarus-lukashenko-putin-laila-harrak-fst-05292aseg3-cnni-world.cnn

May 31, 2023 Posted by | Belarus, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. planning test reactor to run on weapons-grade uranium.

Use of highly enriched fuel in civilian reactor would contravene decades-old nonproliferation policy

23 MAY 2023, BYADRIAN CHO,  https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-planning-test-reactor-run-weapons-grade-uranium

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is planning a small test reactor that would burn a large amount of weapons-grade uranium, according to the project’s draft environmental assessment. The experiment, to be built in a cost-sharing arrangement, would provide data for a new type of power reactor being developed by TerraPower and Southern Company Services. But the use of highly enriched uranium, first reported by Physics Today, would contravene the U.S. policy of removing HEU from civilian reactors around the world to keep it from being made into bombs.

The decision is “discouraging,” says Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director for nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “When the U.S. preaches the nonproliferation gospel, it should practice what it preaches.” Alan Kuperman, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, says, “There was not by any means adequate public disclosure by the department that they were planning to contradict
5 decades of U.S. nonproliferation policy.”

Neither DOE nor Idaho National Laboratory (INL), where the test reactor will be built, would comment on the issue

The Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) would differ dramatically from conventional power reactors. They consume uranium fuel enriched to roughly 4% uranium-235, the fissile isotope, and encased in metal rods. Some uranium atoms split or fission to release energy and neutrons, which then split other uranium atoms in a chain reaction. Pressurized water flows around the rods both to slow the neutrons so that they split atoms more effectively and to carry heat to steam generators that ultimately drive turbines to generate electricity.

The MCRE would instead be cooled by molten salt, into which the uranium would be dissolved. In theory, a molten salt reactor could burn used fuel from conventional reactors and generate less long-lived radioactive waste, Kuperman says. Because the salt would not slow the neutrons, the reactor would need fuel with higher enrichment, which would generate more neutrons.

TerraPower’s commercial reactor would use fuel enriched to as much as 19% uranium-235, so-called high-assay, low-enriched fuel. But the MCRE will run on HEU enriched to greater than 90%—630 kilograms of it. That’s hundreds of times more than some research reactors use and enough to make dozens of bombs, Kuperman estimates. The uranium is leftover from another research reactor that ran at INL from 1969 to 1990, he says.

Running on HEU should enable the MCRE to produce the data needed to design and license the molten-salt power reactor while remaining relatively small and inexpensive, Lyman says. DOE would cover $90 million of the MCRE’s $113 million cost, and the reactor would start up in a few years. But its thrifty design would cost the United States credibility, says John Tierney, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “This is going to be seen as hypocritical by many, many people.”

In the 1950s and ’60s, the U.S. helped build research reactors around the world, providing HEU for many of them. In the 1970s, it changed course and led efforts to remove HEU from those reactors and repatriate it. Of the 171 research reactors that ran on HEU, 71 have switched to low-enriched fuel and
28 have shut down, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency—although five U.S. research reactors still use HEU.

The issue highlights a tension between DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, which is eager to develop new reactors, and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which controls nuclear weapons and works for nonproliferation, Kuperman says. He and others have drafted a letter to DOE and President Joe Biden’s administration to encourage them to reconsider the plan. “If they make the wrong decision, I think they’re going to undermine much more of the nonproliferation regime than they realize.”

May 30, 2023 Posted by | Uranium, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Cold feet’: Big problems emerge in controversial US-Australia submarine deal

The US seems to be getting cold feet over giving Australia one of its most secret weapons, with a new report revealing eight critical, unanswered questions.

The first USS Virginia-class submarine entered service in 2004. Since then, another 37 have been built or ordered. And an unknown number of those completed before 2017 incorporate low-grade steel supplied under a quality-control corruption scandal.

Jamie Seidel  https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/cold-feet-big-problems-emerge-in-controversial-usaustralia-submarine-deal/news-story/80ffc6683018f7eaa4bf417559fe673e 29 May 23

US Congress appears to be getting cold feet over giving Australia one of its most secret weapons.

Meanwhile, it’s pressing ahead with plans to redesign its nuclear submarines to suit America’s specific needs – not Australia’s.

The Congressional Research Service report, Navy Virginia Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress, pulls no punches about the core project behind former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s 2021 defence collaboration announcement.

The document, issued late last week, specifies eight critical unanswered questions of concern.

• When will the deal be authorised?

• Will it approve the sale of two, or “some other number” of US submarines?

• When will these submarines be removed from the US Navy?

• Will they be old submarines? Newly-built submarines? Or a mix of both?

