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US Boosted Nuclear Arms Spending by 18% in 2023, Record Among Nuclear States – Report

Sputnik – 17.06.2024

The United States last year increased spending on nuclear weapons by 18%, which is the highest rate among all nine countries possessing nuclear weapons, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said on Monday.

US alone spends on nukes more than all other nuclear-armed states, the report read.

“[In 2023] Every country increased the amount it spent on nuclear weapons. The United States had the biggest increase, at nearly 18%. The United States spent more than all the other nuclear-armed states combined, at $51.5 billion. China surpassed Russia as the second-highest spender at $11.9 billion, and Russia came in third, spending $8.3 billion,” the ICAN said in a report, adding that the United Kingdom also significantly increased its nuclear spending for the second year in a row.

In 2023, the US, the UK, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and Russia spent a total of $91.4 billion developing their nuclear arsenals, which is $10.8 billion or 13.4% more than in 2022, the ICAN also said.

“In 2023, twenty companies working on nuclear weapons development and maintenance earned at least $31 billion for this work. There are at least $335 billion in outstanding nuclear weapons contracts to these companies, some of which have continued for more than a decade. In 2023, at least $7.9 billion in new nuclear weapon contracts were awarded,” the report read.

ICAN, a coalition of civil society organizations in over 100 countries, was founded in Melbourne, Australia in 2007. The coalition promotes adherence to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In 2017, it received the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts.

Earlier, experts explained to Sputnik that recent Minuteman III launches are a regular audit of the strategic forces rather than nuclear saber-rattling.

June 17, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

NYT Claims to Reveal 2022 Russia-Ukraine Peace Drafts: Key Details and Missed Opportunities

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 15.06.2024

Russia and Ukraine were close to concluding a peace treaty in April 2022, but the Kiev regime tore the deal up at the last minutes after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pressured Volodymyr Zelensky not to sign.

The New York Times has published what it claims is the full text of then 2022 draft peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.

The never-signed documents — treaty drafts dated March 17 and April 15, 2022 — were purportedly leaked to the newspaper by Ukrainian, Russian and European sources.

Kiev ultimately pulled out of the deal, brokered by Turkey over several weeks of talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian negotiating teams from February to April of 2022, after then-British prime minister Boris Johnson promised huge arms supplies from NATO countries.

According to the key points from the document:

  • Ukraine had to maintain permanent neutrality and not engage in wars on the side of a guarantor state or any third country
  • The guarantors of Ukraine’s security and neutrality would be Great Britain, China, Russia, the US and France, with Belarus and Turkiye also mentioned
  • Ukraine would not be allowed to conduct military exercises involving foreign armed forces without the consent of the guarantors
  • The guarantors pledged not to form military alliances with Ukraine, not to interfere in its internal affairs and not to deploy troops on its territory
  • All mutual sanctions and bans between Russia and Ukraine were to be lifted, but certain provisions of the agreement did not apply to Crimea, Sevastopol and territories marked on a map in the appendices — which the NYT did not provide
  • Pages 11 and 12 specified personnel, weaponry and equipment limits for the Ukrainian Armed Forces during peacetime: no more than 342 tanks, 1,029 armoured vehicles and 96 multiple rocket launchers, based on Russia’s demands
  • The maximum firing range for multiple rocket launchers and missiles was set at under 280 km. Ukraine also pledged not to produce or domestically purchase weaponry of greater range

After Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian and Ukrainian delegations engaged in several rounds of peace talks. Talks in Turkiye took place in March 2022 but ended without signing any documents. In November 2023, Ukraine’s former chief negotiator with Russia, David Arakhamia, said then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson talked Kiev out of signing an agreement with Moscow to end the conflict. In October 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree stating that Kiev could not hold peace talks as long as President Vladimir Putin is in power in Russia.

German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag claimed in April it had obtained the 17-page draft peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.

It stated that while the sides had come close to sealing a peace treaty, The Zelensky regime objected to terms restoring Russian as an official language and Kiev’s repudiation of Nazism.

Efforts to strike a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine were thwarted by Johnson at the behest of the US, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin said in February.

“He blocked the peace efforts with Washington’s blessing, obviously, because he could not do it on his own accord,” Kelin told Turkish broadcaster TRT World.

After Johnson arrived in Kiev, “the document, which had already been initialled by the head of the Ukrainian delegation, [David] Arakhamia, was thrown into the wastebasket, and Ukraine started fighting,” he added. “These are the consequences of what the prime minister of the United Kingdom did.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in his February interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson that talks with Ukraine in 2022 were close to agreement, but Ukraine broke the deal after Russia pulled its troops back from Kiev as a good-will gesture requested by western European leaders.

June 15, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

America prepares for global war, automatically registers all 18-26 year olds for the draft 

BY DENNIS KUCINICH | JUNE 13, 2024

Our government is planning a big draft, conscripting millions of young Americans for an even bigger war!

I call to your attention a Democratic amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was slipped into the almost trillion-dollar Pentagon war spending bill, by voice vote, in the House Armed Services committee.

The Democratic Amendment to H.R. 8070, the National Defense Authorization (NDAA) reads:

Section 531. Selective Service System:  Automatic Registration.  SEC. 3. (a)(1) “Except as otherwise provided in this title, every male citizen of the United States, and every other male person residing in the United States, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, shall be automatically registered under this Act by the Director of the Selective Service System.”

This amendment is in the NDAA legislation and there is no pending amendment to strip it from the bill. So, when the NDAA passes, as early as this week, Congress will have taken steps to make automatic conscription the law of the land.

Why an automatic draft? Members of Congress and the President have an obligation to explain to the American people to which foreign land will their sons, and perhaps their daughters, be sent to die?

