Quotes of the Day:
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
- H. L. Mencken
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
- Viktor E. Frankl
"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
- Samuel Adams
1. How China ate America's lunch as a distracted U.S. focused on terror
2. When will supply chains be back to normal? And how did things get so bad?
3. China tests new space capability with hypersonic missile
4. China Tested A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System That Uses A Hypersonic Glide Vehicle: Report
5. China is no threat to people in the US; Wall Street, CIA & the Pentagon are: Analyst
6. US lies about Wuhan lab are motivated by geopolitics: report
7. The Chinese film beating Bond and Marvel at the box office
8. Op-ed: Why the U.S.-China duo is the most significant, and potentially the most perilous, bilateral relationship in human history
9. S. Korea voices 'deep regrets' over Kishida's ritual offering to war shrine
10. U.S. Afghan Resettlements Slowed by Housing Shortage, Old Technology
11. It’s time to focus on treating ‘invisible wounds’ of veterans, advocates say
12. Special Operations Command to Test Fire Sneaky Laser Weapon on AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship
13. Bombshell leak reveals China's 'game-changing' hypersonic weapon
14. Analysis | Are Americans growing warier of more government just as Biden tries to pass his big agenda?
15. In allied capitals, a nuanced, cautious view of Biden
16. Marine who criticized top brass over Afghan policy gets $5,000 fine and reprimand
17. Iowa Rep. Steven Holt: 52% of Trump supporters favor secession to preserve the principles of our republic
18. Scientists uncover a psychological factor that explains support for QAnon better than political ideology
1. How China ate America's lunch as a distracted U.S. focused on terror
Excerpts:
While China ratcheted up defense spending on ship-killing missiles in the western Pacific and expanded its navy, the Pentagon revamped the U.S. Army to take on insurgents in the Middle East armed with AK-47s, and the Air Force grew accustomed to operating with total air superiority.
"We gave them 20 years, and we retooled our military for a fight totally irrelevant to the principal security challenge of today," said Evan Medeiros, the Penner Family Chair in Asia Studies in Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration reversed course with China to gain its support at the U.N. Security Council for the fight against al Qaeda, easing pressure on Beijing over human rights and pressing Taiwan to hold off on an independence referendum. At Beijing's request, in 2002 the U.S. declared an obscure Uyghur organization, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a terrorist group.
The move, and the rhetoric surrounding the fight against terrorism, gave China a justification to crack down on Muslims in China, experts said.
How China ate America's lunch as a distracted U.S. focused on terror
In 2001, the Bush administration was focused on China and tensions had spiked. The 9/11 attacks were a "geopolitical gift to China,“ says one expert.
NBC News · by Dan De Luce · October 17, 2021
WASHINGTON — Twenty years ago, White House officials were worried about China and tensions were rising.
On April 1, 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane off China's coast, forcing the Americans to make an emergency landing on Chinese territory. The Chinese detained the U.S. crew for 11 days and carefully inspected the sophisticated aircraft before handing it over. Washington accused the Chinese fighter pilot of reckless flying. Beijing demanded an apology.
The incident reinforced the Bush administration's view that China was America's next major adversary.
But on the morning of Sept. 11, al Qaeda extremists hijacked four airliners and crashed three of them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia. America's attention abruptly shifted to the "war on terror."
In the wake of the attacks, U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan and the Middle East, and the challenge posed by China was set aside for nearly two decades.
Oct. 10, 202101:39
“It was a huge mistake for the United States to focus on the war on terror because the real challenge was going to come from China,” said Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore.
China’s GDP jumped from $1.2 trillion in 2000 to more than $14.7 trillion in 2020.
“While you were busy fighting wars, China was busy trading,” said Mahbubani, author of “Has China Won?”
As the U.S. was bogged down fighting Islamist militants in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, China’s economic and military power grew exponentially. Beijing built up its missile arsenal, extended its reach in the South China Sea by constructing artificial islands, stole intellectual property on a massive scale and pursued predatory trade tactics, experts say.
"After 9/11, China very quickly realized that Washington's strategic focus would be shifting 3,000 miles away, away from the East China Sea, away from the Taiwan Strait and into Afghanistan," said Craig Singleton of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. "It was an opportunity to quietly develop very coercive military capabilities that were all designed and intended to expand its power in East Asia."
July 1, 202101:25
The 9/11 attacks didn't alter China's goals, but created the chance to close the gap with a rival distracted by the "war on terror," said James Lewis, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
"They were doing the same things all along and we slowed down," Lewis said. U.S. officials at the time assumed that "we could put the China problem on the back burner, while we brought democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan," said Lewis, who worked on national security issues under several administrations.
The United States spent an estimated $8 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in the fight against terrorism, according to a report by the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
Lewis said that money could have been spent on research and development, modernizing the country's infrastructure, building high-tech weapons "and all the things we could have done over the past 20 years."
While China ratcheted up defense spending on ship-killing missiles in the western Pacific and expanded its navy, the Pentagon revamped the U.S. Army to take on insurgents in the Middle East armed with AK-47s, and the Air Force grew accustomed to operating with total air superiority.
"We gave them 20 years, and we retooled our military for a fight totally irrelevant to the principal security challenge of today," said Evan Medeiros, the Penner Family Chair in Asia Studies in Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration reversed course with China to gain its support at the U.N. Security Council for the fight against al Qaeda, easing pressure on Beijing over human rights and pressing Taiwan to hold off on an independence referendum. At Beijing's request, in 2002 the U.S. declared an obscure Uyghur organization, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a terrorist group.
The move, and the rhetoric surrounding the fight against terrorism, gave China a justification to crack down on Muslims in China, experts said.
By the time Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, officials spoke of the need to "pivot" to Asia and focus more on countering China. But a faltering war effort in Afghanistan and turmoil in the Middle East kept drawing Washington's attention away from China.
It's difficult to say how things would have evolved without the 9/11 attacks, but some experts argue the U.S. might have adapted its defense and economic strategies years earlier to take into account China's rise.
"Absent 9/11, you potentially would have had a faster shift in U.S. strategy towards China, in a more competitive direction," said Medeiros, who served as Obama's top adviser on the Asia-Pacific region. "At a minimum, you would have had a faster shift in U.S. defense strategy."
For years, U.S. political and business leaders did not see China's economic and trade policies as a major problem, Medeiros said.
"I think it took time for people to really recognize the nature of the China economic challenge, but that didn't have to do with Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. "[The mentality] was, 'Hey, everybody's still making money in China, so why rock the boat?'"
In 2001, no one in Washington fully grasped that China was on a phenomenal trajectory, said Oriana Skylar Mastro, center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
At that point, China’s economy was a “sliver” of its current size, and Beijing had no meaningful naval presence in the Western Pacific, she said.
Sept. 8, 202106:18
“It’s absolutely true that China gained the upper hand because the U.S. was distracted. But it’s not like we would have won this competition already if 9/11 hadn’t happened, ” said Mastro, who is also non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Until about five years ago, successive administrations misjudged China, believing Beijing could be a partner, according to Dmitri Alperovitch, executive chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a nonprofit think tank.
Political leaders mistakenly believed that if Washington helped open up global markets to Chinese industry, the Chinese government would gradually open up the country’s political system and play a more cooperative role on the world stage, according to Alperovitch.
“I don’t actually think that Afghanistan or the war on terror had a lot to do with it, that if we didn’t have that distraction, we would be less delusional about the threat that China poses,” said Alperovitch, who is also co-founder of CrowdStrike Inc., a cybersecurity company. “We had hope as a strategy and it backfired.”
China now is decidedly at the top of the agenda in Washington, and both parties agree about the need to “get tough.” President Joe Biden has kept in place tariffs imposed on China by former President Donald Trump, and lawmakers and corporations are pushing for measures to promote America’s microchip industry, invest in research and safeguard America’s technology sector from industrial espionage.
But is the response to China coming too late?
Some experts say valuable time was lost, that America still lacks a long-term strategy on how to counter China and that the country’s polarized politics threaten to distract the U.S. from the main task at hand.
But they say America remains a center of innovation and still has the means at its disposal to compete with China and win.
In the 1970s, after the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam in a humiliating defeat amid economic troubles and skyrocketing oil prices, the Soviet Union believed America was on a downward spiral, according to Lewis of CSIS. China now often portrays the U.S. as a decaying power on an inevitable decline.
In private conversations with his Chinese counterparts, Lewis said he has told them not to write off the United States just yet.
The Soviets thought we were gone, Lewis said, "and 15 years later, who was still standing?"
NBC News · by Dan De Luce · October 17, 2021
2. When will supply chains be back to normal? And how did things get so bad?
"Just in time logistics" - does not work in the military (thus the need for our iron mountains).
This twitter thread from Professor Paul Poast from the University of Chicago is very instructive and worth pondering. The author began with the article below. I was not aware of this aspect of World War One history. Some fascinating parallels.
Please go to this link to view the entire thread on Twitter to view the images and additional article links that accompany the tweets.
Paul Poast
@ProfPaulPoast
Global supply chains are a mess.
What to do? World War I offers a lesson.
[THREAD]
8:13 AM · Oct 16, 2021·Twitter Web App
664
Retweets
101
Quote Tweets
2,843
Likes
Paul Poast
@ProfPaulPoast
·
Oct 16
Replying to
@ProfPaulPoast
This @latimes piece offers a great primer on the current delays in the global supply chain. #COVID19 is partially to blame, but supply chains were a mess before the pandemic.
latimes.com
When will supply chains be back to normal? And how did things get so bad?
COVID-19 led to logjams at ports and borders that continue to ripple through many parts of our economy and everyday life. When will it get better?
Paul Poast
@ProfPaulPoast
Oct 16
A key culprit is that many supply chains were set up for a "just in time" supply model coupled with "on demand" delivery expectations. So no "wiggle room".
Quote Tweet
Chad P. Bown
@ChadBown
· Oct 14
Ultimately, the convenience of almost-instant delivery to which we’ve become so accustomed is where today's problem lies.
By @senoj_erialc
https://ft.com/content/0eb86078-34a0-4b3d-8e66-92f2c2896237
Paul Poast
@ProfPaulPoast
Oct 16
Another cause is a lack of information sharing by the ports -- distributors can't know that there is a problem until it's too late. This is a long standing issue (consider that this tweet on the issue was from 2018)
Quote Tweet
Long Beach Business Journal
@LBBizJourn
· Apr 27, 2018
Technology Undergoing Testing At San Pedro Bay Ports Could Provide Much-Needed Transparency, Efficiencies For Supply Chain - Learn about @GETRANSPORT's Port Optimizer program in our article: http://bit.ly/2FjP09r
The rest will not format so please go to the link above to view the entire twitter thread.It is very educational.
When will supply chains be back to normal? And how did things get so bad?
Wondering why everything from cars and refrigerators to books and toys is in short supply?
Blame the fouled-up supply chain that connects manufacturers around the world with the makers and assemblers of their component parts, as well as with the consumers and businesses that buy the finished goods. The problem emerged shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and it’s seemed to get only worse since then.
How did we get into this mess? And why isn’t it getting better? The Times reached out to some supply chain experts, and here are their answers.
What, exactly, is ‘the supply chain’?
Manufacturers in the U.S. and the rest of the industrialized world have long outsourced the production of common and low-cost products to China and other low-wage countries. But starting in the 1970s, companies outsourced the production of an increasing number of more sophisticated products, often using multiple contractors to produce and then assemble the components.
Here’s how it typically works: A company based in the U.S. will design and put the finishing touches on a product but will turn to one or more foreign manufacturers for raw materials and components if that will significantly cut the cost to build and deliver it. For example, according to the American University Auto Index, roughly half of each Dodge Ram 1500 truck that rolled out of a U.S. auto plant last year came from outside the U.S. and Canada.
Some companies forgo having U.S. factories altogether, using contractors to assemble their products from the pieces made by subcontractors. With or without a U.S. plant, a company that relies on a far-flung supply chain requires some combination of planes, ships, trucks and warehouses to pull its products together and store the inventory.
Global supply chains are especially prevalent in durable goods (such as cars and appliances), tech products (such as cellphones and computers), clothing, footwear, textiles, furniture and plastic goods. And although most U.S. imports come from China, Mexico and Canada are also important links in the supply chain here, as are a number of Asian and European countries.
What caused the problem?
In a word, COVID-19. The pandemic whirled up a toxic brew of forces that triggered and then exacerbated the shipping logjam.
