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Nobel Prize-winning group tells it like it is
Global nuclear weapons spending calculated
During every minute of 2021 the world spent $156,841 on nuclear weapons, new report says
Global nuclear weapon spending saw a significant increase in 2021 according to the latest International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) report published on Tuesday.
In just one year, the nine nuclear-armed nations - US, China, Russia, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United Kingdom – spent a total of $82.4 billion on upgrading and maintaining their estimated 13,000 nuclear weapons, marking a 9% hike from the year before, according to ICAN’s estimates.
The report, which is ICAN’s third annual summary of global nuclear spending and is titled ‘Squandered: 2021 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending,’ highlights that in total, the world spent a combined $156,842 every single minute of 2021 on weapons of mass destruction, amid an ongoing pandemic and rising global food insecurity.
ICAN details exactly how much each of the nine countries spent on atomic weapons, lists the companies that profited, and the lobbyists hired to keep nuclear weapons in business.
The United States turned out to be by far the biggest spender on nuclear armaments in 2021, having spent $44.2 billion – four times more than the next in line. China was the only other country to exceed the ten-billion-dollar mark, at $11.7 billion spent, while Russia holds third place at $8.6 billion. The UK spent $6.8 billion, France, $5.9 billion, and countries like India, Israel and Pakistan each spent a little over a billion on their arsenals in 2021. In last place is North Korea, which spent $642 million.
$44.2 billion is more than half the global total!
The report goes on to question why and how these countries spent so much on nuclear weaponry amid myriad global issues such as food and energy shortages, but comes to the conclusion that the biggest driver of nuclear weapon spending was not security concerns but, rather, business interests.
Certain military contractors have allegedly made a fortune from nuclear weapons-related contracts according to ICAN, and these companies spend a big chunk of their income to hire lobbyists and fund think tanks that encourage politicians to spend even more on weapons of mass destruction.
According to the report, Honeywell International made $6.2 billion from nuclear tenders in 2021 and spent an additional $7 million on lobbying. Northrop Grumman got $5 billion and used $11.6 million on lobbying. Lockheed Martin received $1.9 billion from the industry and spent $16.9 million on lobbying.
The authors of the report note that after examining thousands of contracts, reports and lobby disclosures, they estimate that over a dozen private companies received a total of $30.2 billion in nuclear weapon contracts in 2021.
“Those companies then turned around and spent $117 million lobbying decision makers to spend more money on defense. And they also spent up to $10 million funding most of the major think tanks that research and write about policy solutions about nuclear weapons,” wrote ICAN.
The report goes on to note that all this spending has done nothing to deter any sort of conflict and that recent geopolitical events in Europe have only served to further line the pockets of those who are tied to the nuclear weapons industry.
“We were told that the billions invested in thousands of weapons of mass destruction with the power to destroy the world many times over was the price to pay for peace in Europe. Instead, those billions went to line the pockets of the powerful who profit from the production of weapons of mass destruction.”
The authors stress that the report demonstrates that “nuclear weapons don’t work” as they have failed to deter conflict in Europe.
“This is why we need multilateral disarmament more than ever. The first meeting of states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna [from June 21 to 23] could not come at a better time," ICAN Policy and Research Coordinator Alicia Sanders-Zakre said.
ICAN is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning, Geneva-based international coalition that has been actively campaigning for the respect and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which it helped adopt at the UN in 2017. The treaty has been ratified by 59 countries around the world so far, however not a single nuclear state has yet to sign it.
This is Deep State at work, enriching themselves at the cost of the whole world. What good can be done with $82.4bn a year?
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Biden to give $1 billion more in weapons to Ukraine
US will send artillery and advanced rockets to Kiev
Washington will give Kiev another $1 billion in “security assistance,” including artillery, ammunition and advanced missiles, US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday after a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
Notice the word 'give' above. This means that American taxpayers will donate that $1bn to one or more of the companies named in the above article. This is an exercise in transferring wealth from everyday Americans to the already filthy rich.
Biden informed Zelensky that the aid would include “additional artillery and coastal defense weapons, as well as ammunition for the artillery and advanced rocket systems that the Ukrainians need to support their defensive operations in [Donbass],” according to a readout of the call released by the White House.
The two leaders also discussed Wednesday’s meeting of the ‘contact group’ in Brussels, led by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, to “coordinate additional international support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”
In addition to the weapons and ammunition, Biden said the US would send Kiev another $225 million in humanitarian assistance, for “supplying safe drinking water, critical medical supplies and healthcare, food, shelter, and cash for families to purchase essential items.”
