Encore entente cordiale?

By John Busby

Mar/27/2008

The state visit of France's President Sarkozy will culminate in an agreement with Prime Minister Brown to jointly develop a new generation of nuclear power plants and to export the technology to the rest of the world. See Entente Cordiale Sanders Research, August 7th 2006. The state visit of France's President Sarkozy will culminate in an agreement with Prime Minister Brown to jointly develop a new generation of nuclear power plants and to export the technology to the rest of the world. Concurrently to the meeting in Arsenal's Emirates football stadium Sarkozy is offering to decommission some of his arsenal of nuclear warheads. The recent UK government consultation on nuclear power has ended with an invitation to the private sector to invest in a replacement fleet of reactors, while putting finance in place "up front" to avoid future decommissioning and waste management liabilities passing to the taxpayer. The designs of three out of four reactor candidates are to be examined by safety inspectors, culminating in the approvals for the new build in 2012. With an anticipated construction period of five years, new nuclear generation would commence at the earliest in 2017. It now appears that this is not big enough or fast enough for Gordon Brown. His industry minister John Hutton wants more than just replacement and is arguing for a "significantly higher proportion" of nuclear generation than at present. The competing designs submitted for scrutiny are those of Toshiba (Westinghouse in the US), GE (US), Candu (Canada) and Areva (France). The agency involved in the task has in the past has taken much time and has insisted on modifications for increased safety, which in the case of the Sizewell B station added to the cost and the delay. Cooperation with France for nuclear power means working with Areva, the station builder and fuel provider, which is 90% French state owned. Already electricity is generated and distributed in Britain by EdF, another French company, 85% state owned. Other potential nuclear generators in the UK include German E.On and RWE, Spanish Iberdrola and the UK's Centrica and would presumably be obliged to purchase an Areva reactor. There seems little point in studying the rival designs, but cutting them out risks infringing anti-competition laws. It seems that the Brownian "clunking fist" is impatient with the birth pangs of a nuclear "renaissance" unlikely to be financed by the private sector without subsidy and disincentivised by the need to meet waste management obligations "up front". He wants to lay the foundation stone of Sizewell C right now and that means building an Areva station (or two) there without scrutiny or waiting until the prototype being built in Finland has been satisfactorily commissioned. The Arsenal agreement represents a return to the corporate state – if we ever left it! If EdF is the keenest developer it is because, as a state company, it needs no subsidy and leads to a re-nationalisation of part of the UK electricity industry, albeit by the French state. The flaw is Areva's declining supply of uranium needed to make the nuclear fuel for its reactors in France, China, Belgium, Finland and others. Half of the US nuclear generation is fuelled from Russian ex-weapons highly enriched uranium diluted to a reactor grade by Rosatom. France supplies some enrichment tails for this program and it may be surmised that Sarkozy is planning to fill the looming gap in France's uranium supplies by sending some of its ex-weapons material to Russia for dilution. The Entente Cordiale in the football ground concludes the Blair-Chirac agreement in June 2006 (See RRR's "Entente Cordiale?"). The original Entente Cordiale was between Britain and France in 1904, worried about the German navy, but in 1907 it was to become the Triple Entente when Russia joined in to defend Serbia against Austro-Hungarian expansion. Maybe the Arsenal meeting is not just Encore Entente Cordiale but presages a Triple Entente to keep the lights on in France.

What is going on in the nuclear arms race??

By PYOTR GONCHAROV
UPI Outside View Commentator

MOSCOW, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- The national ABM has crossed the boundaries of Russian-U.S. relations and, to all appearances, will soon acquire larger global significance now that Japan is following the American footsteps to establish its own sea- and land-based ABM system.

The plan was already announced and is rapidly being built up.

Only one Japanese destroyer will be on combat duty in the Sea of Japan for now. It carries U.S.-made SM-3 missiles, which successfully completed recent tests. Japan intends to have four similar ships with anti-missiles and Aegis systems designed to detect a big number of flying targets by the spring of 2011.

They will comprise a national sea-based ABM. The second, land-based echelon will be armed with the latest Patriot air-defense systems. Two air-defense batteries have already been deployed near Tokyo. The Japanese ABM will spread much wider by 2010, with approximately 30 such batteries in 11 bases in every part of the country.

