Netherlands sued for stopping ship deliveries to Russia
RT | October 4, 2023
The largest Dutch shipbuilder is seeking compensation from the government for damage caused by the sanctions on Russia, which have prevented it from honoring a number of contracts.
The ongoing legal battle, which started in May with a suit filed by Damen Shipyards Group at the district court in Rotterdam, was revealed by Bloomberg on Tuesday. Company spokesman Rick van de Weg later confirmed the pending proceedings to other media outlets.
Damen is a 90-year-old Gorinchem-based family-owned business which builds various types of vessels, from warships to luxury yachts. Days before the hostilities in Ukraine erupted in February last year, the company delivered a dredger to Russia for duty in the Arctic, according to Bloomberg.
Sanctions banning most business transactions with Russia, which the EU imposed in retaliation for the conflict, have prevented Damen from fulfilling its obligations under several contracts. It has also suspended its engineering branch in the country.
The Western sanctions supposed to cripple the Russian economy and force Moscow to concede defeat in Ukraine have not been as efficient as their architects had hoped.
The G7 oil price cap, a mechanism intended to force Russia to sell crude at or below $60 per barrel, does not appear to be working, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted last week. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak stated on Tuesday that the impossibility of enforcing the price cap was apparent to Moscow from the start.
The EU’s decision to decouple from cheap Russian gas undermined the competitiveness of its heavy industries, in some cases forcing energy-intensive manufacturing to shut down.
Nevertheless, Germany is likely still consuming natural gas originating in Russia, Uniper CEO Michael Lewis said last week. The German wholesaler buys liquified natural gas in the open market and cannot be certain about where it comes from, he explained.
Batteries Will Not Solve Renewable Energy Storage Problem, Says Royal Society
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 3, 2023
The penny is finally starting to drop. Current batteries cannot possibly store more than a fraction of the energy needed to keep the lights on when the wind stops blowing and the sun doesn’t shine. The learned U.K. Royal Society has recently analysed 37 years of wind patterns across Britain and concluded there is a serious underestimate of the amount of storage required. Around 50 academics and specialists led by Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Oxford University state clearly that batteries are not the answer to the vast storage required. But like many learned people, wedded to the idea that it is possible to remove the fossil fuel source supplying 80% of the world needs in less than 30 years, they fall down at the practical level. Having lost batteries, the study goes for hydrogen, an idea only slightly less dumb than digging up the planet to produce vast quantities of limited-life batteries.
The Royal Society report envisages dissolving huge salt caverns capable of storing ‘green’ hydrogen. To keep the electricity grid functioning when renewables go off line, around two to three million tons of hydrogen would need to be stored for decades at a time. Wind not only stops for days during periods of intense cold in winter, but the Royal Society found recent periods when speeds were low for a number of years. Salt caverns are only available in a limited number of places in Britain, so a huge network of specialist pipelines would be needed to move the gas to turbines on constant standby. Over a period of time, hydrogen would leak from porous salt caverns.
The report, lacking a practical answer to wind and solar intermittency, seems to have been ignored by mainstream media. The news that batteries cannot play any significant part in the collectivist Net Zero project is unwelcome to those who have been betting the ranch on this solution for many years. Francis Menton of the Manhattan Contrarian sees the report as an “enormous improvement” on every other effort on the subject of large scale energy storage systems. But in the end, the authors’ “quasi-religious commitment” to a fossil-free future leads them to minimise and divert attention away from critical cost and feasibility issues. “As a result, the report, despite containing much valuable information, is actually useless for any public policy purpose,” he concludes.
What are the problems with hydrogen? Where to start. It is a highly explosive and flammable gas that needs careful handing. Its molecules are small and it has a low density. This means it escapes easily, while three times the volume of hydrogen is required to produce the same energy as natural gas. Kathryn Porter is an energy consultant and an associate member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group. She recently wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph about the gas and its possible role in Net Zero.
Hydrogen is also hard to move around. To get the gas to move through pipes, it has to be compressed and pushed along using compressors. This process requires energy: the losses in moving hydrogen through pipes are ten times greater for hydrogen than for methane; up to 30%. In other words you need to use up almost a third of your gas just moving it from A to B. …
The infrastructure for hydrogen does not exist, neither for the most part do the production facilities and they will cost billions to build. Then the underlying cost of storing hydrogen is probably at least four times that of storing methane. Huge amounts of energy are lost in each stage of the process due to the fundamental properties of hydrogen.
As a solution to storing renewable power, Porter is of the view that “hydrogen is one of the worst substances you could choose for this purpose”. But, she adds, because you can burn it in air without creating carbon dioxide, “it has been hailed as the answer to Net Zero dreams”. Both carbon capture and hydrogen are “square pegs” which people are desperately trying to force into round holes. It might be noted, in the light of this last comment from Porter, that the Royal Society traces its roots back to 1660, and published Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Its politicised track record on Net Zero has yet to live up to the highlights of its glorious past.
