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Biden administration split over Ukraine’s use of US weapons inside Russia

Pentagon and intelligence community caution against deployment of ATACM missiles by Kyiv

Ft.com Felicia Schwartz in Washington, September 11 2024

US President Joe Biden has said he is considering a request by Ukraine to use weapons provided by the US to strike deep inside Russian territory. Biden’s admission on Tuesday comes as his government is split over whether to allow the use of US weapons, with the state department, which is more open to Kyiv’s request, pitted against the Pentagon and the US intelligence community. “We’re working that out right now,” Biden said when asked by reporters whether he would allow Ukraine to use American long-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to target sites inside Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for restrictions on western-supplied, long-range weapons to be lifted so his military can strike Russian airfields and missile launchers, as well as the ammunition depots, fuel storage and command and control centres that are critical to Moscow’s war. Washington in recent months has shifted away from a blanket ban on the use of US-supplied weapons to attack Russian territory, allowing Ukraine to deploy them for defensive strikes. But Zelenskyy is pressing the US and other western countries to permit the use of long-range weaponry deep inside Russia as part of his strategy of increasing the cost of the invasion for President Vladimir Putin.

Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, is travelling to Ukraine this week with UK foreign secretary David Lammy to meet Zelenskyy and discuss his request and show support for their ally. Ahead of the visit, Blinken told a press conference in London “we’ll be listening intently to our Ukrainian partners. We’ll both be reporting back to the [British] prime minister, to President Biden in the coming days.” He added that Biden would discuss the matter with Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, when he visits Washington on Friday.

The UK has urged the US to grant Ukraine permission to use long-range weapons provided by its western allies deep inside Russia and believes Kyiv should be able to target Russian sites and assets. US sign-off is needed in order for Ukraine to use the Storm Shadow missiles provided by the UK for long-range strikes inside Russia. While the US state department is more receptive to arguments from Ukraine and many of its western allies, the Pentagon and US intelligence community have cautioned against the use of the long-range weapons deep inside Russia.

The latter recently assessed that 90 per cent of Russian aircraft have been relocated to airfields at least 300km away from Ukrainian-controlled territory, outside of the range of ATACMS………………………………………. https://www.ft.com/content/48289996-e1bf-4c3e-befb-031698e89e1b

September 14, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Militarism Is a Leading Cause of the Climate Catastrophe

US military interventions are not just wars on people — they’re also wars on the climate.

By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, September 10, 2024

This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.

After the U.S. invaded Iraq, an estimated half a million Iraqis were killed and at least 9.2 million were displaced. From 2003-2011, more than 4.7 million Iraqis suffered from moderate to severe food insecurity. Over 243,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan war zone since 2001, more than 70,000 of them civilians. Between 4.5 and 4.6 million people have died in the post-9/11 wars.

The U.S.’s “war on terror” also escalated the climate catastrophe, resulting in local water shortages and extreme weather crises that are only getting worse. In 2022, Afghanistan had its worst drought in 30 years and it is facing a third consecutive year of drought. “The war has exacerbated climate change impacts,” Noor Ahmad Akhundzadah, a professor of hydrology at Kabul University, told the New York Times.

Meanwhile in the current moment, U.S. military assistance to Israel’s genocidal campaign is also intensifying the climate crisis.

As we look back across more than two decades of the “war on terror,” it is clear that many lives will be saved if we can bring a halt to U.S. military interventions throughout the world and simultaneously target the U.S. military’s catastrophic contributions to the climate crisis that threaten us all.

“The U.S. military is the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world,” Taylor Smith-Hams, U.S. senior organizer at 350.org, a global climate justice organization, said at a workshop on the Impact of Current Wars on Climate Crisis at the Veterans For Peace (VFP) Convention on August 17. “Militarism and war are key drivers of the climate crisis,” she added, citing fighter jets, warships and the U.S.’s massive constellation of military bases throughout the world.

Climate Effects of the “War on Terror”

On September 11, 2001, 19 men committed suicide and took roughly 3,000 people with them by flying two airliners into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in Pennsylvania. None of the hijackers hailed from Afghanistan or Iraq; 15 came from Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, the Bush administration illegally invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and overthrew their governments, then killed, injured and tortured nearly three-quarters of a million of their people.

Beyond the terrible death tolls in both countries, a lesser known consequence of the “war on terror” was the exacerbation of the climate catastrophe, both in the countries targeted by the war and globally.

Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol excluded military emissions from the counting of national emissions figures, U.S. military emissions are significantly undercounted. Although militaries are a significant source of carbon emissions, little is understood about their carbon footprint.

Beyond the terrible death tolls … a lesser known consequence of the “war on terror” was the exacerbation of the climate catastrophe, both in the countries targeted by the war and globally.

One of the first studies to expose direct and indirect military emissions as a result of combat was conducted by Benjamin Neimark, Oliver Belcher, Kirsti Ashworth and Reuben Larbi. They examined the use of concrete “blast walls” by U.S. forces in Baghdad, Iraq, from 2003-2008, the first five years of Bush’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” to measure the carbon footprint of the war. Concrete walls and barriers were also used in U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Kandahar and Kabul, Afghanistan, from 2008-2012 during “Operation Enduring Freedom.” (Although these two wars did not bring freedom, their effects on the climate crisis are enduring.)

While occupying Baghdad, the U.S. military erected hundreds of miles of blast walls in order to control the urban population pursuant to its counterinsurgency strategy. “Effective weaponisation of concrete has an extraordinary carbon footprint,” Neimark, Belcher, Ashworth and Larbi wrote. “The large carbon footprint comes mainly from the amount of heat and energy in cement production, the main ingredient in concrete.”

The logistical movement of troops, convoys, weapons, supplies and equipment, as well as firepower itself, carry a direct carbon cost. Jet propulsion fuel for fighter jets is a major culprit. U.S. military fuel use is “one of the largest single institutional carbon polluters in modern history,” the researchers wrote. But the indirect emissions in blast walls that result from the concrete supply chains that furnish the U.S. military are also substantial, Neimark and his coauthors argue.

“Parts of Afghanistan have warmed twice as much as the global average” New York Times international climate reporter Somini Sengupta wrote in 2021, and the war has intensified the impact of climate change.

Afghanistan ranks in the top 10 countries undergoing extreme weather conditions, including droughts, storms and avalanches, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported a year ago. Afghanistan ranks fourth among countries with the highest risk of a crisis and eighth on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of nations most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with climate change.

The story of what happened in Afghanistan provides a chilling example of the long-term consequences of war on climate change. Decades from now, Gaza, which was already vulnerable to the climate crisis before October 7, 2023, will invariably suffer increased climate effects from Israel’s current genocidal campaign. “Climate consequences including sea level rise, drought and extreme heat were already threatening water supplies and food security in Palestine,” Nina Lakhani wrote in a January article in The Guardian. “The environmental situation in Gaza is now catastrophic.”

