Sir David Attenborough said “nature is in crisis” as he urged people to unite to save it for future generations. He spoke out after last night’s first episode of his five-part show about British wildlife.
His plea comes as the National Trust, RSPB and WWF have launched their first joint campaign, Save Our Wild Isles, which encourages people to “go wild” once a week, by doing activities such as sowing bee-friendly plants or creating “hedgehog highways”, and urges citizens to call on the government to make changes to halt nature’s decline.
The series features a sixth, iPlayer-only episode called Saving Our Wild Isles, commissioned by the RSPB and WWF. “[It] shows what amazing people are doing to turn the UK round and how quickly it can recover,” Alastair Fothergill, the producer, said.
Tory Aberdeenshire MP accused of ‘failing to stand up for north-east’ in nuclear power row. The UK Government has been hit with criticism over what is being described as ‘expensive and unnecessary’ spending on nuclear power stations, with the Aberdeenshire MP slated by the SNP’s Energy spokesperson.
A political row has broken out after an Aberdeenshire MP was accused of prioritising ‘expensive and unnecessary’ nuclear stations over carbon capture storage (CCS) and renewable energy. In a letter to Mr Bowie, the MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, SNP energy spokesman Alan Brown expressed concerns over updated costs to nuclear station Hinckley Point C in Somerset.
The project is now slated to cost the taxpayers £33billion, a 40 per cent real terms increase to the original 2016 estimate of £18billion. Despite the soaring costs, it was revealed earlier this week the UK government has not engaged with EDF over what that means for the delivery of the project, while still pressing ahead for another new station at Sizewell C.
Earta Caln, 14 Mar 23, Modern Fascism, is deeply linked to nuclear energy(japan, ukraine, russia, france, uk, usa), nuclear weapns and subs(usa, russia, australia, uk), crime and corruption. It is the last stage of political organization, in corrupt, industrial societies. It is antidemocratic. It denies, climate change and industrial pollution. Fascism scapegoats groups of people, as the cause of problems. Fascism ignores the results of climate change, industrial pollution, and declining life expectancies, in declining industrial nations. Fascism denies these industrial ills, that cause climate change and cause dangerous levels of heavy metal and, chemical pollution. In fact, fascists, deregulate toxic substance controls and bans.
Fascists, want to increase fossil fuel extraction and, nuclear energy production. Suicidal denial, projection, and irrationality, in a very sick society. Turning to fascism, signals the death-knell, for a decaying, dying nationality, in the anthropocene age. That is because, of it’s reactionary and antidemocratic nature. Italy’s mafias, have dumped concentrated high-level, nuclear waste, in municipalities dumps in Italy, for the past 4 decades. Heavy metal pollution like lead, arsenic, radionuclides, and mercury is widespread and has high prevalence in all industrial societies. Arsenic and radium, comes from car exhaust, from burning fossil fuels. Lead and uranium are in water, from fracking and leaded pipes. Mercury and radiocuclides in foods, comes from years of mercury pollution, nuclear waste, nuclear accidents, and nuclear power. High toxic pollution levels exist, in most capitalist and mixed-economy consumption-based, societies.
Modern Fascism, is deeply linked to nuclear energy(japan, ukraine, russia, france, uk, usa), nuclear weapns and subs(usa, russia, australia, uk), crime and corruption. It is the last stage of political organization, in corrupt, industrial societies. It is antidemocratic. It denies, climate change and industrial pollution. Fascism scapegoats groups of people, as the cause of problems. Fascism ignores the results of climate change, industrial pollution, and declining life expectancies, in declining industrial nations. Fascism denies these industrial ills, that cause climate change and cause dangerous levels of heavy metal and, chemical pollution. In fact, fascists, deregulate toxic substance controls and bans.
Fascists, want to increase fossil fuel extraction and, nuclear energy production. Suicidal denial, projection, and irrationality, in a very sick society. Turning to fascism, signals the death-knell, for a decaying, dying nationality, in the anthropocene age. That is because, of it’s reactionary and antidemocratic nature. Italy’s mafias, have dumped concentrated high-level, nuclear waste, in municipalities dumps in Italy, for the past 4 decades. Heavy metal pollution like lead, arsenic, radionuclides, and mercury is widespread and has high prevalence in all industrial societies. Arsenic and radium, comes from car exhaust, from burning fossil fuels. Lead and uranium are in water, from fracking and leaded pipes. Mercury and radiocuclides in foods, comes from years of mercury pollution, nuclear waste, nuclear accidents, and nuclear power. High toxic pollution levels exist, in most capitalist and mixed-economy consumption-based, societies.