The first blow came when many of the Chinese plants that build parts or assemble goods for global manufacturers were shut down by coronavirus outbreaks. Similar disruptions soon spread across the globe, affecting both manufacturers and the logistics companies that ship, store and deliver their goods.
After a brief COVID-related recession, however, demand for goods grew quickly, as people shifted to online buying and took up new habits (a surge in home-improvement projects, for example, boosted demand for appliances and construction materials).
Manufacturers face a “perfect storm” of issues, said Nick Vyas, executive director of the Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute at the USC Marshall School of Business.
Labor, transportation and logistics costs are up, there’s reduced capacity because of the problems all along the supply chain, and there’s a finite amount of resources across the board, including the number of containers and amount of manufacturing capacity.
“We might be able to buffer against one type of risk or two types of risk, but it’s the fact that all these challenges are happening at the same time,” said Nicole DeHoratius, an adjunct professor of operations management at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
The pandemic is not entirely to blame. Robert Handfield, the Bank of America professor of supply chain management at North Carolina State University, said that “warehouse, distribution and truck driver shortages were bad before COVID.”
The delays caused by the backlog in deliveries have been particularly disruptive to companies that operate with small inventories and rely on “just in time” shipments to fill orders. To avoid that pitfall, some companies are ordering extra supplies and components as a precaution, increasing the strain on the distribution system.
Another factor: Concerns about the spread of COVID-19 and its variants have made it harder for trucks to cross borders. A report Monday by Moody’s Analytics said the differences among countries’ efforts to control the coronavirus have gummed up the movement of transportation workers at ports and other freight hubs, contributing to a problem that will get worse before it gets better.
And it’s not easy to restart factories after they’ve been shut down to stem surges in coronavirus cases. Raw materials back up, and it can take weeks to restart production, Vyas said.
“The supply chain is a system,” he said. “When you create shocks from the supply to the demand side and that continues to happen, the system isn’t getting enough time to reset and recalibrate.”
Why are cargo ships waiting to be unloaded at the ports?
West Coast ports were barely keeping up with the growth in freight before the pandemic and had no ability to absorb disruption, said Ayman Omar, an associate professor at American University’s Kogod School of Business. The pandemic has only worsened the situation, including a shortage of trucks to haul cargo containers to their destinations.
There were 64 ships in a holding pattern near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach Thursday.
Some trucking industry executives blame higher federal unemployment benefits, which ended in September, for the driver shortage. Omar said that the benefits might have contributed to the problem in the early months of the pandemic, but the issue now is competition coming from transportation start-ups hungry for market share. Drivers come and go at trucking companies at an alarmingly high rate — turnover was more than 90% at large firms in the last quarter of 2020.
Without enough trucks to carry them off, containers piled up on docks, and more kept coming — each new ship brings in 10,000 to 21,000 containers. And with the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach unable to handle the growing number of ships, vessels were spending about as much time waiting to anchor and unload — about two weeks — as it would take a ship to cross the Pacific, said Robert Khachatryan, chief executive of Freight Right Global Logistics of La Crescenta.
Compounding the problem is the lack of transparency and information sharing, which makes it impossible for the manufacturers and importers who rely on the ports to see problems developing in advance and route around them, Omar said.
How is this affecting me?
Prices are higher for many things. The shortages and the heavy demand for shipping have combined to cause freight costs to skyrocket; the cost to move a container from China to the U.S. West Coast is four times what it was a year ago, and more than 10 times what it was before the pandemic.
Manufacturers have passed their higher costs on to consumers, though that hasn’t seemed to stem the demand for goods, Vyas said. The increase is hitting not just the teak furniture you bought, imported from Indonesia, but also the running shoes and dress shirts you bought from a local retailer.
Goods are taking longer to arrive. Handfield said he realized this summer that he needed a new refrigerator, so he ordered one in August. It’s not due until December. Some retailers are urging consumers to buy their holiday gifts now, while there’s still plenty of time for them to be delivered.
Some items are becoming harder to find. Although we’re not seeing as many empty store shelves as we did in the early days of the pandemic, shortages are cropping up in unexpected places. For example, printers, game consoles and rental cars are harder to come by, all thanks to the semiconductor drought.
More price inflation is expected. “You have this constant pressure of not having enough resources, strong demand,” Vyas said.
How long will it last?
Experts say it will take a while — maybe six months, maybe more than a year — before the supply chain can work its way through the backlog.
“We have these orders coming in, we can’t work them off because we’re facing these labor shortages,” DeHoratius said. “Unless they stop coming in, it doesn’t allow us the time to get it through.”
Some companies have even tried to hedge their bets by placing multiple orders for the same products from different factories. But that still requires shipping capacity to get the products to store shelves on time.
How will this be resolved? Some economists argue that the convulsions in the shipping market will encourage U.S. manufacturers to shift more of their outsourced work from Asia to Mexico. But that’s a long-term fix. In the near term, experts say that repairing the supply chain will require addressing every part of it and not focusing on just one part of the process.
For example, factory employees who work on manufacturing and raw materials processing need to be vaccinated to stop outbreaks.
Ports need to expand hours so that more containers can be offloaded. The Biden administration announced a move in that direction Wednesday, saying the Port of Los Angeles would start operating around the clock, similar to moves made at the Port of Long Beach.
Vyas likened the supply chain to a symphony, in which every piece must play its position for the whole ensemble to be successful.
“We’re doing this in a silo — one touch point at a time — rather than as a system,” he said. “It needs to balance this out.”
3. China tests new space capability with hypersonic missile
This is a scary capability.
China tests new space capability with hypersonic missile
China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise.
Five people familiar with the test said the Chinese military launched a rocket that carried a hypersonic glide vehicle which flew through low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target.
The missile missed its target by about two-dozen miles, according to three people briefed on the intelligence. But two said the test showed that China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realised.
The test has raised new questions about why the US often underestimated China’s military modernisation.
“We have no idea how they did this,” said a fourth person.
The US, Russia and China are all developing hypersonic weapons, including glide vehicles that are launched into space on a rocket but orbit the earth under their own momentum. They fly at five times the speed of sound, slower than a ballistic missile. But they do not follow the fixed parabolic trajectory of a ballistic missile and are manoeuvrable, making them harder to track.
Taylor Fravel, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons policy who was unaware of the test, said a hypersonic glide vehicle armed with a nuclear warhead could help China “negate” US missile defence systems which are designed to destroy incoming ballistic missiles.
“Hypersonic glide vehicles . . . fly at lower trajectories and can manoeuvre in flight, which makes them hard to track and destroy,” said Fravel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Fravel added that it would be “destabilising” if China fully developed and deployed such a weapon, but he cautioned that a test did not necessarily mean that Beijing would deploy the capability.
Mounting concern about China’s nuclear capabilities comes as Beijing continues to build up its conventional military forces and engages in increasingly assertive military activity near Taiwan.
Tensions between the US and China have risen as the Biden administration has taken a tough tack on Beijing, which has accused Washington of being overly hostile.
US military officials in recent months have warned about China’s growing nuclear capabilities, particularly after the release of satellite imagery that showed it was building more than 200 intercontinental missile silos. China is not bound by any arms-control deals and has been unwilling to engage the US in talks about its nuclear arsenal and policy.
Last month, Frank Kendall, US air force secretary, hinted that Beijing was developing a new weapon. He said China had made huge advances, including the “potential for global strikes . . . from space”. He declined to provide details, but suggested that China was developing something akin to the “Fractional Orbital Bombardment System” that the USSR deployed for part of the Cold War, before abandoning it.
“If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM trajectory. It’s a way to avoid defences and missile warning systems,” said Kendall.
In August, General Glen VanHerck, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, told a conference that China had “recently demonstrated very advanced hypersonic glide vehicle capabilities”. He warned that the Chinese capability would “provide significant challenges to my Norad capability to provide threat warning and attack assessment”.
Two of the people familiar with the Chinese test said the weapon could, in theory, fly over the South Pole. That would pose a big challenge for the US military because its missiles defence systems are focused on the northern polar route.
The revelation comes as the Biden administration undertakes the Nuclear Posture Review, an analysis of policy and capabilities mandated by Congress that has pitted arms-control advocates against those who believe the US must do more to modernise its nuclear arsenal because of China.
The Pentagon did not comment on the report but expressed concern about China. “We have made clear our concerns about the military capabilities China continues to pursue, capabilities that only increase tensions in the region and beyond,” said John Kirby, spokesperson. “That is one reason why we hold China as our number one pacing challenge.”
The Chinese embassy declined to comment on the test, but Liu Pengyu, spokesperson, said China always pursued a military policy that was “defensive in nature” and its military development did not target any country.
“We don’t have a global strategy and plans of military operations like the US does. And we are not at all interested in having an arms race with other countries,” Liu said. “In contrast, the US has in recent years been fabricating excuses like ‘the China threat’ to justify its arms expansion and development of hypersonic weapons. This has directly intensified arms race in this category and severely undermined global strategic stability.”
One Asian national security official said the Chinese military conducted the test in August. China generally announces the launch of Long March rockets — the type used to launch the hypersonic glide vehicle into orbit — but it conspicuously concealed the August launch.
The security official, and another Chinese security expert close to the People’s Liberation Army, said the weapon was being developed by the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics. CAAA is a research institute under China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the main state-owned firm that makes missile systems and rockets for China’s space programme. Both sources said the hypersonic glide vehicle was launched on a Long March rocket, which is used for the space programme.
The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, which oversees launches, on July 19 said on an official social media account that it had launched a Long March 2C rocket, which it added was the 77th launch of that rocket. On August 24, it announced that it had conducted a 79th flight. But there was no announcement of a 78th launch, which sparked speculation among observers of its space programme about a secret launch. CAAA did not respond to requests for comment.
4. China Tested A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System That Uses A Hypersonic Glide Vehicle: Report
This is based on the Financial Times report.
China Tested A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System That Uses A Hypersonic Glide Vehicle: Report
Such a capability could potentially allow China to execute a nuclear strike on any target on earth with near-impunity and very little warning.
A report from Financial Times' Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille states that China has tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle that goes into space and traverses the globe in an orbital-like fashion before making its run through the atmosphere toward its target. There would be huge implications if such a system were to be operationalized, and according to this story, which says it talked to five officials confirming the test, the U.S. government was caught totally off-guard by it.
The trial flight is said to have occurred around August, with the boost-glide vehicle being lifted into space by a Long March 2C rocket. The launch of the rocket, the 77th of its kind, was undisclosed by Beijing, while the 76th and 78th were—the latter of which occurred in late August. The Financial Times says that the tested hypersonic glide vehicle missed its target by a couple of dozen miles, but that is hardly reassuring considering the capabilities that are apparently in development here.
The foundation of this Cold War-era concept is commonly referred to as a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, or FOBS, but instead of carrying a traditional nuclear-armed reentry vehicle, this Chinese system would carry a hypersonic glide vehicle that would possess immense kinetic energy upon reentry. As such, it could make a very long maneuvering flight through the atmosphere at very high speeds to its target.
The FOBS concept has long been a concern because of its potential to bypass not just missile defenses, but even many early warning capabilities. Compared to a traditional intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a FOBS can execute the same strikes but from highly unpredictable vectors. Range limitations also become a non-factor and the timing of an inbound strike is also far less predictable. But at least with a traditional FOBS ballistic missile system, some sort of projections could be made if the mid-course "orbital" vehicle can be tracked, although that could still be a real challenge.
That is not the case at all with a hybrid design like the one being claimed to have been tested here, which would be totally unpredictable.
Chinese Space Agency
A Long March 2C rocket lifts off on a mission.
The maneuvering hypersonic glide vehicle, descending from high-altitude at extreme speed, could travel thousands of miles to its target, which can be totally offset from a normal ballistic track. Complicating things more, these systems can attack from the south pole, not just the north where most of America's ballistic missile early warning, tracking, and defensive apparatus is focused. Intercepting such a system would also be very challenging, especially considering U.S. mid-course intercept capabilities are focused on traditional ballistic missile flight profiles, which fly more of a parabolic trajectory and have generally known ranges of each stage of flight.
With a glide vehicle end-game delivery system paired with a FOBS, its vehicles can enter the atmosphere beyond the range of an interceptor's exo-atmospheric mid-course kill envelope, with the glide vehicle weaving its way through the atmosphere to its final target. Traditional surface-based radar systems' line of sight is also significantly reduced as the hypersonic glide vehicle travels in the atmosphere. Paired with the extreme speeds involved, this can make these systems nearly useless at providing any details regarding the impending attack.