Emissions From U.S.-Aided Israeli Genocide Have “Immense” Effect on Climate Crisis

Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinian people, and likely many more. During the first two months of Israel’s genocidal campaign, emissions that warmed the planet exceeded the annual carbon footprint of over 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, according to a study by Benjamin Neimark, Patrick Bigger, Frederick Otu-Larbi and Reuben Larbi. Roughly 281,000 metric tons of war-related carbon dioxide were emitted in the first two months of the war following October 7, 2023. More than 99 percent of these emissions resulted from Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza and U.S. supply flights to Israel. The climate cost was equivalent to the burning of at least 150,000 tons of coal. Almost half of the emissions were caused by U.S. cargo planes flying military supplies to Israel. Hamas rockets fired into Israel accounted for the equivalent of 300 tons of coal, an indicator of the asymmetry of Israel’s war on Palestine.

“The role of the US in the human and environmental destruction of Gaza cannot be overstated,” said Patrick Bigger, coauthor of the study and research director at the thinktank Climate + Community Project (CCP). During the VFP workshop, Bigger called it an “environmental Nakba.”

The story of what happened in Afghanistan provides a chilling example of the long-term consequences of war on climate change.

David Boyd, UN special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, said, “This research helps us understand the immense magnitude of military emissions — from preparing for war, carrying out war and rebuilding after war. Armed conflict pushes humanity even closer to the precipice of climate catastrophe, and is an idiotic way to spend our shrinking carbon budget.”

“From an ecological perspective, there is no such thing as an ‘effective’ or ‘green’ technology or military,” Neimark, Belcher, Ashworth and Larbi, coauthors of the concrete blast wall study, found. While Israel touts itself as a global leader in climate change adaptation and mitigation, it is actually engaged in “greenwashing” — misleading marketing practices to make policies appear more environmentally friendly. Indeed, “Israel’s green technologies are fundamentally structured by the Zionist project of appropriating Palestinian lands,” Sara Salazar Hughes, Stepha Velednitsky and Amelia Arden Green argue in their 2022 article, “Greenwashing in Palestine/Israel: Settler colonialism and environmental injustice in the age of climate catastrophe.”

Israel’s systems of waste management, renewable energy and agricultural technologies (“agritech”) are actually mechanisms for appropriation and dispossession of Palestinian territory, according to Hughes, Velednitsky and Green. Although Israel promotes itself as a responsible steward of Palestinian lands, “Israeli sustainability sustains settler colonialism.”

“Climate crisis in Palestine cannot be detached from the Israeli occupation. The brutal and extensively documented apartheid regime that Israel imposes and maintains over Palestinians is fundamentally incompatible with the tenets of climate justice,” Patrick Bigger, Batul Hassan, Salma Elmallah, Seth J. Prins, J. Mijin Cha, Malini Ranganathan, Thomas M. Hanna, Daniel Aldana Cohen and Johanna Bozuwa wrote for the think tank CCP.

Bigger and his coauthors cite Israel’s settler-colonial campaign to replace native olive groves with nonnative plants that reduce biodiversity, increase susceptibility to fire and put unsustainable pressure on natural resources. Palestinians, they write, are much more vulnerable than Israelis to the effects of climate change. “While Palestinians are displaced to support Israel’s renewable energy industry, Palestinian solar projects are destroyed as ‘illegal constructions,’ having failed to secure permits from Israeli authorities.”

As the largest provider of military hardware to the Israeli regime, the U.S. government is “directly complicit” in Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. “An immediate, permanent ceasefire and the end of US funding for Israeli apartheid and occupation is needed to halt the ongoing violence and address the driving forces of climate breakdown in Palestine,” Bigger and coauthors wrote.

About 20 percent of the U.S. military’s annual operational emissions is devoted to protecting fossil fuel interests in the Gulf, which is warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the world, according to Neta Crawford, author of The Pentagon, Climate Change and War. Nevertheless, the U.S. and other NATO countries are largely concerned with climate change as a national security threat. They don’t focus on their contributions to it.

“Here in the U.S., our government continues to dump enormous amounts of money into death and destruction at home and around the world, while cutting social programs and refusing to adequately contribute to international climate finance commitments, always with the excuse that there isn’t enough money,” Smith-Hams said at the VFP workshop.

Our anti-militarism work should target the U.S. military’s devastating contributions to the climate crisis. Our future depends on it.

For more information, see the Climate Crisis & Militarism Project of Veterans For Peace.

Marjorie Cohn

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She sits on the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace. A member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, she is the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.

September 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Let’s Just Fight’: How Britain Prefers War Over Peace in Ukraine

Boris Johnson avoided promoting a compromise peace in Ukraine after Russia invaded. Now, Labour continues to help prolong the conflict to secure British interests.

DECLASSIFIED UK, MARK CURTIS, 9 September 2024

Last week, defence secretary John Healey announced that the UK “will continue to step up our support to help Ukraine achieve victory” in its war with Russia.

Both he and foreign secretary David Lammy have repeatedly said “Labour will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to win”.

When President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukrainian forces conducted an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region last month, Healey praised the move as “bold”, saying it put Russian president Vladimir Putin “under pressure”.

Equipment used in that offensive included UK-supplied Challenger tanks sent to Ukraine last year.

Prime minister Keir Starmer has also told Zelensky he is willing to allow Ukraine’s use of UK-supplied long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia – provided the US agrees to it.

Despite Labour’s public relations about “change” during the general election, Lammy has consistently said that “with Labour there will be no change in the UK’s financial, military, diplomatic and political support for Ukraine”.

The consequences of this are hard to overstate. Since Russia’s brutal invasion, inflicting untold misery on millions of Ukrainians, bombarding civilians and committing war crimes, UK governments have been overwhelmingly focused on one thing – “winning” the war.

Yet one thing Whitehall has conspicuously avoided is making serious attempts at promoting a compromise peace that would end the fighting.

Indeed, one casualty of Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia is that it derailed secret talks to negotiate an agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure, according to the Washington Post.

There are specific reasons Whitehall prefers war over peace in Ukraine. It is worth going back to the very first chance negotiators had to end this devastating conflict soon after Russia invaded.

Scuppering peace prospects

There is considerable evidence showing the UK helped scupper the prospects for peace within a few weeks of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

The following month, direct peace negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations and mediation efforts by the then Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, created a genuine chance for ending the war peacefully.

Meeting in Turkey, the two sides produced the Istanbul communiqué in late March 2022 in which Ukraine promised not to join Nato or allow foreign military bases on its soil. For its part, Russia promised to withdraw its occupation troops from Ukraine, although not from the Donbas region or the Crimea.

David Arakhamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” party who led Ukraine’s delegation in the talks, later revealed that Moscow was “ready to end the war if we took neutrality… and made commitments that we would not join Nato”.

This was the key point”, he said in an interview in 2023.

