"Authority, power, and wealth do not change a man; they only reveal him"
- Ali ibn Abi Talib
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."
- Epicurus
"Speak only if it improves upon the silence."
- Mahatma Gandhi
1. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Implies US Military Brought Coronavirus to Wuhan
2. A conspiracy theory linking the US army to the coronavirus now has official Chinese endorsement
3. Chinese official blames coronavirus outbreak on US military
4. Coronavirus: China's attempts to contain the outbreak has given it new levels of state power
5. FDA Grants New Coronavirus Test Emergency Approval
6. Facebook takedowns reveal sophistication of Russian trolls
7. Pentagon to Decide if it Still Needs Green Beret Crisis Response Forces
8. Foreign Policy is Much More Than a Liberal vs. Conservative Brawl
9. American commandos to hold down the fort in Afghanistan as US troops withdraw
10. Clearing the Air on 5G
11. BREAKING: We've Got The Vaccine, Says Pentagon-Funded Company
12. Army Offers to Repay Soldiers' College Loans if They Go Infantry
1. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Implies US Military Brought Coronavirus to Wuhan
And then there is this. Does anyone still not think that China is conducting political warfare with it s three warfares (Psychological warfare, legal warfare (lawfare) and media warfare)? This was so easy to predict.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Implies US Military Brought Coronavirus to Wuhan
A firebrand Chinese spokesperson implies the U.S. "army" may have brought the virus to China.
As the Chinese government has gotten a grip on its breakout of the 2019 coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, internal narratives have been shifting. Having initially declared a "people's war" on the disease, Chinese President Xi Jinping, clad in a facemask, went to Wuhan this week- the city where the virus, known as SARS-nCoV-2, is thought to have had its zoonotic genesis.
Xi's visit was seen as a victory lap: a moment for him, as commander-in-chief, to indicate to the Chinese people that the outbreak had been brought under control. It also coincided largely with the moment that the rest of the world - especially Europe and the United States - began to recognize the gravity of the COVID-19 situation. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization moved to officially dub COVID-19 a pandemic.
In the weeks preceding Xi's moment in Wuhan, official Chinese propaganda channels had started to raise the notion that the disease may not have originated within China. On February 27, Zhong Nashan, a Chinese scientist involved in Beijing's national response, suggested the following: "Though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China."
On Thursday, Lijian Zhao, an official spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
took to Twitter to insinuate that "it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan." Zhao,
no stranger to Twitter controversy, added that the United States should "be transparent" and "make public your date." The "US owe us an explanation," he added.
That message was then taken up by Chinese diplomats overseas. For example, the Chinese ambassador to South Africa,
repeated that line. Messaging underplaying the suspected zoonotic origins of the disease in China's Hubei province were combined with a celebration of China's national response and its implications for the world: "China's endeavor to combating the epidemic has bought time for int'l preparedness," the Chinese foreign ministry suggested this week.
All of this, culminated in Zhao's implication of U.S. military involvement: a spectacular claim for an official government spokesperson.
Zhao's Twitter profile, unlike that of several other national spokespersons on the platform, does not indicate that he is tweeting in a personal capacity. He used this account extensively to build a following when he was posted to Pakistan as the deputy chief of mission for the Chinese embassy there.
Now, as national spokesperson, for him to insinuate that the United States military had a role in bringing COVID-19 to Wuhan raises an uncomfortable specter for U.S.-China relations. It mirrors the arguments raised by some in the United States -
including prominent lawmakers - that SARS-nCoV-2 might have been bioengineered (a proposition for which no
evidence exists and one that is also logically unsound).
The COVID-19 pandemic is just starting, but it's starting to look as if this will turn into a major sore point between the United States and China. In particular, as China's national response begins to take effect and the U.S. public health crisis appears to be ramping up, Beijing's propaganda blitz may only grow more intense. The effects on U.S.-China relations are unlikely to be positive.
2. A conspiracy theory linking the US army to the coronavirus now has official Chinese endorsement
Not just some firebrand spokesman?
A conspiracy theory linking the US army to the coronavirus now has official Chinese endorsement
Something that had been merely suggested before has now been blown wide into the open in China.
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, tweeted yesterday that "it might be the US army" that brought the coronavirus to China, giving an official boost to a conspiracy theory that had been allowed to circulate on Chinese social media for weeks. The conspiracy posits that 300 athletes from the US military who in October
attended the 7th Military World Games in Wuhan, where the epidemic first broke out, were infected with the virus, thereby spreading it in China.
Zhao's comment accompanied a video from a US congressional hearing this week on the country's response to the epidemic. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in the video that some patients who were previously diagnosed to have died from the flu were found to have actually
died from the coronavirus. The video began trending on Chinese social network Weibo, with many commenting that they now believe firmly that the US had covered up facts related to the epidemic.
Zhao, who was recently elevated to the spokesperson position at the foreign ministry after
building a reputation as a firebrand diplomat who frequently attacks the US,
blocked a number of Twitter users who called him out for embarrassing the Chinese government and spreading conspiracy theories on the platform, which remains banned in China. Today, he doubled down on his claims, and shared
two articles from Global Research-which claims to be an independent research and media organization based in Montreal-that say there is further proof that the coronavirus originated in the US. "This article is very much important to each and every one of us. Please read and retweet it,"
wrote Zhao. The founder of Global Research is a Canadian economist who has espoused conspiracy theories linked to the H1N1 swine flu epidemic and 9/11 in the past.
Before his debut as foreign ministry spokesperson last month, Zhao served as the deputy chief of mission in Pakistan. He, together with several dozens of other Chinese foreign ministry officials and diplomats,
represent a more vocal, much more confrontational style in China's public relations offensive.
"A major motivation for Chinese diplomats to join Twitter is to tell the 'China story,'" said Lokman Tsui, a communications professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He added that he didn't think diplomats needed approval for every tweet they send as Chinese officials don't get into positions of power without already knowing what the boundaries are.
As the coronavirus started to spread in the US,
China's reaction at the apparent bungling by the White House in its response has been a mixture of surprise, pride, and even glee, fueled in no small part by state media outlets. Conspiracy theories that seek to shift the narrative away from one that pins China as the source of the virus are also growing in popularity,
helped along by Chinese authorities. Zhao's latest comments have only further legitimized these claims.
The hashtag #Zhao Lijian published five tweets to question the US# has been viewed almost 4 million times on Weibo. "I think this move is reasonable. Whether Zhao has evidence for the claim or not, why should we only see Western politicians attack China with made-up theories, and not see Chinese officials question whether the virus originated in the US? All we ask for is transparency [from the US],"
said a user (link in Chinese). The comment is likely a reference to comments made earlier by Arkansas senator
Tom Cotton that a virology lab in Wuhan could be the origin of the virus, a claim that
has been rejected by scientists globally.
