| by Miles Maochun Yu via Taipei Times As Russia’s war on Ukraine grinds on into its second year, it continues to generate headlines as the largest land war in Europe since 1945. Yet 5,000 miles away, at the opposite end of the Eurasian land mass, a different conflict lies poised to ignite, kindled by another large country’s distortion of a shared cultural and ethnolinguistic heritage to threaten a smaller neighbor’s sovereignty. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ We were led to believe we would have an impartial DOJ and an honest one. We already knew the FBI was corrupt. We also knew Biden is corrupt. We also know the Democrats and Hillary are corrupt. We also know Obama is corrupt. We know the mass media and social media are corrupt. We know many members of the State Department are biased and saturated with cookie pushers who are just serving their time so they can retire on cushy pensions. Is there anything about government and/or politics that is uplifting, encouraging? Is anything about our government and politics that is not corrupt? Matters must really be bad to have so many thinking Socialism and Communism are preferable to our Republic. +++ +++ Biden Admin TOOK PART In Trump Raid? New information is being released regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) raid of former President... Read More » +++++++++++++++ Soros is psychotic and is sinister but also brilliant in an evil manner. He was smart eought to understand that Dist Atty campaigns take litle moneybut aso have huge payoffs because they deal with our legal system. You can change laws and change which laws are supported and disregarded for a pitiful sum. Look what the Ny Dis Atty has been able to accomplish for a $million contribution. This is pocket change for Soros. I do not consider attacking Soros the equivalent of anti-simitism. Because his roots are Jewish, his actions are dangerous and despicable. His religion has nothing to do with the matter +++ George Soros Comes Into Spotlight During Trump Indictment George Soros, a billionaire and frequent donor to Democratic causes, has been credited by the American right with the indictment of Donald J. Trump. His indirect donations to a prosecutor’s campaign are animating Trump allies. The right’s concern with Mr. Soros has waxed and waned for years, but the tumult surrounding Mr. Trump’s indictment has given new life to what critics have long contended is a concern, yet tinged with (unfounded) antisemitic bigotry. Mr. Soros, a Jew from Hungary, survived the Holocaust, fled communism, and became one of the most prominent funders of alleged democracy promotion, anti-Communism, and liberal education around the globe. Denny Hastert once suggested that George Soros’s efforts to counter George W. Bush’s re-election bid in 2004 may have been financed by “drug money.” Donald Trump hinted in 2018 that Soros was funding migrant caravans that were making their way to the United States Southwestern border. Viktor Orban has called out Soros for what he calls “illiberal democracy” and has proposed a Stop Soros bill to ban organizations judged to support migration and tax groups receiving foreign funding. The indictment of Donald Trump has re-centered Soros in American politics and rekindled the debate over whether criticism of a Democratic megadonor who is Jewish can be labeled bigotry. The left has made an industry out of hiding its agenda behind minority shields, where criticism of the actions and policies is met with bigotry accusations. The conservative columnist Charles C. W. Cooke argued that Mr. Soros’s active involvement in politics, including the push to elect liberal district attorneys like Mr. Bragg, makes him fair game and that charges of antisemitism are out of line. In 2021, the political arm of the self-described racial justice organization Color of Change pledged $1 million to support Mr. Bragg’s campaign. Shortly afterward, Mr. Soros gave the organization a $1 million gift, one of several donations he gave to the group totaling about $4 million since 2016. His abrupt conclusion Russia loses in Unkraine is both premature and overly optimistic. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Normally I tend to agree with John Bolton but this time I have somere serious servations with are attached. Certainly Xi is correct in suggesting the momentum has swung China's way and since Russia is now aligned it also favors Russia but to a lesser degree. There is no doubt all allies must increase miltry spending and remain united.. America has shipped it's military hoard to Ukraine and lacks manufacturing capability of replenishig and, worstof all, is depedent upon China for critical materiel to actuallymake some of our military essentials. In other words we are totally depedent on our potential enemy and certainlly our most dangerous adversary.. +++
China is Preparing for War; Is the US Ready?
By Andrew Thornebrooke
A US Air Force Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia, on Dec. 15, 2015. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
News Analysis
The ammunition is running low, casualties are immense, medicine and other critical supplies have not come for weeks, and a nuclear attack on the American homeland is imminent.
It is a dramatic scene, more closely resembling a Hollywood drama than any war that the United States has actually fought in the last half-century. It is nevertheless what many expect a war between the United States and communist China could look like this decade.
Both the United States and China are investing record-breaking sums in building up their military capabilities. Leadership on both sides increasingly appears to consider such a conflict as inevitable, despite rhetoric to the contrary.
