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US congressional report explores option of not delivering any Aukus nuclear submarines to Australia.

COMMENT – What a typical USA plan?

They reneg on delivering the “goods” sold, but keep the $368 billion!

the Congressional Research report describes an alternative “military division of labour”, under which the US would not sell any Virginia-class submarines to Australia.

Report offers alternative of the US navy retaining boats and operating them out of Australian bases

Ben Doherty, Guardian, 6 Feb 26

A new United States congressional report openly contemplates not selling any nuclear submarines to Australia – as promised under the Aukus agreement – because America wants to retain control of the submarines for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan.

The report by the US Congressional Research Service, Congress’s policy research arm, posits an alternative “military division of labour” under which the submarines earmarked for sale to Australia are instead retained under US command to be sailed out of Australian bases.

One of the arguments made against the US selling submarines to Australia is that Australia has refused to commit to supporting America in a conflict with China over Taiwan. Boats under US command could be deployed into that conflict.

The report, released on 26 January, cites statements from the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, and the chief of navy that Australia would make “no promises … that Australia would support the United States” in the event of war with China over Taiwan.

“Selling three to five Virginia-class SSNs [nuclear-powered general-purpose attack submarines] to Australia would thus convert those SSNs from boats that would be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict into boats that might not be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict,” the report argues.

“This could weaken rather than strengthen deterrence and warfighting capability in connection with a US-China crisis or conflict.”

Under the existing Aukus “optimal pathway’, Australia will first buy between three and five Virginia-class nuclear-powered conventionally armed submarines, the first in 2032.

Following that, the first of eight Australian-built Aukus submarines, based on a UK design, is slated to be in the water “in the early 2040s”.

But the Congressional Research report describes an alternative “military division of labour”, under which the US would not sell any Virginia-class submarines to Australia.

The boats not sold to Australia “would instead be retained in US Navy service and operated out of Australia” alongside US and UK attack submarines already planned to rotate through Australian bases.

The report speculated Australia could use the money saved to invest on other defence capabilities, even using those capabilities as a subordinate force in support of US missions.

“Australia, instead of using funds to purchase, build, operate, and maintain its own SSNs, would instead invest those funds in other military capabilities – such as … long-range anti-ship missiles, drones, loitering munitions, B-21 long-range bombers … or systems for defending Australia against attack … so as to create an Australian capacity for performing other missions, including non-SSN military missions for both Australia and the United States.”

The report also raises cybersecurity concerns, noting that “hackers linked to China” are “highly active” in attempting to penetrate Australian government and contractors’ computers.

It argues that sharing nuclear submarine technology with another country “would increase the attack surface, meaning the number of potential digital and physical entry points that China, Russia, or some other country could attempt to penetrate to gain access to that technology”.

The debate over whether the US should sell boats to Australia is also grounded in ongoing concern over low rates of shipbuilding in the US: the country’s shipyards are failing to build enough submarines to supply America’s own navy, let alone build boats for Australia.

For the past 15 years, the US Navy has ordered boats at a rate of two a year, but its shipyards have never met that build rate “and since 2022 has been limited to about 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year, resulting in a growing backlog of boats procured but not yet built”.

The US fleet currently has only three-quarters of the submarines it needs (49 boats of a force-level goal of 66). Shipyards need to build Virginia-class submarines at a rate of two a year to meet America’s own needs, and to lift that to 2.33 boats a year in order to be able to supply submarines to Australia.

Legislation passed by the US Congress prohibits the sale of any submarine to Australia if the US needs it for its own fleet. The US commander-in-chief – the president of the day – must certify that America relinquishing a submarine “will not degrade the United States undersea capabilities”.

The report argues that Australia’s strict nuclear non-proliferation laws could also weaken US submarine force projection under the current Aukus plan.

Australian officials have consistently told US counterparts that, in adherence to Australia’s commitments as a non-nuclear weapon state under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Australia’s attack submarines can only ever be armed with conventional weapons.

“Selling three to five Virginia-class SSNs to Australia would thus convert those SSNs from boats that could in the future be armed with the US nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile with an aim of enhancing deterrence,” the report states……………………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/05/not-delivering-any-aukus-nuclear-submarines-to-australia-explored-as-option-in-us-congressional-report

February 13, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

No evidence to support US claim China conducted nuclear blast test: Monitor

Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said in a statement on Friday that the body’s monitoring system “did not detect any event consistent with the characteristics of a nuclear weapon test explosion” at the time of the alleged Chinese test, adding that that assessment remains unchanged after further detailed analyses.

Washington wants Beijing to join a new nuclear weapons treaty after expiration of the New START accord between the US and Russia.

By Al Jazeera and News Agencies, 6 Feb 26, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/7/no-evidence-to-support-us-claim-china-conducted-nuclear-blast-test-monitor

An international monitor said it has seen no evidence to support the claim by a senior United States official who accused China of carrying out a series of clandestine nuclear tests in 2020 and concealing activities that violated nuclear test ban treaties.

US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno made the assertions about China at a United Nations disarmament conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, just days after a nuclear treaty with Russia expired.

“I can reveal that the US government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tonnes,” DiNanno said at the conference.

China’s military “sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognised these tests violate test ban commitments,” he said.

“China conducted one such yield-producing nuclear test on June 22 of 2020,” he said.

DiNanno also made his allegations on social media in a series of posts, making the case for “new architecture” in nuclear weapons control agreements following the expiration of the New START treaty with Russia this week.

“New START was signed in 2010 and its limits on warheads and launchers are no longer relevant in 2026 when one nuclear power is expanding its arsenal at a scale and pace not seen in over half a century and another continues to maintain and develop a vast range of nuclear systems unconstrained by New START’s terms,” he said.

Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, said in a statement on Friday that the body’s monitoring system “did not detect any event consistent with the characteristics of a nuclear weapon test explosion” at the time of the alleged Chinese test, adding that that assessment remains unchanged after further detailed analyses.

China’s ambassador on nuclear disarmament, Shen Jian, did not directly address DiNanno’s charge at the conference but said Beijing had always acted prudently and responsibly on nuclear issues while the US had “continued to distort and smear China’s national defence capabilities in its statements”.

We firmly oppose this false narrative and reject the US’s unfounded accusations,” Shen said.

“In fact, the US’s series of negative actions in the field of nuclear arms control are the biggest source of risk to international security,” he said.

Later on social media, Shen said, “China has always honored its commitment to the moratorium on nuclear testing”.

Diplomats at the conference said the US allegations were new and concerning.

China, like the US, has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans explosive nuclear tests. Russia signed and ratified it, but withdrew its ratification in ⁠2023.

US President Donald Trump has previously instructed the US military to prepare for the resumption of nuclear tests, stating that other countries are conducting them without offering details.

The US president said on October 31 that Washington would start testing nuclear weapons “on an equal basis” with Moscow and Beijing, but without elaborating or explaining what kind of nuclear testing he wanted to resume.

He has also said that he would like China to be involved in any future nuclear treaty, but authorities in Beijing have shown little interest in his proposal.

February 13, 2026 Posted by | China, spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

In nuclear race with Russia, Trump goes back to a Cold War future

After letting New START expire, Trump threatens to replace the era of arms control with a new arms race against Russia and China.

Aaron Maté, Feb 07, 2026

As if the lingering prospect of a new attack on Iran is not dangerous enough, the Trump administration is toying with a greater threat to global security.

