Category Archives: defense policy

The Space Force Logo

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The logo is pretty cool, but because I like to pick nits, I have one here.

The text is hard to read, so here are the four explanations, clockwise from the upper left.

The silver outer border of the Delta symbol signifies defense and protection from all adversaries and threats from the space domain. The black area inside embodies the vast darkness of deep space.

Inside the delta, the two spires represent the action of a rocket launching into the outer atmosphere in support of the central role of the Space Force in defending the space domain.

In the center of the delta is the star Polaris, which symbolizes how the core values guide the Space Force mission.

The four beveled elements symbolize the joint armed forces supporting the space mission: Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marines.

My nit is this. Rockets don’t launch into the outer atmosphere in support of the Space Force mission. They launch through the entire atmosphere into the emptiness of space, which is where the mission is executed/executed from.

Public Support for the US Navy

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Kate Bachelder Odell has an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in which she discusses the tribulations of today’s Navy as it has gone through a series of failures in the last few years. One of her theses is the lack of public support for our Navy.

It seems an ironic thesis.

The service is trying to do too much with too little public support

goes the subheadline. Then, there’s this, from the article itself:

Capt Brett Crozier was relieved of command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after writing a letter saying he needed to move his sailors off the aircraft carrier to arrest an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

No, Crozier was relieved after “writing a letter saying he needed to move his sailors off the aircraft carrier to arrest an outbreak of the novel coronavirus” and transmitting it in a manner virtually guaranteeing his letter, containing classified information concerning the combat readiness of the carrier, would be leaked.

It’s instructive that Odell chose to strip the context away from her claim, a context that is critical to the import of and rationale for Crozier’s being relieved.

Odell is an example of the “too little public support” the Navy receives.

We’re Nice Guys

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We’re not hostile, at all. You’d better stop saying otherwise, and you’d better stop interfering with us. So says the People’s Republic of China’s Ambassador to Great Britain, Liu Xiaoming.

Those who see China as systematic rival or as a potentially hostile state have got it all wrong—they have chosen the wrong target and they are heading in the wrong direction.
…
Stop interferring in Hong Kong’s affairs

The People’s Republic of China is not hostile and doesn’t threaten other nations.

Let’s see….

  • Routinely threatens the Republic of China, interferes (or tries to) in its elections, threatens it with military exercises in the Taiwan Strait that practice amphibious invasion
  • Canceled Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous status, interferes in that city’s internal elections
  • Seized and occupied the South China Sea and islands therein, waters that are variously international or owned by other nations (even if disputed among them), islands that are owned by other nations (even if disputed among them)
  • Attempted invasions of Bhutan, India within last year
  • Attempted invasion of Vietnam post-Vietnam War
  • Occupies Tibet
  • Imprisons in concentration camps millions of Uighurs
  • Routinely steals other nations’—especially ours—technology, intellectual property
  • Routinely engages in cyberattacks on other nations’—especially ours—computer networks

No, the PRC isn’t a hostile nation.

Market Performance

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Great Britain has decided to bar the People’s Republic of China’s telecom company, Huawei, from participating in the British build-out of their 5G network.

The PRC isn’t happy. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian:

Whether the UK will provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for Chinese businesses offers a telling clue to how the post-Brexit British market will perform and how secure China’s investment will be in that country. So, we will be closely following the situation.

I certainly hope it’s a telling clue, given that PRC companies are extensions of that government’s intelligence gathering facility.

Besides, diversity in 5G network buildout and operation, which will be facilitated by avoiding Huawei participation and domination, will only enhance the communications market; enhancing national security in the several nations is a happy additional outcome.

Some Thoughts on TikTok

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TikTok is a video messaging app that was developed in the People’s Republic of China and is owned by ByteDance, another PRC company. The Wall Street Journal published a Q&A on the app last Tuesday.

I have some thoughts, too.

For background, here are some of the data that TikTok collects just because you’re using it.

…location data and your internet address, according to its privacy policy, and it tracks the type of device you are using to access its platform. It stores your browsing and search history as well as the content of messages you exchange with others on the app.

How to locate your device in the Net, where you’ve been virtually, and what you say in your correspondence. That’s just for starters.

If you opt in, TikTok says it can collect your phone and social-network contacts, your GPS position, and your personal information such as age and phone number along with any user-generated content you post, such as photos and videos. It can store payment information, too. TikTok also gets a sense of what makes you tick. It can track the videos you like, share, watch….

Your physical location, and all that personally identifying information. It exposes your contacts, too, without their having any opportunity to reject “opting in.”

Now, some of the rest of the story:

Why is the US concerned?
Beijing performing mass data collection on American citizens….
…a vast database of information that could be used for espionage…if TikTok’s user data could be obtained by the Chinese government, that would enhance any such efforts. “You can use [artificial intelligence tools] to sort through it and find an awful lot of data….”

And this:

A TikTok spokesman said that the Chinese government has never asked the company for user data and that it would refuse such a request. “TikTok has an American CEO and is owned by a private company that is backed by some of the best-known US investors[.]”

This is a disingenuous claim. What the PRC has or has not done in the past in this regard is wholly irrelevant to what it can do. The more important thing, too, is what it can do. Under a PRC 2017 national intelligence law, all PRC companies and people are required to comply with any and all intel community requests for intel-related information. What is intel-related is determined by the intel community. Under the just-passed Hong Kong national security law, the PRC government has arrogated to itself the authority to go after any entity or person it deems a national security threat—wherever that entity or person is located, under whatever sovereign nation jurisdiction that entity or person resides, in the world.

TikTok, owned by ByteDance, is as subject to those laws as is ByteDance.

Does TikTok share any information with ByteDance, its China-based parent?
TikTok stores its data on American users on servers in the US and Singapore, but its website says that information can be shared with ByteDance or other affiliates.

Not only can be shared, but will be. Nor will it matter what firewalls ByteDance might claim to have erected between it and its subordinate—limiting the number of employees who have access to user data and the scenarios where data access is enabled, for instance—the parent organization can tear them down at will. And can be expected to, as necessary, to satisfy information demands from the PRC’s intel community.

As for those “other affiliates”—some of them may well be within the PRC.

What happens to your data if you quit TikTok?
Users can ask TikTok to delete their data, and the company has said in its policy that it will respond in a manner consistent with applicable law upon verifying your identity.

Users are supposed to believe TikTok’s wide-eyed innocent claim to have complied, even though they have no means of independently verifying TikTok’s assertion. But the kicker is that manner consistent with applicable law caveat. Two of those applicable laws are the PRC’s security laws mentioned above.

This is not a bit of software that should appear anywhere on anyone’s device.