The Japanese plan alarm Russia and China, who say it will inevitably trigger an arms race in the region. Tokyo is turning a deaf ear to the warnings. It has something worse to think of -- North Korea with its 200 ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets in the whole of Japan. But then Russia and China are larger and stronger than North Korea and have formidable missile arsenals of their own, so it is unwise to ignore them.

Moscow and Beijing have no legal grounds to protest such plans, Japanese or any other country's, with the United States being the only exception, to a certain extent. The Moscow-Washington controversy over U.S. intentions to deploy its missile defense elements in Europe is widely known, as well as both parties' arguments for and against it. In particular, Russia points to the ABM Treaty, which is no longer in effect because of U.S. actions. A similar treaty would provide a sound alternative to missile defense shields, Moscow insists.

The Soviet Union and the United States signed the ABM Treaty in 1972. It bound the signatories, each with a huge offensive nuclear potential, to limit the use of ABM systems. As they saw it, mutual rejection of missile defense systems was the best barrier to the strategic offensive arms race. ABM limitations reduced the motivation for SNF buildup. That was the idea. Thus, the treaty was a practical reflection of the concept of nuclear deterrence.

Japan was not part of the treaty, but then it has no means of nuclear deterrence, though it certainly needs protection against tentative missile attacks. Its emergent ABM system is strictly within the realm of self-defense.

This situation can be repeated elsewhere. Israel intends to establish its own ABM system, the Iron Dome, to intercept short-range missiles from the Gaza Strip and longer-range missiles from Iran or Syria. In doing this, Tel Aviv proceeds from national, not Russian or American, interests.

European NATO countries may also follow suit. The European ABM idea comes from them. Whether Moscow likes it or not, a continental ABM system can appear tomorrow, if not today.

Now, the Luxembourg Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear Catastrophe, recently drafted by a team of international disarmament experts, Russians among them, recommends urgent measures to ward off a nuclear crisis -- in particular, to place smaller emphasis on nuclear deterrence and step up international cooperation for ABM development.

The Russian-U.S. Joint Declaration on a New Relationship, signed in 2002, bound the signatories to take stock of the opportunities for practical ABM partnership in Europe. They also announced their intentions to reduce their strategic offensive forces to a minimum.

In other words, Moscow and Washington concluded in the declaration that the nuclear deterrence principle -- the basis of the ABM Treaty -- was outdated. The world situation instead demanded new instruments to provide national security and reflect the new Russian-U.S. strategic relations.

see also,

The Pacific Arms Race

by Robert Maginnis

Posted: 01/04/2008

and


Russia to set up missile shield for Iran Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russia will set up a massive anti-missile shield in Iran that will virtually guarantee the country against military attacks.

John Shirley writes on depleted uranium poisoning

I wrote one of the first articles about Depleted Uranium poisoning (which applied to civilians and enemy soldiers as much as our own people--or more) a few years back. The issue continues--according to a recent AP story: '... six soldiers who have fallen ill since their return from Iraq said Friday that the Army ignored their complaints about uranium poisoning from U.S. weapons fired during combat. They also said they were denied testing for the radioactive substance. "We were all healthy when we left home. Now, I suffer from headaches, fatigue, dizziness, blood in the urine, unexplained rashes," said Sgt. Jerry Ojeda, 28, who was stationed south of Baghdad with other National Guard members of the 442nd Military Police Company." Sgt. Herbert Reed, 50, said that when a dozen soldiers asked for treatment last fall, they initially were turned away....' Here's my original piece, which applies now to our soldiers in Iraq--and to civilians.

by John Shirley

Concealed nerve gas exposure, medical experimentation on soldiers in the field -- could Gulf War military policy get much worse?

How about routine radiation poisoning?

According to the Military Toxins Project, Depleted Uranium (DU), the radioactive byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, is "roughly 60% as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years." The United States has in excess of 1.1 billion pounds of DU waste material.

Waste not, want not. In a perverse twist on recycling, the government currently offers this attractively-dense material free to arms manufacturers. Large and small caliber rounds made of depleted uranium were highly effective in piercing Iraqi armor; tanks incorporating depleted uranium into tank armor effectively resisted penetration. Yet while the Army tested the strategic effectiveness of DU, it skated around health and environmental assessments, as the Army Environmental Policy Institute admitted.