The U.S. has been in a continuous “State of Emergency” since September 11, 2001, which provides a president with over 100 powers he would not ordinarily have. Notwithstanding that the automatic draft provision will go into effect in a year, a presidential order invoking emergency powers and/or an Act of Congress, could readily move millions from their civilian lives to the front lines of a war.

WHAT WE KNOW:

We know that America is fomenting wars around the world

We know that the military industrial complex controls our government

We know that we are on the precipice of a global war, provoking aggression rather than resolution with Russia, China and in the Middle East.

The only winners in these wars are the war profiteers.

They’re now going to take our children to fight in unnecessary, destabilizing, dangerous, debt-creating wars.

Just today President Biden committed the U.S. to an additional decade of support for Ukraine’s war with Russia.

There is no other conceivable reason to require more than 16 million American males to be automatically registered for the draft, other than to prepare for a large-scale war.

The Selective Service System is the vehicle by which individuals are inducted into the armed forces. This NDAA Automatic Registration amendment facilitates an efficient, large-scale draft.

The new law will automatically register all males between the ages of 18 and 26. Selective Service will notify in writing every young American male that they have been registered and will prescribe regulations which can require the registrant to provide “date of birth, address, social security account number, phone number and email address….”

There are members of Congress who advocate that young women also be included in any draft, which could bring to 32 million the number of Americans of draft-eligible age.

The U.S. currently has over 1,300,000 men and women, career soldiers, as well as volunteers, serving in the all-volunteer armed forces.

According to the new automatic draft law, undocumented immigrants, between the ages of 18 and 26, numbering at least 1.5 million, could also be conscripted, if it were to apply to women as well as men.

A government conscription edict covering the undocumented could ironically do damage to the so-called “replacement theory,” where draft-eligible undocumented immigrants could decide to retreat to the other side of the border. Military service may appeal to others as a path toward citizenship, since immigrants serving during “period of hostility,” can seek immediate naturalization.

The last time a draft was instituted in the United States was during the Vietnam War, when 1.9 million Americans were conscripted.

A total of 8.7 million Americans served during the course of that war, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, including married men, who were subject to the draft by Presidential order.

Of 58,220 U.S. service fatalities in the Vietnam War, 17,671 were draftees.

President Biden’s recent D-Day speech, quoted in Politico, contained this noteworthy warning for young Americans: “The price of unchecked tyranny is the blood of the young and the brave.”

Years ago I had a conversation with then-Vice President Biden, who mused, painfully, about his own sons’ lives potentially being at risk in combat. His deep love for his sons is reflective of all Americans’ love for their children. Those parents and grandparents with a first-person understanding of the human cost of wars in Vietnam and Iraq may have a powerful  aversion to exposing their children and grandchildren to deadly conflict, unless there is a direct threat to the territory of the United States.

Ukraine understands the price paid for war, having lost hundreds of thousands of its courageous sons and daughters in the ongoing war with Russia.

As Ukraine turns to conscription, there is push back coming from those who are subject to service but who understand they could well be facing a death sentence.

In Israel, the growing ultra-orthodox worshippers have been exempt from military service since the founding of Israel, but the government is being pressed to expand its military ranks creating a political squeeze on the Netanyahu ruling coalition.

Conscription is under discussion in Germany and Italy, while at least nine other European Union countries already use the practice to replenish their armed forces.

Resistance does occur during a draft. I well remember anti-Vietnam war rallies with the cry “Hell, no, we won’t go!” But for a heart murmur and a high draft number, I would have joined my brother Frank Kucinich, Jr. on the battlefield in Southeast Asia.

During the Vietnam war, an estimated 60% of all draft-eligible young men found a means to avoid getting conscripted, (including future a President by the name of Bill Clinton).  Some, fearful for their lives, fled to Canada or Sweden.

The Vietnam War ripped apart the country. The protests over the war, fueled by compulsory service and rising casualty numbers of US troops, led President Lyndon Johnson to decide, on March 31, 1968, not to run for reelection. The draft was ended in 1973 and was reinstated by President Carter on January 23, 1980.

We must have a national debate over America’s forever wars which have led to the automatic draft. Just what, exactly, are America’s interests? Our nation’s leaders’ diplomatic skills seem limited to putting a gun on the table and saying “Let’s talk.”

Why does our government choose war over diplomacy?

As directly-elected representatives of the people, Congress, a co-equal branch of government, has a responsibility under Article One, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution to decide to formally take  this nation to a state of war.

Yet this congress, and others, have been content to appropriate money for war and then let the President take the responsibility, something the Founding Fathers sought to avoid in devising a system of checks and balances.

Congress must take up the question of war, long before the country institutes an automatic draft. An automatic draft is a preparation for war, dramatically altering the lives of young Americans. They deserve an answer. We all deserve an answer. America’s future is literally on the line.

Postscript:  For my part, as a former member of Congress who is seeking re-election to the House of Representatives in November – – upon my return to Congress, I will  bring forth legislation which will abolish automatic registration for the draft. I believe it is honorable, a sacred obligation, to serve in defense of one’s country. But our leaders have a deeper obligation, a solemn duty to explain why. They have not done so.

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

NATO stumbles on €40 billion Ukraine plan

© SIMON WOHLFAHRT / AFP
RT | June 14, 2024

There is no agreement in NATO just yet regarding the proposal to fund Kiev to the tune of €40 ($43) billion, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg admitted on Friday.

The issue came up at the meeting of the US-led bloc’s defense ministers in Brussels. Italy reportedly did not agree with the proposal, which was already scaled down from Stoltenberg’s initial €100 billion request.

The “long-term financial pledge” is one of the four things NATO needs to “deliver for Ukraine” by the Washington summit next month, Stoltenberg told reporters after the meeting.

“We have not yet agreement on that,” he admitted.

“Many allies are very supportive of the idea that we need not only to have short term pledges – they are welcome, of course – but if we could have more long-term predictable pledges, it will give the Ukrainians better planning assumptions,” Stoltenberg said. “It will give more predictability and transparency and assure a minimal or fair burden-sharing within the alliance. And most importantly, it will send a message to Moscow that they cannot wait us out.”

