U.S. military quietly revokes planned contract for small nuclear plant at Alaska Air Force base

the systems now under development have not been commercially proven: No micro-reactors have yet been built in the U.S. since the earliest days of nuclear technology.

This month, the only company with an approved design, Oregon-based Nuscale Power, announced that it had canceled a leading demonstration project in Idaho. Several potential customers had abandoned the project amid increasing costs, according to Reuters.

The military had planned to give a contract for a “micro-reactor” to Silicon Valley firm Oklo — whose chairman, Sam Altman, also leads the company behind the ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot.

Alaska Beacon, BY: NATHANIEL HERZ, NORTHERN JOURNAL – NOVEMBER 18, 2023

The U.S. military has rescinded the preliminary award of what could be a nine-figure contract with the company it had tentatively selected to build a small-scale nuclear power plant at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks.

The Department of the Air Force and the Defense Logistics Agency in August announced an “intent to award” the contract to Oklo — a Silicon Valley startup backed by Sam Altman, who, until his ouster this week, also led the company behind ChatGPT.

In late September, the DLA’s energy arm revoked its decision, citing a need for “further consideration” of its obligations under a specific military contracting regulation, according to a memo sent to a competing bidder and obtained by Northern Journal from another source.

The regulation says the military should engage in post-bidding negotiations and discussions for contracts worth $100 million or more.

A DLA spokeswoman, Michelle McCaskill, declined to make agency officials available for an interview. In an emailed response to questions, she explained the revocation by repeating the language from the memo and said all bidders that responded to the agency’s request for proposals are still under consideration.

McCaskill said a “pre-filing notice of protest” of the award to Oklo was submitted to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, but she declined to share a copy. A spokeswoman for Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp., the company that received the memo obtained by Northern Journal, confirmed that her business had made the pre-filing notice but added that a formal protest had not been filed.

Oklo is one of a growing number of businesses developing what are known as “micro-reactors,” which the military describes as small projects with “built-in safety features that self-adjust to changing conditions and demands to prevent overheating.”

The Eielson contract drew broad interest from the energy industry; officials from companies like Westinghouse, Rolls-Royce and Siemens participated in an informational meeting about it last year, according to a roster published by the military.

Oklo’s chief executive, Jake DeWitte, said in a brief interview Friday that his company is letting the contracting process play out.

the systems now under development have not been commercially proven: No micro-reactors have yet been built in the U.S. since the earliest days of nuclear technology.

Following the revocation, the office of Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who helped secure federal spending on micro-reactor development, asked the Department of Defense for a timeline but has not heard back, spokesman Joe Plesha said in an email.

“We will continue to monitor this issue closely,” he said……………………………………………

USNC, which is based in Seattle, has proposed to build what could be Canada’s first micro-reactor, in Ontario, and aims for it to go online by 2028.

Nov 2023

U.S. military quietly revokes planned contract for small nuclear plant at Alaska Air Force base

November 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

The Deeper Dig: A plan for what’s left of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant

Vermont’s only nuclear plant is about two years away from being fully decommissioned.

VT Digger By Emma Cotton and Sam Gale Rosen, November 20, 2023

For decades, Vermont Yankee, a nuclear power plant in Vernon, was the largest producer of electricity for the state.

The plant has been shut down since 2014, and the company that now owns it is in the process of deconstructing it. That company, NorthStar, has recently submitted a plan that describes in detail the final steps of decommissioning, which is projected to be completed ahead of schedule, by 2026.

However, national developments mean that radioactive spent fuel on the site is likely to stay where it is for the foreseeable future.

Host Sam Gale Rosen spoke to VTDigger environmental reporter Emma Cotton, who has been covering the decommissioning process.

Emma:………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… In 2010, Vermont lawmakers voted in favor of denying that 20-year license renewal. They had safety concerns, particularly after the plant had a tritium leak, which is a radioactive substance. That decision became the subject of a federal lawsuit about whether the state or the feds had authority over the plant. But soon enough, that issue was of little consequence. In 2013, citing the economic environment, Entergy announced that it plans to shut Vermont Yankee down

It officially disconnected from the grid and shut down on Dec. 29, 2014. And then the private company NorthStar — which decommissions nuclear plants and other energy facilities like coal plants around the country — they bought Vermont Yankee in 2019, and they are using funds set aside by Entergy to complete this decommissioning work…………………

Vermont’s only nuclear plant is about two years away from being fully decommissioned, at which point the site will look a lot like an open lot, with the exception of 58 spent fuel casks, which will remain there, likely, for a long time……………………………………………………………………………………….

Sam: So they’re on track to have the facility disassembled before 2026. But the other thing you’ve been covering is what happens to the spent fuel, right?

Emma: Yeah, this is kind of the elephant in the room, I think, for Vernon, the town where this is located. So after the fuel rods were used to heat water, they were transferred to cooling towers, and the process of cooling brought their radioactivity down. For a long time nuclear plants around the country were designed to temporarily store spent fuel this way, in cooling pools, and then they would be transferred to one or more federally designated areas for permanent storage.

But the federal government has not found a permanent place to store spent fuel. There has been a lot of conversation about a site in Nevada — Yucca Mountain — but there has been strong local opposition to storing the entire country’s nuclear waste there.

So nuclear plant owners had to find another storage solution. And so they started storing spent fuel in what are called dry casks, which are metal or concrete cylinders that form shells outside of the fuel rods. And according to the NRC, that shell shields people pretty effectively from this highly radioactive spent fuel. So Entergy transferred all of their spent fuel into dry casks, and now there are 58 of those that remain on the site. It’s a 2-acre part of the parcel.

NorthStar does ship some radioactive material to a facility in Texas, but it doesn’t have anywhere to send its spent fuel. So according to Northstar CEO, Scott State, the fuel will remain there until the feds come up with another plan. And that could be a while. So NorthStar will own the spent fuel until it’s removed from the property……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://vtdigger.org/2023/11/20/the-deeper-dig-a-plan-for-whats-left-of-vermont-yankee-nuclear-power-plant

November 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Jill Stein’s Ominous Warning on Growing Threat of Nuclear War

NewsWeek, Nov 19, 2023, By Jason Lemon

Green Party presidential hopeful Jill Stein warned that President Joe Biden and U.S. leaders are “absolutely” risking the possibility of nuclear war by their actions in support of Israel.