Lead author Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith notes that the need for long-term energy storage in a renewable electricity system has been seriously underestimated, and work on constructing storage caverns needs to be started immediately if the Government is to have any chance of meeting its Net Zero targets. Construction of a large green hydrogen production and storage facility would appear to be a “no-regrets” option, he claims.
Someone regretting the option might be the consumer. Francis Menton observes that the Royal Society’s hydrogen plans suggest a cost “to the grid” of around £120 per MWh, a figure described as high but not stratospheric. But this is the wholesale cost, not the one charged to the consumer. In addition, Menton wants to know how much a nationwide set of new pipes will cost, plus the entire new fleet of standby turbines capable of burning 100% hydrogen and providing all the power to the grid when renewables stop working. In addition, Menton notes a “low” rate of interest for capital costs of 5%.
“The whole thing just cries out for a demonstration project to prove feasibility and cost. I’m betting that will never occur before the whole Net Zero thing falls apart from the disastrous skyrocketing electricity prices,” concludes Menton.
Menton sees some honesty in the Royal Society report. But as regular readers will probably agree, the top award for an honest Net Zero commentary goes to the U.K. Government-funded U.K. FIRES project. In looking at a 2050 Net Zero world, this group of academics ignore as speculative all non-scalable suggestions around carbon capture and hydrogen, along with all the green inventions yet to be made. They point to a future with barely a quarter of our current energy supply. There is nothing more honest than telling people that this will entail no flying or shipping, drastic cuts in home heating, limited transport, no meat, few modern building materials and houses made of “impacted” earth. Worryingly, though, there’s no indication the authors see this as a reason not to go full steam ahead.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
We’ll all pay the price of soaring EV insurance
By David Craig | TCW Defending Freedom | October 3, 2023
Something strange happened last week: the Guardian published an article which was worth reading. It concerned the massive insurance costs owners of electric vehicles (EVs) are facing.
Here’s how the article started: ‘Driving an electric car should be a win-win, saving money and the planet. So David was shocked when the insurance on his Tesla Model Y came up for renewal, and Aviva refused to cover him again, while several other brands turned him away. When David did secure a new deal, the annual cost rocketed from £1,200 to more than £5,000.’
It went on: ‘A recent cost of living bulletin from the Office for National Statistics revealed that the price of car insurance – which for many Britons is one of their biggest household bills – is up by 52.9 per cent in the last 12 months. However, this average masks bigger increases for electric car owners, according to Confused.com. Its figures, derived from quotes, show that insurance premiums for electric vehicles are 72 per cent – or £402 – higher than this time last year, at a typical £959. Meanwhile, for petrol and diesel car drivers, the increase is 29 per cent, or £192, taking the figure to £848.’
Moreover, several insurance companies are simply refusing to insure EVs.
The problem seems to be the fragility of EV batteries and the enormous cost of replacing them if you have even just a small bump. As one reader explained:‘If I kerb bump my £4,000 diesel Renault Megane at 4mph it’s a £50 wheel re-alignment at the next service. If a £50,000 EV does the same, it’s potentially a slightly damaged battery and 100 per cent write off. They’re rubbish’.
You might think: ‘Why should I care since I don’t drive an EV?’ Well, when the politicians see that high insurance costs are putting people off buying the EV which they are determined to push on us, they’ll yet again attack petrol and diesel car owners.
A few years ago the EU insisted that young male drivers could not be charged higher car insurance premiums than young female drivers, notwithstanding the major difference in risk. The European Court of Justice ruled that taking gender into account when calculating car insurance premiums violated EU gender equality legislation. Regulations banning the practice came into effect in December 2012 and remain in force in the UK although we’ve since left the EU.
I predict that charging EV drivers more than ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) drivers, will also be outlawed. So there will be a massive rise in motor insurance costs for drivers of ICE cars. Maybe our rulers will even decide that, as EV drivers are dutifully (and expensively) saving the planet while ICE drivers are supposedly intent on destroying it, perhaps EV drivers may be relieved of paying more than a small nominal charge for insurance and therefore must be subsidised almost entirely by ICE drivers. I’m not betting against it.
Foisting green levies onto gas bills will cause public health crisis, Sunak warned
Net Zero Watch | October 4, 2023
Campaign group Net Zero Watch has condemned Government plans to move renewables levies onto gas users.
Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, energy minister Lord Callanan announced a consultation on what he euphemistically called ‘rebalancing’, forcing gas users to pay part of the cost of the UK’s grossly inefficient renewables. The Government hopes that this will make heat pumps and other electric technologies more viable.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
“Trying to force up gas bills at a time when people are already struggling to heat their homes is shameful. It will cause a public health crisis. Callanan is utterly callous, but climate extremists only care about their targets, and not whether Granny is going to freeze to death in winter.”
Mr Montford says that it is not clear that moving the levies, running at around £7 billion per year, will be enough to make heat pumps viable, and secondly because if it is, it can only temporarily hide the costs: if gas boilers become a thing of the past, the cost of the levies will have to return to electricity users.
