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December 21, 2022 Bulletin 319: Ukraine; NDAA: omnibus appropriations bill; fundraising --thank you; some matching funds still available Previously: Bulletin 318: Speak out now against further U.S. escalation in Ukraine; daily updates for your use, Dec 14, 2022
Dear friends and colleagues -- 1. Ukraine and beyond; "Washington Is Prolonging Ukraine's Suffering" We recommend the articles posted since our last Bulletin. Yesterday's harvest was particularly bountiful. The most important essay there ("Washington Is Prolonging Ukraine's Suffering," Douglas Macgregor, The American Conservative) is really a must-read. If you get nothing else from this Bulletin, please do read it -- and, if you find it cogent, please do forward it as widely as you can. Then, Alistair Crooke's insightful reflections ("Managing the Ukraine Denial Narrative") brought forth useful responses from retired Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar and "b" at Moon of Alabama ("Ukraine - Is There Really A Change Of The Narrative?"). These three essays contrast and complement one another. The second half of Crooke's article digs into some of the psycho-social background of today's official mass narratives, which have largely overwhelmed rational thought in many Western societies and extinguished independent voices, including those of recognized authorities which would have, in the recent past, provided important counterpoints. Crooke's reflections on this are not meant to be comprehensive and they certainly aren't, for example touching only briefly on the organized, institutional founts of conformity. Certainly, a great deal of government activity, costing in the tens of billions of dollars and therefore involving tens of thousands of people -- activity not just in three-letter agencies but also in the military and their respective contractors -- is employed in various aspects of national security propaganda, censorship, and psychological operations in this country alone. To this must be added the rest of the MICIMATT complex. Nothing is being left to chance. As Crooke and many others have pointed out, the use of government-inculcated fear as a tool to shape mass consciousness is now demonstrably successful in Western "democracies." Much more so, I would say, than in the early years of this century, when there was a great deal more resistance to the war mentality, specifically, in academia, in the news media, and in an influential minority of the Democratic Party in Congress. Now, acceptance of government national security narratives, and therefore tacit obedience to government authority, is almost absent in academia, in the news media, and with only symbolic exceptions, among congressional members of the Democratic Party, every last one of whom voted to expand the war in Ukraine. It is our observation that on a personal level, acceptance of supplied narratives -- obedience, in other words -- has become habitual for many people. We are seeing a kind of stupefaction taking over formerly-rational individuals, very much as Bonhoeffer described. Crooke also cites, quite correctly, the often-indispensable role of antisocial personalities in political mass movements: Mass movements that see war as part of their solution attract, and even need, psychopaths. Paradoxically, the willingness to desire the destruction (say, of all Russians [e.g., in the ultra-nationalist factions in Ukraine), garners more respect from fellow true-believers and is connected to another paradoxical element: What binds the mass formation movements is the need to sacrifice (i.e. in the climate change movement, the sacrifice of industrialisation, travel, lifestyles, fossil fuels – and economic well being). [Better contemporary examples of initiatory mass sacrifice -- examples which lack truthful or practical justifications -- would be the recent long, indiscriminate covid lockdowns, and the self-strangulation of European economies in service of U.S. foreign policy aims.] Vlodymyr Zelensky-- a glib actor who, without remorse, sends ill-equipped conscripts to near-certain death for public relations purposes, whose troops have been shelling towns and cities in the Donbass for years and killing people there by the thousands, who is shelling the grounds of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, whose troops torture and kill prisoners on video, and much, much more -- is, by all appearances, a classic psychopath. (I am sorry to not have time to supply references for everything right now. If you look you will find them and much, much more.) This should not be shocking, even if one is unfamiliar with these and other particulars. Anti-social personalities are not uncommon among politicians and corporate leaders, and given the prominence of violent neo-Nazi formations in Ukraine and its government, psychopathology is no doubt essential. Today's ritual visit by Zelensky to Washington is, to Trish and I, a frightening marker in the orchestration of pathology in the U.S., in government and civil society. It tells us -- if we did not already understand this -- that we are being led by psychopaths, "by a ring in our nose," as Trish put it. The U.S. intelligence and foreign policy "Blob" has created many monsters, but they are usually not put on display. The remarkable, constant public exposure of "Zelensky," whose image as the heroic anti-Putin and captain of the "home team" against Evil Russia has been carefully crafted, is a function of the transcendent importance of the anti-Russian project to the neoconservative ideologues running U.S. foreign policy in the Biden Administration, indeed to the entire MICIMATT. Zelensky is being dangled before the hungry news media