Stein, who previously ran for president in 2012 and 2016, announced on November 9 that she is once again throwing her hat in the ring for the 2024 cycle. The long-shot candidate blasted Biden, Democrats and Republicans for their response to the Israel-Gaza War in an exclusive interview with Newsweek on Thursday, warning that the response could be pushing the world to a point of no return………………………………..

The U.S. government, which classifies Hamas as a terrorist group, has reiterated its support and solidarity with Israel. Fourteen U.S. Navy ships have been positioned in the Mediterranean to assist Israel with intelligence gathering and to deter other regional actors from getting involved in the conflict. Additionally, an Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarine has been sent to the region, according to a November 5 CENTCOM statement.

“I would just note that the U.S. has sent a nuclear submarine there now aside from two battleship or two missiles groups,” she said. “In a nuclear submarine, you have enormous firepower as a rule that’s equivalent to about four or 5,000 Hiroshima bombs packed into one nuclear submarine.”

“The world won’t survive this,” she warned. “And yes, we’re not at nuclear war now, but could a nuclear war be triggered? Absolutely. And we’re seeing this become more dangerous every day.”

The Times of Israel reported on November 6 that it’s unclear whether the nuclear-powered submarine in the Mediterranean is carrying nuclear warheads. The aquatic military vessel is, however, capable of carrying such warheads. The submarine can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Stein, who is Jewish, described Israel’s actions towards Gaza as “genocide.” She also accused Israel of being an “apartheid” state.

“Israel doesn’t have a future if this violence is allowed to continue. I don’t mean just violence from Hamas. There will be violent resistance to apartheid and occupation so you can wipe out Hamas, and then you’ll have the next generation of Hamas, which is going to be even more vicious and brutal,” she said.

Israel rejects claims that it’s committing “genocide” and that it’s an “apartheid” state. Israeli leaders and U.S. leaders routinely describe the country as a “beacon of democracy” in a troubled region of the world. They also often dismiss such criticism as “antisemitic.”

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have said Israel’s treatment of Palestinians amounts to “apartheid.” Pro-Palestinian activists, including some progressive anti-Zionist Jewish groups, have accused Israel of perpetuating a “genocide” in Gaza. https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-jill-stein-warning-nuclear-war-1844899

November 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The End of DOE’s Flagship Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMR) — A Cautionary Tale

10 years is a long time for investors; and it doesn’t sit well in the context of climate change, which requires solutions now. Since 2011, Congress has appropriated some $6.6 billion for SMRs, out of which DOE has “obligated” some $3 billion, including $583 million for NuScale — more than for any other SMR project. (The other two lead developers, TerraPower and X-energy, have received DOE obligations of $318 million and $242 million, respectively, so far). Yet not one megawatt of commercial carbon-free energy has resulted from this spending.

SMR Craze Continues

Fri, Nov 17, 2023, Stephanie Cooke, Washington, https://www.energyintel.com/0000018b-cf50-dbb5-a5ef-df7378750000

The collapse of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) flagship small modular reactor (SMR) project should serve as a cautionary tale to SMR developers everywhere. When the agency first announced funding for NuScale Power’s SMR project in 2013, then Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said it represented “a new generation of safe, reliable, low-carbon nuclear energy technology” that would “provide a strong opportunity for America to lead this emerging global industry.” Yet despite years of trying, NuScale failed to deliver. DOE has so far spent some $3 billion on SMRs, according to a department spokesperson, and this is not its first failed SMR project — a Babcock & Wilcox “mPower” design that received the agency’s first SMR funding in 2012 and was regarded as the industry leader in SMRs collapsed in 2017. The question now is whether or when DOE and its multitude of congressional supporters will finally wise up and end the nuclear bonanza?

NuScale and its primary customer, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), a nonprofit electricity wholesaler with 50 utility members across seven Western states, couldn’t generate enough interest among the utilities to keep the project going. Under power purchase agreements, individual utility subscribers were obligated to help pay project development costs, which continued to rise, based on their level of offtake. Off-ramps were provided at specific dates with the caveat that any subscriber choosing to take one would have to bear the brunt of its costs to date. Eight subscribers chose to do that in 2020, with a very large offtaker following suit in 2021.

In mid-2021, the target price of power from the proposed 462-megawatt plant, consisting of six 77 MW reactor modules, stood at $58 per megawatt hour; it then rose to $89/MWh, a 53% increase. The project, planned for a DOE site in Idaho, survived despite a sea of local opposition, including from the Utah Taxpayers Association, but it never recovered from the mass exit. The remaining subscribers faced an off-ramp early next year; by deciding to unanimously exit they could avoid bearing costs to date, and instead receive compensation. That’s what they decided to do.

Downward Spiral

The collapse announced on Nov. 8 followed a scathing financial report on NuScale’s prospects by a European short-seller, Iceberg Research, on Oct. 19. That report sent NuScale’s share price into a tailspin, and may have accelerated the decision by the remaining subscribers to leave, which led to another downward spiral. But there were “many reports, articles and opinion pieces published regionally and nationally that raised well-researched questions and doubts about the project’s necessity and financial viability and led potential new subscribers and investors to hesitate,” points out Scott Williams, who spearheaded environmental group Heal Utah’s opposition to the project.

However, the Iceberg report cast a pall over the small community of niche investors in new nuclear. X-energy, one of DOE’s two lead “advanced” reactor developers, cited “challenging market conditions” following the Iceberg report for its decision to pull out of an attempted public offering. The company had planned to follow NuScale’s example and merge with a “blank check” special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to gain access to stock market investors. The SPAC process has the advantage of allowing a small relatively unknown company to widen its investor base without the regulatory scrutiny involved in a conventional initial public offering.

When Fluor signed the merger deal for the NuScale SPAC in December 2021, the company’s executive chairman, Alan Boeckmann, predicted it would “bolster and accelerate the path to commercialization and deployment of NuScale Power’s unique small modular nuclear reactor technology.” But Fluor itself was under pressure from the market to sell down its majority holding in NuScale — which stands at roughly 55% — something it has been notably unsuccessful in doing. “This is the next step in Fluor’s plan, first outlined 10 years ago, to work closely with NuScale Power, Congress and the Department of Energy to commercialize this unique carbon-free energy technology,” Boeckmann noted.