With Thursday’s expiration of the New START treaty, the US and Russia no longer have any legal constraints on their arsenals of nuclear weapons. President Trump let the treaty collapse rather than accept a Kremlin offer to extend for one year, the maximum possible. This removes the last formal constraint on a renewed arms race between two states that already can destroy the world many times over.

There are unconfirmed reports that the two sides have reached an informal understanding to observe the treaty’s terms for at least six months. And, in a rare sign of progress, Moscow and Washington have announced a resumption of high-level military-to-military dialogue. The Biden administration suspended those contacts in late 2021 as Russia built up its forces on Ukraine’s borders.

Yet the news is far from reassuring…………………………………….(Subscribers only) https://www.aaronmate.net/p/in-nuclear-race-with-russia-trump?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=187111056&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

February 13, 2026 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

“Journalism Deserves Better”: Ex-Washington Post Staffers Slam Billionaire Bezos for Gutting Paper

Democracy Now, February 06, 2026

The Washington Post has laid off more than 300 journalists, dismantling its sports, local news and international coverage. “Everybody is grieving, and it’s a loss for our readers,” says Nilo Tabrizy, one of the paper’s recently laid-off staff, who describes a “robotic” meeting announcing the cuts. “They didn’t have the dignity to look us in the eye.” The shocking staff culling has been widely attributed to the paper’s leadership under Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who bought the nearly 150-year-old institution in 2013. Karen Attiah, the former global opinion editor at the Post, was hired soon after Bezos’s arrival. She recounts how the arrival of a billionaire backer initially revitalized the paper with resources and creative freedom, before souring over the next decade.

“We thought [he] shared the same values that we had,” says Attiah, who was fired from the Post last fall over comments she made about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. “Journalism deserves better than a billionaire owner who decides that partying in Europe is more important than people’s lives.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://www.democracynow.org/2026/2/6/karen_altiah_washington_post_layoffs_journalists

February 13, 2026 Posted by | media, USA | Leave a comment

Iran’s Comprehensive Peace Proposal to the United States

The Middle East stands at a crossroads between endless war and comprehensive peace. A framework for peace does exist. Will the US finally seize it?

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Sybil Fares, Common Dreams, Feb 09, 2026

History occasionally presents moments when the truth about a conflict is stated plainly enough that it becomes impossible to ignore. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s February 7 address in Doha, Qatar (transcript here) should prove to be such a moment. His important and constructive remarks responded to the US call for comprehensive negotiations, and he laid out a sound proposal for peace across the Middle East.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for comprehensive negotiations: “If the Iranians want to meet, we’re ready.” He proposed for talks to include the nuclear issue, Iran’s military capabilities, and its support for proxy groups around the region. On its surface, this sounds like a serious and constructive proposal. The Middle East’s security crises are interconnected, and diplomacy that isolates nuclear issues from broader regional dynamics is unlikely to endure.

On February 7, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi’s responded to the United States’ proposal for a comprehensive peace. In his speech at the Al Jazeera Forum, the foreign minister addressed the root cause of regional instability – “Palestine… is the defining question of justice in West Asia and beyond” and he proposed a path forward.

The Foreign Minister’s statement is correct. The failure to resolve the issue of Palestinian statehood has indeed fueled every major regional conflict since 1948. The Arab-Israeli wars, the rise of anti-Israel militancy, the regional polarization, and the repeated cycles of violence, all derive from the failure to create a State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel. Gaza represents the most devastating chapter in this conflict, where Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine was followed by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and then by Israel’s genocide against the people of Gaza.

In his speech, Araghchi condemned Israel’s expansionist project “pursued under the banner of security.” He warned of the annexation of the West Bank, which Israeli government officials, as National Security Minister Ben Gvir, continually call for, and for which the Knesset has already passed a motion.

Araghchi also highlighted another fundamental dimension of Israeli strategy which is the pursuit of permanent military supremacy across the region. He said that Israel’s expansionist project requires that “neighboring countries be weakened—militarily, technologically, economically, and socially—so that the Israeli regime permanently enjoys the upper hand.” This is indeed the Clean Break doctrine of Prime Minister Netanyahu, dating back 30 years. It has been avidly supported by the US through 100 billion dollars in military assistance to Israel since 2000, diplomatic cover at the UN via repeated vetoes, and the consistent US rejection of accountability measures for Israel’s violations of international humanitarian law.

Israel’s impunity has destabilized the region, fueling arms races, proxy wars, and cycles of revenge. It has also corroded what remains of the international legal order. The abuse of international law by the US and Israel with much of Europe remaining silent, has gravely weakened the UN Charter, leaving the UN close to collapse.

In the concluding remarks of his speech, he offered the US a political solution and path forward. “The path to stability is clear: justice for Palestine, accountability for crimes, an end to occupation and apartheid, and a regional order built on sovereignty, equality, and cooperation. If the world wants peace, it must stop rewarding aggression. If the world wants stability, it must stop enabling expansionism.”

This is a valid and constructive response to Rubio’s call for comprehensive diplomacy…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/comprehensive-peace-plan-middle-east

February 12, 2026 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Collapsing Empire: US Bows To African Revolutionaries

 Kit Klarenberg, Global Delinquents, Feb 09, 2026

On February 2nd, the BBC published an extraordinary report on how the Trump administration “has declared a stark policy shift” towards Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the governments of which have sought to eradicate all ties to Western imperial powers, and forged the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). The independent bloc is a revolutionary enterprise, with the prospect further countries will follow its members’ lead. Washington is under no illusions about the new geopolitical realities unfolding in Africa.

The British state broadcaster records how Nick Checker, State Department African Affairs chief, is due to visit Mali to convey US “respect” for the country’s “sovereignty”, and chart a “new course” in relations, moving “past policy missteps.” Checker will also express optimism about future collaboration with AES, “on shared security and economic interests.” This is an absolutely unprecedented development. After military coups deposed the elected presidents of all three countries 2020 – 2023, the trio became Western pariahs.

France and the US initially aimed to isolate and undermine the military governments, halting “cooperation” projects in numerous fields. Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West African States, a neocolonial union of which all three were members, first imposed severe sanctions on Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, before its combined armed forces prepared to outright invade the latter in summer 2023. The three countries didn’t budge, and in fact welcomed Western isolation, forging new international partnerships and strengthening their ties. ECOWAS military action never came to pass.

In January 2025, the trio seceded from the union and created AES. Western-funded, London-based Amani Africa branded the move “the most significant crisis in West Africa’s regional integration since the founding of ECOWAS in 1975,” claiming it dealt “a significant blow to African…cooperation architecture.” Meanwhile, Burkina Faso’s leader Capt Ibrahim Traoré has become a media hate figure. A disparaging May 2025 Financial Times profile slammed him as a cynical opportunist leading a “Russia-backed junta”, and his supporters a “cult”.

As the BBC unwittingly explains, such antipathy towards Traoré stems from establishing himself “as a standard-bearer in resisting ‘imperialism’ and ‘neocolonialism’.” Via “vigorous social media promotion, he has gained huge support for this stance and personal popularity among young people across the continent and beyond,” ever since seizing office in September 2022. Far from just talk, Traoré and his fellow AES “junta” leaders have systematically neutralised malign Western influence locally, while pursuing left-wing economic policies for the good of their populations.