Net Zero Watch energy director Dr John Constable said:
“Using heat pumps in a wind and solar powered grid is going to be expensive; putting a surcharge on gas to deny people a cheaper and reasonably clean alternative is cruel.”
And Mr Montford warned:
“Rishi Sunak has said that successive Governments have deceived people over the cost of Net Zero, but here is the Green Blob in his own party – one of his own ministers no less – launching a shameless confidence trick on the public at large. How can the Prime Minister let them get away with it?”
The plan has been on the agenda since Boris Johnson’s time in Number 10. Net Zero Watch has repeatedly warned of the disastrous impact of moving green levies to gas bills.
Deaths from cold in winter far outnumber deaths from heat in summer, and fuel poverty is a significant contributory factor. Moving green levies to gas bills will therefore exacerbate a problem that is already serious.
Connecticut School Board Faces Lawsuit for Rejecting School-Based Mental Health Clinic That Wanted to Treat Teens Without Parents’ Consent
By Brenda Baletti Ph.D. | The Defender | October 3, 2023
The Killingly Board of Education in Connecticut has been under fire since March 2022 when it refused to sign a five-year contract to install a federally funded school-based health center (SBHC) that would provide mental health services to minors without parental consent.
Instead, the board contracted for a similar center, but with month-to-month terms and parental consent required for treatment — and without federal grants or the rules they might impose.
The board’s rejection of the initial proposal, approved by the superintendent, led to the board and its members being slammed in local media, personally attacked, and subjected to a state investigation and a lawsuit.
Kelly Martin, vice chair of the Killingly Board of Education, and Sheila Matthews, founder of the nonprofit AbleChild, shared the board’s story with CHD.TV host Stephanie Locricchio on Monday’s “Good Morning CHD.”
Next week, the Killingly board faces a hearing, following a report last month — by attorney Michael McKeon, director of legal and governmental affairs for the Connecticut State Department of Education — criticizing the board’s actions.
The Killingly board rejected McKeon’s report as a “position statement,” and underscored the work they have taken to support Killingly children’s mental health.
The recent push by the U.S. federal government to rapidly expand the use of SBHCs across the country — largely justified as an intervention into a mental health crisis among young people —- has critics concerned children will receive unnecessary or unwanted medical interventions without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
School board beset by two-year battle including pandemic policies
Martin told Locricchio the controversy began when the school superintendent presented the school board with a proposal to put an SBHC in the school. The proposal provided only one possible service provider: Generations Family Health Center, which explicitly provided services without parental consent.
But many board members objected.
“The problem was never [with providing] mental health treatment,” Martin said. “We recognized that post-COVID children really, really need help. The problem was with the parents never being informed that the child was going to be treated.”
She added, “And that was something that was important to us — the parent doesn’t need to know what’s being discussed, [but they do] need to know that the child has a problem and is being treated and that they can actually keep a watchful eye on that child.”
The board voted down the SBHC, and a battle began. A group of parents represented by attorney Andrew A. Feinstein filed a complaint against the board seeking to overturn its vote, Martin said.
Once the board turned down the initial proposal, it interviewed alternative mental health services providers and set up a mental health clinic in the school where parents must opt-in to their child’s treatment.
But the state is not happy with that, she said. “They want that very first option, so it’s been an uphill battle since the lawsuit was actually filed,” she said.
The board had already come into conflict with the superintendent because it voted against an in-school COVID-19 vaccine clinic and then ended the in-school mask mandate.
Martin described the blowback:
“We have had people attack us constantly for the last two years. They’re making accusations that we don’t care about the mental health of children, [that] we don’t care about children at all. They’ve accused us of being racist, of being white supremacists. You name it, we’ve been accused of it.
“It’s been a very long two years. It all started when we started to give a little bit of pushback on some of these things.”
She said the group of people attacking them is small, “but they’re very vocal, they’re very loud,” and their actions have made board supporters afraid to speak out.Every Dollar has
Superintendent and attorney suing the board have conflicts of interest
The school board investigated the origins of the proposal and found the superintendent had put in a request for funding a mental health clinic without ever informing board members.
Martin said over the last few decades, power over schools has slowly been transferred from school boards to superintendents.
Because the clinic was to be grant-funded, they combed through the school board history to find which board policies had been changed to give power over grants to the superintendent — and reversed them.
In this case, the grant was part of ESSER II funding (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) — $54.3 billion made available by the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 — with the requirement that it be awarded by September 2023.
She said the argument being made publicly and to parents was that this was a completely free, grant-funded clinic that would provide children with immediate assistance — so it was seen as a great idea all around.
But the clinics aren’t actually free, Martin pointed out. Once the grant ends, the cost burden shifts to the district.
Martin said children with mental health issues, of course, do need support as quickly as possible, but the only proposal made was for a clinic with a contract that was five years long and no parental consent.
She said the board wanted to review a variety of proposals, but they were only given that one.