Decarbonization Goals

10 years is a long time for investors; and it doesn’t sit well in the context of climate change, which requires solutions now. Since 2011, Congress has appropriated some $6.6 billion for SMRs, out of which DOE has “obligated” some $3 billion, including $583 million for NuScale — more than for any other SMR project. (The other two lead developers, TerraPower and X-energy, have received DOE obligations of $318 million and $242 million, respectively, so far). Yet not one megawatt of commercial carbon-free energy has resulted from this spending.

Meanwhile developers have been allowed to chase a rainbow of reactor designs, using different types of coolants and fuels, that date back to the mid-20th century. And as one long-time expert put it, “It’s hard to believe that these more exotic designs will be any cheaper” than the conventional light-water design NuScale was pursuing. A DOE report in March effectively admitted that only large reactors (1 gigawatt or more) deployed en masse have a chance at making an impact on decarbonization, and that “waiting until the mid-2030s to deploy at scale could lead to missing decarbonization targets and/or significant supply chain overbuild.”

The report also noted that “the nuclear industry today is at a commercial stalemate between potential customers and investments in the nuclear industrial base needed for deployment — putting decarbonization goals at risk.”

SMR Craze Continues

Decarbonization goals aren’t being served by wasteful spending on nuclear projects that don’t or won’t deliver the carbon-free power that’s needed. Yet the SMR craze continues both in the US and elsewhere. “I see a clear window of opportunity opening up,” EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson told a European SMR “partnership event” in Bratislava on Nov. 6, two days before NuScale’s announcement. “I am confident that the EU can have a leadership role in achieving technological maturity for SMRs,” Simson added. “The first SMRs must be connected to the European electricity grid within a decade at the latest. This must be our goal.” The day after NuScale’s announcement, on Nov. 9, officials from the US State Department, also in Bratislava, and Slovakia’s Ministry of Economy launched the “Phoenix Project” aimed at replacing aging coal plans with SMRs.

So, what next for DOE’s SMR effort? Should it find another US developer to lead the way and hope for ‘third time lucky’? Or redefine its program in order to justify more foolish spending? Some guess the Canadians might steal the lead on SMRs, a prospect that is loaded with irony, since the project everyone is watching involves a Babcock & Wilcox spinoff called BWX Technologies and a design inspired by a conventional boiling water reactor design that was never built.

More importantly, will Congress wake up and hear the music? The UAMPS subscribers to the NuScale project trusted in NuScale to deliver, and at a reasonable cost, until they no longer did, and wisely chose the off-ramp. Congress should follow suit and stop funding a dead-end enterprise.

November 19, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, USA | 1 Comment

Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden

By Dan Siegel ScheerPost 17 Nov 23 https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/17/times-up-for-netanyahu-and-biden/

We can tell the world is changing when tens of thousands of Texans rally in the capital of America’s most important red state to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for Palestine. No longer can the Israeli government enforce its deadly calculus of 10 (or 50? or 100?) Palestinian lives for each Israeli killed in its futile effort to suppress Palestine’s struggle for self-determination. No longer can an American President assume that the public will support propping up an Israeli government whose constant, murderous violations of international law bring us daily exposure to the violence and deprivation imposed on the Palestinian population.

The issues are no longer whether Israel should survive and whether Hamas’ murders must be condemned. Those are the easy questions. Countless millions of us have moved on.

The question for today is what the world will do to enable the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in a nation where their children enjoy the opportunities most Americans and Europeans take for granted. No one suggests that this challenge can be easily resolved, but the first step is for the U.S. to stop supporting the most right-wing government in Israel’s history from imposing unlimited violence and deprivation on Gaza while accelerating violent settler expansion in the West Bank.

Israel’s strategies to ensure its survival and the means it chooses to defend itself should no longer enjoy unquestioned American support. Netanyahu’s government has exhausted its legitimate right to defend itself against the Hamas attack. It has already killed 11,000 Palestinians and provided no evidence that any of them were responsible for Hamas’ violence.

Israel’s air campaign against Gaza relies on the “emergency” American appropriation of $14 billion in military aid. American weapons have been designated for Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank. U.S. officials know that Israel’s actions will not lead to peace. So do Israeli leaders, including many in the military. Netanyahu and his government survive because they have American support, including Jews who continue to maintain that criticism of the Israeli government is the equivalent of antisemitism. Many of us disagree. Recent polling demonstrates that the American public is evenly divided on support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

Organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street represent ever growing numbers of American Jews. We are no longer cowed from describing Israel’s actions against the people of Gaza as genocide or its policies in the West Bank as apartheid. We are no longer intimidated by an American Jewish establishment that wields specious and exaggerated accusations of antisemitism and harassment to silence critics of the Netanyahu government.

America’s Jewish establishment does its best to suppress the contentious history of Zionism within the Jewish community worldwide. My grandfather grew up in the late 1800s in a small town in Belarus and became a student and political activist in Minsk. The intellectual life of his community focused on the debate about whether socialism or Zionism best served Jews’ long term interests.

Much public debate focuses on “who started it?,” and the simplistic answer given by Israel’s defenders points to the Hamas attack of October 7 as justification for Israel’s excesses. But the war between Israel and Palestine did not begin on Oct. 7, or even in 1979 or 1967 or 1948, and it was not created in the Holocaust. It makes more sense to say that the roots of the current conflict go back to the Crusades, a campaign that began around 1095 when Europe’s Christian kings raised and sent armies to the Middle East to overthrow its Muslim leaders and take their land. As they marched across Europe, the Crusaders attacked Jewish communities, murdering their populations and stealing their wealth. Almost 1,000 years later the descendants of those Arab and Jewish people contend for the land conquered by the Crusaders.

History will not tell us which side has right on its side. The search for peace must be forward-looking and requires a commitment to the welfare of both the Palestinian and Israeli people. American officials are far from powerless to stop the Netanyahu government. The problem is that they refuse to do so. The current crisis has created a demand for leadership with a vision of a world at peace.

This is Joe Biden’s Lyndon Johnson moment, the time for him to follow LBJ’s 1968 decision to withdraw from the campaign for reelection. The issue is not that Biden is too old. His policies are too old. The American Empire is no more. We need leaders ready to engage the emerging multipolar world, who do not imagine that the U.S. is going to war over Taiwan, who welcome sharing power with the nations of Europe and the BRICS countries. The end of America’s uncritical support of the Israeli government can be the first step in creating leadership for a world at peace.