• How much will Australia pay? And how much will it subsidise the upgrade of US shipyards?

• Can the US meet its own submarine needs as well as those of Australia?

• Will the project make any difference in deterring China?

• What are the risks versus the benefits of giving Australia such immensely secret nuclear and submarine technology?

“Selling three to five Virginia-class boats to Australia would reduce the size of the US Navy’s SSN force by three to five boats,” the report states.

Seller’s remorse?

The report says sceptics of the deal believe “it could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression if China were to find reason to believe, correctly or not, that Australia might use the transferred Virginia-class boats less effectively than the US Navy would”.

That’s not just a matter of the skills and training of Australian submariners.

It’s also an admission of concern that this may effectively mean the US had lost two to five submarines if Canberra doesn’t automatically participate in US conflicts.

“Australia might not involve its military, including its Virginia-class boats, in US-China crises or conflicts that Australia viewed as not engaging important Australian interests,” the report warns.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said as much in March when he revealed Australia had “absolutely not” promised to do Washington’s bidding when it came to Taiwan.

And that would diminish US Naval fleet numbers even further, unless the Australian submarines were replaced.

Sceptics of the SSN AUKUS pathway might argue that it would be more cost-effective for US SSNs to perform both US and Australian SSN missions while Australia invests in other types of military forces, so as to create a capacity for performing other military missions for both Australia and the United States.”

But behind the debate is a simple equation of supply and demand.

“In a nutshell, the challenge for the industrial base – both shipyards and supplier firms – is to ramp up production from one ‘regular’ Virginia-class boat’s work per year … to the equivalent of about five ‘regular’ Virginia-class boats’ work per year.”

It adds that no such additional purchase orders have yet been made and that doubts surround the ability of US naval yards to meet the extra demand. The US has only two shipyards capable of building nuclear-powered submarines.

The report warns that – even under pre-AUKUS plans – the US Navy’s desire to sustain a minimum of 66 nuclear attack submarines is likely to be unachievable.

The current number of 49 is expected to fall to 46 by 2028, with existing building programs only lifting this number to 60 by 2052.

Buyer beware?

The first USS Virginia-class submarine entered service in 2004. Since then, another 37 have been built or ordered. And an unknown number of those completed before 2017 incorporate low-grade steel supplied under a quality-control corruption scandal.

But the US Navy has since shifted production towards a bigger version of the submarine. A 25m-long hull section will be added to carry four large vertical launch tubes. This allows the design to carry extra Tomahawk cruise missiles or drones.

The Congressional report puts the cost of these at $US4.3 billion ($6.5 billion) each.

And the US Navy has this year requested another modified version of the submarine.

Designated the “Modified VIRGINIA Class Subsea and Seabed Warfare (Mod VA SSW) configuration”, this design is no longer optimised for the attack submarine role.

Instead, it will be equipped to conduct seabed sabotage operations against infrastructure such as undersea internet cables.

This version will cost about $US5.4 billion ($8.1 billion).

Australia may offset some of the cost of buying US submarines and upgrading US submarine facilities by providing a new base for US and UK operations.

London and Washington hope to begin basing nuclear attack submarines at HMAS Stirling, near Perth, in 2027.

This “Submarine Rotational Forces – West” facility will play host to year-long visits from both nations to provide training for ADF personnel and a support base for operations in the Indian Ocean, Andaman Sea and South China Sea.

“This rotational force will help build Australia’s stewardship,” a senior Biden administration official said earlier this month.

“It will also bolster deterrence with more US and UK submarines forward in the Indo-Pacific.”

High stakes game

The Beijing-controlled South China Morning Post news service has released previously secret details of a submarine incident in January 2021.

Quoting a Chinese military research paper, it says three US surveillance planes had engaged in a “hunt” for People’s Liberation Army submarines.

One of the aircraft, it claims, was met with a “significant” military response when it closed to within 150km of Hong Kong.

“The PLA, which was conducting a naval exercise in the area, responded swiftly by sending out a counter force, the size and nature of which remains classified,” the Post states.

“The two forces were so close that the US military ‘self-destroyed’ its floating sonars to prevent the sensitive devices from falling into China’s hands.”

US Indo-Pacific Command told The War Zone that one of its P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft had been intercepted in the South China Sea. It denied it had breached any international boundaries.

“The US P-8A that flew on 5 Jan 2021 was intercepted twice in international airspace between Woody Island and Hainan Island roughly 500km from Hong Kong,” a statement reads.

“US and allied aircraft routinely fly in international airspace to maintain situational awareness and reinforce international norms.”

