Streamlining

Recall the People’s Republic of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law that requires all PRC-domiciled businesses, and by extension, the companies which those businesses control that are domiciled in non-PRC nations, to provide, even to actively seek out, any and all information that the PRC’s intelligence community wants those businesses to produce.

Now the PRC is moving to streamline that process.

China is set to create a new government agency to centralize the management of the country’s vast stores of data, as Beijing seeks to address data-security practices by businesses and streamline its regulatory structure.
The new national data bureau is set to become the top Chinese regulator on various data-related issues, people familiar with the matter said, in a shift from the current structure in which multiple ministries share oversight.

And this:

If established, the agency…[would] set and enforce data-collection and sharing rules for businesses, or vet the data that domestic companies plan to share with foreign business partners to check for potential national-security breaches….

Carefully omitted is that tie-back to the intelligence collection law. In addition to streamlining control of domestic data collection and dissemination, this centralized agency would streamline the intelligence community’s use of PRC businesses for espionage.

Germany Welches Again

I wrote yesterday, in part, about Germany’s disreputable performance in supporting Ukraine in the latter’s war for existence against the Russian barbaric invasion.

Now, Germany has made the apparent decision to walk away altogether in any practical form from Ukraine in that nation’s hour of need, paying only lip service to aiding that nation.

In a landmark speech days after the invasion, [Chancellor Olaf] Scholz promised a Zeitenwende—a turning point—pledging to rebuild Germany’s military, secure alternative energy supplies, and help Ukraine fight off Russia.

Since then, according to Bojan Pancevski, in his Thursday Wall Street Journal article (at the link just above), Germany has

delivered on the latter two pledges, but a year on, Germany’s armed forces are in an even worse condition than when the war started, according to military commanders….

Pancevski is being generous, though. See yesterday’s table (at the first link); Germany’s—which is to say Scholz and his fellows in his government—have been niggardly in their…efforts…with five nations other than Poland, the US, and Great Britain contributing at least 50% more to Ukraine’s war effort on a GDP-normalized basis. Germany is doing next to nothing to help Ukraine. Only Italy and France are more miserly, throwing mere euro pennies, insultingly, at the feet of the Ukrainians.

More of Pancevski’s generosity:

On Ukraine, Mr Scholz discarded the longstanding pacifism underpinning German foreign policy to become the third-largest supplier of weapons to Kyiv after the US and the UK, according to the Kiel Institute for World the Economy. Two days after the invasion Mr Scholz lifted a ban on exporting weapons to war zones.

As yesterday’s table demonstrates, that “third-largest” sum is only in absolute terms. When the totals are normalized to each nation’s GDP—i.e., when the sums are matched to what the nations can afford to commit–Germany’s “generosity” fades to a distant 10th. And the nation further demonstrates its version of generosity by slow-walking on, and excuse-making for, its decision to delay delivery of the Leopard tanks it recently promised Ukraine.

German betrayal extends further.

By disdaining to rebuild Germany’s military establishment, Scholz has only perpetuated (not merely extended) his predecessor Angela Merkel’s perfidy in welching on the German promise to commit 2% of its GDP to military support for NATO.

Here is an outcome of that:

The country has 180,000 active soldiers and just over 300 tanks, half of them not roadworthy, down from 500,000 troops and 5,000 tanks at the height of the Cold War.

Germany had said earlier that it would create a €100 billion ($106 billion) fund with which it would rebuild and rearm its defense establishment. That, though, would need an amendment to its Basic Law, and no one in the German government has made a move toward generating that amendment so it could be put up for debate and passage.

Germany is not only betraying its fellow NATO members with those reneges, that nation is betraying its own citizens in those eastern States that were under Russian Soviet occupation via the fictitious (if narrowly, strictly legal) German Democratic Republic.

