Miscellaneous News

bajingan said:

Very thougthful theory and observation, the only problem i see with this theory is what happens when the u.s failed to deliver economic stability to countries in her spheres? I see this as very likely that not only will the us will fail to provide economic stability instead she will squeeze her vassals dry like she did japan
When those countries continues to see their living standards continues to deteriorates under uncle sam "sphere" sooner or later they will turn from "allies" into hostages

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The economy is completely artificial hence not many will go against them but some might start to jump ship when the economy completely tanks. I think South Korea might do it to protect themselves down the line and others who might do it are Singepore. Hungary remains the only doubtful element and could tilt towards Russia.

Opinion: The State Department gets serious about the global technology race​

Creation of a new State Department office is usually a snooze, even for diplomats. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s announcement Wednesday that he’s creating a new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy is worth noting — because it’s part of a much broader effort by the Biden administration to get serious about the global technology race.

The new bureau will coordinate international cyber and digital policy, working through obscure United Nations organizations and other bodies that regulate technology and set standards for its use. The bureau must be approved by Congress, but Blinken is immediately creating a new “special envoy for critical and emerging technology” who will carry the U.S. agenda into the regulatory trenches.

Meanwhile, Chris Inglis, who as national cyber director is President Biden’s top cyber adviser, is crafting a strategy aimed at making cyberspace a more benign and better protected domain. His idea is that through new technology and better security, cyberspace can again become a zone of enrichment and freedom, rather than of risk and authoritarian control.

Biden is rolling out his tech initiatives piece by piece, but the idea is to create a broad matrix of partnerships that will create and enforce new global norms and standards for digital technology. Officials envision a lattice of different groups: The “Quad,” which partners India, Japan and Australia with the United States; the Trade and Technology Council, which joins the United States with the European Union; and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which unites the world’s 38 advanced industrial democracies.

These initiatives are China-focused. The aim is to check Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambition to dominate what he described in 2018 as the “commanding heights” of technology by mobilizing a coordinated response by “the West” (forgive the antiquated term). The danger is that, absent such U.S. diplomatic leadership, Beijing will gradually take control of the digital infrastructure while the technologically advanced democracies are slumbering.

“Tech policy” is the new “trade policy,” so to speak. The Biden administration (like the GOP) unfortunately remains allergic to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, ceding that ground to China, which is racing to join the organization that the United States created and then abandoned. Biden’s team is trying to insert its coordinated global tech agenda into the vacuum, in part as an alternative to multilateral trade partnerships like TPP.

Negotiating the new tech framework over the next year will fall largely to the special envoy and colleagues on the National Security Council staff such as Senior Director for Technology Tarun Chhabra, who have been honing the plans for months. Over time, the new Bureau for Cyberspace and Digital Policy will become the locus — coordinating the daily battles in regulatory bodies around the world.

The bureau, in theory, will coordinate with private companies such as Microsoft, which have been leaders in developing global “rules of the road” for cyber in the years when Washington disdained such guardrails, fearing they would limit American dominance. Those days, when the United States could rely on the first-mover advantage of its founding role in creating the Internet are past.

Blinken announced the new bureau Wednesday in a speech describing State’s broader modernization effort. In addition to the increased stress on cyber policy, he said the department will add new resources to deal with global health security after the pandemic; climate change; and multilateral diplomacy. All good ideas, but they all need money — for a department that over the decades has been woefully underfunded. Underfunded modernization plans would be a step backward, not forward.

Covering the State Department off and on since the late 1970s, I’ve seen modernization efforts like this come and go. One problem often is that good diplomacy is a forward-leaning and sometimes dangerous business, but Congress oversees the department on a zero-defect philosophy. It’s easy to talk about greater global engagement, but one incident like the 2012 Benghazi attack can generate endless finger-pointing — and put our diplomats back in the bunker.

Blinken addressed the bunker-mentality problem directly Wednesday: “A world of zero risk is not a world in which American diplomacy can deliver. We have to accept risk and manage it smartly.” U.S. diplomacy needs to improve its game, especially after the fiasco of the Afghanistan pullout. Global tech policy is a good place to start.

9dashline said:

As global EROEI diminishes, so too will the net productivity of workers/nations... simply put the high "energy/work multiplier effect" afforded to us by plentiful cheap dense energy (hydrocarbons) will be a thing of the past... there will be a sort of inevitable scale invariant cannibalization of sorts... hegemons eating vassal nations, the top 1% of the hegemon nation eating the bottom 99%, and bringing in new immigrant labor (replacement for the EROEI Energy Slaves) whilst instituting child labor and AI/automation to replace the mainstray of workforce...

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That is why it is pointless to limit fossil fuels for climate, especially for vehicles. Fossil fuel has extremely high specific energy. The key is to use it as effectively as possible while saving it and reducing dependence without giving it up for anything that isn't necessary. The total energy of course can be maintained by non fossil sources.

If they were serious about climate how come they're fracking and exporting oil? How come their people drive SUVs and trucks instead of hybrids and take transit? They don't give a damn about the environment.