Marles: Aukus program includes commitment to dispose of spent nuclear reactors
Marles: the sealed nuclear reactor is our friend, because by virtue of having a sealed reactor, we can provide assurance in respect of every piece of nuclear material through the life cycle of the nuclear material.
We are making a commitment that we will dispose of the nuclear reactor. That is a significant commitment to make. This is going to require a facility to be built in order to do a disposal that will be remote from populations. We are announcing that will be on defence land, current or future.
Now, to be clear, the first of the [nuclear material] we will dispose of will not happen until the 2050s, but within the year, we will announce a process by with this facility will be identified.
We are also a proud signatory to the treaty of Rarotonga. That commits us to not operate nuclear weapons from our territory.
Richard Marles says he is confident that the agreement will hold, even if America has a change in political direction……….
Q: Is it possible that we’ll be maintaining and operating three classes of submarines? That is the Virginia, the Collins and the Aukus submarines? And if so, is there any concern? And can I ask the admiral as well, is there any concern in defence about the prospect of operating three different submarines?
Marles:We obviously will be operating two as a result of this announcement. You know, the preference is to operate as few classes as possible.
Vice Admiral Mead: And once we work with the submarines coming to Western Australia and develop our own capabilities on the Virginias, then the move to SNN-AUKUS, which will have incredible commonality with propulsion systems, platforms, weapons, combat systems and sensors…………………. It remains the position of the Albanese government, that there won’t be foreign bases in Australia and this will not be a foreign base. It’s a forward rotation.…………..
Marles: ‘This is as good a value-for-money spend in defence as you will get’..……
Q: Is a high-level nuclear waste dump the price that South Australia will have to pay for the jobs that go to the state?
Marles:
Well, as I indicated earlier there will be a process that we will determine in the next 12 months … how the site will be identified. You’ve made a leap that we won’t make for some time. It will be a while before a site is identified but we will establish a process.
Q: The $9bn the government is spending over the forwards has a neutral impact on the budget, $6bn because of what was allocated to the attack class but $3bn is coming from the integrated investment program. Can you give more detail about … where that money is coming from? And if not today, when?
Marles: I won’t give you the detail today except you’re right to identify the integrated investment program and obviously the strategic review has had a good look at all of that. It will be plain in time of the budget.
Q: Why not now, though? You must have an idea where those cuts are going to be? In the interests of transparency, people want to judge what the opportunity cost of the nuclear submarines are. Unless you’re suggesting it’s cuts first and work it out later? Where are the cuts coming from?
From producing reports and analysis for U.S. policy-makers, to enlisting representatives to write op-eds in corporate media, to providing talking heads for corporate media to interview and give quotes, think tanks play a fundamental role in shaping both U.S. foreign policy and public perception around that foreign policy. Leaders at top think tanks like the Atlantic Council and Hudson Institute have even been called upon to set focus priorities for the House Intelligence Committee. However, one look at the funding sources of the most influential think tanks reveals whose interests they really serve: that of the U.S. military and its defense contractors.
This ecosystem of overlapping networks of government institutions, think tanks, and defense contractors is where U.S. foreign policy is derived, and a revolving door exists among these three sectors. For example, before Biden-appointed head of the Pentagon Lloyd Austin took his current position, he sat on the Board of Directors at Raytheon. Before Austin’s appointment, current defense policy advisor Michèle Flournoy was also in the running for the position. Flournoy sat on the board of Booz Allen Hamilton, another major Pentagon defense contractor. These same defense contractors also work together with think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies to organize conferences attended by national security officials.
On top of all this, since the end of the Cold War, intelligence analysis by the CIA and NSA has increasingly been contracted out to these same defense companies like BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, among others — a major conflict of interest. In other words, these corporations are in the position to produce intelligence reports which raise the alarm on U.S. “enemy” nations so they can sell more military equipment!
