Under Putin, Russia’s Vassalage to China
China’s and Russia’s “multipolar world” brand has obscured China’s global unipolar objectives and Russia’s subjection to China. As Putin gambles Russia’s future on death dealing expansion during an economic contraction, China’s power over Putin hardens. Multipolar-speak helps hide that from Russians. Susan Haynes née Turner warned of this deception risk in her 2009 paper “Russia,…
Beijing’s Gamble: Putin’s Unsuccessful Mentor
As with Dr. Frankenstein’s ill-considered electrification of a dead person in Shelley’s classic, President Vladimir Putin three years into his reign sought to raise Yuri Andropov’s foreign and domestic policies from the dead to help him rebuild the USSR that Andropov’s decision-making on Soviet intervention in Afghanistan hastened toward collapse. And now there’s Ukraine. Other hardliner…
Iran Regime: Russia’s and China’s Destabilizer Bot
The dictatorial theocracy of Iran has been a quasi-vassal of larger dictatorships since the Iranian revolution of 1978-79. Today Iran acts in the strategic interests of Russia and China as it seeks membership in their regional organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. From 1997-2006, Russia under Putin was the top heavy conventional weapons supplier to Iran…
Did Storm 0558 Access an On-Premises Hardware Security Module?
Set-up: On June 14th @Serghei for Bleeping Computer tweeted that “Microsoft says it still doesn’t know how Storm-0558 Chinese hackers stole an inactive MSA consumer signing key used to breach the Exchange Online and Azure AD accounts of two dozen organizations, including U.S. government agencies.” Bleeping Computer seemed to rely on a June 14th update…
Pattern Leads: Singapore Servers a Factor in China Hack?
Set-up: A Chinese hacker group called Storm-0558 reportedly breached accounts inside more than 24 organizations, including U.S. State Department officials’ Microsoft accounts leading-up to Secretary Antony Blinken’s June trip to Beijing. The hackers exploited a validation coding error enabling them to forge Azure AD tokens using an acquired Microsoft account (MSA) consumer signing key, as…
Collective Action: Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station and Nova Kakhovka Dam
Ask: What new, perhaps non-obvious proactive approaches can be taken to try to reverse weaponization of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station and Ukraine’s hemispherically important Nova Kakhovka Dam by Russia? Fact: The Putin regime’s state terrorist activities against the Nova Kakhovka Dam and Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station are a threat to world food supply, and specifically…
From Cluster Munitions to Cluster Neutralizers
Setup: Cluster munition shells made the latest round of U.S. military support to help Ukrainian Armed Forces replenish dwindling artillery shell supplies. For that stopgap purpose, it may be the only substitute the U.S. can now give. To date, Russia has aggressed with cluster and incendiary weapons against Ukrainian defenders and civilians, and Ukraine has…
View: Autocratic model trips on its own red carpet
Mr. Khrushchev said, “We will bury you” I don’t subscribe to this point of view… -Sting Xi Jinping has spent tens of billions promoting autocracy as the new, responsible leadership model. Yet Putin’s Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and others have shown the world that autocracy is as outdated and hazardous as lead paint. Top-down…
Tackling a Big History Lie Fueling Putin’s Xi-Jinping-Aided Aggression
Despite Beijing’s global posturing in support of national sovereignty it uses sleight of hand to export “dual use” technology (civilian and military) to supply Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine’s sovereignty. Yet Ukraine’s sovereignty is a matter of widespread international recognition. China’s strategy seems simple: tax Ukraine and the West to the point that it…
Russia’s Gray Warfare in Space Requires Gray Warfare Response
Reportedly, Russia put what was ostensibly a mobile satellite repair vehicle into Earth’s orbit to move among and service Russian satellites. In time, it showed its later purpose as a fragmentation shell with plasma boosters to put U.S. and other satellites in harm’s way of its debris stream. According to a Gizmodo report, shared with commentary…