Pentagon invests in high tech, then it’s stolen. What’s the point?

Technology born and bred in the USA has been copied and deployed by Iran against Israel. Crossing into Israeli airspace from Syria last weekend, a trespassing unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, aggressively swept across Israel’s border, only to be tracked and blown out of the air by one of the Israeli Defense Force’s American-made Apache helicopters.

American-made arms regularly face off against American defense doppelgangers. Design plans for U.S. drones, spacecraft, planes, ships — you name it — are all regularly targeted and frequently stolen, copied and deployed by America’s competitors and enemies.

It’s a hard reality: American intellectual property and defense technologies are highly guarded, but vulnerable because U.S. advanced military hardware is highly prized and desired by determined adversaries. In fact, they are the most desirable and successfully stolen of American secrets, whether by Iran or China.  READ MORE

Tillerson nod to Venezuela coup smart, touting Monroe Doctrine not so much

Sometimes it takes an oilman to undermine an oilman. Reminiscent of J.R.’s tactics to edge out brother Bobby from the family Ewing Oil company in the fictional 80s “Dallas” TV show, America’s chief diplomat and Exxon oilman extraordinaire is upping the pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. One possibility? A little military coup.

In an odd geopolitical plot twist, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed to almost encourage Venezuelan military officers to oust President Nicolas Maduro. Stay tuned to see what happens next week!

Venezuela has long accused the United States of conspiring to remove its defectively elected leadership, but President Barack Obama — and President George W. Bush before him — actively denied complicity in previous coup attempts. That charade is done.  READ MORE

Cowering for profits: US firms in China sell out America by bending to Beijing

American technology companies operating in China had a secret weakness, one that is not so concealed anymore. Not after an apparently bad miscalculation in which Intel gave the Chinese government an incredible security advantage that the tech giant withheld from the U.S. government. Oops.

What happened? It appears Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel recently tipped off the Chinese government about flawed computer chips’ security vulnerabilities well before letting American government and industry officials know. Whether Intel did this consciously or accidentally, the move is deeply concerning because it could have handed China a digital key to unlocking secrets and proprietary data around the world. National security may have been compromised and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden has already called the episode "troublesome."

Even worse, Intel is not alone.  READ MORE

Hostile Turkey warns U.S.-backed Kurds, aims to sideline Washington

Simmering for years, the full outbreak of hostilities between American-backed forces and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey is now finally at a boil. Turkey, an unreliable NATO ally at best, has again made clear that the U.S. is not welcome in the neighborhood.

President Erdogan just threatened to crush the “terror army” — what he calls the American-armed and supported Kurdish troops assembling on Turkey's Syrian border — by putting the developing 30,000 Kurd anti-ISIS force directly in Ankara’s crosshairs. Erdogan promised to “strangle” this U.S.-backed force “before it’s even born.”

Turkey’s aggressive threats and active troop movements dissolve U.S. hopes for a more stabilized region and further diminish America's already waning influence in the broader Middle East. An increasingly present and embraced Russia and more regionally assertive Iran also further sideline America. The newly developing anti-American power dynamic certainly dashes any plans to “take the oil” from Iraq and Kurdistan, as candidate Donald Trump suggested in 2016.  READ MORE

Global fallout from Trump's remark

JANUARY 13, 2018, 1:17 PM| There's growing backlash over President Trump's controversial immigration remark. Foreign affairs columnist for McClatchy and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institute, Markos Kounalakis, talks to CBSN about the latest developments, as well as the ongoing threat from North Korea.

VIEW THE VIDEO AT CBSN WITH REENA NINAN

Pence presidency can’t come soon enough for America’s allies

Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury” bestseller paints a picture of a dysfunctional Trump White House on the verge of collapse and on the edge of internal overthrow.

Figuring the odds for a 25th Amendment action is best left to bookmakers, however, not book authors. Whatever the odds, foreign leaders always need to hedge their bets. On their minds, if not their tongues, is what life would be like under a President Pence.

