The China Nuclear Sun (Daniel 7:7)

  

China’s Rising Military: Now for the Hard Part

JUN 5, 2015 10:12 AM EDT
By Thomas J. Christensen

China isn’t an enemy of the U.S. But coercive diplomacy with China today is arguably more complicated than it was with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, at least after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

One reason for this is that no consensus exists in East Asia on the territorial status quo, as there did between the two Cold War camps in most regions of the world. The People’s Republic of China, in the center of a region of great importance, has maritime sovereignty disputes with several of its neighbors, including two formal U.S. allies (Japan and the Philippines) and one security partner (Taiwan).

Laboratory research on prospect theory, a psychological exploration of risk-based decision-making, demonstrates that most actors accept much bigger risks and are willing to pay larger costs to defend what they believe is rightfully theirs than to obtain new gains at others’ expense. In a world in which conventional conflict could conceivably escalate to nuclear war, this human tendency is a force for stability; attacks across recognized boundaries by either side would be risky, and deterrence against such attacks is relatively credible.

But in East Asia today, governments draw competing maps about the maritime domain. There are significant differences between mainland China and Taiwan about the sovereign status of the government on the island, and between China and Japan over who owns the islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. There is also disagreement among China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia over ownership of islands, rocks and reefs in the South China Sea.

We should take no comfort in the apparent sincerity of all the claimants. If all actors truly feel they are defending rightful claims against the revisionism of others, the chicken game of international security politics is more likely to lead to a deadly collision.

These disputes are fueled by historical victimhood narratives and postcolonial nationalism. For the countries involved, defending sovereignty claims and recovering allegedly stolen territories are core missions. China is no exception.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, China has been more confident abroad and more afraid at home. The country’s elite and its citizens feel that its power position on the international stage has improved drastically. But the foundations of its export-led and investment-fueled growth model were shaken at the same time. Top leaders worry about rising social discontent. It isn’t a good time for Chinese leaders to look weak on defense.

And China doesn’t have to be the actor that sparks a dispute for tensions to escalate. In 2010, for example, China often reacted sharply to events initiated by others, such as Japan’s arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain and crew near the Senkaku Islands. Since then we have seen a mix of Chinese assertiveness — such as its placement and then removal last year of an oil rig in waters disputed with Vietnam and its continuing land reclamation projects on South China Sea reefs — and its abrasive reactions to others’ actions, such as an upgraded Chinese maritime presence near the Senkakus since the Japanese central government purchased some of the islands from a private Japanese family in 2012.

The Chinese leadership could use its conventional military power to threaten U.S. partners and to impose high costs on U.S. forces if they intervened to assist their allies. The ability to conduct such asymmetric warfare against the U.S. can potentially affect how disputes are managed in peacetime and who might prevail politically if a fight were to occur.

The U.S. has ways to reduce a threat posed by China’s ability to wage asymmetric warfare. But a future U.S. president might be reluctant to use some of the more effective methods the American military has at its disposal — such as destroying or disabling military targets on the Chinese mainland — especially early in a conflict when such measures would be most effective.

For example, attacking China’s potent ballistic missiles, their launchers and their command-and-control systems before the missiles strike U.S. bases and surface ships would be an efficient way to reduce the threat. Chinese submarines, which can fire torpedoes and cruise missiles or lay sea mines, pose another potential threat. The U.S., all things being equal, might be tempted to attack submarine ports and naval command-and-control systems on Chinese soil.

But all things are not equal. No U.S. president has ever launched robust conventional attacks against the homeland of a nation with nuclear retaliatory capability. Moreover, the conventional mobile ballistic missiles and submarines China has developed to counter superior U.S. forces overlap dangerously with the land-based missiles and submarines that China is developing to provide a secure nuclear retaliatory capability.

If the U.S. were to attack missile systems and submarines for the purpose of protecting against conventional attack early in a conflict, Washington could unintentionally compromise portions of China’s nuclear arsenal as well. Chinese leaders could mistakenly view this as an attempt to eliminate China’s nuclear deterrent, risking escalation.

China adheres publicly to a no-first-use doctrine on nuclear weapons, a position that would seem to mean that no amount of conventional firepower leveled against it would cause it to resort to a nuclear response. But internal Chinese military writings suggest that no-first-use is more of a guideline than a rule and doesn’t necessarily apply under conditions in which a technologically superior foe attacks crucial targets with conventional weapons.

Even without this risk, the regional partners the U.S. relies on would likely oppose provocative early conventional strikes against the Chinese mainland. Those countries are in range of China’s conventional weapons and economically dependent on the transnational production system that has China as its fulcrum.

If the situation sounds hopeless, it’s not. It helps mightily that China and the U.S. aren’t enemies and that both would be severely harmed by a conflict across the Pacific.

For Americans, it is important to fixate less on China’s potential to catch up to the U.S. in total military power and more on analyzing which U.S. and allied strategies since the end of the Cold War have been effective in specific geographic and political contexts.

For example, the George W. Bush administration successfully mixed the credibility of the American commitment to the security of Taiwan (by selling it large tranches of weapons and warning mainland China against aggression across the Taiwan Strait) with reassurances to Beijing that the purpose of the U.S. defense relationship with the island was not to support permanent Taiwan independence from the Chinese nation. (For example, the U.S. publicly opposed a 2008 referendum that called for seeking United Nations membership for the island under the name Taiwan.)

The Obama administration has successfully signaled to the Chinese that the U.S. supports Japan’s administrative control of the Senkaku Islands (for example, when the president reiterated in Tokyo in 2014 that the U.S. defense treaty with Japan covers the disputed islands). But his administration also has reportedly called for restraint from Japan as well, and even criticized Tokyo publicly for actions that seem to whitewash Imperial Japan’s actions in World War II.

Both of these examples show how a combination of U.S. power and resolve on the one hand, and diplomatic assurances on the other, can calm potentially volatile situations involving emotional sovereignty claims and a rising China. These episodes also demonstrate that U.S.-China relations are not a zero-sum game — and that it’s dangerous to act as if they are.

ISIS Destabilizes Iraqi Oil (Rev 6:6)

  

ISIS is making the biggest threat to oil prices even worse

The Telegraph
ANDREW CRITCHLOW, THE TELEGRAPH
MAY 30, 2015, 10:30 AM 25,153 22

Thick black smoke rising from the could be seen as a dirty smudge on the horizon as far away as Baghdad after fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) set fire to the enormous processing plant just over 100 miles north of the capital last week.

