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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17917/european-army

The call for a supranational army, part of a push for Europe to achieve “strategic autonomy” from the United States, is being spearheaded by French President Emmanuel Macron, who, as part of his reelection campaign, apparently hopes to replace outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto leader of Europe.

Many EU member states disagree with Macron. Eastern European countries, some of which face existential threats from Russia, know that neither the EU nor France can match the military capabilities offered by NATO and the United States. Other countries are concerned about a panoply of issues ranging from financial costs to national sovereignty.

“If the EU Army undermines NATO, or results in the separation of the U.S. and Europe or produces a paper army, Europe will be committing the most enfeebling and dangerous act of self-harm since the rise of fascism in the 1930s. An EU Army will amount to European de-arming.” — Bob Seely, Tory MP.

“It will be hard to convince some member states that collective EU defense would bring the same security as NATO’s U.S.-backed defense arrangement.” — Richard Whitman, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent.

“Few share France’s willingness to splurge on defense, or its expeditionary military culture. (Germany, especially, does not.) Nobody agrees what ‘strategic autonomy’ actually means.” — The Economist.

“The EU is not a credible substitute for what NATO represents. You will not see any appetite for the European army amongst member states.” — Kristjan Mäe, head of the Estonian defense ministry’s NATO and EU department.

“Even if national capitals wanted to lunge for a common army, there are so many technical, legal, and administrative differences between their militaries that it would take decades to produce a smoothly functioning force…. Conclusion: any talk of creating a fully-fledged common army, even within the next generation, is just that: jaw-jaw and not real-real.” — Brooks Tigner, analyst, Atlantic Council.

European federalists seeking to transform the 27-member European Union into a European superstate — a so-called United States of Europe — have revived a decades-old proposal to build a European army.

The call for a supranational army, part of a push for Europe to achieve “strategic autonomy” from the United States, is being spearheaded by French President Emmanuel Macron, who, as part of his reelection campaign, apparently hopes to replace outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto leader of Europe.

Macron claims that Europe needs its own military because, according to him, the United States is no longer a reliable ally. He cites as examples: U.S. President Joe Biden’s precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan; the growing pressure on Europe to take sides with the United States on China; and France’s exclusion from a new security alliance in the Indo-Pacific region.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17873/china-space-weaponization

Space satellites have become strategic assets and therefore valuable military targets.

“Beijing is working to match or exceed US capabilities in space to gain the military, economic, and prestige benefits that Washington has accrued from space leadership.” — 2021 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

China’s 2015 defense white paper had already formally designated space as a new domain of warfare. Also in 2015, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) established the Strategic Support Force (SSF), which brought together outer space, electromagnetic space and cyberspace under one command, indicating “the PLA’s prioritization of these critical areas of warfare.”

“The PLA continues to acquire and develop a range of…technologies, including kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers, and orbiting space robots, as well as expanding space surveillance capabilities, which can monitor objects in space within their field of view and enable counterspace actions.” — U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress, 2020.

Communist China, according to China Daily, has vowed to become the world’s leading space power by 2045.

“[T]he space battlefield is ‘not science fiction’…anti-satellite weapons are going to be a reality in future armed conflicts.” — Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, Space News, September 17, 2021.

“China has moved aggressively to weaponize space…” These were the words of U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall at the 36th Space Symposium on August 24.

“Both conventional deterrence and conventional operations depend on access to communications, intelligence, and other services provided by space-based systems. As a result, our strategic competitors have pursued and fielded a number of weapons systems in space designed to defeat or destroy America’s space-based military weapons systems and our ability to project power.”

Space has become crucial: so much of what happens there now affects life on earth. There are more than 3,000 active satellites orbiting earth today and their services have become indispensable. Among these are US military-operated GPS satellites for positioning, navigation and timing, serving both military and civilian needs — think Uber, Lyft, Waze, grocery delivery services — and earth monitoring, including weather and communications, to name just a few. Space satellites have become strategic assets and therefore valuable military targets. “It is impossible to overstate the importance of space-based systems to national security,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said.

According to the 2021 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, released in April:

“Beijing is working to match or exceed US capabilities in space to gain the military, economic, and prestige benefits that Washington has accrued from space leadership… Counterspace operations will be integral to potential military campaigns by the PLA [People’s Liberation Army], and China has counterspace weapons capabilities intended to target US and allied satellites. Beijing continues to train its military space elements and field new destructive and nondestructive ground- and space-based antisatellite (ASAT) weapons.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/anni-cyrus-video-inside-world-sharia-frontpagemagcom/

This new Glazov Gang episode features Anni Cyrus, an artist, founder of Live Up To Freedom and producer of The Glazov Gang,

Anni discusses Inside the World of Sharia, revealing how Sharia is a supremacist law system and a tool of war.

Don’t miss it!

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17894/pakistan-anti-american

In an interview aired in the US in June 2021, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Pakistan will deny US use of its territory for “over-the-horizon” surveillance of possible terrorist activity in Afghanistan. Now, there are negotiations for the US to use Pakistan’s airspace for military operations in Afghanistan, but is this really an ally on which the United States can count?

Pakistan helped bankroll and arm the largely Pashtun Taliban terrorist movement, and Pakistani anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines were prevalent in Afghanistan. Often, Taliban fighters were extended refuge in sites established by the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents. Islamabad’s pro-Taliban stance could also be seen in ISI’s construction of logistical re-supply depots and training camps for Taliban fighters. Moreover, on occasion. Pakistani military officers, provided direct military support to the Taliban.