3. Chinese official blames coronavirus outbreak on US military
Retaliation?? No, this is part of the CCP's political warfare operation.
"When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!" Zhao tweeted in English in one of a series of tweets critical of the US.
The comments appear to be retaliation in a war of words with Washington. Chinese government officials bristled when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the coronavirus as the "Wuhan virus," and decried when President Trump called it a "foreign virus" that started "in China."
As an aside why does not one call out China as racist for calling us barbarians? This coronavirus originated in Wuhan yet we are racist for calling it the Wuhan coronavirus?
And I do not think we blame China for the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak/. It began there so it should take its name as we have done throughout much of history/. However, we absolutely should blame the CCP for their cover-up and how they put the world at risk by failing their duty to warn.
Chinese official blames coronavirus outbreak on US military
A Chinese government spokesman has tried to blame the US army for the deadly coronavirus outbreak, which was
declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization this week.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian claimed Thursday that the US military might have brought the COVID-19 virus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak emerged in December.
"When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!"
Zhao tweeted in English in one of a series of tweets critical of the US.
The comments appear to be retaliation in a war of words with Washington. Chinese government officials bristled when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the coronavirus as the "Wuhan virus," and decried when President Trump
called it a "foreign virus" that started "in China."
The contagious illness has now infected more than 125,000 people in at least 118 countries and territories, according to figures from the WHO Thursday afternoon.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
4. Coronavirus: China's attempts to contain the outbreak has given it new levels of state power
Someone wrote this week speculating about political change in China as a result of the coronavirus. I do not think this is the kind of "political change" that was hoped for.
Coronavirus: China's attempts to contain the outbreak has given it new levels of state power
China's response to the recent coronavirus outbreak has been
heavily scrutinisedin terms of whether it has been
effective or not. But most analyses have overlooked the broader impact that the evolving response to virus might have for the way government works in China. The introduction of extraordinary government powers, backed up by advanced surveillance technology, could give the state new levels of power and control on a long-term basis.
To effectively contain the coronavirus outbreak from its onset, China's political elite needed to publicly establish how the virus threatened the security of society. This process of making something (a health problem, for example) into a security issue when it wouldn't normally be considered one is known in political science as "
securitisation.
Securitisation typically involves informing and educating the public about the issue (which is crucial during a highly infectious disease outbreak) but also alarming them over the nature and seriousness of the threat. It can also legitimise a new form of politics that often involves the state taking on "temporary" extraordinary powers.
In the case of China's initial response to the coronavirus outbreak, instead of committing to curb the virus's spread from the start, the authorities prioritised
containing the spread of any information relevant to the outbreak. As a result, the Chinese public were initially largely unaware of the severity of the virus.
Once the issue became too large to suppress, China eventually began to securitise the outbreak, resulting in some extraordinary policy decisions such as
quarantining several cities in Hubei province. But the government also continued to
quarantine any public debate over the epidemic.
The most famous example was that of the whistle-blowing doctor,
Li Wenliang. Li was one of the first to try and alert the public to the seriousness of the outbreak. But for his efforts, Li was summoned by local police and forced to cease his activities.
Sadly, Li later died after contracting the virus. The
anger at his death led some commentators to suggest that China might experience a
"Chernobyl moment", in which the state's legitimacy would be stripped away, resulting in it losing some power and control.
Hyper-securitisation
Securitisation works in part by giving political elites the popular legitimacy to tackle an issue swiftly and powerfully. But China's initial response - suppressing important information and harassing whistle-blowers - had the opposite effect, hurting the legitimacy of the government.
However, unlike the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine, which led to
significant soul searching among the Soviet Union's elites, the Chinese government's response to the coronavirus outbreak has so far gone the other way. They have arguably "hyper-securitised" the threat as a way of not only more swiftly addressing the threat of the virus, but also as a way of regaining some of the legitimacy that was lost by those initial missteps.
So rather than downplaying the seriousness of the issue, the authorities have now started building the virus up as an unprecedented threat for China, one which can only be solved by an extraordinary form of politics. As President Xi Jinping
recently said in an online address to 170,000 party and military officials:
this is a crisis and it is also a major test ... the effectiveness of the prevention and control work has once again showed the significant advantages of the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.
Not surprisingly, after the initial missteps, China has been extremely dynamic in implementing emergency measures. In Hubei, the government has used the army to guarantee the proper implementation of quarantine measures while transferring medics from other provinces to assist the local manpower. The state has also organised the construction of
two new hospitals in Wuhan in just a few weeks.
A police security robot patrols a railway station.Alex Plavevski/EPA
But accompanying these emergency measures has been newer forms of power and control. Most notably, China has been using
high-tech measures such as drones, facial recognition cameras, and artificial intelligence to more
closely monitor its citizens, all in the name of combating the virus.
With the
flick of a few switches, the Chinese state has been able
to gather data on practically every person in the country. The government knows exactly where everyone is, what their daily public routine is and even the temperature of their bodies. Punishments are handed out if people break the rules.
This represents an unprecedented level of surveillance and exertion of power and control. But, given the seriousness of the purported threat of the coronavirus outbreak, these measures
have been acknowledgedand endorsed by international researchers.
Whether or not these measures have been effective in addressing the coronavirus outbreak, the political implications for China could be long-lasting. That is the slippery slope of a state successfully securitising an issue, because the more salient the existential threat presented, the more power and control the state can justify using in response.
The question now is what will China do with its new forms of power and control once the threat is overcome? Other examples of securitisation suggests the remnants of a successful securitisation can linger in a state's governance model.
For instance, the expansion of the United States government's surveillance powers and scope of several criminal laws the lasted for more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks' securitisation.
But, in the case of the coronavirus, this is not just a question for China. The effects of hyper-securitising this outbreak could be felt globally. The initial mismanagement by the Chinese state transformed the outbreak from a local to a global issue and now other countries across the globe are similarly facing pressing questions about to how best respond to the threat. The irony is that many are considering the virtues of the China model.
5. FDA Grants New Coronavirus Test Emergency Approval
Compare this with the Korean test. I am sure the Koreans would have licensed their test to some US companies and we might have had sufficient testing capability much sooner.
FDA Grants New Coronavirus Test Emergency Approval
Clearance for test developed by Roche aimed at boosting capacity to diagnose virus
A new, high-speed coronavirus test has been granted emergency clearance by the Food and Drug Administration, the latest effort to expand capacity to diagnose the fast-spreading pathogen.
