A LANCER SPREADS ITS WINGS: A B-1B takes-off FROM Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The aircraft is participating in a Red Flag exercise. Photo taken February 9.

MUMBAI’S OCTOBER 2020 ELECTRICAL BLACKOUT: Chinese gray-area warfare?

Here are some newer facts only Big Lie propagandists would dispute, but there are a lot of those snakes around: At 10 a.m. on Oct. 12, Mumbai suffered a massive electrical power outage. Local trains stopped, stranding passengers. Cellphone service crashed. India’s bond market was disrupted during peak trading hours. Some neighborhoods lost power for over 12 hours. Indian media called the outage Mumbai’s “worst in decades.” And it was.

In November, India Today reported that Maharashtra’s cyber department believed a malware attack could have caused the crippling outage. “Could have” is speculation, not fact. However, technical experts found indications of attempted cyber intrusions on digital devices controlling Mumbai’s grid.

Read it.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER: Internal Divisions Are America’s Greatest Vulnerability.

Domestic political and cultural divisiveness has become the United States’ greatest strategic weakness. This grim vulnerability, exploited by international rivals and authentic domestic enemies who despise the U.S. Constitution, puts the U.S. republic in peril.

Check it out.

(Bumped, by Glenn).

TACTICAL SWIM: Marines in Hawaii swim ashore during reconnaissance scout swimmer training. Photo taken February 8.

StrategyTalk Podcast: China’s Population Problem. The link goes to the YouTube podcast. If you like the podcast, please subscribe. If you prefer an MP3 download, go here.

STARK SOUTHWEST ASIAN SANDS: An F-15E Strike Eagle flies a mission over southwest Asia. Photo taken from above by an airman on the tanker that just refueled the F-15.

WILL THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION UNDERMINE THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS?:

Based on words and deeds, the emergent Iran policy of President Joe Biden’s administration is either structurally incoherent, another blatant example of mixed messaging by intellectual mediocrities or, worse yet, both.

Whether alone or both, the structurally incoherent condition is dangerous. Whatever the case, the administration must quickly decide if it wants to advance sensible policies that will secure Middle East peace or, in lieu of that obvious wisdom, choose to promote murderous geopolitical fantasy theories hawked by left-wing academia and authoritarian leftist media.

You might want to read the entire essay.

SICILY DROP ZONE: An Army paratrooper lands in the Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg, N.C., during non-tactical airborne operation. Photo taken Dec. 3, 2020. This Special Operations post from 2010 is dated, but still has relevant background information on military parachutes. The T-11 ATPS (Advanced Tactical Parachute System) mentioned in the Special Ops update was initially billed as “a parachute for big guys.” Here’s a photo of an open T-11, taken from below the parachute and paratrooper. Note the square canopy.

BLACK HAWK BOARDS A BURKE: A U.S. Army UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter lands on the flight deck aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain. The helicopter crew was conducting deck landing qualification tests. Photo taken January 30 somewhere in the Philippine Sea. This “Dirty Little Secrets” report from 2014 discusses Army helicopter operations from Navy ships. That article expanded on a Naval Air update from 2006 that mentioned “U.S. Navy protests and attempts to keep the soldiers on land.” That attitude conflicts with operational requirements — Pentagon speak for you gotta do what you gotta do and you gotta use what you got. I’d add that operations in the western Pacific’s island chains and in the Indian Ocean demand joint operations.

SOMEWHAT RELATED: A handy guide to soldier slang and Pentagonese.

POWERLINE: The DeSantis Dissent, Cont’d. I think this post by Scott Johnson has already been linked on Instapundit, but if you haven’t read it you should. DeSantis has hit on a very good way to fight back against Big Tech censorship. The post links to a report in The Sarasota Herald-Tribune. I’ll post one paragraph from the article

DeSantis said legislation he’d support also would allow $100,000 daily fines to be levied against a company that removes a political candidate from its platform during an election campaign. Any favorable support a candidate receives from a media company in getting a campaign message out also should be reported as a political contribution, the governor said.

Here’s the first Desantis Dissent post.

ARCTIC PAVE HAWK: A USAF HH-60G Pave Hawk lands during combat search and rescue training in south-central Alaska. Photo taken Jan. 21, 2021. The caption says the exercise was part of a North American Air Defense Command Arctic air defense operation. Rather dramatic and eerie photo.