Hypersonic glide vehicles themselves are also very tough to kill with no real defense against them available at this time. Elaborate defensive concepts are in the works, but their effectiveness will depend on just how fast these vehicles are traveling, their maneuverability, density in numbers, what third-party sensors are available to help in generating an engagement solution, and more. A hypersonic glide vehicle with the kinetic energy in its favor from an orbital-like delivery would likely be the very hardest to kill.
Last month, Frank Kendall, US air force secretary, hinted that Beijing was developing a new weapon. He said China had made huge advances, including the “potential for global strikes . . . from space”. He declined to provide details, but suggested that China was developing something akin to the “Fractional Orbital Bombardment System” that the USSR deployed for part of the Cold War, before abandoning it.“ If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM trajectory. It’s a way to avoid defenses and missile warning systems,” said Kendall.
In August, General Glen VanHerck, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, told a conference that China had “recently demonstrated very advanced hypersonic glide vehicle capabilities”. He warned that the Chinese capability would “provide significant challenges to my Norad capability to provide threat warning and attack assessment”.
That layer would be absolutely essential in trying to defend against a FOBS, that is if a defense at all is actually feasible or even strategically sound. We are not talking about a rogue state here with a few advanced ballistic missiles. China would be able to deploy dozens or even hundreds of these at once. At a certain point, kinetic defenses against such a capability become a losing proposition and a very costly one at that.
Regardless, if this report ends up being fully accurate, one thing is likely: New calls for hugely expensive missile defense capabilities will be ringing loud and often on Capitol Hill, as well as demands to do whatever possible to bring China to the bargaining table in hopes of obtaining some type of strategic arms limitation treaty.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com
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5. China is no threat to people in the US; Wall Street, CIA & the Pentagon are: Analyst
A report from Iran media based on the musings of American political analyst and activist Bill Dores. Is he an example of a useful idiot? (I do not mean to make an ad hominem attack but his words are certainly being used by US adversaries).
China is no threat to people in the US; Wall Street, CIA & the Pentagon are: Analyst
Then-US President-elect Joe Biden arrives at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Del., Jan. 10, 2021. (Photo by The Associated Press)
American political analyst and activist Bill Dores says China is no threat to the people in the United States; Wall Street, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Pentagon are.
Dores, a writer for Struggle/La Lucha and longtime antiwar activist, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday after the CIA launched a new mission center to address what it calls “the most important geopolitical threat” posed by China.
CIA Director William Burns said in a statement last week that the new unit, called the China Mission Center, will “further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century, an increasingly adversarial Chinese government.”
Burns said that his agency will still focus on other threats as well, including those emanating from Russia, North Korea and Iran.
The CIA’s renewed attention to China is the latest evidence of the Biden administration’s focus on Beijing as its main foreign policy target.
Since taking charge of the White House earlier this year, the Biden administration has been directing resources toward countering China.
Why is CIA targeting China?
“The CIA is grabbing more tax money to start a ‘mission center’ aimed at China, which it calls the ‘most important geopolitical threat we face.’ This is ominous news, considering the agency’s history of fabricating evidence to start wars, e.g. Iraq’s nonexistent ‘weapons of mass destruction,’” Dores commented to Press TV.
“US troops have left Afghanistan. But not a dime has been slashed from the bloated US military budget. Indeed, it’s being increased to $778 billion from $753 billion to face the alleged ‘Chinese threat.’ That’s more than the combined military budgets of China, India, Russia, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Australia,” he added.
“It’s also been revealed that US Special Forces have been operating secretly on Taiwan for two years. Meanwhile, the US Congress will not pass the Build Back Better Act to modestly extend our social safety net,” he added.
“The People’s Republic of China has five times the population of the United States. But it spends only $258 billion on its military. China’s forces are deployed in or around the borders and coasts of China. By no stretch of the imagination is China threatening the US militarily. Why would it? For what gain?” he asked.
“So, what the Sam Hill is a ‘geopolitical threat.’ It’s a twisted concept based on the twisted premise that the United States, with 4 percent of the world’s population, should dominate the world politically and economically. And that really means the billionaires and millionaires that Occupy Wall Street protesters called the ‘One Percent,’” he stated.
China’s economic ‘threat’ to US
“China’s real ‘threat,’ in the minds of the US corporate ruling class, is economic. China produces more than the United States, and its economy is growing much faster,” the analyst said.
“It has achieved this not by destroying the economies of other countries with war and sanctions, but by growth and trade. China’s Belt and Road Initiative has greatly weakened the stranglehold Wall Street banks once held on the world economy. An article in the US magazine Foreign Policy whined that China is ‘whittling away’ at the murderous ‘sanctions regime’ the US and West Europe use to ‘punish’ countries that defy their dictates,” he explained.
“US corporations do of course invest in China. They make a lot of money there. But they can’t dictate to the Chinese government the way US oil companies dictated to the Shah of Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Or the way they dictate to their paid servants in the White House and the Capitol today,” he observed.
“Politicians and news media tell working-class people in the United States that China’s growth is somehow a threat to our well-being. They conceal the fact that China’s dynamic growth is the biggest single factor staving off a global economic collapse,” he said.
“Yet it is their own Wall Street masters who have shut down plants all over this country and foreclosed on millions of homes. It is they who used the technological revolution as a weapon to drive down wages and destroy millions of jobs,” Dores said.
Washington’s ‘hate China’ campaign
“Washington raises several phony issues in its ‘hate China’ campaign. One is the alleged persecution of the Uighur people in Xinjiang Province. There’s nothing but hypocrisy here,” the analyst said.
“If this claim were true-and I’ve seen no reliable evidence that it is Washington would be the last to care. The United States leads the world in mass incarceration and murder by police,” he noted.
“According to the Equal Justice Initiative, ‘Millions of Americans are incarcerated in overcrowded, violent, and inhumane jails and prisons that do not provide treatment, education, or rehabilitation.’ The majority are from the oppressed Black, Latin and Native nations targeted by police,” he said.
“Among the incarcerated are dozens of political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Jamil Abdullah Al Amin, who have spent decades behind bars on frame-up charges,” he stated.
“Last year’s Black Lives Matter uprising highlighted the extent of racist police murder in the United States. Between 1980 and 2018, US police killed more than 30,000 people. Half of those killings were misclassified, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal,” he said.
US supports ‘ethnic cleansing and murder of Palestinian people’
“We also cannot forget that Washington not only supports but subsidizes the ethnic cleansing and murder of Palestinian people by the racist state of Israel, including the mass imprisonment of 2 million people in the giant concentration camp called the Gaza Strip. The US also has no problem with the oppression of the majority Muslim people of Kashmir by the Indian state,” Dores noted.
“The US accuses China of stealing ‘intellectual property,’ a twisted concept indeed. Perhaps the West should pay China for inventing paper, iron smelting, the seed drill, the compass, rockets, gunpowder and other innovations that made its economic development possible,” he said.
“There is the accusation of currency manipulation. But Washington has flooded the world with devalued dollars ever since the Nixon administration took the dollar off the gold standard in the 1970s. The US has long used the dollar as an instrument of financial warfare,” he said.
Why is the US Navy in the South China Sea?
“And there is the issue of ‘free navigation’ in the South China Sea. Which raises the question, what is the US Seventh Fleet doing in the South China Sea anyway? For that matter, why is the US Fifth Fleet off the coast of Iran and the US Fourth Fleet off the coast of Venezuela,” Dores said.
“Every year, ships carry $3.4 trillion worth of goods through the South China Sea. Most of that is bound to and from China,” he said.
“The PRC has no interest in stopping that commerce. It does have an interest in keeping US warships away from its coast and ports,” he said.
“For the past seven years, the US Navy has helped Saudi Arabia impose a naval blockade that is starving the children of Yemen. US sanctions, backed by the US Navy, are the main obstacle to commerce between nations in the world today,” he said.
“Instead of new CIA mission centers, military bases and fleets of warships and warplanes all over the world, the US should do what China does: Invest in schools, health care, housing, railroads and renewable energy. Bring all the ships, planes, troops and spies home. The world would be a much better and safer place,” he concluded.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
6. US lies about Wuhan lab are motivated by geopolitics: report
More Chinese propaganda. Look how they spin US media reports. We must not ignore it. I hope the Global Engagement Center is engaging in counter-propaganda (through indirect means I also hope).
US lies about Wuhan lab are motivated by geopolitics: report
Xinhua | Updated: 2021-10-16 18:27
CLOSE
BEIJING -- US lies about China's Wuhan lab are motivated not by science but geopolitics, and the purpose of this torrent of lies is to demonize China and the Chinese people, and to scapegoat them for a disease that has killed over one million Americans, the World Socialist Web Site said in an article on Tuesday.
Titled "The Wuhan lab libel: The Washington Post teaches America to hate," the article lashed at The Post's new editorial, which revived the discredited claim that COVID-19 is a biologically engineered virus created in China by the world's leading coronavirus researchers.
There is not a word in this editorial that has not been repeatedly disproven by scientists, international bodies and even the US government itself, the article pointed out.
In February, the World Health Organization (WHO) inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 declared the lab leak narrative "highly unlikely" and stated it was not worth further research, it said, adding that The Post simply ignores these conclusions.
Calling The Post an organ of American imperialism, the article said that what appears on its pages is carefully reviewed and coordinated with the US intelligence agencies, if not directly written by them.
7. The Chinese film beating Bond and Marvel at the box office
The Chinese film beating Bond and Marvel at the box office
By Waiyee Yip
BBC News
Published
1 hour ago
The biggest movie in the world right now is not the latest Bond film No Time To Die or even Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
It's a Chinese propaganda film about the 1950s Korean War, centred on a story of Chinese soldiers defeating American troops despite great odds.
In just two weeks since its release, The Battle at Lake Changjin has made over $633m (£463m) at the box office. This puts it far ahead of Shang-Chi's global earnings of $402m, and in just half the time.
It is set to become China's highest-grossing film ever.
Its success is good news for China's pandemic-affected film sector as Covid forced cinemas to shut and reopen multiple times.
It is even better news for the state, which experts say appears to have nailed a formula of making propaganda appeal to the masses.
But for Hollywood looking in from the outside, the immense popularity of a local film like this could mean even more challenges ahead as it struggles to gain ground in China - the biggest film market in the world.
'Patriotic duty to watch the film'
Commissioned by the Chinese government, The Battle At Lake Changjin is just one of several nationalist films which have become big commercial hits in China in recent years.
In 2017, Wolf Warrior 2, about a Chinese soldier saving hundreds of people from baddies in an African warzone, raked in a record 1.6bn yuan ($238m; £181m) in just one week.
Lake Changjin depicts a brutal battle in freezing weather which the Chinese claim was a turning point in the Korean War - formally known in China as the "War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea".
Thousands of young Chinese soldiers died at the titular lake to secure a crucial win against American forces.
"I'm so moved by the soldiers' sacrifice. The weather was so extreme, but they managed to win. I feel so proud," an audience member wrote on reviews site Douban.
It is no coincidence that the film's popularity comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.
"It is definitely related to the ongoing tensions with the US, and has been promoted that way - sometimes indirectly, but still very clearly," said Dr Stanley Rosen, a political science professor from the University of Southern California.
Another reason behind its success is the co-ordinated push between film studios and the authorities, which tightly control the number and types of films that can be distributed at any one time.
At the moment, Battle At Lake Changjin has little competition in theatres. Major Hollywood blockbusters No Time To Die and Dune will only open in China at the end of October, despite already showing elsewhere.
This film was also particularly well-timed - not only did it open during China's National Day holidays starting 1 October, it comes as the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
"It's almost a patriotic duty to go see this film," said Dr Rosen.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, "It's almost a patriotic duty to go see this film," a film expert said of The Battle at Lake Changjin
Such propaganda films are often mandatory viewing for CCP cadres, said Dr Florian Schneider, director of the Netherlands' Leiden Asia Centre.
"Work units frequently organise collective viewings, and with over 95 million card-holding members, that promises a significant box office boost," he told the BBC.
So far, online reviews of the film are overwhelmingly positive, though some observers pointed out that they may not be entirely true.
After all, criticism could land one in jail.