The test was developed by diagnostics giant
Roche Holding AG and is designed to run on the company's automated machines, which are already installed in more than 100 laboratories across the U.S. It will be available immediately.
It is only the third coronavirus diagnostic to receive emergency-use authorization from the FDA, following a test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one from the New York State Department of Health.
The FDA has been working to ramp up the speed and quality of coronavirus testing after a slow and troubled start in the U.S. Until two weeks ago, only the CDC was authorized to conduct tests, some of which turned out to be inaccurate. The CDC says it has since remedied those issues.
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Since then, the FDA has given permission to hundreds of U.S. academic hospital labs to immediately begin using their own tests for the new coronavirus without first obtaining emergency authorization. The labs are supposed to follow certain steps to validate their own tests, and to ultimately seek FDA authorization.
Currently, all testing is based on identifying unique portions of the new coronavirus's genetic sequence. But Roche's tests can be conducted faster than manual laboratory tests. Its machines provide results in three and a half hours and can run many tests in parallel-though as they are located in laboratories, it will take additional time for samples to be sent for testing. Its most advanced machine can process around 4,128 samples every 24 hours.
The spotty rollout of testing in the U.S. has become a contentious political issue, with members of Congress criticizing the Trump administration for
not having better testing capacity. The Trump administration has said that sufficient test kits are available.
An "emergency team" of Roche scientists started work on a new test as soon as China shared the genetic sequence of the virus in January. It normally takes years for a new test to be developed and approved, according to Roche Diagnostics Chief Executive Thomas Schinecker.
The company has also been working closely with the CDC in the past few weeks to install more machines across the U.S., said Mr. Schinecker.
Other diagnostic equipment makers also have been developing new coronavirus tests, including Qiagen NV, BioMerieux and Abbott Laboratories. Some hospital systems in the U.S. have developed their own tests, which will have to seek FDA approval.
6. Facebook takedowns reveal sophistication of Russian trolls
Amazing.
The tactics the accounts used to avoid detection - and that Russia has essentially outsourced the work to countries in West Africa - shows that foreign interference remains a challenge for Facebook in the months leading to November.
The accounts Facebook took down focused on stoking racial divisions. Some posed as legitimate non-governmental organizations in order to deceive people.
The takedowns follow a report last week that found Moscow's campaign of election interference hasn't let up since 2016, and in fact has gotten more difficult to detect.
That report, from University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Young Mie Kim, found that Russia-linked social media accounts are posting about the same divisive issues - race relations, gun laws and immigration - as they did in 2016, when the Kremlin polluted American voters' feeds with messages about the presidential election. Facebook has since removed those accounts as well.
I cannot emphasize this enough. We should all heed our own national security strategy which President Trump signed in December 2017.
"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."
Facebook takedowns reveal sophistication of Russian trolls
washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com
In this Jan. 9, 2019, file photo, media and guests mingle before a tour of Facebook's new 130,000-square-foot offices, which occupy the top three floors of a 10-story Cambridge, Mass. building. Facebook and Twitter's announcements Thursday, March 12, 2020, that ...
more >
Facebook and
Twitter revealed evidence Thursday suggesting that Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election are getting more sophisticated and harder to detect.
The companies said they have removed dozens of fake accounts and pages from their services.
Facebook said the network of accounts it removed was in the "early stages" of building an audience. It was operated by people in Ghana and Nigeria on behalf of individuals in Russia. The accounts posted about topics such as black history, celebrity gossip and fashion.
Twitter, meanwhile, said the accounts it removed tried to sow discord by emphasizing social issues such as race and civil rights without favoring any particular candidate or ideology.
The tactics the accounts used to avoid detection - and that Russia has essentially outsourced the work to countries in West Africa - shows that foreign interference remains a challenge for
Facebook in the months leading to November.
The accounts
Facebook took down focused on stoking racial divisions. Some posed as legitimate non-governmental organizations in order to deceive people.
The takedowns follow a report last week that found Moscow's campaign of election interference hasn't let up since 2016, and in fact has gotten more difficult to detect.
That report, from University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Young Mie Kim, found that Russia-linked social media accounts are posting about the same divisive issues - race relations, gun laws and immigration - as they did in 2016, when the Kremlin polluted American voters' feeds with messages about the presidential election.
Facebook has since removed those accounts as well.
Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that Russia was still waging "information warfare" with an army of fictional social media personas and bots that spread disinformation.
Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in U.S. elections.
washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com
7. Pentagon to Decide if it Still Needs Green Beret Crisis Response Forces
At the SECDEF for decision. I could make a strong case for the CIFs in support of the national defense strategy if they are properly employed. We have actually used them quite extensively but just not for the original main purpose. But they absolutely can be effectively employed in support of the national defense strategy but they will need a new command and control arrangement and funding line.
Then again I am all for increasing SF resources for UW and FID. However, I think the CIFs can provide an important hybrid capability (CT/FID at the high end) if the primary mission shifts to support the NDS and theater strategy versus the national mission force.
I also think the forward deployed/permanently stationed CIFs should remain.
Pentagon to Decide if it Still Needs Green Beret Crisis Response Forces
The Pentagon chief sent a tremor through the
special operations community a couple of weeks ago when he told lawmakers that many elite crisis response forces around the world rarely get used.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper briefed the House Armed Services Committee at a Feb. 26 hearing that he is reviewing the need for special operations forces to be dedicated to permanent crisis response forces (CRF) as part of a larger review of the U.S. military's combatant commands.
"Over the years, we have stacked up crisis response forces and ... we never actually use them," Esper said.
Each of the
Army's five Special Forces Groups keeps a company-sized element on a heightened state of readiness to serve as a direct-action, crisis response force for their specific combatant command region.
Esper added that he wants to make sure that these forces are available if there is a crisis but also look at redistributing others to shore up their overall readiness posture.
"I have not made any decisions on that yet, but that is something I think we all recognize," he said.
A week later, news site SOFREP reported that U.S. Army Special Operations Command has "decided to disband the CRFs because they are said to be underutilized and because of a lack of operators," according to a
March 5 repost of the story in Business Insider.
That's not exactly accurate, according to a source inside U.S. Special Operations Command familiar with the issue.
The source agreed that the CRFs "are not being used to their full capability," but said no analysis has been done to study the impacts of removing such an important capability in each of the combatant command regions.
"The idea is we don't lose the capability, but we optimize the flexibility of it," according to the source, who was not authorized to speak to the press on the subject.
The Pentagon took its first action after a review of U.S. Africa Command by announcing in mid-February that the Army's 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade will
deploy to the continent to allow the service to return elements of an infantry brigade from the 101st Airborne Division to
Fort Campbell, Kentucky, so it can focus on its primary job of training for conventional combat.