NATO ministers did agree on the plan for Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine and pledged to send more ammunition and equipment to Kiev in the short term, Stoltenberg pointed out, adding that “there will be new announcements in the coming days and weeks.”

That leaves the financial pledge and the “language” for Ukraine’s possible membership to be worked out in the “some weeks” remaining before the Washington summit, according to the NATO secretary-general.

Kiev expected a formal invitation to the bloc last year, at the NATO summit in Vilnius. When it did not arrive, Vladimir Zelensky launched a tirade on social media, angering Washington. The US-led bloc eventually said it would be in a position to invite Ukraine “when allies agree and conditions are met.”

On Thursday, Stoltenberg said “an absolute minimum” condition for Ukraine’s membership would be defeating Russia. The US and its allies have funneled weapons, ammunition, and equipment to Ukraine over the past two years, while insisting they are not a party to the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday that Moscow would be ready for a ceasefire if Kiev signed a pledge never to join NATO and withdrew its troops from the four regions that have chosen to join Russia. Kiev has denounced the proposal as an “ultimatum” and rejected it.

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russia and NATO are drifting towards a major war

By Ivan Timofeev | RT | June 14, 2024

Is it possible that NATO forces could become directly involved in the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine? Until recently, such a question seemed very hypothetical given the high risks of escalation of the military confrontation between the US-led bloc and Russia into a large-scale armed conflict. But this scenario should be taken seriously now.

The direct participation of individual NATO countries or the entire bloc in hostilities could gradually spiral out of control. Crossing red lines can lead to the belief that there will be no consequences for engaging in war. The result of such movements can manifest itself at an unexpected moment and lead to a much more dangerous situation than the current one.

Strictly speaking, NATO countries have long been involved in the conflict. This takes several forms.

First, Western countries provide Kiev with substantial financial and military assistance, including increasingly advanced and destructive weapons systems. As the stockpiles of Soviet-style kit in the arsenals of the USSR’s former allies in the Warsaw Treaty Organisation have been depleted, the Ukrainian army is receiving more Western systems and ammunition. So far, mass deliveries have been limited by the production capacity of the Western defence industry and size of existing stockpiles. But if hostilities are prolonged, industrial capacity has the potential to grow. Increasing supplies are also inevitable in the event of a peaceful pause, which would allow Ukraine to prepare for a new phase of hostilities. Russia can hardly hope that the West lacks the political will and resources to increase support for Kiev. Moscow appears to be preparing for the worst-case scenario, namely a steady increase in substantial and long-term military assistance to Ukraine. In addition to the supply of arms and ammunition, this aid includes the training of personnel, help with the development of military industry and infrastructure, and the reimbursement of expenses in other areas that allow Ukraine to focus its resources on the defence sector.

Second, Ukraine receives extensive Western support in the form of intelligence, including technical data from satellites, radars, reconnaissance aircraft, etc. The information received enables a wide range of operations, from scoping the theatre of operations to the identification of specific targets. Data providers can be selective in granting the Ukrainian side access. But its use in military operations against Russia is not in doubt.

Third, military specialists who are citizens of NATO countries are involved in combat operations. Their role does not always appear to be official. They may be ‘volunteers’ or simply mercenaries, whose participation the authorities of their countries turn a blind eye to. Russian estimates put their number at around 2,000 in October 2023. Whether that is accurate or not, it’s clear that foreigners are fighting on Ukraine’s side, that their participation is systematic rather than accidental, and that at least some of them are citizens of Western countries.

Their involvement has not yet created an excessive risk of direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO. For Kiev’s Western partners, the sluggish pace of the conflict allows them to gradually improve the quality of their support for Ukraine. Cruise missile deliveries have long been commonplace. The arrival of US fighter jets is only a matter of time. The Russian army is “grinding down” the Western equipment that arrives. But foreign supplies to Ukraine also require a concentration of resources on the Russian side.

A significant escalation factor that would amplify the risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO, could be the appearance of military contingents form bloc members on the territory of Ukraine. The prospect of such a scenario has already been mentioned by some Western politicians, although their view has not been supported by the US and isn’t an official NATO position. A number of the bloc’s leaders have distanced themselves from supporting the idea of sending troops to Ukraine.

What might trigger such a decision and how might it be implemented? The most likely factor for direct intervention by individual states or NATO as a whole would be a possible major military success by the Russian army. So far, the front has remained relatively stable. But the Moscow’s military has already achieved significant local victories, increased pressure, seized the initiative, extended the offensive front and possibly built up reserves for more decisive action.

There are no signs of a repeat of last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensive. Kiev is reportedly short of ammunition, although this shortfall could be filled in the future by external supplies. Periodic attacks on Russian territory with cruise missiles, drones and artillery cause damage and casualties, but do not disrupt the stability of the front.

Moreover, such strikes embolden Russia’s determination to create buffer zones, i.e. territories from which Kiev will not be able to attack targets in Russian regions.

A possible collapse of certain sections of the Ukrainian front and significant territorial advances of Russian forces towards the west is becoming more and more realistic scenario.

The fact that no deep advances and breakthroughs have occured for some time does not mean that there is no possibility in the future. On the contrary, the probability is increasing due to the army’s experience in combat, the supply of the military-industrial complex to the front, losses on the Ukrainian side, delays in the delivery of Western equipment, and so on.

The Russian army’s ability to make such advances and breakthroughs is also increasing. A catastrophic scenario for individual Ukrainian groups is not predetermined, but it is probable. A major breakthrough of the Russian army towards Kharkov, Odessa or another major city could become a serious trigger for NATO countries to introduce the question of intervention in the conflict into practical terms. Several such breakthroughs, simultaneous or successive, will inevitably raise the issue.