The cause for that mutual enmity is the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) claim that democratic Taiwan belongs to China, and CCP leader Xi Jinping’s desire to force that unification within a few years’ time.
Xi has ordered the regime’s military wing to prepare for war, and to be ready to launch an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.
Preparing for what would be history’s most ambitious amphibious assault is not the same as actually launching it. But, should the worst occur, the Biden administration or its successor will have to decide either to join the fray, or to let Taiwan stand on its own and fight for its freedom.
Before U.S. leadership decides on that question, however, it must answer another, more foundational one: Can the United States win a war with China?
‘The Window of Maximum Danger’
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) is more invested in the new cold war between the United States and China than most.
Tasked with leading Congress’ new House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the CCP, he is one of the few movers and shakers in the legislative branch directly engaged in developing an action plan to defend the American people, its economy, and values from CCP aggression.
For him, Russia’s ongoing conquest of Ukraine, and the United States’ failure to deter it, contain all the lessons necessary to prepare for what comes next in Taiwan.
“If we don’t learn the right lessons from the failure of deterrence in Ukraine, authoritarian aggression and the CCP’s malign influence will spread to the Indo-Pacific, and our New Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party could quickly become hot,” Gallagher told The Epoch Times.
“To prevent this, we have to act with a sense of urgency and do everything we can to deter a CCP invasion of Taiwan.”
That plan is much the same as it has been since 1979, when the United States passed the Taiwan Relations Act and agreed to provide the island with the arms necessary to maintain its self-defense.
The strategic landscape 44 years ago was something altogether different, however, and the number of weapons and systems that Taiwan now requires to hold the CCP at threat are immense.
The way Gallagher sees it, neither Taiwan nor the United States is prepared for the possibility of war with China.
Speaking back in November of 2021, Gallagher warned that, “if we went to war in the Taiwan Strait tomorrow, we’d probably lose.”
Gallagher is careful now to avoid similar doomspeak but, when asked if he still agreed with that assessment, his optimism for the United States’ performance in a war with China is palpably limited.
“If the Chinese Communist Party invaded Taiwan today, we would not be well positioned to defend our friend, our interests, or American values in the Indo-Pacific,” Gallagher says.
The United States must choose, he believes, to arm Taiwan to the teeth now or come to Taiwan’s aid at a much greater cost later.
Either way, the choices the United States makes now, he says, will largely determine the conditions of victory and defeat at a later date. To that end, Congress must unite to arm Taiwan and systematically counter the CCP’s malign influence at every opportunity.
“We are in the window of maximum danger,” Gallagher says, “and if we are going to ensure that it’s the U.S.—not the CCP—writing the rules of the 21st century, we need to unite in overwhelming bipartisan fashion to combat CCP aggression.”
Preventing Nuclear ‘Armageddon’
While the phrase “maximum danger” is superlative, it may still fall short of impressing the seriousness of the CCP’s growing nuclear arsenal and the role that it will play in any conflict.
The CCP’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), has been working tirelessly to expand and enhance the regime’s nuclear arsenal and to hold the U.S. homeland at threat.
The regime is expected to field 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030, many of them capable of carrying multiple warheads. And it is working to field hypersonic bombardment systems apparently designed to be used as a first-strike weapon.
Such capabilities would put the United States at grave risk in a war and would present a decision-making dynamic among both militaries unseen since the Cold War.
Retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding knows something about PLA decision-making.
His career has taken him to China on more than one occasion, including a stint as a defense attache in Beijing, where he negotiated with PLA officers on critical events and established contours for managing strategic competition.
When asked if the United States could win a war against China over the future of Taiwan, Spalding answers clearly and simply.
“No,” Spalding says. “The Chinese have too many weapons and they are too close to home.”
“The U.S. could not muster enough combat power to stop China.”
The United States’ ability to project power across 3,000 miles of the Pacific Ocean is sorely lacking, he says.
Sustaining a full combat force in the region all while being held at threat by the PLA’s missile and rocket forces, to say nothing of its navy, would risk nuclear escalation at every moment.
Simply put, the United States would be outmanned and outgunned by China in any Indo-Pacific conflict. Strategic nuclear weapons in such a scenario become the United States’ most clear advantage, and the world’s most clear threat.
Spalding, understandably, views the use of nuclear weapons as a no-win scenario. Still, he does consider the strengthening of the United States’ nuclear deterrent as an essential element to deter China from extending its aggression beyond Taiwan.
