American nuclear power industry uses Russian fuel, seeks exemption from sanctions
U.S. utilities push White House not to sanction Russian uranium, By Ernest Scheyder and Trevor Hunnicutt, March 1 (Reuters) – The U.S. nuclear power industry is lobbying the White House to allow uranium imports from Russia to continue despite the escalating conflict in Ukraine, with cheap supplies of the fuel seen as key to keeping American electricity prices low, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The United States relies on Russia and its allies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for roughly half of the uranium powering its nuclear plants – about 22.8 million pounds (10.3 million kg) in 2020 – which in turn produce about 20% of U.S. electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the World Nuclear Association.
Washington and its allies have imposed a series of sanctions on Moscow in the past week as Russian forces pushed deeper into neighboring Ukraine, though the sanctions exempt uranium sales and related financial transactions.
The National Energy Institute (NEI), a trade group of U.S. nuclear power generation companies including Duke Energy Corp (DUK.N) and Exelon Corp (EXC.O), is lobbying the White House to keep the exemption on uranium imports from Russia, the sources said.
The NEI lobbying aims to ensure that uranium is not caught up in any future energy-related sanctions, especially as calls intensify to sanction Russian crude oil sales, the sources said.
“The (U.S. nuclear power) industry is just addicted to cheap Russian uranium,” said one of the sources, who declined to be named, citing the sensitivity of the situation.
Duke and Exelon, two of the largest U.S. utilities, could not immediately be reached for comment…………………
Russia’s uranium production is controlled by Rosatom, a state-run company formed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2007. The company is an important source of revenue for the country……..
Other utilities around the globe have already begun looking beyond Russia for supply. Swedish power company Vattenfall AB (VATN.UL) said last week it would stop buying Russian uranium for its nuclear reactors until further notice, citing the Ukrainian conflict. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/exclusive-us-utilities-push-white-house-not-sanction-russian-uranium-2022-03-02/
The very perilous situation of Ukraine’s nuclear power stations.
Could the Ukraine conflict cause one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters?
ReNew Economy, Dr. Jim Green 3 March 2022
Over the past week the Russian military has taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine and there have been two near-misses with military attacks threatening radioactive waste sites.
But the greatest nuclear hazards lie ahead and concern Ukraine’s operating nuclear power reactors. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on March 2:
“The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I continue to be gravely concerned. It is the first time a military conflict is happening amidst the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program.
“I have called for restraint from all measures or actions that could jeopardise the security of nuclear and other radioactive material, and the safe operation of any nuclear facilities in Ukraine, because any such incident could have severe consequences, aggravating human suffering and causing environmental harm.”
Grossi cited a 2009 decision by the IAEA General Conference that affirmed that “any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency.”
Over the past week the Russian military has taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine and there have been two near-misses with military attacks threatening radioactive waste sites.
But the greatest nuclear hazards lie ahead and concern Ukraine’s operating nuclear power reactors. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on March 2:
“The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I continue to be gravely concerned. It is the first time a military conflict is happening amidst the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program.
“I have called for restraint from all measures or actions that could jeopardise the security of nuclear and other radioactive material, and the safe operation of any nuclear facilities in Ukraine, because any such incident could have severe consequences, aggravating human suffering and causing environmental harm.”
Grossi cited a 2009 decision by the IAEA General Conference that affirmed that “any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency.”
Worst-case scenario
It’s worthwhile comparing a worst-case scenario with the current situation in Ukraine. A worst-case scenario would involve war between two (or more) even-matched nations with a heavy reliance on nuclear power. War would drag on for years between evenly-matched nations. The heavy reliance on nuclear power would make it difficult or impossible to shut down power reactors.
Sooner or later, a deliberate or accidental military strike would likely hit a reactor – or the reactor’s essential power and cooling water supply would be disrupted. Any ‘gentleman’s agreement’ not to strike nuclear power plants would be voided and multiple Chernobyl- or Fukushima-scale disasters could unfold concurrently – in addition to all the non-nuclear horrors of war.
In the current conflict, the nations are not evenly matched and the fighting is limited to one country. There won’t be large-scale warfare dragging on for years – although low-level conflict might persist for years, as has been the case since Russia’s 2014 invasion of eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Ukraine does share one component of a worst-case scenario: its heavy reliance on nuclear power. Fifteen reactors at four sites generate 51.2 percent of the country’s electricity. It is one of only three countries reliant on nuclear power for more than half of its electricity supply.
A March 1 IAEA update, citing the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU), said that all 15 reactors remained under the Ukrainian control and they continued to operate.
But in its daily post dated March 1, SNRIU lists six reactors as ‘disconnected from the power grid’, comprising three reactors at Zaporizhzhia and one each at the Rivno, Khmelnitsky and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants. Those disconnections amount to about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s total national electricity generation.
In the weeks prior to the February 24 invasion, 0-3 reactors were disconnected. The number rose to five on February 26 and has remained at six since then. It seems likely that the invasion has resulted in decisions to disconnect a number of reactors. Ukraine’s nuclear utility Energoatom cites “operational safety” for the disconnection of two reactors at Zaporizhzhia.
Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s reactor fleet was ageing, its nuclear industry was corrupt, regulation was inadequate, and nuclear security measures left much room for improvement. For the time being, it is highly unlikely there will be any meaningful national or international oversight or regulation of the country’s ageing reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Deliberate or accidental military strikes on nuclear plants
A deliberate military strike on a power reactor is highly unlikely – but not inconceivable. Bennett Ramberg, a former foreign affairs officer in the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and author of the 1985 book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, draws this comparison:
Over the past week the Russian military has taken control of the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine and there have been two near-misses with military attacks threatening radioactive waste sites.
But the greatest nuclear hazards lie ahead and concern Ukraine’s operating nuclear power reactors. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on March 2:
“The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented and I continue to be gravely concerned. It is the first time a military conflict is happening amidst the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program.
“I have called for restraint from all measures or actions that could jeopardise the security of nuclear and other radioactive material, and the safe operation of any nuclear facilities in Ukraine, because any such incident could have severe consequences, aggravating human suffering and causing environmental harm.”
Grossi cited a 2009 decision by the IAEA General Conference that affirmed that “any armed attack on and threat against nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency.”
It’s worthwhile comparing a worst-case scenario with the current situation in Ukraine. A worst-case scenario would involve war between two (or more) even-matched nations with a heavy reliance on nuclear power. War would drag on for years between evenly-matched nations. The heavy reliance on nuclear power would make it difficult or impossible to shut down power reactors.
Sooner or later, a deliberate or accidental military strike would likely hit a reactor – or the reactor’s essential power and cooling water supply would be disrupted. Any ‘gentleman’s agreement’ not to strike nuclear power plants would be voided and multiple Chernobyl- or Fukushima-scale disasters could unfold concurrently – in addition to all the non-nuclear horrors of war.
In the current conflict, the nations are not evenly matched and the fighting is limited to one country. There won’t be large-scale warfare dragging on for years – although low-level conflict might persist for years, as has been the case since Russia’s 2014 invasion of eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Ukraine does share one component of a worst-case scenario: its heavy reliance on nuclear power. Fifteen reactors at four sites generate 51.2 percent of the country’s electricity. It is one of only three countries reliant on nuclear power for more than half of its electricity supply.
A March 1 IAEA update, citing the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU), said that all 15 reactors remained under the Ukrainian control and they continued to operate.