The decision to torch the refinery, which once produced around a third of Iraq’s domestic fuel supplies, was made as the insurgents prepared to pull out of Baiji, which they captured last June in a victory that sent shock waves across world oil markets.

A year on from the start of the siege and a shaky alliance of the Middle East’s major Arab powers, with the limited support of the reluctant US government, has failed to contain the expansion of Isil.
The problem for the US and the rest of the industrialised world is that the Middle East controls 60pc of proven oil reserves and with it the keys to the global economy. Should Isil capture a major oil field in Iraq, or overwhelming the government, the consequences for energy markets and the financial system would be potentially catastrophic.

Many of the countries most threatened by the onslaught of the extremist group, which has grown out of the chaos of Syria but was initially dismissed as a wider threat to regional stability, will gather at the end of this week in Vienna for the meetings of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) .

Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Iraq – which together account for two thirds of the cartel’s production – are all now affected by the inexorable march of the Isil jihadists but appear powerless to prevent it due to the widening sectarian schism between the Sunni and Shia Muslims across the region in the wake of the Arab spring uprisings five years ago.

Oil ministers gathering to decide on production levels at Opec’s secretariat building in Vienna will normally stay clear of wider geopolitical issues during their deliberations in the Austrian capital. However, the threat posed by Isil and its brutal brand of Islamist extremism is likely to force politics onto the agenda. It certainly can no longer be ignored.

According to Daniel Yergin, the energy expert and vice-chairman of IHS, the business information provider, the biggest threat to oil prices is the political chaos that threatens to engulf the Middle East, combined with the West’s reluctance to intervene.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Yergin argued that the price of a barrel of oil could skyrocket to levels above $100 per barrel if Isil is allowed to press deeper into Iraq, the second-largest producer in the cartel after Saudi Arabia.

“Isil presents a whole new reality for the region, which just isn’t reflected in the oil market at the moment,” said Mr Yergin. “It’s an increasingly grave situation for most of Opec and the Middle East. At some point the security issues will start to come back into the price of oil.”

Up to this point, oil markets have shrugged off the risk of a major supply disruption caused by the worsening security situation. Traders have remained focused on the market fundamentals that almost 2m barrels per day (bpd) of excess oil capacity will be more than enough to absorb any supply-driven shock. A rally in the price of Brent crude – a global benchmark – which began in January and saw prices push close to $70 per barrel has lost momentum amid signs that higher prices could revive drilling in the US.

Just over six months ago when Opec’s 12 oil ministers last met in Vienna the cartel decided to continue pumping oil at a level of around 30m bpd, which effectively fired the first shots in an oil price war against shale drillers in North America, and Russia.

After almost a decade of oil prices ticking along at above $100 per barrel during which the group ignored the shale revolution taking place in the US, Opec decided to act last November. Under massive pressure from its most powerful member Saudi Arabia, the cartel allowed market forces to drag down oil prices. Initially, the strategy worked.

Within a month, oil prices had fallen to multi-year lows below $50 per barrel, sharply lower than the $115 year-high achieved last June when concern over the civil war in Syria caused a spike in prices. The sudden downturn in prices immediately had the desired effect on oil producers outside the Opec cartel.

In the US, oil companies began to shut down drilling rigs at a record rate. According to Baker Hughes, rig numbers have fallen for 24 straight weeks to 659 rigs as of last week compared with a record 1,609 rigs operating last October. In high-cost production areas such as the North Sea the impact of Opec’s decision to allow oil prices to fall naturally has shaken the industry to its core.

In his last budget of the Coalition government, George Osborne was forced to offer North Sea oil companies tax breaks to soften the blow of lower prices, while hundreds of jobs have been lost in Aberdeen.

“Opec has embarked on a strategy of leaving the oil price to the market and is willing it seems to allow the economics of supply and demand to take effect,” said Mr Yergin. “What is so startling is that geopolitics has been stripped out of the oil price for now but sooner or later it will be factored back in.”

Oil prices have gained roughly 30pc since the beginning of the year to trade at around $65 per barrel, with major banks and trading houses. However, traders have so far ignored the risks posed by Isil now to oil supplies, or the danger of a major terrorist attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. Goldman Sachs has instead forecast that prices could again fall to $45 per barrel by October as US shale drilling picks up.

According to Mr Yergin this analysis ignores the dire political situation in the Middle East and the US government’s reluctance to acknowledge the danger to the wider global economy. Many of these analysts have focused on the continuing glut of new oil supplies from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Both nations appear to be fighting for greater market share by filling the gap that is opening up in the oil market as higher cost production is shut down.

Swing producer Saudi Arabia is now pumping more than 10.3m bpd of crude, a record for the kingdom which maintains the capacity to produce up to 12m bpd if required. Despite the encroachment of Isil, which now controls the country’s largest province, Iraq has also dramatically increased its oil production over the past six months.

Iraq is poised to lift its exports by as much as 800,000 bpd to around 3.75m bpd next month as the government in Baghdad desperately tries to increase its revenues, which have been crippled by falling prices. In either case, a major terrorist attack on oil export facilities would shatter confidence and the notion that $100 oil is a thing of the past.

Although most of Iraq’s major oil fields are located in the south of the country, which are Shia Muslim heartlands, the failure of the Iraqi army to deal with the threat of Isil is a sign of their vulnerability to isolated attacks. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is in a virtual state of lockdown after the bombing by Isil militants of a Shia mosque in the oil-rich Eastern Province. The brutal attack, which appeared designed to provoke sectarian unrest in the kingdom, killed 21 worshippers and injured 80 others.

Saudi authorities have stepped up security at the country’s vast oil installations. The kingdom, which accounts for 12pc of global oil supply, is effectively under siege. To the north, jihadists threaten its borders from Iraq and Syria. In the south it launches air strikes against Iranian backed Houthi rebels in Yemen but has so far failed to defeat the tribes, which have continued to make territorial gains.

To add to the problems facing Saudi Arabia’s new ruler, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, his kingdom is also facing insurgency from the so-called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula terrorist group which is intent on destabilising the regime.

