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This startup just raised nearly $500 million to build nuclear reactors for the US military.

By Rahim Amir, 30 July 26, https://www.techradar.com/pro/this-startup-just-raised-nearly-usd500-million-to-build-nuclear-reactors-for-the-us-military

Antares lookt to supply small reactors by 2028

  • Antares closes $470 million Series C, $370 million in equity and $100 million in debt, co-led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital
  • The move follows the Mark-0 reaching criticality at Idaho National Laboratory and helps fund an electricity-producing Mark-1 in 2027 and military deployments in 2028
  • Antares’ military-first strategy targets a price-insensitive customer bound by an executive order requiring a reactor on a US base September 30 2028

Nuclear fission startup Antares has announced it has raised a total of $470 million in funding as it looks to supply a single client with a looming deadline: the US Military.

The Torrance, California company closed a Series C co-led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital, with Point72 Ventures, Shine Capital and Industrious Ventures among the participants, according to TechCrunch‘s look at its PitchBook data.

Antares’ raise comes seven weeks after its Mark-0 microreactor reached criticality at Idaho National Laboratory under the Department of Energy’s authorization in a demonstration run with the DOE, the lab, and BWX Technologies, with the US Army observing.

A direct beneficiary of the White House

Antares calls it the “first privately developed non-light-water reactor to achieve criticality in the United States in more than four decades,” underscoring how important the test was for both Antares and the US military.

The US military’s presence is not by chance; It is mandated by an executive order (“Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security”) signed by US President Donald Trump to ensure that it has an operating army-regulated nuclear reactor on a domestic military site by September 30, 2028

Antares happens to be one of three finalists in the Pentagon’s Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program that aims to test-deploy a small module reactor (SMR) on two different air force bases.

With Antares being the first private company to go through that gate under the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program, it plans to build an electricity-producing Mark-1 reactor in 2027, followed by initial deployments to defense customers by 2028.

August 3, 2026 Posted by | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Navy’s nuclear battleship plan raises questions for carriers, submarines and AUKUS

The same reactor vendor, dockyards and specialist workforce that sustain the Virginia boats promised to Australia under the trilateral AUKUS partnership are already working at their limit

Navy Lookout 30 July 26, https://www.navylookout.com/us-navys-nuclear-battleship-plan-raises-questions-for-carriers-submarines-and-aukus/

The US Navy has confirmed that its planned Trump-class guided-missile battleship, whose lead ship would be USS Defiant, will be nuclear-powered. The propulsion decision could have consequences extending beyond the BB(X) programme (now redesignated BBGN), placing additional pressure on US aircraft-carrier construction and the naval nuclear industrial base, with potential second-order implications for AUKUS and the submarine programmes of Australia and Britain.

Going nuclear

When BBG(X) was unveiled at the end of 2025, the Navy’s initial concept depicted conventional integrated electric propulsion using gas turbines and diesel generators. The FY2027 thirty-year shipbuilding plan subsequently confirmed that the battleship would be nuclear-powered, while Navy officials told Congress that it was expected to use the A1B reactor type fitted to the Ford-class carriers.

There is an operational logic to the decision. A large combatant intended to carry extensive missile batteries, high-output lasers, powerful sensors, electronic-warfare equipment and future energy-intensive weapons will require considerable generating capacity. Nuclear power also removes the fuel constraint that would otherwise limit a ship expected to operate across the distances of the Indo-Pacific, and it would make the Defiant-class the first American nuclear-powered surface combatant since the last of the Virginia-class cruisers paid off in the 1990s.

Industrial chokepoint

The difficulty is not the nuclear technology itself, which is proven in service and is a design that could be adapted for the battleships. The issue is the increased pressure on the supply chain. Nuclear-powered surface ship construction in the United States is dependent on one yard, HII Newport News. This facility is already experiencing delays and cost growth delivering the Ford-class aircraft carriers. The GD Electric Boat in Groton is the only other yard certified for naval nuclear work but only builds submarines, which are the Navy’s top priority. The most significant industrial bottleneck is the naval reactor supply chain centred on BWX Technologies, the sole supplier of US naval reactor cores and key reactor components. BWX are simultaneously supplying the CVN programme (each ship has 2 reactors) as well as two major submarine programmes. Adding the nuclear requirement to the battleship programme when there is no spare industrial capacity to draw upon means it must compete directly for nuclear-certified labour, drydock time and reactor components already committed years ahead.

The House Armed Services Committee has backed a requirement for the Navy to explain how the programme would avoid disrupting Ford-class carrier construction and the wider naval nuclear industrial base. The concern is grounded in the sequencing of the work, since naval reactors are ordered two to three years before the hulls they power, so any diversion of components or skilled staff is felt long before a battleship takes shape. The Columbia-class SSBN programme, which replaces the sea-based leg of the American nuclear deterrent, is already running late, while Virginia-class SSN construction is below the rate the fleet requires. Adding a third demand to that base without expanding it invites exactly the outcome Congress is trying to avoid.

The AUKUS dimension

The same reactor vendor, dockyards and specialist workforce that sustain the Virginia boats promised to Australia under the trilateral AUKUS partnership are already working at their limit. Nuclear surface ship construction is concentrated at HII Newport News alone. The GD Electric Boat in Groton is the only other yard certified for naval nuclear work but only builds submarines, which are the Navy’s top priority. Reactor components come from a single supplier, BWX Technologies, that is also supplying the Columbia and Virginia submarine lines. The clearest direct risk is to the Ford-class carrier programme, but submarine output would probably be indirectly impacted, through competition for reactor components, nuclear-qualified personnel and investment across the wider supplier base.

For UK reactor production, the exposure is less significant. British naval reactors are designed and manufactured through the UK Defence Nuclear Enterprise, centred on Rolls-Royce Submarines at Raynesway. Reactors for the Dreadnought and SSN-AUKUS boats are made in Britain and complement rather than compete with US capacity. What the UK relies on from the States is the design pedigree of the PWR3, which, to an unknown extent, is modelled on the S9G reactor that powers the Virginia-class and was developed with USN engineering support.

