Author: Frank V. Vernuccio, Jr.

The Biden State Department has released information on the U.S. nuclear weapons.  In a statement, it noted that “Increasing the transparency of states’ nuclear stockpiles is important to nonproliferation and disarmament efforts, including commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and efforts to address all types of nuclear weapons, including deployed and non-deployed, and strategic and non-strategic.”

As of September 2020, the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads consisted of 3,750 warheads. This number represents an approximate 88 percent reduction in the stockpile from its maximum (31,255) at the end of fiscal year 1967, and an approximate 83 percent reduction from its level (22,217) when the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989.

From fiscal years 1994 through 2020, the United States dismantled 11,683 nuclear warheads. Since September 30, 2017, the United States has dismantled 711 nuclear warheads. Approximately 2,000 additional nuclear warheads are currently retired and awaiting dismantlement.

The number of U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons has declined by more than 90 percent since September 30, 1991.

The Biden Administration’s softer approach on nuclear weapons is not matched by the nation’s chief adversaries. A Heritage Foundation report notes that:

Despite the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START), Russia is able to increase its nuclear weapons stockpile both quantitatively and qualitatively. As Russia modernizes its nuclear forces and introduces new capabilities unconstrained by New START, the United States has just barely begun to modernize its aging legacy strategic systems. Russia is clearly seeking to gain a competitive nuclear advantage over the U.S. This is unacceptably dangerous. To ensure credible, direct, and extended nuclear deterrence against Russia, and to avoid crisis escalation to the nuclear level, the U.S. must complete its own nuclear modernization while engaging Russia diplomatically on strategic issues.

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An Atlantic Council analysis states that “The vast arsenal of nonstrategic nuclear weapons fielded by Russia, as well as its development of novel, exotic nuclear weapons, threaten the US-Russia nuclear balance. As great-power competition heats up, the United States faces plausible conflicts with China that would test the US nuclear deterrent.”

China has been the most active of the three major nuclear powers in expanding its atomic arsenal. Beijing is expected to at least double its weapons of mass destruction within the decade.

A Federation of American Scientists analysis found that China is building new nuclear missile silo fields. “The number of new Chinese silos under construction exceeds the number of silo-based ICBMs operated by Russia, and constitutes more than half of the size of the entire US ICBM force. The Chinese missile silo program constitutes the most extensive silo construction since the US and Soviet missile silo construction during the Cold War.The 250 new silos under construction are in addition to the force of approximately 100 road-mobile ICBM launchers that PLARF deploys at more than a dozen bases. …. If the new silos are loaded with the new MIRVed DF-41 ICBMs, then Chinese ICBMs could potentially carry more than 875 warheads (assuming 3 warheads per missile) when the Yumen and Hami missile silo fields are completed.”

Reuters quotes U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas Bussiere, the deputy commander of the U.S. Strategic Command which oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal: “China’s development of nuclear capabilities ‘can no longer be aligned with its public claim that it wants to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent. There’s going to be a point, a crossover point, where the number of threats presented by China will exceed the number of threats that currently Russia presents.’”

Chart: U.S. State Department

Throughout the four years of the Trump Administration, the greatest dirty trick in American politics tore the nation apart. Bringing the perpetrators to justice is vital.

In an attempt to ensure victory, Hillary Clinton’s campaign developed a wholly false charge of “Russian Collusion.”  Partisan elements in the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the media acted as co-conspirators. Democratic members of Congress, particularly Adam Schiff, played a leading role. Nancy Pelosi, in her role as Speaker of the House, supplied all the support necessary to keep the fraud going.

The Boston Herald editorial staff   said, regarding Schiff, “He used his position — replete with access to information and people in the know — to distribute wild accounts of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. The effect was to frighten and alarm millions of Americans, sowing division between neighbors, toxifying our discourse and raising anxieties. The Trump administration spent time and resources fighting off the fallacy that cursed them since day one and deprived the American people of a president who could devote his time and energy to the policies they had elected him to enact.”

There can no longer be any uncertainty that the whole move was completely made-up, and that the perpetrators were aware of it.  As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “Americans expect that politicians will lie, but sometimes the examples are so brazen that they deserve special notice. Newly released Congressional testimony shows that Adam Schiff spread falsehoods shamelessly about Russia and Donald Trump for three years even as his own committee gathered contrary evidence.”