While Biden did not specify the types of weapons being sent, the Pentagon’s under secretary for policy Colin Kahl revealed on Tuesday that the rocket artillery the US and the UK are sending to Ukraine will be supplied with heavy guided missiles with a range of up to 70km. Previously, the White House had said the HIMARS launchers would come with “battlefield munitions” and that Ukraine had given the US assurances it would not use them against Russian territory.
The Biden administration has previously provided Ukraine with over $5.3 billion in military assistance, of which $4.6 billion has come since February 24, according to Kahl. The $1 billion announced Wednesday is on top of these numbers.
In meetings ahead of the Madrid summit, NATO leaders also doubled down on deliveries of heavy weapons to Ukraine.
“We stand united here that it is crucial for Russia to lose the war,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who hosted NATO secretary-general and six other leaders from the bloc, said on Tuesday in The Hague. “And as we cannot have a direct confrontation between NATO troops and Russia, what we need to do is make sure that Ukraine can fight that war, that it has access to all the necessary weaponry.”
On Tuesday, Ukrainian artillery struck a village in Russia’s Bryansk Region, wounding six civilians. Rockets and artillery shells also rained on the city of Donetsk in Donetsk People’s Republic, in the worst bombardment since the beginning of the conflict in 2015, local authorities said. Five civilians were killed and more than 30 were wounded.
In Ukraine war, a race to acquire smarter, deadlier drones
By OLEKSANDR STASHEVSKYI and FRANK BAJAK
today
FILE - Ukrainian servicemen correcting artillery fire by drone at the frontline near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, July 2, 2022. Never in the history of warfare have drones been used as intensively as in Ukraine, where they often play an outsized role in who lives and dies. Russians and Ukrainians alike depend heavily on unmanned aerial vehicles to pinpoint enemy positions and guide their hellish artillery strikes. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Drone camera footage defines much of the public’s view of the war in Ukraine: grenades quietly dropped on unwitting soldiers, eerie flights over silent, bombed-out cities, armor and outposts exploding in fireballs.
Never in the history of warfare have drones been used as intensively as in Ukraine, where they often play an outsized role in who lives and dies. Russians and Ukrainians alike depend heavily on unmanned aerial vehicles to pinpoint enemy positions and guide their hellish artillery strikes.
But after months of fighting, the drone fleets of both sides are depleted, and they are racing to build or buy the kind of jamming-resistant, advanced drones that could offer a decisive edge.
And make a kazillion dollars for the manufacturer.
The urgency was reflected by the White House’s disclosure Monday that it has information that Iran will be rushing “up to several hundred” unmanned aerial vehicles to Moscow’s aid. Iranian-supplied drones have effectively penetrated U.S.-supplied Saudi and Emirati air-defense systems in the Middle East.
“The Russian drone force may still be capable, but exhausted. And Russians are looking to capitalize on a proven Iranian track record,” said Samuel Bendett, an analyst at the CNA military think tank.
Meanwhile, Ukraine wants the means “to strike at Russian command and control facilities at a significant distance,” Bendett said.
The demand for off-the-shelf consumer models remains intense in Ukraine, as do efforts to modify amateur drones to make them more resistant to jamming. Both sides are crowdfunding to replace battlefield losses.
“The number we need is immense,” a senior Ukrainian official, Yuri Shchygol, told reporters Wednesday, detailing the first results of a new fundraising campaign called “Army of Drones.” He said Ukraine is initially seeking to purchase 200 NATO-grade military drones but requires 10 times more.
Outgunned Ukrainian fighters complain that they simply don’t have the military-grade drones needed to defeat Russian jamming and radio-controlled hijacking. The civilian models most Ukrainians rely on are detected and defeated with relative ease. And it’s not uncommon for Russian artillery to rain down on their operators within minutes of a drone being detected.
Compared with the war’s early months, Bendett now sees less evidence of Russian drones getting shot down. “The Ukrainians are on the ropes,” he said.
Adding to the defenders’ woes: The Ukrainian hero of the war’s early weeks, the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB-2 laser-guided, bomb-dropping drone, has become less effective in the face of denser Russian air and electronic defenses in eastern Ukraine. It was the star of many a patriotic Ukrainian video.
“Russians are in a much better position because they fly long-range drones” designed to evade electronic countermeasures, a Ukrainian air reconnaissance unit leader recently told Associated Press journalists outside Bakhmut near the front lines.
On the ground, Russia’s more plentiful electronic warfare units can cut off drone pilots’ communications, interrupt live video and drop the vehicle from the sky or, if it has homing technology, force it to retreat.
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