The last public figure put the UK’s Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) stockpile at 21.86 tonnes in 2002, but its present size, composition and availability for future naval fuel are not publicly known. Over half of that stockpile was of US origin and none of it is immediately replenishable since domestic weapons-grade enrichment ended in 1962. It is unclear if there is enough for the 4 Dreadnoughts, up to 12 RN SSN-As planned in the medium-term. (Provision of HEU for the 8 Australian SSN-As also has to be considered, although the source for this has not been publicly established). The genuinely usable reserve is smaller than the headline figure once spent cores, warhead reservation and material form are accounted for, and the stock must also serve every future class indefinitely. Building sovereign enrichment capability takes  15-20 years; the UK has committed £1.7bn to a Nuclear Fuels Programme to explore re-establishing a domestic enrichment to reduce dependence on the US in the long run.

Political and industrial reality

The propulsion decision has also exposed the BBGN programme to an even greater extent politically. Before the decision was finalised, then-Navy Secretary John Phelan said the service was still examining the trade-offs. Admiral Daryl Caudle had earlier warned that nuclear propulsion would add a construction ‘tail’ that could push the ship beyond the timeframe of the operational requirement, although he subsequently endorsed the nuclear design. The ambition for 15 battleships sits awkwardly against a fleet that the same plan does not expect to reach 355 ships until FY2040, and then only if industry achieves a dramatic improvement in delivery performance.

There are plenty who believe that BBGN is essentially a vanity project that will be axed as soon as Trump leaves office. Congress has strongly supported the USN’s continued development of the large, but less demanding, conventionally-powered DDG(X) project, although this is officially a replacement for the Ticonderoga cruisers an

August 2, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Is It Just About AIPAC’s Money, or Does the US-Israel Rot Run Far Deeper?

The truth is that the US government has simply lost control of the very creature it has nurtured and shielded for decades. Blaming this dependency solely on campaign contributions no longer suffices; the rot is far deeper. It is driven by a deep-seated fear and trepidation among American politicians who have spent their entire careers learning that political survival requires absolute obedience to Tel Aviv.

By Ramzy BaroudJuly 24, 2026, https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-it-just-about-aipacs-money-or-does-the-us-israel-rot-run-far-deeper/

Two major stories regarding the United States and Israel in recent days represent profound watershed moments in the history of the relationship between both countries. 

The first incident occurred on July 8 when US Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) and his delegation were detained by armed, illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. 

“These hoodlums come in with machine guns—an M4, an American-made machine gun—and they detain us,” Khanna in a stunning statement. “They block off the road. And then they call the IDF, and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.” 

Equally shocking to the congressman’s direct encounter with the raw, lawless reality of the occupation was the response of US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. Rather than defending an elected American lawmaker, Huckabee dismissed Khanna’s harrowing experience as a mere “stunt.” 

This defiance of old taboos, however, is not confined to progressive factions. In an even more unprecedented development on July 15, US Vice President JD Vance used an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience to deliver some of the sharpest criticism of Israel ever uttered by a sitting, top-tier US official.

Addressing a reported Israeli government-funded online influence campaign aimed at sabotaging the administration’s diplomatic efforts, a furious Vance “certain elements within the Israeli government” of actively trying to derail peace negotiations and manipulate American public opinion. He went so far as to target the operators behind the foreign-backed campaign, telling them directly to “go to hell.” 

Yet, even as fierce criticism of Israel reaches the very apex of American politics, a profound, schizophrenic rupture divides Washington. While the American public, influential media personalities, and top-tier politicians are openly turning against Israel’s unbridled violence, the traditional power structures continue to toe the line.

This is explicitly evident in Congress, where establishment politicians remain busy acting as defense contractors for Tel Aviv. Lawmakers are quietly pushing forward with Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2027. Far from distancing the US from the ongoing regional bloodbath, this legislation aims to permanently integrate and synchronize the US and Israeli militaries under a joint “Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.”

This institutional blind spot is why the entire alliance is beginning to look utterly ridiculous.

Traditional foreign policy theory views Israel as an American ‘vessel’ or ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ in the Middle East, policing the region on behalf of Western hegemony. Whether that was ever true is highly debatable. Today, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the relentless war on Iran, and the escalating aggressions against Lebanon and Syria have yielded zero strategic value to the American people. Instead, the United States has paid a massive financial and moral largesse to fund bloody regional wars that disrupt the global economy and make Washington a direct, complicit partner in the destruction of the Palestinian people. 

Yet, the American administration continues to offer unquestioning support, with the exception of occasionally leaked, manufactured of ‘tense’ phone calls between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. No matter the physical, economic, or reputational damage inflicted on the US, Washington continues to march blindly toward the precipice.

To believe this subservience is a recent phenomenon is to misunderstand history. For many, the physical detention of Congressman Khanna by Israeli forces evokes the memory of Rachel Corrie—the 23-year-old American peace activist who was brutally crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah on March 16, 2003, while peacefully shielding a Palestinian family home from demolition. In both cases, the message from Tel Aviv was clear: American status offers no protection.

Yet, this dependency runs deeper, rooted in the 1967 USS Liberty incident. During the Six-Day War, Israeli forces launched a relentless two-hour attack on an unarmed US intelligence ship, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171. Instead of demanding accountability, the Johnson administration accepted Israel’s excuse of a “mistake” and covered up the truth to protect its ally. This established a decades-long precedent: Washington would act as a political and military shield for Israeli actions, even at the cost of American lives.

It is often argued that Israel’s stranglehold on American policy stems entirely from the financial power of its lobby in Washington, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Conventional wisdom holds that AIPAC’s true dominance as the ultimate kingmaker began in 1981, when it waged a historic, ferocious battle to block President Ronald Reagan’s proposed sale of AWACS early-warning surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia.

But the USS Liberty incident occurred long before the lobby wielded such immense power. The truth is that the US government has simply lost control of the very creature it has nurtured and shielded for decades. Blaming this dependency solely on campaign contributions no longer suffices; the rot is far deeper. It is driven by a deep-seated fear and trepidation among American politicians who have spent their entire careers learning that political survival requires absolute obedience to Tel Aviv.

This is precisely why JD Vance’s recent remarks are so critical. It proves that the armor of absolute impunity is cracking, and the language of genuine, systemic criticism of Israel has officially been normalized in mainstream political discourse.

August 2, 2026 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Zelensky’s Dangerous Gambit To Merge The Iran And Ukraine Wars

Of course this would also appeal to Israel, prolonging the Middle East war and potentially drawing European governments into the theater, too.

