Defusing Swarm-Escalation with Robotic Working Craft
Setup: China’s maritime militia is causing chaos to make a point that everyone gets already: Xi Jinping does not want China humiliated. It uses armed vessel swarms, water cannons, intimidation, ramming, and brinksmanship backed-up by PLA Navy’s terraformed military bases, coast guard, and PLAN assets to assert dominion over the entire South China Sea (SCS…
China’s Strategic Buffering and Iran
Yesterday, Britain, France, and Germany asserted that Iran has violated a U.N. Resolution buttressing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) by “developing and testing ballistic missiles, transferring hundreds of drones to Russia, and enriching uranium to an unprecedented 60% level for a country without a nuclear weapons program — all in violation of a…
Strategic Patterns: China & Russia Seek Control Over Food & Migration
Setup There is a common strategic pattern in China’s pursuit of global food supply control at-Sea, international agricultural ownership, and support for Russia as it guns for Ukraine as Europe’s breadbasket. China also supports Russia as Moscow asserts its “plus” influence on OPEC, towards inflating fuel and therefore food prices in many markets. China also…
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…