CND Press Roundup Monday 15th August 2022

War in Ukraine / NATO

• General Sir Ricahrds Barron, writes in The Times on the prospect of a nuclear attack if Vladimir Putin fears defeat in Ukraine. Noting Russian nuclear doctrine, a Ukrainian offensive into the occupied Donbas region next year, after planned referendums in favour of joining Russia are held, could justify a nuclear response. How would NATO respond?: “A Nato offensive? At the very least it should mean Russia being isolated by the West, no matter what the cost in energy supplies – but what would China and India do? The answer could be not very much. Would it mean Ukraine joining Nato immediately to fall under article 5 and the alliance’s nuclear umbrella? More broadly, it would seem unlikely to lead necessarily to strategic nuclear war. But it would change how nuclear weapons are viewed in other confrontations such as that between India and Pakistan. Few of these questions should be left to be answered in the heat of the moment. They require careful judgement and communication to eliminate the potential for catastrophic miscalculation – perhaps as soon as next spring.”

• Meanwhile, nuclear and chemical warfare expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon calls for Britain to prepare for nuclear war in this opinion for the Telegraph. On past nuclear preparedness efforts by Britain he writes: “During the Cold War, there was education for the public on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Some will remember the black and white BBC cartoons: far from terrifying our parents and grandparents, they gave them some reassurance. But to be more resilient to a nuclear attack, we need to rethink our entire strategy. The Local Resilience Forums proved their worth during the pandemic, and should be strengthened to cover nuclear as well. We must restore the knowledge and equipment we enjoyed during the Cold War that have fallen into abeyance. We could follow the model of the Nordic countries, South Korea and Singapore, which have prepared networks of shelters and kits. Even school children are trained in how to react to a strike.” He finishes by calling on NATO to work with China and Russia to reduce the risks of a nuclear accident or miscalculation and that the NPT was the best forum to do this.

• Russian soldiers firing on or from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant will become special targets for trial in international courts, Ukraine’s president has said. Speaking in a video address on Saturday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy made the comments after the plant, the largest nuclear facility in Europe, became part of the front line between Ukraine and Russia – with both sides blaming the other for shelling the site. “Every Russian soldier who either shoots at the plant, or shoots using the plant as cover, must understand that he becomes a special target for our intelligence agents, for our special services, for our army,” Zelenskiy said, adding that the west should ratchet up its sanctions on Russia to include its nuclear industry. The plant has been occupied by Russian troops since February with Ukrainian technicians working at the site claiming it has been turned into a military base.

• 42 countries including the US, UK and EU, have called on Russia to pull-out from Zaporizhzhia. It follows reports by the state nuclear agency that a foreman at the plant was killed and two other injured during shelling over the weekend. Watch the Channel 4 report here.

NPT

• The Journal looks at Ireland’s role in the NPT review conference – with the team of eight diplomats focusing on risk reduction and ensuring that non-proliferation efforts continue.

• ICAN has a breakdown of the first drafts of outcome documents from NPT Rev Con.

UK Nuclear Energy

• Dominic Lawson has a go at what he calls “irrational fears” about nuclear power and radiation sickness in this Daily Mail piece linking the danger posed to Ukrainian nuclear power plants – and how the Greens’ fear of nuclear power has seemingly played into Vladimir Putin’s hands.

• This is Money reports on how the UK government is using its new found Brexit freedoms to follow the EU’s lead and re-brand nuclear power as green energy. The Treasury is hoping this will help lure green-friendly investment to help fund the Sizewell C nuclear plant – which is still looking for partners to take up a 60 percent stake in the project. Estimated to cost at least £20 billion, both the government and nuclear power EDF have taken a 20 percent stake each in Sizewell C – with the remainder to come from private finance. Alison Downes, of the campaign group Stop Sizewell C, said: “Even if the Government pretends nuclear is green and bribes investors with guaranteed income from stretched households, Sizewell C remains high risk. Investors should pay more attention to EDF’s financial woes, a plagued reactor design, escalating costs, lengthening build schedules and local opposition.”

• Tory party leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak said he’s looking forwardto a new nuclear plant in Anglesey in Wales. Sunak’s team said he is committed to driving forward nuclear to support net zero and energy security. “Rishi is a strong supporter of new nuclear projects across the UK,” they added. While polling suggests Sunak will lose out to rival Liz Truss, it’s likely nuclear projects will feature under her leadership – one of her backers Lord Frost previously denied there is a climate emergency and called for backing of both nuclear and fracking projects.

Nuclear Energy

• While we’ve seen many articles published over the last few weeks urging Berlin to keep and expand its nuclear power facilities – the FT reports that the plan to decommission its three remaining reactors by the end of the year is going ahead. The Coalition government is still debating the decision with a stress test on German energy supplies for this winter being carried out. Leo Birnbaum, chief executive of E.ON, said the group had been “preparing for years, from a technical and organisational perspective”, for the dismantling of its nuclear power station and would continue to do so unless and until instructed otherwise. His comments come after the German official in charge of Germany’s energy supply downplayed the importance of using nuclear energy to counteract a drop in Russian gas supply. Speaking to the FT Klaus Müller said: “Germany imports gas as a feedstock for the chemicals industry and to produce heat. And nuclear energy doesn’t help us with either of those things. We should really focus the debate on how we avoid a gas shortage. All our energies should be directed to that.”

• California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed giving a $1.4 billion government loan to help extend the lifetime of the state’s remaining nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon.

• How safe are nuclear plants? The New Yorker has a review of a new book by historian of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Thomas Wellock, exploring the history of nuclear power and accident risk. For those of us concerned about nuclear safety, the NY says the book paints a disturbing picture: “A nuclear power plant’s approximately twenty thousand safety components have a Rube Goldberg quality,” Wellock writes. “Like dominoes, numerous pumps, valves, and switches must operate in the required sequence to simply pump cooling water or shut down the plant. There were innumerable unlikely combinations of failures that could cause an accident.”

Iran Nuclear Deal

• With efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in perpetual limbo, Reuters looks at how the stalled talks are advantageous to both Iran and the US – albeit for different reasons. Benefiting from a rise in oil prices due to the war in Ukraine, and with willing buyers in China and India, Iran isn’t under as much pressure to have US-imposed economic sanctions lifted. Joe Biden’s administration meanwhile, has slowed the pace on agreeing to the deal, because once accepted – regardless of what’s agreed – it will be used by Republican rivals in the upcoming midterm elections in November. Therefore, leaving the prospective deal to dangle without either side making the necessary concessions to get it over the line, may be the scenario for the coming months.

• Reuters also has a look at the three outstanding issues bedeviling the Iran deal talks.

CND History

• Those of you who are fans of vintage left-wing newspapers may have thoughts on this blogpost with an item on CND from the August 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard. While the paper acknowledges the “sincerity” of CND supporters in their campaigning (thanks, very kind), banning the H-bomb is nothing without dealing with capitalism as an immediate priority: “Is the CND prepared to switch the attack, get down to causes, and deal with capitalism? Alas, the very nature of the movement precludes this. Their membership is drawn from all shades of political and religious opinion. They may think this their strength, but in fact it is their most fatal weakness. An organisation with such a widely mixed membership can agree on one thing only – the demand for nuclear disarmament. In fact, this is all they are required to agree upon. Outside of this they are just as “British-and proud of it” as any other supporter of Capitalism. They have the same nationalistic prejudice as other non-socialists. They uphold the same basic features of capitalism, wages, profits, trading and competitions for export markets, as the rest of the misled working-class. The sad truth is that the CND member is as surprised to learn and as reluctant to accept that the conflicts within capitalism give rise to war as any other workers.”