Trita Parsi Responsible Statecraft, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/29/zelenskys-dangerous-gambit-to-merge-the-iran-and-ukraine-wars/

As Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Washington, much indicates that he is no longer merely trying to draw greater American support into its war against Russia. Increasingly, it appears to be pursuing something far more consequential: merging the Ukraine war with the U.S.-Iran conflict into a single strategic theater.

The distinction matters. If the two wars become one, Ukraine ceases to be merely a recipient of American military assistance and instead becomes a direct participant in Washington’s war with Tehran. By the same token, the United States would no longer simply be Ukraine’s principal arms supplier. It would become an active belligerent against Russia through a conflict that stretches from the Black Sea to the Caspian.

For Kyiv, this would represent the strategic breakthrough it has sought since Russia’s invasion in 2022.

From the outset of the war, Ukrainian leaders consistently urged NATO to move beyond supplying weapons and intelligence. Zelensky repeatedly appealed for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone, warning that anything less amounted to allowing Russia to bomb Ukrainian cities with impunity. He pressed Western governments to provide increasingly sophisticated weapons systems long before they were politically acceptable in Washington. And he argued that victory required the West to abandon what he viewed as self-imposed escalation timidity.

The Biden administration sympathized with Ukraine’s predicament but consistently refused to cross several red lines. President Joe Biden rejected sending American ground troops, arguing that direct combat between U.S. and Russian forces risked a wider war between nuclear powers. He repeatedly ruled out establishing a no-fly zone because enforcing one would require U.S. pilots to shoot down Russian aircraft. His administration initially declined to provide F-16 fighter jets, long-range ATACMS missiles, and other advanced systems for fear of uncontrolled escalation, only relaxing some of those restrictions gradually after lengthy internal debate.

Throughout those decisions, Washington’s guiding principle remained consistent: help Ukraine defend itself without allowing the United States to become a direct combatant against Russia, while also eschewing diplomacy that could have brought the fighting to an end.

Today, however, the strategic landscape has changed. The Trump administration’s war with Iran has produced exactly the dilemma many critics predicted. Washington possesses overwhelming military superiority, yet it has suffered a strategic defeat at the hand of Tehran. Iran has demonstrated an ability to widen the battlefield horizontally, impose costs across multiple theaters, and force the United States to defend allies and assets far from the original front lines. Iran has escalation dominance; Trump has no good military option and he lacks the patience to pursue the diplomatic ones with discipline.

Trump’s vulnerability creates a historic opening for Kyiv. Instead of appearing as a country dependent on American assistance, Ukraine can now present itself as a strategic asset capable of helping Washington turn a military debacle into a splendid victory. Ukrainian drone warfare has evolved faster than almost any military innovation during the past three years. Its experience integrating inexpensive autonomous systems into conventional warfare has few equals.

Just as important, Ukraine could offer something Washington currently lacks: an opportunity to expand the conflict into an entirely new geographic theater. That is, turn Iran’s horizontal escalation against it.

The Caspian Sea represents such a possibility, in the Ukrainian argument. Opening pressure against Iran from the north would complicate Tehran’s military planning, force it to redistribute scarce resources, and reduce its ability to dictate where the conflict is fought.

From Kyiv’s perspective, offering that capability transforms Ukraine from America’s benefactor to its savior.

But a greater strategic prize for Kyiv would be to fuse the two conflicts into one. Such a merger would fundamentally alter the political logic of both wars. American personnel, intelligence assets, logistics, and operational planning would become increasingly intertwined across the two theaters. Russian and Iranian military cooperation would likewise encourage Washington to treat them as components of a single conflict rather than separate crises.

Once that threshold is crossed, the distinction between supporting Ukraine and fighting Russia becomes progressively harder to sustain.

This dynamic would also appeal to Israel. First, it would give the Iran war another lease on life. Second, it would internationalize the conflict further by drawing European governments into the Iran theater through their deep commitments to Ukraine. And third, perhaps most significantly, it would transform the political narrative. Defeating Iran would no longer be presented as a necessity to defend Israel, but rather, to defend Ukraine.

Given the levels of elite and public support Ukraine enjoys — after all, it was the victim of an illegal invasion — such a framing is far more politically digestible than centering the war on Israel, given Israel’s plummeting standing in the West due to its genocide in Gaza and critical role in starting the illegal war with Iran

None of this means that Ukraine’s gamble will succeed. But Trump may be susceptible to it given his self-inflicted predicament in the Strait of Hormuz. (However, judging by the decision not to hold a press conference today, this may mean Zelensky’s meeting with Trump earlier at the White House was less than successful.)

Though Biden’s Ukraine policy deserves much criticism, he is resisting this type of escalation because the risk of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia could lead to a much larger and more catastrophic war. Those concerns have not disappeared simply because the White House has changed hands or because Trump has trapped himself in a foolish war.

Attempts to solve one strategic problem by broadening the scope of a conflict have often made both problems harder to resolve. The greatest danger today may not be that Trump chooses to fight two wars simultaneously, but that seemingly small escalatory steps pave the way for a disaster both Biden and Trump have sought to avoid.

Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

August 1, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, Israel, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

White House wants to entice ‘willing states’ to take nation’s nuclear waste with promises of economic boost

The plan could spur construction of ‘advanced reactors, data centers, and manufacturing facilities,’ according to the Trump administration

Bruce Golding, Tuesday 28 July 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/white-house-states-nuclear-waste-economy-b3023034.html

The White House reportedly wants Congress to change federal law so “willing states” can store the nation’s nuclear waste — and potentially boost their economies as a result.

A leaked document circulating on Capitol Hill details an administration proposal to replace the abandoned plan to stash radioactive refuse deep inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, according to Politico.

It would allow the Energy Department to authorize the construction and operation of so-called nuclear life-cycle innovation campuses where waste could be stored for reprocessing “in willing states,” Politico said.The document reportedly also dangles the notion that creating the campuses would lead private industry to build “advanced reactors, data centers and manufacturing facilities” there.

“Change in legislation is a must,” an unidentified nuclear industry official told Politico. “Current law only allows the federal government to dispose of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and only allows money to be collected and spent for Yucca Mountain.”