The company-sized element of the 101st deployed to Kenya in early January as part of the East African Response Force (EARF) after an attack by al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabaab on a base in Kenya killed
one U.S. soldier and two American contractors.
Maintaining Special Forces CRFs in each combatant command region provides an option for rapid response, the USSOCOM source said, much like the ready brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Units in the
Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based airborne infantry division remain on a constant rotation of heightened readiness but are rarely used, the source said.
That all changed on New Year's Eve when the Pentagon alerted the 82nd's ready brigade for a
no-notice emergency deployment to the Middle East in response to efforts by Iran-backed militia members to breach the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Crisis response forces will not be the only mission that will be reevaluated under the combatant command review, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same hearing with Esper.
"The secretary mentioned the crisis response forces, but there's other things out there," Milley said, referring to missions that have been around for decades, such as the Army's contribution to the Multinational Force and Observers international peacekeeping mission on the Sinai peninsula.
"In 1981, I served in the Sinai. Is that still a valid mission for military forces, yes, no; arguments to be made on both sides," he said. "We're going through all that kind of stuff, every single task and purpose out there for the United States military from space down to undersea. Does it still make sense, according to the [National Defense Strategy]? ... If yes, check, continue. If not, then we delete it."
8. Foreign Policy is Much More Than a Liberal vs. Conservative Brawl
Yes, what she said. Let's talk strategy versus ideology.
Excerpts:
To better understand today's U.S. foreign policy, then, we should instead contrast the strategies, not the ideologies, drawing a distinction between those who wish to reshape the world to their liking (the 'Reactionaries'), and those who take a more gradual or passive approach (the 'Burkeans'). For the reactionaries - a group that includes neoconservatives, liberal hawks, and Jacksonian conservatives - there are few problems that cannot be solved with the application of American military power. Though they each have a different rationale, all seek to reshape the world in response to some threat. For the Burkeans, a more cautious application of American power, using diplomatic and economic means is preferred; the goal is predominantly defensive.
The result is a typology that places the emerging primacy-restraint debate in the context of divisions over sovereignty, rather than the context of party loyalties. Indeed, if there is one thing of substance to draw from the emerging work on conservative and progressive foreign policy, it is that they are largely having parallel, mirror debates. To put it another way, if you put aside party labels, it becomes quickly apparent that foreign policy is still a bipartisan affair; it's just no longer a consensus.
If we wish to understand where American foreign policy is going more broadly, therefore, the answer is probably not to seek new formulations of "conservative" or "progressive" foreign policy. Rather, it's to look at the big questions animating debate in both political parties. Who does foreign policy serve: Americans or the world? And to what extent can Americans hope to shape the world? The answers will be far more illuminating than just another liberal versus conservative brawl.
Foreign Policy is Much More Than a Liberal vs. Conservative Brawl - War on the Rocks
Colin Dueck, Age of Iron: On Conservative Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Nationalism - like power, empire, or hegemony - is one of those political science concepts that defy easy categorization and measurement. Too often, defining the term is in the eye of the beholder, and subject to their biases. Worse, in the Trump era, the definitions have become politicized. Reviewing Yoram Hazony's book,
The Virtue of Nationalism, Mark Koyama describes this quandary well:
The problem is pervasive... In the parlance of my native discipline, economics, the author continuously selects on the dependent variable. Take any historical state or event. If something turns out to be good, attribute it to nationalism. If something is bad, attribute it to the opposite of nationalism. Thus, we are told that Nazism and Japanese imperialism had little to do with nationalism.
Much the same can be said of 'conservative nationalism' as a concept within the Republican foreign policy conversation. If a decision turned out well, it was clearly an application of conservative nationalism. If it turns out badly, it was the result of excessive idealism or globalism among foreign policy elites. Neoconservatives - a core part of the Republican foreign policy apparatus even today - are routinely portrayed as Democratic and cosmopolitan interlopers. Alliances and military force are good if they're part of a conservative nationalist strategy, but bad when they arise from Wilsonian theories about multilateralism or democracy promotion - even though the practical results may look the same.
In large part, this schizophrenia is the result of a Republican foreign policy elite trying to rapidly pivot from the traditional foreign policy consensus to their new Trumpian political reality. Pasting a veneer of 'conservative nationalism' onto the existing foreign policy consensus allows elites to maintain long-running support for U.S. alliances and active forward presence, while joining in the Trump-inspired chorus criticizing the so-called 'liberal international order.'
This helps to explain one core thesis of Colin Dueck's new book on American foreign policy: that conservative internationalism is, in fact, a form of conservative nationalism.
Got it?
It's ok if you don't. That sort of cognitive dissonance - which forms the core of this interesting but frustrating book - is par for the course in today's conservative foreign policy circles. Other Republican thinkers have sought to suggest that a synthesis of internationalist, nationalist, and realist ideas is now necessary for foreign policy. Dueck instead subsumes these divisions under a common "conservative nationalist" rubric. Unfortunately, this means that the book starts to shed light on an important shift in U.S. foreign policy, but obscures its most interesting arguments under an overly simplistic liberal-conservative framework.
Like Hazony, Dueck is therefore guilty of selecting repeatedly on the dependent variable. He presents three strands of Republican foreign policy thought: nonintervention, hawkish unilateralism, and conservative internationalism. All are forms of 'conservative nationalism,' a term he doesn't really define, but implies is driven by a focus on sovereignty over cosmopolitanism. With the exception of George W. Bush, each Republican president discussed in the book is presented as some flavor of conservative nationalist. Likewise, each Democrat is an exemplar of liberal internationalism. In practice, it feels a little like everything good must be conservative and everything bad must be liberal.
To some, this might sound good in theory, but the practical applications are confusing. Dwight Eisenhower's military buildup and creation of NATO? Conservative nationalism, because he correctly feared the Soviet threat. Donald Trump's criticisms of NATO? Conservative nationalism, because he's emphasizing burden-sharing. Barry Goldwater's proposal to double down in Vietnam? Conservative nationalism. Richard Nixon's choice to conduct a 'fighting retreat' from Vietnam? Also conservative nationalism. Only the younger Bush fails to meet the bar, taking that "uncompromising nationalism so dear to American conservatives, [and] redirecting it toward a remarkably high-risk, assertive, idealistic, and even Wilsonian strategy within the Middle East."
The result is an ill-defined overview of a foreign policy approach whose prescriptions appear to change randomly over time; the reader is left wondering if conservative nationalism isn't merely a synonym for realism or the 'national interest,' with variation explained by simple changes in external threat perception. Within the context of an existential Cold War struggle, the narrative suggests, different strands of Republican foreign policy pulled together; in the absence of that pressure, they have started to fray.