And of course these are the same defense companies that donate hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to think tanks. Given all this, is it any wonder the U.S. government is simultaneously flooding billions of dollars of weaponry into an unwinnable proxy war in Ukraine while escalating a Cold War into a potential military confrontation with China?
The funding to these policy institutes steers the U.S. foreign policy agenda. To give you a scope of how these contributions determine national security priorities, listed below are six of some of the most influential foreign policy think tanks, along with how much in contributions they’ve received from “defense” companies in the last year.
All funding information for these policy institutes was gathered from the most recent annual report that was available online. Also note that this list is compiled from those that make this information publicly available — many think tanks, such as the hawkish American Enterprise Institute, do not release donation sources publicly.
1 – Center for Strategic and International Studies According to their 2020 annual report
$500,000+: Northrop Grumman Corporation
$200,000-$499,999: General Atomics (energy and defense corporation that manufactures Predator drones for the CIA), Lockheed Martin, SAIC (provides information technology services to U.S. military)
$100,000-$199,999: Bechtel, Boeing, Cummins (provides engines and generators for military equipment), General Dynamics, Hitachi (provides defense technology), Hanwha Group (South Korean aerospace and defense company), Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (largest military shipbuilding company in the United States), Mitsubishi Corporation, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (provides intelligence and information technology services to U.S. military), Qualcomm, Inc. (semiconductor company that produces microchips for the U.S. military), Raytheon, Samsung (provides security technology to the U.S. military), SK Group (defense technology company)
$65,000-$99,999: Hyundai Motor (produces weapons systems), Oracle
$100,000-$249,000: Huntington Ingalls Industries, Neal Blue (Chairman and CEO of General Atomics), Qualcomm, Inc., Raytheon, Boeing.
$50,000-$99,000: BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, Intel Corporation (provides aerospace and defense technology), Elbit Systems of America (aerospace and defense company), General Dynamics, Palantir Technologies
Japan should stop perpetuating nuclear colonialism, and instead respect the sovereignty and self-determination of Pacific nations regarding the planned discharge of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, a New Zealand sociologist has said.
The social aspects and major country relations around Japan’s decision to release the radioactive wastewater from the defunct plant must be questioned, Karly Burch from the University of Auckland told Xinhua in a recent interview.
The most popular news stories are about celebrities, sport, fashion, cute animals…..
And perhaps that’s a good thing. We don’t need to be miserable all the time – and the news, by its very being, means unusual and bad events.
In the middle of those unusual and bad events, we should pause, to think about the human beings involved, and what they’re going through.
In the midst of global hypocrisy about things nuclear – the Japanese government should surely take the cake. But the rest of the powerful world governments, too, deserve medals for hypocrisy.
Not only is it time to stop the whole insane toboggan-ride to nuclear annihilation. It’s also time to help the victims of previous nuclear destruction. It seems to me that the people of Fukushima have had little help from Japan, and the world community. They need a material helping hand, and also – to be listened to – their opinions on nuclear waste, on emptying radioactive trash water into the Pacific, on the wreckage to their fishing industry.
It is sadly paradoxical that the world media waxes jubilantly over “new nuclear” and nuclear submarines, while as much as possible, ignoring the anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown.
Japan on Saturday marked the 12th anniversary of the massive earthquake, tsunami and nucleardisaster with a minute of silence, as concerns grew ahead of the planned release of the treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant and the government’s return to nuclear energy.
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that ravaged large parts of Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, left more than 22,000 people dead, including about 3,700 whose subsequent deaths were linked to the disaster.
A moment of silence was observed nationwide at 2.46pm, the moment the earthquake struck.
Some residents in the tsunami-hit northern prefectures of Iwate and Miyagi walked down to the coast to pray for their loved ones and the 2,519 whose remains were never found.
In Tomioka, one of the Fukushima towns where initial searches had to be abandoned due to radiation, firefighters and police use sticks and a hoe to rake through the coastline looking for the possible remains of the victims or their belongings.
At an elementary school in Sendai, in Miyagi prefecture north of Fukushima, participants released hundreds of colorful balloons in memory of the lives lost.
In Tokyo, dozens of people gathered at an anniversary event in a downtown park, and anti-nuclear activists staged a rally.