In a Tuesday statement to The Independent, the White House didn’t deny the Politico report, with a spokesperson saying, “The Trump administration continues to prioritize advancing civilian nuclear energy.”

The Energy Department also announced Tuesday that it had selected five states — Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah — as potential hosts of the proposed nuclear campuses.

“These campuses will be massive generators of economic growth, create thousands of high-paying jobs, and be crucial to unleashing America’s nuclear renaissance,” Wright said in a prepared statement.

President Donald Trump last year issued a series of executive orders aimed at boosting U.S. nuclear power production, including one that calls for quadrupling capacity — to 400 gigawatts — by 2050 through “emerging technologies to safely accelerate the modeling, simulation, testing, and approval of new reactor designs.”

On Friday, he announced that four new reactors had met a July 4 deadline to begin operating and said America was “leading the world in pioneering the next generation of nuclear power,” PBS reported.

Congress designated Yucca Mountain, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the only potential site for a national nuclear-waste repository in 1987.

But the $8 billion project faced fierce opposition in Nevada, and then-President Barack Obama effectively killed it in 2009 when he made good on a campaign promise and cut funding for it from his budget proposal.

President Donald Trump repeatedly tried to revive the plan during his first term in office, but he gave up in February 2020, saying on social media, “Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!” Reuters reported at the time.

The U.S produces about 2,000 metric tons of nuclear waste annually, with more than 95,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and waste from weapons production stockpiled in special pools or dry casks at 79 sites in 39 states, CNBC reported in November.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, estimated in 2018 that the total amount of spent nuclear fuel rods would cover the area of a football field and reach 36 feet high.

August 1, 2026 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

5 states offer to accept nuclear waste in exchange for help developing nuclear energy!

By  MATTHEW DALY and JENNIFER McDERMOTTUpdated 7:19 AM GMT+10, July 29, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five states have agreed to accept nuclear waste from around the country in exchange for federal help developing nuclear energy to create thousands of jobs.

The states — Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Idaho — all have Republican governors who say they welcome the chance to help America reclaim its leadership in civilian nuclear energy.

If built, the storage sites would represent significant progress in a multi-decade effort to store more than 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. Plans for a permanent underground storage facility at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain have long been stalled because of staunch opposition from most residents and officials.

Spent fuel is currently stored at nuclear plants and former nuclear sites nationwide and is piling up. New storage sites would move the radioactive material away from population centers, fault lines and flood plains. Experts say the plan also should help officials gain consent from communities that will host the repositories.

Under the non-binding agreements, the states could host Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses that would include waste sites as well as uranium enrichment, spent-fuel reprocessing and fuel fabrication. The campuses may also host advanced reactor deployment, power generation and data centers, the Energy Department said………………………………………………

Tennessee is home to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which enriched uranium during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, while Idaho hosts the Idaho National Laboratory, a key research site for nuclear energy and national security. Utah was a source of raw uranium for the Manhattan Project and a training site for crews that dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945…..

Solution for storing waste needed to expand nuclear power

The announcement comes as President Donald Trump attempts to quadruple domestic nuclear energy production because of surging electricity demand due to a data center and artificial intelligence boom. Trump also has moved to reshape the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed up nuclear reactor development. Under Trump’s direction, the commission has proposed eliminating a foundational safety principle that for 50 years minimized the radiation people in the United States are exposed to.

The NRC proposal would abandon a philosophy to keep radiation exposure “as low as reasonably achievable,” instead setting a separate standard on maximum radiation exposure that includes several actions facilities must take depending on the potential dose of radiation to workers…………….

Scott Roecker, a former official at the National Nuclear Security Administration who now advises the Nuclear Scaling Initiative, a pro-nuclear group, said the campuses are a good idea, though he cautions that spent nuclear fuel should not be reprocessed there to be recycled for new fuel because of the cost and security issues……. https://apnews.com/article/civilian-nuclear-energy-waste-states-campus-93d014e414bed86765e26d4572448a15

July 31, 2026 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The Saudi Nuclear Deal Invites Disaster (Wall Street Journal)

July 26, 2026, By: Henry Sokolski, https://npolicy.org/the-saudi-nuclear-deal-invites-disaster/

Critics of the recently announced U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia let out a sigh of relief when President Trump posted on Truth Social that the deal wouldn’t go ahead until Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel and insisted that the agreement permits “no enrichment of material.” Still, there are serious problems with the agreement, not the least of which is that—despite Mr. Trump’s post—it allows for enrichment. The administration and Congress should correct that.

Uranium enrichment can make fuel for both nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. That’s why for the past half-century Washington has never included nuclear fuel-making as a part of any of its civilian nuclear agreements with states that lack nuclear weapons. In recent decades, other major nuclear supplier states including France, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea have followed America’s example.

Washington should continue this policy. The Pentagon recently bombed Iran’s nuclear fuel-making plants. Providing Saudi Arabia a pathway to build the capacity the U.S. Air Force is razing in Iran gives hypocrisy a bad name. It not only would make it more difficult to get Iran to restrict its own program, but also set a poor example and encourage other nuclear suppliers to misbehave.

More important, it’s sure to spook Riyadh’s neighbors. U.S. negotiators agreed that Iran may, after a moratorium, resume enriching uranium. The U.S.-Saudi deal allows a similar privilege to Riyadh. The U.S. got the United Arab Emirates to agree to forgo making nuclear fuel with the caveat that if Washington afforded any neighbor more-generous terms, the U.A.E. could renegotiate.

Then there are Egypt and Turkey, both building large nuclear plants. U.S. diplomats asked both to forswear making nuclear fuel. Both refused. The Saudi deal, in short, could pour proliferation kerosene on these states’ smoldering nuclear ambitions.

Energy Secretary Christopher Wright insists the opposite. He says this deal will “uphold the highest standards of nuclear safety and nonproliferation.” In fact, it represents a new low. The agreement doesn’t require Riyadh to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s model inspections under what’s known as the Additional Protocol. These inspections allow short-notice visits at any time, anywhere. One hundred forty-four states have already adopted the Additional Protocol; Saudi Arabia has refused. The fear is that it might want to hide something.

The Energy Department is quick to insist that it will “black box” any nuclear fuel-making plant in Saudi Arabia to prevent military diversions. That is magical thinking. No such box has ever been developed, nor has it been explained publicly. That’s because it doesn’t exist.

