News and Commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and Published by Riley Murray.
1. Ensuring a Transparent, Thorough Investigation of COVID-19's Origin - United States Department of State
2. Mike Pompeo reveals intel implicating Wuhan lab in origins of COVID-19
3. American Thinker: Statement on Dominion Defamation
4. Analysis | A pillow salesman apparently has some ideas about declaring martial law
5. Trump's Indo-Pacific policy wasn't all wrong
6. War on Terror Teaches How to Fight Hate Groups
7. Race is on to commercialize fusion energy
8. Judge calls Capitol siege 'violent insurrection,' orders man who wore horns held
9. From Counterterrorism to Irregular Warfare: What Does That Mean?
10. NSA Appoints Rob Joyce as Cyber Director
11. As Trump Clashes With Big Tech, China's Censored Internet Takes His Side
12. FAA Approves First Fully Automated Commercial Drone Flights
13. Economic and Diplomatic Power is not a Substitute for Military Strength
1. Ensuring a Transparent, Thorough Investigation of COVID-19's Origin - United States Department of State
state.gov · by Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State
2. Mike Pompeo reveals intel implicating Wuhan lab in origins of COVID-19
Daily Mail · by Keith Griffith · January 16, 2021
The Daily Mail's analysis of SECSTATE's statement released last evening.
3. American Thinker: Statement on Dominion Defamation
An act of contrition?
4. Analysis | A pillow salesman apparently has some ideas about declaring martial law
The Washington Post · January 15, 2021
Some things you just cannot make up. The "MyPillow guy?" Perhaps there is something to this. I seem to do my best strategic thinking when my head is on the pillow (I just can never recall it when I wake up). We have the "kitchen cabinet, " Lendell must be a member of the "bedroom cabinet."
5. Trump's Indo-Pacific policy wasn't all wrong
asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · January 15, 2021
That foreign policy stuff isn't easy.
Excerpts:
As for criticism that China is still a serious threat as the Trump administration ends, one can hardly blame Trump for the fact that Beijing hasn't apologized and promised to behave better. He at least made the PRC leadership more uncomfortable than had any of his predecessors in the last 40 years.
At the end of the day, no president or administration to date deserves a perfect score when it comes to Indo-Pacific affairs. And they've all done perplexing things.
But a president and his foreign policy staff are the men and women in the ring trying to defend US and partner interests - and indeed the very notion of consensual government, individual liberty, human rights and the so-called rules-based order.
It isn't easy.
Trump and his staff are handing off to Joseph Biden an Indo-Pacific that is better off than it was in 2017 - although by no means out of the woods. Let's hope the new team reads the Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework and uses it as a reference.
Regardless, they will be the ones in the ring, and one hopes they succeed.
6. War on Terror Teaches How to Fight Hate Groups
Bloomberg · by James Stavridis · January 15, 2021
I remember the controversy when COIN theory was being applied in Springfield, Mass by policemen who had served in Afghanistan. (and of course, some of COIN theory was based on the community policing techniques - there is some real yin-yang going on among these theories). But this proposal will certainly raise concerns and I am sure it will generate some hate mail. Of course, intelligence sharing and. A mix of hard and soft power (appropriate for the conditions and situations) may also be called fundamental and common sense.
7. Race is on to commercialize fusion energy
asiatimes.com · by Jonathan Tennenbaum · January 16, 2021
Will this be a game changer?
8. Judge calls Capitol siege 'violent insurrection,' orders man who wore horns held
Reuters · by Brad Heath, Sarah N. Lynch, Jan Wolfe · January 16, 2021
Some good news, perhaps.
9. From Counterterrorism to Irregular Warfare: What Does That Mean?
news.clearancejobs.com · by Jason Criss Howk · January 15, 2021
I have noticed that some CT organizations are being renamed as IW organizations in the Pentagon. Is a name change sufficient?
Excerpts:
Sir Graeme of the UK Army often told me that the way to overcome an irregular threat, like an insurgency, is to use the principle of mass. While mass is often thought of as pushing thousands of soldiers towards one objective, he meant smart-massing. He meant use every tool at a governments disposal to overwhelm the irregular threat. Irregular threats are not always resilient and seldom robust. They are not often sophisticated enough to withstand an attack from 12 directions at once. By pulling back our focus on CT so we can use all the other tools of irregular warfare, we can mass all our government's power and overwhelm China, Russia, and Iran.
Our great power nation enemies would like nothing more than to see us continue to fight them in a hap-hazard way, while we keep our foot on the gas to chase a few terrorists around the globe. Its time to pump the brakes a bit and take a fresh look at the tools in the shed. We can start using a rake to move leaves, or continue to swing at them with a hammer until we pass out. There is no need to panic about the shift from CT to IW. Many a grandfather has told their grandkids to use the correct tool for the job, and that is the advice we should be focusing on at the moment. Let's enhance our cyber and information operations, security partnership building, and counter-network/threat skills; and use all of the other oft-forgotten organizations to make us safer by empowering other nation's populations to better their own states.
10. NSA Appoints Rob Joyce as Cyber Director
National Security Agency. Not to be confused with the National Security Advisor.
11. As Trump Clashes With Big Tech, China's Censored Internet Takes His Side
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/business/trump-china-censorship.html - by Li Yuan
12. America's troubles ahead in the Asia-Pacific
lowyinstitute.org · by Hadrien T. Saperstein
"The inability to project power beyond militarised means..." We should ponder this.
Excerpts:
Consequently, in the coming years, the US government will heedlessly continue the process of militarising its foreign policy in an attempt to mitigate the diplomatic failure to reverse the slow-moving strategic shift that will occur in the Asia-Pacific region.
The inability to project power beyond militarised means, elicited by intermittent domestic crises, will make allies and partners far less confident in the depth and durability of the US commitment to the Asia-Pacific region. The likely result will be that the United States is once again be long on promises, but short on delivery.
12. FAA Approves First Fully Automated Commercial Drone Flights
WSJ · by Andy Pasztor and Katy Stech Ferek
American Robotics granted permission to operate drones without hands-on piloting.
13. Economic and Diplomatic Power is not a Substitute for Military Strength
realcleardefense.com · by Seth Cropsey and Harry Halem
Conclusion: The Biden administration's emphasis on multilateralism in dealing with China should be welcomed. America must stand but cannot stand alone. Nevertheless, this nation must take care. Today, as in any other era, blood remains the price of power and military force its most valuable currency. America's adversaries understand this fact. Not recognizing it, therefore, is an invitation to violence. Forming a broad-based multilateral coalition to counter Beijing's economic/diplomatic expansion should not curtail the U.S. military's need to equal and surpass China's continuing arms buildup.
"Truth does not reside in exact recording of every detail. It never has. Instead, it resides in myth -- generalizing myths that direct attention to what is common amid diversity by neglecting trivial differences of detail."
- Historian William McNeill wrote in a NYT op-ed in 1981
"It's limited war for Americans, and total war for those fighting Americans. The United States has more power; its foes have more willpower."
- Dominic Tierney
"There's a sociologist who spent a lot of time [in Afghanistan] who asked Americans to define what corruption is. They would say something like, 'when you give your cousin a job.' Then he went to Afghanistan and asked them to define corruption. They said, 'that's when you have a job to give and you don't give it to your cousin.'"
- David Brooks, May 14, 2013 public lecture at CSIS