But in its daily post dated March 1, SNRIU lists six reactors as ‘disconnected from the power grid’, comprising three reactors at Zaporizhzhia and one each at the Rivno, Khmelnitsky and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants. Those disconnections amount to about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s total national electricity generation.
In the weeks prior to the February 24 invasion, 0-3 reactors were disconnected. The number rose to five on February 26 and has remained at six since then. It seems likely that the invasion has resulted in decisions to disconnect a number of reactors. Ukraine’s nuclear utility Energoatom cites “operational safety” for the disconnection of two reactors at Zaporizhzhia.
Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s reactor fleet was ageing, its nuclear industry was corrupt, regulation was inadequate, and nuclear security measures left much room for improvement. For the time being, it is highly unlikely there will be any meaningful national or international oversight or regulation of the country’s ageing reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Deliberate or accidental military strikes on nuclear plants
A deliberate military strike on a power reactor is highly unlikely – but not inconceivable. Bennett Ramberg, a former foreign affairs officer in the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and author of the 1985 book Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy, draws this comparison:
“A case in point was the March 26, 2017, bombing of the Islamic State-held Tabqa Dam in Syria. Standing 18 stories high and holding back a 25-mile-long reservoir on the Euphrates River, the dam’s destruction would have drowned tens of thousands of innocent people downstream. Yet, violating strict “no-strike” orders and bypassing safeguards, US airmen struck it anyway. Dumb luck saved the day again: the bunker-busting bomb failed to detonate.”
An accidental strike is a troubling possibility. Or a strike disabling the vital power and cooling water supply systems which are necessary to maintain safety even after reactors are shut down.
Spent fuel cooling ponds and dry stores are vulnerable – they often contain more radioactivity than the reactors themselves, but without the multiple engineered layers of containment that reactors typically have.
And if there is an attack on a reactor or spent fuel store resulting in disaster, response measures would likely be chaotic and woefully inadequate. Forbes senior contributor Craig Hooper writes:
“It seems unlikely that Russia has mobilised trained reactor operators and prepared reactor crisis-management teams to take over any ‘liberated’ power plants. The heroic measures that kept the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster from becoming far more damaging events just will not happen in a war zone.”
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is home to six reactors and lies near one of Russia’s main invasion routes, north of Crimea. As noted above, three of the six reactors have been disconnected in recent days.
The plant was contentious long before the recent invasion due to mismanagement and the ageing of the Soviet-era reactors. A 2017 Austrian government assessment of Zaporizhzhia concluded that: “The documents provided and available lead to the conclusion that a high probability exists for accident scenarios to develop into a severe accident that threatens the integrity of the containment and results in a large release.”………………………………
Staffing
A single-reactor nuclear power plant typically employs 600-800 people. Presumably the workforce at the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia plant is considerably higher.
If not already, nuclear staff are likely to be killed when not at work, and others will flee and get as far away from the fighting – and the nuclear power plant – as they can.
If Russia’s military takes control of the site – and does so without causing a nuclear disaster – they could repeat what they have done at Chernobyl in recent days: keep Ukrainian staff hostage and force them to work under Russian control……………
The adequacy of backup generators at Zaporizhzhia has long been a concern as detailed in a March 2 Greenpeace International report. In 2020, the Ukrainian NGO EcoAction received information from nuclear industry whistleblowers about problems with the generators at Zaporizhzhia, including a lack of spare parts.
In the same year, the regulator SNRIU reported on a generator malfunction. An upgrade of the generators was due to be complete by 2017 but the completion date has been pushed back to 2023, i.e. it remains incomplete.
Security at Zaporizhzhia was jeopardised in 2014 when an armed confrontation took place between security guards and paramilitaries from Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist ‘right sector’, allied with neo-Nazi groups. The gunmen wanted to ‘protect’ the plant from pro-Russian forces, the Guardian reported, but were stopped by guards at a checkpoint.
The head of SNRIU said in 2015: “I cannot say what could be done to completely protect [nuclear] installations from attack, except to build them on Mars.”
International monitors
Energoatom CEO Petro Kotin called on international monitors to intervene to ensure the safety of the country’s nuclear reactors and to create 30km exclusion zones around the four nuclear power plants.
Energoatom noted in a statement that columns of military equipment have been moving near nuclear power plants with “shells exploding near the nuclear power plant – this can lead to highly undesirable threats across the planet”.
The Acting Chief State Inspector of SNRIU has asked the IAEA to provide immediate assistance in coordinating activities in relation to the safety of nuclear facilities. The IAEA noted that Director General Grossi “will be holding consultations and maintain contacts in order to address this request”.
But the request for assistance in establishing an exclusion zone has been rejected by the IAEA. “The IAEA has no power to enforce an exclusion zone,” Grossi said following an emergency IAEA session on March 2………………………
Nuclear waste
The report by Greenpeace International nuclear specialists notes that as of 2017, Zaporizhzhia had 2,204 tons of spent fuel in storage at the site – 855 tonnes in the spent fuel pools within the reactor buildings, and 1,349 tonnes in a dry storage facility.
The spent fuel pools contain far more radioactivity than the dry store. Without active cooling, the pools risk overheating and evaporating to a point where the fuel metal cladding could ignite and release much of the radioactive inventory. Damage to the reservoirs which supply cooling water to Zaporizhzhia could disrupt cooling of reactors and spent fuel.
The Guardian reported in 2015 that the dry store at Zaporizhzhia is sub-standard, with more than 3,000 spent nuclear fuel rods in metal casks within concrete containers in an open-air yard close to a perimeter fence.
Neil Hyatt, a professor of radioactive waste management at Sheffield University, told the Guardian that a dry storage container with a resilient roof and in-house ventilation would offer greater protection from missile bombardment.
Cyber-warfare
Cyber-warfare is another risk which could jeopardise the safe operation of nuclear plants. Russia is one of the growing number of states actively engaged in cyber-warfare. James Acton from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that a Russian cyber-attack disrupted power supply in Ukraine in 2015.
Nuclear facilities have repeatedly been targets of cyber-attack, including the Stuxnet computer virus targeted by Israel and the US to disrupt Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges in 2009.
Reports from the UK-based Chatham House and the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative have identified multiple computer security concerns specific to nuclear power plants.
Waste storage and disposal sites
Missiles hit a radioactive waste storage site near Kyiv on February 27. The IAEA stated in a March 1 update:……………………..
The Kyiv and Kharkiv facilities typically hold disused radioactive sources and other low-level waste from hospitals and industry, the IAEA said, but do not contain high-level nuclear waste. However the Kharkiv site may also store spent nuclear fuel from the research reactor.
Dr. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia.
RenewEconomy
As Russia’s Ukraine war intensifies, some warn nuclear escalation is possible
https://www.wbur.org/npr/1083696555/russia-ukraine-war-putin-nuclear-escalation-risk 2 Mar 22, As Russia’s Ukraine war intensifies, some warn nuclear escalation is possible, “At this time we see no reason to change our own alert levels,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday.
Some experts, though, are worried about the possibility of nuclear escalation. Here’s why.
The exact meaning of Putin’s order remains unclear, March 01, 2022, Geoff Brumfiel Over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave orders to his nation’s nuclear forces. On Monday, the U.S. said it would not respond with changes to its own nuclear posture.
In a brief clip, Putin is shown speaking to two stony-faced generals about the country’s nuclear forces.
“He basically said, ‘Because of all these hostile or aggressive statements and aggressive policies, we should start this special mode of combat duty of our deterrent forces,'” says Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva.
It’s unclear what a “special mode of combat duty” actually is. One possibility, says Podvig, is that the order activated the nation’s nuclear command and control system.