In its investigations, the board also learned the superintendent sat on the board of the Northeast Early Childhood Council together with members of Generations — the one clinic he brought to the board.
After the board interviewed several other proposed clinics and selected one, she said Feinstein and a dissenting board member launched a media campaign smearing the clinic they selected, accusing it of bending to the board’s political agenda, which it implied was right-wing or “tea party.”
The selected clinic pulled out of the agreement with the board for fear its reputation would be ruined.
The board finally found another school-based mental health care provider, but the entire process dragged on for two years.
Little school board ‘up against Goliath’
Matthews, who works on national issues surrounding children’s mental health, became involved when she saw news stories that gave a disproportionate amount of negative attention to one small school board.
She began researching the issue and found that Feinstein is a registered lobbyist in the state of Connecticut and has received payments from a law firm dedicated to mergers and acquisitions in Big Pharma and to government grants that fund school-based clinics.
Matthews explained how government funding is funneled to different behavioral health vendors to set up clinics or provide medications, which make millions from children’s suffering.
Matthews and Martin said the school assessed students’ mental health by having them fill out anonymous surveys in school, without parental knowledge or consent, which is a common practice.
The surveys ask serious questions — such as whether the children are experiencing suicidal ideation — without any follow-up.
Instead of addressing students’ mental health, the questionnaires are simply evidence-gathering mechanisms to justify funding requests, Matthews said.
Both women encouraged parents to talk to their children about these surveys and to exercise their parental rights to opt out of them. Mathews’ organization AbleChild provides a sample letter parents can use to do this.
According to Matthews, $258 billion has come into the states from these ESSER funds overall. States are compelled to distribute the funds quickly before deadlines pass, but involving parents and community organizations slows down that process, she said.
“And these vendors smell the money,” she added.
Matthews, who studies how federal funds are directed to distribute potentially dangerous medications to children — particularly among children in foster care and on Medicaid — said the funds are lining the pockets of industry, not supporting children’s mental health.
“These block grants, this is the Achilles heel we have to take a look at. We have to look at these behavioral health vendors that have already set up shop in our school system.”
She said at minimum there needs to be a way to track the grants awarded so that parents can research what is happening in their schools and make informed decisions.
She added:
“This little town in Connecticut, they are up against Goliath. Okay? They are up against the drug companies. They are up against the behavioral health vendors. They’re up against the state. They’re up against the federal government. They are swimming in, I want to say, an ocean of corruption when it comes to these grants.”
Martin said the next step in the school board’s case is an inquiry hearing at the state building in Hartford on Oct. 11 at 10 a.m. It is open to the public.
Locricchio appealed to CHD.TV’s audience to show support for the board, especially because local supporters have been scared into silence by the public attacks.
“We would love to see some of our CHD [Children’s Health Defense] supporters there to stand with Kelly and Sheila and all the people that are involved in this because it could be your school district tomorrow that’s going through it,” Locricchio said. “And we know that we are so much stronger together.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
CDC Recommends Everyone Getting Flu and COVID-19 Shots Together Despite No Safety Data
BY ROBERT KOGON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 2, 2023
The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) is recommending for everyone six months of age and older to get vaccinated against both flu and COVID-19 this autumn, and in a new ‘Check-In with Dr. Cohen‘ video, CDC Director Mandy Cohen even suggests you can make life simple and get the shots at the same time. See the below screen shot.
In a would-be humorous ad featuring American football star Travis Kelce on doing ‘Two Things At Once,’ Pfizer is likewise promoting the idea of topping up the annual flu shot with a COVID-19 shot.
Note that the ad contains a caption which states, “The CDC recommends getting your COVID and FLU SHOTS at the same visit if you’re due for both” (capitalisation in original).
But is it safe to get the Covid and flu shots at the same time?
Well, neither the CDC nor the manufacturer know. An August 30th BioNTech press release on the EU’s authorisation of Pfizer and BioNTech’s “XBB.1.5-adapted” COVID-19 vaccine includes the following paragraph in the ‘Important Safety Information’ section.
Interactions with other medicinal products or concomitant administration of COMIRNATY, COMIRNATY Original/Omicron BA.1 or COMIRNATY Original/Omicron BA.4-5 with other vaccines has not been studied.
Apparently, this is “important safety information” which has not reached Mandy Cohen and the CDC.
Biden Tells Allied Leaders ‘Ukraine Aid Cannot Be Interrupted Under Any Circumstances
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 3, 2023
President Joe Biden held a call with the leaders of several allied nations to stress that weapon shipments to Ukraine cannot end for any reason. Some members of NATO recently expressed an unwillingness or inability to provide further arms to Kiev.
National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby stated Biden spoke with the leaders of Canada, Italy, Japan, the UK, Poland, Romania, Germany, the European Commission, the European Council, and NATO on Tuesday. Kirby said the president expressed that “we cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support [for] Ukraine to be interrupted. Time is not our friend.”