STRATEGYTALK: Erdogan’s Turkey wants a thumb in every pie. It’s the latest StrategyTalk podcast, looking at “neo-Ottoman” Turkey’s multiple wars and President Erdogan’s power plays. First link goes to youtube– if you like it please subscribe. If you prefer the MP3 download, visit this page. You can also subscribe via iTunes.

CHINA’S RED LINE RULES: Leveraging Corrupt Media, China Draws a Red Line for Biden Administration

Communist China’s top foreign policy adviser, Yang Jiechi, has spoken.

Machiavellians worldwide will credit Yang for constructing a shrewd and early “red line” test of Joe Biden using “cocktail power warfare.”

Yang’s threat comes less than a week after Chinese aircraft intruded on Taiwanese air space. That was a military show of force to test the Biden administration. Yang escalated the diplomatic challenge.

Military power, diplomatic challenge? Mix them and you’ve a cocktail of the military and diplomatic elements of power.

But information power is also in play. In the immediate background lurks Hunter Biden and his potentially billion-dollar deal with Chinese communist entities. Scrutiny and analysis and totally relevant preelection examination of the Biden family’s financial arrangements with China were suppressed by social media tech titans and anti-Trump mainstream media.

My latest Creators Syndicate column.

RED LINE FEVER: Leveraging Corrupt Media, China Draws a Red Line for Biden Administration

February 2021 reprises a red-line drama, not yet as tragedy and not as farce but definitely as a threat to world peace. The repetition tests the will of President Joe Biden’s administration to defend American security and a common-sense understanding of human freedom.

On Feb. 1, communist China’s top foreign policy guru, Yang Jiechi, gave a speech to a virtual audience hosted by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Yang reportedly told his audience, “The United States should stop interfering in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang” — western China where Uighurs live — “and other issues.” Yang said these three regions are Chinese “internal affairs.”

Then Yang added the most nuanced phrase: “They” — the so-called internal affairs — “constitute a red line that must not be crossed. Any trespassing would end up undermining China-U.S. relations, and the United States’ own interests.”

“Red line” meaning China’s rules.

RTWDT. Acronym for Read The Whole Damn Thing.

DRAGON SHIELD 2021: A photo from a recent Army and Air Force combat communication and medical rescue exercise on Guam.

IT IS TIME FOR AMERICAN IMPATIENCE WITH CHINA: But of course the Biden Administration has chosen “strategic patience.”

On cue, White House press secretary Jen Psaki has signaled that President Joe Biden’s administration is not prepared to seriously confront the complex and immediate threat communist China poses to American security and world peace.

Read the whole thing.

CAN BIDEN CONTINUE TRUMP’S TOUGHER APPROACH ON CHINA?

President Joe Biden’s incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken, agrees former President Donald Trump’s administration got communist China right.

During his Jan. 19 Senate confirmation hearing, Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “President Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China. I disagree very much with the way that he went about it in a number of areas, but the basic principle was the right one. And I think that that’s actually helpful to our foreign policy.”

But Hunter Biden’s China investment scandal lurks in the diplomatic and criminal background.

The mainstream media and social media magnates who stifled preelection public examination of the Biden family’s involvement in what looks like and smells like a multimillion-dollar political payoff racket may have gotten Joe Biden elected.

However, until the Biden-China scandal is fully vetted, we won’t know if Beijing has inside information (blackmail leverage) that might soften Trump’s tougher approach.

Knowing matters. Given China’s documented record of pervasive spying, global intellectual property theft, a huge military expansion program, imperialist seizure of territory, bullying of neighbors, violations of treaty commitments, police-state terror and genocide of Muslim Uighurs, a softer approach at this moment in history ultimately puts American security at risk.

Read the whole thing. (bumped)

LEAVING IN A MIST: Somewhere in the eastern Pacific a U.S. Navy Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) leaves the well deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Essex.

QUESTION ASKED: Can Biden Sec State Continue the ‘Tougher Approach’ on China?

President Joe Biden’s incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken, agrees former President Donald Trump’s administration got communist China right.

During his Jan. 19 Senate confirmation hearing, Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “President Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China. I disagree very much with the way that he went about it in a number of areas, but the basic principle was the right one. And I think that that’s actually helpful to our foreign policy.”

Blinken knows the Chinese Communist Party endangers America and the world.