Saudi nationals couldn’t be kept clear of a large nuclear fuel-making plant in Saudi territory. At a minimum, construction and operation of such a “black box” plant would make it far more difficult to detect Saudi efforts to build a covert facility (possibly with the assistance of its nuclear-armed ally Pakistan). And black boxing can never protect against sovereign Saudi seizure of what’s in the box.

Fortunately, the reported deal contains an escape clause. It doesn’t promise the immediate transfer of uranium-enrichment technology. Rather, it pledges a two-year study into the concept. But it doesn’t take two years to figure out that this is a bad idea.

Washington shouldn’t be in the business of transferring nuclear bomb-making capability to Saudi Arabia or any other country. To make sure it doesn’t, Mr. Trump—who relishes getting the best bargain—should renegotiate the deal. Alternatively, Mr. Trump could simply decline to send this bad deal to Congress. If he sends it anyway, lawmakers need to hold hearings and legislate to condition its implementation on making it right.

To read the full piece, click here.

July 31, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

US‑Saudi nuclear deal invites proliferation risks … unless safeguards are written in

A key question remains over the landmark U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal announced
with much fanfare on July 22, 2026: Will it allow a nation long suspected
of having nuclear weapons ambitions to enrich uranium? U.S. President
Donald Trump has already shifted the sands of the agreement, adding a major
caveat requiring Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel first. He
also posted that there would be “no enrichment.” But it is unclear
whether either condition is included in the signed deal, something that has
nonproliferation experts like me worried.

 The Conversation 27th July 2026,
https://theconversation.com/us-saudi-nuclear-deal-invites-proliferation-risks-unless-safeguards-are-written-in-288291

July 31, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

‘Earth’s Greatest Enemy’ Delivers A Penetrating Insight Into The Heart Of Our Dystopia

Caitlin Johnstone, Jul 28, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/earths-greatest-enemy-delivers-a?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=208773412&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

There’s a powerful new documentary out called Earth’s Greatest Enemy by Abby Martin about the ecocidal abuses of the US war machine, and it addresses the most pressing existential hurdles we face as a species like nothing I’ve seen before.

The film breaks down how the US military has become the single most environmentally destructive institution on our planet by an extremely massive margin, walking the audience through the many ways the Pentagon and its global metastases have been churning out carbon emissions, pouring toxins into the air and water, wiping out precious ecosystems for gratuitous military bases, and pummeling our sea life with sonar and noise pollution, all while gleefully salivating at the prospect of plundering the resources which lay hidden beneath our planet’s rapidly thawing polar ice caps.

Martin skillfully ties the planet-devouring behavior of the US military to the global systems of capitalism and imperialism it was built to uphold. The viewer is left with a crystal clear picture of the ways ecocide, militarism and capitalism are inseparably intertwined, and an understanding that meaningfully opposing any of these malignancies necessarily entails opposing them all. The liberal fiction that one can be pro-environment while also supporting the US military is forcefully exposed for the absurdity that it is.

It’s a jarring film with extremely dark subject matter, but it also manages to be a work of transcendent beauty and optimism. A deep love of humans and all of earth’s creatures shines through in shot after shot, while slick editing and an inspired soundtrack allow the movie to zip along at a lively and entertaining pace. Martin concludes with a galvanizing call to use our outrage to loosen the empire’s already weakening grip on humanity’s collective consciousness, because our entire world depends on it.

Perhaps the most touching aspect of the documentary is the personal element Martin chose to bring in to her overarching narrative. She discusses how she and her husband (antiwar activist Mike Prysner, who co-directed the film) had their lives forever altered when they had kids and experienced a new level of urgency to help give rise to a brighter future. Their family of four becomes a microcosm of humanity’s struggle to liberate itself from the tyranny of the machine to create a better world for our children, and we see Martin’s love for her son and daughter reflected in a great tenderness for the world as a whole.

Anyway, I’ve never felt inclined to write a film review before so I don’t know if I’ve done a good job of encouraging people to watch this thing, but for my own audience I truly cannot recommend Earth’s Greatest Enemy enough. It’s available streaming on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Watermelon Pictures. Screening tour dates and further information can be found on the Earth’s Greatest Enemy website. Be sure to leave a review on Letterboxed or IMDB if you can.

July 30, 2026 Posted by | media, Resources -audiovicual, USA | Leave a comment

Leaked document reveals White House nuclear waste plan

By Hannah Northey, Francisco “A.J.” Camacho E & E News,| 07/27/2026 

The Trump administration is seeking to move past Yucca Mountain as the nation’s sole repository and store waste in willing states.

The White House is pushing Congress to break a decades-long impasse around the handling of nuclear waste and entice states to get on board, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.

The Trump administration is seeking changes to federal law to allow the Department of Energy to partner with states willing to store waste generated at the nation’s nuclear reactors, according to the document laying out “legislative principles.” It has been circulating on Capitol Hill and among nuclear industry leaders.

When asked about the document, a White House official said Monday that the administration “is always looking for ways to advance our civil nuclear energy sector.”

The legislative blueprint comes as President Donald Trump pushes to quadruple America’s production of nuclear power over the next 25 years, despite there being no long-term solution for the waste piling up at active and decommissioned reactors across the country………………………………………………………………………………………….(Subscribers only) https://www.eenews.net/articles/leaked-document-reveals-white-house-nuclear-waste-plan/

July 30, 2026 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The Guardian view on a US-Saudi nuclear agreement: an offer that further erodes international safeguards

Even if no reactors are built, Donald Trump’s announcement of a double-standards deal with Riyadh has wrought further damage in a new era of proliferation

27 July 26,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/the-guardian-view-on-a-us-saudi-nuclear-agreement-an-offer-that-further-erodes-international-

Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The US announced that it had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the international watchdog.

Experts have long warned that a civilian nuclear programme could create a path towards a nuclear-armed Riyadh. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de facto leader, has said that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, “we will have to get one”. Concerns are magnified by the agreement’s terms. Washington previously argued that the “gold standard” was the United Arab Emirates’ agreement to permanently forgo enrichment and accept full monitoring by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Weakening it sets a precedent that Russia or China could also cite in nuclear deals in future.