Global versus National
The theoretical weakness of Dueck's book is a shame, because the global-national divide in foreign policy to which he alludes is increasingly salient. And it is confined neither to the right nor to the United States, from the rise of right-wing anti-immigrant governments in Eastern Europe, to the debacle that is Brexit, and an increasingly nationalistic Chinese government running 're-education camps' for religious minorities.
Some of these shifts reflect classic ethnic nationalism: the protection of in-group identity through immigration barriers, natalist policies, or other insular steps. Others are more the result of a classic conception of civic nationalism and sovereignty found in the United States and some other Western, pluralist democracies. Both kinds of nationalism are found in American politics today. Indeed, the literature on American exceptionalism notwithstanding, it's impossible to argue that Trump's immigration policies are driven by anything other than ethnic nationalism.
From the point of view of foreign policy, however, it's the question of sovereignty that is most intriguing.
At heart, this is a question of
whom foreign policy serves, one that both political parties - not just Republicans - are grappling with as they fumble towards the post-Trump era. The classic formulation of this question, as Heather Hurlburt has described, is about domestic politics; the idea of the 'national interest' is usually oversimplified in assuming for example,that the interests of elites are aligned with the masses, an assumption that has rarely - if ever - been entirely true.
But there is also a national-transnational cleavage at work here, as structural changes in the international system make it more difficult for foreign policy to benefit Americans and foreign countries at the same time. Are trade deals and forward military presence about promoting greater global openness or about advantaging American businesses and workers? Are alliances about protecting American security or the security of foreign states? Should Americans intervene militarily overseas to protect the human rights of foreign citizens when it will cost them in blood, treasure or even security?
None of these are new dilemmas. Dueck's book shines when he highlights the importance of these divisions in the pre-World War II era. But thanks to the Soviet threat and America's preponderance of power after the Cold War, they were relatively easy to ignore. As the unipolar moment ends, however, it is far more difficult to argue that America's national interest is good for the rest of the world, or - conversely - that America's role as global policeman is actually good for Americans.
On the conservative side, as Dueck's book suggests, this is primarily an argument about sovereignty. Conservatives like John Bolton have long been skeptical of multilateral organizations, treaties, and alliances. During Trump's tenure, classic conservative internationalists - who once talked about defending democracy, alliances, or American global 'leadership' - have found themselves in the uncomfortable position of trying to defend treaties and alliances by tying them concretely to U.S. national security. Like Dueck, some are increasingly making the argument that Republican foreign policy leaders ought to abandon support for free trade and press allies on cost-sharing in order to maintain public support for a large U.S. overseas military presence.
On the Democratic side of the aisle, the debate is less about whether multilateralism is good. All seem to accept that multilateralism is more morally attractive and practically effective than unilateralism. But there is a significant divide between classic liberal internationalist hawks and a growing intervention-skeptical progressive wing of the party. The former accepts classic Wilsonian principles, arguing that it's America's duty to uphold international norms like the Responsibility to Protect, and to engage in democracy promotion. The latter are supportive of these ideas in theory, but far more skeptical of America's ability to improve things in practice, and worried about the indirect impact of such policies on the safety and security of Americans.
Where does this leave us? A now standard typology of American foreign policy - as formulated by Walter Russell Mead - divides people into Jacksonians, Jeffersonians, Hamiltonians, and Wilsonians based on whether they were idealists or realists, and whether they took a global or a national view of foreign policy.
The former division has typically been viewed as far more important, undoubtedly why even a book about nationalism like Dueck's is framed as idealism versus pragmatism. Instead, the evidence suggests that the global-national distinction he draws out may be the central cleavage in American foreign policy in coming years.
Reactionaries and Burkeans
Taken together, these trends suggest that Mead's typology may not be as effective as it used to be in explaining today's divisions in American foreign policy. Dueck begins to address this when he tries to describe what differentiates conservative nationalism from liberal views of foreign policy; he concedes that all varieties of U.S. foreign policy "wrestle with the distinctly American questions of how best to promote popular forms of self-government overseas."
Indeed, it is impossible to argue that liberal visions for American foreign policy don't share this priority with conservatives; the easiest criticism one can level at liberal internationalism is its privileging of human rights and spreading democracy over key security concerns. The conservative-led War in Iraq, and the liberal-led intervention in Libya both sought to reshape other societies to be more like America; both produced massively detrimental results for U.S. national security on a practical level, from the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State to the European refugee crisis.
Even realist or anti-war visions for U.S. foreign policy don't ignore the question of how best to maintain or even spread American values. Hans Morgenthau, godfather of classical realism, was always careful to clarify that realists are not amoral. As he put it:
Political realism does not require, nor does it condone, indifference to political ideals and moral principles, but it requires indeed a sharp distinction between the desirable and the possible - between what is desirable everywhere and at all times and what is possible under the concrete circumstances of time and place.
Morgenthau's writings may be out of fashion in modern academic and policy circles, but his credo is still followed by some of today's thinkers. From the left, Bernie Sanders, has made similar arguments, noting:
Foreign policy is about whether we continue to champion the values of freedom, democracy and justice... But it's a truth we must face. Far too often, American intervention and the use of American military power has produced unintended consequences which have caused incalculable harm.
From the libertarian point of view, Chris Preble asks, "What we can do to advance individual liberty through peaceful means?"
Source: Image created by the author.
To put it a different way, there's a good argument to be made that all Americans are idealists to some extent.
What differs is their assessment of how possible it is to reshape the world, and how aggressively to pursue that goal. Or as Adam Mount has described this split among progressives, it's the difference between liberals - who still want to use American power to reshape other states and world politics into a more pleasing alignment - and what he describes as 'solidarists' - those who believe firmly in democracy and human rights for all, but are skeptical of America's ability to achieve it, and worried about the backlash such efforts provoke.
In this world, a better formulation of Mead's typology would jettison the idealism-realism axis and replace it with a spectrum of activism: Burkeans pursuing gradual, conservative continuity on one end, and reactionaries seeking global wholesale change on the other. The realism-idealism axis is not unimportant, but it tells us relatively less about differences in the key approaches to foreign policy today. As much as realists like myself might wish it to be otherwise, to a large extent, today's realignment in foreign policy today is less a post-World War I style rejection of idealism, and more a reassessment of means. Jacksonians like Trump want to reshape the world to America's benefit, but as Mead correctly notes, are not idealists. The anti-war left is skeptical of America's ability to reshape the world, but fervently believe in transnational human rights.