Last week, former journalist Luo Changping was detained for making "insulting comments" on social media about the Chinese soldiers portrayed in the movie.
Police in Sanya said that he was being held on the charge of "infringing the reputation and honour of national martyrs", and that the case was being investigated.
"Youngsters [in China] with strong nationalist feelings have a disproportionate voice online," Dr Jonathan Hassid, a political science expert at Iowa State University, told the BBC in an earlier interview.
"In part, this voice is amplified because legitimate criticism of the state is increasingly unacceptable."
Blockbuster propaganda
Still, fans of the film say that they enjoy its blockbuster elements that put it on par with other major mainstream flicks.
"With a reported $200 million budget, the production values and special effects are very good. The three directors are all good storytellers and well known in China," said Dr Rosen.
The film's directors Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark, and Dante Lam are all celebrated film-makers.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, Directors Dante Lam, Tsui Hark and Chen Kaige are all celebrated film-makers in China
Tsui is known for special effects and martial arts films, while Lam is famous for his action spectacles involving giant explosives. Chen is celebrated for sensitive portrayals of Chinese life.
"We all know this is meant to be a patriotic film but I really cried when I watched it. It felt very authentic," one person wrote on microblogging platform Weibo.
Big headache for Hollywood
But China's domestic film success is potentially adding to a list of problems that foreign players like Hollywood already face, in their attempt to win over the lucrative Chinese market.
China has a quota for foreign films, officially allowing only 34 to be shown each year.
There are some workarounds - if Hollywood co-produces a film with Chinese companies, it will not count towards the quota.
According to a report last year, Hollywood bosses have also been censoring films to placate the Chinese market, with casting, content, dialogue and plotlines increasingly being tailored to appease censors in Beijing.
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, Hollywood and other foreign players want in on the lucrative Chinese film market - but it has not been easy
But even then, this is no guarantee of box office success, with even some co-productions bombing badly.
Fantasy-action movie The Great Wall (2016), directed by celebrated Chinese director Zhang Yimou and starring Matt Damon, was criticised both in the US and China for its "white saviour narrative".
Despite these challenges, experts told the BBC that foreign film-makers will not be giving up anytime soon.
Ultimately, China and Hollywood need each other, they say.
"China wants to remain the No. 1 film market after Covid, and it still needs Hollywood blockbusters - especially those that play on Imax screens or are in 3D since ticket prices are higher - to help it maintain that edge over the North American market," Dr Rosen said.
"As the production values of Chinese films continue to improve, Hollywood may become less relevant, but Hollywood tells universal stories that China can't or won't tell."
8. Op-ed: Why the U.S.-China duo is the most significant, and potentially the most perilous, bilateral relationship in human history
Excerpts:
Much of the most recent analysis regarding China has circled around two immediate issues: growing signs of China's economic fragility, after decades of double-digit growth, and increased saber-rattling and threats concerning Taiwan,
The two could be connected.
A growing chorus of analysts argues it could be Chinese weaknesses rather than its strengths that pose the greatest dangers. The logic goes that President Xi, if his economic difficulties grow, might choose to stoke up nationalism through escalating confrontations with the United States with Taiwan as the most tempting target. The most immediate source of economic concern, aside from new power shortages, has been the unraveling of Chinese property giant Evergrande amid missed bond payments and under the weight of $300 billion in loans.
Op-ed: Why the U.S.-China duo is the most significant, and potentially the most perilous, bilateral relationship in human history
CNBC · by Frederick Kempe · October 16, 2021
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L) inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing December 4, 2013.
Lintao Zhang | Reuters
The U.S. and China represent the most significant – and potentially most perilous – bilateral relationship in human history. Given that reality, neither side is managing their rising tensions with adequate skill or durable strategy.
That's the way Stephen Heintz of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund put it in a conversation with me a couple of days ago. It is also the subtext of conversations I've had with world leaders visiting Washington, D.C. this week for the IMF and World Bank meetings.
U.S.-Soviet relations defined the Cold War, with both sides fielding the unprecedented nuclear capability to devastate each other, and much more. Before that, the Anglo-American relationship was decisive, from intense U.S.-British competition in the 19th century to an alliance that prevented fascist victory during World War II in the 20th century.
Yet Heintz's argument is compelling that U.S.-Chinese relations have a historically unique significance, based on their multi-dimensional nature that touches on just about every aspect of global affairs now and into the foreseeable future.
That's true whether you're concerned about world war, the global economy, climate change, human rights, the contest between democracy and authoritarianism, the future of space, or the accelerating race for technology's commanding heights. Never has so much across the world rested so heavily on two countries' ability to manage their relationship across a dizzying array of domains.
The accuracy of data related to China's economy, which for many years has been the biggest driver of global growth, took center stage at this week's IMF and World Bank meetings. The controversy focused on allegations that IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva asked colleagues, when she was a top official at the World Bank, to find a way to boost China's standing in its flagship 2018 Doing Business report.
Georgieva has denied any wrongdoing. The IMF board, which convened eight times to consider her fate, concluded that its review of the allegations "did not conclusively demonstrate that the managing director played an improper role." The board reaffirmed its confidence in Georgieva's leadership, but the controversy is likely to continue.
The subtext is that any international institution leader must manage the reality that China will increasingly act to influence, lead or replace the world's most significant multilateral bodies, in this case, the world's lender of last resort.
Meanwhile, senior government officials in D.C. this week, representing the world's most important economies, had plenty else to worry about: an unfolding energy crisis, rising inflation, slowing growth, and increasing climate concerns ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, that begins Oct. 31 in Glasgow, Scotland.
A senior official from one of the most significant U.S. allies, speaking anonymously, said all of this has been made more difficult to manage due to the growing volatility in U.S.-Chinese relations, generated by both their differences and their domestic realities.
China is lurching in a more authoritarian direction at home and toward more confrontational policies abroad as it flexes its regional and global muscles. Amid messy and polarizing U.S. politics, following a badly executed Afghan withdrawal, and lacking clarity about U.S. strategy toward Beijing, partners wonder about U.S. commitment, competence and capability for global common cause.
The senior allied official said his country's greatest medium-term and longer-term economic risk was that rising tensions between the U.S. and China boil over into a contest that engulfs his country. "Few of us can afford to make a decision between the U.S. and China," he said. "So please don't ask us to do so."
It isn't that America's allies are naïve about the unfortunate course President Xi Jinping is setting for his country. It's just that a great many of them have China as their number one trading partner – including the European Union as a whole, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. China represented nearly 30% of global growth between 2013 and 2018, double that of the U.S.
Much of the most recent analysis regarding China has circled around two immediate issues: growing signs of China's economic fragility, after decades of double-digit growth, and increased saber-rattling and threats concerning Taiwan,
The two could be connected.
A growing chorus of analysts argues it could be Chinese weaknesses rather than its strengths that pose the greatest dangers. The logic goes that President Xi, if his economic difficulties grow, might choose to stoke up nationalism through escalating confrontations with the United States with Taiwan as the most tempting target. The most immediate source of economic concern, aside from new power shortages, has been the unraveling of Chinese property giant Evergrande amid missed bond payments and under the weight of $300 billion in loans.
"If China's policymakers can successfully pivot their economy to be a more productive and dynamic one, the risk to Washington is real," writes a new Atlantic Council fellow Michael Schuman. "If, however, it turns out that China is more like Evergrande – a glossy growth story with a rotten core – then Beijing's ambitions will unravel, much like the property company's."
Bonny Lin and David Sacks argue this week in Foreign Affairs that "China's increasingly aggressive behavior" toward Taiwan "makes a cross-strait emergency more likely. But the risk of a crisis stems less from the possibility of an immediate Chinese invasion than from an accident or a miscalculation that turns deadly – a midair collision between Chinese and Taiwanese jets."
This all has the feel of the perilous beginning of an uncertain era that lacks established rules or patterns of behavior. The U.S. is unaccustomed to such challenges to its role, and China is unpracticed at managing global tensions.
It's worth remembering that the U.S.-Soviet relationship was probably most dangerous from 1945-1962. In those 17 years after World War II, the two sides navigated a series of crises, culminating in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, before the relationship evolved into more predictable contours.
Two top Biden administration officials, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and top Asia coordinator Kurt Campbell, impressively laid out their thinking in 2019 in Foreign Affairs on how to navigate U.S.-Chinese relations.
That was before they knew they would own the challenge inside the White House. They now are working toward a virtual U.S.-Chinese summit before the year's end, and the two sides have made progress toward working-level talks on several key issues.
Under the headline Competition without Catastrophe, Sullivan and Campbell wrote in 2019, "The starting point for the right U.S. approach must be humility about the capacity of decisions made in Washington to determine the direction of long-term developments in Beijing … (the U.S.) should seek to achieve not a definitive end state akin to the Cold War's ultimate conclusion but a steady state of clear-eyed coexistence on terms favorable to U.S. interests and values."
Whether they succeed will shape the global future.
CNBC · by Frederick Kempe · October 16, 2021
9. S. Korea voices 'deep regrets' over Kishida's ritual offering to war shrine
The pattern of Japan-Korea relations continues.
(2nd LD) S. Korea voices 'deep regrets' over Kishida's ritual offering to war shrine | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: RECASTS throughout with S. Korea's response; CHANGES headline)
SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Yonhap) -- South Korea expressed deep regrets Sunday over Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's ritual offering to a controversial war shrine in the latest move that underscores challenges in improving bilateral relations, just two days after their leaders agreed to develop their ties in a future-oriented manner.
Kishida sent a "masakaki" tree to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo earlier in the day to celebrate its two-day autumn festival that runs through Monday, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency and South Korean foreign ministry officials.
It marked the first time Kishida has sent an offering to the shrine, seen as a symbol of the country's past militarism, since he took office earlier this month. Kishida stopped short of visiting in person, but his immediate predecessor, Yoshihide Suga, visited the shrine earlier in the day, they added.
"The government expresses deep disappointment and regrets that Japanese leaders again sent the offering or repeated their visits to the Yasukuni Shrine," Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 Class-A criminals from World War II.
Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders have long been a key source of tension in the region as Asian neighbors, like South Korea and China that suffered from Japanese aggression in the early part of the 20th century, view the visits as an attempt to beautify the country's militaristic past.
South Korea also pressed Japanese leaders to "squarely face history and show by action their humble introspection on and genuine self-reflection for the past history."
South Korea and Japan are close economic partners and key allies of the United States, though they have long been in conflict over territory and other historical disputes stemming from Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45.
On Friday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kishida held their first phone call and agreed to accelerate the bilateral diplomatic consultations to resolve a prolonged feud over wartime forced labor and to develop their ties "in a future-oriented manner."
graceoh@yna.co.kr
(END)
10. U.S. Afghan Resettlements Slowed by Housing Shortage, Old Technology
Excerpts:
Unlike conventional refugees, who apply and are processed through regular government programs, the Afghans also have no guaranteed immigration status unless Congress passes a White House-proposed law issuing them green cards. Otherwise, many would need to file for asylum, an already backlogged system that would take significant legal assistance to navigate.
A series of problems, rather than any single issue, have slowed processing times for Afghan evacuees. A measles outbreak prompted officials at military bases to carry out a broad vaccination campaign, giving refugees a full course of shots for Covid-19, measles and polio—an effort that slowed resettlements for weeks.
Resettlement agencies, which contract with the State Department to help the Afghans, say finding off-base housing is a big challenge. A nationwide housing shortage, coupled with soaring rents, has made it tougher to find landlords to take on potential tenants with no existing income or credit scores.
The agencies are further limited in where they can look for housing. People receiving services must live within a hundred miles of a resettlement office, which are run by independent organizations working closely with the federal government. The Trump administration shrunk the refugee program significantly, leading roughly a third of the existing 340 offices around the country to close. If the evacuees leave with a family member or friend, they sometimes risk losing resettlement benefits offered by the government.
“Some of the places where there are sizable Afghan communities, like in California and northern Virginia, they’re particularly expensive,” said Melanie Nezer, senior vice president of public affairs at HIAS, one of the resettlement agencies. Another challenge resettlement groups face is simply “the sheer numbers of people who arrived at once,” she said. “Normally refugees would come over a slower period of time.”