November 19, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Washington raises stakes on ‘losing hand’ in Ukraine – Jeffrey Sachs

Sachs noted that he and other observers predicted the Ukraine debacle in the early days of the conflict. “This one was not very hard to see,” he said. “Like you said, how can you beat Russia? It was very obvious. These people just are not very clever. Biden, Nuland, [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken – they’ve been at this since 2014.”

https://www.rt.com/news/587370-sachs-ukraine-losing-hand/ 17 Nov 23

Just three days after Russian forces launched a military offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky sought to resolve the conflict by pledging neutrality, Sachs said. However, he suggested that, when Zelensky reached a preliminary agreement with the Russians on a peace settlement a few weeks later, US President Joe Biden’s administration torpedoed the deal.

The leading American analyst has argued that Washington needs a new foreign policy after 15 years of failure in Eastern Europe

Washington has continually escalated a failed foreign policy in Eastern Europe since at least 2008, driving Ukraine to the brink of total destruction by failing to address Russia’s legitimate security concerns in the former Soviet republic, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued.

“The US has played a losing hand badly for 15 straight years,” Sachs said on Wednesday in an interview with independent journalist Glenn Greenwald. “This is really important to understand if one wants to learn a little bit about geopolitical poker, which is, we keep raising the stakes on a losing hand.”

Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the Soviet Union’s breakup, detailed how at various points in the past two decades, Washington could have forestalled a military conflict without Kiev losing any territory. He pointed out that Moscow was demanding that NATO not expand onto its doorstep, which US officials refused to concede.

When Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, chose neutrality over aligning with the West and agreed to extend the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s lease of its naval base in Crimea, that wasn’t good enough for US leaders, Sachs said. US State Department official Victoria Nuland “and friends” then helped overthrow Kiev’s democratically elected government in 2014, leading to Ukraine’s loss of Crimea, he said.

Even then, Russia wasn’t demanding more territory. Rather, Sachs said, Moscow wanted Ukraine to refrain from shelling ethnic Russians in the breakaway Donbass region and to grant them a degree of autonomy. Those terms were included in the Minsk II agreement, which was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council, but US officials told Ukrainian leaders that they didn’t need to comply with the deal, the analyst said.

In December 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a security pact pledging no further expansion of NATO and negotiations on placement of US missile systems in Eastern Europe. The US reply came in January 2022.

“We don’t have to discuss any of that with you,” Sachs said, summing up Washington’s stance at the time. “That was the reply. We don’t have to discuss NATO with you. It’s none of your business.”

Washington has since approved $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, essentially prolonging the fighting, the analyst argued. Earlier this year, the Biden administration goaded Kiev into a major counteroffensive against Russian forces that was “clearly an impossibility,” Sachs said.

“They’ve raised the stakes for 15 years on a losing hand, and they can’t get it,” the economist said. “And this is our team. They failed.”

Sachs noted that he and other observers predicted the Ukraine debacle in the early days of the conflict. “This one was not very hard to see,” he said. “Like you said, how can you beat Russia? It was very obvious. These people just are not very clever. Biden, Nuland, [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken – they’ve been at this since 2014.”

Kiev’s much-anticipated offensive campaign, launched in the summer, has failed to achieve any significant victories or win back much territory. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, said in a recent interview that the fighting has reached “a stalemate.”

The Economist reported this week that Western officials “increasingly think” that the conflict could last for another five years.

November 19, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

The US and China re-engage on arms control. What may come next

Bulletin, By Daryl G. Kimball | November 15, 2023

For more than six decades, the United States has been worried about China’s regional influence, military activities—and its nuclear potential. For instance, in 1958, US officials considered using nuclear weapons to thwart Chinese artillery strikes on islands controlled by Taiwan, according to a document leaked by Daniel Ellsberg in 2021. Now, as then, a nuclear conflict between the United States and China would be devastating for both sides and the world.

The United States has a decades-long experience of nuclear arms control and strategic stability talks with the Soviet Union, and later Russia. However, there has not been a sustained bilateral dialogue between Washington and Beijing on how to reduce the risk of conflict, nuclear escalation, and nuclear arms control and disarmament. Until recently, China had rebuffed US overtures for bilateral talks on nuclear risk reduction and arms control, and on other security issues.

Adding to the tensions, China has embarked since the early 2000s on a major buildup of its relatively smaller nuclear arsenal and has resisted calls for a global halt on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. In response, some current and former national security insiders, as well as many in Congress, suggest that the US arsenal “should be supplemented” to add more capability and flexibility to counter two “near-peer” nuclear adversaries. In other words, the potential for an unconstrained, three-way arms race is growing.

But things started to change on November 6 with the meeting in Washington between US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Mallory Stewart and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director-General of Arms Control Sun Xiaobo.

A modest yet important breakthrough. The US-Chinese discussion on arms control—the first of its kind since 2018—was described by the US side as a “candid and in-depth discussion on issues related to arms control and nonproliferation.” According to the State Department’s readout of the meeting, “the United States highlighted the need to promote stability, help avert an unconstrained arms race, and manage competition so that it does not veer into conflict.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s readout also said the “[t]he two sides had an in-depth, candid and constructive exchange of views” on nuclear weapons matters, as well as an exchange on “regular arms control.”

Several participants told me that the meeting was “wide-ranging” and “positive in tone,” but that it did not involve much substantive exchange of views on the issues, which is not surprising. Tangible progress will require time and sustained give-and-take from both sides.

The next step, ideally, will be for Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, who are set to meet this week, to direct their teams toward concrete nuclear risk reduction and arms control measures that enhance mutual security.

More nuclear capabilities imply more responsibilities.……………………………………………….

China’s arsenal is not only growing (it had less than 200 nuclear warheads in 2000), but it is also diversifying and modernizing. It is now well-documented that China has started to deploy new solid-fueled missiles that can be launched more quickly than its older liquid-fueled missiles. …………………………………………………………………………..

Of course, China’s nuclear arsenal is still modest by comparison to the US and Russian arsenals, each of which are about nine times larger than China’s. But China’s nuclear modernization efforts could have significant strategic implications that make it even more important for the “Big Three” (the United States, Russia, and China) to pursue meaningful progress on nuclear arms control to avoid a destabilizing and dangerous nuclear arms race.