To better understand today's U.S. foreign policy, then, we should instead contrast the strategies, not the ideologies, drawing a distinction between those who wish to reshape the world to their liking (the 'Reactionaries'), and those who take a more gradual or passive approach (the 'Burkeans'). For the reactionaries - a group that includes neoconservatives, liberal hawks, and Jacksonian conservatives - there are few problems that cannot be solved with the application of American military power. Though they each have a different rationale, all seek to reshape the world in response to some threat. For the Burkeans, a more cautious application of American power, using diplomatic and economic means is preferred; the goal is predominantly defensive.
The result is a typology that places the emerging primacy-restraint debate in the context of divisions over sovereignty, rather than the context of party loyalties. Indeed, if there is one thing of substance to draw from the emerging work on conservative and progressive foreign policy, it is that they are largely having parallel, mirror debates. To put it another way, if you put aside party labels, it becomes quickly apparent that foreign policy is still a bipartisan affair; it's just no longer a consensus.
If we wish to understand where American foreign policy is going more broadly, therefore, the answer is probably not to seek new formulations of "conservative" or "progressive" foreign policy. Rather, it's to look at the big questions animating debate in both political parties. Who does foreign policy serve: Americans or the world? And to what extent can Americans hope to shape the world? The answers will be far more illuminating than just another liberal versus conservative brawl.
Emma Ashford is a Research Fellow in Defense and Foreign Policy at the Cato Institute, where she studies U.S. grand strategy and the politics of energy. Her current book project - Oil, the State, and War - is an examination of the links between oil and foreign policy in petrostates.
9. American commandos to hold down the fort in Afghanistan as US troops withdraw
American commandos to hold down the fort in Afghanistan as US troops withdraw
The commander of U.S. Central Command confirmed that American special operators would serve as the main security force to combat terrorists and militants across
Afghanistan as U.S. troops begin to draw down.
A U.S-Taliban deal inked Feb. 29 that could see the withdrawal of all American forces has lawmakers worried that the Taliban could return to power in
Afghanistan and breathe new life into the plethora of terror groups that operate in the region.
Pentagon planners and lawmakers have voiced support for maintaining a small
counterterrorism footprint in Afghanistan as hedge against the Taliban reneging on its commitments outlined in the agreement. The deal with the Taliban calls for all American troops to leave within 14 months.
But Marine Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the commander of CENTCOM, explained to lawmakers Thursday during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that even a small counterterrorism footprint below 8,600 troops would require major progress in intra-Afghan talks and integration between the Taliban and Afghan army.
"We've watched the Taliban compress and crush ISIS presence on the ground in southern Nangarhar."
Shawn Snow
McKenzie explained to lawmakers that the U.S. could not maintain a small counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan below 8,600 troops if the Taliban continue large scale attacks against Afghan forces. He said on Thursday that going smaller requires integration between the Taliban and Afghan government.
The special operations security construct was first reported by the
Washington Post.
The CENTCOM commander explained that the principle driver to maintaining a smaller counterterrorism posture below 8,600 was a "far lower level" of violence across the country - something the Taliban has failed to deliver on despite their signed commitment with the U.S. to do so.
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McKenzie told lawmakers that the Taliban continue to launch small-scale attacks against Afghan forces across the country. He said the level of violence carried out by the Taliban was not consistent with a group planning to honor its agreements.
During a hearing on Tuesday, McKenzie told members of the House Armed Services Committee that he would advise not reducing the U.S. footprint below 8,600 if the peace progress stalls or if Afghan forces are are not capable of defending the country.
The U.S. has already started started drawing down forces to 8,600 as stipulated by the Taliban agreement, but pending progress in peace talks and a reduction in violence across the country the Pentagon says it has no plans to reduce its footprint below that number.
McKenzie explained that there was nothing really new about the Pentagon's plans to use special operators as the driving force to combat terrorists groups as the troop draw down commences. He told senators Thursday that's just how the U.S. military has been "doing business for awhile now in Afghanistan."
American special operators have served as a hammer calling in strikes against Taliban and ISIS militants for several years now while conventional advisers help train Afghan forces.
However, there is risk for American commandos as conventional forces begin to exit Afghanistan. McKenzie explained that U.S. special operators in Afghanistan operate in a "conventional force structure."
That means they require support from enablers like logistics, air power, intelligence and strike capabilities from both U.S. conventional troops and host nation partner forces.
To be able to draw down the U.S. footprint below 8,600 and still operate a robust counterterrorism campaign with adequate support and protection for special operators requires a more "permissive" environment in Afghanistan.
That would mean a reduction in violence where U.S. forces could focus on ISIS and al-Qaida and not have to defend against Taliban attacks.
McKenzie explained that the U.S. could reduce the number of bases across Afghanistan if American commandos did not have to worry about defending from Taliban attacks.
On Tuesday, McKenzie said that the military has yet to develop plans for a full withdrawal from Afghanistan despite a signed agreement with the Taliban to draw down all American forces within 14 months.
10. Clearing the Air on 5G
Excerpts:
In the race to 5G, time matters - not just for making spectrum available but for the broad deployment of network infrastructure across all of the United States. A solution that takes the better part of a decade to deploy will not make the United States a leader but a slow follower. As China races ahead to to deploy their 5G technology and infrastructure across the globe, the US cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. This debate should not be about a false choice - National Security vs commercial 5G deployment. Spectrum sharing technology enables both objectives to be fulfilled within timeframe that is relevant. Choosing otherwise when better options are available would be a bad deal.
While much of the focus on 5G in the Western press has concerned Huawei, the Chinese telecom behemoth, there is another 5G storm brewing within the United States that involves America's largest telecom companies. Consumers might assume that this storm includes the standard competition between companies for better handsets or faster download speeds. But the fiercest battles are being fought between U.S. companies and the U.S. government over what parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to use for 5G development, and how to use them.
Unfortunately, several questionable proposals have recently bubbled to the surface that threaten U.S. national security and fail to provide an actionable strategy for U.S. 5G development. If enacted, these proposals will set the United States back in the race to 5G and further diminish America's competitive edge against China. Many of these proposals cite the Defense Innovation Board's
5G report published last April, which we co-authored. Unfortunately, many cite it incorrectly. It's time to set the record straight and clear the air on America's 5G development.
The U.S. telecommunications industry is pressing the U.S. government - and the Department of Defense specifically - to give up its critical positions on the spectrum access rights it now has and hand those positions to industry. Such an eviction would cause irreparable harm to U.S. national security and fail to create a viable U.S. 5G solution in time to compete with China. This proposal chooses to ignore a clear and viable alternative that would better support both the Defense Department and industry objectives: sharing spectrum with government instead of kicking government out.
The fight for spectrum began as a debate over spectrum location and has evolved into a debate over spectrum ownership.