Biden added that he was confident Congress would authorize an additional $24 billion in aid that the White House requested. While a majority of representatives in both houses continue to support aiding Ukraine, recent polling shows that 71% of Republicans, and 55% of Americans, do not want Congress to pass another multibillion-dollar bill to support Kiev.
A press release from UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said London was committed to supporting Kiev. It stated that he “outlined the UK’s ongoing military, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine and stressed that this support will continue for as long as it takes.”
However, the Telegraph reported that London had depleted its available stockpile of weapons it can ship to Kiev. “We’ve given away just about as much as we can afford,” the unnamed source “We will continue to source equipment to provide for Ukraine, but what they need now is things like air defense assets and artillery ammunition, and we’ve run dry on all that.”
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Poland at the United Nations General Assembly, tensions between Kiev and Warsaw boiled over. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that arms shipments to Ukraine would end.
On Monday, Slovak Social Democracy, running on a platform of ending arms transfers to Ukraine, won a plurality in Bratislava’s legislature. The party leader, Robert Fico, doubled down on the pledge after Monday’s election victory.
Washington has also struggled to transfer Kiev the weapons the Ukrainian military needs. The White House resorted to sending Ukraine the cluster variants of 155MM artillery shells and long-range rockets because the Department of Defense lacked enough conventional munitions to transfer to Kiev.
Non-aligned nations reject use of force against countries on pretext of fighting terror
Zahra Ershadi, Iran’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations (Photo by IRNA)
Press TV – October 3, 2023
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) condemns all forms of terrorism, but war on terror must not be used as a pretext to use force against countries, a statement issued by the group says.
The statement was read by Iran’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations Zahra Ershadi on behalf of the movement before the Sixth Committee of the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on “Measures to eliminate international terrorism” on Monday.
“The Non-Aligned Movement unequivocally rejects terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, as well as all acts, methods, and practices of terrorism wherever, by whomever, against whomsoever committed,” the statement said.
“The Non-Aligned Movement rejects actions and measures, the use or threat of use of force, imposed or threatened to be imposed, by any State against any Non-Aligned Member Country under the pretext of combating terrorism or to pursue its political aims, including by directly or indirectly categorizing them as terrorism sponsoring-States,” it added.
The statement said NAM totally rejects the unilateral preparation of lists accusing states of allegedly supporting terrorism, adding such acts are unlawful and constitute a form of psychological and political terrorism.
“Terrorism cannot and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group, and these attributions should not be used to justify terrorism or counter-terrorism measures,” it added.
It also said terrorism should not be equated with the struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation, for self-determination and national liberation.
The statement also urged Member States to refrain from extending political, diplomatic, moral, or material support for terrorism.
“States should also ensure that refugee status or other legal statuses not be abused by the perpetrators, organizers or facilitators of terrorist acts and that claims of political motivation by them are not recognized as grounds for refusing requests for their extradition.”
It also expressed concerns over the growing threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters who travel to a State other than their State of residence or nationality to commit or participate in terrorist acts and underlined the importance of United Nations capacity-building in the most affected regions.
Moreover, the statement said, NAM voices deep concerns over the “misinterpretation” and “misrepresentation” of religions by terrorist groups to justify terrorism in an effort to instill hatred in the hearts and minds of the youth.
“In this regard, it is imperative to effectively counter the narratives of terrorism through a comprehensive and international framework with an effective and comprehensive method aimed at addressing all its root causes, including through the engagement of community leaders and clerics from all denominations.”
The statement called for an international summit conference under the auspices of the UN to formulate a joint organized response of the international community to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including identifying its root causes.
“We further reiterate the importance of the conclusion of a Comprehensive Convention for Combating International Terrorism,” it said.
A New Era Of Mass Armies Approaches
BY IAN WELSH | SEPTEMBER 29, 2023
The army, or a part of it at the war college, has perked up and noticed some of the lessons of the Ukraine war, and that it’s a war that the US military could not fight. They’ve missed a lot of things, or felt they couldn’t/shouldn’t write about them, but they’ve figured some stuff out and written about them in a new report, “A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force” by Lieutenant Colonel Katie Crombe, and Professor John A. Nagle.
The entire thing is worth reading, but I’m going to pull out three of the main points. The first is that a volunteer US military can’t fight a real war.
The Russia-Ukraine War is exposing significant vulnerabilities in the Army’s strategic personnel depth and ability to withstand and replace casualties.11 Army theater medical planners may anticipate a sustained rate of roughly 3,600 casualties per day, ranging from those killed in action to those wounded in action or suffering disease or other non-battle injuries. With a 25 percent predicted replacement rate, the personnel system will require 800 new personnel each day. For context, the United States sustained about 50,000 casualties in two decades of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. In large-scale combat operations, the United States could experience that same number of casualties in two weeks. (emphasis mine)
Huh. Yeah, that seems bad. And it comes just as the US military is having trouble with volunteer recruitment, though even if wasn’t volunteer recruitment couldn’t keep up with the meat grinder of a real war.