Hainan Island houses one of China’s main naval bases. This includes piers and dry-docks suited to its new aircraft carriers. And tunnels have been dug into the side of a rocky peninsula to house submarines.

Military analysts regard China’s submarine technology as being “decades” behind that of the US and Russia.

But Moscow’s precarious international position after its invasion of Ukraine has raised fears it may be willing to swap the technology with Beijing for material support.

And China’s newest diesel-electric “Yuan” class submarines reportedly demonstrate new levels of quietness, carry advanced sonars and “might be actually pretty good at anti-submarine warfare,” says Hudson Institute Center for Defence Concepts and Technology senior fellow Bryan Clark.

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel

May 29, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

Atmospheric Testing of Nuclear Weapons in the 1950s and 1960s

May 27, 2023, Dr Ian Fairlea,  https://www.ianfairlie.org/news/atmospheric-testing-of-nuclear-weapons-in-the-1950s-and-1960s/

Radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s caused the greatest exposure of man-made radiation to humankind.

The radiation dose to the world’s population from these tests was estimated by UNSCEAR in 1993 at 30 million person-sieverts, which was 50 times more than the 600,000 person-sieverts from the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

The cumulative explosive power of the tests corresponded to 545 million tons of TNT, equivalent to 40,000 atomic bombs of the size dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

However surprisingly few epidemiological studies of the possible health effects of atmospheric testing have ever been conducted. The few that were carried out had inconclusive results: no clear signature of raised leukemias, for example, was observed. But we should always apply the strict rule in epidemiology that absence of evidence does not provide evidence of absence (Altman and Bland, 1993). It just means that we have not been able to find the evidence yet.

However Dr Alfred Körblein, an independent researcher in Germany, has just found clear evidence. He has just published (Körblein, 2023) the results of his own statistical study of data on infant deaths from UNSCEAR (1993) data and other sources. He concluded that, after the atmospheric bomb tests, infant deaths definitely increased both in the United States and in Europe including the UK. He hypothesised this was an effect of radioactivity from bomb fallout (from strontium-90) on the immune systems of pregnant women.

In more detail, what Körblein’s study shows is that the bomb tests resulted in very high levels of radioactive fallout which remained suspended in the northern hemisphere for years afterwards. He reproduces charts showing high levels of strontium-90 fallout: similar levels of radioactive caesium-137, carbon-14, iodine-131, hydrogen-3 (tritium) and other nuclides would also have occurred at the same time.

These radionuclides would have been inhaled and ingested by everyone in the northern hemisphere, including pregnant women. We know that the immune systems of developing embryos and fetuses in pregnant women are extremely sensitive to radiation. The evidence produced in the study clearly shows increased levels of perinatal deaths (between >24 weeks’ gestation and 7 days after birth) and neonatal deaths (within 28 days of birth) in several countries including the UK. In other words, the radioactivity from these bomb tests is thought to have produced teratogenic effects in the offspring of pregnant women in the years during and following the bomb tests.

Körblein concludes that “atmospheric nuclear weapons testing may be responsible for the deaths of several million babies in the Northern Hemisphere”. I agree with his analysis and his sobering conclusion.  Here is a rough cross-check. If we accept the dose modelling carried out by UNSCEAR in their 1993 estimate of 30 million person-sieverts (which I accept) and apply a commonly-used risk factor for fatal cancer of 10% per Sv, then we arrive at a crude figure of 3 million deaths – similar to Korblein’s estimate.

REFERENCES


Altman DG and Bland JM (1995) Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. British Medical Journal. 311 (19 August): 485. doi:10.1136/bmj.311.7003.485.

Körblein A (2023) Statistical modeling of trends in infant mortality after atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. PLoS ONE 18(5): e0284482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284482

UNSCEAR (1993) United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. UNSCEAR 1993 report to the General Assembly. United Nations, New York.

May 29, 2023 Posted by | children, Reference, weapons and war | 1 Comment

CAN PAK-INDIA NUCLEAR DETERRENCE HOLD?

The nuclearisation of South Asia can be analysed from different angles.

Dawn Ejaz Haider May 28, 2023 

Exactly 25 years ago, on May 28, Pakistan conducted five nuclear tests (a sixth was done on May 30). The tests were a response to India’s five nuclear tests, conducted on May 11 and 13. Both governments, after the tests, declared a moratorium on further testing. A quarter century since May 1998, they have stuck to the moratorium, though neither has signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

………………………………..We should be less sanguine about deterrence holding in all situations. Indeed, there’s now growing literature about the world being “on the cusp of a Third Nuclear Age” where a number of factors are likely to make the old belief in deterrence increasingly problematic if not entirely untenable.