U.S. Afghan Resettlements Slowed by Housing Shortage, Old Technology
Many evacuees now living in cramped facilities on American military bases could be stuck there well into 2022
WSJ · by Ben Kesling and Michelle Hackman
More than 50,000 Afghans are housed temporarily on eight military bases around the country awaiting resettlement to permanent homes. Their slower-than-expected release means they will have to remain for months in cramped barracks where supplies are often stretched. Domestic-violence cases have also cropped up within some of the Afghan refugee communities. The Department of Homeland Security, which is overseeing the resettlement program, recently sent personnel to address such cases, a DHS spokesman said.
Evacuees arrived at Camp Atterbury in Indiana on Sept. 2. About 6,000 Afghans have been resettled in local U.S. communities so far, officials say.
Photo: U.S. National Guard/Zuma Press
The Biden administration hasn’t publicized a timeline for the resettlement program, dubbed Operation Allies Welcome, but delays in moving the first wave of evacuees off U.S. bases will have a ripple effect: The roughly 10,000 evacuees now living on American military installations overseas face lengthier stays, with those who landed elsewhere set to wait longer still.
“Even though we are pretty good at welcoming refugees into the country, we don’t normally do it at this pace,” a senior administration official said.
About 6,000 Afghans have been resettled in local communities so far, and administration officials and resettlement groups said the pace is picking up. The federal government is giving priority to resettling at-risk populations such as those who are fleeing domestic abusers, a DHS spokeswoman said.
Because of the way the Afghans arrived in the U.S., they aren’t legally classified as refugees—another reason resettlement organizations were reluctant to take on so many cases quickly. Congress allocated $6.3 billion to the resettlement effort in its bill late last month averting a government shutdown, entitling the Afghans to several months of healthcare and cash assistance to help pay for rent, food and English classes.
Unlike conventional refugees, who apply and are processed through regular government programs, the Afghans also have no guaranteed immigration status unless Congress passes a White House-proposed law issuing them green cards. Otherwise, many would need to file for asylum, an already backlogged system that would take significant legal assistance to navigate.
A series of problems, rather than any single issue, have slowed processing times for Afghan evacuees. A measles outbreak prompted officials at military bases to carry out a broad vaccination campaign, giving refugees a full course of shots for Covid-19, measles and polio—an effort that slowed resettlements for weeks.
Resettlement agencies, which contract with the State Department to help the Afghans, say finding off-base housing is a big challenge. A nationwide housing shortage, coupled with soaring rents, has made it tougher to find landlords to take on potential tenants with no existing income or credit scores.
The agencies are further limited in where they can look for housing. People receiving services must live within a hundred miles of a resettlement office, which are run by independent organizations working closely with the federal government. The Trump administration shrunk the refugee program significantly, leading roughly a third of the existing 340 offices around the country to close. If the evacuees leave with a family member or friend, they sometimes risk losing resettlement benefits offered by the government.
“Some of the places where there are sizable Afghan communities, like in California and northern Virginia, they’re particularly expensive,” said Melanie Nezer, senior vice president of public affairs at HIAS, one of the resettlement agencies. Another challenge resettlement groups face is simply “the sheer numbers of people who arrived at once,” she said. “Normally refugees would come over a slower period of time.”
Bureaucratic barriers are also a factor. The State Department reactivated an old database system, called Hummingbird, that staff on bases must enter the Afghans into to match them with resettlement slots. But the intake had been done using paper forms, and the information later manually entered into the database, according to officials familiar with the process. “There’s a high rate of human error,” one of the officials said.
A State Department spokeswoman said the system is no longer manual.
Once they are matched, the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency that coordinates the movement of refugees and migrants, is charged with booking travel from bases to the Afghans’ final destinations. But the organization is understaffed in the U.S., people familiar with the matter said, and in some cases it has booked flights for Afghans but failed to notify resettlement agencies that the people were on their way. The IOM referred requests for comment on its role to the State Department.
“‘It is hard. We can’t start our own lives or send our kids to school. We feel like we are not free.’”
— Sahar Mohammad, an Afghan former translator awaiting resettlement
Sahar Mohammad, a former translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, fled Kabul with his wife and five children three days after the Taliban takeover of the city. They flew to Abu Dhabi, where they stayed for two weeks before coming to Fort Dix, a military base in New Jersey.
Conditions on the base were difficult at first, Mr. Mohammad said. The tent he was living in didn’t have doors or soundproof dividers between families, and his family had trouble sleeping with the noise. The tents have since been upgraded, and his family now has a clean, more private room, he said.
Clothing has also been a challenge. Each member of his family was permitted to bring one small bag on the flight out of Afghanistan, and they each packed two sets of summer clothes. But the weather has turned colder in New Jersey and the military hasn’t yet been able to bring them more seasonally appropriate clothing, he said.
“I don’t want to complain because we are in the U.S., and they are trying their best,” he said. “But it is hard. We can’t start our own lives or send our kids to school. We feel like we are not free.”
Mr. Mohammad said he would like to move to Northern Virginia, where he knows friends and other former employees of an American contractor he worked for after leaving his military job. But he has been warned that if he leaves the base he might not receive the resettlement services that could help him find a home and assist with rent.
—Nancy A. Youssef contributed to this article.
WSJ · by Ben Kesling and Michelle Hackman
11. It’s time to focus on treating ‘invisible wounds’ of veterans, advocates say
Excerpts:
The VA and DoD have an ethical obligation to mobilize a national call to arms for research into the invisible wounds of war. They must focus on increasing the body of scientific knowledge that can bring faster diagnoses and new treatments that work. By leveraging existing large-scale collaborative research road mapping efforts, the VA and DoD can build on the suggested solutions of leaders in the nonprofit, academic, and industry spaces as well as their own leadership to more quickly and collaboratively evaluate and put to trial new solutions, including emerging treatments such as psychedelics, stellate ganglion block, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy that are embraced by the veteran community but require further clinical evaluation. The VA and DoD must demonstrate conclusively whether these treatments work, and if so, for which populations. For treatments shown to work, the VA should promptly deploy them throughout the VA system. Finally, Congress should ensure that groundbreaking legislation aimed at creating an environment for research innovation, including the Commander John Scott Hannon Mental Health Improvement Act, is implemented to the fullest extent intended.
As we reflect on the end of 20 years of war and countless men and women lost to suicide, in addition to saying thank you, let us also take necessary steps to support those whose service to their country has forever changed their lives by urgently and greatly expanding the body of science that will once and for all make it easier for veterans and service members to get the care they need. Veterans and service members need definitive answers that only impartial and thorough clinical research can provide. Without swift action, members of the military will continue to suffer needlessly waiting on definitive diagnoses. They will continue to seek care outside of the VA and lowering the suicide rate will remain elusive. We stand ready to be part of the solution and collaboratively help the VA and DoD build towards solutions. Our brave men and women are counting on us to take our “thank you” one step further to meaningful action that truly honors their sacrifice.
Hon. Frank Larkin, 40th U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms (Ret.), Chair
RADM Brian Losey, USN (Ret.) SEAL, Executive Director
VADM Bob Harward, USN (Ret.), SEAL
Robin King, CEO, Navy Seal Foundation
LTG John F. Mulholland, U.S. Army (Ret.), Special Forces
Gayle Tzemach-Lemmon, Author
It’s time to focus on treating ‘invisible wounds’ of veterans, advocates say
“Thank you for your service” — a phrase heard frequently on television commercials, in airports, and across city streets. But as our nation begins to reflect on the end of nearly 20 years of continuous war, we must also come to terms with the reality that while public gestures of appreciation are nice, our veterans and service members need action for the conditions that are taking their lives at record numbers — traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as “moral injury” of the psyche, most commonly referred to in aggregate as “invisible wounds.”
As a nation, we are still massively failing to diagnose and treat these conditions adequately. This is most salient among the 1.64 million Americans deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF; Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF; Iraq) who have borne the brunt of nearly two decades of combat and suffered historic levels of brain injury.
The toll of these invisible wounds extends far beyond the initial injury. Suicide among the veteran community is a rampant and stubborn tragedy, captured in public awareness campaigns such as “22 Veteran Suicides per Day.” Our failure as a nation to address the invisible wounds directly contributes to further lost lives. Studies by the Department of Veterans Affairs find that a history of TBI or PTSD is associated with a substantially increased likelihood of suicide attempts compared to those without the diagnosis — 1.5 and 2.8, respectively. For those with both TBI and PTSD, the likelihood of a suicide attempt is 3.3 times greater than for those with a TBI alone.
Perhaps the most telling data point tied to the failure to address the impact of TBI and PTSD is depicted in a recent study by the Watson Institute of Brown University. The study shows that the suicidality rate for post-9/11 veterans and service members ages 18-34 has exploded to 2.5 times that of the general population — an increase of 76 percent since 2005. As the study quotes: ‘An estimated 30,177 active duty service members and war veterans of the post 9/11 wars have died by suicide, significantly more (4.28x) than the 7,057 killed in “Global War on Terror” military operations.’ The true number of active duty and veterans dying by suicide is most likely greater; there is no national database for tracking suicides and many suicides are often improperly attributed to other causes. One thing we can all agree on is despite years of appreciation for their service and sacrifice, the suicide rate among veterans and service members remains unacceptably high.
The record number of OEF and OIF personnel seeking care for and ultimately, losing their battle to, the invisible wounds of war has grabbed the public’s awareness, sparking the creation of numerous task forces and commissions. The Department of Defense and VA have invested millions to address these injuries and lower the suicide rate, but these investments have proved inadequate to advance prevention, diagnostics, and treatments. We still have no cures. We diagnose both diseases based on symptoms — not biology — and we lack consistently reliable, evidence-based treatments.
Invisible wounds are not invisible to those that struggle with them every day or their families. They are invisible to the rest of us and to the system that is blind to them and has failed to aggressively pursue the answers.
The United States spends a lot of time, money and effort readying our service members for war, only to leave them ill equipped after they return home. After 20 years of war, remembrance, appreciation, and well-intentioned research, we have few returns on our investments. Veterans feel resigned to take their mental health care into their own hands, turning to alternative treatments with little clinical guidance because traditional treatments are not effective and often seeking care outside the walls of the VA. We have an opportunity to correct this. It is time to narrow the gap between “thank you for your service” and the reality that we are falling short when it comes to those who have sacrificed so much for this nation.
The VA and DoD have an ethical obligation to mobilize a national call to arms for research into the invisible wounds of war. They must focus on increasing the body of scientific knowledge that can bring faster diagnoses and new treatments that work. By leveraging existing large-scale collaborative research road mapping efforts, the VA and DoD can build on the suggested solutions of leaders in the nonprofit, academic, and industry spaces as well as their own leadership to more quickly and collaboratively evaluate and put to trial new solutions, including emerging treatments such as psychedelics, stellate ganglion block, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy that are embraced by the veteran community but require further clinical evaluation. The VA and DoD must demonstrate conclusively whether these treatments work, and if so, for which populations. For treatments shown to work, the VA should promptly deploy them throughout the VA system. Finally, Congress should ensure that groundbreaking legislation aimed at creating an environment for research innovation, including the Commander John Scott Hannon Mental Health Improvement Act, is implemented to the fullest extent intended.
As we reflect on the end of 20 years of war and countless men and women lost to suicide, in addition to saying thank you, let us also take necessary steps to support those whose service to their country has forever changed their lives by urgently and greatly expanding the body of science that will once and for all make it easier for veterans and service members to get the care they need. Veterans and service members need definitive answers that only impartial and thorough clinical research can provide. Without swift action, members of the military will continue to suffer needlessly waiting on definitive diagnoses. They will continue to seek care outside of the VA and lowering the suicide rate will remain elusive. We stand ready to be part of the solution and collaboratively help the VA and DoD build towards solutions. Our brave men and women are counting on us to take our “thank you” one step further to meaningful action that truly honors their sacrifice.
Hon. Frank Larkin, 40th U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms (Ret.), Chair
RADM Brian Losey, USN (Ret.) SEAL, Executive Director
VADM Bob Harward, USN (Ret.), SEAL
Robin King, CEO, Navy Seal Foundation
LTG John F. Mulholland, U.S. Army (Ret.), Special Forces
Gayle Tzemach-Lemmon, Author
Cohen Veterans Bioscience is a non-profit 501(c)(3) biomedical research and technology organization dedicated to advancing brain health by fast-tracking precision diagnostics and tailored therapeutics. The Veterans Advisory Council represents, advocates, and supports veterans’ interests to CVB, to partners, and to the broader community engaged in the support, research, prevention, and treatment of brain health conditions.
Editor’s note: This is an Op-Ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times senior managing editor Howard Altman, haltman@militarytimes.com.