Against this cataclysmic backdrop of bombs falling in Sana’a and with Isil literally at the gates of the major Iraqi city of Ramadi, many US energy and security experts were shocked to hear President Barack Obama ignore the danger in a recent keynote speech in which he pinpointed global warming as an equally big risk for Americans.

“Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security,” warned Mr Obama in a speech that many have criticised as symptomatic of the administration’s desire to disengage from the region which still provides a significant share of its oil.

Despite the growing focus on climate change and the campaign to limit fossil fuel production, Isil will be a bigger concern for the majority of oil ministers around Opec’s table next week.

The Obama administration’s reluctance to intervene marks the end of a US policy to protect the region’s oil which has remained in existence since President Franklin D Roosevelt first met with modern day Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abdulaziz in 1945. It was this commitment that drew America into the first Gulf War in 1991 and again in 2003 when it decided to bring down the curtain on Saddam Hussein’s regime.

However, Mr Obama’s lack of a viable alternative foreign policy for the region has put world energy markets at risk.

“How US national and foreign policy will integrate itself again with the region is unclear,” said Mr Yergin.

Washington’s determination to pursue a nuclear deal with Iran has arguably destabilised the region by placing Riyadh and Tehran on a collision course . Saudis are dismayed that Iranian military advisers are aiding the assault to recapture Ramadi, a city in Iraq’s Anbar Province which US forces fought so hard to secure 10 years ago.

Although Opec makes it a rule to stay away from politics, tensions between its 12 members are never far from the surface when they gather in Vienna. The organisation is one of the only remaining inter-governmental settings outside the United Nations where senior Saudi and Iranian officials can sit down together, which makes next week’s gathering potential dynamite.

Iran opposed Saudi Arabia last November when the kingdom’s oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, insisted that the group should stand on the side lines and allow market forces to drive down the oil price in order to render high-cost oil such as US shale unprofitable. Years of sanctions have crippled Iran’s economy and eroded its oil industry, which has added to pressure on the regime to agree to a nuclear deal with America under any terms. However, Iran needs oil prices above $100 per barrel in order to support its Shia Muslim allies, including the Houthis fighting Saudi Arabia in Yemen, in the wider Middle East.

Insiders say Saudi Arabia will get its way once again in Vienna and expect Opec to agree to “roll over” their production settings. With vast foreign currency reserves Riyadh and its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf can weather the storm better than Iran, while the continuation of lower oil prices will limit Tehran’s ability to support Saudi’s enemies in Yemen.

The danger is that Isil has other plans.

The China Nuclear Horn Aims For Babylon (Dan 7)

  

China has outfitted missiles capable of reaching the US with multiple nuclear warheads

JEREMY BENDER MAY 18, 2015, 2:08 PM

In a break from decades of cautious nuclear policy, China has started a process of upgrading its ballistic missile capabilities into a more potentially dangerous form.

Foregoing a longstanding policy of maintaining a small nuclear force, Beijing has begun to place multiple miniaturized nuclear warheads atop ballistic missiles, The New York Times reports citing a report from the Department of Defense. Missiles with multiple warheads are harder to intercept as each warhead could break off from its delivery system and aim for a separate target.

China has had the capability of miniaturizing nuclear weapons since at least the 1990s, but has avoided the move so as to prevent a potential arms race. The new direction of Beijing’s nuclear weapons stance comes under the direction of President Xi Jinping, who has made a series of bold moves to increase Chinese power both regionally and globally.

According to the Pentagon’s report, Beijing has re-engineered the DF-5, a variation of the CSS-4 intercontinental ballistic missile shown below, to be outfitted with multiple warheads. China has approximately 20 DF-5s currently in silos across the country, each of which could target almost the entirety of the US.

Altogether, the modified DF-5s could launch upwards of 40 warheads at North America, according to the Times. This modification is intended to produce maximum destruction while increasing the chances that a Chinese warhead could get past US missile interceptors.

“They’re doing it,” Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists told the Times, “to make sure they could get through the ballistic missile defenses.”

The US has placed missile defenses in California and Alaska with the intention of defending against a possible North Korean strike. The US also operates joint Aegis and Patriot missile systems in South Korea, and is aiming at deploying the highly advanced THAAD missile interceptor to the peninsula as well.

Although these missile shields are aimed against North Korea, they could also block a Chinese strike.
The sudden modifications come at a time of increased tension throughout Asia. Japan and the US have strengthened and reaffirmed military ties, and the US is increasingly playing a large role in the South China Sea in the support of the Philippines. Both countries are involved in disputes with China over the South China Sea.

The timing of the DF-5 upgrades is likely a signal to the US that China is a quickly rising power in the region with only a limited tolerance for meddling in its backyard.

“This is obviously part of an effort to prepare for long-term competition with the United States,” Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Times. “The Chinese are always fearful of American nuclear advantage.”

China nuclear horn growing (Daniel 7)

 
China rapidly upgrading nuclear arsenal with MIRVed missiles

Published time: May 17, 2015 14:50
RT

China is fast refurbishing its arsenal of silo-based long-range ballistic missiles to carry multiple independently targetable warheads, defense experts say. The move comes decades after Beijing acquired the technology, indicating a strategy change.

It has been speculated on for years that the Chinese military is upgrading some of its bigger ICBMs with Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicle technology (MIRV), which allows a single missile to carry multiple warhead across the globe and deploy them to aim at individual targets.

The assessment was endorsed by the US government in the latest Pentagon report on Chinese military might, which marked Dongfeng-5 missiles, China’s large liquid-propellant rocket capable of reaching the US, as MIRV-capable. The same report said Dongfeng-41, smaller solid-propellant road-mobile ICBMs were “possibly capable of carrying MIRVs.”

According to The New York Times, as many as half of China’s 20 DF-5 missiles may have been upgraded by now. With a conservative estimate that each missile would carry three individual warheads, it increased the number of warheads that Beijing may fire at an enemy to 40, up from 20, the newspaper said, citing a number of defense experts.

“China’s little force is slowly getting a little bigger, and its limited capabilities are slowly getting a little better,” Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told NYT.

In an earlier report on the development, Kristensen said China is probably upgrading its arsenal in response to the buildup of the global antiballistic missile system by the US. Washington says it needs the system to protect itself and its allies from an attack by nations such as Iran and North Korea. But strategists in Moscow and Beijing see it as threat to the national security of their respective countries.