Reports suggest Zelensky was then prepared to give up Nato membership and that he understood this was the key issue for Moscow. “And as far as I remember, they started a war because of this”, he said at the time.

‘Permanent neutrality’

Russia and Ukraine appeared relatively close to a deal that would “have ended the war and provided Ukraine with multilateral security guarantees, paving the way to its permanent neutrality and, down the road, its membership in the EU”, according to one detailed study…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

‘Keep fighting and dying’

In their summit in Brussels on 24 March 2022, Nato decided to oppose peace negotiations until Russia had fully withdrawn all its troops from Ukraine.

By early April, the Washington Post was reporting that “For some in Nato, it’s better for Ukrainians to keep fighting and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too soon or at too high a price for Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who acted as one of the mediators in the Istanbul talks, later said that “nothing could happen because everything else was decided in Washington…. the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed.”

Enter Boris Johnson

As talks were approaching a possible agreement, UK prime minister Boris Johnson arrived unannounced in Kyiv on 9 April 2022.

A report in Ukrainska Pravda noted that Johnson brought two messages: “The first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with”, and “the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements or guarantees, they [the collective West] are not”.

Before his visit, Johnson “instructed” Zelensky “not to make any concessions to Putin”, columnist Simon Jenkins wrote in the Guardian.

David Arakhamia said that Johnson had come to Kyiv to inform Ukrainian officials the West wouldn’t sign any agreement with Moscow, instead urging: “let’s just fight.”……………………………………………..

Peace feelers

The March/April 2022 negotiations may have produced the best opportunity to bring about a compromise peace, but there have been others since.

It is difficult to gauge whether the peace feelers put out by the Kremlin over the past two and half years are simply part of its propaganda strategy or serious attempts to end the fighting. The reason is that they have never been seriously tested by Washington and London……………………………………………………………..

Total war

The US and UK have long publicly rejected talks based on anything other than Russia’s complete withdrawal from Ukraine.

This principled position might have merit but for the real world intervening. Aggressors should surely not be rewarded in international relations, but this is something that applies as much to the US/UK in Iraq or Libya, or Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, as to Russia in Ukraine.

Only in the case of Ukraine, however, has the UK held to the high-minded position that Moscow must withdraw all its forces before any peace moves can be considered.

The second obvious truth is that holding to the position of regaining full control over all Ukrainian territory – including the disputed areas in the Donbas and the Crimea – is simply a recipe for ongoing war.

As leading analyst Anatol Lieven has written, “To recover everything it has lost since 2014 looks impossible. It would require the total defeat of the Russian military.”

Yet this appears to be what Keir Starmer wants. “This terrible conflict must end with the defeat of Putin in Ukraine”, the then UK opposition leader said in the House of Commons in 2023.

Although Zelensky vows to fight on, some senior Ukrainian figures are more than aware of the need for pragmatism. ………………………………………………….

What does Britain want?

To the UK establishment, the Ukraine war is a proxy one against Russia, its key rival for influence in Europe.

With Ukraine as the latest battleground in a modern great game, Whitehall’s main goal is to maintain Russia as a pariah state and end its independent foreign policy, which challenges Nato’s supremacy in Europe and, to an extent, the Middle East.

The war has enabled the UK to cement relations with an important new ally. UK officials have barely hidden their glee at overcoming their European competitors to get to Kyiv first. ……………………………………………………

MI6 in Ukraine

It turns out that British intelligence was increasingly active in Ukraine for years before Russia’s invasion – a remarkable turnaround from the blackout of the Cold War years.

A bombshell New York Times investigation in February 2024 notes that the CIA established 12 secret “forward operating bases” along Ukraine’s border with Russia in the decade before 2022…………………………………………………..

According to the New York Times, in the run-up to the 2022 invasion, the head of one of Russia’s intelligence services reported to Putin that CIA and MI6 were controlling Kyiv and were turning the neighbouring country “into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.”

In other words, “Ukraine was drawn into a Western coalition for the purpose of waging a broad-based shadow war against Russia”, comments Mark Episkopos, a fellow at the Quincy Institute.

He adds: “Moscow repeatedly warned — for many years before 2014 — that it was and remains prepared to take drastic action to prevent Ukraine from being used by the West as a forward operating base against Russia. Yet that, as recounted in lurid detail by the New York Times, is precisely what has happened over the past 10 years”.

This budding intelligence relationship has been cemented by the war itself. US Defense Department documents leaked in March 2023 showed Britain then had the largest number of special forces operating in the country, with 50 troops.

War profits

Courting Ukraine as a new ally has major benefits for the UK arms industry, which exerts enormous influence over Whitehall’s foreign policies. War is good for them, peace not so much.

In the ten years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, UK arms companies sold only £35m in military equipment to Kyiv. That figure has skyrocketed since February 2022 to over £800m.

UK arms corporations have secured a new, lucrative market……………………………………….

The war is a boon right across the UK’s substantial military industry: Britain has sent around 400 different military capabilities to Ukraine since 2022.

For US arms companies, the prize has been even greater. Washington has provided over $150bn worth of military equipment and aid to Ukraine since 2022.

Endgame

Journalist Branko Marcetic has long documented reports highlighting Western opposition to Ukraine peace prospects.

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny the war in Ukraine could have been ended mere months into the Russian invasion — and that the US and UK governments worked to prevent this from happening”, he writes.

If a compromise peace holds little value for the British elite, what does “winning” mean? A war with Russia?

In May this year the UK and US publicly gave Ukraine the go-ahead to use British-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia, saying it was up to Kyiv whether to do so.

That decision appeared to cross a line. With senior British military figures saying the UK must be prepared to fight a war with Russia, who knows what endgame is being planned in Whitehall, or what Keir Starmer’s limits might be. https://www.declassifieduk.org/lets-just-fight-how-britain-prefers-war-over-peace-in-ukraine/

September 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel kills 40 in Gaza “humanitarian zone”

Electronic Intafada Maureen Clare Murphy, 10 September 2024

Israel massacred at least 40 Palestinians by bombing tents housing people displaced from other areas of Gaza in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, early Tuesday, according to the government media office in the territory.

The health ministry in Gaza recorded the deaths of 19 individuals whose bodies were brought to hospitals. The media office explained that its higher fatality count includes 21 people whose bodies were not recovered because they were totally obliterated by the heavy weapons dropped on them.

Crews were still searching for missing persons, the government media office added. Video of the aftermath of the strike in al-Mawasi shows a 30-foot-deep crater in the sand where tents once stood:

Israel claimed without proof that it targeted a command center belonging to Hamas, which denied that any of its fighters were present.

This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes,” Hamas stated. The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or use these places for military purposes.”

UN “deplores” attack

The UN human rights office stated that it “deplores” the attack on al-Mawasi, which Israel had unilaterally designated as a “humanitarian zone.”