12. Special Operations Command to Test Fire Sneaky Laser Weapon on AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship
The ethical issues: lead versus light. Hmmm... Lead = okay. Light = bad.
Excerpts:
Though the sixty-kilowatt laser likely lacks the power needed to burn down cruise missiles in a timely fashion, it could also conceivably be used to burn down drones without resorting to expending anti-aircraft missiles that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
One target that should be legally ineligible would be human beings on foot. Using directed energy weapons capable of causing permanent injuries against humans is banned per the 1995 Protocol On Blinding Laser Weapons. That said, the protocol doesn’t appear to be observed all that scrupulously by all adherents.
Regardless, the laser’s anti-material capabilities obviously lend themselves to use in covert operations, including in “shadow wars” in which hostilities are not overtly declared. That opens a host of ethical issues, too, if plausibly deniable anti-material attacks become so convenient as to be widely employed. Additionally, it raises the question of under what threshold anti-material attacks risk inciting a deadly kinetic response.
However, even in a context of overt hostilities, there could be a benefit to stealthily degrading an adversary’s equipment in ways that remain undetectable until it is too late. Unfortunately, the C-130 platform’s relative vulnerability would constrain its use to contexts where there is only a limited anti-aircraft threat.
Special Operations Command to Test Fire Sneaky Laser Weapon on AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship
It may be fun to imagine a brilliant beam of light lancing forth from the 1950s-era C-130 Hercules transportation airplane accompanied by an appropriate “pew-pew” sound. But that does not reflect reality.
The Special Operations Command’s AC-130J Ghostrider gunship aircraft are set to test a truly ghostly new weapon: a phantasmal laser that can burn holes into targets from a distance without creating a sound or visible beam, nor leaving any evidence of the assailant.
On October 6, Lockheed Martin announced it had completed factory testing on the Airborne High Energy Laser (AHEL) and delivered it for flight testing. Earlier statements have made clear the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) intends to test AHEL in 2022, which if successful could lead to new research and the development, testing, and evaluation to create an operational capability. In July Lockheed Martin received an additional $12 million five-year contract for “technical services, integration, test and demonstration of AHEL system.”
It may be fun to imagine a brilliant beam of light lancing forth from the 1950s-era C-130 Hercules transportation airplane accompanied by an appropriate “pew-pew” sound. But, in fact, a large part of AHEL’s appeal to SOCOM is its utter lack of such pyrotechnics. It could be used to silently burn holes into equipment and vehicles, potentially causing them to combust without obvious cause and leaving the targeted party without any tell-tale munitions fragments with which to trace the strike back to its origins.
Ghostrider’s Gunship Legacy
Today, the Pentagon plans to field a wide variety of laser weapons on air-, ground- and sea-based platforms in the 2020s. But the idea of fitting air-to-surface lasers to a gunship actually dates back decades, when the 100-kilowatt Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) chemical oxygen-iodine laser with a range of ten to twenty kilometers was first tested in 1996 on a C-130 Hercules.
However, the ATL laser tipped the scales at six tons due to its chemical power system, which built up enormous heat requiring commensurately intensive cooling. Thus, the bulky system did not attract U.S. military orders despite undergoing multiple tests through 2009.
By contrast, the new AHEL laser is a sixty-kilowatt solid-state combined fiber laser and is thus dramatically lighter, more reliable and less burdened by thermal management issues. It’s in a similar power class to the HELIOS laser being deployed to U.S. Navy warships for missile defense purposes.
Special Operations Command began development of the system for the Ghostrider gunship in 2015, initially describing it as a directed energy weapon weighing “up to 5,000 pounds” that was primarily intended to help counter the growing surface-to-air missile threat.
Still, reducing the system’s size and weight and devising a sufficiently accurate beam-steering system to keep the jittery laser precisely on target while mounted on an aircraft moving at over a hundred miles per hour proved challenging. But funding shortfall rather than technical problems allegedly explain why the laser was not tested in 2020 as originally planned.
The AC-130J Ghostrider is the fourth generation of heavily armed gunship based on the four-engine C-130 Hercules cargo airplane. It replaced the second- and third-generation AC-130H Spectre and AC-130U Spooky retired in 2015 and 2019. Early AC-130As and AC-130Es debuted in the Vietnam War, searching for and destroying Viet Cong supply convoys at night, and circling over a combat zone for hours raining down torrents of cannon fire in support of ground forces.
Since then, the gunships have proven a preferred platform for performing long-endurance surveillance, targeted killings of insurgent leaders, and precision fire support missions in U.S. military interventions in Afghanistan, El Salvador, Grenada, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Somalia, Syria and likely beyond.
The Ghostrider model typically has a crew of nine and is based on the modernized and re-engined C-130J transport model. It retains a rapid-fire GAU-23A 30-millimeter cannon and massive 105-millimeter howitzer for armament, but Hercules gunships (also including AC-130W Stinger II and Marine KC-130J Harvester Hawks) are increasingly relying more and more on longer-range precision-guided weapons, like Griffin and Hellfire anti-tank missiles as well as GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs and GBU-44/B Viperstrike and GBU-69 glide bombs.
Despite their demonstrated utility, gunships could prove difficult to employ against more capable adversaries as they are highly vulnerable even to man-portable surface-to-air missiles. Indeed, after an AC-130 was shot down during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, resulting in the loss of all fourteen crew, the Air Force began fitting more advanced self-defense systems to the gunship. Today, these gunships have sophisticated radar and infrared countermeasure systems that may help them evade a sporadic anti-air threat.
Admittedly, the sixty-kilowatt AHEL laser may not be able to burn through the skin of an incoming missile quickly enough to detonate its warhead or damage its engine, but it might more readily blind and destroy the sensitive seeker on a missile’s nose. Similar self-defense lasers are expected to enter service on Air Force fighters and even refueling tankers.
Deniable Destruction from the Sky
Despite the self-defense role ascribed to AHEL, the laser’s ostensibly secondary applications against surface targets have, rightly or wrongly, attracted far more interest. That’s because it’s usually quite difficult to discretely destroy or disable a material asset from the sky, but that’s precisely what a laser might do.
For example, a laser could melt tires or burn through the engine blocks of ground vehicles, denying mobility to hostile forces. With a suitable guidance system, that tactic could also be leveraged to relatively safely disable moving vehicles allowing for the capture of the occupants. The “scalability” of the effect is surely appealing for circumstances where its preferred to minimize lethal effects, or avoiding them altogether.
Other potentially high-value targets could be power generators and other energy infrastructures, communications systems, or valuable (and vulnerable) radars and infrared sensors.
Lasers could also be used to generate a thermal buildup causing fuel stores or munitions in a depot to combust—without leaving a trace of what triggered the fire/explosion in the first place.
Though the sixty-kilowatt laser likely lacks the power needed to burn down cruise missiles in a timely fashion, it could also conceivably be used to burn down drones without resorting to expending anti-aircraft missiles that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
One target that should be legally ineligible would be human beings on foot. Using directed energy weapons capable of causing permanent injuries against humans is banned per the 1995 Protocol On Blinding Laser Weapons. That said, the protocol doesn’t appear to be observed all that scrupulously by all adherents.
Regardless, the laser’s anti-material capabilities obviously lend themselves to use in covert operations, including in “shadow wars” in which hostilities are not overtly declared. That opens a host of ethical issues, too, if plausibly deniable anti-material attacks become so convenient as to be widely employed. Additionally, it raises the question of under what threshold anti-material attacks risk inciting a deadly kinetic response.
However, even in a context of overt hostilities, there could be a benefit to stealthily degrading an adversary’s equipment in ways that remain undetectable until it is too late. Unfortunately, the C-130 platform’s relative vulnerability would constrain its use to contexts where there is only a limited anti-aircraft threat.
Sébastien Roblin holds a Master’s Degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and served as a university instructor for the Peace Corps in China. He has also worked in education, editing, and refugee resettlement in France and the United States.
13. Bombshell leak reveals China's 'game-changing' hypersonic weapon
"Bombshell." Appropriate headline to describe this issue I guess. Or the headline editor has a sense of humor. More reporting based on the Financial Times article.
Bombshell leak reveals China's 'game-changing' hypersonic weapon
Sat, 16 October 2021, 10:53 pm
According to a bombshell leak reported in the Financial Times on Sunday, the Chinese Communist Party tested a new nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that went around the globe before making its way towards the intended target.
After cruising through low-orbit space, the missile ultimately missed the target by some 38 kilometres, three people briefed on the intelligence told the paper.
However the sources said the August test showed China has made surprisingly rapid and "astounding" gains when it comes to hypersonic weapons.
"We have no idea how they did this," one official told the Financial Times.
China, Russia and the US are all pursuing low-orbit hypersonic missile developments. Source: Getty
Missile tech a 'game changer'
The report has raised some eyebrows in the defence and national security communities, with one analyst likening it to the so-called Sputnik crisis when Western fears were heightened that the Soviet Union was surpassing America's technology capabilities during the Cold War after the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite.
"China may have just achieved its own Sputnik moment against the US military," tweeted Derek Grossman, a national security and Indo-Pacific analyst.
"Hard to exaggerate how much of a game changer this space-based capability might be if perfected. US missile defences could become negated or even obsolete," he claimed.
The US, China and Russia are all developing hypersonic weapons, which are harder to track for enemy defences.
Bill Bishop, author of China-focused newsletter Sinocism, noted "there seems to be increasing number of leaks about PRC [People's Republic of China] weapons capabilities to mainstream media" in recent times, with some commentators suggesting the strategic leaks are aimed at deterring military action against China as it ratchets up its aggression towards Taiwan.
The latest report has raised eyebrows about the pace of China's military development. Source: Getty
China's space might continues to grow as crew docks with space station
China's Shenzhou-13 spacecraft carrying three Chinese astronauts has docked at its space station over the weekend, kicking off a record-setting six-month stay as the country moves toward completing the new orbiting outpost.
The spacecraft was launched on Saturday by a Long March-2F rocket and docked with the Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station about six and a half hours later.
The two men and one woman are the second crew to move into the space station, which was launched in April. The first crew stayed three months.
The crew were seen off by a military band and supporters singing Ode To The Motherland, underscoring the weight of national pride invested in the space program, which has advanced rapidly in recent years.
China's military-run space program plans to send multiple crews to the station over the next two years to make it fully functional. Two more Chinese modules are due to be launched before the end of next year.
China has launched seven crewed missions with a total of 14 astronauts aboard - two have flown twice - since 2003, when it became only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to put a person in space on its own.
China has also expanded its work on lunar and Mars exploration, including landing a rover on the little-explored far side of the Moon and returning lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.
This year, China also landed its Tianwen-1 space probe on Mars, whose accompanying Zhurong rover has been exploring for evidence of life on the red planet.
with AP
14. Analysis | Are Americans growing warier of more government just as Biden tries to pass his big agenda?
The political divide in our country used to be at the most fundamental level: Can the government solve problems? Should it take the lead in solving problems>? Or should the government be restrained in order to protect individual liberty and that people are responsible for solving their own problems? Big government versus restrained government.
Analysis | Are Americans growing warier of more government just as Biden tries to pass his big agenda?
The Washington Post · by Dan BalzChief correspondent Today at 12:13 p.m. EDT · October 16, 2021
A year ago, as Americans were casting their votes for president, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic had shifted attitudes toward greater support for a more robust role for government. Many Democrats believed that could be a long-lasting effect, and President Biden built his domestic agenda in part around the idea that Americans were ready for big and bold.
Global pandemics have a history of changing the shape of societies. Working from home is one example. A warming toward government and its role in helping to alleviate the pandemic’s shocks to the well-being of families and businesses appeared to be another. Today there is some evidence that the public’s appetite for more and bigger government, at least in the abstract, is not what it was last year.
The evidence comes from new polling from the Gallup organization, which produces an annual survey of attitudes about government, governance and politics. In last year’s survey, 54 percent of Americans said government should do more to solve the country’s problems. In the latest round, conducted during the first half of September, 52 percent said government is trying to do too many things that are better left to businesses and individuals.
The current findings are a reversion to the norm. Over the past 29 years of Gallup’s trend on this question, there was only one other time when half the country favored a more active role for government. That came in the immediate aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the desire for more government was focused on security issues and defending the country from foreign terrorists, rather than on whether to spend more to deal with health and economic issues. Other than that moment and last year, Americans have been wary of too much government.