Here, individual countries and the bloc as a whole face a strategic fork in the road. The first option is not to intervene and to support Ukraine only with military equipment, money and ‘volunteers’. Perhaps to admit defeat and try to minimise the damage through negotiations, thereby preventing an even greater catastrophe. The second option is to radically change the approach to involvement in the conflict and allow direct intervention.

Intervention can take a number of forms. It may involve the use of infrastructure, including airfields of NATO countries. It could mean the mass deployment of certain communications and engineering units and air defence systems, while avoiding their presence on the front line. An even more radical scenario is the deployment of a contingent of certain NATO countries on the border between Ukraine and Belarus. Finally, an even more radical option is the deployment of military contingents from NATO countries on the front line, which would probably be categorically unacceptable to the bloc.

Each of these scenarios involves a direct clash between Russian and NATO forces. Such a situation would inevitably raise the question of deeper bloc involvement and, in the longer term, the transfer of military conflict to other areas of contact with Russia, including the Baltic region. At this stage, it will be even more difficult to stop the escalation. The more losses both sides suffer, the more the maelstrom of hostilities will grow and the closer they will come to the threshold of using nuclear weapons. And there will be no winners.

These are all hypothetical options. But they need to be considered now. After all, not so long ago such significant military deliveries to Ukraine seemed unlikely to anyone, as much as the conflict itself, three years ago. Now it is an everyday reality. The dangers of movement towards a major war between Russia and NATO should be taken seriously.

Ivan Timofeev is the programme director of the Valdai Club.

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Vucic: All signs point to a major war

The President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, interviewed by the Swiss weekly magazine Weltwoche – June 11, 2024

The rhetoric is getting worse by the day and reminds me of the phrase of a famous historian: ”The train has left the station and no one can stop it.”

If the Great Powers don’t do something soon, yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be in for a real disaster.

If you bet that someone is bluffing, it means that you don’t have better hands. You just think that the other person has weaker cards. You are not sure about it because you do not know and have not seen its leaves. I am always very cautious and cautious when assessing Putin’s wishes or potential future move.

What further complicates the situation is that everyone is only talking about war. No one seeks peace. Nobody is talking about peace. Peace is almost a forbidden word!

It is very strange to me that no one is trying to stop the war. There is a different theory – which I can understand.

I’m not saying I approve – that the West thinks they can easily defeat Putin, they want to exhaust him in Ukraine and then they will enter the space and Russia with its current territory will no longer exist and Putin will be overthrown etc. Maybe to be possible, but….

Why do I say that we walk beside the brink of the abyss? Analyze the situation of NATO and the USA. They cannot afford to lose the Ukraine war.

Second, the position of Europe and the collective West in geopolitical terms will deteriorate so much that no one will be able to regenerate and renew it.

Third, this will open a Pandora’s box for more movements and hostilities against the collective West in the future. But take the other side. If Putin loses the war, he will (first) personally lose everything. (Second) He will not have the reputation of someone who created a common denominator for Ivan, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

And thirdly, Russia will not exist nor will it have its present form. And then when you have these two sides so far apart in terms of their wants and their expectations, then you see that everything is at stake!

Everything. No one can afford to lose. When you have this situation, we are probably approaching a real disaster. And then we come to another question. Who is ready to lose 1 million, 2 million, 5 and 10 million people? Ask yourself. I am not ready to lose a single person. And we will not participate in it. But that is a question for others.

I can’t say World War III, but I don’t think we’re far from that big conflict! No more than 3-4 months! And there is a risk that it will happen even sooner.

In Europe, the leaders act like big heroes, but they are not honest and they don’t tell their citizens that they will all pay a big price if it comes to war.

The world is changing even though we don’t want to accept and admit it, but it is indeed changing on a daily basis and much faster than ever before. And when you have these kinds of conflicting interests, then you come close to big conflicts and big wars. And I don’t see how anyone can stop it.

I’d like to see it more than anything to be honest. Today I was checking the data regarding our stocks of oil, flour, sugar, salt and everything because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring for all of us.

Full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZIDLlqh-Oc

June 13, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

EU now at a crossroads: Reform or self-destruction

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 13, 2024

The EU has just experienced a monumental change, following years of failed immigration policies, which has ushered in a massive number of far-right MEPs in the more powerful EU member states. It’s too early to say whether this will make too much of a change to policy decisions at the highest echelons of the European Union but certainly the European Parliament itself is, possibly for the first time ever, going to be an interesting place with now a quarter of all of the 720 MEPs coming from far-right groups.

Traditionally most people who voted in EU elections were stalwart supporters of the project and the ethos of one Europe united by a policy of free movement of goods, services and people and, for many, a single currency. The few who voted against the mainstream parties – the main bloc made up of Christian democrats and socialists – were those who wanted to use their vote as a throw-away gesture to send a signal to their own elites that they want change. That protest vote in the past was always very small as the EU elite in Brussels always benefited from a voting system which was tilted in their favour. But no more.

The European Parliament, which most sceptics considered to be a fake assembly whose only real role is to rubber stamp draft legislation from either the powerful European Commission or member states (via the European Council), could now become suddenly relevant to the whole project. For the last five years, there has only been two Irish MEPs to take the floor and tackle the European Commission head on, on its genocide in Gaza or its phoney war in Ukraine. But now something like 180 MEPs will use their two minutes speaking time to tackle the commission on its failed foreign policy, immigration and trade deals with China, for example. The Ukraine war could be a central theme which will probably be a thorn in the side of the European Commission and its chief – whoever that might be as, despite supporting statements from the Christian Democratic group in the European parliament, it is not a certainty that Ursula von der Leyen will return as Commission chief.