Appix said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1454124124524195842

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This is hyperbolic really. The Afghan gov't has wealthy sponsors from Qatar and UAE.. It is more like repeated constantly for ego masturbation but nothing of it is reality on the ground. The gov't is even now busying building pipelines. It is not like they are holding anything it is just 9B mainly it is not even 5% of what Kabul made after beating them from the generous gifts from their handlers

ChongqingHotPot92 said:

Well you never know. She might be useful in the post-war reconciliation, which mean killing the radicals, but reach some kinds of deals with the moderates in order to calm the general populace.

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Killing the radicals? I think the whole place could erupt if there is any form of miscalculation hence there won't be an opportunity to separate until the armed forces is defeated entirely

horse said:

This seems no more than a barking dog show.

Just my opinion, and that is if mainland China really wanted to make a military move against Taiwan, it will be a long drawn out crisis.

A long crisis will essentially cripple the economy on the island. Also, a long crisis will truly test American will to fight.

For example, if there is a blockade, and then mainland China and Taiwan decides to lower tensions to discuss things, then the blockade will be halted. Of course, that could be reapplied at any time.

The CCP will not try to invade Taiwan before the Americans come to the rescue. The CCP will take on the Americans head on, sooner or later.

To me, it makes no sense to have a short crisis. A long crisis works better for the PRC. A long crisis does not work for DPP. That is how it should be played.

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Going west leaves your rear east vulnerable

Arnies said:

Going west leaves your rear east vulnerable

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Then that would mean the Americans with all their current wars, and all those bases spread across the globe, that would make them the most vulnerable.

That should certainly mean that the Americans going everywhere are the most vulnerable and will get pasted when China makes it move.

horse said:

Then that would mean the Americans with all their current wars, and all those bases spread across the globe, that would make them the most vulnerable.

That should certainly mean that the Americans going everywhere are the most vulnerable and will get pasted when China makes it move.

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Have you played chess before you eliminate first the ones that are easier to open your path to reach the King-Queen

This article is just a farce and Australian hyberbolic nothing more or less.. ​

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China could invade Taiwan ‘soon,’ says former Australian PM Abbott​

By

Oct 29, 07:02 PM



WASHINGTON ― A former Australian prime minister said Friday he thinks could “soon” invade Taiwan or otherwise escalate the situation and that the West should now be planning its military and economic response.

“I think we need to be prepared to think the unthinkable,” former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said at a Wilson Center event here.

“I think it’s highly possible that at some point in time, perhaps quite soon, China might up the ante, either with a blockade of the so-called rebel province ― to teach the Taiwanese that they ... need to make some kind of an accommodation with Beijing ― or perhaps even a full-scale invasion,” he added.

Abbott earlier this month made geopolitical waves when he accused China of being a bully and expressed enthusiastic support for Taiwan while visiting the democratically ruled island.

China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, has of the island by flying fighter jets toward Taiwan ― a trend Abbott said he expects to “get more intense.”

Abbott sees Chinese leader Xi Jinping as emboldened by the West’s mild reaction to China’s takeover of Hong Kong. Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan would offer military resistance, but it would still need outside backing, he said.

“In the absence of support from others, the Taiwanese might regard it as an unequal and ultimately hopeless struggle. And that’s why I think it’s important for Taiwan’s fellow democracies to provide all the solidarity that we can,” Abbott said.

U.S. President Joe Biden set off alarm bells in Beijing early this month by saying the U.S. has a firm commitment to help Taiwan defend itself in the event of a Chinese attack. Though the White House later played down the remarks, Abbott said he was “encouraged” by Biden’s comments and that there’s more broadly been a “rhetorical escalation” from the West.

Abbott’s appearance came weeks after the unveiling of a U.S.-British deal to supply nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, which supplanted a prior French deal to supply Australia with its own submarines.

On Friday, Abbott reiterated his calls for Australia to take over one or more retiring U.S. Los Angeles-class or U.K. Trafalgar-class submarines soon because the new nuclear-powered subs won’t arrive for years. The nuclear-powered submarines he’s proposing for the interim would augment the Collins-class submarines in Australia’s inventory, he said.

“We need better, bigger, faster more wide-ranging submarines not in two decades time but now,” he said, adding that “the challenges are pressing, the peril is not far off.”

Both the U.K. and France have dispatched carrier groups to the region, and the Royal Navy’s Astute submarine was on a port call to Perth on Friday. Abbott said he hopes the U.K. will send more naval assets and use Singapore’s facilities, as the U.S. Navy does.

“I think it’s very important for Britain and France, which have long had a Pacific presence, to increase that Pacific presence, given that east Asia is probably now the most strategically important part of the world,” he said.

Abbott also called for enhanced , saying it could be a “powerful addition” to the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement.

U.S. military officials have called China the “pacing challenge.” On Thursday, said the rate at which China’s military is developing capabilities is “stunning,” while U.S. development suffers from “brutal” bureaucracy.

In spite of a Biden administration defense budget that prioritizes technology development, Abbott said “the gap is likely to get wider, not smaller in the years to come.

“Is the U.S. increasing its capabilities at the same rate as China is? I think the short answer is no,” he said.