Toward a more serious, sustained dialogue. In response to China’s nuclear buildup, US officials—Republicans and Democrats alike—have prioritized engagement with China in talks to identify measures to reduce nuclear risks and prevent destabilizing and costly strategic weapons competition………………………….

Sullivan’s June 2 address provides some important clues about the types of issues the US side likely raised in the arms control talks. Sullivan suggested that the United States and China, along with the other NPT nuclear-armed states, could engage in new nuclear arms control and risk reduction efforts such as establishing more robust crisis communications channels and “formalizing a missile launch notification regime” for all five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. “It’s a small step that would help reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation in times of crisis,” Sullivan added.

These suggestions don’t happen in a vacuum: The United States and Russia have a ballistic missile launch notification agreement already in place, and Russia and China have their own bilateral agreement too.

In his remarks, Sullivan also called for talks on “maintaining a ‘human-in-the-loop’ for command, control, and employment of nuclear weapons” to reduce the risk of miscalculation in a crisis. This would require that the US and China—and other nuclear-armed states—agree to pursue technical discussions designed to reach common understandings on how the use of artificial intelligence, particularly high-risk, cutting-edge deep learning models, can be banned or at least limited so the use of nuclear weapons is effectively kept under human control. This proposal seems to have reached the highest level with Presidents Biden and Xi reportedly discussing limits on the employment of artificial intelligence in the control and deployment of nuclear weapons.

In future meetings, US and Chinese diplomats should go one step further and set out a process for formulating a joint understanding that cyberwarfare capabilities will not be used to try to interfere with other states’ nuclear command and control systems, which could also severely alter decision-making in a crisis……………………………………………………..

From talks to concrete actions. Further down the road, an even more ambitious approach that might be considered in the multilateral, nuclear-five setting would be for Washington and Moscow to propose that China, France, and the United Kingdom freeze the size of their nuclear stockpiles so long as the United States and Russia maintain the current limits on their strategic arsenals—even after New START expires—and make good faith efforts to negotiate deeper verifiable reductions in their stockpiles…………………………………………………………………

With US-Russian relations at rock bottom, the Kremlin still wedging its war on Ukraine, and the last remaining treaty limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals set to expire in early 2026, the risk of nuclear escalation and a nuclear arms race with Russia is already too high. That makes it all the more important for Xi and Biden to direct their team to work harder and more steadily to reduce tensions and head off the possibility of a costly, dangerous, unconstrained three-way nuclear race that no one can win.

https://thebulletin.org/2023/11/the-us-and-china-re-engage-on-arms-control-what-may-come-next/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter11162023&utm_content=NuclearRisk_USAndChina_11152023

November 19, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Ukraine war a ‘good investment’ for US – Trump rival

“the Ukrainian army has degraded 50% of the Russian military capability without one drop of American blood. Seems to me that’s a pretty good return on investment for us, and one we should double down on,“

Chris Christie made the case for “doubling down” on funding for Kiev

Former New Jersey governor and aspiring Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie has condemned “isolationism” and urged Americans to double down on funding the Ukrainian war effort, describing it as a good “return on investment.”

Speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Wednesday, Christie argued he was the only “serious” Republican presidential candidate showing “moral clarity” to the world, often praising US President Joe Biden while taking potshots at GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

Our strategy in Ukraine is driven by a principled commitment to support Ukrainians fighting and dying for their country,” Christie said at one point. He added that he would have provided “more weapons, and sooner” than Biden…….

Christie pointed out that he has visited Kiev and met with President Vladimir Zelensky, who told him that “without American help, Ukraine would now be occupied by Russia.” Zelensky also said that Ukraine did not need any American soldiers, only weapons to win the war by itself, Christie added.

“We’ve done that, but with less than 4% of one year’s military budget. And with that, the Ukrainian army has degraded 50% of the Russian military capability without one drop of American blood. Seems to me that’s a pretty good return on investment for us, and one we should double down on,” the former governor concluded………………………………………..

Faced with the growing opposition from some Republican lawmakers to continued spending on the Ukraine conflict, the White House has recently changed its “messaging” to present it as stimulus for the American defense industry. The supposed economic benefits have yet to materialize, however……………………more https://www.rt.com/news/587448-us-ukraine-chris-christie/

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Over 1,200 ‘Educators for Palestine’ Sign Open Letter Demanding Ceasefire

The letter also called for an end to the Israeli occupation and condemned recent suppression of dissent by universities.

By Chris Walker / Truthout, https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/16/over-1200-educators-for-palestine-sign-open-letter-demanding-ceasefire/

Hundreds of academics from universities and institutions of higher learning (as well as public school K-12 teachers) from across North America have signed on to a joint letter, calling on their governments to demand an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, where the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians since the start of October.

As of Sunday evening, the document has more than 1,200 signatures, available to view here. The signers, calling themselves “Educators for Palestine,” are Palestinian academics and their allies who denounce Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as governments complicit in the genocide, including the United States.

The letter calls for such governments to “stop funding the genocide and instead call for a ceasefire, an end to the blockade of humanitarian aid, and restoration of access to water, electricity, and medicine in Gaza.”

“We demand that all potential war crimes be investigated,” the academic letter-writers state. “We demand an end to Israel’s military occupation and regime of apartheid, and a long-term political solution led by the Palestinian people that is based on justice, equality, and responsibility for one another’s mutual well-being.”

“We believe education can be a powerful place for this work,” Educators for Palestine add.

The letter also expresses deep concern over the ways that students and staff of universities are being silenced by their own institutions. “Forced silence through repression of dissent and retribution by powerful institutions against students, staff, and faculty have been the norm and must be loudly rejected,” the letter states, describing the actions to suppress dissent as “McCarthyian” in nature.

“In this historical moment, we reaffirm our commitments to interrogating the ways in which systems such as racism, ableism, settler colonialism, and imperialism are fundamentally intertwined with one another, both at home and abroad,” the letter adds.

Organizers of the letter spoke to Truthout about why it is critical for academics in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and beyond to speak out against the genocide in Gaza and the widespread suppression of dissent in academia.

“We watched in horror as the attacks on Gaza unfolded and wanted to say unequivocally that we reject this collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” the signatories told Truthout.

Organizers also condemned international governments and mainstream media for downplaying Israel’s killing of Palestinian children while using the killing of Israeli children by Hamas as justification for war crimes. The IDF has killed more than 4,500 children in Gaza since October 7.