At times, it seemed as if Musharraf was Pakistan’s face for the Americans, while other generals continued supporting

In the months before 9/11, it became clear that US counterterrorist policy was focused on the eventual takedown of the Taliban’s and Al Qaeda’s ever-widening support for jihadi terrorists. It was then that the ISI cold-shouldered Washington by sponsoring huge pro-Taliban rallies in Pakistan’s main cities of Peshawar and Lahore. Even then, it proved difficult for CIA field officers and Station Chiefs to fully shut down their ties to their old ISI counterparts. Reportedly, the CIA Station Chief in Islamabad caustically objected to the US decision to assist anti-Taliban Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, because, the officer stated, it would infuriate the ISI.

Pakistan ultimately may pay dearly for enabling Afghanistan’s Taliban. The group consists of diverse movements, such as the so-called Pakistani Taliban (Tehrek-e-Taliban) , a coalition of at least ten terrorist organizations dedicated to overthrowing Pakistan’s regime. Its recruits include former Taliban members from Afghanistan who had assessed that their former organization was too indulgent of infidels.

Pakistan has not really been an ally of the West for decades. It was Islamabad that gave Osama bin Laden asylum until he was brought to justice by US Special Operations forces in 2011. Now, the Pakistan’s government seems to have positioned the country into China’s sphere of influence.

Pakistan, once presumed an ally of the US, has been willfully responsible for the slaughter of many US and NATO troops by having massively assisted enemy jihadists in Afghanistan. Throughout the 20-year presence of US forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani intelligence operations have included the recruiting, training and arming of the largely ethnic Pashtun Taliban.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/needed-military-strategy-for-china-taiwan-conflict-invasion-11635886657?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

‘Strategic ambiguity” is the longstanding U.S. policy toward Taiwan, but President Biden’s approach has been more ambiguous than strategic. Asked at an Oct. 21 town hall whether he would defend the island nation against a Chinese attack, Mr. Biden replied, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.” The White House then “clarified” his answer by reasserting its commitment to ambiguity.

All this begs the question: What should the U.S. do in defense of Taiwan? And it raises a broader one: What should the U.S. do to counter China’s military challenge?

These two inextricable questions are united by U.S. policy makers’ failure to answer either. China’s strategic objective is to monopolize the South and East China seas and use the resulting economic power to reshape the global order. But doing so requires breaking the U.S. Indo-Pacific alliance system, which in turn requires shattering the First Island Chain, which runs through the Japanese archipelago, Luzon in the Philippines, and Borneo, terminating with the Vietnamese coastline. The First Island Chain limits China’s maritime exit points into the Philippine Sea and the Indian Ocean, making control central to Chinese strategy. Taiwan lies at the center of the First Island Chain.

In such a conflict, deterrence and warfare become synonymous in policy. The U.S. has yet to articulate what victory would mean in a war with China. The Biden administration has suggested no desire to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party and replace it with a regime that respects international order. Rather, the objective seems to be to maintain the status quo, which means defending the sovereignty of all Pacific states, the territorial integrity of regional allies including Taiwan, and the freedom of navigation that undergirds the international system. Accomplishing these objectives means convincing China to stand down from its increasing regional aggression or in a war, to sue for peace. Accomplishing that requires identifying what China holds most valuable.

The answer is simple. The Chinese Communist Party desires survival. President Xi Jinping fears that the managed capitalism of his predecessors won’t prevent the emergence of a middle class that challenges the party domestically. He has turned for inspiration to three past Chinese rulers: Mao Zedong ; Qin Shi Huang (247-221 B.C.), the first Chinese emperor; and Gaozu (202-195 B.C.), the first Han emperor.

The most effective way to destroy the Chinese economy is a long-term blockade. A Sino-American confrontation would trigger a global economic depression that would harm Americans and their allies. But democracies’ electoral legitimacy makes them more resilient to such shocks than authoritarian regimes. A war-generated economic downturn in the West would bring high unemployment and tighter household budgets in the U.S. and, at the very least, an energy crisis elsewhere in the world. In China, such a downturn would usher in cascading power failures, production stoppages, soaring unemployment, and likely riots challenging the Communist Party’s legitimacy.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17907/china-satellite-crusher

The satellite, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., is “tasked with demonstrating technologies to alleviate and neutralize space debris.”

As Beijing sees it, American satellites constitute “debris.”

“[Communist China’s satellite] is a real-world offensive capability that can hunt and destroy American systems and render the U.S. military on earth deaf, dumb, and blind.” — Brandon Weichert, author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, to Gatestone.

At one time, America was dominant in space, and American political leaders decided to go slow on developing anti-satellite weapons for fear of triggering a competition.

All that American restraint did was to allow the Chinese and Russian militaries to grab commanding leads in the race to deploy these impossible-to-defend-against delivery systems for nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, “the Department of Defense is still unbelievably bureaucratic and slow.”

The Pentagon’s bureaucracy “is just brutal.” — Outgoing Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Hyten, CNN, October 28, 2021.

Fortunately, there is also Elon Musk, a bureaucracy of one.

On October 24, China launched its Shijian-21 into orbit. The satellite, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., is “tasked with demonstrating technologies to alleviate and neutralize space debris.”

As Beijing sees it, American satellites constitute “debris.”

Shijian-21 has a robotic arm that can be used to move space junk—there are more than 100 million pieces of it floating around the earth—or capture, disable, destroy, or otherwise render unusable other nations’ satellites. That arm makes Shijian-21 a “satellite crusher.”