France and the US have proven markedly powerless to hamper, let alone reverse, this seismic progress…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/collapsing-empire-us-bows-to-african

February 12, 2026 Posted by | AFRICA, France, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

If You Think Our Rulers Do Bad Things In Secret, Wait Til You See What They Do Out In The Open.

Caitlin Johnstone, Feb 09, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/if-you-think-our-rulers-do-bad-things?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=187345674&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

They launched a live-streamed genocide in full view of the entire world.

They’re openly targeting civilian populations with siege warfare in Iran and Cuba in full view of the entire world.

They openly kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation in full view of the entire world.

They deliberately provoked a horrific and dangerous proxy war in Ukraine in full view of the entire world.

They spent years actively backing Saudi Arabia’s monstrous genocidal atrocities in Yemen in full view of the entire world.

They’re plundering and exploiting the resources and labor of the global south in full view of the entire world.

They’re killing the biosphere we all depend on for their own enrichment in full view of the entire world.

They’re circling the globe with hundreds of military bases to secure planetary domination in full view of the entire world.

They engage in nuclear brinkmanship and wave around armageddon weapons like pistols in full view of the entire world.

People go homeless and die of exposure while billionaires buy private islands and choose the next president in full view of the entire world.

Weapons manufacturers lobby for wars and then profit from the death and destruction they cause in full view of the entire world.

The president of the United States has repeatedly admitted to being bought and owned by the world’s richest Israeli in full view of the entire world.

The US Treasury Secretary has been repeatedly admitting that the US deliberately sparked the violence and unrest in Iran by methodically immiserating the population via economic warfare, in full view of the entire world.

I keep seeing people freaking out and asking how it’s possible that the individuals in the Epstein files haven’t been arrested for their secret nefarious behavior. And I always want to ask them, mate, have you seen the nefarious behavior they’re engaging in right out in the open?

Pay attention to the Epstein files. Pay attention to what little we can learn about how these freaks conduct themselves behind closed doors. By all means, pay close attention to these things.

But don’t forget to also pay attention to the far greater evils they are inflicting in full view of the entire world.

February 11, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel, USA | Leave a comment

Residential proximity to nuclear power plants and cancer incidence in Massachusetts, USA (2000–2018)

18 December 2025, Springer Nature, Volume 24, article number 92, (2025)

“………………………………………. Results

Proximity to plants significantly increased cancer incidence, with risk declining by distance. At 2 km, females showed RRs of 1.52 (95% CI: 1.20–1.94) for ages 55–64, 2.00 (1.59–2.52) for 65–74, and 2.53 (1.98–3.22) for 75 + . Males showed RRs of 1.97 (1.57–2.48), 1.75 (1.42–2.16), and 1.63 (1.29–2.06), respectively. Cancer site-specific analyses showed significant associations for lung, prostate, breast, colorectal, bladder, melanoma, leukemia, thyroid, uterine, kidney, laryngeal, pancreatic, oral, esophageal, and Hodgkin lymphoma, with variation by sex and age. We estimated 10,815 female and 9,803 male cancer cases attributable to proximity, corresponding to attributable fractions of 4.1% (95% CI: 2.4–5.7%) and 3.5% (95% CI: 1.8–5.2%).

Conclusions

Residential proximity to nuclear plants in Massachusetts is associated with elevated cancer risks, particularly among older adults, underscoring the need for continued epidemiologic monitoring amid renewed interest in nuclear energy. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12940-025-01248-6

February 11, 2026 Posted by | radiation, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

Trump is not threatening war on Iran over its nuclear program, but because it challenges U.S. dominance.

In short, it is about removing Iran from the strategic playing field, as it is the sole actor in the region that is powerful, influential, and beyond the United States’ direct control. The U.S. and Israel desperately want to remove that oppositional force.

So Trump is buying time by agreeing to talks that cannot succeed on the terms he and Rubio have laid down. He is likely to use that time to magnify the threat against the Iranian leadership in the vain hope that they will acquiesce to his demands. 

The U.S. is once again threatening a war on Iran that could devastate the region. Trump knows Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, but that has never been the point. It is about removing Iran as the only actor in the region beyond U.S. control.

By Mitchell Plitnick  February 6, 2026, https://mondoweiss.net/2026/02/trump-is-not-threatening-war-on-iran-over-its-nuclear-program-but-because-it-challenges-u-s-dominance/

American and Iranian negotiators are meeting in Muscat to see if they can come to an agreement and avoid an American attack on Iran. The chances don’t look good.

There was some initial hope because Donald Trump agreed to hold talks at all. The buildup of American forces in the region and the frequent planning meetings with Israeli political and military officials gave the appearance of an unstoppable buildup to war. 

But American allies Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman have been working hard to convince Trump not to attack Iran. They fear the potential backlash of an American attack on the Islamic Republic, believing that Iran is not likely to respond to an attack with the restraint they have shown in the past. 


Israel is urging Trump to attack, as the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is the one entity that stands to benefit from the chaos that an attack on Iran could bring. 

Indeed, Iran has warned that an attack this time will be met with a very different response than previous ones. Yet, paradoxically, it is the very fact that Iran is capable of a more damaging response than it has taken in the past that creates the impasse that is likely to derail negotiations.

What each side wants

Iran’s desires from any talks with the U.S. are straightforward: they want the U.S. to stop threatening to attack, and to lift the sanctions that have helped to cripple Iran’s economy.

But the United States has more complicated demands. 

  1. The United States wants Iran to completely abandon nuclear power. This demand is not just about weaponry, but includes all civilian nuclear power under Iran’s control. No uranium at all can be enriched by Iran, regardless of whether it is for civilian or military purposes, and all enriched uranium Iran has must be handed over.
  2. The U.S. is demanding that Iran agree to limits dictated by Washington on the range and number of ballistic missiles it can possess. 
  3. The U.S. is demanding that Iran end its support of any and all armed resistance groups in the region.

All of these demands are unreasonable. But the United States is holding a loaded gun to Iran’s head. The U.S. has moved a large carrier group into the waters near Iran, and between American and Israeli intelligence, they surely have a very clear map of where they want to strike to go along with the technical capability to essentially ignore Iran’s defenses. 

But while Iran can do very little to shield itself from an American or Israeli attack, it is capable of responding to one. That is what the last two American demands are focused on, and it’s really the reason all of this is happening.

If the U.S. or Israel attacks Iran and Iran elects to respond with all of its capabilities—which it has not done in previous attacks—it has the ability to kill many American soldiers, severely disrupt oil production in the Gulf, or cause significant damage to Israel.

Iran can do this because it has a large battery of long-range ballistic missiles. It has already shown, last June, that it can hurt Israel, and that was an attack largely meant to be a warning. 

Iran also backs various militias in the region, some large, like Ansar Allah in Yemen, others smaller. That means it can launch guerrilla attacks on American bases or other key sites in places like Iraq and Syria. 

Iran can also target oil fields throughout the region, either with missiles or drones or with militia attacks. That’s a major reason Trump’s friends in the Gulf are reluctant to see him start a war. 

The ability to do all of that gives Washington pause. Donald Trump likes it when he can do quick operations with little or no pushback, as he did recently in Venezuela or last year in Iran. Trump has carefully avoided situations where American soldiers might be killed. Iran might not let the U.S. off so easily this time around.

The reality behind U.S. demands

That brings us to why talks are so unlikely to succeed. 