Although munitions such as Tomahawk missiles contain DU in their tips, most DU ammunition was fired from USAF tank-killer aircraft and U.S. tanks employing depleted uranium sabot rounds. The Army reports that it fired 14,000 DU tank rounds during the Gulf War. Over ranges up to and exceeding 3 miles, the Army found DU rounds to be "highly effective in penetrating Iraqi tank armor."

The Air Force's A-10 tank-killer aircraft were used extensively against Iraqi armored vehicles and artillery. The A-10s fired 940,000 of these radioactive rounds -- the equivalent of 564,000 pounds of DU.

When a depleted uranium projectile strikes, up to 70% of the DU penetrator is oxidized and scattered as particulates. According to the U.S. Army, this creates "smoke which contains a high concentration of DU particles. These uranium particles can be ingested and are toxic."

Ironically, while DU armor proved effective in shielding tank crews from impacting rounds, the crews were repeatedly irradiated by their own protection. According to the Military Toxins Project, "the amount of radiation a tank driver receives to his head alone will exceed the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission's] annual standard for public whole-body exposure to man-made sources of radiation. Unfortunately U.S. tank crews were not monitored for radiation exposure during the Persian Gulf War."

American troops came into contact with DU through combat, during the recovery of contaminated U.S. vehicles, and while exploring battlefields after cease fire. Some troops assigned to Kuwait are still being exposed today.

Only after most of the fighting subsided did the Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command warn commanders in the Gulf that "any system struck by a DU penetrator can be assumed to be contaminated by DU." Army studies have found that "personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposures." Naturally, this didn't deter the military from using the weapons, since the rounds and armor were found to be highly effective. In the long run, thousands of disguisable American and collateral civilian deaths are acceptable trade-offs for short term military-effectiveness statistics, which benefit the Joint Chiefs -- who, after all, are not at risk from exposure.

As of September 1996, most stateside U.S. soldiers still had not been advised of the dangers of handling or working with DU. Although the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration have provided medical exams to more than 85,000 Gulf War veterans with confirmed health problems, only a handful of these veterans have been tested for DU exposure. Many of these have shown elevated levels of DU in their urine several years after the war.

No battlefield cleanup of DU has come about, nor is a cleanup planned. Locals and still-deployed U.S. troops are being exposed to DU on an ongoing basis. DU particles are transported by the wind and water and are presumed to be migrating into food and water supplies. Children routinely play in and around the hulks of irradiated tanks; soldiers brought irradiated souvenirs home from the battlefield.

Some DU ingested through breathing and wounds lodges permanently in bones and tissue, and acts as a chemical and radiological toxin for the remainder of a person's presumably-shortened lifetime. The Military Toxins Project reports that "large numbers of children near contaminated areas have developed leukemias and other health problems" likely associated with exposure to DU.

The customary military foot-dragging has followed calls for studies on the effects of DU exposure, and there are reasons besides the attractiveness of DU devices. The following segment from the Army Environmental Policy Institute report, leaked in late 1995, reveals a more sinister motive: "The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive."

DU rounds are being developed for use in the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Vulcan Air Defense Gun and in new combat helicopters. U.S. defense contractors have sold DU weapons to the United Kingdom, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Russia and half a dozen other countries.

No warnings or protective gear for DU were issued before the Gulf War, just as soldiers were not alerted to or protected from nerve gas toxins despite continuous alarms from detection systems. The DU legacy is yet another example of radical irresponsibility toward the well-being of American soldiers and battle-area civilians.

How did it happen? How did we come to subject tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers to nerve gas, with health effects complicated by questionable medical countermeasures which actually worsened toxicity, and now radiation poisoning, all while keeping countless human guinea pigs in the dark? How is the military able to justify these abuses and their cover-ups?

It appears to be policy. And policy has no conscience.

Sources:

"Collateral Damage: How U.S. Troops Were Exposed to Depleted Uranium
During the Persian Gulf War," Dan Fahey, Swords to Plowshares Depleted
Uranium Network of the Military Toxins Project.