The "location" debate revolves around which bands of spectrum businesses should use for building a 5G network. There are two main options: "sub-6" (1-6 Gigahertz, also known as "mid-band") or "mmWave" (24-300 Gigahertz, also known as "high-band") spectrum. Our report argued that, while mmWave can provide exquisite capability in targeted applications - particularly for the military - the telecommunications industry would need to focus on sub-6 to provide nationwide coverage. The mmWave vs sub-6 argument was initially heated as companies tried to justify their mmWave investments, but these claims soon lost traction as
early deployments rapidly showed the impracticality of mmWave 5G for broad area area coverage. Industry only began demanding access to sub-6 spectrum within the last year after these problems came to light.
Since then, the debate has moved to spectrum "ownership." This debate addresses the precious bands of sub-6 that will enable nationwide 5G coverage and how to allocate those bands between government and commercial stakeholders. In the United States, government organizations like the Defense Department have traditionally been assigned exclusive access to large portions of the sub-6 spectrum to make use of its broad utility (while mmWave has potential in targeted applications, the majority of Department operations rely on sub-6). There is, indeed, significant room to put Defense Department spectrum to productive commercial use. However, industry now demands that the Defense Department
vacate its spectrum positions entirely so that the government can license sub-6 spectrum exclusively to telecom providers. In theory, this would allow telecom would to operate in sub-6 without having to deconflict their operations with government. But in reality, it would both jeopardize U.S. national security and be highly impractical to implement. Most importantly, it would not create a viable 5G ecosystem in time for the United States to compete with China.
The fact is that forcing the Defense Department out of its bands of spectrum would take years to implement, require billions of taxpayer dollars, and ultimately cause critical damage to the Pentagon's global operations. Vacating spectrum is only half the battle; in order to free the desired spectrum for commercial use, the Defense Department would then have to identify new viable bands of spectrum, test systems on those bands, and then replace all relevant systems with new ones that can operate in that new location. Moreover, there is not an abundance of viable spectrum, making relocation even more challenging. Sub-6 is sometimes called the "goldilocks" of spectrum: not too high or too low but able to find a balance between the longer range achievable in lower bands of spectrum while maintaining the discrimination and capacity of higher bands of spectrum. For this reason, much of sub-6 is already crowded with a variety of radars and other systems, and would lack many viable options for relocation if defense systems had to vacate their current positions.
Moreover, evicting defense systems would not create a viable and secure 5G alternative in time to compete with Chinese offerings. Time is of the essence - China has a viable sub-6 5G solution now and is deploying quickly at home and abroad.
China has directly assigned 600 Megahertz of sub-6 spectrum to its three national carriers and is already rapidly building out networks. Since the first mover in 5G stands to gain billions of dollars in revenue and massive job creation, the United States should move quickly to reap any such benefits. The United States simply does not have the five to 10 years it would take to move defense systems out of their current positions and hand exclusive spectrum rights to commercial users.
There is a better way for the Defense Department to promote commercial wireless. Instead of impracticable option of vacating its positions, the Pentagon should share parts of its sub-6 spectrum bands with the commercial sector. Sharing spectrum could take just two to three years instead of the 5 to 10 years that vacating requires, would cost millions of dollars instead of billions, and would not put national security operations at risk. Sharing spectrum provides the strongest path forward for the United States in the race to 5G, both to gain first mover economic advantage awarded to the first mover and to provide a trusted, secure, and reliable 5G alternative to the Chinese 5G model for the global community to use overseas. Building on lessons learned with Citizens Broadband Radio Service shared spectrum, which now provides 150 MegahertzHz of mid-band shared military radar spectrum to commercial users, the Defense Department can be even more effective in sharing additional mid-band spectrum blocks.
Since the Pentagon already shares spectrum abroad, it has many incentives to pursue spectrum sharing within the United States. The Defense Department operates globally, working with allies and fighting against adversaries that are not bound by U.S. rules regarding spectrum use. The United States is only able to ensure exclusive spectrum access inside its own territory; outside the United States, sharing spectrum is the norm. For this reason, the Defense Department should embrace the prospect of sharing domestically as it already shares spectrum overseas. The good news is that the Pentagon is taking proactive steps in the right direction. For example, in the fall of 2019, it named
four military bases that would host 5G testing and then assigned Hill Air Force Base as the
focal point for spectrum sharing experimentation. Additionally, not only is the Defense Department participating in ongoing discussions with the National Telecommunications Information Association and Congress to
share hundreds of Megahertz of its spectrum, it has subsequently taken steps to
work with industry in that regard.
For all this progress, it is important to bear in mind that the Defense Department is not the arbiter of spectrum allocation. That role belongs to the National Telecommunications and Information Association and the Federal Communications Commission, which control government and commercial spectrum, respectively. The success or failure of U.S. 5G development depends on these organizations taking rapid, aggressive action in the coming months to support spectrum sharing.
The Pentagon can further support spectrum-sharing efforts by dynamically balancing the needs of different users. Rather than wait for the development of new technologies and algorithms, or implement overly prescriptive sharing rules for each defense system, the Pentagon can - in the near term - take advantage of statistical patterns of spectrum use, and coordinate prioritized operation in those bands. This dynamic allocation would reflect demands on the network over the long term and would likely be possible using modern base station equipment. By coordinating use instead of setting static rules for sharing on each discrete system, it may be possible to protect Defense Department operations while guaranteeing telecommunications vendors a baseline of connectivity and optimizing network use for both groups. The Defense Department should consider new and innovative methods of sharing spectrum now, and engage the U.S. industrial base to ensure its access to available, reliable, secure, and trusted 5G networks both at home and abroad.
Industry efforts to completely remove military access to it's current spectrum positions are damaging to national security and will not create a viable U.S. 5G option in time to compete with China. Global telecom operators are making choices about how to deploy 5G now. U.S. 5G spectrum policy should make useful spectrum for 5G deployment available quickly and create incentives for network infrastructure to be deployed rapidly. Spectrum is only useful if services are deployed within it.
In the race to 5G, time matters - not just for making spectrum available but for the broad deployment of network infrastructure across all of the United States. A solution that takes the better part of a decade to deploy will not make the United States a leader but a slow follower. As China races ahead to to deploy their 5G technology and infrastructure across the globe, the US cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. This debate should not be about a false choice - National Security vs commercial 5G deployment. Spectrum sharing technology enables both objectives to be fulfilled within timeframe that is relevant. Choosing otherwise when better options are available would be a bad deal.
