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Judicial Watch finds US forces were available for Benghazi rescue; Hillary slept in.

Judicial Watch  has released a new Benghazi email from then-Department of Defense Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash to State Department leadership immediately offering “forces that could move to Benghazi” during the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. In an email sent to top Department of State officials, at 7:19 p.m. ET, only hours after the attack had begun, Bash says, “we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” The Obama administration redacted the details of the military forces available, oddly citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption that allows the withholding of “deliberative process” information.

Bash’s email seems to directly contradict testimony given by then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 2013. Defending the Obama administration’s lack of military response to the nearly six-hour-long attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Panetta claimed that “time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response.”

The first assault occurred at the main compound at about 9:40 pm local time – 3:40 p.m. ET in Washington, DC.  The second attack on a CIA annex 1.2 miles away began three hours later, at about 12 am local time the following morning – 6 p.m. ET.

The newly released email reads:

From: Bash, Jeremy CIV SD [REDACTED]
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2012 7:19 PM
To: Sullivan, Jacob J; Sherman, Wendy R; Nides, Thomas R
Cc: Miller, James HON OSD POLICY; Wienefeld, James A ADM JSC VCJCS; Kelly, John LtGen SD; martin, dempsey [REDACTED]
Subject: Libya

State colleagues:

I just tried you on the phone but you were all in with S [apparent reference to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton].

After consulting with General Dempsey, General Ham and the Joint Staff, we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak. They include a [REDACTED].

Assuming Principals agree to deploy these elements, we will ask State to procure the approval from host nation. Please advise how you wish to convey that approval to us [REDACTED].

Jeremy

Jacob Sullivan was Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the time of the terrorist attack at Benghazi.  Wendy Sherman was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth-ranking official in the U.S. Department of State. Thomas Nides was the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.

The timing of the Bash email is particularly significant based upon testimony given to members of Congress by Gregory Hicks, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. embassy in Tripoli at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attack. According to Hicks’ 2013 testimony, a show of force by the U.S. military during the siege could have prevented much of the carnage. Said Hicks, “if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them.”

Ultimately, Special Operations forces on their own initiative traveled from Tripoli to Benghazi to provide support during the attack.  Other military assets were only used to recover the dead and wounded, and to evacuate U.S. personnel from Libya.  In fact, other documents released in October by Judicial Watch show that only one U.S. plane was available to evacuate Americans from Benghazi to Tripoli and raise questions about whether a delay of military support led to additional deaths in Benghazi.

The new email came as a result of a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on September 4, 2014 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)), seeking:

  • Records related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.

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“The Obama administration and Clinton officials hid this compelling Benghazi email for years,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The email makes readily apparent that the military was prepared to launch immediate assistance that could have made a difference, at least at the CIA Annex.  The fact that the Obama Administration withheld this email for so long only worsens the scandal of Benghazi.”

Where Was Hillary?

In addition, Judicial Watch also released a new batch of emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton connected to the Benghazi attack. Included is an email chain showing that Clinton slept late the Saturday after the Benghazi attack and missed a meeting that her staff had been trying to set up about sensitive intelligence issues, including the Presidential Daily Brief, on a day she was to make a slew of phone calls to foreign leaders.

Also included in the documents is an email from Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal, sent three days after the attack, describing then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney as “contemptible on a level not seen in past contemptible political figures” and a “mixture of greedy ambition and hollowness.”

The documents contain an email passed to Clinton in the days following the Benghazi attack in which the father of alleged Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl anguishes over the “‘Crusade’ paradigm” which he says “will never be forgotten in this part of the world.”

An email from former Ambassador Joe Wilson to Clinton expresses his concern about “Christian Dominionists who seek to turn [the military] into an instrument of their religious zealotry.”

Other emails show approval of an effort to blame an Internet video on the Benghazi attack that aired on the Al Jazeera network.

The new emails were obtained by Judicial Watch as a result of several court orders in two separate Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits for Clinton Benghazi material.  (The court orders are dated July 31, 2015October 9, 2015, and October 20, 2015.)  The documents have been made public only because Judicial Watch’s litigation has forced the State Department to conduct additional searches.

The new Benghazi documents include email traffic showing that on the Saturday two days after the Benghazi terrorist attack Hillary Clinton slept past staff efforts to set up an intelligence briefing:

From: Hanley, Monica
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 09:17 AM
To: ‘HDR22@clintonemail.com’ <HDR22@clintonemail.com>
Cc: ‘huma@clintonemail.com’ <huma@clintonemail.com>
Subject: PDB

Dan will be at Whitehaven with the PDB at 9:30am this morning.

He has some sensitive items that he would like to personally show you when he arrives.

***

From: H [mailto:HDR22@clintonemail.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 10:43 AM
To: Hanley, Monica R
Subject: Re: PDB

I just woke up so I missed Dan. Could he come back after I finish my calls? But I don’t have the call schedule yet so I don’t know when that would be. Do you?

From: Hanley, Monica R [mailto:HanleyMR@state.gov]
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 10:51 AM
To: H
Subject: Re: PDB

A pouch with all of your call sheets and the schedule in en route to you. Here it is below as well.

Also in the pouch are a few read items, and an action memo authorizing the War Powers resolution for Tunisia that the office would like you to approve today. Ops can send a courier over to pick up the action memo later today.

12:00 UK FM Hague
12:15 Egyptian FM Amr
12:30 Israeli PM Netanyahu
1:15 French FM Fabius
1:30 Saudi FM Saud al-Faisal
2:00 Somali Former Transitional President Sharif
2:15 Libyan PM-elect Abu-Shakour
2:30 Turkish FM Davutoglu
3:00 Somali President Mohamoud (T)

-Moroccan King is still pending.

-NEW CALL: King Juan Carlos of Spain called today and offered anytime today or tomorrow. His office relayed that it is a personal call inquiring after the status of the Embassies in the Middle East. We are working on a call sheet.

The State Department’s records include a September 14, 2012, email from Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal to Clinton in which Blumenthal passes along a controversial article by his son Max and attacks then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

From: Sidney Blumenthal
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 10:48 AM
To: H
Subject: Re: m.guardian.co.uk

Max knows how to do this and fearless. Hope it’s useful and gets around, especially in the Middle East.

Keep speaking and clarifying. Your statements have been strong. Once through this phase, you might clarify history of US policy on Arab Spring, what has been accomplished, US interests at stake, varying relations with Libya & Egypt, etc.

Romney, of course, is contemptible, but contemptible on a level not seen in past contemptible political figures. His menace comes from his emptiness. His greed is not limited simply to mere filthy lucre. The mixture of greedy ambition and hollowness is combustible. He will do and say anything to get ahead, and while usually self-immolating he is also destructive. Behind his blandness lies boundless ignorance, ignited by consistently wretched judgment. His recent statements are of a piece with everything he has done from naming Ryan to his welfare ads, etc.