The US Army is facing a dire combination of a recruiting shortfall and a shrinking Individual Ready Reserve. This recruiting shortfall, nearly 50 percent in the combat arms career management fields, is a longitudinal problem. Every infantry and armor soldier we do not recruit today is a strategic mobilization asset we will not have in 2031. The Individual Ready Reserve, which stood at 700,000 in 1973 and 450,000 in 1994, now stands at 76,000. These numbers cannot fill the existing gaps in the active force, let alone any casualty replacement or expansion during a large-scale combat operation. The implication is that the 1970s concept of an all-volunteer force has outlived its shelf life and does not align with the current operating environment. The technological revolution described below suggests this force has reached obsolescence. Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription. (emphasis mine).
If the US expects to fight Russia, China, or even Iran, they’re going to face a real war.
The US has spent 20 years fighting with air, artillery and surveillance supremacy, with clear communications. American veterans who went to Ukraine were unprepared for a war where the other side has, if not supremacy, air and artillery superiority, and the Ukraine war has been a meatgrinder. Plus, the current command methods the army use don’t work in an environment like the Ukraine:
Twenty years of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operationsin the Middle East, largely enabled by air, signals, and electromagnetic dominance, generated chains of command reliant on perfect, uncontested communication lines and an extraordinary and accurate common operating picture of the battlefield broadcast in real time to co-located staff in large Joint Operations Centers. The Russia-Ukraine War makes it clear that the electromagnetic signature emitted from the command posts of the past 20 years cannot survive against the pace and precision of an adversary who possesses sensor-based technologies, electronic warfare, and unmanned aerial systems or has access to satellite imagery; this includes nearly every state or nonstate actor the United States might find itself fighting in the near future
Back in 2012 I wrote an article titled “Drones are not weapons of the powerful.” I posited that they’re cheap, easy to make and everyone would eventually get them. We’re pretty much there, in terms of large group actors (the step after that is individuals, leading to an era where even a single person or small group can launch significant attacks.).
The authors of the article agree:
These systems, coupled with emerging artificial intelligence platforms, dramatically accelerate the pace of modern war. Tools and tactics that were viewed as niche capabilities in previous conflicts are becoming primary weapons systems that require education and training to understand, exploit, and counter. Nonstate actors and less capable nation-states can now acquire and capitalize on technologies that bring David’s powers closer to Goliath’s.
There are issues the authors don’t deal with, the main one is “designed in California, built in China.” The US’s weapon building capacity is massively degraded. As one example, the Chinese can build 3 ships per one the US builds, and the ships are probably better.
Since WWII, in every war the US has fought, they’ve had air superiority or supremacy and more advanced weapons than the enemy. They’ve also had more “stuff”. But the WWII “arsenal of democracy” is dead, it doesn’t exist any more.
Another issue is that the US military has outsourced too much of its capabilities. The corporate mantra of “outsource everything except your core competency” doesn’t work in a real war. All support functions should be run by the military and soldiers. (I may write an article on that in the future.) Contractors are too expensive and unwilling to really risk their necks, and outsourcing maintainance to non-army technicians is a disaster.
The US retains one huge advantage, however, its continental position makes it hard to attack the mainland. But this is also a disadvantage if the US loses air and naval supremacy. America’s enemies can only be reached by air and sea, after all.
Anyway, one takeaway is that conscription is likely to come back. I assume they’ll first make a huge push to recruit immigrants, undocumented or not, but that isn’t going to be enough. Get ready and remember, Empires rarely fade, they go down in huge conflagarations. The British Empire’s end involved two world wars.
Zelensky’s newfound hostility toward Warsaw is as short-sighted as it is self-destructive
By Péter G. Fehér | Magyar Hírlap | October 3, 2023
A famous Hungarian proverb warns people against “cutting the branch beneath you.” The proverb is uttered when a person refuses to acknowledge that he is acting against himself.
As things stand now, that is exactly what Zelensky is doing — everything he can to get Ukraine from a bad situation to an even worse one. In practice, the situation in the neighboring country can now be described as catastrophic, and the Ukrainian president — although he did not originally imagine it — has done a lot to make it so.
Zelensky’s most self-harming act was to spectacularly break ties with Poland. Warsaw has spent a huge amount of money on helping Kyiv, about the same as it spends annually on upgrading its own army. In return, it has received nothing, not even a gesture. For example, in July this year, when a joint commemoration was held to mark the 80th anniversary of the Volhynia massacre — the mass murder of Poles by Ukrainian fascists during World War II — Zelensky refused to allow the victims buried in unmarked mass graves to be exhumed and given a proper final resting place.
However, the Ukrainian president has denounced Poland to various international organizations for imposing a ban on the sale of Ukrainian grain on the Polish internal market. Zelensky has not shown the slightest understanding of the Polish government’s position, which is facing elections in mid-October and is opposing the same foreign interference that Hungary faced last April.