“Normally, in peacetime, the command and control system is configured in a way that makes the transmission of an actual command very much impossible,” he says. “It’s like you could press the button, but then nothing happens, because the button is not connected to anything.”
Putin’s order may have meant he wanted the button activated.
Then again, it may not.
Podvig says a follow-up statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense implied it may just mean upping the staffing at facilities that support nuclear weapons. It could be “they just added a few more people to the crews,” Podvig says.
Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons at the ready
Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other nation on Earth, according to Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.
“We estimate that they have about 4,500 or so nuclear warheads in their military stockpile,” he says.
For now, Russia’s largest nuclear weapons — aboard its submarines, bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles — appear to be at their usual level of alert, Kristensen says. But the nation’s stockpile also includes nearly 2,000 so-called tactical nuclear weapons, which are kept in storage facilities throughout Russia.
They were developed for the purpose of fighting a limited regional battle. Sort of a nuclear war in a very small area,” says Kristensen.
The U.S. has about 100 nuclear bombs stationed across Europe that could be used for tactical nuclear warfare.
The Kremlin’s battlefield weapons can be launched on the same short-range missiles Russia is currently using to bombard Ukraine, such as its Iskander ballistic missile.
Right now, there’s no indication that the battlefield nukes have been pulled out of storage
Russia says it would use nuclear weapons only as a last resort, but some are skeptical
Russia officially says it would use nuclear weapons only if the nation’s very survival was at risk. But not everyone thinks its nuclear rules are so clear-cut.
“A lot of people have questioned whether the bar for Russian nuclear use is as high as its official statements say,” says Olga Oliker with the International Crisis Group.
In 2018, the Pentagon’s nuclear posture review warned that Russia might use a battlefield nuke to “‘de-escalate’ a conflict on terms favorable to Russia.” In other words, Russia might detonate a smaller weapon to get its opponents to back off.
That statement was somewhat controversial among arms control experts at the time. Oliker believes such action would only possibly happen in a direct war with NATO forces.
In the current conflict with Ukraine, “I think it’s very unlikely that Moscow is just going to lob a nuclear weapon at something,” she says. “Obviously it’s been a week when a lot of people’s assumptions have been challenged, but I’ll cling to this one for a while.”
The risk of miscalculation is higher than it’s been in years
Putin’s latest statements may amount to little more than nuclear saber-rattling, says Jeffrey Lewis, a senior scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
“Putin has had a pretty bad-news week,” he says. “The Ukrainian army is fighting back, which he didn’t expect. The Russian army is performing dreadfully. They are indiscriminately shelling civilian areas. Those things all make him look weak, and the best way to push those headlines down a little bit is a nuclear threat.”
But Lewis says there is still plenty of nuclear risk. Putin has already miscalculated in his invasion of Ukraine.
“What would happen if the Russian warning system had a false alarm in the middle of a crisis like this?” he asks. “Would Putin know it was a false alarm? Or would he jump to the wrong conclusion?”
Even if the short-range battlefield nuclear weapons are still on the shelf, thousands of Russian and American long-range missiles are ready to launch in just minutes. That threat hangs over everything as the conflict in Ukraine drags on.
The expansion of NATO – a boon for the weapons industry and a prelude to conflict with Russia
Within two decades, 14 Central and Eastern European countries joined NATO. The organization originally existed to contain the Soviet Union, and Russian officials monitored its advance with alarm. In retrospect, postwar expansion benefited arms makers both by increasing their market and stimulating conflict with Russia.
Arms Industry Sees Ukraine Conflict as an Opportunity, Not a Crisis, Jonathan Ng, Truthout , 2 Mar 22,
”………………………….. Ultimately, policy makers reneged on their promise to Gorbachev, admitting Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO in 1999. During the ceremony, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright — who directly cooperated with the Jackson campaign — welcomed them with a hearty “Hallelujah.” Ominously, the intellectual architect of the Cold War, George Kennan, predicted disaster. “Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion,” Kennan cautioned.
Few listened. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman described the mentality of policy makers: “The Russians are down, let’s give them another kick.” Relishing victory, Jackson was equally truculent: “‘Fuck Russia’ is a proud and long tradition in US foreign policy.” Later, he became chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which paved the way for the 2003 invasion, the biggest industry handout in recent history.
Within two decades, 14 Central and Eastern European countries joined NATO. The organization originally existed to contain the Soviet Union, and Russian officials monitored its advance with alarm. In retrospect, postwar expansion benefited arms makers both by increasing their market and stimulating conflict with Russia.
Targeting Ukraine
Tensions reached a new phase in 2014 when the United States backed the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine. Yanukovych had opposed NATO membership, and Russian officials feared his ouster would bring the country under its strategic umbrella. Rather than assuage their concerns, the Obama administration maneuvered to slip Ukraine into its sphere of influence. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland coordinated regime change with brash confidence. Nuland openly distributed cookies to protesters, and later, capped a diplomatic exchange with “fuck the EU.” At the height of the uprising, Sen. John McCain also joined demonstrators. Flanked by leaders of the fascist Svoboda Party, McCain advocated regime change, declaring that “America is with you.”
By then, newly minted NATO members had bought nearly $17 billion in American weapons. Military installations, including six NATO command posts, ballooned across Eastern Europe. Fearing further expansion, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and intervened in the Donbas region, fueling a ferocious and interminable war. NATO spokespeople argued that the crisis justified expansion. In reality, NATO expansion was a key inciter of the crisis. And the conflagration was a gift to the arms industry. In five years, major weapons exports from the United States increased 23 percent, while French exports alone registered a 72-percent leap, reaching their highest levels since the Cold War. Meanwhile, European military spending hit record heights.
As tensions escalated, Supreme Commander Philip Breedlove of NATO wildly inflated threats, calling Russia “a long-term existential threat to the United States.” Breedlove even falsified information about Russian troop movements over the first two years of the conflict, while brainstorming tactics with colleagues to “leverage, cajole, convince or coerce the U.S. to react.” A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution concluded that he aimed to “goad Europeans into jacking up defense spending.”
And he succeeded. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute registered a significant leap in European military spending — even though Russian spending in 2016 equaled only one quarter of the European NATO budget. That year, Breedlove resigned from his post before joining the Center for a New American Security, a hawkish think tank awash in industry funds.
The arms race continues. After European negotiations gridlocked, Russia recognized two separatist republics in the Donbas region before invading Ukraine this February. Justifying the bloody operation, Putin wrongly accused Ukrainian authorities of genocide. Yet his focus was geopolitical. “It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries,” he said. “In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.”
In retrospect, three decades of industry lobbying has proved deadly effective. NATO engulfed most of Eastern Europe and provoked a war in Ukraine — yet another opportunity for accumulation. Alliance members have activated Article 4, mobilizing troops, contemplating retaliation and moving further toward the brink of Armageddon.
Yet even as military budgets rise, European arms makers — like their American counterparts — have required foreign markets to overcome fiscal restraints and production costs. They need clients to finance their own military buildup: foreign wars to fund domestic defense. ………………………….. https://truthout.org/articles/arms-industry-sees-ukraine-conflict-as-an-opportunity-not-a-crisis/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=734c56bc-48da-4e66-bea1-f2bedb7d1431
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov warns that a third world war would be nuclear
Russia’s Lavrov: A third world war would be nuclear, destructive
Moscow put its strategic nuclear forces on alert last week amid the war in Ukraine, causing ripples across the globe. Aljazeera, 2 Mar 22,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that if a third world war were to occur, it would involve nuclear weapons and be destructive, according to Russian media.