Keep speaking…

xo

Sid

The Blumenthal email includes a link to an article by his son Max Blumenthal that suggests that American conservatives, Zionists and the Israel government were behind the Internet video that was falsely linked by Clinton and Barack Obama to the Benghazi attack.  Clinton responded with an approving, “Your Max is a Mitzvah.” Another email shows that Mrs. Clinton wanted three copies of the Max Blumenthal Benghazi video article printed out.  (Max Blumenthal is a leftist journalist known for his attacks on Israel and American foreign policy.  In January, 2015, he is quoted calling American Sniper hero Chris Kyle an “unrepentant, sadistic killer.”)

In addition to Blumenthal’s attack on Romney, the newly released documents also include an email chain forwarded to Clinton from her former State Department deputy chief of staff Jacob Sullivan in which Robert Bergdahl, the father of alleged Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, relates the death of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens to what the senior Bergdahl calls the “‘Crusade’ paradigm:”

Please convey our abiding condolences to everyone in the Foreign Service. Your service is most notable and almost invisible. Our Nation is stumbling through a very volatile world. The “Crusade” paradigm will never be forgotten in this part of the world and we force our Diplomats to carry a lot of baggage around while walking on eggshells.

Be very careful my friend!

I’m very sorry,

bob

After receiving the email from Mr. Bergdahl, Mrs. Clinton orders a response (which is not disclosed) be prepared.

The new documents also contain an email from former Ambassador Joe Wilson to Clinton concerning the Benghazi attack, in which he suggests the military is being compromised “Christian Dominionists” in the U.S. military:

From: Joe Wilson
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 10:27 AM
To: H
Subject: From Joe Wilson

Dear Hillary, …

Glen Doherty [CIA contractor killed in the Benghazi attack] was a fellow member of the Military Religious Freedom Advisory Board, which fights to ensure that our military is not further compromised by the Christian Dominionists who seek to turn it into an instrument of their religious zealotry, an army for Christ rather than for the defense of our nation. He was invaluable in helping us uncover several cases where religious indoctrination was taking place under the guise of military training….

“These new Benghazi emails are disturbing and show why Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration had to be forced to disclose them,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Hillary Clinton, despite knowing that terrorists were responsible for the attack, allowed her spokesman to go to the Arab world and blame an Internet film.  Hillary Clinton trafficked in fantastical conspiracy theories that suggested both American conservatives and Israel were to blame for the Benghazi attack and jihadist violence in the Muslim world.  And the crazed email from Sidney Blumenthal shows that she was taking direction on her Benghazi spin based upon attack-style presidential campaign politics.  Finally, the ‘I just got up’ email shows that, smack dab in the middle of the Benghazi crisis, Hillary Clinton fell behind and may have not been fully briefed as she began an intense round of phone calls to foreign leaders.”

Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuits filed in 2014 and 2015 forced the release of these records.

The first lawsuit, filed on September 4, 2014, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)), sought:

  • All records concerning notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.

The second FOIA lawsuit, filed on May 6, 2015, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00692), sought:

  • All emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton regarding the September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The timeframe for this request is September 11, 2012 to January 31, 2013.

As Judicial Watch chief investigator reporter Micah Morrison detailed last month, Sidney Blumenthal advised Clinton on Libya (and may have had business interests there).  The JW report also disclosed how Hillary Clinton emailed classified information to Blumenthal in response to his lobbying for Amb. Wilson’s efforts to secure taxpayer financing for an energy project in Africa. Hillary Clinton’s contacts with Blumenthal, who was also a highly paid employee of the Clinton Foundation, should have been subject to State Department ethics reviews for conflicts of interest, as promised by Mrs. Clinton.  For example, in January 2009, Hillary Clinton promised President Obama and United States Senate considering her confirmation that:

If confirmed as Secretary of State, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect upon this foundation, unless I first obtain a written waiver or qualify for a regulatory exemption.

 

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Syrian refugees need to be properly vetted

 

The New York Analysis is pleased to present this guest editorial by Judge John H. Wilson, who recently retired from the Bronx/Brooklyn Criminal Court Bench

In February of this year, I moved to North Dakota from New York City, where I had resided for most of my life.  Besides the usual culture shock one would expect, the real surprise came when I first visited the North Dakota state capitol.

I was amazed at the lack of security. No checkpoints, no armed guards, not even unarmed security patrols. I took this as a testament to the peace and safety of my adopted home.

You see, I was in New York City on September 11, 2001, specifically at my home in the Bronx. That day, my wife lost her best friend, and I nearly lost my brother and two other close friends when Islamic terrorists drove commercial jetliners into the World Trade Center.  My other brother, a now-retired Lieutenant with the NYPD, spent months searching the pile of rubble that had been the Twin Towers, looking for the body parts of those murdered that terrible day.

Thus, you can understand my being surprised at the utter lack of security I found at the North Dakota State Capitol.  In New York, I routinely saw police officers and soldiers on the streets of Manhattan, dressed in riot gear, flak vests, and carrying automatic rifles.

Like much of the Midwest, North Dakota is a friendly place, full of people who trust to the good will of their fellow human beings.  I was therefore not terribly surprised to learn that North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple had not immediately joined the other governors who told the federal government that they would not accept Syrian refugees. Though his position was interpreted as a “no” to the resettlement of Syrian refugees in North Dakota, his position was actually more nuanced.  In reality, the governor stated that he would “urge President Barack Obama to halt resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. until security and screening measures can be reviewed.”

In fact, at last count, 31 states, with both Republican and Democratic governors, have stated their intention to reject Syrian refugees.
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President Obama has claimed the moral high ground on this issue, comparing the refugees from Syrian to the Pilgrims, calling them “men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families.”    In pointed language, the President has also criticized Republicans for being “scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion. At first they were too scared of the press being too tough on them in the debates. Now they are scared of three-year-old orphans. That doesn’t seem so tough to me.”

New York City learned the hard way not to trust the federal government and its supposed vetting processes. The September 11 hijackers were all present in America on student, tourist or business visas.   But it wasn’t until AFTER the 911 attacks that the federal government significantly tightened its requirements for the issuance of a visa,   ineffectively, and almost literally, closing the barn door after the cows had escaped.

Since 911, The New York Police Department handles its own security on behalf of New York City.  This includes the establishment of an overseas program in 2003, under which New York City Police Officers are stationed in various hotspots around the globe.  As then Commissioner Ray Kelly stated, ““The terrorists knew no national boundaries. Why should the New York City police?”

The NYPD cooperates with the federal authorities.  But they also follow Ronald Reagan’s famous maxim – trust, but verify.

There can be no doubt that as President Obama stated, many of these refugees are simply seeking a better life. But at the same time, it is equally true that many are dangerous.   In fact, the debate has only been sharpened by the revelation that one of the recent Paris terror attack participants was a “Syrian refugee.”