If she succeeds and stays on as EU Commission president, she will have a tough time in parliamentary plenary sessions as Europe’s biggest countries – who pay the most into the EU budget – have picked up the most far-right seats.  Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National scored the most decisive victory, winning 30 of the country’s 81 seats, and more than double the votes of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renew party. That political slaughter pushed Macron to call a snap election. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy won 24 seats and increased her share of the national vote, and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) came second in Germany and snapped up 15 seats. Presently the AfD doesn’t have a pan-European group to align itself to and, under EU rules, benefit from huge amounts of cash from the EU parliament as it was kicked out of one of the two ‘groups’, prompting fears that it will create one itself and invite others to join it. In the European parliament both France’s and Italy’s far-right MEPs are in different groups, but in reality, when it comes to voting, for sure there will be a unified policy on most issues which will give them leverage with the European Commission that we have never seen in the short history of the EU.

It’s important to note that far-right parties topped the polls in Austria and Hungary, too, with important gains in Spain and Cyprus. All of these countries have one thing in common: real immigration problems which neither the mainstream political groups nor the EU has addressed.

But the real issue is the identity and survival of the European Union itself as this shake-up is certainly going to threaten the traditional power structure. Ursula von der Leyen represents the old guard and everything which is wrong with the EU: deluded, outdated views run by elitists who believe the only solution to the EU’s power problem is to take more. Unlike President Macron who wisely stated to the press that the far-right votes were a message which he is listening to, von der Leyen’s statements were more about fighting the new threat.

June 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Behind the Myth of “Billions in Arms” Flowing into Ukraine

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 13.06.2024 

In a June 8, 2024, Bloomberg article titled, “Putin Is Running Out of Time to Achieve Breakthrough in Ukraine,” an optimistic prognosis was made regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine in favor of Kiev.

The article claims that Russia has made “limited progress” along the line of contact, including along the newly-opened front in Kharkov and that as “billions in arms start flowing” into Ukraine, Ukrainian forces will be given the opportunity to “counter-attack.”

The “billions in arms” Bloomberg cites refers to the renewed flow of US military assistance after months of delays in passing funding in the US Congress. However, recalling the flagging impact of US arms transfers to Ukraine even before the funding delays, and a closer look at the actual quantities associated with these packages versus Russian military production, tells an entirely different story.

Bloomberg claims that the renewed flow of US arms is eroding Russia’s military advantage. However, this is simply not true.

Artillery Shells 

The most recent US arms package featured, among other items, badly needed 155mm artillery shells and anti-tank weapons including the vaunted Javelin missile. Missing from the Pentagon’s public press release, were the quantities these weapons and munitions were being sent in.

It is well-known that US and European artillery shell production falls short of Russia’s by several times. A May 2024 Business Insider article puts the number of Russian shells produced this year at 4.5 million, while the US and Europe combined amount to only 1.3 million.

The prospect of Western shell production drastically increasing to match or even exceed Russian production numbers is unrealistic, according to a June 7, 2024 Bloomberg article titled, “America’s War Machine Can’t Make Basic Artillery Fast Enough.”

In the Bloomberg piece, various factors are mentioned ranging from limited material inputs, a lack of trained human resources, the need to vastly expand the physical production sites producing both the shells themselves and their various individual components, as well as the need to consistently procure funding to expand each of these factors. All of this takes time.

The article claims that by 2025, the US should be producing up to 68,000 155mm artillery shells a month. Even if Europe was able to match these production numbers, it would represent only two-thirds of Ukraine’s monthly requirements to achieve its 6,000 round daily rate of fire, which still falls far short of Russia’s daily rate of fire, placing Ukraine at a disadvantage.

Artillery shell production is relatively straightforward compared to more advanced weapons Ukraine also desperately requires. This includes anti-armor weapons like the Javelin missile.

Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles 

Once hailed as a “game changer” by the collective Western media, the Javelin is now rarely mentioned either in headlines or even buried deep within articles. The missiles were passed over to Ukraine by the thousands during the initial phases of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO), up to 7,000 or about one-third of the US’ total inventory according to the US government and arms industry-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in late 2022.

Since then, Lockheed Martin, which produces the Javelin missile, claims to have expanded production by up to 15% in a 2024 release, producing up to 2,400 missiles per year or about 200 per month.

2,400 missiles are not being sent entirely to Ukraine each year. The missiles and less numerous command launch units (CLU) that fire them are required by the US, other NATO members, and other Lockheed customers around the globe. But let’s assume for a moment all 2,400 missiles are sent to Ukraine each year, and because US stockpiles are at critical levels, let’s assume Ukraine is sent Javelins drawn from this monthly production.

Does this mean that each month, 200 Russian tanks will be damaged or destroyed, adding up to 2,400 a year? No. According to the US Army’s own studies, even trained US soldiers have a 19% hit rate while utilizing Javelin, TOW, and AT-4 systems, all of which the US has sent to Ukraine throughout the SMO.

This means that even if Ukraine was receiving 200 missiles a month and firing them at Russian armored vehicles, they would be scoring only about 38 hits a month. Out of those 38 hits, fewer still would result in significant damage or complete destruction.

Comparing these overly optimistic numbers with Russian tank and other armored vehicle production puts this into better context.

According to a March 2024 CNN article discussing Russian military production, it admits Russia is producing up to 125 tanks a month. Other Western sources claim Russia also produces up to 250 other armored vehicles per month, for a total of 375 armored vehicles a month.

Compare that with the 38 hits Ukraine would be able to inflict even if the US sent every single Javelin produced straight to Ukraine each month. Russia is producing far more armored vehicles than the US is producing Javelin missiles to destroy them. The story is the same for other anti-armor weapon systems produced across the West (e.g. 1,000 TOW missiles produced per year), all of which face depleted stockpiles and low monthly production rates.

Considering that the number of Javelin missiles and other ordnance sent to Ukraine will be far less in reality than total monthly production, we begin to see the true measure of US (and European) military assistance and how the “billions in arms” now flowing to Ukraine do not represent a significant change in Ukraine’s ability to slow, let alone stop Russian forces as they continue mounting pressure not only along the existing front, but opening entirely new fronts, creating a wider strategic dilemma for Ukraine, stretching an already insufficient amount of manpower, equipment, and ammunition even further.