The comments reported by the RIA news agency on Wednesday came a day after he told a Geneva disarmament meeting via video link that neighbouring Ukraine, which Russian invaded last week, had been seeking nuclear weapons.
He did not provide evidence other than saying “Ukraine still has Soviet nuclear technologies and the means of delivery of such weapons.”
Lavrov has also said that Russia would have faced a “real danger” if Ukraine acquired nuclear weapons.
Nuclear forces on high alert
Russian forces attacked Ukraine by land, air and sea, the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War II.
The move has been countered by the West with harsh economic sanctions on Russia as well as deliveries of arms and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
The US government on Tuesday announced a ban on Russian flights in its airspace, following similar moves by the European Union and Canada.
On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin put his strategic nuclear forces on alert, causing ripples across the globe and raising the threat the tensions could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. ………….. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/2/russias-lavrov-says-a-ww-iii-would-be-nuclear-and-destructive
”Infinite war” – NATO and U.S. weapons industry found the perfect sales opportunity in Yemen
Arms Industry Sees Ukraine Conflict as an Opportunity, Not a Crisis, Jonathan Ng, Truthout , 2 Mar 22,
In the United States, the industry employs around 700 lobbyists. Nearly three-fourths previously worked for the federal government — the highest percentage for any industry. The lobby spent $108 million in 2020 alone, and its ranks continue to swell. Over the past 30 years, about 530 congressional staffers on military-related committees left office for defense contractors. Industry veterans dominate the Biden administration, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin from Raytheon.
”’………………….Yemen Burning
Arms makers found the perfect sales opportunity in Yemen. In 2011, a popular revolution toppled Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had monopolized power for two decades. His crony, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, became president the next year after easily winning the election: He was the only candidate. Thwarted by elite intrigue, another uprising ejected Mansour Hadi in 2015.
That year, Prince Salman became king of Saudi Arabia, but power concentrated into the hands of his son, Mohammed bin Salman, who feared that the uprising threatened to snatch Yemen from Saudi Arabia’s sphere of influence.
Months later, a Saudi-led coalition invaded, leaving a massive trail of carnage. “There was no plan,” a U.S. intelligence official emphasized. “They just bombed anything and everything that looked like it might be a target.”
The war immediately attracted NATO contractors, which backed the aggressors. They exploit the conflict to sustain industrial capacity, fund weapons development and achieve economies of scale. In essence, the Saudi-led coalition subsidizes the NATO military buildup, while the West inflames the war in Yemen.
Western statesmen pursue sales with perverse enthusiasm. In May 2017, Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia for his first trip abroad as president, in order to flesh out the details of a $110 billion arms bundle. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, arrived beforehand to discuss the package. When Saudi officials complained about the price of a radar system, Kushner immediately called the CEO of Lockheed Martin to ask for a discount. The following year, Mohammed bin Salman visited company headquarters during a whirlwind tour of the United States. Defense contractors, Hollywood moguls and even Oprah Winfrey welcomed the young prince Yet the Americans were not alone. The Saudi-led coalition is also the largest arms market for France and other NATO members. And as the French Ministry of the Armed Forces explains, exports are “necessary for the preservation and development of the French defense technological and industrial base.” In other words, NATO members such as France export war in order to retain their capacity to wage it.
President Macron denies that the coalition — an imposing alliance that includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Sudan and Senegal — uses French weapons. But the statistics are suggestive. Between 2015 and 2019, France awarded €14 billion in arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia and €20 billion in licenses to the United Arab Emirates. CEO Stéphane Mayer of Nexter Systems praised the performance of Leclerc tanks in Yemen, boasting that they “have highly impressed the military leaders of the region.” In short, while Macron denies that the coalition wields French hardware in Yemen, local industrialists cite their use as a selling point. Indeed, Amnesty International reports that his administration has systematically lied about its export policy. Privately, officials have compiled a “very precise list of French materiél deployed in the context of the conflict, including ammunition.”
Recently, Macron became one of the first heads of state to meet Mohammed bin Salman following the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Like Trump’s trip, Macron’s diplomatic junket was a sales mission. Eventually, Macron clinched a deal with the United Arab Emirates for 80 Rafale fighters. The CEO of Dassault Aviation called the contract “the most important ever obtained by French military aerospace,” guaranteeing six years of work for a pillar of its industrial base.
French policy is typical of NATO involvement in Yemen. While denouncing the war, every Western producer has outfitted those carrying it out. Spanish authorities massage official documents to conceal the export of lethal hardware. Great Britain has repeatedly violated its own arms embargo. And the United States has not respected export freezes with any consistency.
Even NATO countries in Eastern Europe exploit the war. While these alliance members absorb Western arms, they dump some of their old Soviet hardware into the Middle East. Between 2012 and July 2016 Eastern Europe awarded at least €1.2 billion in military equipment to the region.
Ironically, a leading Eastern European arms exporter is Ukraine. While the West rushes to arm Kyiv, its ruling class has sold weapons on the black market. A parliamentary inquiry concluded that between 1992 and 1998 alone, Ukraine lost a staggering $32 billion in military assets, as oligarchs pillaged their own army. Over the past three decades, they have outfitted Iraq, the Taliban and extremist groups across the Middle East. Even former President Leonid Kuchma, who has led peace talks in the Donbas region, illegally sold weapons while in office. More recently, French authorities investigated Dmytro Peregudov, the former director of the state defense conglomerate, for pocketing $24 million in sales commissions. Peregudov resided in a château with rolling wine fields, while managing the extensive properties that he acquired after his years in public service.
The Warlords
Kuchma and Peregudov are hardly exceptional. Corruption is endemic in an industry that relies on the proverbial revolving door. The revolving door is not simply a metaphor but an institution, converting private profit into public policy. Its perpetual motion signifies the social reproduction of an elite that resides at the commanding heights of a global military-industrial complex. Leading power brokers ranging from the Mitterrands and Chiracs in France, to the Thatchers and Blairs in Britain, and the Gonzálezes and Bourbons in Spain have personally profited from the arms trade.
In the United States, the industry employs around 700 lobbyists. Nearly three-fourths previously worked for the federal government — the highest percentage for any industry. The lobby spent $108 million in 2020 alone, and its ranks continue to swell. Over the past 30 years, about 530 congressional staffers on military-related committees left office for defense contractors. Industry veterans dominate the Biden administration, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin from Raytheon.
The revolving door reinforces the class composition of the state, while undermining its moral legitimacy. As an elite rotates office, members insulate policymaking from democratic input, taint the government with corruption and mistake corporate profit with national interest. By 2005, 80 percent of army generals with three stars or more retired to arms makers despite existing regulations. (The National Defense Authorization Act prohibits top officers from lobbying the government for two years after leaving office or leveraging personal contacts to secure contracts. But compliance is notoriously poor.) More recently, the U.S. Navy initiated investigations against dozens of officers for corrupt ties to the defense contractor Leonard Francis, who clinched contracts with massive bribes, lavish meals and sex parties.
Steeped in this corrosive culture, NATO intellectuals now openly talk about the prospect of “infinite war.” Gen. Mike Holmes insists that it is “not losing. It’s staying in the game and getting a new plan and keeping pursuing your objectives.” Yet those immersed in its brutal reality surely disagree. The United Nations reports that at least 14,000 people have died in the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2014, and over 377,000 have perished in Yemen.