Eventually, The House Intelligence Committee released 57 transcripts of interviews it conducted in its investigation regarding the false charges

The committee found in 2017 that there was no evidence to support the charges against President Trump. To keep the conspiracy going, however, Adam Schiff blocked the release of the exculpatory evidence after he became the committee chairman in 2019. Despite clear and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Schiff knowingly and falsely alleged that had evidence verifying the phony charges.

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Some, such as Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama) have demanded justice. When the fraud and the related Obstruction of Justice by Adam Schiff became clear, Palmer stated:

“The transcripts indicate that former Obama Administration officials and Committee Chairman Adam Schiff knew there was no proof of collusion. Yet, Schiff repeatedly touted this now discredited claim of a collusion…It is now clear that Adam Schiff lied to his colleagues, that he lied to the media, and that he lied to the American public. He refused to release the testimony transcripts from the witness interviews because he knew it would undermine him within his own caucus and with the media, and he knew it would completely discredit his investigation. This disclosure of his misrepresentation of the witness testimonies not only proves that there was no Russian collusion…”

The damage to the nation was incalculable. However, there is no discussion in the media, no action from the Justice Department, and no ongoing investigation from the FBI concerning those responsible. The Pulitzer Prizes won by the New York Times and the Washington Post in furtherance of Schiff’s fraud are a black eye on journalism as a whole.

Politics has always been a tough, go-for-the jugular endeavor. However, the outright lies, and the use of the machinery of federal government as vehicles to perpetuate them, is a devastating new low in U.S. politics, unlike anything that has ever been seen before.

A new election cycle is beginning as the nation gears up for 2022.  Great issues will be vigorously debated, and conflicting points of view will be strongly aired.  But the body politic has been so badly damaged as a result of the false charges that many Americans no longer have the slightest trust in either the candidates or the media that covers them.  That will only change when the guilty are prosecuted and punished.

Photo: Rep. Adam Schiff

From the U.S. State Department

Armenian and Azerbaijani Ceasefire Holds

This week, the United States and the international community recognize the one-year anniversary of the ceasefire declaration that ended 44 days of intense fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the South Caucasus.  We extend our deepest condolences to the families of those killed and injured during the hostilities last year.  We call for the return of all remaining detainees, a full accounting of missing persons, the voluntary return of displaced persons to their homes, comprehensive humanitarian de-mining of conflict-affected areas, and access by international humanitarian organizations to those in need.  We also call for an investigation into alleged human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law.

The United States remains committed to promoting a secure, stable, prosperous, and peaceful future for the South Caucasus region.  U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Erika Olson is currently in the region to discuss bilateral issues with all three countries and to explore opportunities for regional cooperation.  We urge Armenia and Azerbaijan to continue and intensify their engagement including under the auspices of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to find comprehensive solutions to all outstanding issues related to or resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Cyberspace Trust and Security

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The United States supports the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, consistent with our position that all actors must do their part to promote an “open, secure, stable, accessible, and peaceful cyberspace.”  Our decision to support the Paris Call reflects the Administration’s pledge to renew America’s engagement with the international community, including on cyber issues.  We are committed to working alongside our allies and partners to uphold established global norms in cyberspace and ensure accountability for states that engage in destructive, disruptive, or destabilizing cyber activity.   

We welcome the Government of France’s leadership in bringing together a multi-stakeholder group of supporters – including states as well as private sector and civil society actors – around a shared commitment to safeguard the benefits the Internet provides all people.   As we face the global challenges of the 21st century – from COVID-19 to climate change – it is imperative we all do our part.  It is uniquely the role and responsibility of states to develop the norms, rules, and principles of responsible state behavior that promote security and stability in cyberspace.  The United States views the broadly framed language of the Paris Call in this light and interprets it consistent with our existing domestic and international obligations and commitments, including with respect to privacy and freedom of expression. 

For more than a decade, the United States, alongside France and many others, has championed a global framework of responsible state behavior in cyberspace, underpinned by the applicability of international law, adherence to voluntary peacetime norms of state behavior in cyberspace, and the development and implementation of practical confidence building measures.  This framework has repeatedly been endorsed by UN member states, most recently in the March 10, 2021, report of the Open-Ended Working Group in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security and the July 14, 2021, report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Advancing Responsible State Behavior in Cyberspace in the Context of International Security.  The United States’ support of the Paris Call does not mark a change in U.S. Government policy but rather reflects our continuing commitment to act responsibly and partner with likeminded states to promote stability in cyberspace.    

