Category Archives: defense policy

Demanding Instant Results

Posted on by
Reply

The Trump administration has threatened tariffs, raised and lowered them (though rarely as much as they were raised), and concluded on-again, off-again tariff agreements with the People’s Republic of China. The bulk of these moves have come within the opening months of Trump II, even though some moves were made during Trump I.

The good editors at The Wall Street Journal are taking a dim view of this. The opening of their lede:

President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping struck their third trade truce in a year on Thursday, and the best we can say is that the deal averted more economic damage.

Later in the piece, they offered this…truism:

One lesson here is that trade wars aren’t easy to win, especially against a peer competitor.

To which I say, “Patience, Grasshoppers.”

Wars—and the PRC has been fighting this economic war with us for lots of years, even if we’ve been slow to recognize that—are rarely over in a day. WWI was fought over four years, and WWII took eight years out of our globe’s weal and life. Looking farther back was the 30 Years War and the 100 Years War. The barbarian’s 3-day invasion of Ukraine now is approaching its 4th year. Over in what is now the PRC, the period of the Warring States lasted 250 years, and the century of humiliation that the PRC still remembers (the opium wars were in the beginning of that period) lasted…100 years and a bit more.

The men and women of the PRC government take a long view of things, even a generational view. It would be good were the changing men and women of our government to take a similarly long view. The WSJ editorial board could contribute by doing the same.

Trump’s moves may, indeed, end up with no material net effect, or they may end in national disaster, or they may end in a renewed and refreshed century of Pax Americana. It’s years too early to tell.

Doubting NATO’s Utility

Posted on by
Reply

Trump I questioned the utility of NATO and wondered aloud whether the US should continue supporting it/staying a member. In immediate response, some (not enough) European member nations started honoring their promises of some years prior to contribute more to NATO—all of 2% of national GDP at the time. Over the ensuing years, most (though still only 2/3) of the member nations increased their contributions to very nearly meet (a large bump by these) or to meet or exceed those 2%. Trump’s overt disdain and blunt threats resulted in a material strengthening of the alliance.

Recently, the member nations met and agreed to push that contribution commitment to 5% of national GDP, and some nations are meeting that commitment (notably, the eastern and far northern European nations fronting on Russia). Also notably, though, Canada and western European members continue to freeload, and in order to get the agreement at all, the alliance was required to give Spain explicit permission to continue to freeload, despite its strongly growing economy.

Unfortunately, now the alliance is facing this. The headline and subheadline is the short and bitter of it:

NATO Member’s Top Court Considers Whether Saying Men And Women Are Different Is A War Crime
Finland’s Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday about whether quoting the Bible is illegal “hate speech” under its war crimes laws.

Yes, this is one of those far northern members, recently acceded to the alliance. Even so, this is a case of censorship by the nation’s chief prosecutor, unrestrained by either Finland’s President or Prime Minister, despite lower courts having repeatedly cleared the alleged miscreants of any wrong doing.

[Member of Parliament Paivi] Rasanen was first investigated for tweeting a Bible verse in 2019 to criticize Finland’s state church sponsoring a queer sex parade. Three criminal charges against her arose from the investigation, which also resulted in one criminal charge against [Lutheran Bishop Juhana] Pohjola for publishing a booklet Rasanen wrote about the Bible’s teaching on the sexes.

And

Two lower courts cleared Rasanen and Pohjola of all charges, but the prosecutor kept appealing, now to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization member’s highest court.

 

This is government censorship, government sexist bigotry, and government demand for political correctness all rolled into one.

If this case results in any form of conviction, then given the spread of censorship and sexist bigotry into the rest of NATO members—most notably, Germany, Netherlands, and UK—then it will be time to consider anew our withdrawal from an alliance too enamored of its political shower appearance to be able to resist the barbarian farther east.

It will be time to stand up a different, more serious mutual defense arrangement involving the Three Seas Initiative nations and the US.

New Sanctions and some Thoughts

Posted on by
Reply

President Donald Trump (R) has implemented new sanctions on Russia in response to the barbarian’s continued intransigence in its invasion of Ukraine—blacklisting Russia’s two biggest oil producers and a plethora of their subsidiaries. As The Wall Street Journal notes, how much the sanctions will impact Russia depends on three major factors:

  • how well they are enforced
  • the reaction of major markets in India and China
  • whether Moscow can circumvent the measures

Regarding the first, that depends on Europe, India, and the People’s Republic of China. In the short term, Europe will give a strong indication of how serious those nations are in supporting Ukraine and how serious they are in beefing up their defense establishments and industries so as to be able to face down the confrontation with Russia that will follow as the night does the day if Russia succeeds in conquering Ukraine. Carrots can be offered those nations, and a primary one would be tariff relief in exchange for strictly enforcing the sanctions. There even are ready to hand alternative sources for oil and natural gas to supply their current and buildup energy needs.

Tariff relief and improved mutual investment agreements, along with those readily available alternative oil and gas sources, would go a long way to weaning India off Russian oil.

Another carrot is essentially self-referential. By taking themselves completely off Russian energy, they would be proofing themselves against Russian economic blackmail.

The Indian markets can be drawn off Russian energy with tariff relief and mutual investment agreements centered on other matters important to India, Europe, and the US.