The earthquake and tsunami that slammed into the coastal Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant destroyed its power and cooling functions, triggering meltdowns in three of its six reactors.
They spewed massive amounts of radiation that caused tens of thousands of residents to evacuate.
Over 160,000 people had left at one point, and about 30,000 are still unable to return due to long-term radiation effects or health concerns.
Many of the evacuees have already resettled elsewhere, and most affected towns have seen significant population declines over the past decade.
At a ceremony, Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori said decontamination and reconstruction had made progress, but “we still face many difficult problems.”
He said many people were still leaving and the prefecture was burdened with the plant cleanup and rumors about the effects of the upcoming release of the treated water.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, and the government are making final preparations to release into the sea more than 1.3 million tons of treated radioactive water, beginning in coming months.
The government says the controlled release of the water after treatment to safe levels over several decades is safe, but many residents as well as neighbours China and South Korea and Pacific island nations are opposed to it.
Fishing communities are particularly concerned about the reputation of local fish and their still recovering business.
In his speech last week, Uchibori urged the government to do utmost to prevent negative rumors about the water release from further damaging Fukushima’s image.
……….. Kishida’s government has reversed a nuclear phase-out policy that was adopted following the 2011 disaster, and instead is pushing a plan to maximise the use of nuclear energy to address energy supply concerns triggered by Russia’s war on Ukraine while meeting decarbonisation requirements.
A $200billion nuclear submarine deal could cost the average Australian taxpayer about $13,000. This is effectively the equivalent of every Australian buying a new small car – an astonishing outlay on just a handful of boats. But experts say the deal – despite the extraordinary price tag – could be worth every cent.
Today’s significant AUKUS announcement about Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines provides significant, long-term strategic benefits for all three countries……..a transformational moment for our nation [Ed. it sure does! – transformed to a colony of USA’s military-industrial-complex]
…. provides significant, long-term strategic benefits [?] for all three countries……… our ability to be sovereign [?] ready.
……creating around 20,000 direct jobs [a very dubious claim – ?jobs for Americans and British military experts]
……… Businesses right across the country in every state and territory will have the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from these opportunities. [ a totally unlikely unrealistic claim, backed by no data]
The Aukus scheme announced on Monday in San Diego represents the first time a loophole in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been used to transfer fissile material and nuclear technology from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state.
The loophole is paragraph 14, and it allows fissile material utilized for non-explosive military use, like naval propulsion, to be exempt from inspections and monitoring by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It makes arms controls experts nervous because it sets a precedent that could be used by others to hide highly enriched uranium, or plutonium, the core of a nuclear weapon, from international oversight………….
To mitigate the proliferation risk, the Australians have agreed not to have a training reactor on their territory, but train their submariners in the US and the UK instead. Australia will not enrich or reprocess the spent nuclear fuel, and the fissile material provided by the US and the UK will come in welded units that do not have to be refueled in their lifetime. Australia has undertaken not to acquire the equipment necessary to chemically reprocess spent fuel that would make it usable in a weapon.
…………. James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said. “But I still think there is real and concrete harm done.
“The primary problem with Aukus was always the precedent set, that Australia would be the first country that would remove nuclear fuel from safeguards for use in naval reactors,” Acton added. “My fear was never that Australia would misuse that fuel, but that other countries would invoke Aukus as a precedent for removing nuclear fuel from safeguards.”
“The primary problem with Aukus was always the precedent set, that Australia would be the first country that would remove nuclear fuel from safeguards for use in naval reactors,” Acton added. “My fear was never that Australia would misuse that fuel, but that other countries would invoke Aukus as a precedent for removing nuclear fuel from safeguards.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/13/aukus-australian-submarine-nuclear-loophole-proliferation-fears
Nuclear power became an unstoppable force, immune to scrutiny by civil society. Its regulation was entrusted to the same government bureaucracy responsible for its promotion.”
Canada has not heeded these warnings. ……. The CNSC, mandated to protect the public and the environment, lobbied government to abolish full impact assessments for most “small modular nuclear reactors” (SMN
This month marks the 12th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, when three nuclear reactors in Japan suffered catastrophic meltdowns.
A tsunami knocked out the reactors’ cooling systems. The plant was shut down, but radioactivity sent temperatures soaring past the melting point of steel.