But perhaps it is unfair to Zelensky to blame him alone for this ingratitude. According to the latest news, France and Germany have promised the Ukrainian president a facilitated and speedy EU accession if he succeeds in toppling the current conservative national government in Warsaw in the elections that are due to take place.
If Zelensky had any sense, he would realize that he is being led by the nose by the two major European powers. Membership of the EU requires the agreement of all the member states, and Poland, after what has happened, is hardly going to go along with that.
It does not seem that Zelensky understands the situation or is even slightly aware that the West is using him as a tool to interfere in the internal affairs of neighboring countries, or even to provoke them. We have now reached the point where it is safe to say that Ukraine has been pursuing an increasingly extremist policy since 2014, with the result that the country is raging with hatred of Hungarians, which reached its peak, at least so far, under Zelensky’s presidency.
All of this is a textbook example of the self-destructive behavior exemplified by the Hungarian proverb.
Zelensky Should Have Stayed Home
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 3, 2023
Most Americans do not understand how the United Nations functions, or does not function as the case might be, preferring to think of it as some kind of debating society where the 193 member nations representing the world community can vent over issues that they rarely have control over. Nevertheless, in spite of the torrent of words and the lack of any real program, it is always interesting to watch and listen to the UN’s annual General Assembly meeting, which is held in New York during September. This year’s meeting was particularly interesting as it came complete with a major war blazing in Eastern Europe as well as political turmoil in Africa and rising tension with China. It also features the rumblings coming from a new emerging global economic movement, the so-called BRICS developing as a champion of a multipolar-world currency challenge to the US-European dollar dominated international monetary and banking system.
And with economic union, there is also some political realignment, with China strengthening its ties to the developing world and Russia entering into defense arrangements with Iran. President Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin will be meeting in Beijing later this month to discuss common concerns. And, as usual, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed up to vent his hostility towards Iran with demands that that country’s alleged “nuclear program” be confronted militarily and the sooner the better, just as he has been claiming for the past twenty years.
Indeed, several back stories playing out during this year’s meeting made it more than usually interesting. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had hoped to turn the gathering into an anti-Russian hate fest, but though there was much complaining about Moscow’s attack on Ukraine coming from the Baltic States and others, the ground continues to be shifting against Zelensky over concerns that the war has become an unwinnable money pit that could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange. Speaking before a UN Security Council session, Zelensky was reduced to harshly criticizing the UN itself for failing to prevent or resolve conflicts before calling for Moscow to be stripped of its veto power on the Security Council. Zelensky, his voice rising in anger, complained how “It is impossible to stop the war because all actions are vetoed by the aggressor.” Observers noted immediately that Zelensky’s complaint did not help his cause. While there have been calls for UN reforms in the past, including over the veto power, the existence of the veto for a limited number of post-1945 greater powers was the only reason the United Nations could be created in the first place at all.
Zelensky also did real damage to his position when he said that while the Ukrainian refugees in Europe have “behaved well . . . and are grateful” to those who have given them shelter, it would not be a “good story” for Europe if a Ukrainian defeat “were to drive the people into a corner.” It was reasonably enough seen by critics as nothing less than a threat of possible unrest producing domestic terrorism as well a possible internal insurrection uncontrollable by whatever Ukrainian government survives defeat. Such unrest might involve the millions Ukrainian refugees without houses and jobs already in place in other European nations if Zelensky is not given all the support which he apparently believes is his due.
Zelensky’s actual message to the General Assembly was not quite so incendiary and impulsive as his other interactions while on his visit, but he offered little new. He reportedly received an obligatory “warm welcome” from those in attendance, but “he delivered his address to a half-full house, with many delegations declining to appear and listen to what he had to say.” He warned those present that “The goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into a weapon against you, against the international rules-based order. We have to stop it. We must act united to defeat the aggressor.” Zelensky did go overboard when he referred to Russia and Russians as “evil” and as “terrorists” and accused them of carrying out a “genocide” against Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov responded to comments made by both President Joe Biden and Zelensky by turning the argument around and observing that it is the US and its NATO “puppets” who already “are waging war against us.”
Zelensky’s frustrations spilled over in Washington on the following day where he met both with Biden and with some members of Congress and also dropped by the Pentagon and left flowers at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington Virginia. His meeting at the White House with the president went relatively well with the announcement of a new aid package in the works including “significant air defense capabilities,” and, according to one report, even some of the much sought after ATACMS long range missile systems. Nevertheless, to his evident disappointment, Zelensky was not given a hero’s welcome like he received last year. He met privately with Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House, and several other GOP hawks who will be instrumental in approving any aid, as well as with Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer who promised to be “in his corner.” McCarthy boldly asked what Zelensky needed to win the war and to provide lawmakers with “a vision of a plan for victory.”