The PRC, though, is going to buy Russian oil and gas regardless. The two nations already have an economic arrangement in place that allows the PRC to develop Siberian hydrocarbon resources in return for first pick on the output of that development. When those distributing pipelines are built from Siberia into the PRC, the latter will get the former’s oil and gas functionally at no cost.

There’s more to this, though than just the blacklists. What’s also needed is better enforcement and strengthening of the existing bars against technology transfers and against equipment and maintenance supply transfers that are needed to develop wells and to maintain delivery pipelines to refineries, to (re)build and maintain refineries, and to build and maintain refined output pipelines delivering to end users.

The third factor centers on the black market, the Russian shadow fleet of oil tankers serving that black market, and the buyers’ shadow fleet of tankers as ships meeting the Russian ships for at-sea transfers. This is, perhaps, the most straightforward factor to handle, if the most difficult for the politically timid national managers. The shadow fleet ships could be—have been in the main—easily identified and seized, their cargo transferred to the seizing nation for its use (not resale) and the ships sent to the breakers for recouping the scrap metal and such other items as might be useful. Those shadow fleet ships whose captains resist seizure should simply have their ships sunk on the spot, without wasting much time arguing the matter: “Prepare to be boarded.” “No.” Sink the ship.

All of that is straightforward, only that first factor of widespread enforcement will take some political maneuverings among the relevant nations.

Invitations

Posted on by
Reply

Ex-Russian President and current Russian Security Council Deputy Chair Dmitry Medvedev now is making not so veiled threats of nuclear war and of assassination of our President. On the matter of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles, weapons with an 1,800 mile reach, he said,

that “could end badly for everyone…most of all, for Trump himself,” according to a Google translation of his Russian-language Telegram post.
“It’s been said a hundred times, in a manner understandable even to the star-spangled man, that it’s impossible to distinguish a nuclear Tomahawk missile from a conventional one in flight[.]”

Is Medvedev inviting a nuclear response every time the Russians fire a nuclear capable ballistic missile at Ukraine, every time one (or more) of their nuclear capable bombers launches and flies headlong at Ukraine before launching its nuclear capable cruise missiles, every time one (or more) of its nuclear capable fighter-bomber aircraft invade Baltic State airspace?

Is he threatening the murder of President Donald Trump (R)?

Of course not on the former. The barbarian underboss is simply demonstrating Russian dishonesty. On the latter? Russia does have a history of murdering politicians they don’t like, including murdering them on foreign soil.

Medvedev’s threats, though, are reason enough to double up on the number of Tomahawks originally under discussion, and to authorize their transfer with no strings attached regarding Ukraine’s target lists for them.

Yet Another Reason

Posted on by
2

People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping’s moves to further restrict access to and shipments of rare earths, processed rare earths, and components that use rare earths, an access restriction amounting to virtual cutoff aimed specifically against us, is just one more reason for American businesses to stop doing business with PRC-domiciled companies or inside the PRC. The lede:

With rare-earths export restrictions and a string of actions targeting the US chip industry, Beijing is mounting a full-scale offensive on Washington ahead of an expected meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

This, too:

On Thursday, China announced new restrictions on rare-earth materials, specifically noting that licenses related to certain types of chips will be granted on a case-by-case basis. Also Thursday, Beijing added roughly a dozen organizations to its “unreliable entity list,” including TechInsights, a Canada-based semiconductor technology research firm that had released reports on chip-development efforts by China’s Huawei Technologies.
China went beyond semiconductors. On Thursday, Beijing also said it would require licenses for exports of certain lithium batteries and some equipment and materials used to make them.

Included in those restrictions are limits on exporting any goods that include as few rare earths as 0.1% of the product’s value in their makeup. That amounts to an outright block on anything that even touches rare earths. It’s a direct attack on our economy and our defense industries, and so on our sovereignty.

It’s long past time for American businesses to shift their business arrangements and their supply chains completely away from the PRC. The patriotic nature of the move as well as the move’s economic optimization, along with the urgency of making it, should be obvious even to the most remote, ivory tower cloistered American business manager.

That shift must include stopping all technology transfers to the PRC, whether the transfer is in the form of goods (viz., chips, chip fabrication equipment, computer equipment, technologically oriented consumer goods, software, and so on) or in intellectual property agreements.

For example:

China’s top market regulator said Friday that it had launched an investigation into Qualcomm for suspected violation of the country’s antimonopoly law. The probe is tied to Qualcomm’s acquisition of Autotalks, an Israeli startup, the regulator said.

If Qualcomm were not operating inside the PRC, the PRC’s regulators would have nothing to say regarding the acquisition.

More broadly, if we as a nation did no business in or with the PRC, Xi would have no levers to swing against us. The changeover will be disruptive and expensive, but only in the short term, if American businesses get off the dime (including literally) and make the shifts. After all, how disruptive is it already to not be making the shifts apace? It’ll also be far more expensive for far longer, if not permanently, for American businesses to remain dependent on an enemy nation for critical items.

That dependency, too, is a direct threat to our independence of action as a sovereign nation, ceding as it does critical parts of our national economy and of our defense establishment to that enemy nation.