“As both Palestinian educators and non-Palestinian educators in solidarity, we were particularly concerned with the framing of only one group of children as innocent and using their innocence as justification for war crimes,” the organizers of the letter said.

The organizers explained two sets of goals: one in the short-term and one for the longer-term.

“Our immediate goal is to speak out and bear witness as educators to the horrors that the Israeli state’s assault on Gaza has unleashed, once again, on Palestinian children and their families — horrors that our politicians are actively supporting, and that the institutions where many of us work (universities and schools) are steadfastly refusing to acknowledge,” they said. “Our long term goal is to build a stronger base for solidarity with Palestinians, understanding how the movement for justice in Palestine is essentially interwoven with the movements for justice for racialized and colonized peoples across the globe.”

The organizers of the letter told Truthout that academia was being used to further apartheid and genocide.

“[The] bombs being dropped on homes and schools and hospitals and bakeries in Gaza are often devised within our STEM classrooms and university departments,” they said, adding that the “words used to distort reality within our media, as well as the forms of truth-telling and poetry that assert Palestinian dignity and self-determination, are birthed in the spaces where our students learn to write.”

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Education, NORTH AMERICA, USA | Leave a comment

Poll: Majority of Americans Support a Ceasefire in Gaza

The poll from Reuters/Ipsos is the second to show that most Americans want a ceasefire.

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/16/poll-majority-of-americans-support-a-ceasefire-in-gaza/

A new poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that the majority of Americans support the idea of a ceasefire in Gaza, a position that has been rejected by the Biden administration.

About 68% of respondents agreed with the statement “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate,” including three-quarters of Democrats and half of Republicans.

The poll is the second in recent weeks to show the majority of Americans support a Gaza ceasefire. A poll published by Data for Progress on October 20 found that 66% of respondents agreed with the idea of the US calling for a ceasefire and using its leverage to prevent further violence.

The Biden administration has called for “pauses” in the fighting but has refused to use the term ceasefire as it’s determined to continue backing Israel’s brutal assault, which is currently focused on Gaza’s biggest hospital.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll also showed a general decline in US public support for Israel. Just 31% of poll respondents said they supported sending Israel weapons, while 43% opposed the idea.

Only 32% of respondents said the US should support Israel, compared with 41% in a poll that was conducted in October. The plurality of Americans, 39%, support the idea of the US being a neutral mediator in the conflict.

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | public opinion, USA | Leave a comment

White House, Senate, House all out of sync with electorate on Gaza

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, 17 Nov 23 Glen Ellyn IL

President Biden talks restraint and aid for besieged Palestinians, but pours in millions in weapons for Israel’s destruction and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson attended the pro Israel rally in Washington D.C. Both offered total support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Schumer told the crowd “We stand with Israel. America feels your pain. We ache with you, we stand with you, and we will not rest until you get all the assistance you need.” He offered not a word a sympathy or aid to the 2.3 million Palestinians and their housing being systematically destroyed largely by US supplied weaponry.

Johnson was even crueler, responding “We stand with that” to crowd chants of “No ceasefire, no ceasefire.”

The top 3 US officials all ignore the electorate which favors immediate ceasefire. The Action for Progress and Reuters/Ipsos polls show 66% and 68% respectively favor ceasefire. The Reuters/Ipsos poll reveals support for Israel has dropped from 41% to 32% since the war started October 7. Just 31% favor US weapons for Israel compared to 43 opposed. A plurality, 39%, want the US to be a neutral mediator to end the war.

America has become a pariah worldwide thru its endless support of Israeli Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and destruction of the open-air prison Israel maintains in Gaza. It is bound by international law to protect, not destroy, the 2.3 million Palestinians imprisoned there under Israeli control. The US public is beginning to get that. The top 3 US leaders, Biden, Schumer and Johnson apparently never will.

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The Latest Nuclear Boondoggle?

By Connor Murray, https://armscontrolcenter.org/the-latest-nuclear-boondoggle/ 17 Nov 23
The Pentagon recently announced plans to develop a new variant of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, the B61-13. This proposed bomb would, as the name suggests, be the 13th variant of the B61 and “provide the President with additional options against certain harder and large-area military targets.”

The weapon would be delivered by strategic bombers, like the planned B-21, and have an explosive yield similar to the existing B61-7, including the guided tail kit recently debuted on the B61-12.

The B61-12, which is expensive and was a major priority for Pentagon officials over the past 13 years, seems to suddenly have taken a backseat along with the argument that the B61-12 was to cover all relevant missions with decreased collateral damage. B61-12s were designated mostly for Europe to support NATO’s nuclear sharing mission.

The need for the B61-13, as articulated, is nebulous at best. The weapon would have a significantly higher maximum yield than the B61-12 given its use of the B61-7’s warhead. The use of the tail kit may improve its earth penetration capabilities and will certainly increase its accuracy. Nothing in the Pentagon’s announcement makes it clear where the value added might be, at least not to any degree that might justify the likely multi-billion-dollar price tag that will accompany this new bomb.

Over the last two decades, U.S. planners have moved away from high-yield nuclear weapons, given improvements in accuracy and development of effective conventional alternatives. The last megaton-plus-yield weapon in the U.S. arsenal, the B83-1, was proposed for retirement in President Joe Biden’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) due to “increasing limitations on its capabilities and rising maintenance costs.” Importantly, the next sentence referred to the development of an “enduring capability for improved defeat of [hard and deeply buried] targets.”This final sentence was likely the hint at possible development of the B61-13. While retiring the B83-1 is certainly a worthy goal, replacing it with a brand-new weapon is not a worthwhile endeavor. Though the new weapon uses an existing warhead, it likely still would put additional stress on an already strained nuclear enterprise that regularly sees cost overruns.

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this year updated its cost of U.S. nuclear forces to $756 billion for the 2023-2032 period. That estimate is a shocking 19% above CBO’s 2021 estimate for the 2021-2030 period. CBO updates these projections every two years. Inflation is taken into account in their estimates. However, the dramatic increase indicates struggles with existing programs, cost overruns and policy decisions that have been made since the 2021 estimate was published. Those include increased costs to the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile and other modernization initiatives. Further straining resources via the B61-13 spells possible disaster, delays and extreme cost.