The turmoil that Mr Trump has created in the Middle East is encouraging governments both to hedge their bets and to tool up. The US paused attacks on Iran at the weekend, after 13 successive days of strikes, amid reports that it is concerned about declining interceptor stockpiles, but no exit is in sight. As António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said on Thursday, the region “is teetering on the edge of [the] unimaginable … One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next.”

Gulf states premised their security on American-guaranteed order. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar last year showed that the US shield would not protect them from Israel (itself an undeclared nuclear power). The reckless war on Iran has made US military presence an invitation to damage. Washington may be looking to bind Riyadh closer with a reactor deal, though the billions of dollars involved is probably a bigger incentive for Mr Trump. The crumbling of the region’s internal architecture – most visibly with the UAE’s departure from Opec – adds to the dangers of proliferation. Players are acting less predictably.

The US president threw the Saudi deal into doubt within hours by declaring it contingent on Riyadh recognising Israel. That had long been a precondition for an agreement, but Israel’s war of annihilation in Gaza has shored up the Saudi position that recognition cannot happen without a Palestinian state.

Yet even if no reactors are built, the announcement itself acts as legitimation of and encouragement for the pursuit of nuclear capabilities by others. Negotiations produced an Obama-era nuclear deal with which Tehran complied – until Mr Trump trashed the agreement. His war appears to have produced a more aggressive, risk-taking Iranian regime, as foretold; further military action is more likely to spur than end nuclear threat. The prospect of Riyadh acquiring a bomb is further encouragement.

Look further afield. The last US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty expired in February. China is rapidly expanding its arsenal. Asian and European states which counted on the US nuclear umbrella prior to Mr Trump are discussing acquiring or enhancing their own capabilities. Most of them at least understand that diplomacy, multilateralism and global standards are a better choice than a race for the bomb. Mr Trump does not believe in international institutions. But upholding existing nuclear safeguards would be in US interests too as we enter a new age of proliferation.

July 30, 2026 Posted by | Saudi Arabia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Is Trump’s Saudi nuclear deal set to trigger a Middle East arms race?

26th July, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26409909.trumps-saudi-nuclear-deal-set-trigger-middle-east-arms-race/

He failed to articulate a persuasive argument for the Iran war and now a poorly negotiated deal with Riyadh has only compounded the danger writes Foreign Editor David Pratt

Among his many controversial traits, a tendency towards double standards sits high on the list.

If ever confirmation of this were needed, just cast your mind back to April, when US President Donald Trump reiterated that in Iran: “There will be no enrichment of uranium.”

On the face of it, Trump’s message appeared clear cut and, to that end, the

US-Israel war against the Islamic Republic was – along with regime change – aimed at preventing Tehran from possessing an atomic bomb.

But fast-forward just a few months and Trump appears now to have done a deal with Iran’s great rival Saudi Arabia that could, say some experts, put it on a trajectory to enrich its own fuel for nuclear reactors.

So far, so typically Trump, some might argue. But as if such duplicity were not bad enough, Trump then added another characteristic of his fickle decision-making thinking by insisting that the Saudi deal was conditional on Riyadh normalising relations with Israel.

“The Civil Nuclear Deal (There will be no enrichment of material!) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform last Thursday.

Trump’s intervention, insisting that the deal was subject to recognition of Israel, arriving as it did some 16 hours after the initial announcement, appeared to come as late news to the Saudis.

For years now the Gulf kingdom has long insisted that their country will not establish formal relations with Israel until there is a clear path for Palestinian statehood, which Israel’s government staunchly opposes.

It came as late news, too, it would appear,

to US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his team at the Washington Energy Department who some American media reports suggest jumped the gun in announcing the deal, triggering the social media backlash from Trump.

TRUMP, so the media speculation goes, added on the “normalisation” with Israel condition to teach Wright and his team a lesson for getting ahead of themselves.

Whatever the truth behind such internal bickering, the Saudi deal now appears somewhat in limbo, though should it go ahead as planned, will renew fears that Trump is triggering a Middle East nuclear arms race.

It’s not that there is anything new in US nuclear co-operation deals with countries in the region.

But back when America first made such a deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009, the safeguards and conditions surrounding the deal were, according to US officials at the time, “gold standard”.

For starters, the Emiratis had to forgo domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing, and sign up to the Additional Protocol, a follow-on to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which provides for tough inspections.

All these conditions were met, leaving the UAE with four reactors that now supply 25% of the country’s electricity.

July 30, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia stares down Trump whiplash on nuclear deal

The text of the agreement is not public, but reported details include a 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal giving American companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure.

“at this juncture,” Trump’s demand for Saudi-Israel ties looks likely to delay implementation of the deal. 

Saudi Arabia views Israel as the obstacle toward normalization, insisting on a pathway toward a Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to block.

Comments:by Laura Kelly – 07/27/26, https://thehill.com/policy/international/5992914-saudi-us-nuclear-deal-stalls/

Saudi Arabia is sending no signals it will accept President Trump’s after-the-fact condition that Riyadh establish ties with Israel as part of a nuclear energy deal with the United States. In fact, its leaders haven’t even conceded that the deal signed last week is off. 

Normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia was long a central pillar of a package deal for the U.S. to partner with the kingdom in building its civil nuclear program — negotiated during the first Trump administration and then the Biden administration.

But that demand appeared absent when Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced Wednesday that the U.S. signed a major deal with Saudi Arabia for American companies to jointly build a civil nuclear program in the oil-rich country. 

Mohammed Alhamed, a Saudi geopolitical analyst and president of the consultancy group Saudi Elite, said Trump’s demands about the Abraham Accords “do not change the substance of the agreement.”

“If Saudi recognition of Israel had been a formal condition for the nuclear deal, it would have been negotiated before the agreement was signed and explicitly included in its terms,” he said.

“I believe President Trump was primarily speaking to a domestic political audience by reassuring Israel and its supporters in Washington. That does not necessarily mean Saudi Arabia has changed its position.”

Trump on Friday pushed back on reporting that he was caught off guard by Wright solidifying the nuclear agreement.

“No, nobody got out ahead. I mean, I just say that in order to do it, they have to be a member of the Abraham Accords,” he said in the Oval Office with Wright behind him. 