“If so, how ironic that the US missile defense system – intended to reduce the threat to the United States – instead would seem to have increased the threat by triggering development of MIRV on Chinese ballistic missiles that could destroy more US cities in a potential war,” Kristensen said.

The Pentagon report says China is developing a number of technologies to penetrate antimissile shields.

“China is working on a range of technologies to attempt to counter US and other countries’ ballistic missile defense systems, including maneuverable reentry vehicles (MaRV), MIRVs, decoys, chaff, jamming, and thermal shielding,” it said.

China reportedly had technology needed to miniaturize nuclear warheads enough to fit several of them on a missile for decades, but chose not to upgrade its arsenal. Beijing’s nuclear deterrence strategy is to have just enough weapons that they could survive a nuclear attack and deliver monumental damage to the aggressor.

“This is obviously part of an effort to prepare for long-term competition with the United States,” Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a senior national security official in the George W. Bush administration, told NYT. “The Chinese are always fearful of American nuclear advantage.”

The beef-up of China’s small but punchy nuclear arsenal may trigger similar efforts from other nuclear powers in the region – India and Pakistan. So far only the US, Russia, Britain and France have deployed MIRVed ICBMs.

US make nuclear reduction senseless

Moscow indicated it may see fit to stockpile more nuclear weapons depending on US foreign policies. The warning came from Mikhail Ulyanov, chief of the non-proliferation department in the Russian foreign ministry, who is attending a UN conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Russian diplomat was speaking about the New-START nuclear reduction treaty signed by the US and Russia in 2010, saying Moscow is sticking to its commitments, but would not go any further due to US behavior.

“As of now there are no factors that would make our continued participation in the [New START] treaty counter to Russia’s interest, but hypothetically such a situation may arise from US actions, which we would not want to see,” he added.

The US and Russia have parity in nuclear weapons, but America has far more conventional forces. With Russia relying on its nuclear arsenal to safeguard it from a massive US attack, the development of the US anti-missile system is viewed as a dangerous threat to national security in Moscow.

Save The Oil, Shiite Oil (Revelation 6:6)

Here’s why Iran and Iraq should worry OPEC

Stephen Sedgwick | @steve_sedgwick
Tuesday, 12 May 2015 | 6:01 AM ET

Oil Iraq OPEC

Atef Hassan | Reuters

Caveat emptor! The big Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) summer pow-wow is only 24 days away now and ceteris paribus we should see a continuation of the status quo. Right that’s enough Latin, the only languages that really count at the meeting will be Arabic, Farsi, Kurdish and money, namely petrodollars.

As far as I can see, this one is about how Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq solve a growing problem of how you cap OPEC production – and thereby falling prices – at a time when Baghdad and Tehran are desperate to up output.

Despite the rally from the mid-$40 region, OPEC could be hundreds of billions light in terms of revenues this year causing some to once again trot out the old, tired and inaccurate line that OPEC is losing its importance in world energy supply.

I even read a report under the headline ‘OPEC going broke…’ Really?

Well no-one is doubting that the loose alliance is fractured, sometimes dysfunctional and limited in its adherence to stated production levels but going broke and irrelevant? Dream on.

What is clear though is that some countries desperately need the petro-dollars that would come from increased production. Iran and Iraq are not only near the top of that list but also have the capacity to ratchet up their levels, albeit with the caveat in Iran’s case of completing nuclear talks.

Bernstein Research has just put out a briefing on the importance of Iraqi and Iranian production ahead of the OPEC meeting on 5th June and amid the reams of statistics I pulled out a few. And if you think it’s only Saudi Arabia that matters then look again at these numbers on Iran and Iraq:-

Iran has 1 percent of global population but an estimated 157 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves.

The Iranian number equates to 9.5 percent of world total and is fourth largest amongst all countries after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Canada.

Iran also has the second-largest proven gas reserves at 1,193 trillion cubic feet – 17 percent of the world’s resources and 35 percent of OPEC’s.

And the Iraqi numbers are not to be sniffed at either:-

Iraq comes close with 144 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves.

The Iraqi figure equates to 9 percent of the world total and is fifth largest globally.

Iraq is the second-largest OPEC producer currently, producing 3.4 million barrels per day, equating to 4.3 percent of the world total.

To put this in context, Bernstein’s report says there are roughly 1,6 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves in the world.

So Iran and Iraq are potentially the major players who could upset not only OPEC equilibrium with their challenge to number one producer Saudi but have the ability to put the skids under the big rally in oil off the March lows.

Follow Steve on Twitter: @steve_sedgwick

Obama promoting China nukes (Ezekiel 17)

Obama administration urges approval of US-China nuclear pact

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press | May 12, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Tuesday urged senators to support a new 30-year agreement with China on civilian nuclear cooperation but faced a barrage of concern from both parties that Chinese companies are exporting sensitive technology to Iran and North Korea.
Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that China’s nonproliferation record has “improved markedly” since the last agreement was signed in 1985, “though it can still do better.” He said he could not confirm that Chinese firms have stopped selling such technology.

The current agreement expires at the end of the year. President Barack Obama submitted the new agreement to lawmakers April 21 for a period of review lasting 90 days when Congress is in session. If unopposed by legislation, the agreement goes into force.

Frank Klotz, under secretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy, said the agreement will “enhance our ability to manage and mitigate the risk of China diverting sensitive nuclear technology to its military programs or re-exporting it without U.S. permission.”

Republicans and Democrats acknowledged economic benefits for the U.S. nuclear industry from cooperation with China, but voiced wide-ranging concerns over Beijing’s sticking to its international obligations.

Republican committee chairman Sen. Bob Corker said China has committed not to assist any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. But he added, “concerns persist about Chinese willingness and ability to detect and prevent illicit transfers.”

Top-ranking Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin said multiple State Department reports document that Chinese companies and individuals continue to export dual-use goods relevant to nuclear and chemical weapons and ballistic missile programs in Iran and North Korea.

“To me, this agreement presents us with a golden opportunity to place pressure on China to halt these dangerous activities,” Cardin said.

The original agreement signed in 1985 was delayed for 13 years because of questions over China’s proliferation to countries including Pakistan.

Since then, China has entered various international accords, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and has joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group. But it has decided to build more power reactors in Pakistan, although its facilities are not under international safeguards.