This article primarily deals with India and Pakistan, a nuclear dyad in conflict. But some of the observations here are also applicable to other NWSs, including those whose possession of nuclear weapons have been “legitimised” by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

WHAT IS THE THIRD NUCLEAR AGE?

In a 2021 article for European Journal of International Security, titled Strategic non-nuclear weapons and the onset of a Third Nuclear Age, Andrew Future and Benjamin Zala describe the Third Nuclear Age as the combination of Second Nuclear Age thinking — i.e., deployment of Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons (SNNWs) — “with the return of the kind of major power competition associated with the First Nuclear Age.” This combo, as experts have begun to note, is highly dangerous.

…………………………………………………………………………………….. we are witnessing the use of info war by both Ukraine/NATO and Russia. Misinformation and disinformation campaigns, as is now widely known, serve to undermine trust in public institutions and governments. They are also essential tools in influencing perceptions.

INTEGRATION, AI AND THE KILL CHAIN

While the SNNW technologies [ Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons ] are disrupting the battlefield by getting increasingly more accurate and sophisticated, there’s the additional problem of cross-tech/cross-platform integration that is concentrating and increasing firepower devastatingly.

Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) are also likely, by most accounts, to take the human out of the decision-making loop. This is not hypothetical, since multiple such systems are being tested and prototypes developed. Another problem is the presence of SNNWs in a nuclear environment, such as between a nuclear dyad.

Since they “constitute an employable and credible weapon system that can engage the sources of enemy power directly, skipping the tactical and operational levels of warfare”, nuclear adversaries can use them thinking that they could keep the conflict below the nuclear threshold. Also, in the case of NWSs there’s no way of knowing whether these weapons carry conventional warheads.

Cross-platform integration and the introduction of AI — what we can call the Internet of Military Things — is changing the concept of the decision-making speed and what the militaries call the kill chain (it also throws up many ethical issues). Up until now, the kill chain was a series of processes, executed sequentially. With AI, we are now looking at overlapping some of those phases and completing them in parallel, to reduce the execution time of the chain.

In other words, the weapon is fired first, the find and fix processes overlap the flight time, and the final target designation is sent to the weapon in flight, through a SATCOM channel. Now bring AI into this and combine it with hypersonic missiles and you get an idea of how much time will be reduced on the kill chain.

In August 2020, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States conducted a simulated experiment. It pitted a Heron-developed AI pilot against a top F-16 human pilot. The AI pilot beat the human pilot in a 5-0 sweep in dogfight and manoeuvres.

While some of these technologies are expensive, others are not. The cost of many will steadily come down further as they proliferate (drones are a case in point, as is cyber and digital expertise). At this point, there are almost no regulatory frameworks for a number of emerging technologies.

Integration and the digital environment has also brought other risks. In a January 2018 report, the Royal Institute of International Affairs warned that US, British and other nuclear weapons systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This is far from an abstract threat.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….. This is not all. In a January 2023 edited volume, The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age, professors Vipin Narang and Scott D Sagan point to what they call the “declining confidence in deterrence.”

Gathered in the book are some of the top world experts trying to analyse the presence of nuclear weapons in a new age: growing prevalence of personalist dictatorships; incomplete or incorrect information; states facing multiple nuclear adversaries (regional subsystems) and operating in a novel information environment where misinformation can be maliciously planted or otherwise spread rampantly; states possessing small nuclear arsenals which they fear may not be reliable or survivable or over which they may not retain firm command and control.

As they put it: “Each of these factors alone, and especially in combination, generate risks that our standard strategies of nuclear deterrence are simply unequipped to manage or address.”

This is just a bird’s-eye view of a much larger and complex body of literature, a corpus that is increasing in volume, not as an exercise in alarmism but in analysing the emerging, uncertain trends.


INDIA-PAKISTAN, A CONFLICT DYAD

Some might say that it will be a while before some of these advanced technologies will get to these shores. They are wrong.

UAVs are already here, as are missile defences and precision, long-range artillery.

India is already seeking to bolster its anti-ballistic and cruise missile defences, developing MIRVs (multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles), hypersonic glide vehicles (reducing the already very short missile flight times) and fielding SSBNs (ship submersible ballistic nuclear), essentially, nuclear-powered submarines which can carry ballistic and cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

These systems can both be non-nuclear and nuclear — i.e., they can carry tactical and strategic warheads………………………………………..