A larger question remains unasked. The NPR states clearly that America’s nuclear weapons are for “defense and deterrence.” Despite the Pentagon’s consideration that destroying a large, hard target is defensive, the question remains how an additional capability to do so adds to “defense and deterrence” when other existing capabilities might already fill that need.

Rather than seeking to add to the mission set, the administration should work with congressional and nongovernmental experts to adapt current capabilities to fill defense and deterrence needs without expanding offensive capabilities. The United States should be looking for ways to increase efficiency in nuclear spending, not add yet another weapon at high cost with limited, if any, usefulness.

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Who Would Take the Brunt of an Attack on U.S. Nuclear Missile Silos?

These fallout maps (on original) show the toll of a potential nuclear attack on missile silos in the U.S. heartland

Scientific American BY SÉBASTIEN PHILIPPE 1 Dec 2023, [on original – excellent maps , charts, and illustrations]

This article is part of “The New Nuclear Age,” a special report on a $1.5-trillion effort to remake the American nuclear arsenal.

Last March the U.S. Air Force released a two-volume, 3,000-plus-page report detailing the environmental impact of its plans to replace all 400 “Minuteman” land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with new “Sentinel” missiles by the mid-2030s. The program is part of a $1.5-trillion effort to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal and its command-and-control infrastructure. The report, required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, covers the “potential effects on the human and natural environments from deployment of the Sentinel system” and from, among other things, the refurbishing of existing missile silos and the construction of new utility corridors and communications towers. But it doesn’t mention the most significant risks to surrounding communities—namely, what happens if these missiles, which are intended to serve as targets for enemy nuclear weapons, are ever attacked.

The original purpose of the land-based missile system was to deter an enemy nuclear attack by threatening prompt and devastating retaliation, but a key argument for the continued existence—and now the replenishment—of the land-based missiles is to provide a large number of fixed targets meant to exhaust the enemy’s resources.

Since 1962, when the first ICBMs were installed in the U.S. heartland, competition from other legs of the nuclear triad has forced the rationale for land-based weapons to evolve. By the 1970s, when the U.S. Navy deployed long-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the air force had placed 1,000 Minutemen in silos across seven states. As missile-guidance systems improved, it soon became clear that the land-based weapons were vulnerable to attack because of their fixed locations, whereas the stealthy sea-based weapons were much better protected.

The air force used the vulnerability of the land-based missiles to argue for their necessity. In 1978 General Lew Allen, Jr., then air force chief of staff, proposed that the silos offered “a great sponge” of targets in the U.S. to “absorb” incoming Soviet nuclear weapons. Destroying the missile fields would require such a massive attack that adversaries couldn’t manage it or even contemplate it. Absent the land-based missiles, the argument goes, an adversary would have far more resources available to seek out and attack other U.S. military and infrastructure targets or even cities.

Even if an adversary is rational enough to not initiate a full-scale attack, the land-based missiles greatly increase the risk of accidental nuclear war. To preclude the possibility of enemy weapons destroying the missiles in their silos, the air force maintains the fleet on high alert, ready to launch on an order from the president—within minutes of enemy missile launches being detected. This “launch on warning” posture makes land-based missiles the most destabilizing leg of the U.S. nuclear triad (which also comprises the missiles based on aerial bombers and submarines). During the cold war there were several false alarms about enemy attacks. If a similar error precipitates the launching of the ICBMs, the adversary will almost certainly retaliate by launching its own nuclear arsenal at military, industrial and demographic targets in the U.S.

Attacking a missile silo requires detonating one or two nuclear warheads, with explosive yields equivalent to 100,000 tons of TNT, close to the buried target. The resulting nuclear explosions will generate gargantuan fireballs that will vaporize everything in their surroundings and produce destructive shock waves capable of wrecking the missiles in their launch tubes. Because the warheads will detonate close to the ground, the nuclear fireballs will suck in soil and other debris and mix it with radioactive bomb effluents as they rise in the air. About 10 minutes after detonation, the mixture of debris and fission products will form miles-high radioactive mushroom clouds, which will then be dispersed by high-altitude winds, leading to fallout on downwind areas.

Studies of the projected fallout from a nuclear attack on the missile fields, published in Scientific American in 1976 and 1988, showed that radioactive particles could travel hundreds of miles downwind. A 1990 guide from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on risks and hazards from natural and nuclear calamities confirmed these assessments, adding that no locality in the U.S. was free of the risk of receiving deadly levels of radiation. Today FEMA’s publications about the effects of nuclear explosions focus on single nuclear detonations; the agency no longer publishes countrywide assessments of risks from nuclear attacks.

All these past studies relied on relatively simple fallout models and average seasonal winds. Current computational capability, along with higher resolutions in archived weather data, allows scientists to map the radiological risk from a preemptive nuclear attack on the missile silos in unprecedented detail. The results of my simulations, presented here for the first time, paint a harrowing picture of the potential consequences of living with these weapons for the foreseeable future.

According to my models, a concerted nuclear attack on the existing U.S. silo fields—in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota—would annihilate all life in the surrounding regions and contaminate fertile agricultural land for years.

Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas would also probably face high levels of radioactive fallout. Acute radiation exposure alone would cause several million fatalities across the U.S.—if people get advance warning and can shelter in place for at least four days. Without appropriate shelter, that number could be twice as high. Because of great variability in wind directions, the entire population of the contiguous U.S. and the most populated areas of Canada, as well as the northern states of Mexico, would be at risk of lethal fallout—more than 300 million people in total. The inhabitants of the U.S. Midwest and of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario in Canada could receive outdoor whole-body doses of radiation several times higher than the minimum known to result in certain death.

Even if there is no nuclear war, people in communities near the missile fields will continue to face serious risks that are also not discussed in the environmental impact statement. One is the accidental release of radioactive materials, such as plutonium, in the warheads by a mechanical shock, fire or explosion. A second is the accidental detonation of a warhead leading to a nuclear explosion. The history of the U.S. nuclear missile program provides several examples of silos or missiles catching fire and of missiles exploding in their launch tubes. One time, in 1964, a warhead fell from the top of its missile to the bottom of its 80-foot-deep silo. Nuclear weapon accidents are not always discussed publicly. The air force hasn’t disclosed, for example, the nature of a 2014 “mishap” that occurred while personnel were troubleshooting a Minuteman. The episode caused $1.8 million in damages to the missile, which had to be removed from its silo.

The air force needs to be far more transparent about the true risks of its land-based nuclear missile fleet so the U.S. public can make informed decisions about living with this danger for another half a century.