Countryman, who heads the State Department’s bureau of international security and nonproliferation, acknowledged that was inconsistent with China’s commitment as a Nuclear Suppliers Group member.
Democratic Sen. Edward Markey voiced the strongest opposition to the new agreement.

He said China has failed to take enforcement action against Li Fangwei, also known as Karl Lee, a Chinese man who has been indicted in the U.S. for allegedly contributing to Iran’s ballistic missile program and making millions of dollars in illegal financial transactions to avoid economic sanctions.

“It’s quite clear that there are entities within China who continue to sell materials that could have dual use application into this international nuclear weapon and ballistic missile marketplace in the same way A.Q. Khan was doing it out of Pakistan,” Markey said.

“I think it’s preposterous to conclude that the Chinese government is incapable of shutting this down,” he said.

Khan is a Pakistani scientist who operated an illicit network that sold nuclear weapons technology to countries such as Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Corker said the committee faces a “difficult task” in reviewing the China agreement. He said if the economic benefits of the agreement outweigh the concerns, it should be approved without delay. If not, and the concerns can’t be mitigated, he said the agreement should not be approved.

Countryman said it would be “devastating” to the U.S. nuclear industry to lose access to China’s fast-growing nuclear energy program, where a third of the world’s atomic power plants currently under construction are located.

U.S.-headquartered company Westinghouse is constructing four reactors in China, under a deal reached in 2005, and six more are planned, which it values at $25 billion.

Countryman said that ending cooperation would allow suppliers from Russia and France to gain a greater foothold in the Chinese market. It would also “create new difficulties” in the administration’s efforts to manage the complex U.S.-China relationship, he said.

Save The Oil (Revelation 6:6)

Oil rose in volatile trade on Thursday but analysts said the gains may not hold in the face of a strong dollar and the U.S. commitment to forge a nuclear deal with Iran.

Agencies

Concerns about deteriorating oil supplies from Libya and Iraq boosted crude prices even before the New York session.

Without new bullish factors apparent in U.S. trading hours, the market stayed afloat on buying from those convinced it had hit bottom since the June-January selloff that had knocked 60 percent off crude prices, analysts said.

The front-month contract in benchmark Brent crude was up 25 cents at $60.80 a barrel by 11:55 a.m. EST (1655 GMT), after rallying more than $1 earlier.

U.S. crude’s front-month fell 14 cents to $51.39, after rising to $52.40 earlier.

“The fundamentals dictate that prices should be lower, but market bulls and bottom pickers continue to discount bearish news and embrace anything that’s even remotely bullish,” said Dominick Chirichella, senior partner at the Energy Management Institute in New York.

A deteriorating security situation led Libya’s state oil company to declare force majeure on 11 of its oilfields on Wednesday. Output from Libya is at about a quarter of highs seen before the country’s 2011 civil war.

In Iraq, Islamic State militants set fire to oil wells in the Ajil field east of Tikrit to try to hinder aerial attacks aimed at driving them from the oilfield.

Those bullish factors ran contrary to the spike in the dollar and the U.S. decision to press ahead with its nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

The dollar jumped to 11-1/2 year lows against the euro after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi left the door open for asset purchases beyond September 2016. A stronger dollar is regarded a negative for oil as it weakens demand for crude from buyers holding other currencies.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a nuclear deal with Tehran would address security concerns of Gulf Arab countries, although Washington was not seeking a “grand bargain” with Iran, a reference to wider political and security cooperation.

On Monday, oil tumbled, with Brent falling 5 percent, on fear that a quick nuclear deal for Tehran could lift U.S. and other Western government sanctions against the OPEC nation and flood the market with new oil exports.

Weaker-than-expected U.S. jobless claims and factory orders and a drop in nonfarm productivity were other negatives for oil.

The Saudi Horn Helped Babylon Open The First Seal (Revelation 6:2)

Politicians push to declassify censored 9/11 reports

By Paul Sperry

January 4, 2015 | 6:09am

Smoldering ruins seen at Ground Zero. Photo: Shutterstock

 

The drive to declassify the 28 censored pages of the congressional 9/11 report detailing the Saudi Arabian government’s possible role in the terror attacks has become a full-blown movement, complete with letter-writing campaigns, lawsuits and legislation.

 

On Wednesday, the former co-chairman of the panel that produced the heavily-redacted 2002 report will hold a Capitol Hill press conference calling for its complete release. Former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham will join Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), as well as 9/11 families, to demand President Obama shine light on the entire blanked-out Saudi section.

Graham claims the redaction is part of an ongoing “coverup” of the role of Saudi officials in the 9/11 plot. He maintains the Saudi hijackers got financial aid and other help from the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and the Saudi embassy in Washington, as well as from wealthy Sarasota, Fla., patrons tied to the Saudi royal family.

Jones and Lynch say they will reintroduce their resolution urging Obama to declassify the information in the newly seated Congress. The bipartisan bill has attracted 21 co-sponsors, including 10 Republicans and 11 Democrats, since first introduced 12 months ago.

President George W. Bush claimed he couldn’t release the information because it was too sensitive and could jeopardize the War on Terror. But Obama has declared both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over, making his reluctance more curious.

Meanwhile, organizers have launched a letter-writing campaign to encourage senators to sign the resolution, including Sen. Charles Schumer, who in 2003 led a group of 46 senators in penning a letter to Bush.

Schumer (D-NY) at the time said, “The bottom line is that keeping this material classified only strengthens the theory that some in the US government are hellbent on covering up for the Saudis.”
Lawyers for the Saudi government have repeatedly denied connections.

Last summer, 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton also came out in support of declassification.

“I’m embarrassed that they’re not declassified,” Hamilton said.

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”

The China Nuclear Horn Got A Whole Lot Bigger (Daniel 7:7)

Kazakhstan, China Sign Deals Worth $14 Billion

 

By RFE/RL

December 14, 2014

The Kazakh and Chinese prime ministers met in the Kazakh capital Astana on December 14 as new deals worth some $14 billion were signed.

Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov and his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang presided over the signing of some 30 agreements.

The most notable was a deal for China to invest $3.8 billion in the development of potash production in Kazakhstan’s western Aktobinsk and West Kazakhstan provinces.