There are a number of additional risk factors as far as India and Pakistan are concerned: they are locked in a conflictual model; they have had multiple armed confrontations; both are nuclear-armed with growing arsenals and capabilities; since 2014, but more so since 2016, there is no dialogue framework between the two (covert channels notwithstanding);………………………………………


This environment is known. But it also feeds into another set of problems that increases the likelihood of a conflict:

a: India’s stated doctrine of limited conflict;

b: India’s movement away from the declaratory no-first use policy, as contained in its 2003 doctrine, to what can now only be described as a non-stated first-use policy; and

c: India’s poor record of handling weapon systems and platforms, which increases the risk of accidental conflict.

COLD START AND LIMITED WAR

India’s doctrine of limited war has a high probability of a spiral. ………………………………….

At the politico-strategic levels, relations remain tense, with little to no dialogue between the two sides since August 5, 2019, when India unilaterally and illegally revoked the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, in violation of UN Resolutions. Past experience suggests that deteriorating relations result in a higher probability of conflict between the two sides


INDIA’S NO-FIRST USE IS A SHAM

India’s 2003 Nuclear Doctrine declares that India is wedded to no-first use (NFU) — i.e., India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, unless it is attacked with nuclear weapons. The NFU declarations, as experts have widely argued, are political, not operational statements.

ACCIDENTS, MORE ACCIDENTS…………………………………………………………………..

As noted by one Indian analyst, “the Indian military services over the last several years have witnessed many high profile tragedies and mishaps.” During PAF’s Operation Swift Retort on February 27, 2019, while there was a dogfight going on over the skies along the Line of Control, Indian ground air defence shot down one of its own Russian Mi-17V5 ‘Hip’ medium-lift helicopters, killing six service officials and one civilian.

In two other incidents, “India’s indigenous Arihant [nuclear] submarine [was left] out of commission for many months in 2018; and a fire and explosion on board an Indian Kilo-class submarine in 2013…killed 18 crew members.”

ELUSIVE COMMON GROUND

As nuclear weapons states outside the framework of the NPT, Pakistan and India have certain legal and normative responsibilities. Their civilian nuclear programmes are under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

India, which has a 123 Agreement with the United States, has been trying to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and is already a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime. Pakistan, for its part, has constantly argued against discriminatory approaches to non-proliferation and disarmament……………………………………………

The writer is a journalist interested in security and foreign policies. He tweets @ejazhaider

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 28th, 2023 more https://www.dawn.com/news/1756369/can-pak-india-nuclear-deterrence-hold?preview

May 29, 2023 Posted by | ASIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Visiting a park is not paying respects: the appalling failure of the G7 to act on nuclear disarmament

1

By Linda Pentz Gunter

Seven super-hypocrites took a walk in a park recently and called it paying respects. If this sounds like the opening to a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, it may as well be. Because nothing tangible or real came of this caper.

The park was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the visitors were the leaders of the G7 countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Afterwards, US president, Joe Biden, tweeted: “Today, my fellow G7 Leaders and I paid a visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park where we paid our respects.”

Walking in a park isn’t paying respects to the dead of Hiroshima, where at least 140,000 were killed (although estimates have never been certain) when the United States dropped the first of its two atomic bombs on Japanese citizens. 

Abolishing nuclear weapons is paying respects.

And the G7 haven’t paid. The US has never apologized for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. France and the UK (as well as the US) have not only never apologized, but have refused to acknowledge the true extent of the harm caused by their decades of atomic testing. Germany and Italy have not kicked the US nuclear weapons bases out of their countries.

At the close of the G7 summit, hosted by Japan and deliberately held in Hiroshima as a reminder of the horrific consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, the member countries released a joint statement — grandiosely entitled “G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament”. They prefaced it by saying they were issuing it in “a solemn and reflective moment’. 

But the statement, which never once acknowledges the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as the only genuine instrument for nuclear disarmament, is even worse than the “thoughts and prayers” offered after a mass shooting. In its protracted finger-pointing, principally directed at Russia, which is mentioned 11 times, the statement lays out a pathway toward the provocation of yet more violence, not disarmament, making the likelihood of nuclear war greater.

And with breathtaking hypocrisy, while also castigating North Korea, Iran and China, it conveniently fails to mention US plans to spend $1 trillion on revamping its nuclear weapons arsenal. 

Instead, the G7 claim that as long as nuclear weapons exist — and they will with these leaders in charge — they “should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion,” a failure demonstrated all too clearly by the situation in Ukraine.

As the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said in a press release after the G7 summit, the leaders “are evading their own responsibility for the current threat nuclear weapons pose to everyone.”……………………………………………………….. more https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/05/28/visiting-a-park-is-not-paying-respects/

May 29, 2023 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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