Until effective measures can put into place to distinguish refugees from terrorists, is it so unreasonable for the governors of 31 states to not trust the safety of their citizens to a federal government that has a different agenda?

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U.S. Commission warns of China’s military

he New York Analysis of Policy & Government presents its third and final excerpt from the  U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 2015 Report to Congress.

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 2015 Report to Congress

Military & Space Affairs

China’s meteoric rise to military superpower status comes both from its robust economy as well as through outright theft of U.S. and other nation’s technological advances.

China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is extending its global reach, particularly through the increased international activities of the PLA Navy. In 2015, the PLA Navy evacuated hundreds of Chinese and foreign citizens from Yemen in what was China’s firstever PLA-led noncombatant evacuation operation. In addition, the PLA Navy has maintained its antipiracy presence in the Gulf of Aden, and has expanded its naval presence in the Indian Ocean with submarine patrols. Since it first sent a submarine to the Indian Ocean in late 2013, the PLA Navy has conducted at least three more Indian Ocean submarine patrols. In September 2015, the PLA Navy sailed through Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, the closest it has ever sailed to U.S. territory during a far seas deployment without a port call. The PLA Navy’s increasing activities far from China’s shores reflect China’s growing capability and willingness to use its military to protect its overseas economic assets and expatriate population. To support these activities, China appears to be seeking to establish its first overseas military facility in Djibouti.

These developments are enabled by China’s continued military modernization program, which seeks to transform the PLA into a technologically advanced military capable of projecting power throughout the Asia Pacific region and beyond. In 2015, China acquired or produced an array of advanced naval and air platforms, many of which would be useful in contingencies in the East and South China seas and those involving islands held by Taiwan. Some of China’s military modernization developments, such as its continued development and production of advanced submarines and surface ships, could increase the PLA Navy’s expeditionary capabilities.

The PLA’s training missions and exercises are increasingly sophisticated and reflect China’s goal to build a modern, integrated fighting force. To support its military modernization campaign, China’s official annual defense budget rose 10.1 percent to $141.9 billion (RMB 886.9 billion) in 2015, though its actual aggregate defense spending is much higher, as Beijing omits major defense-related expenditures from its official budget. After nominally increasing its defense budget by double digits almost every year since 1989, China’s defense spending appears sustainable in the short term. Although China’s slowing economic growth will generate opportunity costs as government spending strains to meet other national priorities, there is no sign this has affected military spending.

U.S.-China security relations suffered from rising tensions and growing distrust in 2015, largely due to China’s cyberespionage activities against a range of U.S. government, defense, and commercial entities and its massive island-building campaign in the South China Sea. In May, as more details of China’s land reclamation in the South China Sea emerged, the U.S. Navy began to publicize its air surveillance patrols near China’s reclaimed land features; in October, a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer conducted a freedom of navigation patrol within 12 nautical miles of one of the reclaimed features for the first time. Though China’s maritime dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea was less newsworthy in 2015, China continued to quietly increase its military and civilian presence in contested waters by conducting regular air and naval patrols near the islands.

CHINA’S SPACE AND COUNTERSPACE PROGRAMS

Based on decades of high prioritization and sustained investment from its leadership, China has become one of the world’s preeminent space powers, producing numerous achievements and capabilities that further its national security, economic, and political objectives. China’s space program involves a wide network of entities spanning its political, military, defense industry, and commercial sectors, but unlike the United States it does not have distinctly separate military and civilian space programs. Rather, top CCP leaders set long-term strategic plans for science and technology development, coordinate specific space projects, and authorize resource allocations, while organizations within China’s military execute policies and oversee the research, development, and acquisition process for space technologies. China’s military also exercises control over the majority of China’s space assets and space operations.

China is pursuing a broad array of counterspace capabilities and will be able to hold at risk U.S. national security satellites in every orbital regime if these capabilities become operational. China’s 2007 test of the SC-19 direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) missile destroyed an aging Chinese satellite and sparked worldwide criticism for creating dangerous orbital debris. The test demonstrated China’s ability to strike satellites in low Earth orbit where the majority of U.S. satellites reside. China’s 2013 DN-2 rocket test reached the altitude of geosynchronous Earth orbit satellites, marking China’s highest known suborbital launch to date and the highest worldwide since 1976; this indicated China is developing the capability to target higher orbits which contain U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites and most U.S. ISR satellites. Since 2008, China has also conducted increasingly complex tests involving spacecraft in close proximity to one another; these tests have legitimate applications for China’s manned space program, but are likely also used for the development of co-orbital counterspace technologies. Computer network operations against U.S. space assets attributed to China have likely been used to demonstrate and test China’s ability to conduct future computer network attacks and perform network surveillance. Finally, China has acquired ground-based satellite jammers and invested heavily in research and development for directed energy technologies such as lasers and radio frequency weapons.

China’s space program has also progressed in the areas of spacebased command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR), space-based PNT, space-based communications, and space launch functions. China now has approximately 142 operational satellites in orbit, with approximately 95 of these owned and operated by military or defense industry organizations. China’s current system of C4ISR satellites likely enables its military to detect and monitor U.S. air and naval activity out to the second island chain‡ with sufficient accuracy and timeliness to assess U.S. military force posture and cue other collection assets for more precise tracking and targeting. China’s regional PNT satellite system, known as Beidou, became operational in 2012, with global coverage expected by 2020. When completed, this system will provide PNT functions, essential to the performance of virtually every modern Chinese weapons system, independent from U.S.-run GPS. Although it lacks a designated civilian space program, China since the mid-1990s has incrementally developed a series of ambitious space exploration programs, categorized as civilian projects. China is one of three countries, along with the United States and Russia, to have independently launched a human into space, and has launched ten Shenzhou spacecraft and the Tiangong space lab in recent years as part of its human spaceflight program. In the program’s next phase, scheduled for completion by 2022, China plans to launch a permanent manned space station into orbit. China’s lunar exploration program has featured several lunar orbiting missions with multiple Chang’e spacecraft and the landing of a lunar rover, Jade Rabbit, in 2014. China plans to land and return a lunar rover in 2017 and become the first nation to land a spacecraft on the Moon’s “dark side” in 2020. Beijing is likely also conducting research for a manned mission to the moon and a mission to Mars, although neither project has yet received official approval.