Empty Rhetoric 

Despite Bloomberg discounting its “Putin is Running Out of Time” article with its “America’s War Machine Can’t Make Basic Artillery Fast Enough” article, it and other Western publications’ attempts to convince audiences that the tide is about to shift in Ukraine’s favor is a repeat of this same empty rhetoric used to sell Ukraine’s 2023 “counteroffensive” as poised to shift the conflict.

In reality, the 2023 Ukrainian military operation was soundly defeated by Russian forces who not only decimated Ukraine’s manpower, equipment, and ammunition stocks, but managed to bolster its own numbers and capabilities in the process.

Ukrainian attempts to claw back territory it has recently lost in Kharkov will lead to the same fruitless conclusion its 2022 and 2023 offensives did, a questionable chance of actually taking the territory for a guaranteed severe cost in irreplaceable trained manpower and equipment.

Today’s headlines across the West portending the tide changing in the fighting across Ukraine represent a now familiar cycle of encouraging Ukraine to fight on in what is otherwise an unwinnable conflict inflicting an immense and indelible cost on Ukraine in terms of territory, human lives, and economic prospects well into the future.

But as has been pointed out many times before, feeding Ukraine into an unwinnable proxy war had been a US objective articulated as early as 2019 in RAND Corporation’s paper, “Extending Russia,” which stated:

Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

But warned:

However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.

Obviously, even in 2019, US policymakers realized Ukraine would not win a US-sponsored proxy war against Russia. The actual objective was to raise the cost of Russian victory high enough to undermine Russia’s economy, divide Russian society, and perhaps even eventually precipitate a Soviet Union-style collapse. While RAND’s predictions of Ukraine’s destruction amid such a proxy war have clearly come to pass, the supposed “benefits” of this policy have yet to avail themselves and do not appear even plausible at this juncture.

Thus, Western rhetoric about Ukraine’s soon-to-be good fortune is not based on genuine analysis of the ongoing conflict, but is instead a point of propaganda aimed at encouraging Ukraine to fight on despite all actual analysis warning of the disaster awaiting in doing so.

Only time will tell just how far this process plays out to where the US and its partners are no longer pushing Ukraine onto the battlefield and are instead taking to the negotiation table. In the meantime, the “billions in arms” flowing into Ukraine will continue to have the same impact they’ve had all along, ensuring “disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows,” ultimately leading Ukraine “into a disadvantageous peace.”

June 13, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Fauci’s institute hid mpox gain-of-function plans from Congress and the media

By Emily Kopp | U.S. Right To Know | June 11, 2024 

For nearly nine years Anthony Fauci’s institute concealed plans to engineer a pandemic capable mpox virus with a case fatality rate of up to 15 percent, congressional investigators revealed in a new report Tuesday.

In June 2015, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases received formal approval from the National Institutes of Health’s Institutional Review Board for experiments expected to engineer an mpox virus with high transmissibility and moderate mortality.

NIAID — the institute Fauci oversaw for nearly four decades and which underwrites most federally funded gain-of-function research — concealed the project’s approval from investigators with the House Committee on Energy and Commerce over the course of a 17 month-long investigation.

A new interim report describes the obstruction and secrecy around the mpox proposal as a case study in how the institute “oversees and accounts for the monitoring of potentially dangerous gain-of-function research of concern.”

The revelations land amid global concerns about whether coronavirus gain-of-function research — research that might generate pathogens with increased pathogenicity or transmissibility — may have contributed to the worst pandemic in a century.

The committee, in conjunction with the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, is also investigating coronavirus gain-of-function research underwritten by NIAID at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and faces similar stonewalling in that investigation, a committee aide said.

NIAID’s lack of transparency surrounding the proposed mpox experiment for nearly a decade undermines Fauci’s assurances at a congressional hearing last week that any biosecurity breach at the Wuhan lab could not have any connection to his former institute. Investigators continue to pursue documentation from EcoHealth Alliance, an NIAID contractor whose funding was recently suspended for failing to properly oversee coronavirus experiments exported to Wuhan.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, caused a public health emergency in the U.S. from August 2022 to February 2023. It is endemic in Africa. The more deadly clade circulates in Central Africa (clade I) while the more transmissible clade circulates in West Africa (clade II). Mpox has infected more than 20,000 people and caused more than 1,000 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where clade I predominates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — though some experts believe that is an undercount of true cases. A strain of the clade II virus drove the American outbreak.

The mpox experiment first came to light in a September 2022 article in Science.

The gain-of-function project proposed by NIAID virologist Bernard Moss would splice genes conferring high pathogenicity from the clade I virus into the more transmissible clade II virus. The new “chimeric” (combined) virus could have retained up to a 15 percent fatality rate and a 2.4 reproductive number, a measure of transmissibility indicating every sick person could infect up to 2.4 people on average, giving it pandemic potential.

The committee’s attempts to learn more about the experiment were met with stonewalling.

NIAID maintains the experiment was never conducted, but has never provided any contemporaneous documents to support that claim such as emails or lab notebooks, according to the committee’s report.

The lack of engagement from NIAID, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services does not comport with the idea the experiment was never conducted and that there is nothing to hide, according to the committee.

HHS and NIH misled congressional investigators for nearly a year and a half, falsely denying that Moss had obtained formal approval for this gain-of-function experiment.

The committee launched its investigation in October 2022 but was only permitted to view key documents in camera in March 2024, which confirmed NIH’s formal approval of the experiment.

The committee lays blame with officials at NIAID, who fund most federally underwritten gain-of-function research, have the subject matter expertise, and may have misled their bosses at HHS and NIH.