We also note the commitments of private sector actors who support the Paris Call to contribute to the future of a stable cyberspace by adhering to key principles relevant to their own unique roles.  Among other important efforts, the United States urges companies to take seriously their commitment to strengthen the security of digital processes, products and services, throughout their life cycle and supply chain.  We applaud the language in the Paris Call reaffirming the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online. 

Illustration: Pixabay

Sun Tzu wrote long ago that to see farther one must stand on higher ground. The 24-hour news cycle is producing an overload of information on China and its foreign policy since the spread of the Covid virus. That makes it more difficult to discern China’s long-term global agenda from its daily rhetoric. Clues to the CCP’s true intentions can be found in where Xi Jinping is spending the government’s money and in China’s ongoing military projects unrelated to its disinformation and propaganda campaigns. That news, perhaps, is the most troubling information to date. The senior Chinese leadership has for over a decade in closed CCP meetings, and in public, stated that it intends to remake the world in China’s image. Those statements support the current direction and technological advances made by China’s military. 

Western leaders do question whether China is planning to make serious naval moves in the Pacific in the near future. But how seriously does the Biden Administration take the Chinese threat? Set aside Beijing’s rhetoric on Taiwan for a moment to examine what military planning actions Beijing is taking that cost it time, money, and human resources. Earlier this week Space Wars reported that satellite imagery shows clearly that China has built full-scale outlines of “American warships including an aircraft carrier” as possible targets to practice killing the US Navy’s carrier battle groups. The massive American carriers are among the United States’ most powerful arsenal of weapons. Washington should assume this a long-term goal for Xi Jinping. Western intelligence agencies have known for years that China is spending a solid percentage of its military budget on developing advanced weapons systems, including anti-ship missiles that can sink American carriers, and nuclear-tipped hypersonic missiles capable of  traversing the south pole before landing on target inside the continental US. 

Images of an American carrier, a destroyer, and other US ships first showed up on satellite images in early 2019, but not in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China where you would expect them. They were built in the middle of the country’s 390,000 square mile, Tarim Basin ballistic testing range in western Xinjiang’s Taklamakan Desert. This area, also known as East Turkestan, is on the east end of the contaminated region where China first conducted their Project 596 nuclear weapons tests in the mid-1960’s and is where many Uyghur minorities live today. Toward the end of the Trump Administration China began dismantling most of the site but after Biden’s election started rebuilding it. It was finished in September. 

The site appears to be more than propaganda as it contains highly sophisticated instrumentation poles that can be used to monitor advanced tests. Space War reports that according to a Pentagon report on China released last week, the PLA is “is currently on a major arms modernization drive… with many weapons designed to help neutralize the most important American warships in the event of a regional conflict.” The Pentagon report states that the DF-21D missile, which has a range of more than 930 miles has “the capability to conduct long-range precision strikes against ships, including aircraft carriers, out to the Western Pacific from mainland China….” In March, US Navy Admiral Philip Davidson told the US Senate that the employment [of the DF-21D] during a large-scale PLA exercise demonstrates the PLA’s focus on countering any potential third-party intervention during a regional crisis.” 

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On Tuesday Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng, who assumed his role in February with a portfolio that includes reforming the island’s military, stated that China is capable now of blockading Taiwan’s critical ports and airports to cut off key transport links and lines of communication. Taiwan’s biennial defense report released this week indicates that its military analysts view Beijing as dramatically strengthening its air, sea, and land strike capabilities against the island. The report, according to AFP, also warned that China is capable of striking all of Taiwan with its missile arsenal, including ballistic and cruise variants, and is beefing up its ability to launch amphibious assaults on the island. Most military analysts in Washington concur that it is not a question of if China will act, with many suggesting the remaining unknowns are when and where. 