Instead of ensuring the safety of displaced Palestinians, the Israeli military “continues to choose to use weapons with wide area effects in these increasingly densely populated areas … suggesting a complete disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.”

The vast majority of Gaza’s population, which stood at 2.3 million before the genocide, has been displaced from their homes. Many people have been displaced multiple times, with no safe place to go.

Even if Israel’s claims that Hamas fighters had embedded themselves in the camp were true, the UN office said, this would not relieve its military of its obligation “to comply with the fundamental international humanitarian law principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack.”

Israel has instructed civilians to move to al-Mawasi, an open coastal area lacking infrastructure to meet the needs of displaced people, when issuing evacuation orders in other areas of Gaza. Israel most recently ordered Palestinians to evacuate to al-Mawasi on 24 August, the UN human rights office said.

In July, Israeli warplanes dropped bombs on al-Mawasi, killing dozens of Palestinians. Israel claimed that it had targeted Muhammad Deif, the head of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and the commander of Qassam’s Khan Younis Brigade.

Hamas has not confirmed whether Deif, who survived several previous attempts on his life, was killed.

American officials may have been involved in the July massacre in al-Mawasi. The New York Times reported last month that the US has been involved with intercepting the communications of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and has also “provided ground-penetrating radar to Israel to help in the hunt for him and other Hamas commanders.”

Attacks on shelters in north

Israel has repeatedly struck facilities being used as shelters for displaced people in Gaza, often claiming without evidence that they were being used as command centers by Hamas and other resistance groups, despite the vast tunnel networks used by Palestinian fighters.

On 7 September, the Israeli military attacked the Halima al-Sadia school sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Jabaliya al-Nazla, northern Gaza. The attack, which occurred without warning, killed four people and injured several others, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

That same day, four Palestinians, including a child, were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed the Amr Ibn al-Aas school north of Gaza City, which was also being used as a shelter.

“Since the beginning of August, the Israeli occupation army has bombed 16 schools being used as shelters in the Gaza Strip,” Euro-Med Monitor stated. All but one of the targeted schools are in the northern half of Gaza.

More than 215 Palestinians were killed in those attacks and hundreds more were injured, the rights group added, noting that Israel has escalated its targeting of civilians in Gaza City and the northern governorates of the territory.

The deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza’s north, including facilities serving as shelters, is part of Israel’s strategy to create a coercive environment in order to forcibly transfer the population to central and southern Gaza, according to Euro-Med Monitor.

Israeli plan to depopulate northern Gaza

The rights group pointed to reports in Israeli media about a plan drafted by Israeli reservist commanders and soldiers to depopulate northern Gaza.

The scheme, reportedly presented to Israel’s cabinet and other senior officials, was spearheaded by Giora Eiland, the retired major general and close advisor to Israel’s defense minister who called for creating conditions for the spread of epidemics in Gaza as a form of biological warfare.

It calls for an estimated 300,000 civilians to evacuate northern Gaza in a one-week period, after which the area would be besieged and Hamas fighters would be made to surrender or be killed.

According to Aluf Benn, chief editor of the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz, Israel has entered the second phase of its war, during which it “will strive to complete its takeover of the northern Gaza Strip.”

Benn added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government will subject Palestinians in northern Gaza to “the fate of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh: They were expelled from the region a year ago, overnight, in a rapid move by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Israel’s close ally.”

According to Benn, steps taken toward this new phase include Israel’s recent tapping of a colonel to head the Gaza equivalent of the Civil Administration in the West Bank and Netanyahu’s instruction for the military to prepare to distribute aid in lieu of humanitarian organizations.

“The motive is obvious: whoever distributes the food and medicine has their hand on the power switch,” Benn said.

He added that Netanyahu’s “relinquishment of the return of the Israeli hostages” is intended to deprive Sinwar of leverage in negotiations. Meanwhile, their continued captivity in Gaza will provide “Israel’s justification for continued warfare, siege and occupation.”

The ongoing warfare and siege in turn will compel Palestinians to leave Gaza for good, Benn projects…………………………….

At least 41,020 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and some 94,925 have been injured, according to the health ministry in the territory.

Thousands more are missing and an unknown number of people have died as a result of Israel’s blockade and systematic attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and sanitation and water infrastructure. https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-40-gaza-humanitarian-zone

September 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

CNN Shared A Glimpse Of Just How Bad Everything Has Become For Ukraine

Andrew Korybko, Sep 09, 2024, https://korybko.substack.com/p/cnn-shared-a-glimpse-of-just-how

Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

By Ivana Kottasová and Kostya Gak, CNN, 8 Sept 24

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are in the midst of converging crises caused by the failed counteroffensive, the forcible conscription policy, and Zelensky’s Kursk blunder, which are leading to more desertions, defeats, and ultimately more desperation.

CNN carried out a rare act of journalistic service with their detailed report about how “Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion”. It candidly describes the numerous problems afflicting the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) at this pivotal moment in the conflict as they continue to occupy part of Kursk but are still losing ground in Donbass. Their story begins by introducing a battalion commander who lost most of the around 800 men under his control.

This figure couldn’t take it anymore and thus transferred to a cushy military administrative job in Kiev. He and the five others who CNN spoke to when researching their report informed them that “desertion and insubordination are becoming a widespread problem, especially among newly recruited soldiers.” In the words of one commander, “Not all mobilized soldiers are leaving their positions, but the majority are…They either leave their positions, refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army.”

The reader is then informed that these troops are forcibly conscripted, thus adding context to why they desert, but they also claimed that morale problems began to infect the armed forces’ ranks during the now-resolved impasse over more American aid to Ukraine. While that likely played a role, CNN conspicuously omits to mention last summer’s failed counteroffensive, which proved that Ukraine is unable to reconquer its lost lands despite all the hype and the aid that it received up until that point.

Moving along after having clarified the real reason behind the UAF’s plunging morale over the past year, drones have made the battlefield more unbearable than before, and the amount of time between rotations has grown since some troops simply can’t leave their positions without risking their lives. CNN then added that “In just the first four months of 2024, prosecutors launched criminal proceedings against almost 19,000 soldiers who either abandoned their posts or deserted”.

They also acknowledged that “It’s a staggering and – most likely – incomplete number. Several commanders told CNN that many officers would not report desertion and unauthorized absences, hoping instead to convince troops to return voluntarily, without facing punishment. This approach became so common that Ukraine changed the law to decriminalize desertion and absence without leave, if committed for the first time.”

The impending Battle of Pokrovsk, which could be a game-changer for Russia on the Donbass front, risks turning into a total disaster for the UAF since “some commanders estimate there are 10 Russian soldiers to each Ukrainian.” Just as alarming is the claim from one officer that “There have even been cases of troops not disclosing the full battlefield picture to other units out of fear it would make them look bad.” Communication problems are also reportedly rife between Kiev’s varied units there too.