Iran has already made it clear it has no intention to negotiate on their support for groups throughout the region or on their ballistic missile arsenal. They understand that the reason the United States is trying to force them to agree to such measures is that it would leave Iran defenseless. Giving in to these demands would be tantamount to national suicide.

The Iranian leadership is more than happy to discuss the issue of nuclear power. As unfair as the terms might be, they might even be willing to reach a compromise that allows them to use nuclear power without enriching uranium themselves. That’s far from ideal, but Iran is facing a considerable threat.

But this holds little interest for the Trump administration. Despite American chest-thumping, they know that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, nor were they before the U.S. damaged so much of their nuclear infrastructure last year. Trump’s own intelligence corps confirmed that Iran was not actively seeking a nuclear weapon, just as it had affirmed that finding every year since 2007.

But none of this has ever been about an Iranian nuclear weapon. Rather, it has always been about pressuring the Islamic Republic either to fall or to radically change its behavior in the region. It has always been about getting Iran to stop supporting the Palestinian cause rhetorically and to stop arming Palestinian factions. It has always been about stopping Iran from supporting militias in the region that act outside of the American-run system, unlike those that are backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or other states in the region that are on good terms with Washington.

In short, it is about removing Iran from the strategic playing field, as it is the sole actor in the region that is powerful, influential, and beyond the United States’ direct control. The U.S. and Israel desperately want to remove that oppositional force.

Trump weighs the consequences of attacking Iran

Does Trump really want a war? That concern with Iran is a long-term U.S.-Israeli policy goal. What Donald Trump personally wants is always difficult to know. It can change from day to day, and is often based on a less-than-full understanding of the real world.

From all appearances, Trump felt emboldened by the American success in Venezuela. He kidnapped the head of state and his wife, and suffered no American casualties in doing so. The short-term political backlash, both in Latin America and in the U.S., was brief and minimal. 

No doubt, he envisioned a similar success in Iran, when the protests there and the Iranian government’s brutal response helped to create what might have looked superficially like similar circumstances. Trump began issuing one threat after another, and while their frequency has been intermittent, they have not stopped. 

But his friends in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Türkiye, and elsewhere in the Mideast explained to Trump that the outcome in Iran would be very different from that in Venezuela. Iran has the capabilities we’ve already discussed here, but there are other key differences.

For one, Iran has a deep governmental infrastructure, and there is no one in it who is both capable of taking over from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and willing to compromise with Trump in the way Delcy Rodriguez has in Caracas. Despite the occasional protester in Iran calling out the name of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran, who was deposed in 1979, there is no infrastructure of support for him in Iran, and it would likely be impossible to simply install him without a full-scale invasion of the country.

So Trump is buying time by agreeing to talks that cannot succeed on the terms he and Rubio have laid down. He is likely to use that time to magnify the threat against the Iranian leadership in the vain hope that they will acquiesce to his demands. 

But the primary purpose of that time is to continue to position American and Israeli forces to counter what they can anticipate of an Iranian response. That would mean not just the stationing of ships in striking distance of Iran, but also positioning whatever military assets they might have in countries like Iraq and Syria, as well as in other Gulf states, to counter guerrilla attacks by Iran-aligned militias and getting friendly states to agree to help with shooting down Iranian missiles and drones, as they did last year.

With Rubio and Benjamin Netanyahu pushing Trump toward a regime change war with Iran, and given the amount of bluster he has already put out there, it is hard to see Trump backing away from a war if Iran will not agree to compromise on its missiles and the militias it supports. And Iran is not about to do that.

The war that will ensue stands a good chance of toppling the Iranian government, but with nothing to replace it, the power vacuum that will surely follow will mean chaos not only for Iran but for the whole region. That isn’t really in Trump’s interests, and it certainly does not benefit his Gulf Arab allies.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, will have made the “neighborhood” that much more dangerous just as Israel’s election season begins to ramp up. While many Israelis have lost faith that “Mr. Security” can protect them after October 7, a heightened sense of danger to Israelis remains the atmosphere that is most favorable to Netanyahu electorally. It’s therefore no surprise that Israel is the one actor in the region that is pressing for this regime change war. 

Averting that war will mean the Trump administration climbing down from its maximalist demands. There are indications that the U.S. is looking, at least,for an option that allows it to do that without appearing to have shied away from Iranian retaliation. But that remains an unlikely outcome, as hawks in Israel, Washington, and among the anti-regime exile Iranian community continue to urge an attack. 

February 11, 2026 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Why Iran–US negotiations must move beyond a single-issue approach to the nuclear problem

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian | February 5, 2026, https://thebulletin.org/2026/02/why-iran-us-negotiations-must-move-beyond-a-single-issue-approach-to-the-nuclear-problem/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Iran-US%20negotiations&utm_campaign=20260209%20Monday%20Newsletter

Iran’s nuclear crisis has reached a point at which it can no longer be treated as a purely technical or legal dispute within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has evolved into a deeply security-driven, geopolitical, and structural challenge whose outcome is directly tied to the future of the nonproliferation order in the Middle East and beyond. If the negotiations scheduled for Friday between Iran and the United States are to be effective and durable, they must move beyond single-issue approaches and toward a comprehensive, direct, and phased dialogue.

The format and venue of Iran–US negotiations. The first round of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff took place on April 12, 2025, in Muscat, Oman. At Iran’s insistence, these negotiations were defined as “indirect.” On April 8, 2025, I emphasized in a tweet that direct negotiations—particularly in Tehran—would significantly increase the chances of reaching a dignified, realistic, and timely agreement. “Wasting time is not in the interest of either country,” I insisted. Despite these warnings, nearly 10 months were lost, during which the region suffered heavy and regrettable losses.

It now appears that Tehran has agreed to direct talks among Witkoff, son-in-law and key adviser to President Trump Jared Kushner, and Araghchi, again in Oman. The most effective format going forward, however, would be to hold direct talks in Tehran and then in Washington. This formula would not only break long-standing political taboos but also enable deeper mutual understanding. A visit by Witkoff and Kushner to Tehran would allow them to engage not only with the foreign minister but also with other key decision-makers, including the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, members of parliament, and relevant institutions—engagement that is essential if any sustainable agreement is to be achieved. Araghchi should engage in Washington not only with US negotiators, but also with President Trump, officials from the Pentagon, and members of the US Congress, to gain a clearer understanding of the current political environment in Washington.

Why a single-issue agreement is not sustainable. In hundreds of articles and interviews since 2013, I have argued that a single-issue agreement—even if successful on the nuclear file—will be inherently unstable. Under current conditions, three core issues require reasonable, dignified, and lasting solutions.

The US demand for zero enrichment. Ahead of negotiations, the United States is demanding that Iran entirely stop all uranium enrichment and give up its stockpile of around 400-kilograms of highly enriched uranium, steps that would prevent Tehran from possible diversion toward weaponization. Since 2013, a group of prominent nuclear scientists from Princeton University and I have proposed a “joint nuclear and enrichment consortium” for the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East as a way for Iran to continue its peaceful nuclear program and for the United States and regional countries to be reassured that program will not be used as a cover for the production of nuclear weapons. This proposal was repeatedly articulated—up to 10 days before the 2025 Israeli and US attacks on Iran—but unfortunately failed to gain serious attention.

Today, the only realistic solution to the question of uranium enrichment remains the establishment of a joint nuclear and enrichment consortium involving Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, and major global powers. This model would address nuclear proliferation concerns while safeguarding equal access to peaceful nuclear technology.