Radioactive gases mingled with superheated steam and explosive hydrogen gas, which detonated, spreading radioactive contamination over a vast area; 120,000 people were evacuated and 30,000 are still unable to go home.
Radioactively contaminated water from the stricken reactors has accumulated in 1,000 gigantic steel tanks, and despite objections from China, Korea and local fishers, Japan plans to dump it into the Pacific Ocean soon.
What caused this catastrophe? Most people blame the tsunami. The commission of investigation in Japan concluded otherwise. In its report to the National Diet, the commission found the root cause was a lack of good governance.
The accident “was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO [the nuclear company], and the lack of governance by said parties. They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly ‘man-made.’ We believe that the root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions…”
The commission chairman wrote: “What must be admitted — very painfully — is that this was a disaster ‘made in Japan.’ Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity… Nuclear power became an unstoppable force, immune to scrutiny by civil society. Its regulation was entrusted to the same government bureaucracy responsible for its promotion.”
Canada has not heeded these warnings. After Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015, his government did away with environmental assessments for any new reactors below a certain size, thus eliminating scrutiny by civil society. This leaves all decision-making in the hands of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) — an agency previously identified by an expert review panel as a captured regulator.
The CNSC, mandated to protect the public and the environment, lobbied government to abolish full impact assessments for most “small modular nuclear reactors” (SMNRs).
Back in 2011, in the midst of the media frenzy about the triple meltdown, Canadians were testifying at federal environmental assessment hearings for up to four large nuclear reactors to be built by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) at Darlington, about 50 kilometres east of Toronto’s edge. The Fukushima disaster was cited repeatedly as a warning.
The panel approved OPG’s plan, but the Ontario government was thunderstruck by the price tag, reputed to be over $14 billion per unit, and cancelled the project.
Now OPG wants to build a smaller reactor at the Darlington site. Since a full impact assessment has been ruled out, CNSC is using the report from 12 years ago as the basis for public interventions. The reactor now proposed (the BWRX-300) has no similarity to any of the reactors that were under consideration then or to any operating today in Canada. Ironically, it is a “miniaturized” version of those that melted down at Fukushima.
CNSC is legally linked to the minister of Natural Resources, who is also tasked with promoting the nuclear industry at home and abroad. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warns that regulators must be independent of any agency promoting the industry.
One day after Canada’s Infrastructure Bank gave OPG a $970-million “low-interest loan” to develop the BWRX-300 at Darlington, the minister boasted to a Washington audience that it would soon become Canada’s first commercial SMNR.
CNSC president Rumina Velshi lauded the speed at which the licensing is proceeding, saying that Canada would be the first western country to approve an SMNR built for the grid.
CNSC is at least two years from approving the reactor. Nevertheless, OPG held a ground-breaking ceremony at Darlington in December. The licence to construct seems a foregone conclusion. When asked, CNSC freely admitted that from the day of its inception, it has never refused to grant a licence for any major nuclear facility.
Government, regulator and industry are already on board. Collusion? Or just co-operation?
Gordon Edwards is president and co-founder of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, a not-for-profit corporation established in 1975. He is a retired professor of mathematics and science at Vanier College in Montreal.
Nuclear. 11 March was the 12 year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. The Japanese government would prefer that this should be forgotten. Trouble is – the catastrophe is not over.
As an Australian, I am finding our media – TV, radio, newspapers – quite nauseating. All falling over themselves in an orgasmic joy over the decision to pay $squillions for motley USA-UK-pretend-Australian nuclear submarines, that will be useless for monitoring our coast, but useful for feeding the coffers of USA-UK weapons-makers who now seem to own their governments. Everyone’s on the bandwagon – even former PM Kevin Rudd, supposedly a friend of China, now twisting himself in knots with weasel words about China, as he’s about to be Australia’s ambassador to Washington. We need a Diogenes, to go about Australian politics and media, in daylight, with a lighted lantern, trying to find an honest person.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Saudi Arabia Seeks U.S. Security Pledges, Nuclear Help. Saudi Arabia seeks US security guarantees, nuclear assistance in return for Israel normalisation.