“It was always understood, and Chris knew, and Saudi Arabia knew, that if they didn’t join the Abraham Accords — I’m not going to do the deal.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment on the record about the status of the nuclear deal or whether it was considering joining the 2020 deal establishing ties between Israel and Muslim-majority countries. 

Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said Saudi officials are likely taking a deep breath and withholding any actions that could trigger Trump to further bear down on his demand. 

“I think if you’re the Saudis, you’re like, all right, let’s kind of see where this goes. Maybe we’ll gradually start having some conversations … Does Trump really want to kind of scuttle this big deal? Which for Trump, it’s a big deal because it’s theoretically big business for U.S. companies. So do you really want to scuttle that?” he asked.

“I think they’re just going to take a pause, take a deep breath, have some quiet conversations, and see where this lands.”

A key test for Trump is if he transmits the nuclear agreement to Congress in the coming weeks, before Republicans possibly lose majorities in the House and Senate. 

Once the agreement is transmitted to Congress, lawmakers have 90 days to either oppose the deal or allow it to proceed. If Trump delays in sending the agreement after September, he’ll almost certainly have to contend with slimmer GOP margins or Democratic majorities. 

The text of the agreement is not public, but reported details include a 30-year, multibillion-dollar deal giving American companies a central role in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure.

“We’ve been pushing the U.S. government for decades to get it done,” said Christopher Guith, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute.

Guith said, “at this juncture,” Trump’s demand for Saudi-Israel ties looks likely to delay implementation of the deal. 

Daniel Shapiro, who served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East under the Biden administration, said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman always viewed a partnership with the U.S. on nuclear energy as the “holy grail,” adding the Saudis are particularly focused on achieving “special exemptions” permitting possible uranium enrichment as a hedge against Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon. 

“The crown prince has always said that he would ensure Saudi Arabia matched that capability if Iran got it,” he said. 

There are different phases of the deal, including a two-year feasibility study to determine if uranium enrichment should take place in Saudi Arabia, instead of having such nuclear fuel shipped in by the United States. That provision raised flags for former diplomats and nuclear nonproliferation experts as a potential pathway for Riyadh to develop a nuclear weapon. Other reported details raised concern of lax oversight on nuclear safety and nonproliferation. 

Riyadh is unlikely to throw out the deal with the U.S. because of Trump’s demands on Israel. 

“They hope the agreement moves forward, that Trump will back down from his tweet,” Shapiro said of the president’s Truth Social post. 

While Russia and China are alternatives for civil-nuclear cooperation, Saudi Arabia is demonstrating it sees more value in a long-term partnership with the U.S. — despite Trump’s whiplash diplomacy, growing partisanship in the Congress on foreign policy and the immense fallout from the war with Iran. 

“The Saudis really want their security anchored in the United States,” said Ratney, who is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“So this is kind of a piece of that — If they’re going to develop nuclear energy, they would like it anchored in a relationship with the United States. That’s just where they’ve always been. … I don’t know that they’re going to see this as a reason to kind of brandish alternatives for their nuclear power.” 

Alhamed, the Saudi consultant, said there are clear incentives for both the Trump administration and Riyadh to see the nuclear deal put into play. 

“For the United States, the agreement strengthens a decades-long strategic partnership, supports American companies and the U.S. economy, and preserves U.S. influence,” he said. 

“For Saudi Arabia, it advances the Kingdom’s long-term energy and economic transformation while reinforcing a trusted partnership with Washington.”

But it’s not clear if Riyadh or Trump are ready to move off their stances toward the Accords. 

Saudi Arabia views Israel as the obstacle toward normalization, insisting on a pathway toward a Palestinian state, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to block. The long-serving Israeli leader is also heading into consequential elections on Oct. 27, where engaging on the issue of resolution with the Palestinians is radioactive for nearly all Israeli politicians. 

Israel’s brutal response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, increasing violence and deadly clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and the war in southern Lebanon have made it all but impossible for Riyadh to embrace Israel. 

“As the leading Arab and Islamic country, Saudi Arabia carries broader regional responsibilities, making normalization difficult without meaningful progress on Palestinian rights and a credible pathway to a two-state solution,” Alhamed said.

 

July 30, 2026 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

The rise of the military-technology complex

How Silicon Valley tech firms remade US defense contracting. And then opened the Pentagon’s checkbook—wide.

Bulletin, By Bernice Yeung, July 23, 2026

The tale of how the Pentagon lost its spirit of innovation often begins with an incident known as “the Last Supper.”

It was the fall of 1993. About two dozen executives from leading defense contractors had received an unexpected invitation to dinner at the Pentagon. After the meal, the group was ushered into a briefing room where William Perry, then the deputy secretary of defense (and soon, the defense secretary), gave a presentation that startled the room.

In the wake of the Cold War, he said, the defense industry should prepare for catastrophic cuts to military spending. “They should not look at it as a little dip here but as a new low plateau and adjust their plans accordingly,” Perry would later recall.

Within a couple of decades, the US defense industrial base shrank from dozens of firms to today’s so-called Big Five—Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, which together receive about a third of the Defense Department’s annual contract obligations.

Two decades of defense contractor mergers and acquisitions consolidated the defense industry from more than 75 firms to the Big Five—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Raytheon (now RTX)—also known as “primes.” Chart [on original] by Thomas Gaulkin. Source: NASA, “Final Report of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry”

Silicon Valley executives, like Shyam Sankar of the tech firm Palantir, have pointed to that dinner as the start of a decades-long “decoupling of commercial innovation from defense.” The chill between the Defense Department and Silicon Valley grew so strong that Sankar dubbed it “the Great Schism” in a 4,000-word, viral-among-some manifesto he called The Defense Reformation.

During those years of estrangement, the Pentagon became increasingly entrenched in the status quo, buying and maintaining hulking weapons within a ponderous bureaucracy. Silicon Valley, for its part, dashed ahead with innovations around cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and product design—though usually to enhance consumer experiences in shopping, gaming, or food delivery.

The distrust and disdain between the two camps grew serious. “There’s plenty of people in Washington in the last 20 years who’ve made a point of how much, you know, they hate us,” Netscape founder-turned-VC-titan Marc Andreessen said in a 2025 podcast.

By the early aughts, there were people in both the Pentagon and Silicon Valley who knew that mending the breach was urgently needed. China’s leaps in technological advancement sounded an alarm in foreign policy circles. In October 2024, Sankar, who is Palantir’s chief technology officer, was still making a case for the reunification of tech and defense when he published the Defense Reformation.