Other deals were for joint development of electrical power facilities — including thermal plants and renewable technology — to enable Kazakhstan to export electricity to China and an agreement for the formation of a joint venture for the production of nuclear fuel and the development of uranium mines.
Kazakhstan is the world’s leading producer of uranium and is exporting uranium to China as part of previous deals.

China has 22 nuclear reactors in operation and 26 more under construction.

Cooperation agreements were also signed between the two national railway companies and between state energy companies KazMunaiGaz and China National Petroleum Corp.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev also met with Li, praising cooperation with China and noting, “Today, a significant amount of Kazakh oil is being produced with the participation of Chinese companies.”

Li said ahead of his visit to Kazakhstan, “Sino-Kazakh cooperation is developing rapidly. The volume of trade between the two countries is increasing annually by 20 percent.”

Eurasian Economic Union

Masimov and Nazarbaev’s meetings with Li come after the Kazakh prime minister met in Almaty on December 13 with Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, during which the two discussed the impending inauguration of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the affect reduced oil prices have on the countries’ economies.

Medvedev noted the importance of oil since both countries are large exporters and “events are taking place on the oil market, which definitely affects the economic situation.”

Masimov recalled that his country is bidding to hold the Winter Olympic Games and said advice from Russia, where the last Winter Games were held earlier this year, would be very useful for Kazakhstan.

Medvedev met with President Nazarbaev on December 14 to discuss the EEU, which officially comes into existence on January 1 and will group Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Kyrgyzstan is expected to join shortly after.

Nazarbaev expressed confidence trade between the EEU members would expand. The Kazakh president said, in fact, that while trade between the countries had recently decreased in terms of money, it had actually increased in terms of volume.

Medvedev and Li are in Kazakhstan ahead of a meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members on December 15.

SCO members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The Tower of Babel Before Its Fall (Genesis 11)

Obama signs beam of One World Trade Center

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves”

 

By the CNN Wire Staff

 

updated 8:11 AM EDT, Fri June 15, 2012

(CNN) — With the under-construction One World Trade Center fast approaching its final height, President Barack Obama visited the New York tower Thursday to get an update on its growth and help prepare one of the finishing touches.

“It looks beautiful,” the president said to first lady Michelle Obama as they stood at a window on the 22nd floor and looked down on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum being built below.

Obama flew into New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in the late afternoon and traveled by motorcade to the construction site for a briefing on the building, currently 104 stories and 1,300 feet tall — already the tallest structure in New York.

He was joined by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Obama also visited with workers representing over 60 labor unions working on the site as he signed one of the final steel beams to be installed as part of the building’s framework at the top of the tower.

“We couldn’t be prouder of you guys,” Obama told them. “This is what the American spirit is all about.”

According to reporters at the scene, Obama wrote on the steel beam: “We remember we rebuild we come back stronger! Barack Obama “

The visit to the Lower Manhattan site is Obama’s fourth. He last visited it in September to mark the 10-year anniversary of the 2001 attacks by al Qaeda that killed more than 2,000 people and destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Under construction since 2006, One World Trade Center surpassed the Empire State Building (1,250 feet) as the city’s tallest structure in April. The tower’s builders say it will surpass Chicago’s Willis Tower as the tallest building in the United States, with a final height of 1,776 feet — a nod to the year of the Declaration of Independence.

One World Trade Center is expected to be completed next year or in early 2014.

Obama’s visit was the first of his three New York stops on Thursday. He’ll attend two fundraisers in the evening — including one at the residence of actress Sarah Jessica Parker — before he returns to Washington late Thursday night.

The Australian Nuclear Horn Pushing Uranium (Daniel 7:7)

Australia’s Uranium Trade: The Pusher in the Pacific

Australia has the world’s largest known uranium deposits – about 28 percent – and is the world’s third largest exporter of uranium with nearly 7,000 tonnes a year.

Global Research

Since the First World War, conflict and mining activities have gone hand in hand in Australia. Without a reliable, steady supply of sufficient volumes of coal, iron ore and associated metals required for the rapid and production of weapons and machinery, the war effort would be short-lived.

Essington Lewis, appointed managing director of BHP in 1926, while visiting Japan in 1935 described the nation as a ‘big gun-powder magazine and the people as fanatics and any day the two might connect and there will be an explosion’. Although Lewis responded by urging large stockpiles of raw materials for steel production and the manufacture of munitions (guns, ships, tanks, planes, mines, ammunition, tools, optical aids etc.), he and Attorney General Robert Menzies rationalized that iron ore exports to Japan should continue so as to fund the manufacturing industry to prepare for a likely engagement with that country. A ban was finally placed on ore exports to Japan in May 1938. But in November of that year, Menzies demanded that a remaining 277,000 tonnes of pig iron of a Japanese order be loaded on the Dalfram at Port Kembla. Dockside workers, already outraged by the news of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, refused to work. Only after the workers’ remarkable interstate solidarity in the face of the application of the draconian Transport Workers Act, did Menzies cave in and ban the Dalfram shipment.[1]

In May 1940, Prime Minister Menzies appointed Lewis Director of Munitions. As an ‘industrial dictator’ Lewis had carte blanche to acquire materials, appoint favoured private industrial leaders to executive boards, and contract private firms he deemed necessary.

The importance of this example was not the loading of pig iron onto the Dalfram, but the reactionary treatment of domestic workers by the Lyons/Menzies government for economic gain from the supply of an expansionist foreign militarist state. This is not to make a direct parallel between contemporary conditions and Japan’s invasion of China in the 1930s so much as to indicate how, in the circuitous logic of capital accumulation, one nation can supply another with the materials which then return in destructive ways – as with the bombing of Darwin by Japanese planes on 19 February 1942.

 

Since 2011

After the disastrous nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant ongoing since 11 March 2011, the world was re-awakened to the dangers of nuclear power. The price of uranium in the global markets halved as advanced economies, led by Germany, downscaled, shutdown and turned away from their nuclear energy plans. In response, the nuclear industry turned to the ambitions of economies tipped for rapid economic expansion. As global electricity supply from nuclear power generation fell to the lowest level since 1980 and the number of operating units were reduced to 388 (fifty less than the peak in 2002),[2] the Australian uranium mining industry and their transnational corporate investors scrambled to reprioritise so as to recoup the huge investments they had committed. From early 2013, however, uranium mining confidence returned to the industry in Australia, with new mining leases were approved (in West Australia, Queensland and NSW). What justified such confidence while all the other uranium miners sought escape from the industry?

