nuclear-news

Ukraine war – the changing face of weaponry

Today he was talking about Australia sending $millions to Ukraine – for:

uncrewed aerial systems air-to-ground precision munitions  spurring on competition among Western nations to harness technology and drive down the equipment’s production cost.

All these weasel words sort of obscure the reality that one big goal is to support the American, Australian, and even Israeli weapons companies. Yes – Israel.  In February, the Israeli company Elbit Systems received a A$917 million contract from the Australian Defence Department.

The other goal is to be part of American militarism and its experimental work in Ukraine.

You see – the beauty of the Ukraine war, for America, is that there should be no American lives at risk. Tough about the Ukrainian lives, (and of course the thousands more Russian soldiers’ lives don’t count).

But this is a sort of experimental interim-type war – between having troops of soldiers getting killed and just having heaps of civilians getting killed, (and seeing if America can win by having no persons at risk in it).

World War 1 was the classic – the ultimate war for killing soldiers. – estimated 9.7 million and also 10 million civilians

World War 2 an even bigger killer of soldiers – 20 million, but also 40 million civilians – an “improvement” in killing civilians.

The “in-between” wars – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan – have still been a mixture of killing soldiers and civilians – but especially with the Afghanistan war – the emphasis shifted towards drone killings, with the officer directing the killing from the distant comfort of an office in USA.

So – getting back to the lovely Marles – he avoided words like “drones” and “missiles” – thus sort of obscuring the fact that Australian weapons are headed right into Russian territory as part of an American long distance attack. Of course, it is called defence – though it is not at all clear that Australia is under military threat from Russia.

Anyway, Ukraine is a good practise ground for deploying weapons that can kill civilians of another country. The weapons-makers are getting better and better at this. The Biden administration last month secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine. The newest 1$billion package  will include additional long-range ATACMS. Nuclear weapons might be deployed in Poland. Biden administration’s $850 billion defense budget request for fiscal year 2025 includes $69 billion for nuclear weapons.

It’s all great fun. USA will be able to more or less comfortably fight another country (? China) without putting any “boots on the ground”, (except perhaps a few Taiwanese boots – but after all, they’re not even being worn by white feet, so – no matter, really)

The only fly in the ointment is that American militarism is causing a reaction in other countries. They have populations and leaders who feel that they will have to reciprocate. And they too have gee-whiz clever men with little-boy minds who devise killing machines.

It is truly a vicious circle. There’s a lack of leaders with wisdom. But no shortage of the mealy-mouthed Marles and Blinkens who make it sound as if everything is OK.

April 28, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes | history, Politics, Russia, Ukraine, War | Leave a comment