Category Archives: defense policy

American Security

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Thinks about the Obama administration’s current, and ongoing, failure regarding the Office of Personnel Management. After having “lost” the background check data it had “stored” in its computer facility last fall, the Inspector General of OPM said that

parts of its network should be shut down because they were riddled with weaknesses that “could potentially have national security implications.”

OPM didn’t bother. Now we learn that People’s Republic of China hackers (should we start calling them invaders?) entered OPM’s computer network and stole the personal data of all 2+ million Federal employees and the personal data of a skosh under an addition 2 million past Federal employees. As The Wall Street Journal put it,

[T]his isn’t a James Bond movie. It’s a Dilbert cartoon.

The WSJ goes on to say that the Federal bureaucracy can’t protect its data. I say, given the long-term duration of these hacks, including those by Russian and Iranian hacks and that IG recommendation, it’s not a matter “can’t.” The Feds refuse to try.

Are these hacks or an ongoing invasion?

The episode is one more confirmation that China is waging an unrelenting if unacknowledged cyber war against the United States.

Does Obama care at all about the security of the United States or of individual Americans?

Partition

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Has President Barack Obama acquiesced in the partition of Ukraine?

At the G-7 meeting last Sunday, Obama appears to have written off the concept of restoring occupied Crimea to Ukraine.

[Obama’s Press Secretary Josh] Earnest said whether to keep or impose additional economic sanctions against Russia will depend on whether the country decides to keep its end of the so-called Minsk agreement, updated after Moscow annexed Crimea last year, not whether it returns the peninsula.

With Earnest’s voice, Obama talked also about the need for the G-7 to

show unity in confronting Russia over actions in Ukraine.

Meaning Obama wants everyone to stand together and in unison shake their fingers very firmly at Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Will Obama acquiesce to the further partition of Ukraine and allow Russia to keep the eastern provinces currently occupied by Russian forces and paramilitary forces?

A New World “Order?”

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This still is President Barack Obama’s problem, and it seems to be Hillary Clinton’s as well.

The causes of war as discerned ever since Thucydides’ time are three: wars of ideology, of fear, and of gain.
…
Thucydides traced the war that ruined ancient Greece to Sparta’s fear that Athens’ growing power was crossing the line where it would be impossible to contain. Israel faces that threat from Iran, as today’s international structures for the maintenance of international security have failed to halt Iran’s drive, propelled by religious ideology, to possess nuclear weapons. Israel, bereft of its traditional sense of American support, is making ready to act against Iran’s menace to its existence. President Obama’s priority must [be to] repair relations with Israel by…convincing its leaders that the US understands Israel’s uniquely dangerous position.

And there now grows a deepening appetite for gain. America, perceived as eager to shed the burdens of world order in order to be “fundamentally transformed” through European-style social commitments, talks of engagement even when Iran’s “diplomacy” is a form of protracted warfare.

Three years later, we’re nearly at that end, and still with no serious effort by Obama—or Clinton—to repair relations.

Containing Iran

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This actually came up three years ago, in Jay Solomon’s piece in The Wall Street Journal, but dismayingly, it’s even more urgent now, not less so.

United Nations inspectors reported the discovery of traces of uranium enriched to higher purity levels than previously found at a fortified nuclear-fuel facility in Iran….

And

Nuclear experts say the enrichment process snowballs, meaning the most extensive technical work is required in the earlier stages—moving to 20% purity from 3.5% levels. Uranium enriched to 27% is considered highly enriched.

If President Barack Obama can’t contain a non-nuclear Iran, and prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, how does he expect to contain a nuclear Iran?

PRC and Asian “Benefits”

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A senior Chinese naval commander has claimed new islands his country is building in the South China Sea will benefit the region, while stressing that such activities “fall well within the scope of China’s sovereignty.”

Yeah. Because the People’s Republic of China is Asia. Especially if its sea grab is allowed to stand, and its bogus claim that the East and South China Sea are PRC domestic lakes is accepted.

Who in Asia would benefit from such a thing? The PRC, getting all the oil and natural gas that lie under the South China Sea, and perhaps the East China Sea. The PRC, getting all the minerals, especially the rare earth metals, that lie on the sea bottom(s). The PRC, getting all the fisheries around the islands the PRC is trying to seize.

Who in Asia does not benefit? All the other nations on the rims of those seas, who are denied access to those same items that lie both in the international waters that are those two seas and in those nations’ respective Exclusive Economic Zones—which the PRC’s grab obliterates. All the other nations on the rims of those seas, who now are front line defense barriers for the PRC—now the First Island Barrier.

There’s this, too, in particular, on the north shore of the South China Sea.

Beijing officials emphasized that there will be no concessions over electoral reform in Hong Kong during a rare meeting with pro-democracy lawmakers Sunday, effectively quashing any possibility of a compromise between the two sides.

Readers will recall, perhaps, this particular…disagreement…notable for both the PRC’s attitude toward agreements it’s made when those agreements prove inconvenient to it, and the PRC’s attitude toward decision-making by anyone other than the Communist Party of China.

These are the benefits the PRC touts.