Iran’s missile and defensive capabilities. Defensive capabilities are the ultimate guarantor of territorial integrity, sovereignty, and national security. Since 2013, I have repeatedly recommended two regional agreements: a conventional weapons treaty and a non-aggression pact among the states in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. A regional conventional weapons treaty would ensure a balance of defensive power, while a non-aggression pact would lay the foundation for collective security. Without these frameworks, expectations for unilateral limitations on Iran’s defensive capabilities are neither realistic nor sustainable.

Iran’s support for the “axis of resistance” and regional security order. My book, A New Structure for Security, Peace, and Cooperation in the Persian Gulf, presented a comprehensive framework for regional cooperation and collective security, including a nuclear and weapons of mass destruction free zone. This framework would enable progress on four major issues: the roles of non-state and semi-state actors; the Persian Gulf and energy security; the antagonism among Iran, the United States, and Israel; and a safe and orderly US withdrawal from the region.

If a sustainable agreement is to be reached, Iran and Israel must put an end to mutual existential, military, and security threats. “Despite major differences, the United States and China both worry about the conflict. China has close Iran relations, and Israel is a US strategic partner, making them qualified mediators serving as communication channels,” I suggested in 2023.

A warning to Washington: Iran’s nuclear file and the future of nonproliferation. The global non-proliferation order is undergoing a fundamental transition. The world is moving away from a system in which nuclear strategy is defined by possession or non-possession of nuclear weapons, and toward one defined by positioning, reversibility, and strategic optionality.

Nuclear-weapon states have not only failed to meet their NPT obligations to make good-faith efforts toward nuclear disarmament; they are also actively modernizing and expanding their arsenals. At the same time, some non-nuclear states that face threats to their security are seeking deterrence without formal weaponization, and political leverage without legal rupture.

The Iranian case demonstrated that full compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran nuclear deal) and unprecedented cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) did not produce security for Iran. The US withdrawal from the agreement, the imposition of sweeping sanctions, and subsequent military attacks conveyed a clear message to the Iranian government: Maximum restraint can create vulnerability. Meanwhile, Israel—outside the NPT and enjoying unwavering US support—remains the region’s sole nuclear-armed state.

For the first time in the history of nuclear non-proliferation, safeguarded nuclear facilities of a non-nuclear-weapon state were attacked, without meaningful condemnation from either the IAEA or the UN Security Council. This episode has fundamentally altered the meaning of non-proliferation commitments.

The conclusion is clear: If Iran’s nuclear crisis is treated as a narrowly defined, Iran-specific issue, it will not lead to a sustainable agreement. Instead, it will accelerate the spread of “nuclear ambiguity” across the Middle East as multiple countries seek the capability to build nuclear weapons, even if they do not immediately construct weapons. Any new nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States must therefore be firmly grounded in the principles and obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), applied in a balanced, non-discriminatory, and credible manner. The fate of Iran-US negotiations is inseparably linked to the future of non-proliferation in the region and around the world. Decisions made today will shape regional and international security for decades to come.

February 11, 2026 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Trump nixes nukes from environmental reviews

February 5, 2026, https://beyondnuclear.org/trump-nixes-nukes-from-environmental-review/

White House Executive Order & DOE set rule for “categorical exclusion” of new reactors from NEPA environmental impact statements

On February 2, 2026, the American Nuclear Society’s NuclearNewsWire headlined the US Department of Energy (DOE) announcement for the exclusion of experimental advanced nuclear reactors (ANR) from environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The February 2, 2026 Federal Register notice states that the Trump White House by Executive Order (E.O.) 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy” (May 23, 2025), Section 6, Streamlining Environmental Reviews directs U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to create “categorical exclusions as appropriate for reactors within certain parameters.” The categorical exclusion was made effective immediately on February 2, 2026.

Beyond Nuclear encourages you to submit your comment on the new categorical exclusion rule up until March 4, 2026, using the Federal eRulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov. Public comments must include the agency name (“Department of Energy,”) and docket number, (DOE-HQ-2025-0405) and labeled “DOE categorical exclusion for Advanced Nuclear Reactors (ANR).”

The new DOE categorical exclusion rule establishes some specific conditions allegedly before the nuclear industry can proceed through licensing for mass production, construction and operation its ANR projects unfettered by any environmental assessment or environmental impact statement as otherwise required under NEPA law.

Beyond Nuclear’s first examination of the DOE’s qualifying conditions for claiming categorical exclusion eligibility to apply finds them contradicting facts and without meeting the legal standard of “reasonable assurance”.

Here are a few samples of prepared comments that Beyond Nuclear will be submitting to the DOE on these bogus conditions of eligibility:

Inherent/Passive Safety Features: The new reactor design must employ “inherent safety” features and systems.

Based on available information of currently funded nuclear power startup companies in the United States, none of the known startups, or any of the established nuclear power corporations like Westinghouse Electric have formally declared they will refuse US government limited liability protection from a catastrophic nuclear power accident under the Price-Anderson Act.   In fact, as quietly tacked onto to “An Act: To authorize appropriations for the United States Fire Administration and firefighter assistance grant programs, to advance the benefits of nuclear energy, and for other purposes,”  the  Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act of 2024—without a single public hearing—Congress extended the industry’s limited liability protection beyond the scheduled expiration of Price-Anderson on December 31, 2025 with a 40-year extension to December 31, 2065. The original Price-Anderson Act of 1957 has long been and remains essential for the nuclear industry to secure what meager private investment it can still attract by maintaining its federally limited liability and indemnification from catastrophic radiological contamination by nuclear accidents and malevolent acts. It is highly improbable that any nuclear power startup or current operational nuclear companies will voluntarily forgo the federal government’s limited liability nuclear accident financial shelter, given developing advanced reactors still face unacceptable uncertainty from severe nuclear accident risks and bad actors. This demonstrated lack of industry confidence contradicts its own claims of “inherent safety” from a well established and acknowledged “inherently dangerous” nuclear power technology.

Advanced Fuel and Coolant Systems: The reactor must utilize well-established fuel, coolant, and structural materials that support a, low-risk safety design basis.

Many of the emerging US advanced reactor designs will rely upon an advanced nuclear fuel identified as High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) nuclear fuel. HALEU fuel is not “well-established” in the US market. HALEU is fissionable uranium-235 enriched to just under 20% U-235. (Conventional nuclear fuel is enriched to 3-5% U-235). The only commercial-grade HALEU fuel available globally today is state-owned and controlled by Russian oligarchy. Even the US current operating fleet of commercial reactors only resources roughly 1% or less of low enriched U-235 domestically to fuel its existing fleet.  It is heavily reliant upon foreign uranium. According to the US Energy Information Administration, Russia and the Russia-influenced countries of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan provide approximately 48% of the total US domestic reactor nuclear fuel purchases.

What’s more, at just under an upper limit near 20% enriched U-235, HALEU fuel significantly reduces the effort needed to produce nuclear weapons-grade material under the guise of advanced reactor deployment and fuel development. This results in an increased threat to global safety and security with accelerated nuclear weapons proliferation that would likely result with the commercial trafficking and expansion of advance reactor technology and the higher enriched uranium nuclear fuel.