China’s space activities present important implications and policy questions for the United States. Space capabilities have been integrated into U.S. military operations to such an extent that U.S. national security is now dependent on the space domain, and China’s 2007 antisatellite missile test in particular has been described by General John Hyten, commander of U.S. Air Force Space Command, as a “wakeup call” to the U.S. military regarding the vulnerability of its space assets. In the economic realm, U.S. providers of commercial satellites, space launch services, and GPS-based services may face increased competition as China seeks to expand its foothold in these markets, benefited by the blending of its civilian and military infrastructures and by government funding and policy support. U.S. export controls have also prompted many European countries and their industries to pursue space systems that are free of U.S. technologies—and therefore restrictions—in order to reach the Chinese market. Finally, China’s achievements in space will provide Beijing with greater prestige in the international system and expand its growing space presence, concurrent with declining U.S. influence in space; the United States currently depends on Russian launch vehicles to send humans into space, and the International Space Station is scheduled for deorbiting around 2024. Moreover, given current Congressional restrictions on U.S.-China space cooperation, the United States would not participate in any space program involving China, which raises concerns that reduced U.S. investment in its manned space program could result in the continued erosion of its technological edge and a shift of influence within the international space community.

CHINA’S OFFENSIVE MISSILE FORCES

China’s offensive missile forces are integral to its military modernization objectives and its efforts to become a worldclass military capable of projecting power and denying access by adversaries to China’s periphery. The PLA’s Second Artillery Force— responsible for China’s missile forces initially as a solely nuclear force and since the 1990s as a conventional force as well—has taken on new missions and seen its bureaucratic status within the PLA elevated. The Second Artillery provides China with a decisive operational advantage over other regional militaries competing to defend maritime claims, and its long-range precision-strike capabilities improve its ability to engage the U.S. military at farther distances in the event of a conflict. These capabilities provide an increasingly robust deterrent against other military powers and— in the case of China’s nuclear arsenal—serve as a guarantor of state survival, ultimately bolstering the CCP leadership in its quest for legitimacy.

China is making significant qualitative improvements to its nuclear deterrent along with moderate quantitative increases in the course of its efforts to build a more modern nuclear force. China’s nuclear doctrine is premised on the concept of a “lean and effective” force guided by a doctrine of “no-first-use” of nuclear weapons (although the exact circumstances under which China would use nuclear weapons, what China would consider “first use,” and whether the policy may be reconsidered have been subjects of debate). China has approximately 250 nuclear warheads, according to unofficial sources. It has specifically invested in enhancing its theater nuclear force and diversifying its nuclear strike capabilities away from liquid-fueled, silo-based systems.

China’s DF-5 missiles have been equipped with multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles, confirmed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for the first time in 2015; newer intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in development could also have this capability, increasing China’s ability to penetrate adversary missile defenses and enhancing the credibility of its nuclear forces as a deterrent. China is expected to conduct its first nuclear deterrence submarine patrols using the JIN-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine by the end of 2015, marking China’s first credible at-sea second-strike nuclear capability and presumably requiring changes to its “de-alerting” policy of keeping nuclear warheads stored separately from missiles.

China may also be developing a nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile, the CJ-20, potentially introducing an air-delivered theater nuclear strike capability into its arsenal for the first time. Importantly, as stated by Dr. Christopher Yeaw, founder and director of the Center for Assurance, Deterrence, Escalation, and Nonproliferation Science & Education, in his testimony to the Commission, China may also perceive its nuclear arsenal to be useful in the political management of an unsustainable conventional conflict, in which it would punctuate non-nuclear operations with tactical- or theater-level nuclear strikes to seek deescalation on terms favorable to China.

A key implication of this approach for the United States is that China “may escalate across the nuclear threshold at atime and manner, and for a purpose, that we do not expect.” China has achieved extraordinarily rapid growth in its conventional missile capability, according to DOD, developing a wide range of conventional ballistic and cruise missiles to hold targets at risk throughout the region, even as far as the second island chain. China’s short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) force has grown from 30 to 50 missiles in the mid-1990s to at least 1,200 in 2015, mostly deployed along the Taiwan Strait.

China’s development of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) provide the ability to conduct precision strikes against land and naval targets within the first island chain. China in 2010 fielded the world’s first antiship ballistic missile, an MRBM variant known as the DF-21D, and revealed at a September 2015 military parade that the DF-26 IRBM—with a stated range reaching out to the second island chain, including Guam—also has an antiship variant.

China has also continued to modernize its cruise missiles, most notably by developing two supersonic antiship cruise missiles: the surface ship- or submarine-launched YJ-18 and the air-launched YJ-12, both of which will provide a significant range extension over previous capabilities. China has a hypersonic weapons program in developmental stages, and reportedly conducted its fourth and fifth hypersonic glide vehicle tests in 2015, after conducting three in 2014.

Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049 Institute, testified to the Commission that China may be able to field a regional hypersonic glide vehicle by 2020 and a supersonic combustion ramjet-propelled cruise vehicle with global range before 2025. Whether China arms its hypersonic weapons with nuclear or conventional payloads—or both—will provide more information regarding how it intends to incorporate hypersonic weapons into PLA planning and operations.

The increasing survivability, lethality, and penetrability of China’s missile forces present several implications for the United States. First, these forces can threaten increasingly greater portions of the Western Pacific, and a spending competition between additional Chinese missiles and U.S. missile defense systems would likely be highly unfavorable to the United States based on relative cost. In response, the United States is working to develop lower-cost-per-shot missile defense systems, while other options include disrupting networks that would support Chinese missile forces or using long-range stealth bombers to operate beyond the reach of advanced Chinese missiles. Second, China’s increasing ability to threaten U.S. partners and allies with its missile arsenal supports its regional ambitions, improves its coercive ability, weakens the value of deterrence efforts targeted against it, and widens the range of possibilities that might draw the United States into a conflict. Third, China’s missile buildup has contributed to a U.S. policy debate regarding the modern-day relevance of U.S. treaty obligations to forgo developing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (311 and 3,418 miles); some experts suggest modifications could allow the United States to strengthen its regional deterrence capabilities. Finally, these developments present new challenges for the United States and China as they consider how to successfully manage and deescalate potential crises in an environment with new factors of instability.

The Commission recommends:

  • Congress direct the U.S. Department of Defense to provide an unclassified estimate of the People’s Liberation Army Second Artillery Force’s inventory of missiles and launchers, by type, in future iterations of its Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, as included previously but suspended following the 2010 edition.
  • Congress direct the U.S. Department of Defense to prepare a report on the potential benefits and costs of incorporating ground-launched short-, medium-, and intermediate-range conventional cruise and ballistic missile systems into the United States’ defensive force structure in the Asia Pacific, in order to explore how such systems might help the U.S. military sustain a cost-effective deterrence posture.
  • Congress continue to support initiatives to harden U.S. bases in the Asia Pacific, including the Pacific Airpower Resiliency Initiative, in order to increase the costliness and uncertainty of conventional ballistic and cruise missile strikes against these facilities, and thereby dis-incentivize a first strike and increase regional stability.
  • Congress continue to support “next-generation” missile defense initiatives such as directed energy and rail gun technologies, and require the U.S. Department of Defense to report to committees of jurisdiction on the status of current component sourcing plans for the development and production of directed energy weapons.