In truth, the doctrine of infinite war is not so much a strategy as it is a confession — acknowledging the violent metabolism of a system that requires conflict. As a self-selecting elite propounds NATO expansion, military buildup and imperialism, we must embrace what the warlords most fear: the threat of peace.The author would like to thank Sarah Priscilla Lee of the Learning Sciences Program at Northwestern University for reviewing this article. https://truthout.org/articles/arms-industry-sees-ukraine-conflict-as-an-opportunity-not-a-crisis/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=734c56bc-48da-4e66-bea1-f2bedb7d1431
Noam Chomsky: US Military Escalation Against Russia Would Have No Victors.
‘‘ In brief, the crisis has been brewing for 25 years as the U.S. contemptuously rejected Russian security concerns, in particular their clear red lines: Georgia and especially Ukraine.”
”…….. repeatedly the reaction to real or imagined crisis has been to reach for the six-gun rather than the olive branch. It’s almost a reflex, and the consequences have generally been awful ………….”
”The options that remain after the invasion are grim. The least bad is support for the diplomatic options that still exist,……….. with an escape hatch for Putin, or outcomes will be still more dire for Ukraine and everyone else, perhaps almost unimaginably so.”‘
Interview with Noam Chomsky, C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout, 1 March 22, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took much of the world by surprise. It is an unprovoked and unjustified attack that will go down in history as one of the major war crimes of the 21st century, argues Noam Chomsky in the exclusive interview for Truthout that follows.
Political considerations, such as those cited by Russian President Vladimir Putin, cannot be used as arguments to justify the launching of an invasion against a sovereign nation. In the face of this horrific invasion, though, the U.S. must choose urgent diplomacy over military escalation, as the latter could constitute a “death warrant for the species, with no victors,” Chomsky says……………
Q. …………Why do you think he decided to launch an invasion at this point in time?
CHOMSKY. ” ………….. It always makes sense to seek explanations, but there is no justification, no extenuation.
Turning now to the question, there are plenty of supremely confident outpourings about Putin’s mind. The usual story is that he is caught up in paranoid fantasies, acting alone, surrounded by groveling courtiers of the kind familiar here in what’s left of the Republican Party traipsing to Mar-a-Lago for the Leader’s blessing.
The flood of invective might be accurate, but perhaps other possibilities might be considered. Perhaps Putin meant what he and his associates have been saying loud and clear for years. It might be, for example, that, “Since Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.”
The author of these words is former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock, one of the few serious Russia specialists in the U.S. diplomatic corps, writing shortly before the invasion. He goes on to conclude that the crisis “can be easily resolved by the application of common sense…. By any common-sense standard it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict. To try to detach Ukraine from Russian influence — the avowed aim of those who agitated for the ‘color revolutions’ — was a fool’s errand, and a dangerous one. Have we so soon forgotten the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis?”
Matlock is hardly alone. Much the same conclusions about the underlying issues are reached in the memoirs of CIA head William Burns, another of the few authentic Russia specialists……………..
The fact is, to be honest, that we do not know why the decision was made, even whether it was made by Putin alone or by the Russian Security Council in which he plays the leading role. There are, however, some things we do know with fair confidence, including the record reviewed in some detail by those just cited, who have been in high places on the inside of the planning system. In brief, the crisis has been brewing for 25 years as the U.S. contemptuously rejected Russian security concerns, in particular their clear red lines: Georgia and especially Ukraine.
There is good reason to believe that this tragedy could have been avoided, until the last minute. We’ve discussed it before, repeatedly. As to why Putin launched the criminal aggression right now, we can speculate as we like. But the immediate background is not obscure — evaded but not contested
………. If we want to respond to the tragedy in ways that will help the victims, and avert still worse catastrophes that loom ahead, it is wise, and necessary, to learn as much as we can about what went wrong and how the course could have been corrected. Heroic gestures may be satisfying. They are not helpful.
…….. The question cuts deep. There is no time to review this critically important matter here, but repeatedly the reaction to real or imagined crisis has been to reach for the six-gun rather than the olive branch. It’s almost a reflex, and the consequences have generally been awful — for the traditional victims. ………….
The options that remain after the invasion are grim. The least bad is support for the diplomatic options that still exist, in the hope of reaching an outcome not too far from what was very likely achievable a few days ago: Austrian-style neutralization of Ukraine, some version of Minsk II federalism within. Much harder to reach now. And — necessarily — with an escape hatch for Putin, or outcomes will be still more dire for Ukraine and everyone else, perhaps almost unimaginably so.
Q. …………….. Can you comment on Putin’s legal justifications for the invasion of Ukraine and on the status of international law in the post-Cold War era?
CHOMSKY. There is nothing to say about Putin’s attempt to offer legal justification for his aggression. Its merit is zero……………………………………
Do you think the invasion will initiate a new era of sustained contestation between Russia (and possibly in alliance with China) and the West?
It’s hard to tell where the ashes will fall — and that might turn out not to be a metaphor. So far, China is playing it cool…………………………… https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a353e8c0-2709-4024-84ba-04836fea0cbf
How the U.S. Started a Cold War with Russia and Left Ukraine to Fight It
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, 1 Mar 22, https://www.codepink.org/how_the_us_started_a_cold_war_with_russia_and_left_ukraine_to_fight_it—
The defenders of Ukraine are bravely resisting Russian aggression, shaming the rest of the world and the UN Security Council for its failure to protect them. It is an encouraging sign that the Russians and Ukrainians are holding talks in Belarus that may lead to a ceasefire. All efforts must be made to bring an end to this war before the Russian war machine kills thousands more of Ukraine’s defenders and civilians, and forces hundreds of thousands more to flee.
But there is a more insidious reality at work beneath the surface of this classic morality play, and that is the role of the United States and NATO in setting the stage for this crisis.
President Biden has called the Russian invasion “unprovoked,” but that is far from the truth. In the four days leading up to the invasion, ceasefire monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) documented a dangerous increase in ceasefire violations in Eastern Ukraine, with 5,667 violations and 4,093 explosions.
Most were inside the de facto borders of the Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics, consistent with incoming shell-fire by Ukraine government forces. With nearly 700 OSCE ceasefire monitors on the ground, it is not credible that these were all “false flag” incidents staged by separatist forces, as U.S. and British officials claimed.
Whether the shell-fire was just another escalation in the long-running civil war or the opening salvos of a new government offensive, it was certainly a provocation. But the Russian invasion has far exceeded any proportionate action to defend the DPR and LPR from those attacks, making it disproportionate and illegal.
In the larger context though, Ukraine has become an unwitting victim and proxy in the resurgent U.S. Cold War against Russia and China, in which the United States has surrounded both countries with military forces and offensive weapons, withdrawn from a whole series of arms control treaties, and refused to negotiate resolutions to rational security concerns raised by Russia.
In December 2021, after a summit between Presidents Biden and Putin, Russia submitted a draft proposal for a new mutual security treaty between Russia and NATO, with 9 articles to be negotiated. They represented a reasonable basis for a serious exchange. The most pertinent to the crisis in Ukraine was simply to agree that NATO would not accept Ukraine as a new member, which is not on the table in the foreseeable future in any case. But the Biden administration brushed off Russia’s entire proposal as a nonstarter, not even a b820asis for negotiations.
So why was negotiating a mutual security treaty so unacceptable that Biden was ready to risk thousands of Ukrainian lives, although not a single American life, rather than attempt to find common ground? What does that say about the relative value that Biden and his colleagues place on American versus Ukrainian lives? And what is this strange position that the United States occupies in today’s world that permits an American president to risk so many Ukrainian lives without asking Americans to share their pain and sacrifice?