The number of advanced reactor design coolant systems that plan to use highly reactive and “hazardous” liquid metal and liquid salt combined with nuclear power operations warrant the NEPA requirement for “reasonable assurance” analysis and public interrogation by environmental impact statements. In the context of advanced nuclear coolants, this refers to materials that are chemically reactive in air and water (sodium) or highly corrosive (molten salts) both of which are balanced with safety tradeoff benefits that come with low-pressure operation. However, historical accounts demonstrate numerous and recurring of reactor coolant leaks and fires in different countries involving sodium coolant do not provide the “reasonable assurance” for the blanket categorical exclusion of environmental reviews for these advanced reactors.

Japan’s Monju sodium cooled reactor had numerous and significant leaks and fires over its operational history including one major accident and widely reported sodium leak and fire accident in 1995.  The accident dominated Monju’s operational history associated with forced shutdown for nearly 15 years and its eventual abandonment of operation. This 1995 accident was compounded by a scandal where the operator (JAEA) attempted to hide the extent of the damage, leading to a significant loss of Japan’s public confidence in nuclear power. Monju was permanently closed in 2016 and decommissioned. This operational history in Japan does not demonstrate “reasonable assurance” in the technology to warrant a blanket categorical exclusion of NEPA’s required environmental impact statement on the risks and consequences also associated with a catastrophic nuclear accident.

Another example documented by historical operating data comes from France’s sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor (FBR) program, specifically the Phénix (multiple sodium-air and recurring sodium-water reactive events in its steam generators). Additionally, France’s Superphénix reactors experienced a major sodium reactive event that shut down the reactor for four years. These combined incidents and accidents were frequent and costly enough to lead to major, long-term shutdowns and France’s eventual abandonment of the technology altogether in the late 1990s. Again, the operational history in France does not provide “reasonable assurance” for the DOE to grant a categorical exclusion of NEPA’s required environmental impacts statement on the resumption of yet another experimental reactor coolant failure, significant fire and/or explosion that could precipitate significant radiological releases.

Safe Waste Management: The project must demonstrate that any hazardous waste, radioactive waste, or spent nuclear fuel can be managed in accordance with applicable requirements.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a report “Nuclear waste from small modular reactors,” on May 31, 2022. The significance of this study authored by finds “few studies have assessed the implications of SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The low-, intermediate-, and high-level waste stream characterization presented here reveals that SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive waste than LWRs (the US conventional large Light Water Reactor fleet), which will impact options for the management and disposal of this waste.”

“‘Our results show that most small modular reactor designs will actually increase the volume of nuclear waste in need of management and disposal, by factors of 2 to 30 for the reactors in our case study,’ said study lead author Lindsay Krall, a former MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). ‘These findings stand in sharp contrast to the cost and waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies.’”

Study Conclusions

“This analysis of three distinct SMR designs shows that, relative to a gigawatt-scale PWR, these reactors will increase the energy-equivalent volumes of SNF (spent nuclear fuel), long-lived LILW (low and intermediate level radioactive waste), and short-lived LILW by factors of up to 5.5, 30, and 35, respectively. These findings stand in contrast to the waste reduction benefits that advocates have claimed for advanced nuclear technologies. More importantly, SMR waste streams will bear significant (radio-) chemical differences from those of existing reactors. Molten salt– and sodium-cooled SMRs will use highly corrosive and pyrophoric fuels and coolants that, following irradiation, will become highly radioactive. Relatively high concentrations of 239Pu (plutonium) and 235U in low–burnup SMR SNF will render recriticality a significant risk for these chemically unstable waste streams.”

These few excerpts from scientific findings by the peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences do not provide “reasonable assurance” to meet a legal standard for the DOE to grant a categorical exclusion of NEPA’s  required environmental impacts statement.

Additional samples of the critical comments already submitted to the DOE:

“DOE-HQ-2025-0405 is illegal, absurd, arbitrary, and capricious.

Per NEPA: § 4336e. Definitions. In this subchapter: (1) Categorical exclusion. The term ‘categorical exclusion’ means a category of actions that a Federal agency has determined normally does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment within the meaning of section 4332(2)(C) of this title. Obviously, nuclear reactors significantly affect the quality of the human environment when they fail (e.g. Three-Mile Island, Fukishima, and Chernobyl). DOEHQ-2025-0405 excludes experimental nuclear technologies from review without any analysis. DOE-HQ-2025-0405 briefly mentions that these experimental technologies will ‘limit adverse consequences from releases of radioactive or hazardous material from construction, operation, and decommissioning.’ This statement implies that there will be ‘releases of radioactive or hazardous material,’ and ‘adverse consequences’ from those releases, but that the unproven technologies will somehow ‘limit’ those adverse consequences. To be clear, releases of radioactive and hazardous materials significantly affect the quality of the human environment.”

“The new policy of waiving regulatory hurdles is INSANITY! Whole communities, town and cities are at risk for nuclear contamination. Surely you’ve documented our history of radiation contamination not only in our country but around the globe. Trump’s administration acts before thinking, studying, and reasoning. If there is anything to be done in advance of nuclear projects going online please for the sake of humanity stop this nonsense.”

“Department of Energy DOE-HQ-2025-0405.  Given the controversial nature of nuclear power generation and disposal of associated waste, as well as earlier reactor disasters around the world compliance with NEPA requires the completion of an EIS not a CX. The long term environmental impacts and alternatives require a more complete and scientically informed analysis before a decision can be made.”

February 10, 2026 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Has Trump been trumped by large, powerful, resolute Iran?

Trump is also not the master of his destiny with Iran. He knows Iran poses no threat whatsoever to US interests. But Trump also knows he’s subservient to his Israeli masters who demand he attack Iran

Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 8 Feb 26

Last June Israel attacked Iran, got blooded bad enough to beg Trump to negotiate a ceasefire. Trump got a reality lesson as well. Iran responded with its own attack to Trump’s one-off strike that did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear program, damaging a US base in Qatar. The message was clear. Any all out US attack could bring home hundreds, possibly thousands of US body bags.

Both Iranian responses demonstrate Iran has enormous firepower to both defend any US Israeli attack, but also inflict enormous damage on its attackers. And that damage would not only be to US, Israeli forces, it would shut down the Strait of Hormuz, likely wrecking the US, Israeli; indeed world economy.

Did Trump get the message? At first no. He conspired with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December to foment violent domestic protests to overthrow the Iranian regime. Trump planned a mid-January attack to push the protesters to victory. But when Iran crushed the protests, Trump backed down once again, realizing a strengthened Iranian regime would repel any attack just like in June.

That has left Trump in an impossible quandary. He’s put the massive US military armada on Iran’s doorstep knowing he cannot possibly succeed without incurring US, Israeli losses. But his credibility is destroyed if he admits defeat and withdraws the US armada.

What to do? Trump’s M.O. when cornered is to set up fake, negotiations with his adversary to buy time and seek trifling concessions so he can claim a complete, overwhelming victory. That won’t work with Iran. His upcoming negotiations with Iran will fail worse than his failed negotiations with Denmark and NATO to gobble up Greenland. Trump’s demands going in are so extreme, essentially guaranteeing end of Iranian sovereignty, they are a non-starter.

Trump is also not the master of his destiny with Iran. He knows Iran poses no threat whatsoever to US interests. But Trump also knows he’s subservient to his Israeli masters who demand he attack Iran to destroy Israel’s last Middle East hegemonic competitor. Even major US casualties could serve Israel’s agenda by forcing Trump launch all out war to avenge those casualties as not dying in vain. It’s even possible that Israel would use their own massive casualties to drop a nuke on Tehran. Once Trump pulls the trigger on his armada installed at Israel’s behest, there is no reversal of the inevitable catastrophe for Middle East peace; possibly world peace.