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China’s economic warfare vs. America

In this second of our three segments excerpting key elements of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Report, Beijing’s inappropriate treatment of U.S. companies is examined.  In addition to currency manipulation and unfair trade practices, massive theft of intellectual property through cyber espionage has had a damaging effect on the American economy.

China’s unfair treatment of U.S. companies exporting to or investing in China and Beijing’s failure to uphold its World Trade Organization commitments continue to trouble the bilateral relationship.

Despite China’s manufacturing slowdown, a substantial Chinese trade surplus continues to sour the U.S. trade relationship with China. In 2014, the U.S. goods trade deficit with China increased by 7.5 percent year-on-year to $342.6 billion, a record. In the first eight months of 2015, the U.S.-China trade deficit in goods was $237.3 billion, 9.7 percent increase over the same period in 2014. China’s surprise devaluation of the RMB in August also raised concerns among some observers and policymakers that China was once again trying to boost its exports by manipulating the RMB to make exports cheaper. The devaluation came amid China’s efforts to promote a greater international role for the RMB, including making it one of the reserve currencies used by the International Monetary Fund. China’s aspirations for the RMB as an international currency conflict with its practice of limiting the currency’s convertibility and exposure to international currency markets….

COMMERCIAL CYBER ESPIONAGE AND BARRIERS TO DIGITAL TRADE IN CHINA

China causes increasing harm to the U.S. economy and security through two deliberate policies targeting the United States: coordinated, government-backed theft of information from a wide variety of U.S.-based commercial enterprises and widespread restrictions on content, standards, and commercial opportunities for U.S. businesses. Hackers working for the Chinese government—or with the government’s support and encouragement—have infiltrated the computer networks of U.S. government agencies, contractors, and private companies, and stolen personal information and trade secrets. The targets of the Chinese hackers include patented material, manufacturing processes, business and negotiating strategies, and other proprietary information. The Chinese government has in turn provided that purloined information to Chinese companies, including SOEs.

The United States is ill prepared to defend itself from cyber espionage when its adversary is determined, centrally coordinated, and technically sophisticated, as is the CCP and China’s government. The design of the Internet—developed in the United States to facilitate open communication between academia and government, and eventually expanded to include commercial opportunities—leaves it particularly vulnerable to spies and thieves. As the largest and most web-dependent economy in the world, the United States is also the largest target for cyber espionage of commercial IP. The Chinese government also imposes heavy-handed censorship on Internet content and social media. These restrictions on free expression and access to information and news have driven from the Chinese market those U.S. companies unwilling to follow the authoritarian dictates of Beijing. The Chinese government has also begun to censor material originating outside its borders by directly attacking U.S.-based information providers.

The Chinese government has infiltrated a wide swath of U.S. government computer networks; the U.S. government response to the challenge has been inadequate. Federal agencies are not governed by a uniform system for defense against cyber intrusions. Other than to acknowledge an unrelenting series of assaults on its networks, the Federal Government has yet to devise adequate defenses, while top U.S. intelligence officials have grudgingly praised Chinese hackers for their bold ingenuity.

The Commission recommends:

  • Congress assess the ability of, and if necessary amend, existing U.S. trade laws to address China’s industrial policies, abusive legal or administrative processes, and discriminatory treatment of foreign investors, and to determine the consistency of these practices with China’s World Trade Organization commitments.
  • Congress consider legislation requiring the President to submit a request to Congress for approval before any change occurs, either for the country as a whole or for individual sectors or entities, in China’s status as a non-market economy. Under such legislation, any change to the designation of China could not proceed without the consent of both Houses of Congress.
  • Congress consider legislation conditioning the provision of market access to Chinese investors in the United States on a reciprocal, sector-by-sector basis to provide a level playing field for U.S. investors in China.
  • Congress direct U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies to conduct an analysis and legal assessment of alleged anticompetitive behavior by Chinese antitrust enforcers, and report in full on enforcement activities.
  • Congress expand the guidelines for consultation and transparency relating to trade negotiations covered by Trade Promotion Authority to include negotiations on a Bilateral Investment Treaty between the United States and China.
  • Congress require the Administration to provide a comprehensive, publicly-available assessment of Chinese foreign direct investments in the United States prior to completion of negotiations on a Bilateral Investment Treaty. This assessment should include an identification of the nature of investments, whether investments received support of any kind from the Chinese government and at which level (national, provincial, or municipal), and the sector in which the investment was made
  • Congress urge the U.S. Trade Representative to initiate consultations with China’s Ministry of Commerce to identify the extent to which China’s policy regarding subsidies and other incentives for purchases of domestically-produced new energy vehicles may violate its World Trade Organization commitments and what steps should be taken to address any inconsistencies with those commitments
  • Congress assess the coverage of U.S. law to determine whether U.S.-based companies that have been hacked should be allowed to engage in counterintrusions for the purpose of recovering, erasing, or altering stolen data in offending computer networks.
  • In addition, Congress should study the feasibility of a foreign intelligence cyber court to hear evidence from U.S. victims of cyber attacks and decide whether the U.S. government might undertake counterintrusions on a victim’s behalf…
  • Congress require the Administration to prepare an annual classified report on foreign government-sponsored cyber attacks against all Federal Government agencies, including but not limited to an assessment of the damage and the affected agencies’ plans to secure their networks against further attacks…
  • Congress consider legislation amending the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 to require an annual review by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of the steps taken by all federal agencies to ensure that adequate systems are in place to protect cyber assets…
  • Congress pass legislation to require the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make clear to publicly traded companies and their investors the circumstances under which the theft of intellectual property through a computer network intrusion may be a material fact that might affect a company’s revenues and should therefore be required to be disclosed to the SEC.
  • …Congress evaluate existing consumer right-to-know laws to determine whether a cloud-based computing company has an affirmative duty to identify the physical location of its cloudbased assets.

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U.S.-China relations at the danger point

China’s rise to superpower status in both military and economic realms has, despite all hopes to the contrary, been neither peaceful nor beneficial to the international community.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was created by Congress to report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

In its 2015 Report to Congress, the Commission presents a worrisome outline of the current state of Sino-American relations, with a candor rarely expressed by either government or the media.  The New York Analysis of Policy & Government has examined the lengthy report, and we begin our three-part summary with the testimony before Congress of Dennis Shea, vice chairman of the Commission.

U.S.-China security relations suffered from rising tensions and growing distrust in 2015, largely due to China’s aforementioned cyberespionage activities against a range of U.S. government, defense, and commercial entities, as well as its unprecedented island-building campaign in the South China Sea.

In just two years, China has presented other South China Sea claimants with a fait accompli by dredging up nearly 3,000 acres of sand in disputed waters on which to stake its claim, station military assets, and project force into contested waters. These activities are stirring anxiety and distrust in Southeast Asia; Vietnamese government officials and other experts expressed to the Commission the growing sense that China is strategically encircling the country.