HOW FALLOUT AND FATALITIES SHIFT WITH THE WINDS

A concerted nuclear attack on the missile silos in the U.S. heartland would generate radioactive dust that travels with prevailing winds…………………………………………………………………………………… Depending on wind directions, a nuclear attack on the missile silos could kill several million people.

[excellent maps and charts]

……………………………………………… the average outdoor radiation dose across North America after four days of exposure. Communities living closest to the silos could receive several times more than 8 Gy, which scientists regard as lethal. Most inhabitants of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota would get average doses greater than 1 Gy, causing fatalities from acute radiation syndrome, especially among children. The U.S. population would receive average doses greater than 0.001 Gy per year, which is the current annual limit for exposure to the public.

Fatality Count: For a simulated attack on any day of 2021, the scientists computed the resulting fatalities……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

WHICH LOCATIONS ARE THE RISKIEST?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Communities living closest to the silos could receive several times more than 8 Gy, which scientists regard as lethal. Most inhabitants of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota would get average doses greater than 1 Gy, causing fatalities from acute radiation syndrome, especially among children. The U.S. population would receive average doses greater than 0.001 Gy per year, which is the current annual limit for exposure to the public.

THE WORST-CASE SCENARIOS

Sifting through simulations for each day of 2021, the Princeton researchers computed the worst possible outcome at each location from a concerted nuclear attack on the missile silos. This map [on original]shows all the worst-case scenarios across North America. Not all locations would experience the worst outcome from the same attack; which areas would be impacted depends on wind patterns on the day of the attack. ……………………………………………………………. Depending on wind directions, a nuclear attack on the missile silos could kill several million people……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-would-take-the-brunt-of-an-attack-on-u-s-nuclear-missile-silos/

November 17, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

How the United States and its NATO allies sabotaged a peace between Russia and Ukraine.

A Son of the New American Revolution, 14 November 2023 by Larry Johnson

We now know that the United States played the primary role in sabotaging the March 29, 2022 tentative peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine thanks to the recently published article by Hajo Funke and Harald Kujat, HOW THE CHANCE WAS LOST FOR A PEACE SETTLEMENT OF THE UKRAINE WAR — AND THE WEST WANTED TO CONTINUE THE WAR INSTEAD. The United States persuaded its NATO allies that pursuing the war against Russia, using Ukraine as a proxy, offered a legitimate opportunity to destroy Russia. You want a definition of evil? This is it. Instead of helping end the war between Russia and Ukraine, the United States and its NATO puppets condemned hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to death in a war with Russia they could not win.

In the course of strong arming Ukraine’s Zelensky into rejecting the peace agreement, the West prepared and launched a propaganda campaign that claimed that Ukrainian military forces defeated the Russian forces and compelled them to retreat. It was a lie. As you will read in the timeline below, Putin ordered the withdrawal of Russian forces starting on April 1, 2022 as a good faith gesture about Russia’s seriousness in complying with the 29 March Istanbul Agreement.

Chalk this up as one more massive war crime by the United States and NATO. They are accessories to murder. I have summarized the timeline presented in the Funke/Kujat article if you do not have time to read it in its entirety. I also am republishing their piece for your convenience. All of the death and destruction experienced in Ukraine and Russia could have been avoided. But the West was intent on dethroning Putin and carving up Russia. Once you understand this point I think you will appreciate that Putin and his Generals are no longer of a mind to give the West the benefit of the doubt. Destroying NATO’s designs on Ukraine is now their chief aim in my view.

March 4, 2022 — Putin and Naftali Bennet speak via phone.

March 5, 2022 — At Putin’s invitation, former Israeli Prime Minister Bennett flew to Moscow. Putin, Bennett said, had made some substantial concessions, in particular, he had renounced his original wartime goal of demilitarizing Ukraine. … .In return, the Ukrainian president agreed to renounce joining NATO. The Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed.”

March 6, 2022 — Bennett and Scholz met in Berlin; on March 7, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany discussed the issue in a videoconference; on

March 8, 2022 — Macron and Scholz spoke on the phone; on

March 10, 2022 — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov met in Ankara; on

March 12, 2022 — Scholz and Zelensky and Scholz and Macron spoke on the phone; and on

March 14, 2022 — Scholz and Erdogan met in Ankara.

March 15-19, 2022 — Only a month after the outbreak of the war, Ukraine and Russia agreed on the broad outlines of a peace settlement. Ukraine promised not to join NATO and not to allow military bases of foreign powers on its territory, while Russia promised in return to recognize Ukraine’s territorial integrity and to withdraw all Russian occupation troops. Special arrangements were made for the Donbas and Crimea.”

March 24, 2022 — NATO decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations.

March 27, 2022 — Zelensky defended the results of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in public before Russian journalists

March 28, 2022 — Putin, as a sign of goodwill and in support of the peace negotiations, declared readiness to withdraw troops from the Kharkov area and the Kiev area

29 March, 2002 — Turkiye’s President Erdogan hosted a Ukrainian-Russian peace conference in Istanbul and an armistice agreement was approved in principle.

April 1, 2022 — Putin orders Russian troops to initiate withdrawal from Kiev and Kharkiv in show of good faith in accordance with the armistice agreed to in Istanbul.

April 5, 2022 — NATO was firm in its position that continuing the war is preferred to a cease-fire and negotiated settlement: “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 Kiev and the rest of Europe.”

April 6, 2022 — Russia completes withdrawal from Kiev suburbs and Kharkiv.

April 9, 2022 — Boris Johnson arrived unannounced in Kiev and told the Ukrainian president that the West was not ready to end the war.

April 25, 2022 — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. wants to use the opportunity to permanently weaken Russia militarily and economically in the wake of the Ukraine war.

April 26, 2022 — Meeting with defense ministers from NATO members and other countries convened by Austin in Ramstein, Rhineland-Palatinate/ Germany, the Pentagon chief declared the military victory of Ukraine as a strategic goal.

April 28, 2022 — According to Britain’s Guardian, PM Johnson “instructed” Ukrainian President Zelensky “not to make any concessions to Putin.”

HOW THE UNITED STATES AND ITS NATO ALLIES SABOTAGED PEACE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

14 November 2023 by Larry Johnson 127 Comments

Facebook Twitter Telegram Email Share