Traditional foreign allies look to Vice President Mike Pence and his visits for American reassurance and resolve, continuity and commitment. The veep’s outwardly quiet demeanor and unfailing Trump loyalty has earned him the right to travel the world on the president’s behalf, carrying with him the credibility of presidential access and influence. Pence’s absence from the pages of Wolff’s book will certainly endear him further to President Trump, who perceives a White House otherwise under siege by internal enemies.  READ MORE

Iran riots boost Haley, Graham power

California has the largest population of ethnic Persians outside of Iran, but South Carolina’s powerful politicians are the ones aggressively representing Iranian-Americans’ pro-democracy agenda towards Tehran.

There is no love lost in L.A.’s “Tehrangeles” for the theocratic henchmen who continue to jail or kill young Iranians seeking free expression and a better life. But a result of the 2016 election is that it marginalized California Democrats’ power and influence on Iran policy and gave much greater say to Republicans in the South. Now, a California-allergic president is much more responsive to South Carolina politicians and their foreign policies.

Senator Lindsey Graham’s and Ambassador Nikki Haley’s loud anti-mullah voices are heard both at the White House and on the world stage. Graham and Haley are actively making the case for regime change, a strategy partly developed at a Heritage Foundation that was until recently led by South Carolina’s former Senator Jim DeMint. The Carolinas have not had this much influence on American foreign affairs since North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the turn of the millennium.  READ MORE

Christmas comes early for Vladimir Putin

Christmas came a little early for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin this year. Russia usually celebrates the holiday on January 7th, but President Putin’s present arrived a month early when he announced his intention to remain in office via a national voting process. He has unofficially already won.

“Election” formalities are scheduled for March 18, 2018 and the legitimizing process will cost $300 million. The leading opposition candidates are already dead or disqualified. The handful of colorful and credible also-ran candidates will do their best, but be left in the dust. Putin losing the Russian presidential election is as likely as Siberian palm trees and banana plantations. Merry Christmas, Vlad.

If there is one global leader who has been winning so much he should be sick and tired of winning, it is Putin. He will enter his next term as the longest serving Russian head of state, winning his fourth non-consecutive six-year presidential term. Putin has already surpassed previous record holder Leonid Brezhnev’s 6,602 days in office, but unlike Brezhnev seems fit and in fighting form.  READ MORE

What is new in Trump's national security strategy?

CBS News had me on today to talk about the National Security Strategy: "President Trump outlined his administration's national security strategy in a speech on Monday. He referred to Russia and China as "rivals," addressed cybersecurity threats and called for a multi-layer missile defense system. To break down the president's remarks, CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett and McClatchy News foreign affairs columnist Markos Kounalakis join CBSN to discuss." Here's the link to the video: http://cbsn.ws/2AWVGsG

Star Wars and drone spies threaten America’s defenses

Star Wars’ newest episode “The Last Jedi” is hitting screens nationwide this week, but less entertaining is this season’s latest space weaponry and commercial drone deployments that increasingly threaten America’s national security.

Kim Jong Un may be planning to use his nuclear and missile technology not to land an explosion on U.S. soil, but to blast it in space. Such an explosion would trigger a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) that could cripple satellites and blind any nation that relies on orbiting communications for everything from airline navigation to financial transactions.

A HEMP strike would bring about a “doomsday scenario” and an act of war that kills no one directly but plunges everyone into the first stages of a technological dark age. An October 2017 congressional hearing on this threat brought testimony that a North Korean HEMP attack could “shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period, leading to the death within a year of 90 percent of all Americans.”  READ MORE

America’s sad history of looking the other way on child rape

Child sexual assault is the most repulsive of crimes, and the global verdict on rapists and molesters should be overwhelmingly damning. But if you’re surprised that the president of the United States and the Republican National Committee are throwing their support to a man who has been accused by multiple women, on the record, of pedophilia, remember that America has been looking the other way for a long time.

Why, for example, is the Pentagon suppressing a congressionally mandated independent report on Afghan allies who allegedly engage in systemic child sexual abuse?