as a convenient shiny object, to keep attention occupied, away from the manifest irrationality, failure, and dangers of the long-running U.S. Ukraine project. Dissent is critically important at this juncture. As difficult as it is, it will be harder later if we don't do it now. 2. The FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA); authorizations increased for DoD, nuclear weapons, pits; pit policies questioned The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation provides a useful overview. For details not covered below or in that summary see the Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) and Bill (now on Biden's desk for signature). For plutonium warhead core ("pit") production preparations (the "Plutonium Modernization" budget line), the new NDAA authorizes 21% more ($2.920 billion, B) than the requested amount ($2.420 B), the difference being $500 million (M) that was added to the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Project (SRPPF) for FY23, primarily for long-lead procurements. Enacted spending for Plutonium (Pu) Modernization at all sites in FY22 was $1.721 B, so this authorization level would be a 70% increase in spending, year on year. As noted below, Congress has just appropriated $2.895 B for Pu Modernization, a 68% increase and all but $24 M of the authorized amount. There is no significant daylight between authorizers and appropriators. As we have noted, NNSA expects to spend about $23 B on pit production through FY28, mostly at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Using NNSA's budget estimates from last May, we believe NNSA will need to spend $35 B on pit production through FY33 -- again mostly at LANL, despite the higher apparent capital cost at the Savannah River Site (SRS). We expect NNSA's FY24 budget request to inflate its cost estimates further. We believe the costs and competing needs (for personnel and equipment) of two pit production facilities, one of which is old and can produce very few pits at best, are unsustainable (Congressional briefing on plutonium pits, updated, Nov 14, 2022). The armed services committees are reluctantly recognizing that current plans won't work. Quoting at length (from pp. 431-433 in the JES, with emphasis added): We note the significant challenges that the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have experienced in attempting to reestablish a plutonium pit production capability over the past two decades. Reestablishing basic nuclear weapons development and production capabilities is of paramount importance to the national security of the United States and its allies. During testimony before the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate on May 4, 2022, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Christopher Grady, articulated the military requirement, stating, “The military requirement is clear, 80 pits per year as soon as possible. If not by 2030, then as soon as possible after that.” Since the closure of the Rocky Flats Plant in 1992, the United States has tried and failed on three prior occasions to restore its ability to produce plutonium pits for the maintenance and modernization of its nuclear weapons stockpile. The current two-site solution for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Savannah River Plutonium Pit Processing Facility (SRPPF) represents the fourth, and most advanced, attempt. Here we should note that the Los Alamos Study Group was more or less centrally involved in all these failures. (There were actually more, including one at Pantex.) Continuing: While we recognize the progress NNSA has made in maturing and advancing the current two-site solution, and appreciate NNSA’s stated commitment to produce no fewer than 80 war reserve plutonium pits per year as close to 2030 as possible, we remain deeply concerned that these projects are not expected to meet statutory requirements. The schedule risk of the plutonium pit production projects has been widely acknowledged. [Note the plural in both these sentences.] According to a review of SRPPF by NNSA (Critical Decision (CD)-1 Independent Project Review (IPR): Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), March 15, 2021), the facility will not be ready to produce 50 war reserve pits until at least 2036, 6 years after it is needed to meet the current statutory deadline to produce 80 war reserve plutonium pits by 2030. In testimony before the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate on March 9, 2022, Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, confirmed that “we now know we will not get 80 pits per year by 2030, as is statutorily required. And even unlimited money at this point will not buy that back.” [NNSA knew and wrote that in 2017, as did Congress and the U.S. Strategic Command.] It is imperative that the Nuclear Weapons Council develop plans for supporting ongoing nuclear weapons modernization programs that realistically reflect NNSA’s capability to achieve plutonium pit production requirements. [Here is an admission that pit production limitations are impacting near-term ("ongoing") stockpile plans.] Accordingly, we direct the Chairman of the Nuclear Weapons Council and the Administrator for Nuclear Security to jointly conduct a review of plutonium pit production and submit a plan to the congressional defense committees, not later than March 31, 2023, that includes high-confidence assessments of projected dates for the achievement of a production capacity of no fewer than 80 war reserve plutonium pits per year. The plan shall include, at a minimum: (1) A preferred option and any alternatives for establishing a sustainable capability [i.e. one not dependent on LANL's PF-4] to produce not fewer than 80 war