That reality confronts Biden and his party as they press ahead to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure package and a Democrats-only package of social initiatives and climate programs. Like former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Biden faces the twin challenges of asking voters to support more government while also trying to persuade the public that government is capable to doing what these presidents said was needed.
Republicans have uniformly stood against more government, and Democrats have been its champions, which adds to the quandary for Biden. As the intraparty debate in Congress over what was initially a $3.5 trillion spending package shows, there is a perceived political necessity to do as much as possible so as not to disappoint his party’s activist core. Democrats will need motivated voters in next year’s midterm elections (and in the Virginia gubernatorial election in a few weeks).
If Republicans and Democrats haven’t changed much on the role of government, independents are the weather vanes on this question. In 2019, a bare majority of independents said government was trying to do too much. A year later, in the middle of the pandemic, 56 percent said government should be doing more. Today, those who back a more robust government are down to 38 percent while 57 percent say government is trying to do too much.
Independents are a crucial part of the electorate that will help decide whether Democrats hold their majorities in the House and Senate in next year’s midterm elections. They were instrumental in the gains Democrats made in 2018 and in Biden’s election last year. If their current shift in attitude toward government translates into skepticism about the Biden agenda and leadership, Democrats could be in serious trouble next year.
Gallup also underscored what has been a long-standing reality: the general distrust toward government. Trust in the government to handle international problems is at an all-time low, at 39 percent. As a cautionary note, this survey was done shortly after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, which could have negatively affected the findings.
Trust in government to handle domestic issues was also at 39 percent, again perhaps a factor of the timing of the survey, which coincided with the surge in covid cases from the delta variant and signs of higher inflation.
When looked at in comparison to the average response over more than two decades, trust in government to handle both international and domestic issues looks almost anemic, 20 points lower than average on international issues and 14 points lower on domestic issues.
This is part of the backdrop as the president and Democratic leaders in Congress seek consensus on the big spending package. But it is not the entire picture, as administration officials and Democratic advocates of big and bold are quick to note.
Another part of that backdrop is evidence that major elements of both the spending and the revenue sides of the big package are broadly popular. That includes child tax credits, universal prekindergarten, expanded child care and family leave as well as higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers. The problem is that to date, the debate has focused on the price tag, not the pieces.
Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) haven’t yet found consensus on the exact size or the individual pieces of the package to assure passage. Inside the administration there is a general sense of progress, the belief that, if many issues remain unresolved, all sides are now closer to agreement than they were a few weeks ago, when House progressive balked and forced Pelosi twice to delay a vote on a bipartisan infrastructure package.
That may be accurate, but meanwhile the ongoing public debate continues to flare, as it did last week between Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is fighting to preserve as much of the $3.5 trillion as possible, and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who has said he favors something around $1.5 trillion. No one takes seriously that either Sanders or Manchin has drawn an uncrossable red line on the size of the package. Meanwhile, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the other most prominent holdout next to Manchin, has signaled problems with some of the tax pieces in the package.
Ultimately everyone will have to give ground lest the Biden agenda end up collapsing near the finish line. Still, no one seems to know right now what the magic number will be, nor is it clear just what the combination of programs will be. Democratic leaders have signaled growing urgency on the need to come together. At some point, it will be the president’s call, in consultation with Pelosi and Schumer, to settle on something and persuade all sides to get behind it. He has shown patience or passivity, depending on the perspective, but the time for choosing is not far into the future.
Biden and his team built this agenda in the fall of 2020 and the earliest days of this year, at a point when the pandemic was raging and when unmet needs seemed to demand what has been described as a transformative set of programs. The needs are still there, but after Biden sells his own party on the final shape of the package, he will then need to keep selling it to the public. Then he’ll need to show that has delivered results they can feel and not just a number.
The Washington Post · by Dan BalzChief correspondent Today at 12:13 p.m. EDT · October 16, 2021
15. In allied capitals, a nuanced, cautious view of Biden
In allied capitals, a nuanced, cautious view of Biden
In the wake of a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and a diplomatic rift with France, America’s bond with many of its strongest allies sometimes seems to be unraveling.
During less than a year in office, a narrative has taken hold among domestic political foes — and even some friends — that President Biden has undermined U.S. credibility and the very relationships and global leadership that he had promised to restore after the tumultuous Trump years.
But senior officials from nine U.S. allies, in interviews and public statements in recent weeks, offered a more nuanced, if still somewhat cautious, view of the administration’s foreign policy performance.
“It is undeniable that America is back,” Latvian President Egils Levits said in an interview, although “sometimes it’s stronger back, sometimes not so strong.”
Others find the whole “trust” argument little more than political gamesmanship. “The loss of credibility is completely overblown,” said one of several senior European officials who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity about private diplomatic assessments. “It’s become a figure of speech now in domestic debates.”
Biden’s credibility, this official said, “depends on what he is able to get done, how much he can deliver” on important issues whose outcomes are still to be determined. Even if allies may disagree with decisions he makes, the European official said, “it’s a good thing if people actually do what they say. . . . That’s the underlying message of the past several months.”
To countries toward which there has been an actual change in U.S. policy, such as Saudi Arabia, whose privileged status under the Trump administration has declined, Biden is disturbingly distant.
But to many, he is reassuringly familiar. While the administration’s China policy, with a host of new and sometimes selective alliances in the Indo-Pacific, can be unsettling, “President Biden is a more cautious person,” said South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong in a recent interview. “If you look at the records of his past statements regarding the Korean Peninsula, he’s been a very reasonable guy as to how we can resolve the Korea issue peacefully.”
Being seen as the anti-Trump can lead to unrealistic expectations, a senior administration official said. “The bar on President Biden is so much higher because of his predecessor,” said the official. “Any form of looking out for American national security” risks being seen as a repetition of “America first.”
The White House gives itself high marks on what it considers the big-ticket foreign policy issues, including climate, covid and China. Slow but steady progress has been made toward resolving residual trade issues with Europe, including Trump administration tariffs on steel and aluminum. The administration plans next month to lift covid-related U.S. travel restrictions, long a sore point with European Union countries that argued they had less infection than the United States but had still opened their borders to Americans.
Coordination on technology policies has increased. Differences of opinion and emphasis on how to deal with China are being addressed, if not necessarily resolved.
“There’s kind of a trope around how the United States is hard on China, and the European Union is softer,” the administration official said. “It’s true that we’re not 100 percent aligned on every issue, . . . but the directional arrow is pointing toward convergence on significant issues,” an assessment with which senior European officials largely agreed.
Overall, the official said, “I don’t want to gild the lily. . . . We’ve had questions to answer.
“But I think we are providing answers . . . not only words of reassurance, but also joint action.”
European governments, particularly those whose troops were serving as part of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, broadly agree that the administration consulted extensively before Biden ordered American troops to leave, listening to their concerns about the potential collapse of the Afghan government and suggestions about how a reduced force could and should remain.
But many have expressed disappointment in the final decision on withdrawal, which some learned of through the U.S. media before they were officially informed.
“It leaves a bad taste in NATO,” said a second senior European official. “Some say he should have handled it better. But American administrations always act in American interests. No one should be surprised. People thought Biden would be the opposite of Trump, but he’s still the American president.”
This official drew comparisons to Ronald Reagan’s discussions with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at their 1986 Reykjavik summit about removing intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe — without consulting the Europeans — and Bill Clinton’s determination a decade later, over initial European objections, to use air power to stop the Serbian assaults in Bosnia.
“It’s how the Americans operate,” the European official said with a shrug.
“We all knew that to leave entailed risks,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said of Afghanistan during a visit to Washington earlier this month. “It was a dilemma: . . . Leave and risk the Taliban returning or stay and risk more fighting.”
Airing the disagreements have served to reinforce NATO bonds, he said, just as difficult conversations over China have led to more understanding.
The administration official said it was wrong to assess the same level of blame, and loss of trust, to the two most widely publicized disagreements — Afghanistan and the contretemps with France. Afghanistan, the official said, “raised a broad set of concerns about consultation that we don’t think are necessarily well-founded. I think it was more just a difference of perspective on whether we should stay or depart.”
“It’s fair to say there was a wide range of allies who would have preferred a different policy.”
On the other hand, the administration official said, the row with France had little to do with U.S. leadership or commitment to the transatlantic alliance. It was “really [just] about France.”
Despite days of public outrage from Paris and warnings that the wounds would not be easily healed, administration mea culpas — coupled with a widespread perception that France overplayed its hand in response — have largely relegated the spat to history with little deeper meaning.
“It has been an incident, it has been some misunderstanding, it has been a lack of communication,” said Josep Borrell, the E.U. foreign policy chief, during a briefing with reporters Friday in Washington. “That’s it, that’s over. Let’s look forward, and let’s start working together.”
Australia simultaneously informed the French government by letter that it was canceling its existing $60 billion contract to buy French conventionally powered submarines. Negotiated in secret among the AUKUS countries, the decision not only eliminated the biggest contract the French defense industry ever had, it blindsided and humiliated America’s oldest ally.
France charged betrayal and recalled its Washington ambassador. President Emmanuel Macron loudly revived his long-standing push for an independent European Union defense component, saying that the United States and a U.S.-dominated NATO could not be depended upon to ensure European security interests.
But the clash exposed equally long-standing rifts inside Europe, where eastern countries such as the Baltic nations and Poland are vocally uninterested in an independent E.U. defense and wary of any distancing from NATO, and some of the most powerful countries say they are used to what they consider French posturing. Despite initial murmurings of sympathy, there has been no small amount of resentment over French attempts to speak for Europe as a whole.
“France does not speak on behalf of Europe,” a third senior European official said. “I understand their disappointment. But not many, if any, have come out in support.”
A number of European officials said that Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen spoke for many of them when she publicly disagreed with France’s insistence that U.S. actions were a humiliation for all of them.
“I think it’s important to say, given the discussions now taking place in Europe, that I experience Biden as very loyal to the transatlantic alliance,” Frederiksen said in an interview with Danish media during last month’s United Nations General Assembly meeting.
“That does not mean that we in the Danish government necessarily agree with the United States on everything. We have also said we would have liked to have seen another exit from Afghanistan. But I have absolutely no frustration with the new American administration.”
America, she said, was moving “to once again take on the role of world leadership, a role only the United States can take on.”
Despite its belief that French outrage would have little resonance in Europe, the administration moved quickly to assuage it. Biden called Macron, and they scheduled an upcoming meeting. Secretary of State Antony Blinken showed up to take his lumps personally in Paris. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan made a point of detouring to the French capital after meeting with Chinese officials in Zurich and his NATO counterparts in Brussels early this month.
“If it takes an extra phone call, a visit, a high-level touch” to calm troubled waters with an ally, “it’s worth it,” the administration official said, if only to demonstrate that “we’re the opposite of the Trump administration, we’re not telling them to go jump in the lake.”
John Hudson contributed to this report.
16. Marine who criticized top brass over Afghan policy gets $5,000 fine and reprimand
Marine who criticized top brass over Afghan policy gets $5,000 fine and reprimand
A Marine Corps officer who released videos and social media posts harshly critical of senior military leaders over their handling of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan will receive a punitive letter of reprimand and forfeit $5,000 in pay.
The sentence was handed down Friday to Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller during court-martial proceedings at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. According to local media reports, Col. Glen Hines, the judge in the court-martial, considered docking Lt. Col. Scheller‘s pay for two months, but relented because of time already spent in the brig.
Col. Hines also noted that Lt. Col. Scheller, who pleaded guilty on Thursday to five charges including “contempt towards officials” and “failure to obey an order,” had been an exemplary Marine prior to his critical vidoes and social media posts in late August.
A fast-rising battalion commander with 17 years in the Marine Corps, Lt. Col. Scheller was fired after refusing an order to stop releasing the critical videos and other messages.
His attorneys spoke on his behalf during closing arguments at the court-martial.
“For two decades, warriors like Stu Scheller have given their youth, their health, their limbs and sometimes their lives to the cause of freedom. They did so willingly, believing they were fighting for a righteous cause and that senior leadership would have their back,” said Timothy Parlatore, one of the attorneys.
“There has been a persistent, growing feeling that the focus is not on the well-being of the individual Marines and service members — or even mission success — but rather the continuation of an endless war that feeds the military-industrial complex where retired generals and admirals could go make their millions,” Mr. Parlatore added.