For months NIAID and Moss had reported to the committee that the mpox experiment had not moved forward and that Moss had simply been spitballing with the Science reporter in 2022 without serious intention.

However amid the committee’s investigation in May 2023 an approval from the Federal Select Agent Program for a chimera involving both clade I and clade II of the mpox virus was revoked.

NIAID also misled Science and STAT News in saying the gain-of-function mpox experiment was never approved, according to the committee.

Committee aides say they will continue to press for full accountability and transparency, and hope for a culture change at NIAID away from secrecy under new leadership.

Fauci retired after 38 years as the head of NIAID in December 2022; Jeanne M. Marrazzo now serves as director of the institute. Former NIH Director Francis Collins retired in December 2021; Monica Bertagnolli now serves as director of the NIH.

The revelations also come amid a debate about the future of gain-of-function research regulation.

New policy unveiled last month by the White House Office and Science and Technology Policy maintains a largely self-regulatory framework, vesting the responsibility for initiating increased regulation with the researchers and funding agencies such as NIAID.

The vast majority of gain-of-function research that could generate epidemic and pandemic capable viruses is likely to be exempted from more rigorous scrutiny under the new protocols, according to the committee.

Many of the world’s most public virologists have dismissed the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted from a lab accident as a conspiracy theory and have chafed at the idea that the work should be regulated by an outside agency, subject to public input or not pursued at all.

That culture extends to NIAID, too, according to the committee’s investigators, who have also uncovered that top administrators may have illegally evaded federal record retention and transparency law.

Concerns were raised by a committee aide that NIAID exerted undue influence at OSTP to preserve the laissez-faire status quo.

“The new OSTP policy continues to give funding agencies, like NIAID, primary responsibility for oversight of GOFROC and DURC experiments involving potentially dangerous pathogens,” the committee’s report reads. “In almost any other scientific field or industry, this arrangement would be immediately recognized as a conflict of interest, necessitating independent review and oversight.”

Policy improvements suggested by the committee’s report include codifying public input through a community oversight board, which already exist for high-containment biosafety level four laboratories, as well as moving final approval for gain-of-function research out of NIAID.

According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the number of labs capable of growing orthopoxviruses like mpox and smallpox from scratch currently stands at less than 100, but could increase significantly as DNA synthesis and engineering techniques improve and become cheaper.

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Joe Biden’s Time Interview Should Set Off Alarms

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | June 12, 2024

On May 28, U.S. President Joe Biden gave an interview to Time. His delivery and content were concerning for a number of reasons. Biden, at times, seemed misinformed and detached from reality. Sometimes, he seemed off message; other times, he seemed convinced by his own talking points. But four answers he gave were especially alarming and deserve to be highlighted.

The first was Biden’s assertion that America is “the world power.” The truth of that claim can be debated, but making that claim is deaf to the changes taking place in the world. Much of the world is angry at the United States for substituting leadership in the global community of international law with the imposition of an inconsistent and hypocritical rules-based order.

If the United States is still the world power, then a multipolar world that includes a rapidly growing BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is closer and closer on its heels. Biden seems not to have noticed what his CIA director has: that the world is in one of “those times of transition that come along a couple of times a century. Today the United States still has a better hand to play than any of our rivals, but it is no longer the only big kid on the geopolitical bloc. And our position at the head of the table isn’t guaranteed.”

In a disturbing defense of his claim, Biden said that “the reason why I cleared the intelligence so we can release the information we knew that [Putin] was going to attack, was to let the world know we were still in charge. We still know what’s going on.”

It is disturbing that Biden says that he released the intelligence, not to alert and protect Ukraine or to prevent war, but “to let the world know we were still in charge.” It is also disturbing that the United States had that intelligence, and knew Ukraine was about to be attacked, but did nothing to prevent it. Hawkishly, they could have massively armed Ukraine prior to the invasion. More rationally and responsibly, they could have seriously engaged Vladimir Putin on Russia’s December 2021 proposal on security guarantees and discussed a promise that Ukraine would not be invited into NATO. Sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko of Freie University in Berlin remarks that the United States failing to act on that intelligence in either of those ways “looks sort of strange, and of course very tragic for Ukraine.” It is disturbing that the U.S. impotently released the intelligence, not to prevent war and protect Ukraine, but to show the world that they are still “the world power.”

The second is Biden’s insistence that Putin has clearly stated his intention not to stop at Ukraine but to “reestablish the Soviet Union.” He pulled out a copy of Putin’s February 21, 2022 speech, repeatedly mocking his interviewers, “You probably haven’t read it.” But as Biden explains it to them, and summarizes it as saying “Ukraine is not a neighboring country” but “an inalienable part” of Russia, it begins to sound like Biden has not read the speech, which is highly critical of the Soviet Union.

Discussing the “critical” stage “the situation in Donbas has reached,” Putin references the closeness of the people of Donbas not to justify integrating or conquering them but to justify protecting them. If Biden has read the speech, it must have been a heavily redacted version. As Nicolai Petro, author of The Tragedy of Ukraine, pointed out to me, Biden selectively quotes from the speech while leaving much of contextual importance out.

Biden quotes that Putin “has just laid out, straight out. He said, he said, ‘I would like to emphasize again, Ukraine is not a neighboring country of us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space.’” But he then omits, “These are our comrades, those dearest to us—not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties.” Biden picks up Putin’s speech with “Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russia, Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians,” but omits the qualifier, “This was the case before the 17th century, when a portion of this territory rejoined the Russian state, and after.”

Nowhere in Biden’s edited quotation, nor elsewhere in the speech, does Putin hint at going beyond Ukraine and reestablishing the Soviet Union.

As Petro pointed out to me, when addressing Biden’s accusation about “restor[ing] the Soviet Union,” Putin said, “the page has been turned. We look to the future based on the realities of today. There is no need to invent anything and form an opinion about Russia based on these ideas, there is no need to form an image of an enemy from Russia.” He called the “thought that Russia wanted to attack NATO” “nonsense.”