China’s CCP faces many domestic constraints. Money prioritized and spent on offensive military programs takes away from what can be used to stabilize the economy through social welfare and other critical domestic programs. Lessons from Chinese military history, as taught by Sun Tzu, indicates that the CCP leadership knows to stand high on the hill to look farther down the path. That long view also should reveal to senior national security officials in the Biden Administration that Xi Jinping and the CCP recognize they must use military means at some point to retain their legitimacy with the population and to remain in power. Retaking Taiwan and/or delivering a serious blow to the US military has the potential to be the top option open to Xi Jinping and the CCP in the coming years. That knowledge should secure its position as a top priority danger to the free world.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Pixabay

The Chinese threat may be at the forefront of Western leaders’ minds this fall, but Putin’s Russia cannot be pushed safely to the far side and forgotten. Western political and military leaders need to assess Moscow’s ideas on contactless warfare and the use of high-precision weapons. Russia may have moved the country out of communism, but communist thinking has not moved out of the country. Roger McDermott, in a Jamestown Foundation report published this week, suggests that Moscow’s thinking about credible conventional hard-power capabilities remains preeminent among its military planners. “Unlike Western militaries, Russian military thought never abandoned its interest in large-scale inter-state warfare, which also features as part of the war types rehearsed and trained for in Russia’s annual strategic military exercises. This focus on the potential for large-scale inter-state conventional military conflict equally translates into Russian military thinking about the wars of the future,” he says. McDermott also points out that Putin is moving warfare to the next stage by adding capabilities beyond those needed for kinetic conflict.

Soviet military theorists typically planned for future wars. They are very good at it and this has not changed under Putin. Starting almost 13 years ago, Russia began a broad, conventional military modernization and reform program. Themes since that time, notes McDermott, have focused on how the character of war is evolving and, in particular, the roles played by high technology in the information age. Understanding Russian military policy and planning is taking on new significance in the US post-Afghanistan period. Moscow’s perception of the strategic threat it faces today is governed by two main concerns: information warfare (informatsionnoe protivoborstvo) and the application of advanced information technology in support of conventional war-fighting. This is the keystone for its network-centric warfare going into 2022. 

The late Russian Major General Slipchenko developed a 6^th generation of warfare concept for fighting future wars. He argued for using precision weapons and information and electronic warfare to undermine or destroy the enemy’s economy with distance no-contact warfare. In proposing the idea, he moved Russian thinking from the concept of information warfare to information confrontation. Understanding the distinction is important as the United States faces increasing challenges from a belligerent China and other potential adversaries. Russia is raising information confrontation to a “category” of warfare and making it part of a constant and ongoing process. While it does not take away from Russia’s historic fear of invasion and the potential of facing a two-front war on its own territory or that of a nearby state. It alters the nature of conflict to a global scale. That should give democratic nations pause for concern. 

“Using information networks and assets, a planetary aggressor can provoke technogenic catastrophes in large economic regions and sections of the world. It is possible that after 2050, ecological weapons may also be developed for directed effects against countries’ mineral and biological resources, local areas of a biosphere (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere), and climate resources in local areas of the Earth. It is important to mention that in next-generation warfare, starting with the sixth, man will not be the main target of a strike. He will be defeated indirectly, through other structures and systems associated with his life support,” according to Slipchenko. Russia’s highest form of military thinking encompasses the concept of non-contact warfare, McDermott says. Russian military thinking in 2022 will no longer be based on an understanding that war is only when people are fighting, and peace is when they are not. Russian military planners are preparing for future wars where there is no kinetic fighting. Forecasting war is seen by Russia as an increasingly complex process of gaining superiority over an adversary through modern advances in technology. Putin will continue to build his conventional and nuclear forces, but they are only part of the equation. Democratic nations must prepare for an ongoing threat from the former communist state.

In a Russian article on the evolution of the country’s military art in the 21^st century, entitled “The Development of Modern Military Art in Terms of Military Systemology” its military authors say that  “In future wars, their nature and substance will be impacted by weapons designed on new physical principles. The nature and substance of future wars will be changed radically by space-based attack weapons, orbiting battle space stations (platforms), new weapons of improved destructive power, range, accuracy, and rate of fire, greater capabilities of reconnaissance and robot-controlled assets, automated weapons control, communication, and information warfare systems… 

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“Naturally enough, a forecast of future warfare drives us to the conclusion that wars will be resolved by a skillful combination of military, nonmilitary, and special nonviolent measures that will be put through by a variety of methods and forms and a blend of political, economic, informational, technological, and environmental measures, primarily by taking advantage of information superiority. Information warfare in the new conditions will be the starting point of every action now….”