Lt. Col. Scheller began posting videos and social media messages soon after the Aug. 26, 2021 suicide attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul that killed about 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members, mostly Marines. The deaths were not the result of an intelligence failure or tactical error, Mr. Parlatore told the court.
“They died because senior leadership made a conscious decision to abandon Bagram airbase in favor of an indefensible commercial airport in an urban setting. It was widely reported that an … attack was imminent,” he said. “These deaths were entirely predictable and avoidable and the decision to treat them as disposable was made at the highest levels.”
According to an arrangement between Marine Corps officials and the defense team, Lt. Col. Scheller’s discharge will be no worse than “general under honorable conditions.” While he decided to forgo a pension for leaving the service before serving 20 years, he will likely retain some benefits if the deal holds.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has the authority to determine the level of Lt. Col. Scheller’s discharge.
17. Iowa Rep. Steven Holt: 52% of Trump supporters favor secession to preserve the principles of our republic
Food for thought. Hard to support and defend the Constitution of the US and continue to follow our founding principles by secession. I just do not see how secession can do that. But I agree with the Congressman one this point: that we have the ability to change - I think the hallmark of our federal democratic republic and great American experiment is that we have corrected our wrongs and we have the process to continue to correct our errors if we believe in the founding principles and processes described and outlined in our Declaration, Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.
As an aside, it is kind of hard to get a security clearance if you support secession.
Iowa Rep. Steven Holt: 52% of Trump supporters favor secession to preserve the principles of our republic
I still believe in our ability to change the destructive path we are on, but I understand why so many Americans believe that our only alternative is a reset.
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Donald Trump endorses Chuck Grassley
Former President Donald Trump endorses US Sen. Chuck Grassley for reelection during Trump's rally in Des Moines on Oct. 9, 2021.
Kelsey Kremer, Des Moines Register
TO READERS: This essay has been updated to reflect this correction: An earlier version of this essay misspelled Rekha Basu's name.
Rekha, those 52% understand what America once was and what it is becoming. They cherish their freedom and liberty, they understand the importance of our founding values, and they see the destruction of those values taking place before their eyes. They fear for the future of their children and grandchildren as America becomes increasingly unrecognizable. Almost everything about America that would previously have been thought to be unthinkable is now taking place.
Under the Biden administration, America has abandoned its allies in Afghanistan, left Americans behind to face the bloodthirsty Taliban and allowed 13 brave American military personnel to die unnecessarily.
We have an invasion on our southern border as hundreds of thousands of immigrants come into America without authorization. As hard-working Americans face forced vaccinations or the loss of their livelihoods, thousands receive government assistance with no demands for vaccination, and some of them likely spread the COVID-19 virus to places they are taken. We are a nation of immigrants who came to America for freedom and a better life, but that 52% recognize immigration must be done legally, and that with no border we have no country. Even President Barack Obama has acknowledged that the situation on our border is unsustainable.
America was once a nation that embraced the concept of equal opportunity and achieving the American dream through hard work. Now, that concept has been replaced by the far left with the demand for equal result, which is the essence of socialism. It is no longer about equal opportunity, but rather shared misery under the yoke of a socialist state. Our social safety net is now a hammock in which thousands of Americans no longer feel the need to work. This has been exacerbated by government’s response to the pandemic, leading to thousands of businesses unable to even operate normally because they cannot find people willing to work. This is the beginning of our shared misery, and that 52% see it clearly.
America was once working hard to embrace the ideals of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., when he spoke to our hearts and told us that we should judge one another based not on skin color but rather on character. Now, that too has been turned upside down as the Marxist ideology of critical race theory, teaching us to judge not based on character but on skin color, permeates our universities and even reaches K-12 schools. The 52% recognize that what has held us together since the founding of our nation is the concept of the melting pot, that regardless of race or creed, from many we become one, and that the Marxist ideology that teaches we are either oppressor or oppressed will ultimately tear us apart.
America was once a beacon of free speech for the world to emulate. Now, our “woke” cancel culture demands that those with dissenting viewpoints be silenced and destroyed. The mainstream media and social media giants, aided, abetted and cheered on by the Biden administration and the far left, are more than happy to comply, becoming hauntingly similar to government-controlled media in countries ruled by tyranny. Voices of dissent are being silenced not only on social media, but in the workplace and in our institutions of learning.
America was once a wealthy nation. Now, we are stealing the wealth and prosperity of future generations through out-of-control spending intended to transform the most prosperous economic system in the world into a socialist state that can only end up on the “ash heap of history,” as so many others have. What is touted as an infrastructure spending plan is in reality spending our wealth on Green New Deal and socialist programs that will only lead to increasing government dependence and the destruction of what was once the greatest economy in the world.
Our public school system once actually taught reading, writing and arithmetic, and the skills needed to become a responsible and productive citizen. Today, many of our schools teach values that are an affront to the faith-based values of our families, while also promoting a disdain of our nation that defies logic. The 52% know well the warning of John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Rekha, the 52% see clearly what is happening to America, and while I still believe in our great nation and our ability to recognize and change the destructive path we are on, I understand why so many Americans believe that our only alternative is a reset. Put this reality together with the fact that 41% of Biden supporters favor secession precisely so they can bring to fruition that which Trump supporters so adamantly oppose, and the challenges before us become crystal clear.
So, 52% of Trump supporters favor secession to preserve the principles of our republic, while 41% of Biden supporters favor secession in order to destroy them.
Steven Holt of Denison represents District 18 in the Iowa House of Representatives, where he chairs the Judiciary Committee.
18. Scientists uncover a psychological factor that explains support for QAnon better than political ideology
Excerpts:
The findings highlight that not all political behavior can be best explained by left vs. right orientations. But the researchers emphasized that “much more work needs to be done.”
“While we discuss primarily historical and theoretical literature arguing that anti-establishment viewpoints are hardly new, no one has been empirically tracking them over time,” Enders explained. “Our study is a first cut at taking this ignored dimension of public opinion more seriously. We need to track anti-establishment orientations over time to better understand how they ebb and flow. We also need to track them across social and political contexts to see what role these ideas play in other countries with different political systems, economic systems, etc.”
The study, “American Politics in Two Dimensions: Partisan and Ideological Identities versus Anti-Establishment Orientations“, was authored by Joseph E. Uscinski, Adam M. Enders, Michelle I. Seelig, Casey A. Klofstad, John R. Funchion, Caleb Everett, Stefan Wuchty, Kamal Premaratne, and Manohar N. Murthi.
Scientists uncover a psychological factor that explains support for QAnon better than political ideology
Anti-establishment sentiments are a key component of political opinion and behavior in the United States and are distinct from traditional indicators of political ideology, according to new research. The findings indicate anti-establishment viewpoints have played a key role in some beliefs that came to prominence during the Trump era, such as the QAnon movement.
“I was interested in this project because it increasingly seemed to me that polarization and political identities were increasingly bearing the brunt of the blame –– perhaps erroneously –– for socially undesirable beliefs and actions that were probably the product of other orientations, like conspiracy thinking and a tendency to view politics as a struggle between good and evil,” said co-author Adam M. Enders, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Louisville.
“American politics seems to be different than in previous decades and we wanted to know why,” added co-author Joseph E. Uscinski of the University of Miami. “Many people blame current political problems — conspiracy theories, fake news, political violence — on polarization. But, we were not convinced that our current problems are the fault of people becoming too ideological or too partisan.”
The authors of the new studies feared that research on polarization and partisan tribalism was too focused on a left vs. right framework. In particular, they noticed that people’s general orientation toward the established political order was being overlooked.
“We believe that efforts to ‘squish’ all opinions, people, and groups onto a uni-dimensional space is unwise,” Uscinski explained. “Many people’s opinions aren’t solely ‘left’ or ‘right,’ but rather a mix. Further, many people have antagonisms toward the political system writ large and this has been vastly understudied. It may not be the case that populism is new in the United States; it may instead be the case that in recent years, more politicians are willing to use populist anti-system rhetoric to build coalitions by activating a set of opinions that are already there waiting to be activated.”
“Especially with the ascendance of Donald Trump, we witnessed a blending of left-right political concerns (e.g., partisanship, liberal-conservative ideology) with antagonistic orientations toward the political establishment,” Enders said. “I wanted to try and disentangle these dimensions of opinion in order to better understand both how they are related to each other and how they differentially promote the beliefs and behaviors that have so concerned social scientists in recent years.”
The researchers developed a measure of anti-establishment orientation that was characterized by conspiratorial, populist, and Manichean worldviews. In other words, people who scored high on anti-establishment orientation strongly agreed with statements such as “Much of our lives are being controlled by plots hatched in secret places” (conspiracism), “The opinion of ordinary people is worth more than that of experts and politicians” (populism), and “Politics is a battle between good and evil” (Manicheanism).
Two national surveys of 4,023 U.S. adults (conducted between July 23 to August 6, 2019 and March 17 to March 19, 2020) provided evidence that anti-establishment orientations were distinguishable from left vs. right political ideology.
The belief that the “one percent” controls the economy for their own good was positively associated with having a liberal political ideology, while the belief that a “deep state” is embedded within the government was positively associated with having a conservative political ideology. But anti-establishment sentiments were more strongly associated with endorsing these beliefs than political ideology. The researchers also found an association between anti-establishment orientations and positive feelings toward both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, but not Joe Biden.
“Not all opinions are left-right, but rather ‘us, the good people’ versus ‘them, the corrupt elites,'” Uscinski said.
Anti-establishment orientations were also associated with heightened levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and support for the use of violence. “We emphasize that
these personality traits are but a few of many potential ingredients of anti-establishment sentiments,” the researchers said. “Regardless, it is noteworthy that individuals exhibiting strong anti-establishment attitudes are more likely than others to display the antisocial personality traits oftentimes attributed to left-right extremists.”
Ender and Uscinski’s research published in The Forum, based on a national survey of 1,947 U.S. adults conducted between October 8 and 21, 2020, found that anti-establishment orientations were also strongly related to the endorsement of conspiracies related to COVID-19, QAnon, Donald Trump, and the 2020 election. For example, agreement with statements such as “Satanic sex traffickers control the government” (QAnon) and “There is a conspiracy to stop the U.S. Post Office from processing mail-in ballots” (election fraud) were weakly related to political ideology, but strongly related to having an anti-establishment orientation.
“Some of what we mistake for partisan rancor is really a blend a left-right political identities –– attachments to a particular group or side –– and a deep-seated antagonism toward and disillusionment with the established political order,” Enders told PsyPost. “Historically, neither of these dimensions of opinion are new; what’s new is a mainstream politician intentionally activating and inflaming anti-establishment orientations, effectively blending these once unrelated dimensions.”
“On the one hand, this can be a recipe for electoral success: Donald Trump was able to mobilize people who hadn’t previously been voting because of their dissatisfaction with ‘establishment’ candidates. On the other hand, it can be a recipe for disaster: January 6th showcased the dangers of mobilizing people with high levels of conspiratorial thinking, Manicheanism, anti-elitism, and some of the other personality correlates of anti-establishment views that we find (e.g., support for violence, narcissism, psychopathy).”
The researchers also found that support for Donald Trump was positively associated with anti-establishment orientations, but anti-establishment orientations were simultaneously associated with reduced support for both the Republican and Democratic parties, a finding which provided a “critical distinction” about the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
“People espousing the most anti-establishment views are attracted to Donald Trump, the outsider, not Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican Party,” the researchers said. “This simultaneous attachment to Trump and detachment to the Republican Party is best summed up by the rioters themselves: ‘hang Mike Pence!'”
The findings highlight that not all political behavior can be best explained by left vs. right orientations. But the researchers emphasized that “much more work needs to be done.”
“While we discuss primarily historical and theoretical literature arguing that anti-establishment viewpoints are hardly new, no one has been empirically tracking them over time,” Enders explained. “Our study is a first cut at taking this ignored dimension of public opinion more seriously. We need to track anti-establishment orientations over time to better understand how they ebb and flow. We also need to track them across social and political contexts to see what role these ideas play in other countries with different political systems, economic systems, etc.”
The study, “American Politics in Two Dimensions: Partisan and Ideological Identities versus Anti-Establishment Orientations“, was authored by Joseph E. Uscinski, Adam M. Enders, Michelle I. Seelig, Casey A. Klofstad, John R. Funchion, Caleb Everett, Stefan Wuchty, Kamal Premaratne, and Manohar N. Murthi.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
