China’s Xi calls for troops to boost war preparedness

Chinese President Xi Jinping called this week for troops to strengthen their preparedness for war, state media reported on Saturday, just days after Beijing staged large-scale military drills around Taiwan. Xi made his comments while visiting a brigade of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force on Thursday, according to state-run broadcaster CCTV. Xi said the […]

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Russia Poised To Cripple Ukraine Steel Industry By Seizing Vital Coal Mine

Russia Poised To Cripple Ukraine Steel Industry By Seizing Vital Coal Mine

In what promises to be a major milestone in more than two-and-a-half years of war, Russia is closing in on the capture of a vital industrial asset: a Ukrainian coal mine that’s a cornerstone of the country’s steel industry

Owned by Ukrainian firm Metinvest, the modern facility — opened in 1990 — is Ukraine’s largest mine for producing coking-coal, a specific grade used to fuel blast furnaces. It’s near the village of Udachne, about 10 kilometers west of the city of Pokvrosk, which is itself a key supply hub in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. Per the latest reports, the Russian army is reportedly just 8 to 12 kilometers east of Pokrovsk. Defensive lines have already been dug to Pokrovsk’s west, so Ukrainian units will have positions to drop back to if Pokrovsk falls.  

In an interview with The Economist, analyst Andriy Buzarov noted that the Russians don’t have to actually occupy the mine to remove it from Ukraine’s economic equation: They can do that by severing its power or destroying the principal road used to haul its product westward.  

Steel is one of Ukraine’s principal industries, accounting for about a third of exports before Russia’s invasion. At that time, Ukraine ranked 14th in global steel production; by last year, it had fallen to 24th place. This year, Metinvest expected to unearth 5.3 million metric tons of coal in the mine near Pokrovsk. 

With the Russians only 8 to 12km away, smoke drifts on the horizon near Pokrovsk, a key supply hub most civilians have already fled from (Getty Images via RBC-Ukraine)

Oleksandr Kalenkov, the head of Ukraine’s metals and mining industry lobbying group, explained the implications for the country’s steel industry when the mine falls under Russian control, telling Reuters it could slash projected 2025 steel production by upwards of 80%:

“We could make up to 7.5 million metric tons of steel by the end of the year and, for next year, we saw an increase in production to over 10 million, but if we lose Pokrovsk, then … we will fall to 2-3 million tons.”

It’s not just a matter of Ukraine switching to imports of the specialty-use coking coal. “We don’t know where to get coal if Pokrovsk is seized,” Urkraine coke association Ukrkoks head Anatoly Starovoit told Reuters. “It is difficult to bring it in by importing; today it is not so easy to bring it in by sea.” That’s because Ukraine’s ports are geared toward exports, to say nothing of military hazards. 

The handwriting was already on the wall...but Ukraine’s pending loss of this vital industrial asset will only accelerate growing Western resignation to the inevitability of a negotiated end to the bloody, US-led proxy war with Russia. 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/19/2024 – 07:35

Chinese drone maker DJI sues Pentagon over blacklisting

Chinese drone maker DJI on Saturday said it was suing the US Department of Defense, complaining that Washington had “erroneously” included the company on a Chinese military company blacklist. “On October 18, DJI filed a lawsuit to challenge the Department of Defense’s (DoD) erroneous designation of the company as a ‘Chinese Military Company,’” DJI said […]

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Gresham’s Law: Why Bitcoin Will Save the World

Does bad money drive out good money? Mark Thornton discusses one of the most impactful principles of modern society.

If Republicans Are Against Lawfare, They Shouldn’t Have Unleashed It

Republicans today are decrying the “lawfare” that Democrats are using against them, and rightly so. However, had Republicans not vastly expanded federal criminal law during the infamous Wall Street prosecutions 40 years ago, lawfare would not have become such a potent political weapon.

Ten Lessons on US Foreign Policy from Enough Already

In this review of Scott Horton’s new book, Enough Already, we see that the wars the US has raged for the past quarter century in the Middle East have been a disaster. Millions of deaths and a massive refugee crisis later, the unmistakable verdict is in.

Iran’s Khamenei says Hamas will survive after Sinwar death

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Hamas was alive and will survive despite the death of its leader Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli military operation in Gaza. “His loss is certainly painful for the resistance front” against Israel, “but it will not end at all with the martyrdom of Sinwar”, Khamenei […]

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America’s National Security Is Far Worse Off Than Four Years Ago

America’s National Security Is Far Worse Off Than Four Years Ago

Authored by James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer via American Greatness,

Ronald Reagan’s query to the American people in his October 28, 1980, debate with incumbent President Jimmy Carter was so simple and so devastating that it is still employed today: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” While most Americans are far worse off today than they were four years ago, with rising prices, inflation, a hollow economy, and unchecked immigration, so too are the U.S., its allies, and its partner’s national security interests, which are far worse off than they were four years ago.

Four years ago, there was stability in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. Now Europe’s “long peace,” that is, no major war in Europe since 1945, has been shattered by Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. This war has resulted in the deaths of over one million humans and the displacement of millions more. The Middle East is roiling with conflict due to Hamas’ October 7, 2023, unprovoked attack on Israel and its consequences—the Iranian-backed Houthis interdiction of international shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon and ultimately unprecedented attacks from Iran against Israel with drones and missiles. The Indo-Pacific is rife with unrest principally due to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) hyper-aggression against key U.S. allies and partners like India, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan, and against the American people themselves.

