Category Archives: defense policy

Opposition

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Republicans in the Senate put Progressive-Democrats on the record on a number of amendments to Party’s budget reconciliation move—itself a deliberate act to sideline any dissent—which Republicans offered during a Thursday afternoon through Friday morning vote-a-rama. Party’s budget reconciliation then was voted up strictly along party lines.

Here’s some of what the Senate’s Progressive-Democrats oppose. Notice that every one of these would have enhanced Americans’ national security, economy, and individual liberty had they had the support of even a single Progressive-Democrat.

  • 50-50 on a failed amendment to support the border wall
  • 50-50 on a failed amendment supporting the free exercise of religion
  • 50-50 on a failed amendment to oppose packing the Supreme Court
  • 50-50 on a failed amendment opposing stimulus checks for people in prison
  • 50-50 on a failed amendment opposing the Biden administration’s move to restrict oil and gas leasing on federal lands
  • 50-50 on a failed amendment opposing a federal carbon tax

“We Are Deeply Disturbed”

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That’s what President Joe Biden’s (D) State Department claims (through a carefully unnamed “official”) regarding the People’s Republic of China’s systematic rape, other sexual abuse, and torture of Uighur women in the PRC concentration reeducation camps.

And

These atrocities shock the conscience and must be met with serious consequences[.]

Indeed. The Biden administration, like the Obama administration that Biden is reconstructing, surely will shake its collective finger very firmly at the PRC. And if that fails, the Biden administration will engage in stern chit-chat and tongue clucking.

Yeah. That’s the ticket.

Costs

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In Monday’s Wall Street Journal Letters section, a letter-writer pooh-poohed the idea that the People’s Republic of China might actually invade the Republic of China and reclaim the island of Taiwan.

A decision by Beijing to invade Taiwan would create a major geopolitical crisis for China. Its extensive global trade and investments would be disrupted, creating economic problems. An invasion would result in an occupation. The people of Taiwan have lived in freedom and under the rule of law—they are not about to put on Chinese handcuffs and live in a communist society.

Houlihan made an all-too-common mistake that political and military analysts make in assessing an enemy nation’s motives and goals. Here, he assumed that the PRC cares about costs of regaining and reoccupying the island of Taiwan, just because we would have those concerns. In the end, if the PRC succeeds, it will have destroyed the Republic of China (without the US’ and others’ support, the “people of Taiwan” won’t be capable of resisting PRC handcuffs for any length of time) and regained the island.

And humiliated us, driving us from the western Pacific, opening up the Republic of Korea and Japan—hated enemies—to tacit, if not explicit, control, and putting Southeast Asia, which it has failed repeatedly in invading, under its thumb.

And gained control of the South China Sea shipping lanes, further strangling the RoK and Japan, and inflicting sufficient economic damage on us as to be able to control, in large part, our behavior.

Those may well be goals, in PRC eyes, worth spending a bit of political and economic capital to attain.

The PRC certainly is building, as fast as it can, a military capability designed for the purpose. The PRC also has the stated goal of replacing, in the near-to-medium term, us as the sole world power.

Good Union Jobs

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But not good enough for President Joe Biden (D).  Recall that Biden ran on “good union jobs,” among other causes, and that phrase—”good union jobs”—became so ubiquitous in his speeches as to resemble a tic.

But not all union jobs—labor is another area where Progressive-Democrats choose winners and losers. When Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline, he killed roughly 11,000 good union construction, construction-related, and ancillary jobs. No matter: Progressive-Democrats, led by Biden, don’t approve of those jobs.

And that doesn’t begin to address the job losses in Canada, jobs that depended on both the pipeline construction and on the subsequent flow of oil.

Questions

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President Joe Biden wants to extend the New START arms control treaty with Russia for an additional five years.

I have questions.

With Russia’s long history of arms treaty violations (INF, Open Skies, original START, BMD, among others), what’s the value of extending this one or having a new arms control treaty with Russia? They can’t be trusted to honor it.

New START—and any other weapons control treaty, especially those involving nuclear weapons—does not include the People’s Republic of China. The PRC is actively modernizing and expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal, along with hardening its missile arm and increasing its mobility. What’s the value of any arms control treaty that does not include the PRC? Related to that, the PRC has repeatedly demonstrated its economic agreement unreliability since its accession to the WTO. On what basis would Biden think the PRC would be more reliable on military agreements, assuming Biden wants to include the PRC in one?

Our economy is so much stronger than Russia’s, and it’s still stronger than the PRC’s. We defeated the USSR with an openly done arms race—which also produce a broad range of technology advances of considerable value to our private economy. Why is Biden reluctant to engage in another arms race and once again defeat the rump USSR that is Russia and defeat the PRC?

Biden won’t answer these questions. Almost as bad, the press won’t ask them of him.