On 7–11 July 2014 Prime Minister Abe of Japan made a five-day visit to Australia, which included a special trip with Prime Minister Abbott to the Pilbara mines. The day Abe arrived, the CEO of the Mitsubishi Corporation (heavily involved in nuclear technologies) announced that Australia was a ‘veritable lifeline’ for Japan’s resource-dependent economy, and promised billions in investment in Australia’s resources sector, agribusiness and retail.[3] The Fukushima Daiichi disaster did not deter the Japanese government from actively courting more than 20 countries for the purchase of Japan’s nuclear technologies. Indeed, with agreements already reached with Jordan, Vietnam, South Korea and Russia under the previous Kan and Noda DPJ governments, the export of nuclear technology is also central to the Abe government’s economic plan. Two more agreements have been reached with Turkey and the United Arab Emirates,[4] and six more are under consideration with India, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh.

The unveiling of a surge in military spending in December 2013, and the push to reinterpret its constitution to permit collective security operations is intended to boost its military capacity due to an aggravated antagonism with China. Abe’s frenzied inter-state activity has led to fresh security and trade agreements with the US, UK, EU representatives, Australia, India and the ASEAN nations with special attention to the Philippines, Vietnam and Burma. For Australia’s part, this included a free trade agreement and the purchase of Japanese Sōryu-class submarines, which are designed to counter China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capacities and to support US Navy carrier strike groups.[5]

A similar pattern took shape on 5 September 2014, when Abbott and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of India committed to the Australia-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement in New Delhi. This Agreement was the culmination of preparations initiated by the Howard government in 2007 and supported by the Gillard government in 2012. These included the lifting of bans on uranium mining in West Australia and Queensland in 2008 and in NSW in 2012.

Australia has the world’s largest known uranium deposits – about 28 percent – and is the world’s third largest exporter of uranium with nearly 7,000 tonnes a year. The Australian government (and many other countries) placed a ban on exporting uranium to India after its ‘Smiling Buddha’ Pokhran I nuclear tests produced from a clandestine nuclear weapons program. India justified its indigenous development of civil and military nuclear capacity and refusal to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as contingent upon the significant reduction of nuclear weapons held by existing nuclear weapons states. India was also excluded from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), comprising 48 nations, and suffered economic sanctions after its Pokhran II nuclear tests in 1998.

This stalemate shifted when the Singh administration, which had actively canvassed for national and international backing, finally procured the US–India energy agreement of July 2005 and the US–India Civil ‘1-2-3’ Nuclear Agreement of October 2008. The 1-2-3 Agreement stipulated that India would open its civilian nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and delineate its civil and military facilities. In return the US would provide nuclear technologies (six reactors) and others would provide nuclear fuels. This led the NSG (including Canada and Australia) to lift the ban on uranium export even though India remained a non-NPT signatory and a nuclear weapons state.

In 2008, India’s Reliance Industries began paying Uranium Exploration Australia Ltd (UXA) for licenses to participate in exploration in Australia.[6] China already had requested to conduct uranium exploration activities in Australia in 2005,[7] and India seeks to become an alternative market to China. It plans to double national energy consumption (presently 949 kwh) and triple electricity generation (presently 135 kwh) over the next 20 years. This will include a projected increase from nearly 4 percent of electricity from nuclear power to 25 percent, or a 13-fold increase to 62,000 megawatts by 2032, so as to achieve half of China’s current power consumption level, which is roughly 4000 kwh.[8] Australian uranium mining companies, as well as other nuclear-related corporate combines such as GE/Toshiba, Westinghouse/Hitachi, AREVA/Mitsubishi, have welcomed this as a key opportunity to revive the nuclear industry and become less reliant on the Chinese market.

The new demand from India will draw uranium from Ben Lomond near Mt Isa shipped from Townsville Port, and coal mined from the gargantuan Galilee Basin shipped from Abbott Point, passing through the dredged Great Barrier Reef, or freighted by road to Darwin or Adelaide (which hold uranium licenses).[9] The Australia-India uranium agreement supports this concerted and accelerated push.

 

Effects

In cementing a nuclear deal with India, the Abbott government has committed to selling uranium to a nation-state that barely conceals its intentions to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal and rejects the NPT and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). As a pro-business politician and hardliner on Pakistan and Muslim populations in India, PM Modi favours a security policy based on nuclear deterrence. The BJP holds a commanding majority in the lower house of Parliament, and can pass legislation with little opposition. The deal with Australia is only one of several such agreements Modi seeks to conclude as part of an ambitious five-year plan.

First, the Australia-India uranium trade agreement is unsafe. If Japan’s nuclear industry and government have proven unable to properly contain the potential for serious nuclear accidents at its domestic nuclear power plants, then India’s nuclear industry, which is much less reliable and possibly even more corrupt, would pose even higher risks of mismanagement.[10]

Internally, India is also unstable, as the government fights an embedded insurgency and continues to sustain tensions along its northern borders, with Pakistan and China. It maintains a violently repressive approach to imposing nuclear installations and uranium operations (such as Gorakhpur, Koodankulam, Jaitapur, Jadugoga) upon vulnerable communities, and significant numbers of civil protesters, five of whom have been killed since 2010.[11] While guaranteed only intermittent electricity supply, these communities are experiencing higher rates of disease, congenital malformations and early deaths. In Jagudoga, Jharkhand (19,500 people), those living near the central uranium mine operated by Uranium Corp. of India Ltd. (UCIL), have suffered disproportionate health problems.

While the Jharkhand High Court found in 2007, based on an epidemiological study of 4,022 households by Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, that proximity to the mining operations increased rates of illness, Chairman Diwakar Acharya denied any correlation, and blamed ordinary socio-economic factors (malnutrition).[12] Another study in 2008 by the Centre for Science and Environment found that the dust and water contaminated with heavy metals from the mine and the tailing ponds accumulates in crops and water, fish and animals which are then ingested. This is consistent with many other findings around mines in other countries which tend to be located in areas where the communities are politically disempowered.