It was a snap for Trump to bring his military up to Venezuela’s border and slaughter a few hundred folks with boat strikes and outright invasion to score a presidential kidnapping. Bringing that same military up to Iran’s border will be a criminal war too far for Trump. Either he blows up the Middle East, destroying US and Israeli forces along with Iran in a conflict that could go nuclear, or he admits defeat, turns tail and sheds his warrior credibility.

By caving to Israeli demands, Trump has left himself no satisfactory way out. Has he met his match in large, powerful, resolute Iran? Sure looks like it.

February 10, 2026 Posted by | USA | Leave a comment

Hegseth calls for U.S. space dominance.

Trump’s War Department is returning to this illusory vision that hopes to erase the multi-polar world in favor of American global dominance. Thus, despite all the nice talk about negotiating with China, Russia, Iran and other BRICS+ nations, the US is stepping deeply back into the big muddy. This time though it includes a major league arms race in space.

For years China and Russia have been introducing a global ban on weapons in space treaty at the United Nations. The US and Israel have been blocking the development of such a treaty that would close the door to the barn before the horses get out.

 Bruce K. Gagnon , 7 Feb 26, https://space4peace.blogspot.com/2026/02/hegseth-calls-for-us-space-dominance.html

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered an overly confident and aggressive speech at Blue Origin’s Rocket Park in Florida (owned by Jeff Bezos), emphasizing the strategic importance of space in U.S. war-making. 

Speaking to employees and big-wigs, Hegseth declared: ‘We will unleash American space dominance’. 

He underscored that space is the ultimate high ground, criticized the Biden administration, and praised the military initiatives of President Trump, highlighting the urgency of American leadership in the ‘space race’. 

This is not completely new as the US Space Command (and now the US Space Force) have long been calling for ‘America to come out on top’ in space.

He said, ‘We have a Commander in Chief who is interested in winning’.

The big difference these days is the current level of braggadocio and arrogance inside this administration.

‘We are just unleashing the war fighter to be lethal, disciplined, trained, accountable and ready’, he claimed.

Hegseth called it his ‘arsenal of freedom tour’ during the next month across the country. He declared that the administration intends to spend $1.5 trillion this year on war-making. ‘We will dominate in every domain’, he bragged.

Those funds include $25 billion to start work on Golden Dome – ‘total orbit supremacy’ he called it. ‘We have to dominate the space domain’.  

He congratulated ‘America’s deterrence in action’ at the US border, in Venezuela, Yemen, and Iran.

He described the Pentagon as a place where we ‘rip out the bureaucracy….and expedite innovation for the war fighter’.

This aggressive talk reminds me of an Iraq-war era speech by author Thomas Barnett where he told an assembly of Pentagon and CIA reps that America’s role in the coming years would be ‘security export’. He said at that time that we won’t make shoes, cars, refrigerators and the like. It is cheaper to produce those products overseas. Our role under corporate globalization will be to play the role of world policeman. 

Barnett declared that the Pentagon would go into nations not currently under our ‘control’ with overwhelming force – what he called ‘Leviathan’.  But the problem he said, is who will run these countries after we take them over?  

What we need he said is a force to run these nations after the initial take down.  He called this team ‘Systems Administration’.  Not too soon after watching his presentation I noticed that Lockheed Martin had received a huge contract to train ‘Sys Ad’ forces. Barnett said our ‘Sys Ad’ troops would never come home.

Barnett also claimed that the US would need legions of young people to go into the ‘Leviathan’ force and they would be easy to find because there are essentially no jobs in this country anymore.  He said that we need to recruit these ‘angry young men’ who wile away their time playing violent video games.  There is an endless supply of them across America.

Trump’s War Department is returning to this illusory vision that hopes to erase the multi-polar world in favor of American global dominance. Thus, despite all the nice talk about negotiating with China, Russia, Iran and other BRICS+ nations, the US is stepping deeply back into the big muddy. This time though it includes a major league arms race in space.

For years China and Russia have been introducing a global ban on weapons in space treaty at the United Nations. The US and Israel have been blocking the development of such a treaty that would close the door to the barn before the horses get out.

Trump appears to want to release all the war horses, and come what may, vainly attempt to make America ‘Mr. Big’ once again. 

Does his administration understand they are on a crash course with WW3 – total global annihilation?

There is always an Achilles’ heel.  In the case of the US it is our crumbling economy. Hegseth declares big dreams for global control. But where will the $$$ come from to pay for it? Do they intend to take Social Security for example?

Time will tell but in the meantime we all need to be on the case.

Protest and survive. Build resilience and hope. Keep paddling.

February 10, 2026 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Military’s AI Strategy Threatens Everything We Love

For Hegseth, the tech bros, and technofascists who have infiltrated the government, all of the above represent the best of American innovation. For them, innovation is a pseudonym for constant surveillance, never-ending warfare, and widespread environmental destruction.

On the same day as Hegseth’s SpaceX speech, a report revealed that the first four military bases to add data centers will be Fort Hood (Texas), Fort Bragg (North Carolina), Fort Bliss (Texas), and Dugway Proving Ground (Utah). Hegseth said these facilities will be developed through private partnership agreements with companies such as Google, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, SpaceX, and Microsoft. 

 February 7, 2026, By Chris Jeske for Codepink, https://scheerpost.com/2026/02/07/the-militarys-ai-strategy-threatens-everything-we-love/

As did many fellow Americans, I chuckled when President Trump announced the creation of the U.S. Space Force on December 20, 2019. I even remember laughing heartily while taking in the late-night circuit’s many Star Trek jokes that day. Yet, I had mostly forgotten that the Space Force still exists until last week when Secretary of War Pete Hegseth started a policy speech alongside Elon Musk at SpaceX’s headquarters by flashing the Vulcan salute and affirming Musk’s desire to “make Star Trek real.”

The absurdity of Musk’s introduction–in which he spoke of “going beyond our star system to other star systems, where we may meet aliens or discover long dead alien civilizations” as if this could happen in any of our lifetimes–belied the seriousness of the new U.S. Military Artificial Intelligence strategy that Secretary Hegseth proceeded to announce.

Before an audience of Pentagon leadership and SpaceX employees, Hegseth outlined the structures, initiatives, and objectives in place to bring about what he called “America’s military AI dominance,” with his remarks largely following the plan documented in the July 2025 report “America’s AI Action Plan.” 

A core goal Hegseth specified was “becoming an AI-first warfighting force across all domains.” He elaborated that AI will be deployed in three ways: for “warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise missions.”

Hegseth shared that the military’s generative AI model, known as genai.mil, launched last month for all three million Department of War (DOW) employees and will run on “every unclassified and classified network throughout our department.” The initial model was developed with Google Gemini and will soon incorporate xAI’s Grok. In its first month, one-third of DOW’s workforce (one million people) has used the generative AI model. 

In the speech, Heseth repeated phrases such as “removing red tape,” “blowing up bureaucratic barriers,” and “taking a wartime approach” to the people and policies that he called “blockers.” Specifics he voiced disdain for included regulations in “Title 10 and 50″–referring to Title 10 of the U.S. Code (the legal bedrock of the armed forces, including the configuration of each branch) and Title 50 of the U.S. Code (the laws which govern national security, intelligence, defense contracts, war powers, and more). These don’t sound like the types of data, processes, and policies to treat with a ‘move fast and break things’ approach.

