Category Archives: politics

Turkey and Natural Gas Pipelines

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War on the Rocks has an interesting piece on Turkey’s desire to become a natural gas transshipment hub feeding Europe and perhaps Russia.  I think, though, that WOTR underplays the purpose of Turkey’s transshipment goal.

Recall the existing conflict between Turkey and Europe over immigration, economics, rule of law EU-style rather than as Recep Erdoğan does it, and a host of other excuses for Turkey to claim to be put upon.

Next, keep in mind that Turkey went to school on Russia’s use of its dominance in supplying natural gas to Ukraine and to central Europe and the fact that that dominating supply flowed almost exclusively through a pipeline running through Ukraine to Europe.  Turkey also is observing with care the increase in Russian control of Europe’s natural gas supply that construction of Nord Stream 2 would produce and which would allow Russia to take Ukraine out of the equation altogether, thereby to directly…influence…Europe.

Awash in natural gas deliveries from highly diversified pool of suppliers, Turkey hopes to dominate the market by becoming a natural gas hub for Europe, particularly Southeast Europe, which is less connected to EU natural gas infrastructure and remains heavily dependent on Russia[.]

Now here is Turkey deliberately building an oversupply of natural gas transport so as to feed southern Europe.  And…influence…it?  WOTR put it too mildly, I think.

If Turkey becomes a hub through which a diverse set of suppliers sends its natural gas to Southeast and Southern Europe, the country stands not only to amass economic benefits…. It can also use the status of an energy hub to heighten its geopolitical weight in the region, vis-à-vis Russia and the European Union.

I submit that Russia is less a target than is the EU.  After all, after the Turkish shootdown of a Russian fighter aircraft, there has been an enthusiastic rapprochement between those two nations.

There’s Help, and There’s Help

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Recall that Alphabet Inc, through its Google arm, has refused to help the US defend itself by refusing to work with DoD on the application of artificial intelligence to military projects.  After the resignations described at the link, Alphabet pulled its Google arm out of the project altogether, with effect in 2019 when its current contract expires.

On the other hand, Alphabet is enthusiastic about its Google working within the People’s Republic of China.  Mobvoi Inc, headquartered outside Beijing, makes smart watches and smart speakers for sale within—and outside—the surveillance state.

Its engineers build apps using TensorFlow, Google’s free set of development tools for artificial intelligence.

And

Now those allies [like Mobvoi] will likely be crucial as Google embarks on a broader China expansion strategy.

Indeed,

In his three years as Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai has been a frequent visitor to the region, meeting with top Chinese officials and encouraging businesses to use Google’s free open-source tools like TensorFlow….

Alphabet won’t work on AI projects with DoD, but they’re perfectly happy to make much of their AI capability freely available to the PRC.

Hmm….

Heads in the Sand

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There is a Defcon computer security conference in progress at which a Voting Village hackers collection is busily hacking various voting machine manufacturers’ machines.  As McMillan and Volz put it in their Wall Street Journal piece about the Village,

These hacks can root out weaknesses in voting machines so that vendors will be pressured to patch flaws and states will upgrade to more secure systems, organizers say.

Sadly, many of those manufacturers are upset over it, even to the point of warning about voting software license abuse.  Even State government representatives don’t like the idea of testing this software’s and these machines’ security.  Here’s Leslie Reynolds, National Association of Secretaries of State Executive Director:

Anybody could break into anything if you put it in the middle of a floor and gave them unlimited access and unlimited time[.]

To a small extent, that’s a valid beef.  But only to a small extent: that direct access “in the middle of a floor.”  However, malicious hackers—for instance, Russian hackers, to say nothing of Iranian, People’s Republic of China’s, northern Korean’s, each of whom also have an interest in sowing doubt and causing outright disruption—have lots of time between now and our November elections, and they’ve had the last couple of years (at the least) already—a good approximation of unlimited time relative to the evolution of software and hardware.

In addition, Reynolds’ argument is a bit of a strawman.  No one is representing this hack-athon as the last word in the security investigation.  It is, though, a highly useful step in the process of locating security failures (vulnerabilities being a too-soft term) so they can be patched.

Election Systems & Software LLC, a leading manufacturer of voting equipment, was reluctant to have its systems tested at the conference. … Hackers “will absolutely access some voting systems internal components because they will have full and unfettered access to a unit without the advantage of trained poll workers, locks, tamper-evident seals, passwords, and other security measures that are in place in an actual voting situation.”

Sure.  Our stuff don’t stink, so there’s nothing to see here.  Move along.  Don’t investigate because we don’t want to know the problems.  They’d be invalid, anyway.

Jeanette Manfra, a senior cybersecurity official at DHS, actually sympathized with concerns that Village hackers could unintentionally lower Americans’ confidence in our election systems.  She’s wrong, though.  Responsible persons’ hiding their heads under their pillows, chanting, “La la la, I don’t hear you” are the ones lowering our confidence.  Pretending problems don’t exist is a thin shield, indeed, against those problems’ exploitation.

No.  The more objections there are to investigating and testing the security of our voting system, the more badly we need those investigations and tests.

Chicago Mayhem

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Recall the bloody mayhem going on in Chicago these days while its mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) fiddles.  Over 80 people were killed or injured one recent weekend alone.

Last year, President Donald Trump told Emanuel to get things under control, or else the Feds would.  That was a year-and-a-half ago and so greatly predates the recent weekend.

Trump’s own mistake was in not following through on his implied threat.

Here’s President Hines’ solution, and it’s not too late to implement it; although the bloody cost of sitting on the sidelines is rising.  Since Emanuel has chosen to do nothing but natter on about how terrible things are, Hines would get on to Governor Bruce Rauner and tell him he has one week to get the Illinois State Police deployed in Chicago in place of the city’s police (who are pouting like toddlers over their mistreatment by Emanuel—a justified beef, but no excuse for shirking their duty) and beginning to restore order to the city.  In the same notice to Rauner, Hines would Federalize the Illinois National Guard.  If Rauner said his State police didn’t have the resources, Hines would tell Rauner that if he needs Guard support, Hines would authorize it.

The bottom line is this: if the city and State governments can’t be bothered to bring Chicago under control, the Federal government has to.

I grew up in Illinois.  It’s more than irritating to see a once great State descend into such bloody chaos, especially when it’s occurring because the State and local governments won’t do their jobs.