Sankar began the essay by summoning the story of the Last Supper as a way to explain why the country was in a “state of undeclared emergency.” Consolidation had led to the demise of the defense industrial base, he argued. The China threat meant robust innovation adoption at the Pentagon was an imperative. To get there, speed and deregulation were required.

“We need a defense Reformation to … transform the way the government does business,” Sankar wrote.

Sankar and Palantir, the controversial data-mining company that provides AI-enhanced platforms for battlefield analysis, are powerful voices in a growing chorus. Anduril, which makes autonomous weapons systems, issued a 7,000-word decree pushing for policy changes, such as aligning Pentagon tech purchasing with “industry best practices” to “reboot the arsenal of democracy.” Venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz are investing upwards of $1 billion in defense tech, demanding deregulation because “America’s most innovative founders are building the tools our warfighters need—but the current system locks them out.”

In the past year, there have been indications that the Silicon Valley crowd is being heard. “Industry has become influential in shaping national security policy, with leading AI companies framing too much regulation as a national security liability,” said Emile Ayoub, senior counsel with the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

Within months of entering office, President Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders to accelerate AI adoption and streamline defense buying. To transform the US military into “an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has mandated faster but riskier methods of acquiring frontier technologies. “This is the beginning of an unrelenting onslaught to change the way we do business …………………………………………………………………………………………………

AI-related defense tech contractors have been generous in their financial contributions to elected officials. The support goes well beyond the most conspicuous displays, such as Big Tech’s eye-popping donations to Trump’s re-election campaign, inauguration, and ballroom………………………………….

 Between 2022 and 2024, these nine trailblazing AI companies and their employees have increased their campaign contributions by about 60 percent to the members of Congress who control Pentagon policy. Their defense-specific lobbying has jumped from about $650,000 to $7.7 million in the past decade…………

………Simultaneously, the Trump administration has installed a revolving door between defense-tech companies and the Pentagon. 

…..If companies move quickly from “concept to combat,” “the Department’s checkbook is open.”

In the past decade, Palantir’s revenue from defense contracts grew by an annual average of 50 percent, among the fastest of any defense firm, according to a Brennan Center analysis. That translates to at least $1.4 billion in defense department payouts since 2008.

Thanks to a surge in work with the military, Palantir became profitable in 2022. And its slice of the Pentagon pie continues to expand. Recently, the Defense Department embedded Palantir’s AI platform, used for battlefield awareness and target recognition, throughout the military. Now, as a “program of record,” Palantir will receive ongoing and long-term funding from the department.

…………………………………………………………………………As the Valley grew into a hub of global capitalism, O’Mara observes, Washington looked to the tech industry as an economic engine and a source of campaign financing. It courted Silicon Valley dollars by offering tax breaks, subsidies, and skilled worker visas and promised to fill classrooms with computers and internet connections.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Meanwhile, organizations ranging from the United Nations, to the Pope, to a consortium of nonprofits and academics known as Stop Killer Robots, decry the use of AI in warfare, especially in the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons. They argue that there’s an inherent lack of transparency when the black box of AI models is further obscured by the opaque or classified nature of military operations.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………One of the companies joining this group of Silicon Valley heavy hitters is Reflection AI, a relatively new firm that receives VC funding from 1789 Capital. In yet another example of the red flags around conflicts of interest and self-dealing emerging from the Trump administration, Donald Trump, Jr., the president’s son, is a partner at 1789 Capital—in fact, the lead partner on the deal.

……………………………………………………….o understand what’s driving the renewed relationship between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, it’s instructive to look at where venture capital is flowing. Between 2024 and 2025, venture capital investments to defense technology nearlydoubled, from about $27 billion to $49 billion, according to PitchBook, a repository of data on capital markets.

The Silicon Valley Defense Group analyzes the prospects of the top VC and private equity-backed defense tech firms, and its 2026 report found that In-Q-Tel is still the largest funder of defense tech. But BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, significantly increased its focus on this sector in 2025. Not to be left out, the Big Five have also thrown funding at these companies through their own venture capital arms.

Overall, the Silicon Valley Defense Group observes “seismic” shifts in the sector……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Elke Schwarz, a professor at Queen Mary University of London who studies military AI, observed that Silicon Valley has successfully reshaped how the Pentagon does business—and to its benefit.

“With its focus on iteration, agility, risk, speed, and scale, the new defence culture performs both the logics of its new AI products and that of the VC companies that fund the startups,” she writes. “It is a holistic shaping of the environment towards the vectors that make Silicon Valley VC investors enormously rich.”

She adds: “[M]ove fast and break things is not a suitable motto for any conscientious military organization.”

San José State University professor Roberto González has been studying the rise of defense tech from the heart of Silicon Valley. He said there’s an analogy to be made with the California Gold Rush. “That’s just a part of the mentality of this part of the world—you have an opportunity to get rich quick, and you go for it,” said González, author of War Virtually:The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future.

But, he warns, there’s a crucial difference between the two.

“What we’re talking about, in the end, is taxpayer dollars,” González said of the money helping to fuel the defense tech boom. “A lot of the startups will fail. But in the meantime, the pot can just keep growing larger and larger, as long as we can be convinced, as taxpayers, to keep that Pentagon budget growing.” https://thebulletin.org/2026/07/the-rise-of-the-military-technology-complex/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New%20investigation%3A%20The%20rise%20of%20the%20military-technology%20complex&utm_campaign=20260723%20Thursday%20Newsletter

July 29, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Republican senator breaks ranks with Trump over controversial nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia

Another GOP senator breaks with president on the Middle
East as war with Iran divides his party. A key Republican senator who has
previously stopped from going as far as publicly condemning the president’s
Middle East strategy is doing just that.

Sen. John Kennedy appeared Sunday
on CBS’s Face the Nation, where he questioned the idea of providing the
technology to another Gulf state at the same time that the U.S. was trying
to permanently shut down Iran’s nuclear program. Asked directly whether he
was comfortable with the Saudi deal, as it had been presented, Kennedy
replied: “Nope.”

Independent 26th July 2026, https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/kennedy-senate-trump-iran-saudi-b3021839.html

July 29, 2026 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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