Milo Medin is the vice president of wireless services at Google and a member of the Defense Innovation Board. Gilman Louie is the founder of Alsop Louie, the founder and former CEO of In-Q-Tel, and an advisor to the Defense Innovation Board. They are co-authors of the Defense Innovation Board's report on 5G. The authors do not represent the Department of Defense or the Defense Innovation Board; their views are theirs alone.
11. BREAKING: We've Got The Vaccine, Says Pentagon-Funded Company
Really?
Medicago CEO Bruce Clark said his company could produce as many as 10 million doses a month. If regulatory hurdles can be cleared, he said in a Thursday interview, the vaccine could start to become available in November.
An Israeli research lab has also claimed to have created a vaccine. But Clark says his company's technique, which has already been proven effective in producing vaccines for seasonal flu, is more reliable and easier to scale.
BREAKING: We've Got The Vaccine, Says Pentagon-Funded Company
Canadian firm says it could make 10 million doses per month - if its innovative production method wins FDA approval.
In this 2014 photo, young tobacco plants of a unique variety grow in the greenhouse at Medicago USA, Inc. in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Through its plant-based technology, the facility is capable of producing millions of doses of vaccines.
Canadian firm says it could make 10 million doses per month - if its innovative production method wins FDA approval.
A Canadian company says that it has produced a
COVID-19 vaccine just 20 days after receiving the coronavirus's genetic sequence, using a unique technology that they soon hope to submit for
FDA approval.
Medicago
CEO Bruce Clark said his company could produce as many as 10 million doses a month. If regulatory hurdles can be cleared, he said in a Thursday interview, the vaccine could start to become available in November.
An Israeli research lab
has also claimed to have created a vaccine. But Clark says his company's technique, which has already been proven effective in producing vaccines for seasonal flu, is more reliable and easier to scale.
"There are a couple of others who are claiming that they have - well, we will call them vaccine[s]" for
COVID-19, he said. "But they're different technologies. Some are
RNA- or
DNA-based vaccines that have not yet been proven in any indication yet, let alone this one. Hopefully, they'll be successful."
How did Clark's team create one so quickly,? They use plants, not chicken eggs, as a
bioreactor for growing vaccine proteins.
Traditional vaccine production
requires eggs, a lot of them. Vaccine manufacturers inject the virus into the eggs, where it propagates. But using eggs is expensive, takes a long time, and is far from perfect. Mutations can yield vaccines that don't match up to the virus they aim to shut down, Clark said
So Medicago doesn't work with a live virus. Instead, it uses plants, a
relatively new approach that has seen much advancement in the past decade. It inserts a genetic sequence into agrobacterium, a soil bacteria, which is taken up by plants - in this case, a close cousin to tobacco. The plant begins to produce the protein that can then be used as a vaccine. If the virus begins to mutate, as is expected for
COVID-19, they can just update the production using new plants.
"That's the difference between us" and egg-based methods, he said, "we go directly to producing the vaccine or the antibody without having to propagate the virus."
Using plants and genetically engineered agrobacteria works faster than eggs also makes the vaccine much easier to produce at scale, which, in part, is why the
U.S. military has invested in the company.
In 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or
DARPA, put together a $100 million program dubbed
Blue Angel to look into new forms of vaccine discovery and production. A big chunk of that money went to Medicago to build a facility in North Carolina, where they showed that they could find a vaccine in just 20 days, then rapidly scale up production.
Clark says that once they get the green light, they will be able to produce 10 million vaccine doses a month.
He said the only obstacles at this point are regulatory. The company's technique isn't yet
FDA-approved and would need to go through clinical trials.
"Our basic plan is to be in human studies, phase one, by the July time frame; and then, it would depend, quite extensively, on the decisions the regulators make in terms of the hurdles they want us to have in the normal course of development," he said.
Clark says that he understands that cutting corners in drug development invites risk. But, he says, "There's a lot of room for negotiation with the regulators. I won't put words in their mouths...I will say our intention, taking a very standard approach, is that by November we will have completed phase
III," in clinical trials - allowing the vaccine to be made widely available to the public.
Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He's also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, ... Full bio
12. Army Offers to Repay Soldiers' College Loans if They Go Infantry
Buried lede: we need smart people in the Infantry.
Excerpt:
"There's a very unique bond between infantry soldiers not found in any other [career] in the Army," Staff. Sgt. Leonard Markley, a recruiter in Toledo, Ohio, whose primary career field is infantry, said in a recent service news release. "It's us against the world, and we as infantrymen all know about the hardships that come with this [career]: walking countless miles, sleep deprivation and rationed meals.
"Even when I see another infantryman walking by, I have respect for him and have his back, because we are brothers through all our hardships," he added.
As one of the many great Command Sergeants Majors with whom I have served used to say: "Soldiers bond in three ways: shared combat, shared hardship in training, and shared beer drinking."
And as Jagger and Richards wrote:
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
Army Offers to Repay Soldiers' College Loans if They Go Infantry
The U.S.
Army is offering to pay off student loans of up to $65,000 or to give $15,000 bonuses to recruits willing to sign up for the infantry.
The Army has been offering increased financial incentives to attract recruits to take on one of its most physically challenging jobs since it
missed its recruiting goal in fiscal 2018 by 6,500 soldiers.
"There's a very unique bond between infantry soldiers not found in any other [career] in the Army," Staff. Sgt. Leonard Markley, a recruiter in Toledo, Ohio, whose primary career field is infantry, said in a recent service news release. "It's us against the world, and we as infantrymen all know about the hardships that come with this [career]: walking countless miles, sleep deprivation and rationed meals.
"Even when I see another infantryman walking by, I have respect for him and have his back, because we are brothers through all our hardships," he added.
To qualify for the infantry, applicants must score a minimum of 87 on the combat line score of the Armed Forces Qualification Test and pass the Occupational Physical Assessment Test at the heavy level, according to the release.
Recruits attend a 22-week Infantry One Station Unit Training at
Fort Benning, Georgia. During training, they will list their specific infantry job preferences, although assignments are determined by the needs of the Army. Upon graduation, soldiers are assigned as either an infantryman (11B) or an indirect fire infantryman (11C), the release states.
"The Infantry has instilled a work ethic in me that is noticeably different than my peers," Markley said. "This work ethic and discipline will set me apart wherever I go after the military. It is the premier career for leadership and management development skills. I can go anywhere and be a successful manager in any civilian field."
Until recently, Army recruiters were offering
bonuses of up to $40,000 for a six-year enlistment in the infantry. The Army began paying out hefty bonuses for infantry recruits in May 2019 to meet a shortfall of about 3,300 infantry training seats by the end of fiscal 2019. It was part of a
sweeping new recruiting strategy launched at the beginning of fiscal 2019, after the service missed its fiscal 2018 goal.
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:
"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."
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