The cause of this instability is the Biden-Harris administration’s ideological obsession to “manage America’s decline” and the subsequent policies they adopted in the last almost four years. The Biden-Harris administration failed to deter the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This war is a humanitarian nightmare for all concerned; it is a stalemated conventional conflict, evincing an intensity of combat not seen in Europe since 1945. The war also entails the risk of nuclear escalation, the tremendous cost of which the U.S. and its NATO allies would not escape. In addition, this administration has fundamentally failed to support Israel by not holding Iran to account—even worse by providing Tehran the funding to expand their terrorism against Americans.

However, in the pantheon of Biden’s failures, it is towards the PRC that the Biden administration has made its greatest foreign policy fiascos. The Biden-Harris administration has continued the failed “Engagement” policies with the PRC that have aided the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at a time of great peril. The Biden-Harris administration ignores the existential nature of the CCP threat because it seeks to continue the Engagement school of thought through what we call the Biden-Harris administration’s “neo-Engagement” policy.

With the exception of the Trump presidency, Engagement has been the dominant U.S. approach to the PRC since Bill Clinton. It asserts that the PRC is not an existential threat to the U.S. Far from it—the Engagement school contends the Sino-American relationship should be cooperative. Any troubles may be addressed by more cooperation with the PRC and accommodation of the interests of the CCP to sustain that cooperation. In essence, the Engagers are appeasers. Unfortunately, their arguments are ubiquitous and dominate U.S. foreign policy toward the PRC. Engagement dominates Wall Street, foundations, think tanks, universities, media, Silicon Valley, K Street, major law firms, and government. Even after the fiasco of allowing a PRC intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance balloon to fly over the entirety of America and the conga line of Biden-Harris cabinet officials traveling to Beijing to kowtow before Xi Jinping, the nadir was the November 2023 meeting between Biden and Xi near San Francisco. Beyond the obsession by Biden-Harris to resume military-to-military exchanges despite the People’s Liberation Army’s increased threatening behavior, 400 of America’s richest business leaders attended a dinner with the PRC’s dictator—Xi Jinping. These “titans” of America’s economy gave the CCP dictator two standing ovations while Xi explained his vision of tyranny—on American soil—and how the American business elite could help him sustain it.

The failed Biden-Harris neo-Engagement policies have allowed the CCP to escape the costs of its many decades of misrule but also provided the window for the CCP’s hyper-aggression over the last four years. Since assuming office, the Biden-Harris administration has overseen and done nothing as the PRC built over 300 nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) silos in central and western China, upgraded the submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) aboard their sea-based leg of their triad, expanded their ballistic missile submarine production facilities, and introduced a new nuclear bomber, the H-20. This aircraft very closely resembles the B-2 stealth bomber.  Additionally, the Biden-Harris regime has sat by as PLA Air Force H-6 bombers have for the first time flown nuclear bomber profiles with their Russian Long Range Aviation counterparts into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification zone.

By every metric, the CCP is flexing its strategic muscles by expanding its nuclear arsenal and strategic reach.  The PRC continues to agress relentlessly against U.S. national security interests. While the pace of their aggression is quickening, the Biden-Harris administration is cutting the size of the Department of Defense. For example, Biden-Harris continues to decommission more warships than it builds, as demonstrated by their Fiscal Year 2025 budget that procures just six warships, the lowest number of any budget submission since 2006.

This degradation of America’s maritime power is especially pernicious as the situation in the South China Sea, near Scarborough Shoal or Sabina Shoal, is dramatically worsening. Likewise, the PLA is increasing its pressure on Taiwan through unceasing operations to prepare for an invasion. In the past month, the PLAAF violated Japanese territorial waters for the first time ever. Moreover, the PLAN and Russian Navy sailed into the Gulf of Alaska, while it has been confirmed that PLA is supplying Russia with military weapons to aid Moscow in its war against Kyiv. There are also credible reports, including from the South Korean Minister of Defense, that the North Koreans are directly aiding the Russian war effort.

In his famous debate with Carter, Reagan also asked Americans if they believed America was as respected and whether America was as strong as four years ago. Once again, the answer to that question today is no. America was far more respected by its foes and was stronger four years ago than today. America was seen by its key allies in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific as a far better, more reliable, and more confident ally than today. The result is that a Harris presidency would continue these neo-Engagement policies to embolden enemies and continue to punish allies and partners. Only a Trump presidency will end failed policies of neo-Engagement and return the U.S. to the Reaganesque certainty of the previous Cold War that “the U.S. wins, the CCP loses.”

***

James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure. The views expressed are their own.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/18/2024 – 23:25

Trump Campaigns in MI with Arab American Mayor Who Endorsed Him

Former President Donald Trump campaigned in Michigan on Friday with the Arab American mayor who previously endorsed him.

The post Trump Campaigns in Michigan with Arab American Mayor Who Endorsed Him appeared first on Breitbart.

Trump on Claims He’s ‘Exhausted’: Harris ‘Didn’t’ Go to Al Smith Dinner

Former President Donald Trump responded to claims that he was “exhausted” and canceling events, pointing out that Vice President Kamala Harris “didn’t” attend the Al Smith dinner on Thursday night.

The post Trump Slams Kamala Harris Over Claims He’s ‘Exhausted’: ‘She Didn’t’ Come to Al Smith Dinner appeared first on Breitbart.