The breakdown in U.S. relations with Russia and the failure of Biden’s inflexible brinkmanship precipitated this war, and yet Biden’s policy “externalizes” all the pain and suffering so that Americans can, as another wartime president once said, “go about their business” and keep shopping. America’s European allies, who must now house hundreds of thousands of refugees and face spiraling energy prices, should be wary of falling in line behind this kind of “leadership” before they, too, end up on the front line.
At the end of the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s Eastern European counterpart, was dissolved, and NATO should have been as well, since it had achieved the purpose it was built to serve. Instead, NATO has lived on as a dangerous, out-of-control military alliance dedicated mainly to expanding its sphere of operations and justifying its own existence. It has expanded from 16 countries in 1991 to a total of 30 countries today, incorporating most of Eastern Europe, at the same time as it has committed aggression, bombings of civilians and other war crimes.
In 1999, NATO launched an illegal war to militarily carve out an independent Kosovo from the remnants of Yugoslavia. NATO airstrikes during the Kosovo War killed hundreds of civilians, and its leading ally in the war, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, is now on trial at The Hague for the appalling war crimes he committed under the cover of NATO bombing, including cold-blooded murders of hundreds of prisoners to sell their internal organs on the international transplant market.
Far from the North Atlantic, NATO joined the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan, and then attacked and destroyed Libya in 2011, leaving behind a failed state, a continuing refugee crisis and violence and chaos across the region.
In 1991, as part of a Soviet agreement to accept the reunification of East and West Germany, Western leaders assured their Soviet counterparts that they would not expand NATO any closer to Russia than the border of a united Germany. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker promised that NATO would not advance “one inch” beyond the German border. The West’s broken promises are spelled out for all to see in 30 declassified documents published on the National Security Archive website.
After expanding across Eastern Europe and waging wars in Afghanistan and Libya, NATO has predictably come full circle to once again view Russia as its principal enemy. U.S. nuclear weapons are now based in five NATO countries in Europe: Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey, while France and the U.K. already have their own nuclear arsenals. U.S. “missile defense” systems, which could be converted to fire offensive nuclear missiles, are based in Poland and Romania, including at a base in Poland only 100 miles from the Russian border.
Another Russian request in its December proposal was for the United States to simply rejoin the 1988 INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty), under which both sides agreed not to deploy short- or intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe. Trump withdrew from the treaty in 2019 on the advice of his National Security Adviser, John Bolton, who also has the scalps of the 1972 ABM Treaty, the 2015 JCPOA with Iran and the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea dangling from his gun-belt.
None of this can justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the world should take Russia seriously when it says that its conditions for ending the war and returning to diplomacy are Ukrainian neutrality and disarmament. While no country can be expected to completely disarm in today’s armed-to-the-teeth world, neutrality could be a serious long-term option for Ukraine.
There are many successful precedents, like Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Finland and Costa Rica. Or take the case of Vietnam. It has a common border and serious maritime disputes with China, but Vietnam has resisted U.S. efforts to embroil it in its Cold War with China, and remains committed to its long-standing “Four Nos” policy: no military alliances; no affiliation with one country against another; no foreign military bases; and no threats or uses of force.
The world must do whatever it takes to obtain a ceasefire in Ukraine and make it stick. Maybe UN Secretary General Guterres or a UN special representative could act as a mediator, possibly with a peacekeeping role for the UN. This will not be easy – one of the still unlearned lessons of other wars is that it is easier to prevent war through serious diplomacy and a genuine commitment to peace than to end a war once it has started.
If and when there is a ceasefire, all parties must be prepared to start afresh to negotiate lasting diplomatic solutions that will allow all the people of Donbas, Ukraine, Russia, the United States and other NATO members to live in peace. Security is not a zero-sum game, and no country or group of countries can achieve lasting security by undermining the security of others.
The United States and Russia must also finally assume the responsibility that comes with stockpiling over 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, and agree on a plan to start dismantling them, in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Lastly, as Americans condemn Russia’s aggression, it would be the epitome of hypocrisy to forget or ignore the many recent wars in which the United States and its allies have been the aggressors: in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, Palestine, Pakistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
We sincerely hope that Russia will end its illegal, brutal invasion of Ukraine long before it commits a fraction of the massive killing and destruction that the United States and its allies have committed in our illegal wars.
Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK Women for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
Ralph Nader: Everyone Loses in the Conflict Over Ukraine.
Ralph Nader, February 28, 2022 https://scheerpost.com/2022/02/28/ralph-nader-everyone-loses-in-the-conflict-over-ukraine/ The U.S. and Russia are toying with a dangerous recipe for an out-of-control escalation, much like the lead-up to World War I.
When two scorpions are in a bottle, they both lose. This is the preventable danger that is growing daily, with no end game in sight between the two nuclear superpowers, led by dictator Vladimir Putin and de facto sole decider, Joe Biden.
Putin’s first argument is, Washington invented the model of aggressive, illegal invasions, and destruction of distant countries that never threatened U.S. security. Millions have died, been injured, and sickened in defenseless countries attacked by U.S. armed forces. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney killed over a million innocent Iraqis and devastated the country in so many ways that scholars called it a “sociocide.”
Putin’s second argument is that Russia is being threatened on its sensitive western border, which had been invaded twice by Germany and caused the loss of 50 million Russian lives. Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, the West’s military alliance against Russia began moving east. Under Bill Clinton, NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signed up Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999 leading to major arms sales by the U.S. giant munitions corporations.
More recently, Putin sees U.S. soldiers in these countries, ever closer U.S. missile launchers, U.S.-led joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, and intimations that Ukraine and Georgia could soon join NATO. (Imagine if the Russians were to have such a military presence around the U.S. borders.)
Even often hawkish New York Times columnists – Thomas Friedman and Bret Stephens made this point this week about the brazen U.S. history of military hypocrisy while tearing into Putin. Stephens brought up the Monroe Doctrine over the entire Western Hemisphere, in raising repeatedly the question, “Who are We?”
The chess game between Russia and the West has become more deadly with Putin’s military moves followed by immediate Western sanctions against some Russian banks and oligarchs close to Putin. Travel bans and freezing the completion of the second major natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany are in place with promises of much more severe economic retaliation by Biden.
These sanctions can become a two-way street. Western Europe needs Russian oil and gas, Russian wheat, and essential Russian minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Sanctions against Russia will soon boomerang in terms of higher oil and gas prices for Europeans and Americans, more inflation, worsening supply chains, and the dreaded “economic uncertainty” afflicting stock markets and consumer spending.
The corporate global economy gave us interdependence on other nations, instead of domestic self-reliance under the framework of corporate-managed free trade agreements.
So how many billions of dollars in costs and a weakened economy will Joe Biden tolerate as the price of anti-Putin sanctions that will blowback on the American people? How much suffering will he tolerate being inflicted on the long-suffering Russian people? What will be the impact on the civilian population of more severe sanctions? And who is he to talk as if he doesn’t have to be authorized by Congress to go further into this state of belligerence, short of sending soldiers, which he said he would not do?
Is Congress to be left as a cheerleader, washing its hands of its constitutional oversight and foreign policy duties? Also, watch Republicans and Democrats in Congress unify to whoop through more money for the bloated military budget, as pointed out by military analyst, Michael Klare. What energy will be left for Biden’s pending “Build Back Better” infrastructure, social safety net, and climate crisis legislation?