“The only weapons that would enable us to balance the conventional military might of China are nuclear weapons,” Spalding says. “These would give the U.S. a fighting chance, but would be devastating for the U.S., China, and the world.”
“Nevertheless, the surest way to war is to appear weak. This is why it is imperative that the U.S. project power. Today, the only way is with nuclear weapons. We don’t have time for anything else.”
To that end, Spalding says that the United States will need to immediately start transitioning critical supply chains, including pharmaceuticals and technological resources, out of China. Leaving the delivery of such items to China is a surefire way to lose any war.
“There is no time but, nevertheless, the U.S. needs to rebuild its industrial base now while we still have some level of control,” Spalding says.
He underscores that, because the United States would be stuck trying to create new supply chains for critical resources even as current supply chains through China are destroyed, deaths at home and on the front lines could ensue.
Embedded in Spalding’s view is a certain duality present among many today. On the one hand, he believes a CCP invasion is inevitable. On the other, he believes U.S. aid to Taiwan in such a war should fall short of military intervention, which he believes would risk a nuclear holocaust.
“They [the CCP] will invade at a time of their choosing,” Spalding says. “We have to prepare for the inevitable help the Taiwanese people will need.”
“If America is attacked, it will fight. That said, I believe China will not attack the U.S. directly for fear of a wider war that consumes the CCP. This and America’s nuclear weapons will prevent Armageddon if we show strength.”
Defense Industrial Base ‘Not Adequately Prepared’ for War with China
Provided the United States did come to the defense of Taiwan, however, and provided it could adequately deter the PLA from launching nuclear missiles, victory would still be far from assured.
Beyond the logistical issue of supplying the front lines—that is the problem of actually getting ammo to rifles and munitions to guns across the Pacific—the United States simply does not have the stockpiles required to conduct anything other than a brief, perhaps weeks-long campaign in the Pacific.
Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said as much during a March 30 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, during which she explained that the nation’s support for Ukraine is rapidly depleting its own munitions stockpiles, and that it would be years before replacement was possible.
“One of the most important things we have learned from Ukraine is the need for a more robust defense industrial base,” Wormuth said.
“We are buying at the absolute edge of defense industrial capacity right now.
To that end, Wormuth said that the Army is spending $1.5 billion on surging production of new munitions and depots to create an “organic supply base.”
Due to the complexity of the supply chains involved and the specialized nature of the equipment, however, standing up such production and procurement efforts will take years. Well beyond the 2025-2027 start date that many military officials believe a Taiwan invasion scenario could come to fruition.
“Some of the machining tools that are needed to open up new production lines are just very large, complex machines themselves that take time to fabricate and time to install,” Wormuth said.
To be sure, not all of the munitions that the United States is currently hemorrhaging in Ukraine would necessarily be useful in a fight for Taiwan.
The 155 mm rounds used by many artillery systems in Ukraine, for example, would lose their preeminence to long-range anti-ship missiles, or LRASMs.
But here again, the United States is simply not prepared for war.
Wargames demonstrate that the United States could deplete its entire arsenal of LRASMs within one single week of fighting with China, according to a January report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
“In a major regional conflict—such as a war with China in the Taiwan Strait—the U.S. use of munitions would likely exceed the current stockpiles of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), leading to a problem of ‘empty bins.’”
“The problem is the U.S. has such low stockpiles for those long-range anti-ship missiles that in our wargames, in multiple iterations of the wargame, we run out [of LRASMs] in less than a week virtually every time,” report author Seth Jones said in an associated video.
“We cannot fight in that case in protracted war because we don’t have sufficient supply of munitions.”
On this issue, military procurement programs are thus far proving of little worth. Though Army leaders like Wormuth may point to renewed investments in artillery, and speak of growing the nation’s stockpiles, one critical and inconvenient fact remains.
Nearly the entirety of the U.S. military’s precision munitions is built by the private sector.
Assistant Secretary of the Army Douglas Bush spoke on the issue during a March 3 talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
“The broader joint view is, of course, that a fight with China will be very much a precision munitions fight,” Bush said.
To overcome that gap in manufacturing ability, he added, the U.S. Army is funneling money to private corporations to effectively subsidize precision munitions production. Supply chains are no less complicated for those entities, however, and are likewise expected to take years to become functional.
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Israel is closer to war than calm, IDF intel warns government
Security tensions will not disappear at the end of Ramadan and an unusual response against terror organizations should be held off, intel suggests.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This is an amazing Mia Culpa:
+++ I helped make corporatons woke, and I regret it. By Gregory T.Angelo +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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