U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute: Health and Environmental
Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army, Technical Report,
June 1995.

U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: "Early
Performance Assessment of Bradley and Abrams," January 2, 1992.

The Nation Magazine, October 21, 1996, "The Pentagon's Radioactive
Bullet" by Bill Mesler.

(c) Copyright 1996 ParaScope, Inc.

* * *

John Shirley is the author of numerous books and many, many short stories. His novels include Crawlers, Demons, In Darkness Waiting, and seminal cyberpunk works City Come A-Walkin', and the A Song Called Youth trilogy of Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra, and Eclipse Corona. His collections include the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning Black Butterflies and Really Really Really Really Weird Stories. He also writes for screen (The Crow) and television. As a musician Shirley has fronted his own bands and written lyrics for Blue Õyster Cult and others.

nuclear cooperation or nuclear WINDOW DRESSING?

U.S., Russia Agree On Plutonium Disposal U.S. and Russian officials announced agreement Monday on how to safely dispose of 34 metric tons of Russian weapons-grade plutonium, overcoming a major hurdle in a joint nuclear nonproliferation effort that at times has been close to falling apart. The two countries, in a joint statement, outlined a plan where Russia agrees to modify its fast-neutron reactors so that they can burn the plutonium, yet ensure that additional plutonium will not be produced. In turn, the United States, which also will dispose of 34 tons of excess plutonium from its weapons program, will continue to help Russia pay for construction of a plant in Russia to turn the plutonium into a mixed oxide fuel for the reactors and in research of a more advanced reactor that could speed up the disposal process. The two countries tentatively agreed to the plutonium disposal program seven years ago when it was hailed as a breakthrough in safeguarding some of Russia's nuclear material, but progress stalled because of a variety of disagreements, most recently over how Russia would destroy the plutonium.

Russia's ambivalence in turn caused Congress to balk at approving money for the U.S. portion of the plutonium disposal effort because of what lawmakers called the apparent inability to get Russia to agree on a disposal plan. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Sergey Kiriyenko, director of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, Rosatom, in a joint statement outlined a ''mutual understanding'' as to how Russia's plutonium would be disposed of and reiterated both countries' commitment to the program. The agreement ' 'reflects measurable progress towards disposing of a significant amount of weapons grade plutonium in Russia,'' said Bodman in a separate statement released by his office. William Tobey, deputy administrator at DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, said in an interview that the agreement should resolve some of the key concerns in Congress and keep the U.S. program on track. ''We nailed down some important details,'' said Tobey. Among them, he said, was assurance from the Russians that the reactors used to dispose of the plutonium will be modified to burn more than they produce, that the plutonium they produce will not be weapons grade, and that the U.S. contribution will be capped at $400 million. While viewed as major nonproliferation effort, the plutonium disposition is expected to take several decades and cover only a fraction of the weapons-grade plutonium both countries possess. The United States is believed to have about 100 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium and Russia about 140 metric tons. Nevertheless, former Sen. Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonproliferation advocacy group, called the agreement a ''major advance toward achieving the elimination of enough plutonium to make more than 8,000 nuclear bombs.'' The agreement calls for 34 metric tons of Russia's excess plutonium to be turned into a mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel and then burned in its existing BN600 fast-neutron reactor and in a larger version, the BN800, once it is built. It also calls for continued U.S. help for Russian development of a more advanced gas-turbine reactor that could speed up the disposition. In recent years the nonproliferation effort has been stymied by Russia's insistence that the plutonium program mesh with the country's expanded civilian nuclear energy programs. Rosatom plans to implement the plutonium disposition ''within the framework of the strategy for developing Russian nuclear energy,'' says the joint statement. Disposal would begin in the BN600 reactor in 2012, three years before the United States is scheduled to begin processing plutonium into MOX for use in a commercial reactor. Construction of the $4 billion MOX processing facility is expected to begin next year at the Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina where design work already has begun. The announcement Monday anticipates 1.5 metric tons of Russian plutonium being burned a year once both of Russia's reactors are operating, meaning it will take more than 22 years to destroy the 34 metric tons, once both reactors are operating. Ed Lyman, nuclear weapons expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said use of the relatively small BN600 reactor ''will put Russian plutonium disposition on the slow track'' because the reactor can burn only about three-tenths of a ton of plutonium a year, and the larger reactor has yet to be built. Lyman said ''this is a total retreat from the original concept'' which would have disposed of the plutonium in larger light-water reactors, an option the Russian rejected.

