Category Archives: defense policy

Kasparov Screwed the Pooch

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Garry Kasparov, Renew Democracy Initiative Chairman and Russian Action Committee Co-Founder has suggested, in his Friday Wall Street Journal op-ed, that Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden move to decisively defeat[] Russia and Iran and their terrorist proxies, and then step out of the Presidential campaign. So far, so good.

Then, however, he suggested this—and he was dead serious:

[R]ather than proceed with an unpredictable rematch with Mr. Trump, the president could endorse a younger leader up to the challenge: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Lloyd Austin, the Woke SecDef who’s severely damaging our military with his push for Woke Reeducation Programs in lieu of pushing for more weapons, ammunition, and combat training?

Wow.

Kasparov usually is better informed than this.

False Choices

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Editors are correct that, as their subheadline says,

Helping Kyiv won’t rob weapons to fight Hamas or Hezbollah.

This is in response to some otherwise reasonably intelligent politicians insist on that false choice—that it’s either Ukraine or Israel. Senator Josh Hawley (R, MO), for instance:

Israel is facing existential threat. Any funding for Ukraine should be redirected to Israel immediately[.]

This is a foolishly false dichotomy, for all that, in Hawley’s case, it centers on his disdain for Ukraine and his lack of understanding of the threat the Russian barbarian hordes present.

The false choice representation is broader than that, though.

It’s also a false choice between either Israel or Ukraine, and our southern border, and it’s a false choice between any of those and supporting the Republic of China in deterring the People’s Republic of China or in fighting the PRC if they go ahead and invade.

What’s necessary—and more generally beneficial—is a reallocation of existing expenditures. That requires the Progressive-Democratic Party Representatives and Senators to either get out of the way or work with Republicans in a serious manner to do the reallocations.

It also requires timid Republican Senators to get out of the way or work seriously within their party and for the Republican House caucus to deal, with finality, with the Chaos Gang led by Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Texas’ Chip Roy and get serious about leading the House.

Couple Thoughts re Ramaswamy’s Thoughts

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Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has some ideas about what to do were he to be elected President. I have some ideas about those ideas.

Let’s have a reasonable path to peace. Make a permanent commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to NATO, but in return, require Russia to exit its military partnership with China. Now that weakens China. Now, Xi Jinping is gonna have to think twice before going after Taiwan.

This is breathtakingly naïve. On what basis does Ramaswamy think Putin would honor any agreement? Russia already has welched on the Budapest Memoranda, Minsk I, and Minsk II, and he faked his 2014 “referendum” that he used to rationalize his occupation of Crimea. That’s just Russia’s recent history with Ukraine. Then there’s Putin’s avowed goal of reconstituting the Russia’s Soviet (Union) empire. Ramaswamy’s plan for this “peace” of his also includes an in-place cessation of the fighting—forcing Ukraine to surrender the 20%, or so, of its territory that Putin currently occupies to him, which only rewards Putin for his invasion.

Then there’s the bit about Russia leaving its alliance with the People’s Republic of China, which he alleges would weaken the PRC. What makes Ramaswamy think that alliance itself doesn’t weaken the PRC? Russia desperately needs money and weapons/ammunition. Iran and northern Korea can’t supply any of that in sufficient numbers; only the PRC can—at the expense of its own finances and military equipage. Beyond that, the PRC already is spending treasure propping up the Russian economy and war effort.

Finally, there’s the fact that Russia winning in Ukraine—getting to keep those 20%—would only embolden Xi, not give him pause.

…doubling down on his promise to shrink the federal bureaucracy by 70%….

This actually is a worthy goal. However. There are some 2 million civilians employed by the Federal government. Assume, arguendo, he’s capable of getting rid of those 70%. What’s his timeline for terminating 1.4 million civilians? He never says. What will be the impact (viz., unemployment insurance, food stamps) of dumping 1.4 million out-of-work workers onto the private economy? He never says anything about that, either. How will he handle the nation’s economic dislocation resulting from dumping 1.4 million more out-of-work workers onto the private economy? He never says anything about that, either.