But can the Biden administration continue “the tougher approach” with Hunter Biden’s China investment scandal lurking in the diplomatic and criminal background?

Read the entire essay.

AFGHANISTAN: The Intractable Problem. This is the latest StrategyTalk podcast. If you prefer the MP3 download, visit this webpage. If you like the podcast and want to support it, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. StrategyPage’s webmaster says the podcast needs another 100 or so subscribers.

READ IT. CURSE AND WEEP. THEN FIGHT: The State Department’s Fact Sheet: Activity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Aw heck, I’m just gonna post The Whole Damned Thing:

For more than a year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin, choosing instead to devote enormous resources to deceit and disinformation. Nearly two million people have died. Their families deserve to know the truth. Only through transparency can we learn what caused this pandemic and how to prevent the next one.

The U.S. government does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus—known as SARS-CoV-2—was transmitted initially to humans. We have not determined whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The virus could have emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, spreading in a pattern consistent with a natural epidemic. Alternatively, a laboratory accident could resemble a natural outbreak if the initial exposure included only a few individuals and was compounded by asymptomatic infection. Scientists in China have researched animal-derived coronaviruses under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure.

The CCP’s deadly obsession with secrecy and control comes at the expense of public health in China and around the world. The previously undisclosed information in this fact sheet, combined with open-source reporting, highlights three elements about COVID-19’s origin that deserve greater scrutiny:

Illnesses inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV):

The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was “zero infection” among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.

Accidental infections in labs have caused several previous virus outbreaks in China and elsewhere, including a 2004 SARS outbreak in Beijing that infected nine people, killing one.

The CCP has prevented independent journalists, investigators, and global health authorities from interviewing researchers at the WIV, including those who were ill in the fall of 2019. Any credible inquiry into the origin of the virus must include interviews with these researchers and a full accounting of their previously unreported illness.

Research at the WIV:

Starting in at least 2016 – and with no indication of a stop prior to the COVID-19 outbreak – WIV researchers conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar). The WIV became a focal point for international coronavirus research after the 2003 SARS outbreak and has since studied animals including mice, bats, and pangolins.
The WIV has a published record of conducting “gain-of-function” research to engineer chimeric viruses. But the WIV has not been transparent or consistent about its record of studying viruses most similar to the COVID-19 virus, including “RaTG13,” which it sampled from a cave in Yunnan Province in 2013 after several miners died of SARS-like illness.
WHO investigators must have access to the records of the WIV’s work on bat and other coronaviruses before the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of a thorough inquiry, they must have a full accounting of why the WIV altered and then removed online records of its work with RaTG13 and other viruses.

Secret military activity at the WIV:

Secrecy and non-disclosure are standard practice for Beijing. For many years the United States has publicly raised concerns about China’s past biological weapons work, which Beijing has neither documented nor demonstrably eliminated, despite its clear obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.
Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.

The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV.

Today’s revelations just scratch the surface of what is still hidden about COVID-19’s origin in China. Any credible investigation into the origin of COVID-19 demands complete, transparent access to the research labs in Wuhan, including their facilities, samples, personnel, and records.

As the world continues to battle this pandemic – and as WHO investigators begin their work, after more than a year of delays – the virus’s origin remains uncertain. The United States will continue to do everything it can to support a credible and thorough investigation, including by continuing to demand transparency on the part of Chinese authorities.

But go ahead, though it’s posted here, click the link and read the whole damned thing. (RTWDT)

VERY RELATED: Chinese commies lied, millions of human beings died.

SPUN UP AND READY TO GO: A USMC MV-22 Osprey prepares for a Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel (TRAP) exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California.

VENN DIAGRAM OF FREEDOM’S THREATS: Kim Jong Un-Reliable North Korea Intersects Amazon Servers

BUFF REGENERATION: B-52s refuse to die. From the USAF photo caption: “The B-52H bomber nicknamed “Wise Guy” sits in post dock nearing completion of its regeneration back to active service, Nov. 19, 2020. The bomber sat in the desert for 10 years at the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group’s National-Level Airpower Reservoir located at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.”

SUPERFICIAL MEDIA DISAGREE, BUT SO WHAT: International Violence Continues To Decline In 2020 and 2021. It’s the latest StrategyTalk podcast. If you like it, subscribe. Here’s the MP3 download if you prefer that medium.