RADIATION. Low-dose radiation linked to increased lifetime risk of heart disease.Dr Ian Fairlie -Low-dose radiation a health danger in the nuclear industry , as well as in medicine.
one American commentator has already labelled the tripartite AUKUS project a looming “Goat Rodeo”. For which Google provided the following explanation : “a slang term for something going totally, unbelievably, disastrously wrong, and there’s nothing left to do but to sit back and watch the trainwreck. In other words, a goat rodeo is a chaotic situation, fiasco, or, more vulgarly, a s…show.”
Australia will have absolutely no sovereignty over the USN submarines
Details of the proposed AUKUS submarine deal to be announced next week in San Diego are leaking out all around the world. It seems that it will be much more complicated and expensive than intended at the outset of the path to the Holy Grail of an “optimal” solution. Already there are ominous signs that the three countries cannot even harmonise their rush into PR to launch the program.
Reflecting the reaction of a growing number of gobsmacked Australians to the extraordinary explosion of rumoured detail of the tripartite project, one American commentator has already labelled the tripartite AUKUS project a looming “Goat Rodeo”. For which Google provided the following explanation : “a slang term for something going totally, unbelievably, disastrously wrong, and there’s nothing left to do but to sit back and watch the trainwreck. In other words, a goat rodeo is a chaotic situation, fiasco, or, more vulgarly, a s…show.”
The claimed details of the project have been well covered in the media but what do they mean?
Sovereignty
A word in which Prime Minister Albanese has come to place great faith – and avoid others like “dependency” which has been expunged from the discussions. In a TV interview in India, Albanese has asserted that “Australia will retain, absolutely, our sovereignty — absolute sovereignty, 100 per cent. it is very important [for] Australia, as a sovereign nation state — and that’s something that’s respected by all of our partners as well.” It is arrant nonsense to claim “absolute” sovereignty when our geostrategic interests have become so enmeshed with those of the US – and have been for some time.
Let us not forget how we needed the US to weigh in with Indonesia before we launched the East Timor operation. Or more recently when Julia Gillard folded to US pressure for the rotational deployment of US Marines and greater USAF use of airfields in Northern Australia and our Defence force posture plans in return for a visit by President Obama. And so this has developed over subsequent years with embedment of senior Australian defence officers in the US IndoPacific Command in Hawaii and elsewhere, our increasing dependence on the US dominated Five Eyes intelligence network (despite some of its failures) and, of course, our ready participation in the disastrous US controlled “coalitions of the willing “ in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the conga line of US service and Pentagon chiefs which has graced our shores in the past year with their megaphones proffering “advice” on Australian strategic policy and defence procurement . Imagine if any other foreign country had done this in Australia with the DSR and submarine project underway !
Even without that background to just how “absolute” our sovereignty has not been, the details of the project definitely take this a significant step further. It is here where the spin from the US and Australia has already diverged. Defence Minister Marles has the temerity today to posit that there will not be any submarine “capability” gap because the Collins class subs are still very much in operation and will be around as we wait for the first of the new submarines to become operational.
(The Collins class, of course, does not have anything like the operational capability or weapons system of the new submarines).
But the US leaks have argued that the capability gap will be covered by US nuclear powered submarines expanding their current operations by regular visits in our region to Stirling in WA. The USN has long been keen to establish some homeporting arrangements there for its nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers. US media are also reporting that the early US Virginia class submarines to be delivered would be under US command with that gradually phasing out to mixed crews before eventually being run by the Australians. So Australia will have absolutely no sovereignty over the USN submarines in the first 15 years or so – and probably only very limited consultation with the Americans about their operations – which naturally are always so tightly held. For the following 10 years or so the command and control lines will be at best messy until the second set of submarines emerge. The British will want part of that action! So Albanese could well end up being the one with the credibility gap! As another US commentator has rightly pointed out that will be for politicians years down the track to sort!
Where will they be built?
Another key question on which there is some diverging spin. In keeping with his overall political strategy, Albanese has presented the deal so far as being a major plank in his efforts to boost manufacturing and R&D in Australia (and help argue the case for the huge budget damage the submarines alone will do). From the US side the push has been to emphasise how big a contribution the construction ( seemingly of all 5 or so) will be to US manufacturing and shipbuilding in particular. Some of the leaks have pointed out that very significant Australian funding will be required to US shipbuilders to expand their capacity to manufacture the Australian submarines. There has also been some persistently strong arguments in the US that the deal will exert too much pressure on US industry’s capacity.