Nevertheless, it seems that many conservative Republicans and some progressive Democrats are fed up with the war and are concerned over the lack of accountability combined with the all too evident level of corruption within the Ukrainian government. There are moves by some in the GOP to separate Ukraine funding from other defense appropriations, requiring a separate vote, and other proposals by the White House to guarantee the money even if the government shuts down. One wonders if anyone had the grit to ask Zelensky how many mansions he owns in Israel, Europe and the United States, but that is precisely the sort of story that is being increasingly written about Ukraine’s comedian turned war hero, demonstrating that the public and even the media have become tired of the charade. A continuing multi-billion-dollar cash flow, seen by Joe Biden as necessary to keep the war going until the 2024 election to vindicate his policy, is still likely but it is no longer a slam-dunk.
Two other media accounts also suggest that the dissatisfaction with Zelensky and the war is breaking through the self-imposed acceptable narrative on the war, that Vladimir Putin is an aggressor without any real provocation from Kiev, a despot and the human monster. One came surprisingly from the New York Times and is apparently a leak from the White House or Pentagon on a September 6th missile attack on the Ukrainian village of Kostiantynivka which killed at least 18. The attack was quickly labeled by Zelensky as a war crime carried out by Russian “terrorists” which was echoed by the US media but an investigation, presumably carried by the US military and intelligence using satellite and other technical methods, has now determined that the missile was fired by Ukraine. This is similar to the missile attack that struck Poland in November 2022, which also was blamed by Zelensky on Russia but turned out to be from Ukraine, both incidents reflecting just how willing Zelensky is to lie and cheat to get a NATO and US intervention in a full-scale war with Russia, which could easily go nuclear.
The other story tells how Poland will not be providing any more arms to Ukraine, in part because it is now building up its own defenses and also over Ukrainian attempts to flood the Polish agricultural market with cheap low quality grain that it cannot sell elsewhere. To describe the Polish action as disappointing to Zelensky would be an understatement, but it is one more indication that many former allies are now seeing Ukraine as a lost cause and are looking to their own national security and economic interests. Both of these stories were, incidentally, published while Zelensky was in the United States hat in hand, and it must be considered that the timing was deliberate to damage the Ukrainian president’s credibility to coincide with the UN General Assembly visit and the trip to Washington.
Zelensky’s journey to North America ended in Ottawa, where he apparently recouped some of his swagger during a speech to the Canadian government and parliament which resulted in standing ovations. Or so it seemed. The Canadians produced a 98 year old Hungarian veteran of the Second World War named Yaroslav Hunka who had fought against the Russians and emigrated to Canada after the war ended. He too was cheered by the assembled Canadian politicians. The intention was clearly to present a narrative of a brave Ukrainian who fought valiantly to free his country from Russian domination but it didn’t quite work out that way. To fight the Russians required being in Nazi Germany’s armed forces and it turned out that Hunka had served in the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, also known as the Galicia Division, a volunteer unit made up mostly of ethnic Ukrainians commanded by German officers that has been rightly or wrongly credited with a number of wartime atrocities against Russians, Poles and Jews. Soldiers in the division swore a personal loyalty oath to Adolf Hitler. The bad judgement shown by the Canadian government in producing Hunka without fully investigating his story subsequently produced a huge uproar in Canada, with the head of parliament resigning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in deep political trouble and the Polish government demanding that Hunka be extradited to them for a war crimes trial. There has been some suspicion that Zelensky may have been instrumental in arranging the affair in expectation that it would strengthen Canadian support for his cause. Instead, it has accomplished the reverse and Zelensky returned home with little or nothing accomplished.
Zelensky must also confront back home a war that he is decisively losing and a country in ruins. And Joe Biden made clear in his speech addressing the UN General Assembly that negotiations with Russia to end the Ukraine fighting would not be considered. Joe included a pledge to support the conflict until it is Russia that is doing the surrendering: “The United States, together with our allies and partners around the world, will continue to stand with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and their freedom… Russia alone bears responsibility for [the war]. Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it is Russia alone that stands in the way of peace, because Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory, and Ukraine’s children.” In short, the speech was a lot like Joe Biden and the band of scoundrels and grifters that he has gathered around him in the White House, heavy on bellicosity but short on any serious planning or strategies to make the world and this country a better place. Joe would like to see the war continue to bring its eventual end a lot closer to the US elections, where he hopes to self-identify as a strong leader and a “winner” taking on America’s enemies. Good luck Joe.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
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Sam Husseini: The entire US establishment helped lie their way into the Iraq war
By Slava Zilber | American Herald Tribune | October 14, 2019
Sam Husseini is a senior analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, independent journalist and contributor to The Nation and FAIR.
Slava Zilber: Sam, three years ago, you appeared on Talk Nation Radio with David Swanson and spoke about the case of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. You pointed out that the people involved in the spying on the UN and the people authorizing the Iraq War were not held accountable:
“Virtually everybody who went along with the war, whether it is Kerry or Clinton, of course, the Bush administration themselves has falsified their own records in terms of why, what they did, when they did, why they did it, to the extent that they’ve been scrutinised at all.”
You also address it in a recent article. And recently, Joe Biden has been lying about his position on the Iraq War. How can such an important issue escape meaningful scrutiny? … continue
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