The third alarming answer that Biden gave came when the interviewer asked him if a Russian proposal to end the war is the best Ukraine can hope for when the United States finds itself “facing a difficult situation in Ukraine,” when “the war is stalled,” and when so many Ukrainians are being killed or wounded. Biden accused the interviewer of “skipping over all that’s happened in the meantime,” insisting that “[t]he Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated.”

They don’t write about that because it’s not true. Biden’s answer is disconnected from reality. After a poor beginning, Russia has improved its battlefield strategy and its methods of dealing with Western supplied weapons and has fought effectively. The war seems to have decisively turned in Russia’s favor. Russia is gaining some ground, and Ukraine is losing huge numbers of soldiers to injury or death.

Far from being decimated, General Christopher Cavoli, the commander of United States European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe has reported to Congress that “the Russian ground force…is bigger today than it was at the beginning of the conflict.” He added, “Much of the Russian military has not been affected negatively by this conflict…despite all of the efforts they’ve undertaken inside Ukraine.” On April 3, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said, “We have assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily.”

On April 11, General Cavoli explained the Russian army is reconstituting “far faster” than initially projected and that “[t]he army is actually now larger—by 15 percent—than it was when it invaded Ukraine” and that it is growing by 30,000 soldiers a month. Rather than being decimated, Cavoli reported that Russia is on track to “command the largest military on the continent.”

The fourth answer was, perhaps, the most confused and alarming. When asked what the “endgame” was in Ukraine, Biden seems to have answered that the endgame was a Ukraine that is not in NATO. Biden said peace means making sure Russia never occupies Ukraine. But that, he said, “means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries, where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in the future.” But that relationship, he explained, “doesn’t mean NATO.” He then explained that “I was the one when—and you guys did report it at Time—the one that I was saying that I am not prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine.”

In his confusing and surprising response, Biden seems to say that the American security arrangement with Ukraine will be that of a partner supplying weapons so they can defend themselves and not of an ally in NATO.

That last response was only the most alarming of several alarming responses that either come as a surprise or seem misinformed or disconnected from reality.

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Orbán strikes deal with NATO, Hungary will not be forced to participate in military action in Ukraine nor finance the war

Remix News | June 12, 2024

At a press conference following the meeting between Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Hungary walked away with guarantees that it will be allowed to maintain its pro-peace stance.

“Today we have received guarantees that in the case of the Ukraine-Russia war, we will not have to take part in any military action outside the territory of Hungary and that Hungary will not give money to this common burden, nor will it send men to this war, nor will Hungary’s territory be used for the purpose of joining this war. We have been granted everything that we have found necessary,” announced Orbán.

He added that Hungary continues to be an active participant in NATO operations, highlighting the 1,300 Hungarian soldiers on NATO missions; air policing activities in Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Baltic states; and its role as a liaison across Central Asia and Africa.

For his part, Secretary General Stoltenberg reiterated Hungary’s right to autonomy while also guaranteeing that Orbán will in no way stand in the way of other NATO members’ decisions to become more involved in the conflict.

“Prime Minister Orbán has made it clear that Hungary will not participate in these NATO efforts, and I accept this position. (…) No Hungarian personnel will take part in these activities, and no Hungarian funds will be used to support them. At the same time, the prime minister has assured me that Hungary will not oppose these efforts, enabling other allies to move forward,” stated the NATO secretary general.

Throughout this conflict, Orbán has maintained the position that Hungary, as a NATO member, is under no obligation to send troops or facilitate military operations on the ground in any way. Today, Secretary General Stoltenberg confirmed this, stating:

“It’s not a NATO obligation to participate in all NATO missions and operations or activities, as long as all NATO allies adhere to the core obligations in the Washington Treaty, our collective defense, our security guarantees.”

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Delivery of jets to Kiev was ‘illegal’ – NATO member

RT | June 12, 2024

The previous government in Bratislava had no right to donate the Soviet-era MiG-29 warplanes to Kiev, State Secretary of the Slovak Ministry of Defense Igor Melicher has said.

In March 2023, the interim government of Prime Minister Eduard Heger authorized the delivery of 13 MiG-29s, according to the Slovak national broadcaster TASR. The new government led by Robert Fico has since requested a legal review of the shipment.

“The MiG-29 fighter jets were delivered to Ukraine illegally,” Melicher wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. He added that the Defense Ministry is “preparing a legal action.”

Melicher made his statement after ombudsman Robert Dobrovodsky, who was tasked with reviewing the delivery of the aircraft, revealed that the government has failed to find the required legal analysis of the possibility of donating the MiG-29s to Kiev.

“The ministry recently told me that it was trying to comply with the request and find the analysis. However, it said that neither it nor any of its branches had the analysis at their disposal,” Dobrovodsky told TASR on Tuesday. “It also stated that the analysis isn’t even registered in its databases in any form.”

Melicher has argued that Heger’s caretaker government had no right to make final decisions on delivering the planes abroad. “The Constitution forbids an interim government to take major steps in foreign policy, and sending fighter jets worth more than €500 million ($537 million) is certainly such a step,” he wrote.

Prime Minister Robert Fico, who survived an assassination attempt by a pro-Ukrainian activist last month, has opposed sending arms to Kiev and insisted that the conflict should be resolved through diplomacy.

Defense Minister Robert Kalinak has also criticized his predecessor, saying in May that the previous government had acted “in the most irresponsible way when it handed over [the weapons] that we needed for our own safety.”

Kiev has been pressing its Western backers to expedite the planned delivery of US-made F-16 fighters. Politico magazine reported this month that Ukrainian officials were “frustrated” with how the existing training programs in the US and other countries had not been producing enough pilots for the F-16s.

Russia, for its part, has warned that no amount of Western military aid would deter its military operation in the neighboring state.

June 11, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

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