The Kursk front isn’t as bad, but it might not have served its political purpose of boosting morale among the UAF unlike what Zelensky has claimed. CNN quoted some sappers who were unsure of the strategy involved, questioning why they were redeployed from defending Pokrovsk to invade Russia when the Donbass front is experiencing such difficulties as was already reported. The piece then ends with a psychological support expert declaring that he’s no longer going to be emotionally attached to anyone.

Reflecting on CNN’s surprisingly critical report, it’s clear that the UAF is in the midst of converging crises caused by the failed counteroffensive, the forcible conscription policy, and Zelensky’s Kursk blunder, which are leading to more desertions, defeats, and ultimately more desperation. In such circumstances, Ukraine can either stay the course by remaining in Kursk at the expense of losing more ground in Donbass, withdraw from Kursk to help hold Donbass, or asymmetrically escalate.

The first two scenarios are self-explanatory while the last could concern expanding the conflict into other Russian regions, Belarus, and/or Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region, seriously damaging Russian nuclear power plants out of desperation to provoke a nuclear response, and/or assassinating top Russians. There are only a few months left before the winter impedes combat operations on both sides, after which the status quo will persist until spring, when one or both sides might go on the offensive.

This timeline adds urgency to the impending Battle of Pokrovsk, which Russia wants to win as soon as possible in order to push through the fields beyond, capture more territory, threaten the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration from the south, and possibly prepare to make a move on Zaporozhye city from the northeast. If Ukraine can hold out into next year, then it could have more time to build more defenses beyond Pokrovsk, thus reducing the pace of Russia’s advance if it comes out on top there.

Even if Ukraine holds on for at least several months or perhaps as long as half a year longer there, the problems touched upon in CNN’s piece will likely only exacerbate seeing as how more forcibly conscripted troops will be thrown into what might by then become the next infamous meat grinder. Morale will probably continue plummeting while defections could spike, both of which could combine to cripple the UAF and create an opening for Russia to exploit in Pokrovsk or elsewhere along the front.

The ideal solution for Kiev would be to reach a ceasefire for facilitating its voluntary withdrawal from part of Donbass (ex: Pokrovsk’s surroundings) in parallel with pulling out of Kursk, which are terms that Russia might entertain since they’d advance some of its political and military goals. It’s better for Ukraine from the perspective of its regime’s interests to have an orderly withdrawal than a chaotic one if Russia achieves a breakthrough, but Zelensky and his ilk aren’t known for their rational decisions.

Nevertheless, those like India and Hungary who are want to help politically resolve this conflict could propose something of the sort, perhaps also suggesting the revival of last month’s reported Qatari-mediated partial ceasefire proposal for eschewing attacks against the other’s energy infrastructure. Zelensky is unlikely to agree, especially since he’s under the influence of uber-hawk Yermak, but it would still be best to informally circulate some variant of the aforementioned proposal sooner than later.

Regardless of well-intentioned third parties’ proposals, the conflict appears poised to continue raging into the next year absent a complete military and/or political breakdown in Ukraine, neither of which can be ruled out though considering how bad everything has become per CNN’s latest report. Ukraine and its Anglo-American “deep state” allies could also stage a major provocation aimed at desperately “escalating to de-escalate” on more of their terms, so observers shouldn’t rule that scenario out either.

September 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Tipping Points: UPDATE 2

Russian and Eurasian Politics, by Gordonhahn, September 11, 2024

Outgoing US President Joe Biden has said his administration is working on approval of Ukrainian use of U.S. long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia (https://www.ft.com/content/48289996-e1bf-4c3e-befb-031698e89e1b). The UK is pressuring the US to approve such use, and US Secretary of State and UK’s foreign minister have just arrived in Kiev (https://ctrana.news/news/471869-blinken-i-hlava-mid-britanii-pribyli-v-kiev.html).

UPDATE 1:

Reuters reports US is just about se to send long-range missiles to Ukraine for attacks deep inside Russia:

US close to agreeing on long-range missiles for Ukraine; delivery to take months.

Summary

-Stealthy JASSM weapons have range to hit targets inside Russia

-Decision expected in autumn, U.S. officials say

-Pentagon trying to integrate JASSMs on Soviet-era Ukrainian jets

WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. is close to an agreement to give Ukraine long-range cruise missiles that could reach deep into Russia, but Kyiv would need to wait several months as the U.S. works through technical issues ahead of any shipment, U.S. officials said.The inclusion of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) in a weapons package is expected to be announced this autumn, three sources said, though a final decision has not been made (https://www.reuters.com/world/us-close-agreeing-long-range-missiles-ukraine-delivery-take-months-2024-09-03/).

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

The NATO-Russia Ukrainian war is at a tipping point; one that leads to a Russian march to the Dniepr River and the relocation of what remains of pro-NATO Ukraine’s populace to right bank Ukraine and its Maidan government away from the western banks of the Diner and deeper into western Ukraine, likely Lvov. Not surprisingly, Kiev therefore is desperate and trying to escalate in ways that implicate or bring deeper, more direct NATO involvement, which has been deep and escalating on NATO’s part for years. For Kiev, ideal would be a full-scale NATO military intervention. The West’s previous strategy of gradual escalation – ‘boiling the frog’ by providing redlined air defense systems, then short-range missile/artillery systems, then tanks, then F-16s – hasd run its course.

The only options now are permitting Kiev to use Western missiles to hit deep inside Russia and target Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top leaders. Until now neither Kiev nor the West has crossed any Russian or ‘Putin red lines’ because there have not been any Russian-declared ‘red lines’ but Western MSM-set red lines. One would-be hard-pressed to cite even one clearly expressed Putin ‘red line.’

I fear the Western escalation will continue up to crossing an actual ‘red line’ that Russians have indirectly hinted at – Ukraine’s use of long-range Western missiles such as American ATACMs and British Storm Shadows to strike deep into Russia – will be crossed one way or another, likely after the U.S. presidential election on November 5th.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/11/ukrainian-tipping-points-update-2/—

September 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The US Empire Can Exist Only In A Continuous State Of Mass Military Violence

Caitlin Johnstone, Sep 10, 2024

I shouldn’t be able to do this for a living. Criticizing the warmongering of a single power structure shouldn’t be anyone’s full-time job. No government should be murdering people so consistently and reliably that people can plan their whole lives around it.

Yet here we are. Not only are people like me able to focus on commentary about the mass military violence of the US and its satellite states as a full-time gig, but we usually find there’s too much to talk about from day to day.

Just today we’re getting reports that at least 40 people have been killed in an IDF massacre on a tented encampment in southern Gaza near Khan Younis, which Israel had previously designated as a humanitarian safe zone. There are videos of families digging frantically in the sand trying to rescue loved ones who were buried by the blast, which was reportedly so forceful that bodies are being found some thirty feet down.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp has taken to typing up daily updates on the documented Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, often with dozens of victims added to the official death toll in a single day.