ByteDance and TikTok

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Recall that TikTok, a social medium heavily favored by our children, is wholly owned by ByteDance. Recall further, that ByteDance is domiciled inside the Peoples Republic of China. Finally, recall that the PRC’s 2017 national security law requires every PRC-domiciled company to collect and deliver to that nation’s intelligence community any information that community requests. A bonus memory: TikTok’s executive team has been at pains to insist that, in the United States, they operate independently of all of that.

Against that backdrop, there’s this:

Since the start of the year, a string of high-level executives have transferred from ByteDance to TikTok, taking on some of the top jobs in the popular video-sharing app’s moneymaking operations. Some moved to the US from ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters.

That’s not independence. Nor does it matter what top jobs, in particular, ByteDance’s transferred executives assume in TikTok. They work for ByteDance, which operates at the behest of the PRC government. Their presence at the top of TikTok only tightens that control.

Bottom line: it doesn’t matter how much gussying up ByteDance or TikTok executives do in their attempts to deny Peoples Republic of China control of TikTok; the PRC’s intelligence community can command TikTok to obtain and deliver any information regarding TikTok’s users that the intel community wants.

It’s past time the Federal government bans TikTok from any and all operations inside the US. Standing in the way of that are too many Congressmen and Senators, of both parties, who have taken “donations” from folks like Jeff Yass, who through his Susquehanna International Group owns a big stake in ByteDance, [and he] has also worked to fend off a US ban through organizations like Club for Growth. Among those…donees…are

  • Senator Rand Paul (R, KY), who received through a Paul-supporting PAC, $3 million
  • Congressman Thomas Massie (R, KY), who has received $32,200 directly from Yass, his wife, and via a Massie-supporting PAC
  • Other [carefully unnamed] Republicans in Congress, including at least five others besides Paul and Massie, who received financial support from Club for Growth and have objected to legislation targeting TikTok.

Yass has rationalized his antipathy to banning TikTok with this:

TikTok is about free speech and innovation, the epitome of libertarian and free market ideals. The idea of banning TikTok is an anathema to everything I believe.

Aside from moving to protect his investment in the PRC-controlled ByteDance, it appears that part of everything I believe includes the right of the Peoples Republic of China to spy on our children. Banning TikTok has nothing to do with interfering with free speech (or innovation, come to that). Banning TikTok would ban a tool used by the PRC against our children and our national security, to the extent it’s used by government officials at any level of our hierarchy or by business executives anywhere. Content, speech, all of that, could and would continue apace, completely unhindered, on any of the plethora of other social medium platforms.

Ban TikTok. No further delays.

Wrong Emphasis

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The lede says it all.

The Biden administration and its European allies are laying plans for long-term military assistance to Ukraine to ensure Russia won’t be able to win on the battlefield and persuade the Kremlin that Western support for Kyiv won’t waver.

There’s no interest in the Biden administration or those European allies that are safely removed from the Russian border, insulated as they are (they think) by the eastern European nations who directly face the barbarian threat, to provide the prompt and extensive aid that Ukraine needs actually to win on the battlefield.

Biden’s, et al., decision merely to seek to prevent barbarian victory is crass, cynical, and just as barbaric as the Russian invasion, since all the decision does is prolong fighting and the resulting damage to Ukraine and increase the killings and maimings of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians—especially despicably, the killings and maimings and rapes of Ukrainian women and children.

The goal is to make sure Ukraine will be strong enough in the future to deter Russia from attacking it again. More immediately, Ukraine’s Western allies hope to discourage the Kremlin from thinking it can wait out the Biden administration….

This would be risible were it not so disgusting. Ukraine must first win before there can be any concern for deter[ing] Russia from attacking it again.

More immediately, there’d be no need to wait out the Biden administration were Biden to stop slow-walking and outright blocking delivery to Ukraine the weapons, ammunition, and supplies it needs to win outright.