Monday, February 04, 2019

All Quiet On the INDOPACOM Front?

How is it possible that our multi-billion dollar intelligence bureaucracies missed the rise of the China threat (tip to Instapundit)?

After decades of asserting China posed little threat, senior U.S. intelligence leaders on Tuesday warned Congress Beijing now represents the most significant challenge to American security as China prepares for ideological war against the U.S.-led democratic system.

"While we were sleeping in the last decade and a half, China had a remarkable rise in capabilities that are stunning," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

I know the angle of the day was how Trump is (Heavens!) opposed to the conclusions of his intelligence agencies on Iran and North Korea, but isn't the story that the intelligence agencies "were sleeping in the last decade and a half" about China?

You would have understood the threat if you just read this blog, for God's sake! You don't need agents or satellites to figure this out.

Say maybe we could shut down the Chinese propaganda bases set up across America (and worldwide, too) to wage their ideological war against American democracy.

As an aside, the DIA director warned that "Chinese products, such as semiconductors or microchips, pose a threat to the military supply chain used to build weapons systems."

Yeah, I've worried about the potential of that type of threat for a long time.

The Russians are loudly being a threat in Europe, magnified by their large number of nukes (that we kind of have to assume work despite the problems Russia has making anything else work); while China has been a gathering threat in Asia.