In October, after months of China’s increasingly aggressive assertions of its South China Sea claims, a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer conducted a freedom of navigation patrol within 12 nautical miles of one of the reclaimed features for the first time. Though China’s maritime dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea received less media attention in 2015, China continued to quietly increase its military and civilian presence in contested waters by conducting regular air and maritime patrols near the islands and erecting 16 energy exploitation structures. China’s military continues to expand its reach beyond the East and South China seas.

In September 2015, China’s Navy sailed through Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, the closest it has ever sailed to U.S. territory during a distant sea deployment without a port call. China’s military also conducted exercises in the Mediterranean Sea, antipiracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, and an evacuation of noncombatants in Yemen. To support these expanding capabilities, China appears to be seeking to establish its first overseas military facility in Djibouti.
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The Chinese Navy’s increasing activities far from China’s shores reflect China’s growing capability and willingness to use its military to protect its overseas economic assets and expatriate population. Beyond the increasing blue water profile of China’s naval forces, the Commission examined two additional aspects of China’s ongoing military modernization efforts: China’s space and counterspace programs and its offensive missile forces.

China has become one of the world’s leading space powers after decades of prioritization and investment. China’s space program generates international prestige and influence, and enables China to collaborate on a range of bilateral and multilateral space activities. Among its goals in the space industry, China specifically aimed to capture 15 percent of the global launch services market and 10 percent of the global commercial satellite market by 2015, although these efforts have produced mixed results. Militarily, as its developmental counterspace capabilities become operational, China will be able to target vulnerabilities in the spacedependent U.S. national security architecture.

These capabilities could hold at risk U.S. national security satellites in every orbital regime. China’s space and counterspace programs have significant implications for the United States. That’s why the Commission recommends Congress continue to support the U.S. Department of Defense’s efforts to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. space assets through cost-effective solutions, such as the development of smaller and more distributed satellites, hardened satellite communications, and non-space intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets such as unmanned aerial vehicles.

When examining China’s offensive missile forces, the Commission found China has achieved extraordinarily rapid growth in its conventional missile capability. In fact, China has the most active ballistic and cruise missile program in the world today. China’s initial conventional missile development focused heavily on expanding its short-range ballistic missile force for Taiwan contingencies. In the past decade, China’s development of longer-range missiles, pursuit of advanced missile technologies, and diversification of its launch platforms have enabled it to hold at risk a wider range of targets farther from its shores, even as far as the second island chain. China’s short-range ballistic missile force has grown from 30 to 50 missiles in the mid-1990s to more than 1,200 in 2015, mostly deployed along the Taiwan Strait.

China has also developed and fielded new types of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. It currently has the ability to conduct precision strikes against land and naval targets within the first island chain. As part of its missile force modernization, China is developing cruise missiles that are increasingly difficult for the U.S. military to detect and defend against. It fielded its first ground-launched land-attack cruise missile, and is developing air-, ship-, and submarine-launched cruise missiles with land-attack and antiship missions.

The YJ–18 anti-ship cruise missile is almost certainly capable of supersonic speeds during the terminal phase of its flight, a feature that reduces the time shipborne defenses have to react to an incoming threat. In the meantime, the sheer number of China’s cruise missiles poses a formidable challenge against existing U.S. Navy defenses. These developments have led the Commission to recommend Congress direct the U.S. Department of Defense to provide an unclassified estimate of the People’s Liberation Army Second Artillery Force’s inventory of missiles and launchers, by type, in future iterations of its annual report to Congress analyzing military and security developments involving China.

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Obama’s failed speech: his blindness endangers nation

Mr. Obama sought to reassure the nation of his concern for its safety last night.  He had to do this after reassuring Americans just last week that there was no credible threat.  He began his comments emphasizing that the attack was not coordinated from abroad.

He faced a difficult task in the speech, since almost all of his foreign affairs and national security actions since first taking office indicate that he doesn’t take the issue seriously. More worrisome, his administration has indicated on numerous occasions that it considers America to be the source, not the target, of international danger.

Far more than any of his Oval Office predecessors, this President is both blinded by and blindly devoted to preconceived notions. In Mr. Obama’s case, it is an extremist and strange ideology that has a firm disapproval of America’s global role as its centerpiece.  A strong set of beliefs is, for the most part, a very good thing for a leader to possess and rely on for guidance. However, if that prevents that leader from acknowledging facts or ideas that he may not have previously encountered, then it works against him.

This is precisely what has happened to Mr. Obama. A product of mentors that frankly disapproved of America, (Bill Ayers is a prime example. He was a key figure of the domestic terrorist group the “Weather Underground,” famous for its exhortations to “Kill all the rich people, Kill your parents.” Ayers assisted in the bombings of the Capitol Building, the Pentagon, and New York City’s Police Headquarters.)

Of course, the President sincerely wishes that the U.S. remains safe. His problem is that he has unilaterally tossed out thephysica l, moral and ideological tools, he needs to accomplish that, and shows no indication that he intends to reacquire them.  He has consorted with terrorists like Ayers, stripped the U.S. military of needed funds, prematurely withdrawn American forces from the Middle East, (and has set a date to do so from Afghanistan)  and estranged allies. He has legitimized terrorism by negotiating with the Taliban,  by approving a deal that released vast sums to Iran, (a prime international sponsor of terrorism) and reopened relations with Cuba, another sponsor of terror. His infamous “apology tour” of Moslem nations essentially conceded the terrorists’ complaints.

The President spent a good portion of his speech emphasizing the innocence of most Moslems. The response of a key member of the Obama Administration was similar. In the face of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris and California, Attorney Lynch stated that her “greatest fear” was a backlash against Moslems. While assaults against innocents would be reprehensible, the reality is no such widespread problem exists. In the fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks, there has been no trace of significant bias against Moslem Americans.  Her comments, and the President’s,  precisely illustrates Mr. Obama’s worldview: the U.S., he believes, is an aggressive, racist, nation.
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The President’s initial emphasis following the California massacre was to pursue more gun control. Again, his ideology trumps reality:  Americans are violent folks who need to be more tightly controlled. Whatever one’s views of gun control, discussing that issue in response to a terrorist assault was, at best, bizarre.

Mr. Obama’s response emphasized taking out ISIS leadership, as well as destroying its key facilities. He failed to outline a course of action that resembled a full destruction of ISIS.  Indeed, he ruled out major military moves. Consider how foolish would Franklin D. Roosevelt have been if his response to Pearl Harbor was to plot the assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Tojo, or Germany’s Adolph Hitler.

Despite Russia’s massive arms buildup, China’s new super-weapons and its aggression against its neighbors, and, of course, the growing ravages of terrorists, Mr. Obama and his appointees remain utterly blinded by their beliefs.  Because they are so blinded, this Administration is incapable of defending the nation.