A recent article in Foreign Policy summarised these concerns :
“But is it going to work? That’s been the major question all along through phase one of AUKUS, which has been beset by sticky U.S. export control and intelligence-sharing rules that have depth-charged key features of submarine design. First, the United States has to expand its own shipyard output to send five nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as well as make sure Congress is on board. Second, even if all goes to plan, the land Down Under will be operating a Frankenstein-like Navy with nuclear subs from two different countries, a potential nightmare for training and spare parts—and presumably, and most importantly, reactor maintenance and little details like that.”
Then there is the British spin. It seems clear from Prime Minister Sunak’s exuberant reaction to the leaks that they have probably received more out of the deal than they might have expected. No doubt BaE (in which the UK Government has a major interest and which also has bought out ASC in Adelaide) which runs the Astute class construction program in Barrow has been a major player in what appears to have been a relatively recent improvement in their prospects. This is also what Peter Dutton’s curious intervention would suggest as the Astute track record has been littered with failures, delays and cost overruns. ……………..
How much will it all cost?
Without confirmed details this cannot be estimated. But there is a consensus that it will well exceed not only the original French submarine but go well beyond.
Is the Virginia class submarine the best answer ?
In his rush to announce his preference for the Virginia class submarine over a new British design, Dutton placed weight on it being a simpler solution given that it was a proven design. But as I pointed out earlier this year in these columns (Nuclear submarines: from “optimal” to “the best they can get”) the Virginia has been the subject of detailed criticism from the Congressional Research Service and the GAO over its maintenance problems.
“Just last December the US Congressional Research Service issued a very detailed report (Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress) outlining the significant delays in SSN repair and maintenance. It contains frequent references to serious concern expressed by a range of US Admirals with command responsibility for submarines. There have been similar criticisms from the GAO in recent years about the poor performance on SSN maintenance reducing significantly the already deficient number of SSN’s the USN can deploy.” https://johnmenadue.com/albanese-and-the-subs-the-goat-rodeo/—
the Australian order will be filled with a new and advanced SSN® model still in development. This is where the British come in. In a sense, Australia will be (a) serving as a test run and (b) will be creating extra economies of scale for the British Navy’s plans to develop and build SSN( R) models to replace its Astute class submarines by the early to mid 2040s.
China may well regard Taiwan as a renegade province. Yet the invasion of Taiwan – as the Australian economist and commentator John Quiggin points out – would pose massive challenges for the forces or Xi Jinping……………………………………………………What Quiggin is getting at here is that a concerted campaign is currently being waged by sections of the Aussie media with the aim of scaring the pants off the Australian public about the imminent threat from China in the Pacific, in the South China Sea and with regard to Taiwan.
The aim of this campaign is to justify a sky-high level of new defence spending by the Australian government. New Zealand is at risk of being carted along by the same momentum into authorising increases in our own defence spending that we don’t need, and can’t afford.
Acting the part
The campaign kicks into high gear today. As the Oscars get handed out in Los Angeles, another pantomime of power will be playing out on the docks just down the coast, in San Diego. Anthony Albanese, Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden will be standing shoulder to shoulder as they announce the first concrete manifestation of the AUKUS pact – a military alliance between Australia, Britain and the Americans that has China as its common target……………………………………
. As Reuters put it:
….[The] AUKUS pact, will have multiple stages with at least one U.S. submarine visiting Australian ports in the coming years and end in the late 2030’s with a new class of submarines being built with British designs and American technology, one of the officials said….after the annual port visits, the United States would forward deploy some submarines in Western Australia by around 2027.
In the early 2030’s, Australia would buy 3 Virginia class submarines and have the option to buy two more. AUKUS is expected to be Australia’s biggest-ever defence project and offers the prospect of jobs in all three countries.
That last bit is very important. Like his predecessors, Albanese will be treating Australia’s defence policy as a cutting edge ingredient of its manufacturing policy.
Australia’s defence policy as a cutting edge ingredient of its manufacturing policy. For Australian politicians, military policy and defence spending is as much about (a) creating jobs for Aussie workers, (b) gaining technology upgrades for Aussie industry and (c) scoring lucrative contracts for Aussie goods and services firms as it is about the actual defence of the nation.