International Military Support for Ukraine

There is some growing angst about the amount of treasure and weaponry that we’re sending to Ukraine in support of that nation’s effort to defeat the barbarian Russian invasion and to drive the barbarian back out. Typical of the angst is Victoria Coates’ (a former Deputy National Security Advisor to former President Donald Trump) beef, which includes concern about the amount of aid the US is providing compared to that provided by the European nations on whose ramparts the barbarian would be should he overrun Ukraine:

Given the fact that the Germans and the French are not doing anything close to this in terms of support is shameful. This is not our job. This is Europe’s backyard. Europe needs to shoulder this burden.

To an extent, Coates’ beef is valid; however, as the table below shows, the European shortfall is not at all universal. Most of these data are drawn from statista; for Sweden and Finland they come from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Nation Amount Sent Billions GDP Billions (IMF) Percent GDP
Poland $2.55 $716.00 0.356%
US $46.56 $25,035.00 0.186%
Great Britain $5.13 $3,198.00 0.160%
Denmark $0.59 $387.00 0.152%
Sweden* $0.85 $604.00 0.141%
Finland* $0.36 $281.00 0.128%
Norway $0.62 $505.00 0.123%
Netherlands $0.90 $990.00 0.091%
Canada $1.35 $2,200.00 0.061%
Germany $2.47 $4,031.00 0.061%
Italy $0.65 $1,997.00 0.033%
France $0.69 $2,778.00 0.025%
*Converted from € a/o 2Mar23

 

Poland actually is providing more support relative to the size of its economy than we are. That shouldn’t be surprising, though, as the memories of the barbarian’s occupation and depredations of their nation remain fresh in Polish minds. Poland also has taken in the most Ukrainian refugees; although a factor in that is the border the two nations share, which shortens refugee travel.

Great Britain, shorn of EU political limits, is right up there with us.

The real European shirkers, especially given their extant military establishments, are Germany and France, as noted by Coates, and Italy. Their behavior is truly shameful, especially for Germany, whose eastern States were under the barbarian’s jackboots not so long ago, also. The shortfall for France is not so surprising, for all the shortfall’s…disreputableness…given that nation’s constant efforts to make nice with Russia.

My claim here is not that the we should cut back on our material—and materiel—aid to Ukraine, but that we should push—pressure—those European nations who are shirking to do much more. Were those nations to meet their obligations—moral as well as material, and not only to Ukraine but to their own peoples and to their obligations toward each other under the spirit of NATO—Ukraine would be in a much better position to destroy the barbarian invasion.

Our Woke DoD Managers

Here’s Lloyd Austin’s Pentagon in action, via a memo he had sent to the public affairs offices of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard on Feb. 10:

In recent years, many sponsors of sporting events have instituted a tradition of requesting uniformed military members to unfurl and hold giant, horizontal US flags during events as an expression of patriotism and love of the country[.]
While many, including military members, view these displays as inspiring and patriotic…uniformed service members may not participate directly in the unfurling, holding, and/or carrying of giant, horizontal US flags that are not displayed during community outreach events.

View these flag displays as patriotic. Not just view them as patriotic, these flag displays are patriotic. Austin’s memo is disgusting. Barring our military personnel from participating in these flag displays—displays of the flag which symbolizes the nation for which these men and women are sworn to defend, even to die in the defense—is too woke by half. Austin needs to be dismissed. Not allowed to resign, dismissed.

Full stop.

An Empty Gesture

OMB Issued a memo barring the installation of TikTok on most Executive Branch facilities and the removal of currently installed TikTok from those facilities.

Most of them.

…limited exceptions to the restrictions outlined in this memorandum for law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, and security research.

Never mind that TikTok is subordinate to, a subsidiary of, ByteDance, a People’s Republic of China-domiciled company. ByteDance, as a PRC-domiciled company, is bound by the PRC’s national intelligence law that makes it beholden to the Communist Party of China’s intelligence community to conduct intelligence-gathering as demanded by that intel community. Never mind, either, that as a subordinate facility of ByteDance, TikTok is required to conduct that espionage whenever ByteDance passes the requirement along.

Why, then, is the Biden administration allowing this enemy nation espionage tool to penetrate our own police forces and intelligence community?