In recent weeks, the State Department said it recognizes Russia’s legitimate security concerns but not its expansionism. Well, what is wrong with a ceasefire followed by support for a treaty “guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine, similar to the enforced neutrality for Austria since the Cold War’s early years,” as Nation publisher and Russia specialist Katrina vanden Heuvel urged. (See: Katrina vanden Heuvel’s Washington Post article and her recent Nation piece).
Putin, unable to get over the breakup of the Soviet Union, probably has imperial ambitions to dominate in Russia’s backyard. Biden has inherited and accepted the U.S. Empire’s ambitions in many other nation’s backyards. Events have polarized this conflict over Ukraine, which is not a security interest for the U.S., into two dominant egos – Putin and Biden – neither of whom want to appear weak or to back down.
This is a dangerous recipe for an out-of-control escalation, much as it was in the lead-up to World War I. Neither the people nor the parliaments mattered then, as seems to be the case today.
Putin isn’t likely to make a cost-benefit assessment of each day’s militarism. But Biden better do so. Otherwise, he will be managed by Putin’s daily moves, instead of insisting on serious negotiations. The Minsk II Peace Accords of February 2015 brokered by Germany, France, and the United Nations that Russia and Ukraine agreed to before falling apart due to disagreements over who should take the first steps, still makes for a useful framework.
It is too late to revisit the accords to stop the invasion. But it should be proposed to introduce a climate for waging peace. Already, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has spoken about an increase in cyberattacks and ransomware demands in her state in recent weeks. Has Biden put that rising certainty in his self-described decades-long foreign policy expertise? Watch out for what you can’t stop, Joe.
Ukraine has 0% of winning, so sending weapons is a pointless exercise, except for the money.
Caitlin Johnstone, 28 Feb 22, Ukraine has a 0% chance of winning this war alone, no matter how many weapons are sent to it. All weapons can do is make the war more costly for Russia, which it’s in the US empire’s interests to do. Stop pretending your calls for more weapons are anything more noble than that.
Russia President Vladimir Putin puts his nuclear forces on alert
Putin’s alert raises two types of risks that the conflict might escalate into a nuclear conflict: deliberate and inadvertent.
Much depends on whether Russia is alerting its strategic nuclear forces, which would focus on protecting the regime from attack on Russian soil, or its theater forces, which would be oriented toward influencing the military and political situation on the continent.
In the fog of war, countries may shoot first and ask questions later.
The Ukraine crisis is now a nuclear crisis https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/27/ukraine-crisis-is-now-nuclear-crisis/ Russian President Vladimir Putin just put his nuclear forces on alert, By Caitlin Talmadge 27 Feb 22
Russia’s publicly announced nuclear alert has turned the Ukraine war from a crisis involving nuclear powers to an actual nuclear crisis.
With the caveat that we do not have many details about what the Russian alert entails, it is nevertheless a clear sign that President Vladimir Putin does not believe that the conventional military campaign in Ukraine is achieving the political outcomes he wants.
Putin has turned to nuclear weapons because they offer another way to increase pressure on both Ukraine and its international backers to come to the settlement that Russia wants regarding Ukraine’s status. Yet his decision raises serious risks of both deliberate and inadvertent nuclear escalation.
This is a scary moment, but it’s not unprecedented or that surprising. Here is why.
Nuclear signals like this are not new
Putin has explicitly signaled from the beginning of the Ukraine war that he might turn to Russia’s nuclear arsenal if outside powers interfered with his campaign or were perceived to be threatening Russia itself.
In fact, Putin’s initial nuclear threat likely was intended as a shield to keep the West out of Russia’s conventional operations. This highlights what international relations scholars call the stability-instability paradox. The danger of nuclear war may keep nuclear powers from fighting all-out because they fear it would escalate. However, precisely because all-out war would be so mutually damaging, the likelihood of conventional war or even limited nuclear use can increase.
Amid reports of Russia’s lagging conventional invasion, Putin may now believe that climbing up to the next rung on the so-called escalation ladder is the only way to achieve the coercive effect he wants.
Such a move fits with his decision to announce the alert so publicly — rather than keeping it secret, as nuclear matters usually are — to ensure that the world gets the message and other nations have to respond.
Putin’s approach is not new. Countries often rely on their nuclear arsenals to compensate for inferiority with conventional weapons as shown by Pakistan, North Korea, and NATO’s threats to escalate during the Cold War. The idea is to deter conventional attack or prevent conventional defeat through threats of nuclear first use. The The world has even seen episodes of explicit signals that nuclear weapons could be used, as Putin has done, by states losing conventional battles in the past: Pakistan versus India in 2001-2002, for example, and Israel versus the Arab coalition in 1973.
There are real escalation risks — both intentional and unintentional
Putin’s alert raises two types of risks that the conflict might escalate into a nuclear conflict: deliberate and inadvertent.
First, the deliberate nuclear escalation risk comes from the possibility that Putin might actually use nuclear weapons, particularly tactical (short-range) nuclear weapons, to achieve his military objectives in Ukraine. Again, this is a major reason countries develop such weapons in the first place — to achieve what they think conventional forces cannot.
It is the same reason that the odds of Russian attacks against civilians have increased in the last day or two. From Putin’s standpoint, nuclear threats are likely just another escalatory lever to force the political outcome Russia wants.
Putin might also turn to medium-range nuclear weapons to coerce neighbors in Europe who are seeking to support Ukraine militarily, diplomatically, or politically. Of course, doing the latter against any NATO ally would be extremely escalatory and invoke U.S. commitments to defend its NATO allies under Article V of NATO’s founding treaty.
Second, raising the alert status of nuclear weapons inherently raises the likelihood of their use — and this is what generates inadvertent nuclear escalation risk. Details are sparse, but we could expect the readiness of Russia’s nuclear forces to now be heightened, and the command and control arrangements governing use of nuclear weapons to possibly be loosened, meaning they could be launched more easily.
Whether Russia has actually practiced these operations and how safely they can be conducted remain unclear. Risks of accidents and unauthorized use could increase. Countries sometimes undertake dangerous measures to signal their readiness to use nuclear weapons, as China did in 1969 when it fueled its rudimentary nuclear weapons in a lengthy border crisis versus the Soviets.
Furthermore, Russia’s alert could prompt counter-reactions in the United States, France and Britain. If they alert their forces as well, the chances of misperception — including Russian misperception of an impending nuclear attack — heighten further.
Much depends on whether Russia is alerting its strategic nuclear forces, which would focus on protecting the regime from attack on Russian soil, or its theater forces, which would be oriented toward influencing the military and political situation on the continent.
Worryingly, this is happening in a time of deep distrust and mutual suspicion, in which ambiguous signals from one country are likely to be viewed in the worst possible light by its opponents. This is precisely the sort of environment in which inadvertent nuclear escalation becomes most likely.
In the fog of war, countries may shoot first and ask questions later. This is how the Soviets ended up mistakenly shooting down a Korean civilian airliner in 1983 during a period of heightened nuclear tension with the United States, and why the Iranians did the same thing in the aftermath of the U.S. strike on Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in early 2020.
Putin is a personalist dictator — and that has its own risks
Adding to both the deliberate and inadvertent escalation dangers is Putin’s status as a personalist dictator. As Jessica L.P. Weeks and Jeff D. Colgan explained here at TMC, these autocrats have few constraints on decision-making authority and are very unlikely to get candid information from advisers. utin, an aging leader by Russian standards, likely views the current crisis as threatening not only his foreign policy goals but also his domestic political prospects at home, including his personal survival and freedom.