The West can no longer be concerned solely about a nuclear attack from Russia. The probability of information confrontation is a real and present danger and here to stay for the foreseeable future.  

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Thursday, she presents key updates on Russia.

Photo: Submarines of the Northern Fleet practice torpedo firing at underwater targets in Barents Sea. (Russian Defence Ministry photo)

Corruption has been, unfortunately, a consistent factor in politics in every time period, and in every political system. But the corruption that has plagued U.S. politics in the 21^st century is a far more dangerous, far more insidious variety that threatens the very foundation of the nation.

It has metastasized to such a dangerous degree due the partisanship of the media that has, in the past, served as a check against corruption’s survival and growth. While neither side of the ideological divide has been blameless, the reality that leftist politicians have their offenses hidden, excused, or obscured allows them to get away with far more both in quantity and in the seriousness of their harmful actions.

The trend escalated in earnest during the Obama Administration. In a move largely ignored by many major media sources, A federal agency violated the Constitution, was unlawfully used for partisan purposes, and refused to comply with a court order to cease and desist in its illegal actions. That was the essence of a verdict by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2016, in a case involving the targeting of groups that merely disagreed with the Obama Administration’s political perspectives. Thirty-eight non-profit organizations from twenty-two states were subjected to violations of their First Amendment rights. Information obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that officials “orchestrated a complex scheme to dump conservative and Tea Party non-profit applicants into a bureaucratic ‘black hole.’ Another 294 pages of documents … also recently released by Judicial Watch further establish that ‘top IRS officials in Washington, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting ‘Tea Party’ and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public…”

The media also did not dwell on offenses such as Hillary Clinton’s financial gain from her approval, as secretary of state, of the sale of uranium, the basic ingredient of nuclear weapons, to Russia. The Biden Justice Department has found time to attack parents disagreeing with politicized curricula, but has been absurdly reluctant to move on Hunter Biden’s financial ties to the China.

The most salient example remains, of course, the fraud perpetrated on the American public during the 2016 campaign by the Clinton campaign.  The “Russian collusion” charges against the Trump election team were wholly fabricated.

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Lee Smith, writing for The Federalist reported in 2018 that “Half the country wants to know why the press won’t cover the growing scandal now implicating the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice, and threatening to reach the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and perhaps even the Obama White House. After all, the release last week of a less-redacted version of Sens. Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham’s January 4 letter showed that the FBI secured a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to search the communications of a Trump campaign adviser based on a piece of opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The Fourth Amendment rights of an American citizen were violated to allow one political party to spy on another. If the press did its job and reported the facts, the argument goes, then it wouldn’t just be Republicans and Trump supporters demanding accountability and justice. Americans across the political spectrum would understand the nature and extent of the abuses and crimes touching not just on one political party and its presidential candidate but the rights of every American.”  It’s Smith’s belief that  “The Media Stopped Reporting The Russia Collusion Story Because They Helped Create It. The press has played an active role in the Trump-Russia collusion story since its inception. It helped birth it.”

Corruption that financially enriches politicians is bad, but actions by elected officials that threatens the stability of the Republic and the rights of each citizen is even worse.

The actions of the Biden Administration to diminish border controls and circumvent American immigration laws, in the belief that they will gain politically from the tidal wave, represent the ongoing nature of this apex of corruption.

Illustration: Pixabay

Defense issues frequently involve one nation’s conflicts with another.  But NASA is engaging in a wholly different type of defense, one that seeks to protect the entire planet from dangerous asteroids.

The concept is called “planetary defense.” Planetary defense is the term used to encompass all the capabilities needed to detect the possibility and warn of potential asteroid or comet impacts with Earth, and then either prevent them or mitigate their possible effects. It involves Finding and tracking near-Earth objects that pose of hazard of impacting Earth; Characterizing those objects to determine their orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition, rotational dynamics and other parameters, so that experts can determine the severity of the potential impact event, warn of its timing and potential effects, and determine the means to mitigate the impact; and Planning and implementation of measures to deflect or disrupt an object on an impact course with Earth, or to mitigate the effects of an impact that cannot be prevented. Mitigation measures that can be taken on Earth to protect lives and property include evacuation of the impact area and movement of critical infrastructure.