…………………………………………………………………. In a worst case scenario, the Australians could well invite New Zealand to join AUKUS and assign us some “friend of AUKUS” status, as an observer. Our anti-nuclear legislation would complicate such a role. That aside, and given the ocean currents and prevailing winds, New Zealand has every good reason to feel nervous about the prospect of our near-neighbour learning on the job about how to build and maintain the nuclear reactors on its new submarine fleet.
Luckily, most of the new Aussie subs won’t be delivered until the early to mid 2030s. That means these massively expensive new purchases probably wouldn’t arrive in time to deter China from invading Taiwan, given that this is supposed to be imminent.
In the US, the building of Virginia-class subs are shared between two shipyards, one in Groton Connecticut and the other in Newport News, Virginia. Reportedly, the design variant that Australia has in mind will have been a three-headed upgrade project to the Virginia-class that will have been co-designed by Britain and the US, as amended to Australian specifications, with at least some of the subs being built by US-trained Australians who had no prior experience in this sort of construction. On top of these complications, all participants will be coming under pressure to deliver every stage of the project at the lowest cost possible. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with such a design and construction plan? And in this case, I don’t just mean the danger of cost blowouts.
Attack and defence
AUKUS is likely to make New Zealanders feel more unsafe in a number of other ways as well. For starters, AUKUS is not a “defend the homeland” pact. It is a forward projection alliance, to attack enemy targets and stifle the enemy’s ability to defend itself and respond. (Enemy = China.) Before we bow to the pressure coming from our traditional allies to join in with their chest-bumping rivalries with China, it is probably worth looking at the Aussie nuclear submarine deal in more detail.
The Albanese government has said the Aussie subs will not be nuclear-armed. (Not yet, anyway) However, the roughly 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles (the final design will limit the number) that each submarine will carry can all carry nuclear warheads. Only previous treaty commitments with Russia have prevented the cruise missiles carried on Virginia-class subs from being nuclear-armed.
Yet with the scrapping of nuclear proliferation treaties with Russia in the wake of the war in Ukraine, we could well be sailing in a few years time into “neither confirm nor deny” territory with our Australian neighbours. Regardless of their potential for carrying nuclear tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles alongside the usual torpedoes, mines, autonomous undersea drones, etc etc ….Would these nuclear-powered Australian subs be barred from docking at New Zealand ports under the terms of our anti-nuclear legislation? Yes, they would.
Therefore, it would be good to know if our current political leaders share a bi-partisan agreement to preserve our anti-nuclear stance in its current form and thereby ban those Aussie subs from our ports, now and forever more. Even if Labour and National did agree, the reality is that our new and expensive Poseidon anti-submarine surveillance aircraft will still be taking part in exercises which will increasingly have (a) a nuclear component and (b) an anti-submarine (ASW) component, courtesy of our ANZAC buddies. Lest we forget. (The growing ASW role for Virginia-class SSN category subs is mentioned on page 9 of the Congressional Review Service evaluation of the SSN programme. )
From what can be gleaned at this point i.e. prior to the formal announcement, the Australian order will be filled with a new and advanced SSN® model still in development. This is where the British come in. In a sense, Australia will be (a) serving as a test run and (b) will be creating extra economies of scale for the British Navy’s plans to develop and build SSN( R) models to replace its Astute class submarines by the early to mid 2040s.
To repeat: It would be unwise for New Zealand to be stampeded by the “defence” lobbyists both here and offshore into making significant increases to the allocations for Defence in the May Budget. If nothing else, the Aussie subs saga is a useful reminder that the regional tensions in the Pacific and the China bogey are both being driven and monetised by firms within the military-industrial complex, via the pork barrel politicking (lucrative jobs and contracts for our neighbourhood! ) that is so rife among our traditional military allies.
Footnote: While we spend billions on a fleet of new Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, and the Aussies buy their fleet of mega-expensive nuclear submarines, the future of underwater warfare is seen by some observers to rest with unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). Apparently, the Australian military has a programme to develop UUVs called Ghost Shark, cutely named after the US Ghost Bat programme.
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