Second, while Tony Abbott reiterated that ‘suitable safeguards’ were in place to ensure that Australian uranium would be used for ‘peaceful purposes’ and for ‘civilian use only’, such ambiguous terms create false impressions. Nuclear technologies are inherently dual-use (both for civil energy production and military use), and it is disingenuous to claim that a water-tight separation can be ensured. In fact, ten of India’s twenty nuclear facilities do not fall under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervisional authority, and India only selectively recognises IAEA safeguards for specific foreign supplied reactors and facilities. With no mechanism to inspect this nuclear technology to ensure that the fuel is not diverted into nuclear weapons production, safety cannot be guaranteed.

Even if the diverted fuel was discovered, neither Australia nor the IAEA could force compliance. An influx of imported foreign uranium will simply make it easier for India to reserve some of its indigenous uranium for enrichment and/or reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium,[13] or some of Australia’s uranium to be ‘misallocated’ toward military facilities.

In effect, Tony Abbott’s policy follow the United States and to treat India as the exception undermines the IAEA standards within the disarmament regime, and breaches Australia’s obligations to the Rarotonga Treaty for the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone.

Third, and perhaps most significant, is that the ‘balance’ between India-Pakistan and in the South Asian region will be upset so as to aggravate rivalries and intensify tensions between the two nations, as well as others such as China and Bangladesh. A new uranium enrichment facility at the Indian Rare Metals Plant recently identified near Mysore may serve to expand India’s ballistic missile nuclear submarine fleet, and to support the development of thermonuclear weapons. It is unthinkable that the ‘international community’ would allow Iran or North Korea to conduct such operations without sanction.[14]

So why does Australia continue to actively seek to accelerate the exploration, extraction and export of uranium into volatile conditions such as those in India?

 

Motives

Following a visit in January 2014 by PM Abe to India received by then PM Singh, PM Modi visited Kyoto and Tokyo from 31 August for five days to conclude the Japan-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. Although Modi left without signing the Agreement, the Japan-India relationship was upgraded to a ‘special strategic and global partnership’.[15]

This means that in return for Japanese investment ($35 billion over five years), Modi promised to set up a ‘Japan-plus special management team’ under the Prime Minister’s Office to fast-track approvals of investment proposals from Japan. Although it is as yet unknown whether India will procure Japan’s turbines for 1000 Mw capacity reactors, it may turn to Canada or South Korea for the 19 reactors it plans to build with a total of 17,400 MW capacity over the next five years.[16]

Nonetheless, an increased power and industrial base will feed into an upgraded and stronger military-strategic ‘partnership’ with Tokyo. India will purchase Japanese armaments to build its blue-water navy and enhance its forces for likely integration with existing US and Japan technologies. Despite economic incentives and an invitation from China to India to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, India’s ‘Look East’ policy puts it on track to a trilateral military security cooperation between the US, India and Japan. This is already demonstrated in Japan’s participation in the annual US-Indian Malabar naval exercise since 2010, as a gesture toward securing Japan’s access to supply lines in the Indian Ocean. These rehearsals slot neatly into an overarching US anti-China ‘pivot to Asia’.

It is unlikely that the Japan-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement probably went unsigned because of any putative scruple Japan may have about selling nuclear technologies to a nuclear weapons state. The sticking point over India’s Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (CLND 2010), which places liability upon vendors and component manufacturers,[17] was surmounted by US and Indian negotiators in the 1-2-3 agreement of 2007–8. Japan could adopt this model and appear to stay within IAEA guidelines. Rather, it is likely that a full nuclear agreement was not signed for two reasons: so as not to fall into the trap of challenging China, at least overtly; and, so as to not be forced to be held completely liable as the nuclear vendor in the case of an accident with its technology.

In this light, can this alliance building be all that different from the ‘assertive expansionism’ China is accused of in the South and East China Seas?

 

Conclusion

The pattern discussed suggests the perennial links between mining and militarisation. As seen in Essington Lewis’ involvement in the Menzies war cabinet, when nation-states seek to radically increase their energy generation capacity for mass production of munitions, they are usually preparing to contest their position in the world order. Uranium and nuclear weapons have been intrinsic factors in the post-war US-led alliance system beginning from the Reverse Course policy of 1948 in which Japan and West Germany were inculcated as strategic allies and the Soviet Union was threatened with ‘massive retaliation’ on its homeland. During the Korean War (1950–53) when the US repeatedly threatened China and North Korea with nuclear weapons and which continued ever since, during the atmospheric nuclear testing between 1946 and 1963 (underground tests continued), and in the proliferation of nuclear weapons as nations sought ‘parity’, the reliable supply of metals, minerals and fossil fuels have been essential.

The Australia-India uranium trade agreement will supply enough yellow cake for India to diversify its nuclear program. If and when the Japan-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement is concluded, it will supply nuclear technology India requires to enhance its nuclear arsenal. Both of these Agreements, negotiated almost simultaneously, tacitly legitimise India’s nuclear status and assist in its ambitions for greater geopolitical influence. This will make Australia and Japan, both NPT members, complicit in India’s nuclear weapons program. A nuclear arms race in East and South East Asia, and an increased risk of accidents in India similar to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, may result.

While leaders such as Abe, Abbott and Modi downplay the negative reality confronting people and ecologies in areas affected by radioactive exposure from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, we should remember that this contamination came, in part, from Australian uranium.[18]

The refusal of executive leaders to acknowledge the dangers of the uranium trade reflects the centrality of nuclear power to the US-led security regime, and a network under the US Pacific Command in particular, that seeks to dominate non-compliant nations such as China or Russia. This was highlighted when Tony Abbott, prior to departing to India to conclude the uranium deal, placed a ban on uranium export to Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. Uranium trade, it seems, is now a political instrument beyond institutional regulatory control. Political leaders understand the value of a constant, reliable and prompt supply of fresh uranium to fuel reactors that can produce Uranium 235 or Plutonium 239 for nuclear-tipped tactical or strategic missiles.

When the actual benefits from uranium trade are weighed against the potential and actual damage being wrought by malfunctioning nuclear reactors, the use of nuclear weapons (broadly defined), and the steady production of nuclear waste, however, the policies of these political leaders and their corporate collaborators cannot be justified. This becomes ever more obvious when we compare the costs and risks of nuclear power and the recent rapid advances in solar, wind and tidal energy generation.


Dr Adam Broinowski is an ARC postdoctoral research fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.