Kamala Harris has finally announced a foreign policy platform, and it contains nothing but a promise of more of the same. She promises to “ensure that the United States remains the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world,” to “make sure that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century,” to “strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership,” to “stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself,” and to “protect U.S. forces and interests from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups,” and boasts that she “has worked with our allies to ensure NATO is stronger than ever” in the face of “Vladimir Putin’s brutal aggression.”

In other words, more unrelenting violence and militarism to ensure that the US empire continues dominating the planet. It’s not hard to see why Harris is winning endorsements from some of the worst warmongers on the planet.

Bloodthirsty empire manager Victoria Nuland is now openly admitting that the US sabotaged a peace deal in Ukraine in the early weeks of the war, saying in an interview that Washington pushed Kyiv to reject the deal because it “included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have” if it were agreed to.

This is something people like myself used to get called Russian propagandists for saying happened, despite all the overwhelming evidence that it had.

The horrors in Ukraine are happening because the US-centralized power alliance refused easy off-ramp after easy off-ramp. This whole war could’ve easily been avoided, and it could have easily been ended shortly after it began. But they kept pushing on, because they wanted this war………………………………………………………………………………

there are plenty of others like me. And for every person there is making a living from opposing US warmongering, there are thousands making a living from facilitating it. In the military. In the arms industry. In think tanks. In the media. In politics. In government agencies. There is much, much more money to be made from war than from peace. That’s one of the main reasons the capitalist empire we live under exists in a constant state of mass military violence. Endless violence and the threat thereof is the glue which holds the empire together.

In a healthy world, none of these jobs would exist — people working for peace or people working for war. Peace would just be the natural order of things.

But until that healthy world has emerged, we fight on. Day after day after day after day, for however long such work is necessary. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-empire-can-only-exist-in-a?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=148710143&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

September 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Japan PM hopeful Kono calls for US assurances to deter nuclear ambitions

By Tim Kelly and Yukiko Toyoda, September 9, 2024

TOKYO, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Tokyo should seek stronger assurances from Washington about its commitment to Japan’s nuclear defence, in order to deflect concerns that could fuel domestic calls for an independent nuclear arsenal, Taro Kono, a prime ministerial contender, said.

Kono, who oversees Japan’s digital transformation and has been both foreign and defence minister, made the comment amid uncertainty over November’s U.S. presidential election fought by Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

“If the U.S. government becomes unstable, some people in Japan might suggest that Japan develop an independent nuclear deterrent,” Kono told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

“However, if Japan were to declare its intention to abandon nuclear disarmament, South Korea and others might follow suit.”

The only nation to have suffered atomic bomb attacks, Japan has long renounced nuclear weapons, relying instead on the United States to deter potential nuclear-armed rivals such as China, North Korea and Russia.

In the past, however, Trump has stoked concern about that U.S. commitment by suggesting that Japan pay the United States to defend it, including with nuclear weapons.

Japan’s large plutonium stockpile and access to advanced technology, such as rockets developed for its space program, means it has many of the components to build nuclear missiles.

Doing so would hurt rather than strengthen Japan’s national security, said Kono, because apart from proliferation risks, it would probably cut off access to the nuclear fuel Japan needs for its power plants at a time of tight energy supplies………………………………… https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-pm-hopeful-kono-calls-us-assurances-deter-nuclear-ambitions-2024-09-09/

September 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un says country to increase number of nuclear weapons, KCNA says

By Reuters, September 10, 2024,
Reporting by Joyce Lee Editing by Chris Reese, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-says-country-increase-number-nuclear-weapons-kcna-says-2024-09-09/

SEOUL, – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country is now implementing a nuclear force construction policy to increase the number of nuclear weapons “exponentially,” state media KCNA said on Tuesday.

Kim gave a speech on North Korea’s founding anniversary on Monday, KCNA said.

North Korea must more thoroughly prepare its “nuclear capability and its readiness to use it properly at any given time in ensuring the security rights of the state,” Kim said, according to KCNA.

A strong military presence is needed to face “the various threats posed by the United States and its followers,” Kim added.

September 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Project 2025’s stance on nuclear testing: A dangerous step back

By Tom Armbruster | September 6, 2024,
https://thebulletin.org/2024/09/project-2025s-stance-on-nuclear-testing-a-dangerous-step-back/

There are few places more peaceful than a Pacific island. At 6:45 am on a March morning in 1954, that peace was shattered by the largest nuclear test in American history: Operation Bravo.

The Bravo test was a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Now, 70 years later, Project 2025 is proposing a resumption of testing. That should alarm every military service member, downwinder, Pacific Islander, and taxpayer.

As US Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, I joined in the solemn observance of “Remembrance Day,” the Marshallese national holiday that pays tribute every March 1 to those who lost their homeland, fell victim to cancer, or were otherwise affected by the Bravo shockwave and fallout.

The shorthand for the 67 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958, including two undersea tests that wiped out rich Pacific marine life, is the “Nuclear Legacy.” It would be more accurate to call it the “Nuclear Wound.” The tests on Bikini, Enewetak, and Kwajalein wounded the land and the ocean, the people—both Marshallese and American servicemen—and the relationship between our two countries. Healing is marked in decades, if not centuries.

We’ve had the nuclear tiger by the tail for a long time. No leader of any country would want their legacy to be the use of such indiscriminate and destructive weapons. When I joined the Foreign Service from Hawaii, Ronald Reagan was President. A chance for nuclear disarmament came and went with his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik. Today, the Soviet Union is gone but nuclear weapons are still here. We’ve made progress, but Reagan’s vision of a nuclear-free world remains out of reach. Until we achieve that goal, maintaining a test ban is in everyone’s interest. It is part of the legacy we leave our children.

I’ve stood on the Runit Dome concrete cap that covers the nuclear scrap that was bulldozed into a pit. That is also part of the legacy. As Nuclear Affairs Officer at the US Embassy in Moscow, I also visited some of the vast Russian nuclear architecture. I joined the late Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) on a trip to Arzamas-16, a once-secret Russian nuclear city now known as Sarov. We saw abandoned ballrooms with torn curtains and dusty grand pianos, a testament to the empty result of spending on nuclear weapons. A waste of millions of dollars, rubles, or whatever currency used by the nuclear actor.

On page 431, Project 2025 calls for the United States to “Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require that the National Nuclear Security Administration be directed to move to immediate test readiness… .”

The Project 2025 proposal is a tremendous step backwards. We should be negotiating further cuts in the world’s nuclear arsenals, a prohibition of weapons in outer space, and cleanup of the “legacy” test sites around the world. It would help if Russia were a responsible partner in denuclearization but sadly that is not the case. We could be working together to find ways to mend the planet, rather than inflict further damage that will last for thousands of years.

The planet is resilient. Even sharks have returned to Bikini, although the sons and daughters of those displaced by testing have not. Pacific Islanders would never allow a return to testing in the Pacific, but no one on Earth should ever wake up again to a test like Bravo.