Afghanistan has revived an old and long-outlawed practice of men buying young boys, dressing them as dancing girls to be used as sex slaves for American-armed Afghan security forces. The boys are regularly raped by these American allies, engaging in “bacha bazi,” or “boy play,” while U.S. soldiers avert their eyes and try to ignore the raw violence against underage innocents.  READ MORE

Britain is seeing Trump as a royal loser. Can this special relationship be saved?

Donald Trump has a new royal headache. The next member of the British monarchy is outspoken Los Angeles native and Hollywood actress Meghan Markle, who called Trump “divisive” and “misogynistic.” Her fiancé, Prince Harry, is also reportedly miffed at Trump’s disinterest in human rights. A royal wedding invitation may not be in the offing for the House of Trump.

But the UK royal family is not alone in its crowning criticism. Swedish Princess Madeleine’s American husband, Chris O’Neill, openly disrespects Trump, calling him “shameful” and “ignorant.” And civilian leaders around the world mock the White House as home to a 21st century American pseudo-monarchy, with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel earlier this year finding Trump progeny assertively acting “like members of a royal family.” Not in a good way.

None of this bodes well for American foreign policy.  READ MORE

The Kremlin’s Trojan Horses 2.0

Russia continues to seek a foothold in European politics by building relationships with fringe political parties and leaders and developing close personal and business ties with mainstream European politicians. Through these efforts, the Russian government has developed a network of Trojan Horses: organizations and individuals who work to support Russian interests and undermine European cohesion. This report comprises a comprehensive assessment of how the Kremlin influences politics and foreign policy in three of Europe’s major powers, with the aim of destabilizing the European Union and the transatlantic partnership.
 

“A dialogue on Russian hybrid warfare against the West should be a strong component” of multilateral cooperation going forward, write the report’s authors. The report presents cases on Greece, Italy, and Spain, each written by leading experts: Dr. Markos Kounalakis, visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and senior fellow in the Center for Media, Data, and Society at Central European University; Dr. Antonis Klapsis, academic coordinator for the Centre of International and European Political Economy and Governance at the University of Peloponnese; Prof. Luigi Sergio Germani, director of the Gino Germani Institute of Social Sciences and Strategic Studies; Mr. Jacopo Iacoboni, political analyst at La Stampa newspaper; Mr. Francisco de Borja Lasheras, director of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations; Mr. Nicolás de Pedro, research fellow at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs; and Dr. Alina Polyakova, David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program’s Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution.  READ MORE

American companies are funding the Kremlin’s info war against us

Consumers have power. Companies know it. Just look at how quickly Keurig pulled its ads from Sean Hannity’s Fox News show over his coverage of Roy Moore’s alleged child molestation. Indeed, strategically spent big media money can take down talk show hosts, cut into the bank accounts of pro athletes and even elect an American president.

Imagine if consumers demanded the same kind of accountability from the American corporations that are bankrolling Moscow’s information-warfare campaign against U.S. voters.

Western advertising has been filling the coffers of Russian propaganda outlets, underwriting a racist, misogynist, anti-American media that keeps Vladimir Putin in place and actively threatens America’s political system. Writing in The Daily Beast, Mitchell Polman states clearly that “without those ad dollars it would be difficult for Russian media to function.”  READ MORE

2018 could lock-in Trump privilege, power in foreign policy

The last line of defense in checking President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy power is the old guard of the Republican Party, and those watchmen are about to go quietly into the night.

A 2018 Republican sweep would cripple two key Senate committees, moving them from painfully ineffective to plainly inconsequential. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee are supposed to oversee the foreign-policy and the national-security apparatus. Trump has brought them to heel.

He has belittled the outspoken Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who became a lame duck by giving up a 2018 reelection bid (Disclosure: Corker held my presidential appointment from Senate confirmation in 2016). Sitting out alongside him is another committee member, Trump-critic Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, leaving a handful of cowed Republicans and the minority Democrats to try to counter Trump policy tweets and fight for a systematically well-formulated foreign agenda.  READ MORE