reserve pits per year, including projected achievable deadlines at 70 percent and 90 percent confidence levels, as determined by the NNSA Director of Cost Estimating and Program Evaluation; These passages signal potentially large changes in current pit plans. Will NNSA, Triad, and the delegation seek a LANL pit production mission of greater than 30 pits per year (ppy)? Or will NNSA and the Nuclear Weapons Council (NWC) begin to see the light on building TWO pit factories, one of which is rushed, unstable, and inadequate? There are off-ramps. NNSA cannot at present say when it will produce pits, or how many pits it can produce, or what the effort will end up costing. This we know not only from our own analysis but from authoritative federal sources. Next year's NNSA budget request will be just another guess. LANL's already-grandiose plans (e.g. here and here) could be thrown into turmoil if NNSA, or Congress, subsequently decides to greatly expand LANL's activities in order to jump-start 80 ppy production. We know and have written that further LANL expansion is already secretly planned, just to do the mission already assigned. If a still greater pit production quota is assigned, even more hell will break loose. It is tedious but essential to repeat that pit production before the mid-2030s is early-to-need for the present arsenal. It is even early to need for the W87-1 warhead, if it only circa 520 or so units were to be produced -- enough for one for each Sentinel missile plus spares and surveillance units. There's nothing "wrong" -- as in, not technically functional -- with pit reuse using W87-0 pits for that warhead. W87-0 pits will certainly last 80 years from manufacture, which is to say through at least 2067, long enough for a 30 year W87-1 deployment. It's the desire for a three-warhead deployment option per missile, which STRATCOM currently has with the W78 warhead deployed on about 200 Minuteman missiles, which is is at stake with early-time LANL production. LANL production would set the stage for the option to quickly expand the number of deployed ICBM warheads beyond the present number. Pit production at LANL is a marriage that will never work out well, and LANL pit production won't succeed unless "success" is redefined as 'trying." It certainly won't meet the safety standards being applied elsewhere. NNSA and Congress will therefore eventually drop LANL as a pit production site. It's a question of when and how much money will be wasted first. The country cannot afford it and does not need it. The "30 ppy" toward which LANL aspires is already beyond what LANL can sustainably make, and at the same time it's too low a production rate to support any currently-realistic U.S. stockpile. "Some day" the U.S. may have a much smaller arsenal -- which we'd certainly like -- but in the meantime, because of the long lead time required to remodel or construct major infrastructure, Congress will continue to invest in SRPPF, as they are now doing. Attempts to make LANL the sole pit factory have badly backfired, as predicted. Too much ideology and party loyalty; not enough realistic analysis or interest in arms control and disarmament. One detail in the bill worth mentioning is the authorization of funding for local colleges to train for pit production jobs (p. 429 in the JES) and section 3126 in the bill. No dollar limit or any other parameter is specified. It appears that NNSA is being authorized to completely suborn local educational institutions at these two sites to solve their staffing problem, which is a crisis at LANL in particular. NNSA has staffing problems overall but they are most severe at LANL. That said, LANL's hiring problem is unlikely to be solved no matter how many educational programs and grants NNSA funds. Factually as well as ironically, the failure of LANL's spending to date -- about $130 billion over 7 decades -- to create economic or social development in the region is a strong contributing reason LANL now finds it so difficult to hire and retain staff. 3. The 2023 omnibus appropriations bill: $45 billion for Ukraine; $500 million added to SRS pit production preparations The $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations bill provides an additional $44.7 B for Ukraine, even more than the $37.7 B requested by the White House. That works out to about $188,000 per homeless person in the U.S., including the previous $68 B. The Energy and Water Development portion of the bill (summary; explanatory statement) fund NNSA and they do so amply, with very few oversight provisions -- which is rather a disappointment. LANL Pu Modernization funding is increased 53% year-on-year, to $1.549 B; comparable funding at SRS is increased by 109%, to $1.258 B. Pit production was the only production account in NNSA which received additional funds over the requested amount. NNSA Weapons Activities overall was increased by 4% over the request and 8% over the previous year, to $17.116 B for FY23. NNSA funding overall increased by 7% over FY22, to $22.163 B. Again the appropriations committees require NNSA to produce an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) for pit production, NNSA's largest and most challenging program. The initial IMS produced by NNSA covered LANL only, not SRS, and extended only through FY23. 4. Fundraising: Thank you so much. 1:1 match for $4,535 still available! We are moved, and given wings, by the generous contributions we have received. If you have not made a contribution and wish to do so, please go to this page for ways to do that. Thank you all, and very best wishes for the holidays now at hand, Greg Mello and Trish Williams-Mello, for the Los Alamos Study Group |
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