Category Archives: defense policy

American Energy

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…independence today. Tomorrow, American energy dependence.

Bloomberg is reporting that the US didn’t import any oil at all from Saudi Arabia last week, the first time in 35 years. That’s part of a longer term trend in declining Saudi oil imports over the last six years, especially. See the graph just below.

This trend is a result of the US technology advance of fracking which both drove down the cost of getting the oil (and natural gas) out of the ground and drastically increasing our own oil and gas production—virtually eliminating our dependence on foreign oil and gas and making us net exporters of both.

However.

Watch for American energy independence to (re)degrade into energy dependence on foreign nations under the Biden administration.

Watch that dependence made doubly vulnerable as the Biden administration reduces funding for our national defense, including particularly our Navy, so that we will be less able to defend the shipping lanes carrying that foreign energy to us.

The People’s Republic of China, beginning under the Obama régime, already is in a position to shut off the shipping lanes carrying trillions of dollars of goods, including crude, to us through the South China Sea, and they’re building/acquiring naval bases for the PLA on the west coast of Africa and creating “economic” ties with island nations on the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea, and on the north coast of South America. And Biden’s softness toward the PLC is well-known.

Communications Security

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Now it appears that DoJ also was compromised—at least a little bit—by the SolarWinds hack. DoJ says its classified systems weren’t affected, but some unclassified email systems were.

There’s this bit, though, that doesn’t appear to be getting sufficient attention.

Even unclassified email accounts, though, can contain sensitive information about investigations and potentially national security related issues, said Chris Painter, a former senior official at the Justice and State departments who worked on cybersecurity issues. “A lot of DOJ work happens on unclassified systems.”

That sort of thing is largely unavoidable. Hence the perhaps too little attended-to need: vastly improved training in and execution of COMSEC principles, for everyone from the Attorney General through the lowest-ranking unpaid intern. That training and required performance must extend, also, to every enterprise and individual doing business with DoJ or wanting to.

“Interfering” with Internal Affairs

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The People’s Republic of China is objecting to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 and the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020, which President Donald Trump has signed into law.

The PRC Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Director, Information Department, Zhao Lijian said that the PRC was

“resolutely opposed” to both acts

and

The determination of the Chinese government to safeguard its national sovereignty, security, and development interests is unwavering[]

and that the acts were (OANN‘s paraphrase)

an interference in China’s internal affairs.

Of course, it can be no interference in the PRC’s internal affairs to support an occupied nation, even if it is PRC-occupied. Nor can it be any sort of interference in the PRC’s domesticity to support a sovereign nation that the PRC constantly threatens with conquering and occupation.

Never mind the PRC’s arrogant hypocrisy in its attempt to pressure us regarding our own laws.

National Independence and Military Capability

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Joe Biden (D) has strange ideas regarding this relationship, expressed most plainly in his plans for our nuclear weapons arsenal.

Mr Bidens campaign pledge to narrow the role that nuclear weapons play…stating that their “sole purpose” should be to deter or respond to a nuclear attack.

Biden is willing to have us forced to surrender after being beaten in a conventional or cyberwar, rather than have nuclear weapons available or usable to preserve our existence—and that of our friends—as independent, unconquered polities.

Mr Biden has said that he wants to extend the New START treaty with Russia….

Because extending a nuclear weapons treaty with an enemy nation that routinely violates treaties with us is a good idea. It’s especially sensible after he unilaterally disarms us doctrinally.

No. Neither Biden nor his handlers can possibly be that naive; this can only be a deliberate weakening of our military security. Gives new meaning to Biden’s push for international “cooperation.”

Missiles based in underground silos have long been considered a destabilizing system by arms-control groups….

No, what’s destabilizing is surrendering military superiority—cyber, conventional, or nuclear—to our enemies.

Another Rude Question

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This one relates to Congressman Eric Swalwell’s (D, CA) apparent compromise by the reputed People’s Republic of China spy Fang Fang (Christine Fang).

It seems that Fang hooked up with Swalwell early on, when he was a local politician, and she helped him rise into Congress: fundraising, staff selections, and the like. My question doesn’t relate, directly, to this particular tale.

There is a stock investing technique that centers on gorilla investing. This is a technique that attempts to identify a bunch of companies that are likely to be highly successful while those companies are in their early stages of development. The gorilla investor then pumps money into the stocks of each of those early-identified companies. As some of the companies grow in the market place, and many of them flame out, the gorilla investor bails on the flameouts and adds the money withdrawn from their stocks into to remaining putative gorillas. The process is repeated until only a few gorillas remain, and are true gorillas.

My question is this: are the relevant intelligence and investigative authorities looking into whether the PRC’s intelligence community has been and/or is still engaging in gorilla politician compromise, even actively aiding those most…promising? If so, are those early ones being identified and their histories vetted, with responses for those who still fail vetting?