China's nuclear subs, ratching up on the WEAPONS.

China lowers secret curtains - the Shang nuke peeks out

Posted by zerosix under China, International submarines, military technology, submarine | Tags: China, international submarine, nuclear sub, nuclear weapon, Shang |

A picture of China’s second-generation nuclear-powered attack submarine was published online Sept. 18. Though the strategic publication in state-run media did not offer the first glimpse of the sub, the incident does offer insight into how Beijing hopes to mold perceptions of its naval power.

A picture of China’s Shang-class (Type 093) second-generation nuclear-powered attack submarine of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) appeared in the state-run People’s Daily Online Sept. 18. Beijing is attempting to carefully manage perceptions of China’s armed forces to convey the appearance of both a nonthreatening posture and a technically capable and operationally proficient military.

One aspect of this dynamic is the slew of recent joint Chinese naval exercises internationally — with everyone from the United States and the United Kingdom to Pakistan and India. Much like China’s increasing emphasis on humanitarian and peacekeeping operations abroad, these exercises are intended to appear nonthreatening and to expand Beijing’s influence around the world.

Models and some hazy photographs of the Shang-class (Type 093) nuclear submarine were on display in an exhibition at the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution during the 80th anniversary of the founding of the PLA in late July.

Later, Modern Ships Magazine published the first clear photo of one of the submarines in August. The Type 093 nuclear submarine is China’s second generation nuclear-powered attack submarine. It will replace five first generation Han-class attack submarines (Type 091) - obsolete and tremendously noisy - that first launched between 1970 and 1990. The Type 093 submarine began construction in the mid-1990s. Two were launched in 2002 and 2003 respectively. China’s Type 093 nuclear submarine is known as the Shang-class nuclear submarine in Western countries.

{editor} Further coverage of this story comes from the Indian press where they seem to be paying a little more attention than in the US press and more than a little willing to talk up their own plans for an advanced sub fleet.

Faster, stealthier and exponentially lethal, the Shang (Type 093) class attack submarines are replacements for the first generation Han class boats that were famous for being the most noisy nuclear submarines in the world.

While China-watchers in the Indian Navy have known about the new class of submarines for the past few years - construction of the submarines began in the mid-1990s but officials say that they became fully operational only last year - these are the first set of visuals on the latest killer submarine in China’s inventory.

“As far as the navy and armed forces are concerned, we have known about them for a long time. It is no secret,” former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash told The Indian Express.

Indian Navy officers say that till now, Chinese nuclear submarines have never been detected in the Indian Ocean region but the long-range Shang class will give People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) the capability and reach to project its presence in the area.

“Nuclear submarines are noisier than diesel submarines but trade off the handicap by having a longer range and being faster. However, the first generation of Chinese submarines were slow and noisy. It remains to be seen how they have tackled the problems,” said a senior Navy officer. China will gradually be replacing all five of its first generation Hans class nuclear submarines with the new machines.

Incidentally, the Indian Navy is also looking at inducting five indigenous ATV nuclear submarines. The first one, currently under production at Vizag, is likely to undergo sea trials by next year. Little is known about the new Shang Class but the over 6,000 tonne submarine is bigger than India’s indigenous ATV nuclear submarine that is projected to be in the 5,000 tonne category. Analysts say that outwardly, the Chinese design seems to be a cross between the Russian Victor III design and the American Los Angeles class submarines.

In contrast, the Akula II submarine being leased by India from Russia next year is in the 12,000-tonne category and a generation ahead of both the ATV and the Shang class submarines. However, the real threat will come from the Jin class of submarines being built by China. It will be capable of launching nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. The ATV, to be equipped by indigenous Sagarika submarine-launched missiles currently undergoing tests in the Bay of Bengal, will be India’s match to the Jin class, officials say.

While India is still ahead in the maritime game with greater presence and reach, analysts say that with the nuclear submarines and a new aircraft carrier currently under development, China is fast narrowing the gap and moving towards world class capabilities.