September 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

White House pushes for AUKUS to move to ‘pillar two’ weapons focus

SMH, By Peter Hartcher, September 9, 2024

The US is pushing for the AUKUS partnership to launch some world-leading new military technology projects before Joe Biden’s presidency ends, amid signs of growing impatience with the initiative.

The US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, revealed in an interview at the White House that he wanted to see “two or three signature projects launched and under way by the time the administration finishes” on January 20.

While he expressed satisfaction with progress on so-called pillar one of AUKUS, the submarine program, his timeline for pillar two’s cutting-edge tech scheme puts new pressure on the three countries’ military and scientific agencies to deliver in the next five months.

It is three years ago this month that the leaders of the US, UK and Australia announced the joint technology initiative. In the meantime, China has extended its advantage in critical technologies, according to a report last week by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

A former senior official in the Trump administration expressed frustration: “On the science and technology side, I think there are problems because we’re not moving fast enough,” said Nadia Schadlow, Deputy National Security Adviser to the former president.

“If AUKUS doesn’t perform, if it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do and what we said it would do, we almost might be better off without it because if we can’t fulfil our objectives, we almost look weaker.”

Pillar two of AUKUS was assigned eight priority research fields: advanced cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, hypersonics, electronic warfare, innovation, and information sharing……………………

officials said privately that there were problems of co-ordination, that each of the country’s systems was different and moved at different speeds…………………………. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/white-house-pushes-for-aukus-to-move-to-pillar-two-weapons-focus-20240908-p5k8s5.html

September 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear Roulette: The U.S. Nuclear Employment Guideline

CounterPunch, by Mark Muhich, 6 Sept 24

The U.S. Nuclear Employment Guideline Report, according to Department of Defense websites, appears to be a detailed target menu in the event the president orders a nuclear attack. It is required of the executive by Congress, Section 491, when the president alters the nuclear weapons strategy of the U.S. As alluded to by top-ranking administration leaders and reported in the New York Times, the revised Nuclear Employment Guideline signed by President Biden reflects China’s expanding nuclear arsenal.

The president sets the nation’s nuclear strategy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff develop the tactical plans to achieve the president’s strategy, according to DOD literature.

As China, People’s Republic of China, has increased its manufacture of nuclear weapons in the past five years much faster than defense analysts had predicted, the U.S. has turned the focus of its nuclear guideline toward the PRC. China now possesses around 500 nuclear warheads. And while the U.S. and Russia each currently deploy around 1,700 nuclear warheads each, China is on pace to equal that number by 2035.

Similarly threatening to the U.S. is the prospect of China coordinating its nuclear capability with that of Russia, and even with North Korea, now harboring around 60 nuclear warheads and a growing fleet of intercontinental missiles to deliver them.

China has also made aggressive territorial claims to the South China Sea and vows to gain control of Taiwan by any means necessary, definitively by 2049. This July China suspended nuclear weapons control talks with the U.S. citing increased military arms sales to Taiwan by the U.S.

Yet, China has recently dissuaded Russia from threatening the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine, or against western states that might deploy soldiers to Ukraine. And China repeated its call for the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula in joint meetings with Japan and South Korea in May of this year.

Significantly, China maintains its posture of No First Use of nuclear weapons and repeated calls last week for the other leading nuclear-armed nations, Russia, France, U.K and the U.S. to adopt a No First Use nuclear policy. India and China are the only nuclear-armed nations to affirm NFU.

One of the architects of the revised U.S. Nuclear Employment Guidelines is Vipin Narang, Acting Assistant Director of Department of Defense Space Agency. During his retirement speech from DOD this August, Narang blamed China and Russia for failed arms control talks. Before returning to lecture at M.I.T. Narang said China’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal was threatening, and that moving its nuclear-armed missiles to “launch on warning” status was provocative.

Narang did not share that the U.S. possesses more than ten times the number of nuclear warheads, 5,580, as China has. Nor that the entire fleet of U.S. Air Force Minuteman missiles has been on “launch on alert” status for sixty years.

Failing arms control negotiations with Russia result from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s announced withdrawal from the NewSTART nuclear weapons treaty in 2026, according to Narang. NewSTART is the only remaining arms control treaty now in effect between Russia and the U.S. It successfully decommissioned thousands of nuclear warhead and missile launchers from each arsenal since its ratification in 2010. For the deteriorating state of U.S. Russia talks, Narang did not cite the failure of the U.S. to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 1996, the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty in 2001 or withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, INF in 2019.

Narang’s bleak address to his DOD colleagues warned them to “prepare for a world where constraints on nuclear weapons arsenals disappear entirely”……………………………………………………………….

Missing from Narang’s calculus, is the decision many countries have already made to forgo nuclear arsenal all together. Indeed, the majority of nation-states, pursuant of their own security, have rejected the deployment of nuclear weapons on their soil. The majority of humankind regard nuclear weapons as inherently destabilizing and dangerous and of no military value.

When 193 countries voted for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, NPT, in 1970, they agreed not only to halt the spread of nuclear weapons but to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles, and “cease the nuclear arms race”. The NPT places the onus on the nuclear powers to eliminate all nuclear weapons at an “early date”. All nuclear weapons would eventually come under the control of an international agency as agreed in the NPT’s Article VI.

The international control of military arms and especially nuclear weapons was the lifelong goal of Albert Einstein…………………………………………………………………………..

Even more consequential is the growing effort begun in the United Nations General Assembly to outlaw nuclear weapons, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, TPNW. Endorsed by 122 countries in the United Nations General Assembly in 2017 is now ratified or acceded to by 70 countries, banning nuclear weapons from their jurisdictions.

As the U.S. and the other nuclear powers drift further and further from the goal of nuclear disarmament, they double down on their nuclear arsenals and invest in new platforms to deliver their nuclear payloads. Is it too late to build credible assurances that these awful weapons will never be used? It will never be too late to eschew these horrible weapons, unless or until some brilliant leader orders a nuclear attack.

……………………………………………………………………………………………… “Nuclear weapons are totally irrational”, said Ronald Reagan, they are “totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing people, possible destruction of life on Earth and civilization.” There is no theory that will change the brutal absurdity of nuclear weapons nor transform them into logical agents of peace and security.

In Thomas Schelling’s application of game theory to nuclear weapons the object of deterrence is to convince the adversary not to use their weapons and vice versa. If nuclear deterrence is the stated goal of the U.S. nuclear posture, then adopting a No First Use of nuclear weapon either by treaty or unilaterally is the clear choice. China and India have done so for decades. No First Use makes perfect sense. Repelling conventional assaults should not be part of the nuclear employment equation. Nuclear weapons are not just more powerful conventional weapons. If they are ever used in war again the consequences are unpredictable and beyond any risk assessment.