Consider the White House’s incompetent response to various international crises.  Former Secretary of State Clinton blamed the terrorist attack in Benghazi on a video; Secretary of State Kerry’s response to Moscow’s Ukrainian invasion was to say it wasn’t “21st century behavior.” Obama has done nothing substantive, diplomatically, economically, or in terms of arms buildups, to counter Beijing’s aggressions.  The White House response to the attack on France’s Charlie Hebdo magazine was to send a pop singer to sing “You have a friend” to the beleaguered Parisians.

President Obama has, repeatedly and consistently, demonstrated his complete inability to respond to or even recognize the clear, present and imminent threats to the United States and its allies. He continues to demonstrate his blind allegiance to a philosophy that places America and Americans as the problem, not part of the solution, to worldwide aggression. Because of his blindness, the people of the United States are in extraordinary danger.

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Is Atheism America’s state religion?

Is atheism becoming America’s official state religion?

As Christians celebrate the Christmas season and Jews observe Chanukah, the usual disputes over the recognition of those holidays in the public sector are expected, but there is a growing new dimension to the legal battles.

Throughout American history, there has always been a vigilance, since the Constitution was ratified, against one creed taking precedence over others.  However, despite the Constitutional prohibition against the establishment of a preferred theology, there is increasing evidence that atheism is taking a prohibited place as an official state doctrine.

Examples abound, far beyond the usual arguments over holiday decorations in government buildings.

Examples abound. Heartland reports that Montana officials have proposed the exclusion of religious schools from a state scholarship program.

“A draft of the rules by the state Revenue Department excluded religious schools from receiving funding through [a scholarship] program. If the rule stands, it will set a precedent calling existing Montana tax-credit programs into question, “because these programs also allow donations to go to religious groups,” Smith said at the hearing. “These tax credit programs include the college contribution credit, the qualified endowment credit, the dependent care system credit, and the elderly care credit. According to the department’s position that tax credits constitute public funds, these programs would also be unconstitutional…According to officials at the state Department of Revenue, religious schools were excluded in order to adhere to the state Constitution, which has provisions prohibiting direct or indirect funding of religious organizations.” Opponents of the move say it violates the U.S. Constitution.”

The American Civil Liberties Union  notes that some of the restrictions against religious activity in public schools are wrong.

“The Constitution permits much private religious activity in and about the public schools. Unfortunately, this aspect of constitutional law is not as well known as it should be. Some say that the Supreme Court has declared the public schools “religion-free zones” or that the law is so murky that school officials cannot know what is legally permissible. The former claim is simply wrong. And as to the latter, while there are some difficult issues, much has been settled. As a result, in some school districts some of these rights are not being observed.”
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The trend towards restricting traditional religions has affected the military.  The military newspaper Stars and Stripes  recently reported the concern of Ron Crews, a retired Army colonel and chaplain. “There has been a growing concern about chaplains being able to continue to minister what I would call ‘the full counsel of God’ in their ministries.”  The article notes that “For 240 years, since the U.S. Army’s founding in June 1775, chaplains have been welcome in the military. Generals from George …to George C. Marshall considered chaplains indispensable to a unit’s emotional and spiritual well-being…” In recent years,  Carew notes, “Washington has issued wave after wave of new regulations, some of which conflict with many chaplains’ long-held religious beliefs…[he cites] multiple cases, in which he contends chaplains have been censored or had their careers effectively ended for espousing their beliefs.”

Atheism as a creed is a growing practice in the United States. In some ways, it is, rather than merely an absence of religion, a philosophical practice that increasingly takes on the attributes of faith-based sects. In 2013, the Huffington Post described how, on Sunday mornings, atheists in Houston gather together for services:

“Sunday mornings at Houston Oasis may have the look and feel of a church, but there’s no cross, Bible, hymnal or stained glass depictions of Jesus. There’s also nary a trace of doctrine, dogma or theology. But the 80 or so attendees at this new weekly gathering for nonbelievers come for many of the same reasons that others pack churches in this heavily Christian corner of the Bible … inside the conference room in a nondescript office building on the city’s west side, it’s hard to ignore the structural similarities to a Sunday morning church service. There is live music played and performed by members that is intended to spur reflection as well as entertain; a collection is taken up in a passed wicker basket.”

Huffington also described the appointment of an atheist chaplain at Stanford “There’s an atheist chaplain at StanfordJohn Figdor has a degree from Harvard Divinity School and he does what chaplains do. He counsels those in need and visits the sick. And what’s more, he’s welcomed as part of the Office of Religious Life.”

  A research project from the Liberty Institute finds that “Attacks on religious liberty in the public arena are perhaps the most widely recognized and one of the fastest growing forms of hostility to religion in the United States today.”

The current battles in religious affairs in the public square can be substantially distinguished from past precedent.  Unlike prior disagreements, they do not involve one religious sect (Catholics vs. Protestants, Christians vs. Jews, etc.) against another, as much as they do a growing atheist philosophy that opposes any place for faith systems in public life.

The complete elimination of religion in public life does not have legal precedent to stand on.  In fact, it runs afoul of the First Amendment mandate that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” which prohibits favoring one creed over another, since the forced absence of any religion is essentially the forced placement of atheism as a preferred or established creed.

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The failed recovery

Six and one half years after the end of the “Great Recession,” the U.S. economy remains in the doldrums. Legitimate questions about the economic policies of the White House, and the apparent waste of over $720 million in “stimulus” funds, as well as the near doubling of the national debt, abound.

According to data from the World Bank America’s GDP growth rate in 2014 was 2.4%. In 2013, the Council on Foreign Relations noted that the “recovery” from the 2007-2008 recession was “the weakest of the post–World War II era.”

The Wall Street Journal concurs. “During the postwar period up to the current recession (1947-2007), the average annual growth rate for the U.S. was 3.4%. The last three decades have experienced somewhat slower growth than the earlier periods, but even in the period 1977-2007, the average growth rate was 3%… Contrast this weak growth with the recovery that followed the other large recession of recent decades. In the early 1980s, the economy experienced a double-dip recession, with contractions in both 1980 and ’82. But growth rates in the subsequent two years averaged almost 6%. The high growth that persisted throughout the 1980s brought the economy quickly back to the trend line. Unlike the current period, from 1983 on, the economy was in rapid catch-up mode and eventually regained all that had been lost during the early ’80s.

“Indeed, that was the expectation. As economist Victor Zarnowitz of the University of Chicago argued many years ago, the strength of the recovery is related to the depth of the recession. Big recessions are followed by robust recoveries, presumably because more idle resources are available to be tapped. Unfortunately, the current post-recession period has not followed the pattern.”