How genai.mil might be used is even more frightening, especially as we learn how other AI programs are already being used to direct intelligence, surveillance, and warfare.

An April 2024 report from +972 unveiled an Israeli military AI program known as “Lavender,” which was used to generate kill lists of Palestinians. Despite the program reportedly having a known 10 percent false identification rate, no human validation was required before launching air strikes on the AI-identified targets. Another system, known as “Where’s Daddy?,” employed AI to locate targeted individuals. The program was often most confident in a target being at a specific location when they were at home, so the air strikes regularly killed entire families instead of just the targeted individual.

Hegseth eagerly addressed the need for “responsible AI,” but this proved to be another instance of doublespeak. His description was as follows: “We will not employ AI models that won’t allow you to fight wars.” Perhaps the reason he needs to state this is that, in theory, a properly trained AI model would not likely recommend military action in most instances–especially if built upon the data of recent U.S.-involved wars.

Furthermore, Hegseth echoed President Trump, promising that the military’s AI will not be ‘woke’ or ‘confused by DEI and social justice.’ Such declarations raise the question of whether this could mean military AI models will be designed with explicit white supremacist biases. A July 2025 incident involving xAI’s Grok offers a prescient case study: After Elon Musk claimed to remove ‘political correctness’ and ‘wokeness’ from Grok, the program proceeded to praise Hitler, claim to be “MechaHitler,” and spew a series of antisemitic tropes. 

Regardless of how genai.mil is ultimately used, it will require extraordinary computing power. While hyperscale data centers are already massive environmental risks, Executive Order 14318, “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure,” signed by President Trump on July 23, 2025, exempts qualifying projects from virtually all federal environmental regulations.

Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright is ‘all-in’ with the development of federal data centers and the required energy infrastructure. He’s joyfully referred to such initiatives as “the next Manhattan Project” on multiple occasions. As of July 2025, four national lab sites have been selected for data center and energy infrastructure development: Idaho National Laboratory (Idaho), Oak Ridge Reservation (Tennessee), Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Kentucky), and Savannah River Site (South Carolina). 

On the same day as Hegseth’s SpaceX speech, a report revealed that the first four military bases to add data centers will be Fort Hood (Texas), Fort Bragg (North Carolina), Fort Bliss (Texas), and Dugway Proving Ground (Utah). Hegseth said these facilities will be developed through private partnership agreements with companies such as Google, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, SpaceX, and Microsoft. 

These same companies are frequently the driving force behind commercial data centers popping up in municipalities across the nation. Regardless of where data centers are located–municipalities, national lab sites, or military bases–the environmental costs are massive. Aaron Kirshenbaum, CODEPINK’s War is Not Green Campaigner, documents power consumption, water usage, noise pollution, toxic waste, and rare mineral extraction among the many negative local impacts of data centers in our communities. “They must be fought against at all costs,” Kirshenbaum says.

For Hegseth, the tech bros, and technofascists who have infiltrated the government, all of the above represent the best of American innovation. For them, innovation is a pseudonym for constant surveillance, never-ending warfare, and widespread environmental destruction.

Yet, some wisdom never ages. George Manuel in The Fourth World: An Indian Reality speaks of the destructive tendencies of ‘innovations’ developed by settlers: “Europe’s most important contributions that are still of value today seem either to be means of transport or instruments of war: ships, wagons, steelware, certain breeds of horses, guns. Most of the other things that were brought to North America by Europeans came from other parts of the world: paper, print, gunpowder, glass, mathematics, and Christianity.”

So many science fiction classics are rooted in the truth of Manuel’s observation–that western industrial development fuels a lust for warfare and environmental destruction. The authors of these sci-fi classics–unlike our technofascist ‘geniuses’–are true visionaries who are concerned with the future of humanity, and who feel compelled to warn of what might become if we follow these dangerous ideologies that have fuelled centuries of colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy to their logical conclusions.

Even Star Trek itself famously depicts a utopian future where humankind has moved beyond racism, beyond conquest, and beyond capitalism itself. “There simply couldn’t be a more anti-Trek idea than an ‘AI-first warfighting force across all domains,” says Gerry Canavan, a professor of English at Marquette University specializing in science fiction studies. “Watch just one episode of the show, and you’ll see.”

While it’s hard to take Musk and Hegseth seriously when they talk about making Star Trek real, I don’t doubt for a minute that they can find many new ways to violate our rights and destroy what we love about the natural world.

But we aren’t without hope. “For every science fiction narrative about a new technological means for violence and oppression,” Canavan says, “there’s another about what happens when the people suffering under the machine finally unite together to smash it, and take the future back for themselves.”

Just as the protagonists in our favorite science fiction stories actively struggle for and create the world they want to live in, so can we.

Chris Jeske is an organizer with CODEPINK Milwaukee and Associate Director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking.

February 9, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Sorrowful day for peace largely ignored thruout America

Walt Zlotow  West Suburban Peace Coalition  Glen Ellyn IL, 7 Feb 26

The New Start Treaty between Russia and US expires today and America largely yawned. Big story on mainstream news? Faggedaboudit. Ask the person on the street about New Start and he might mutter something about giving disadvantaged kids free comprehensive early childhood education. Wait, wait…that’s Head Start.

Nope, New Start is the 16 year old treaty Obama signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on February 8, 2010. It caps the number of nuclear warheads each side can deploy at 1,550 and limits the number of deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers to 800. Still enough for either side to incinerate us all, but prevents a senseless arms race and symbolic of the critical need to reduce nuclear tensions.

But limited US Russian nuclear arsenals go back 54 years as 2010 Russian New Start signer Medvedev reminded us yesterday. “That’s it. For the first time since 1972, Russia (the former USSR) and the US have no treaty limiting strategic nuclear forces. SALT 1, SALT 2, START I, START II, SORT, New START – All in the past, winter is coming.”

President Trump rebuffed Russian President Putin’s offer to extend the limits for another year for sensible diplomacy to negotiate a new treaty.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio used the lame excuse that any new treaty must include China. But with a nuclear arsenal a pittance of the two nuclear giants, China demurred saying any treaty involving China must include US Russian nuclear stockpiles reduced to China’s level. Rubio knew his requirement was a poison pill deal breaker for any new extension of New Start.  

Dumping nuclear agreements is nothing new for Trump. He left office in January 20, 2021 ignoring New Start’s eminent expiration. Successor Biden promptly renewed New Start for 5 years, exactly 5 years ago today. This time Trump has succeeded in letting it expire on his watch.

This gives Trump a trifecta in dumping critically needed nuclear agreements. In August 2019 Trump withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that banned all land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km. . In November 2020, just before leaving office, Trump withdrew from the 2002 Open Skies Treaty which allowed the US and Russia to conduct short-notice, unarmed reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory to monitor military activities. 

The only positive glimmer to put on Trump’s refusal to extend New Start, even for a measly year to negotiate a long term agreement? Trump has no more nuclear agreements to withdraw from in the last sorrowful 3 years of his second term.

This January the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock, symbolic of approaching global catastrophe, to 85 seconds to Midnight, the closest in its 79 year history. With Trump president, the Bulletin might want to quickly reconvene for another gander at our march toward world annihilation. Next January, none of us might around to hear the 2027 announcement.

February 8, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

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