It is past time to end the U.S.’ “nuclear ambiguity”. Take the nuclear option off the table. Abide by the Non-Proliferation Treaty; refuse to renew the nuclear arms race. We cannot win security or freedom in a game of nuclear roulette. But we can and will lose everything if we continue to bet on nuclear weapons. What folly. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/06/nuclear-roulette-the-u-s-nuclear-employment-guideline/

September 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

9700 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Invading Russia.

Attempt to Sabotage Kursk Nuclear Power Plant Failed.

Ariel Ky, Sep 05, 2024, https://arielky.substack.com/p/9700-ukrainian-soldiers-killed-invading?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=282593&post_id=148533310&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=c9zhh&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The latest report from Russian military expert, Dr. Vladimir Kozin.

Report # 316. AROUND 81% OF UKRAINIAN GIs IN THE KURSK REGION BECAME KIA, September 4, 2024

Over the last 24 hours between September 3 and 4, 2024, the AFU losses have amounted to up to 450 troops and 17 armored units, including a tank, an infantry fighting vehicle and 15 armored combat vehicles, 40 motor vehicles, four artillery guns, including three French-made Caesar self-propelled artillery systems, a US-made M777 artillery system, as well as two launch pads of US-made multiple launch rocket systems or MLRS, including an M142 HIMARS and an M270 MLRS.

Overall, since the onset of combat in the region, the adversary has lost over 9,700 personnel that is around 80% of the entire invading force.

Other losses include: 81 tanks, 39 infantry fighting vehicles, 70 armored personnel carriers, 576 armored combat vehicles, 313 motor vehicles, 72 artillery guns, 22 launch pads of multiple launch rocket systems, including seven HIMARS and three other MLRS, eight launch pads of air defense systems, two transport-loading vehicles, 17 radio-electronic warfare stations, seven counterbattery radars, two air defense radars, eight units of engineering equipment as well as two obstacle-clearing vehicles and one UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle.

Russian aviation delivered strikes on enemy reserves in dozens of locations in the Ukrainian Sumy Region, bordering Russian Kursk Region.

Earlier, former president Zelensky who has lost its presidential powers in May 2024 said that the Ukrainian incursion into Russia was part of a plan to end the hostilities. However, his statement is an utter lie. It has been exposed by a Ukrainian POW who admitted on the Russian Vesti FM federal radio station on September 4, 2024 that the main task of his sabotage group was to seize the Kursk NPP and to

On August 6, 2024 the Ukrainian AFU attacked Russia’s Kursk Region. Local residents living near the border areas have been evacuated to safer territories inside Russia where they are staying in 200 temporary shelters across 31 Russian regions.

According to President Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian provocation in the Kursk Region is doomed to failure, and after it, Russia’s opponents “will have a desire to really – not in words, but in deeds – to move to peaceful negotiations and settle these issues peacefully,” he said on September 2.plant high-explosive mines there to blackmail the USA and NATO for extra arms.

September 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Indian nuclear weapons, 2024

By Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, Mackenzie Knight | September 5, 2024

India continues to modernize its nuclear arsenal, with at least four new weapon systems and several new delivery platforms under development to complement or replace existing nuclear-capable aircraft, land-based delivery systems, and sea-based systems. Several of these systems are nearing completion and will soon be fielded.

We estimate that India may have produced enough military plutonium for 130 to 210 nuclear warheads but likely has produced only around 172, although the country’s warhead stockpile is likely growing. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, associate director Matt Korda, senior research associates Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight.

This article is freely available in PDF format in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ digital magazine (published by Taylor & Francis) at this link.

…………………..India continues to modernize its nuclear weapons arsenal and operationalize its nascent triad. We estimate that India currently operates eight different nuclear-capable systems: two aircraft, five land-based ballistic missiles, and one sea-based ballistic missile. At least five more systems are in development, most of which are thought to be nearing completion and to be fielded with the armed forces soon.

Research methodology and confidence

The Indian government does not publish numbers about the size of its nuclear weapon stockpile. The analyses and estimates made in the Nuclear Notebook are therefore derived from a combination of open sources: (1) state-originating data (e.g. government statements, declassified documents, budgetary information, military parades, and treaty disclosure data); (2) non-state-originating data (e.g. media reports, think tank analyses, and industry publications); and (3) commercial satellite imagery. …………………………………………………………….

…………Fissile material and warhead inventory estimates

India is one of only a handful of countries believed to be producing both highly enriched uranium (HEU) and weapons-grade plutonium, although its HEU production is largely assumed to be focused on producing fuel for its growing number of nuclear-powered vessels and submarines (Frieß et al. 2024).

………………..Nuclear doctrine

Tensions between India and Pakistan constitute one of the most concerning nuclear hotspots on the planet. These two nuclear-armed countries engaged in open hostilities as recently as November 2020, when Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanged artillery and gunfire over the Line of Control, resulting in at least 22 deaths. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-09/indian-nuclear-weapons-2024/

September 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Netanyahu to Biden…’We can’t complete the genocidal ethnic cleaning of Gaza without you’

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 6 Sept 24

President Biden, with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in total agreement, proclaims US support of Israeli defense is “ironclad.” What is truly ironclad is US enabling Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing that would collapse if Biden simply stopped the weapons gravy train.

That gravy train has sent Israel over 50,000 tons of weapons since the October 7th Hamas attack provoked Israel’s all out genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Biden recently signed a $17 billion gift of genocide weapons on top of the $3.8 billion Israel receives every year under a 10 year giveaway President Obama authorized 8 years ago this month.

An Israeli Air Force official just admitted Israel cannot keep up their genocidal offensive for more than a couple of months without US weapons. This is especially critical to Israel’s Air Force which gets all its planes and much of its bombs, missiles and intelligence equipment from Uncle Sam.

Based on that, Biden could have ended the genocide by last January if he’d only cut off all weapons once it was clear Netanyahu was using the October 7 Hamas attack to remove all Palestinians from Gaza. Such action by Biden might have returned over 100 Israeli hostages to their loved ones by early January, if not in time for a New Year’s Eve celebration.

Biden and Harris might as well campaign as the Genocide Twins instead of their disgusting posturing that they’re working for a ceasefire. They know Netanyahu must keep the genocide going to remain in office instead of prison, and complete the removal of 2,300,000 Palestinians from Gaza. Releasing Israeli hostages on only third on his to-do list.

Kamala is cursed by siding with her boss’s pact with the Genocide Devil in Gaza. Her feet are set in cement from 11 months of refusing to break with Biden on genocide support. Foreign policy will never pass her lips unless pressed by an increasingly dubious press. All she can mutter is ‘Our defense of Israel is ironclad and we will not change course.’

Kamala Harris would rather be president than end the worst genocide in this century. Nothing but her moral cowardice is preventing her from breaking with Biden and demanding an immediate halt to every US weapon racing to engulf Gaza in endless death and destruction. If she ever has trouble sleeping, she should count dead Palestinian moms and kids instead of sheep. She will never run out.

September 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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