The Washington Post  has noted that “it took less than a year for America’s factory output to rebound from the 1991 recession. It took 3½ years to bounce back from the 2001 recession. Now, six years clear of the Great Recession, manufacturing output still hasn’t returned to the pre-crisis levels it reached in 2007, according to revised economic data from the Federal Reserve. The downward revisions highlight the persistent weakness in a sector that President Obama has long called crucial to the health of the U.S. economy and the fate of the middle class. They track with the continued disappointing employment numbers for manufacturing, which since January 2013 has added fewer than half of the 1 million jobs that Obama promised the sector would create in his second term. And they appear to reflect a deeper-than-previously-thought hit to defense and aerospace manufacturing as the result of Pentagon cuts and deficit-reduction measures Obama and Congress agreed to several years ago.”

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According to the Institute for Supply Management, (ISM)  Last month brought some disappointing statistics for the U.S. economy. In the Non-manufacturing business sector, activity decreased 4.8% in November. The New Orders Index fell 4.5 percentage points. The Employment Index decreased 4.2 percentage points. The Prices Index increased 1.2 percentage points.  Five industries reporting a reduction in employment in November, including: Mining; Utilities; Other Services; Construction; and Management of Companies & Support Services.

The New Export Orders Index for November registered 49.5 percent, which is 5 percentage points lower than October. The latest balance of trade figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis,  released in September, disclosed that the goods and services deficit was $40.8 billion. Year-to-date, the goods and services deficit increased $14.9 billion, or 3.9 percent, from the same period in 2014. Exports decreased $66.3 billion or 3.8 percent. Imports decreased $51.3 billion or 2.4 percent.

The Institute for Supply Management  (ISM)  also reports that “Economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted in November for the first time in 36 months, [decreasing] 1.5 percentage points from the October reading… The New Orders Index registered 48.9 percent, a decrease of 4 percentage points from the reading of 52.9 percent in October. The Production Index registered 49.2 percent, 3.7 percentage points below the October reading of 52.9 percent. The Employment Index registered 51.3 percent, 3.7 percentage points above the October reading of 47.6 percent. The Prices Index registered 35.5 percent, a decrease of 3.5 percentage points from the October reading of 39 percent, indicating lower raw materials prices for the 13th consecutive month. The New Export Orders Index registered 47.5 percent, unchanged from October, and the Imports Index registered 49 percent, up 2 percentage points from the October reading of 47 percent. Ten out of 18 manufacturing industries reported contraction in November, with lower new orders, production and raw materials inventories accounting for the overall softness in November…

“Of the 18 manufacturing industries, five are reporting growth in November in the following order: Printing & Related Support Activities; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; and Transportation Equipment. The 10 industries reporting contraction in November — listed in order — are: Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Plastics & Rubber Products; Machinery; Primary Metals; Petroleum & Coal Products; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Computer & Electronic Products; Furniture & Related Products; Fabricated Metal Products; and Chemical Products.”

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New York Analysis on China

The New York Analysis of Policy & Government today publishes its recommendations on Treating a sexual disorder with a high cheap cialis viagra http://respitecaresa.org/author/ncarney/ quality medicine became easy and convenient. Advantages of Testosterone Medicines Testosterone is in charge for changing testosterone viagra samples to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Sexual disorders ruin a person s life completely and sp you need to make sure that you get over these issues as soon as it could be possible for you and never let it become the prime reason for facing any sexual or other Full Report levitra 40 mg health disorder. While Tongkat Ali is now recognized as a powerful weapon to bring our blood clotting disorder back to a normal stage discount tadalafil and to prevent the recurrence of body aches. how to deal with China’s militarism. Read the details on this website.

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“Warthog” proves its worth again

Reports indicate that the A-10 Thunderbolt, (known widely as the “Warthog”) has been crucial to recent U.S. efforts in combatting ISIS in the Middle East.

Military.com  notes that the A-10’s “operating out of Incirlik airbase in Turkey provided ‘devastating’ close air support for U.S.-backed Syrian-Arab fighters in taking a town in northwestern Syria from the Islamic State.” About a dozen Warthogs were recently deployed to the Turkish Air base.

Despite numerous attempts by the USAF to retire the plane (which first took flight in 1976) with more costly aircraft more suited to the type of air to air and bombing missions which are that services main stays, the Warthogs’ ability to fly slow and close to the ground while withstanding significant punishment from enemy fire make it the most effective airborne defender of troops in existence.  It has survived, with bipartisan support, another appropriations battle and will be funded again in the FY2016 Pentagon budget. But with increasingly constrained funds, the future looks less than optimistic.

The battle to save the indispensable aircraft has been fierce. Former Defense Secretary Hagel had stated that “The A-10’s age is also making it much more difficult and costly to maintain. Significant savings are only possible through eliminating the entire fleet, because of the fixed cost of maintaining the support apparatus associated with that aircraft. Keeping a smaller number of A-10s would only delay the inevitable while forcing worse trade-offs elsewhere.” His remarks were met with disagreement by ground troops, many of whom have noted that they owed their lives to the aircraft.

While funds are limited, the fact that there is nothing in the U.S. arsenal that can accomplish its tasks of knocking out enemy armor and safekeeping American troops as effectively is a powerful argument for its preservation. It is unfortunate that the diminishing defense budget forces inappropriate choices to be made, particularly at a time when international threats are rapidly rising.
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The problem is, the aircraft, as mandated by law, is assigned to the Air Force,  but its primary mission is one that belongs to the Army, the destruction of enemy armor and protecting ground forces.

Its role is not, by any stretch of the imagination, obsolete. Indeed, it may well be needed now more than ever.  As the NEW YORK ANALYSIS OF POLICY & GOVERNMENT reported earlier, most American tanks have been withdrawn from Europe.  The White House has also, inappropriately, sought to close down the very last factory that manufactures tanks, to make the job complete. For the United States to continue its NATO obligation to defend against the increasingly likely possibility of further Russian aggression, the A-10 would be the best solution to provide a credible deterrence.

A 2014 Breitbart analysis noted: “The problem is that the Air Force doesn’t want to ‘own’ the CAS [close air support] mission. Since the A-10 was created, many argue that CAS has always been an orphan in the Air Force’s planning, budgeting and training. That may be going too far, but it is clear that the Air Force doesn’t want to ‘own’ CAS by devoting the resources needed to perform CAS.”

A Bloomberg report last year disclosed that “Active-duty and retired service members … are trying to persuade the U.S. Department of Defense to drop its plan to save $4.2 billion in operation and maintenance costs over five years by retiring all 283 of the 1970s-era Air Force planes. Some top Army officers say there’s no substitute for the protection the jet has long provided to troops in ground combat. The Air Force says that newer, faster aircraft, such as the F-16, F-15E, and, eventually, Lockheed Martin’s (LMT) new F-35 fighter, can perform the A-10’s principal mission of “close air support,” striking targets on the ground to help soldiers in a land battle…[but retired Lieutenant Col. William Smith, who flew the A-10 in Iraq and Afghanistan] asks  “You really think they’re going to allow a $200 million airplane to get down in the weeds, where it’s extremely vulnerable?”