Asteroids have wrecked havoc in the past, famously ending the reign of dinosaurs in one instance. There has been, until now, no viable attempt to protect Earth from a similar blow, which, this time, could destroy Humanity.

The U.S. Space agency is chaging that worrisome reality. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is directed by NASA’s Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) with support from several NASA centers.

 DART is a planetary defense-driven test of technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid. DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactortechnique to change the motion of an asteroid in space. The DART mission is in Phase C, led by APL and managed under NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program at Marshall Space Flight Center for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Science Division.

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The binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos is the target for the DART demonstration. While the Didymos primary body is approximately 780 meters across, its secondary body (or “moonlet”) is about 160-meters in size, which is more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose the most likely significant threat to Earth. The Didymos binary is being intensely observed using telescopes on Earth to precisely measure its properties before DART arrives.

The DART spacecraft will achieve the kinetic impact deflection by deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet at a speed of approximately 6.6 km/s, with the aid of an onboard camera (named DRACO) and sophisticated autonomous navigation software. The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes – enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth.

Once launched, DART will deploy Roll Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) to provide the solar power needed for DART’s electric propulsion system.  The DART spacecraft will demonstrate the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C)solar electric propulsion system as part of its in-space propulsion.  NEXT-C is a next-generation system based on the Dawn spacecraft propulsion system, and was developed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.  By utilizing electric propulsion, DART could benefit from significant flexibility to the mission timeline while demonstrating the next generation of ion engine technology, with applications to potential future NASA missions.

The DART spacecraft launch window begins November 24, 2021.  DART will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. After separation from the launch vehicle and over a year of cruise it will intercept Didymos’ moonlet in late September 2022, when the Didymos system is within 11 million kilometers of Earth, enabling observations by ground-based telescopes and planetary radar to measure the change in momentum imparted to the moonlet.

Illustration: DART spacecraft (NASA)

Every once in a while, a politician openly states what he or she actually believes. When that rare event occurs, it causes enormous concern when it becomes evident how disdainful the nation’s elites are to traditional rights.

Virginia Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (who previously served as the states’ chief executive from 2014—2018) stated during a debate that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

McAuliffe’s position, which cost him the election, offended not only parents, but many educators as well. A New York City teacher I interviewed commented that “Parents are our children’s first, and most important, teachers.”

McAuliffe broke no new ground in his arrogant comment. Attempts to prevent parents from having a say in the education of their own children are a growing trend on the part of America’s increasingly leftist-dominated educational czars.

Examples abound. To cite just one instance, out of very, very many: In 2015, notes the Philadelphia Inquirer, “School Reform Commission (SRC) chair William Green made a unilateral decision, with no public vote or notification, to have police search the bags and confiscate the signs of parents and community members who came to be heard…”

While the issue has been brewing for some time, it erupted into public consciousness on a massive scale during the COVID pandemic, when students received their education at home, where parents could overhear and discover that political indoctrination was being force fed to their offspring.

Mothers and fathers across the country were stunned.

The Independent Women’s Forum addressed the issue in June, stating “The intent is clear… They want to intimidate parents who might want to attend a school board meeting to ask questions, engage in conversation, find out why the school is pursuing certain policies, or express even slight discomfort with the political indoctrination they see in schools… increasingly, school boards are just rubber stamps for…corrupt school leaders…These board members are clever. They’ve gone on defense because they know that, all over the country, parents are getting wise to what’s really happening in schools. And many parents have had enough. The powerful viral videos are out there showing a diverse group of parents from all races, economic, and educational levels, native born and immigrant to this country, speaking out against critical race theory, the 1619 Project curriculum…other woke school policies.”

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A number of organizations have risen to the challenge. Parents Rights in Education believes that “The primary issue today with public schools is the shift of influence in our public school system away from parent involvement. Parents… care about  state and district policies infringing on their rights to make decisions about and with their minor children. The government has infringed upon those rights…” and it’s time to re-establish, to restore our rights!”