Putin may also want the world to worry that he is just enough of a madman to lash out when his back is against the wall. Again, this is a tactic leaders have tried before, including Khrushchev in the Berlin Crises of 1958 and 1961, and President Richard Nixon when he attempted to pressure the Soviets over Vietnam in 1969. This approach did not work well for these leaders — but they were all far more constrained than Putin.
This institutional and personal context may make Putin more risk-acceptant — that is, more willing to gamble on dangerous nuclear threats to save his regime — than other leaders. It also likely makes him more paranoid. These tendencies again reinforce the escalatory dangers stemming from Putin’s recent decision.
Caitlin Talmadge (@ProfTalmadge) is associate professor of security studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is the author of “The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes” (Cornell University Press, 2015).
Belarus to end its non-nuclear-weapon status
Belarus holds referendum to renounce non-nuclear status
The referendum shedding Belarus’ neutral status comes as Russia put nuclear deterrent forces on high alert. Aljazeera, 27 Feb 2022
Belarus is holding a referendum to adopt a new constitution that would ditch its non-nuclear status, at a time when the country has become a launchpad for Russian troops invading Ukraine.
The vote on Sunday is almost certain to pass under the tightly controlled rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, bringing nuclear weapons back on Belarusian soil for the first time since the country gave them up after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Lukashenko has fallen behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military assault on Ukraine after earlier playing an intermediary role between the two neighbours.
Putin on Sunday ordered Russian nuclear deterrent forces put on high alert, in a dramatic escalation of tensions with the West.
Speaking at a polling station, Lukashenko said that he could ask Russia to return nuclear weapons to Belarus.
“If you (the West) transfer nuclear weapons to Poland or Lithuania, to our borders, then I will turn to Putin to return the nuclear weapons that I gave away without any conditions,” Lukashenko said.
The constitutional referendum shedding Belarus’ neutral status opens the way for stronger military cooperation with Russia, which deployed forces to Belarusian territory under the pretext of military drills and then sent them rolling into Ukraine as part of the invasion that began on Thursday.
The amendments will also cement Lukashenko’s 27-year-old grip on power, allowing the president to stay in power until 2035 and giving him lifetime immunity from prosecution once he leaves office………………………….. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/27/belarus-holds-referendum-to-renounce-non-nuclear-status
EU to purchase weapons for Ukraine — live updates, DW
EU to purchase weapons for Ukraine — live updates, DW
The European Union said it will spend €450 million on weapons and equipment for Ukraine. Kyiv and Moscow have sent envoys to peace talks on the Belarus border. DW has the latest.
VSeveral countries have promised to equip Ukrainian soldiers with weapons.
- Putin has ordered nuclear deterrence be put on alert
- Ukraine agrees to talks at the Belarus border
- The EU will buy weapons for Ukraine to fight Russia
- Russians attack a gas pipeline and oil tanks
G7 threatens more sanctions against Russia
The G7 group of top industrialized nations warned Moscow that it could face additional sanctions if the war in Ukraine continues……………………………. https://www.dw.com/en/eu-to-purchase-weapons-for-ukraine-live-updates/a-60931396
Australia’s rushed nuclear submarine plan- irrelevant, as China’s technology will outpace it.
Australia’s hasty nuclear submarine plan to be outpaced by China’s development: experts, Global Times, By Liu Xuanzun and Leng Shumei: Feb 08, 2022 In an attempt to contain China, Australian Defense Minister recently said that Australia could get the first nuclear submarine under the framework of AUKUS before 2038. However, Chinese military experts said on Tuesday that this delivery schedule is too hasty and China’s rapid development during this period will outpace the Australian one……………..
When the AUKUS agreement was announced, an 18-month process was launched by all members to figure out the best way to deliver Australia nuclear submarines, according to the report by the Sydney Morning Herald.
“From a technological perspective, it is possible that Australia could get its first nuclear submarine by 2038 since the US and the UK are indeed capable of building this kind of submarine,” Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the Naval Research Academy of the People’s Liberation Army, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
However, the question remains on exactly what kind of nuclear submarine Australia will get.
If, for example, the US is willing to sell its off-the-rack Virginia-class submarine or transfer its technology and production lines to Australia, then, 2038 is possible. But, if the three countries are thinking about a customized or a completely new submarine, which is more likely in this case due to the high sensitivity of this kind of military hardware, it will likely take longer, analysts said.
“2038 sounds hasty to design and build a new nuclear submarine for a country with no experience, even with technology transfer,” a Chinese military expert who requested to remain anonymous told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Australia is not a nuclear power and the plan by the US and the UK to grant Australia nuclear-powered submarines increases the risks of nuclear proliferation and an arms race, experts said.
“From a political point of view, the three countries would also have to face the pressure from the international community to meet that schedule,” Zhang said, adding that “even if Australia does get the nuclear submarine, it will not be such a big threat to China, since war cannot be won with just one or two types of weapons.”
“2038 sounds hasty to design and build a new nuclear submarine for a country with no experience, even with technology transfer,” a Chinese military expert who requested to remain anonymous told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Australia is not a nuclear power and the plan by the US and the UK to grant Australia nuclear-powered submarines increases the risks of nuclear proliferation and an arms race, experts said.
“From a political point of view, the three countries would also have to face the pressure from the international community to meet that schedule,” Zhang said, adding that “even if Australia does get the nuclear submarine, it will not be such a big threat to China, since war cannot be won with just one or two types of weapons.”…………………………..
China did not militarize the South China Sea, as all Chinese presence in the region serves only to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, the expert said, noting that countries from outside of the region like the US, which have been sending warships and warplanes, are the real ones responsible for the militarization in the South China Sea.
Russian control of Chernobyl may have been aimed against alleged Ukrainian plan to produce nuclear weapons.
Russian control of Chernobyl may have been aimed against alleged Ukrainian plan to produce nukes, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/russian-control-of-chernobyl-may-have-been-aimed-against-alleged-ukrainian-plan-to-produce-nukes/articleshow/89836416.cms
Russian control of Chernobyl may have been aimed against alleged Ukrainian plan to produce nukes, By
Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury
Synopsis
Ukraine was allegedly making plans to produce 8-10 nuclear bombs with the available plutonium with support from certain foreign powers, sources indicated to ET. Plutonium-239 is an isotope of plutonium. Plutonium-239 is the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons.
The Russian military reportedly seized control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant amid apprehensions that Ukraine allegedly backed by foreign powers may have launched the process to build nukes based on Plutonium-239 available in the complex.
Ukraine was allegedly making plans to produce 8-10 nuclear bombs with the available plutonium with support from certain foreign powers, sources indicated to ET. Plutonium-239 is an isotope of plutonium. Plutonium-239 is the primary fissile isotop ..
Russia considered this alleged plan as a threat close to their borders and one of their goals in Ukraine was to nix the plan, claimed one of the above mentioned sources. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said on Thursday that Russian forces are trying to seize control of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry tweeted that a Russian attack on Ukraine could “cause another ecological disaster.” “In 1986, the world saw the biggest technological disaster in Chernobyl,” the ministry tweeted. “If Russia continues the war, Chernobyl can happen again in 2022.”
Chernobyl is located on the shortest route from Belarus to Ukrainian capital Kyiv. It may be recalled that the fourth reactor at Chernobyl, 108 km north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, exploded in April 1986.
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest on December 5, 1994 to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
As a result, between 1994 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons. Until then, Ukraine had the world’s third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile.
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