Three more national security updates from Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, in regards to Taiwan, China, and US Counterintelligence.  Bill is one of the country's premier reporters on issues of National Security facing the United States.

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From the “can it get any more incredible” department, an article in the Daily Mail by Daniel Cochlin crossed the Newt.org desk regarding technology that will be making its way to the battlefield this year.  “Robobug goes to war: Troops to use electronic insects to spot enemy ‘by end of year’”

“British defence giant BAE Systems is creating a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that could become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield, helping to save thousands of lives... Prototypes could be on the front line by the end of the year, scuttling into potential danger areas such as booby-trapped buildings or enemy hideouts to relay images back to troops safely positioned nearby.”  

Isn’t the development of technology such as this a wonderful statement about the value we place on human life?   Don’t stories like this provide a stark contrast to our enemies, who have openly admitted to placing value on death? 

Check out the video to see a 3d animation of the little critters in simulated action, and let us know what you think about stories like this by posting your comments below.

Check out these two recent articles from excellent National Security Reporter Bill Gertz of the Washington Times:

4 arrests in China spy cases:

...One Pentagon official said the case is potentially very damaging because Mr. Bergersen was director of the Navy's command, control, communications and intelligence office in the early 2000s. The office has access to the most sensitive information on U.S. warfighting capabilities, a key target of China's military spies...

Firms in proposed 3Com deal offer risk relief:

...Disclosure of the risk-reduction offer followed the arrest Monday of four persons on Chinese espionage-related charges, including a Pentagon official accused of passing high-technology military command and control systems to the Chinese...

It's hard to say which issue blog it would have been best to mention this article, but national security seems as good a place as any.  The struggle for freedom against authoritarianism is at its core an issue of security - personal security against the overbearing interests of the state.  And while the direct implications of this article have more to do with the personal security of the people of China, their struggle is at its core, our shared global struggle against tyranny. 

With that as a backdrop, this article in Foreign Policy lays out how the coming Olympic Games in Beijing will feature contests of will completely outside the realm of athletic competition that could alter the fate of China's 1.3 billion plus population.  Excerpt:

The athletes are not the only ones training hard for the Olympics. The Chinese government and the activists are getting ready for the battle in Beijing, too. The Associated Press reports that China’s intelligence services, police, and government think tanks are compiling lists of foreign organizations and individuals in what has been described as one of the “broadest intelligence-collection drives Beijing has taken against foreign activist groups.” According to Xinhua, China’s official news agency, Zhou Yongkang, the minister of public security, has ordered the police during the games to “strictly guard against and strike hard at hostile forces at home and abroad.”

The Washington Post has an ecouraging article suggesting that al-queada in Iraq is crippled. 

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.

But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past.

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However, the attack yesterday in Pakistan is a sobering reminder that there is still much hard work to be done. 

A NY Times piece has a vivid forward-looking analysis of how the world will shape up in Asia in the coming years:

"While the American government has been occupied in Mesopotamia, and our European allies continue to starve their defense programs, Asian militaries — in particular those of China, India, Japan and South Korea — have been quietly modernizing and in some cases enlarging. Asian dynamism is now military as well as economic.

The military trend that is hiding in plain sight is the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake after 60 years of near-total dominance. A few years down the road, according to the security analysts at the private policy group Strategic Forecasting, Americans will not to the same extent be the prime deliverers of disaster relief in a place like the Indonesian archipelago, as we were in 2005. Our ships will share the waters (and the prestige) with new "big decks" from Australia, Japan and South Korea.

Furthermore, the very vitality of nation-states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans will take us back to an older world of traditional statecraft, in which we will need to tirelessly leverage allies and seek cooperation from competitors. Thus we should take advantage of the rising risk of terrorism and piracy in order to draw the Chinese and Indian Navies into joint patrols of choke points and tanker routes."

This piece gives an important look down the road not in the larger war against the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam, as Newt emphasized in his Sept 10th speech at AEI, but in the context of what other countries in this quickly growing region will be doing.

Pat Buchanan points out at Townhall.com something that the mainstream Media isn't reporting on: 

"Today, the United States has 30,000 more troops in Iraq than on the day America repudiated the Bush war policy and voted the GOP out of power. And President Bush, self-confidence surging, is now employing against Iran a bellicosity redolent of the days just prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

What gives Bush his new cockiness? The total collapse of the antiwar coalition on Capitol Hill and the breaking of the Congress. Last spring, Bush vetoed the congressional deadlines for troop withdrawals, then rubbed Congress' nose in its defeat by demanding and getting $100 billion to support the surge and continue the war.

Before the August recess, Democrats broke again and voted to give Bush the warrantless wiretap authority many among them had said was an unconstitutional and impeachable usurpation of power. They are a broken and frightened lot."

Also of note is what Buchanan writes on the bigger picture of the war against the irreconcilable wing of Islam:

"Confident of victory this fall on the Hill, Bush is now moving into Phase III in his War on Terror: First, Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Iran."

Does President Bush have a renewed confidence to follow the course he boldly and clearly laid forth in the weeks following 9/11?  The rejuvenated confidence from the President may allow him to simply follow through with the wider strategy of treating terrorists- and the governments who harbor them- as the same.

Is this the right strategy for the war against the irreconcilable wing of Islam?  Newt will speak on our comprehensive national strategy on Monday, September 10 at American Enterprise Institute.  Check back to Newt.org for a copy of the speech and his thoughts on how we need to fight this broader war.

In the Hartford Courant, Hal Brands writes in “The War on Terror Has Fizzled” that American foreign policy has been weakened by the Bush Administration.  A new strategy in the war is necessary.  As he writes:

“What is needed, rather, is a fundamental reassessment of American grand strategy, a reassessment that takes into account not only the very real threats posed by terrorism and WMD, but situates these issues within their proper, larger context - the need to ensure U.S. influence over the long term.

What might this new strategy look like? In broad terms, it would focus on regaining a global acceptance of American leadership that has been severely eroded by the current administration's foreign policy. It would combat terrorism using tools such as international law enforcement collaboration, rather than responding reflexively with unilateral military might.”

Interested in where we could be in the war since 9/11?  Newt’s speech at American Enterprise Institute on Monday, September 10th will also cover US grand strategy in the war against terror and the irreconcilable wing of Islam and how to get back on track in our grand strategy.  Be sure to check Newt.org for updates and a copy of the speech.

See the full article here

A new USA Today article titled "Pentagon says it acts as quickly as it can to meet needs" has a very interesting quote from a retired Marine:

The equipment failures are "a manifestation of this larger issue: doing just enough to try to win this … without mobilizing the nation for war," says retired Marine lieutenant general Paul Van Riper, a Vietnam and Desert Storm veteran.

The whole article is worth reading, but the quote raises a good question: Are we taking the war as seriously as we should?  In the book Troublesome Young Men, Lynne Olsen details how Neville Chamberlain didn't take Nazi Germany seriously, even after Britain and Germany were at war.  It wasn't until Churchill became Prime Minister that Britain began fighting at its full potential.

Newt will be giving a talk at American Enterprise Institute on Sept. 10 to detail how we could have fought of the war on terror since 9/11 knowing what we know now and how we can reset our strategic course to be on the right track from today into the future.  Be sure to check on Newt.org for the video of the speech to find out Newt's thoughts on how the war could be different today.