The imposition of any partisan perspective in a taxpayer-funded educational environment is unacceptable. The cramming of discredited Marxist and openly false, anti-American curriculum down the throats of students is particularly galling. The Heritage Foundation notes:

“Your children are being indoctrinated. The education system designed to teach them how to think critically has been weaponized by the radical left to push an anti-American agenda… Teachers will assign work instilling the idea that the pillars of Western civilization were evil, and their memories deserve to be thrown in the trash.”

From national organizations to local publications, alarm bells are being rung. Mike Rosen, in the journal Complete Colorado writes: “The academic left’s collective, welcoming utopia of fairness, tolerance, inclusion and social justice is hypocritically intolerant of dissenting viewpoints. And especially unwelcoming to conservatives and others who espouse individualism, limited government, capitalism, and freedom of speech and thought. Students who stand up to these tyrants have been shamed, harassed, tried, convicted and punished before kangaroo courts of administrators, faculty and student vigilantes who deny them due process and the right to confront their accusers…This divisive and destructive mentality has metastasized and filtered down to K-12 education in public schools where most teachers and administrators share the progressive ideology of academia. School curricula is increasingly politicized with a distinct leftist bias.”

A new and deeply disturbing assault on moms and dads has come from the Biden Administration. In an attempt to suppress parental influence, it issued a memorandum directing the FBI to investigate parents whom it maintains “threaten” school boards.  Of course, any use or threat of violence is wholly unacceptable, but this particular move is inappropriate in two important ways. First, bluntly, it’s political purpose is to characterize ALL expressions of parental rights as tantamount to criminal threats. Second, it seeks to federalize the oppression of parents by rogue school boards.

It is an exercise in elitist power that should not be tolerated.

Illustration: Pixabay

ETHIOPIA

Reports indicate there are arbitrary detentions based on ethnicity in Addis Ababa, and that more than 900,000 are facing conflict-induced famine-like conditions. The Biden Administration this week suggested to the Government of Ethiopia that it halt its military campaign, including air strikes in population centers in Tigray, and mobilization of ethnic militias.  Marking the end of a full year of conflict, Thursday evening Secretary of State Blinken issued a written press release calling for immediate action by the Ethiopian government to alleviate the suffering of the Ethiopian people. Blinken stated: “The United States reiterates our deep concern about the risk of intercommunal violence aggravated by bellicose rhetoric on all sides of the conflict, especially on social media. Inflammatory language fuels the flames of this conflict, pushing a peaceful resolution ever further away.” There is no indication from the Department that its statement had any effect on the situation.

SUDAN

Since the military takeover in Sudan, the State Department has made numerous statements in support of the Sudanese people and their aspirations for democracy. State Department Spokesman Ned Price noted that the military has shut down the Internet in Sudan and declared a state of emergency. Price called for the release of all civilian leaders and protest organizers, saying “We join the Sudanese people in calling for justice and accountability for the abuses of human rights… yesterday we spoke to a joint statement that we issued with our British partners, with our Emirati partners, with our Saudi partners, and much of the international community has issued a similar message calling for restoration of the civilian-led democratic government and calling for release of all of those detained since October 26th when the military takeover occurred.” Price pointed out that there are positive incentives but there are also potential and real repercussions. “When it comes to the repercussions that the United States has enacted already, we’ve spoken about the $700 million in Emergency Support Funding that have been paused unless and until the past democracy is restored,” he stated on Thursday. The message the Sudanese military is receiving from the international community is that they are at risk of losing billions in terms of debt relief, lending, and financing from international financial institutions. 

IRAN

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The US intends to enter into discussions with the Iranian leadership concerning the lengthening and strengthening the JCOPA nuclear deal. The first step, according to Price, is to see to it that Iran’s nuclear program is constrained. He suggested that this is why the US is focused on determining whether a mutual return to compliance could be feasible. “We remain interested in that. If we are able to achieve a mutual return to compliance, we will then use that JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as a baseline to negotiate what we have – the – not only to lengthen and strengthen the provisions of the deal, but to put on the table and to discuss, in a productive and hopefully useful way, other issues of concern, issues that are of concern not only to the United States, but also of concern to our allies and partners in the region as well.” When repeatedly confronted by a reporter about loopholes in verification of Iran’s nuclear status, a reporter finally remarked “And that worked so well that that worked with North Korea?” Price responded: “To the North Korea comparison, the verification and monitoring that the JCPOA spells out for Iran is certainly not what the United States and what the international community had in place with the DPRK prior to its production of a nuclear weapon.” Price did not appear to understand that the reporter was suggesting that a “deal” didn’t stop North Korea from producing a nuclear weapon, but the Spokesman chose to ignore the implications of the question. This type of back-and-forth between the Biden Administration’s State Department and reporters continues to produce vague statements and indicates an ongoing lack of transparency among Administration officials on a wide range of foreign policy issues.

HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

The Biden Administration is changing the State Department’s annual human rights report to reflect a new emphasis on its gender equity program. According to Department Spokesperson New Price, “Advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is a central pillar of US foreign policy.  This includes promoting gender equity, gender equality, and the human rights of women and girls, and improved women’s health outcomes.  And that is why today, the United States has released an addendum to the 2020 Country Report on Human Rights Practices addressing reproductive rights.” Advances in Chinese nuclear missile development and adventurism, Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, Covid, and other foreign policy challenges appear to be moving down the Top 10 priority list in favor of promoting the Biden Administration’s social agenda at home and abroad.

Illustration: Pixabay

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Do bad events come in threes? President Biden this week may think this is the case. Just when things appear to be settling down a bit after his Afghanistan debacle, the Administration suffered a major Democratic loss in the Virginia gubernatorial race this week that both the President and Vice President suggested would foretell the future direction of the mid-term and 2024 presidential races. The third event came only one day after the election when the Department of Defense (DOD) made a major admission about the increased global threat level from China. DOD estimates that it will, in less than six years, possess at least 700 nuclear weapons and have approximately 1,000 operational by 2030.  The DOD report released this week in “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” notes that the 700 number is China’s public released total. Military analysts point out that China may be touting this figure to embolden its position on Taiwan. Tara Copp, a senior Pentagon reporter for Defense One, was briefed on the issue by an anonymous senior Pentagon official who said: “If they [China] realize those goals for 2027, that would provide them with more credible military operations  in a Taiwan contingency.”

China’s fast-paced development of numerous launch pad sites in central and western China over the last 12 months indicates that President Xi Jinping may be making serious preparations to take Taiwan by force, if necessary, in the coming years. Or, China’s nuclear weapons could be a negotiating tool to force the issue of reunification on Beijing’s terms. Xi’s ultimate intention remains unknown, however, the increase in China’s nuclear arsenal and advanced capabilities represent an increased threat not only to Taiwan but to all democratic nations. Last week China confirmed it tested a new hypersonic ballistic missile that can travel around the globe and land on target. With 355 ships and submarines, China has the world’s largest Navy and is rapidly upgrading its quality and naval preparedness. It recently held the first Sino-Russian join exercises in the western Pacific. According to Defense One, many of the ships have long-range precision strike capabilities. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stands at just under 1 million trained and in uniform. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is now the third-largest in the world with a total of 2,800 planes, of which 2,250 are combat aircraft. In the mid-1980’ s China’s air force typically had 50% of its small fleet of planes grounded at any one time for lack of spare parts or pilots. That is no longer the case today. According to National Security Agency Director Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum: “This is not the Soviet Union upon which I grew up in; this is a nation-state that has a different risk calculus.” 

Copp noted that a senior DOD official said China “could conduct air and missile strikes and cyber attacks. They could try to, you know, seize, you know, other islands that are not necessarily all of Taiwan, right, but maybe some of the offshore islands. So they’ve got, you know, a range of different things that they are wanting to be prepared to do.” As China develops its ability to conduct a full amphibious landing of Taiwan, or potentially other areas, the world must come to terms with a belligerent communist nation intent on making its presence felt in the world where the global geostrategic balance has dramatically shifted in a short period of time. In a rather disconcerting admission, General Mark Milley who is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, said he did not think China would move to take Taiwan “within the next six months to two years.” Copp wrote that having said that Milley also noted “the Chinese are clearly and unambiguously building the capability to provide those options to the national leadership.” 

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The Biden Administration has backed off of strong action against the communist giant in a move that to Beijing must appear as a sign of the Administration’s unwillingness to directly confront Beijing. It may be time to reassess the United States’ China policy… again… while it still is an option.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Photo: China Space Agency rocket on route to Beijing’s space station (CNAS photo)