Category Archives: China aggression

Obama: Naysayers on Economy, Peddling Fiction

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The market is spiraling. China who is the second largest U.S. debt holder has an economy that is spiraling oil prices are spiraling and what about WalMart?

Walmart to shutter 269 stores – including more than half in US

Guardian: The retail giant announced it is working to transfer 10,000 US employees to nearby stores, as CEO said closings are ‘necessary to keep the company strong’

Walmart is closing 269 stores, more than half of them in the US and another big chunk in its challenging Brazilian market. The stores being shuttered account for a fraction of the company’s 11,000 stores worldwide and less than 1% of its global revenue, but according to workers’ group Making Change at Walmart, this announcement will affect 10,000 US employees.

More than 95% of the stores set to be closed in the US are within 10 miles of another Walmart. The Bentonville, Arkansas, company said it is working to ensure that workers are placed in nearby locations.

The store closures will start at the end of the month, and many closures will be of the company’s Walmart Express stores: all 102 of them (out of the 154 locations to be shuttered in the US).

In 2011, Walmart Express marked the retailer’s first entry into the convenience store arena. The stores are about 12,000 square feet and sell essentials like toothpaste. But the concept never caught on as the stores served the same purpose as Walmart’s larger Neighborhood Markets: fill-in trips and prescription pickups.

By: Greg Campbell

During his final State of the Union Address on Tuesday, amidst his unseemly campaign politicking in a year where he is ineligible for reelection, President Obama sniped at Republicans and touted supposed economic successes that have occurred under his stewardship.

He even insisted that anyone “claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.”

To hear Obama speak of supposed economic success is hardly surprising; the president has long kept his own counsel and obliged himself his own conjured facts and false realities.

His administration has touted “bringing peace to Syria” as an accomplishment. As Obamacare takes effect like Cancer metastasizing in a body, he continues to assert that Americans love it and that it is working. He insisted just last week that he held the constitutional authority to undermine the Second Amendment without Congress.

So, it is of little surprise to discover that this same delusional man asserted that it is those who warn of Obama’s economy that are “peddling fiction.”

The fact is that by simple and complex metrics alike, it’s easy to see the devastating toll his “leadership” has taken on our nation’s financial health.

It turns out that not only is Obama being less-than-honest, but he’s outright lying. Obama’s economy can boast of the worst economic numbers in over 80 years!

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The economic expansion—already the worst on record since World War II—is weaker than previously thought, according to newly revised data.

From 2012 through 2014, the economy grew at an all-too-familiar rate of 2% annually, according to three years of revised figures the Commerce Department released Thursday. That’s a 0.3 percentage point downgrade from prior estimates.

The revisions were released concurrently with the government’s first estimate of second-quarter output.

Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace through the end of last year. That’s more than a half-percentage point worse than the next-weakest expansion of the past 70 years, the one from 2001 through 2007. While there have been highs and lows in individual quarters, overall the economy has failed to break out of its roughly 2% pattern for six years.

Obama, admittedly, came to office at a time when America was in trouble. Applying for the job of president, he promised to help revitalize the economy. What came from him and his Democratic minions in Congress was a punishing program of job-killing economic burdens on job creators and an expansion of government increased government dependency and that squeezed more and more out of the middle class and the lower class.

The Daily Caller reports on Obama’s failures:

Over the first five years of Obama’s presidency, the U.S. economy grew more slowly than during any five-year period since just after the end of World War II, averaging less than 1.3 percent per year. If we leave out the sharp recession of 1945-46 following World War II, Obama looks even worse, ranking dead last among all presidents since 1932. No other president since the Great Depression has presided over such a steadily poor rate of economic growth during his first five years in office. This slow growth should not be a surprise in light of the policies this administration has pursued.

An economy usually grows rapidly in the years immediately following a recession. As Peter Ferrera points out in Forbes, the U.S. economy has not even reached its long run average rate of growth of 3.3 percent; the highest annual growth rate since Obama took office was 2.8 percent. Total growth in real GDP over the 19 quarters of economic recovery since the second quarter of 2009 has been 10.2 percent. Growth over the same length of time during previous post-World War II recoveries has ranged from 15.1 percent during George W. Bush’s presidency to 30 percent during the recovery that began when John F. Kennedy was elected.

Facts and figures are to Obama like BBs to a tank; they just simply bounce-off without having any real effect.

When he and his fellow Democrats encounter facts that do not jibe with their preferred narratives, they simply deny reality in favor of crafting a new one to spoon-feed to the lapdog media and the government-dependent and government-created invalids who are willing to believe his lies without any semblance of critical thought.

In truth, it takes no economic genius to understand our situation. It requires just some honest observation.

Are jobs more plentiful than they were before?

Is it easier to obtain the American dream now than before?

Is $18 trillion+ in national debt a good indicator of economic stability?

Ukraine Cyber Attack on Power Grid, U.S. Warning

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Ex-spy chief: Ukrainian cyberattack a warning sign for US utilities

Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA, says the US faces ‘darkening skies’ after malware linked power outages in Ukraine.

MIAMI — Former National Security Agency chief Gen. Michael Hayden warned that a recent malware attack on the Ukrainian power grid is yet another troubling sign that the US electric supply is vulnerable to hackers.

The Dec. 23 attack on utilities serving the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine appears to be the second confirmed incident of a computer-based attack to damage physical infrastructure. The attack led to blackouts throughout the region for several hours before power was restored. The Stuxnet worm that targeted the Iranian nuclear program is the only other such incident.

What happened in Ukraine is a harbinger for the kinds of cyberthreats the US faces, possibly from rival nations such as Russia and North Korea, the retired Air Force general told a crowd of critical infrastructure experts at the S4x16 security conference in Miami. General Hayden served as director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and served as CIA chief from 2006 to 2009.

“There a darkening sky,” he told reporters after his speech Tuesday, referring to the increasing threat of malware infections leading to physical damages. “This is another data point on an arc that we’ve long predicted,” he said, acknowledging that the Ukraine attack reinforces concerns in official circles about security of the American power grid. What’s more, he said, if early analysis of malware discovered at the Ukrainian facility that links it to Russia is accurate, the incident foreshadows a troubling uptick in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia over the disputed Crimea region.

The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that a version of the BlackEnergy program linked to the Ukraine attack has been discovered in US facilities. Hayden said that the link was troubling. “If they have a presence on the grid [with BlackEnergy] then they have already achieved what they need to carry out a destructive attack.”
Analysis of the malware recovered from the Ukrainian facility conducted by the security firm iSight Partners and SANS Institute revealed that a variant of BlackEnergy, dubbed “BlackEnergy3,” was present in the compromised utilities. However, security experts caution that it is premature to conclude that BlackEnergy was actually involved in the outages.

“It is possible but far too early in the technical analysis to state that,” wrote Michael Assante, who heads up industrial control system research for SANS. “Simply put, there is still evidence that has yet to be uncovered that may refute the minutia of the specific components of the malware portion of the attack.”

Hayden also remarked during his talk Friday on the general state of overall cybersecurity, calling on US lawmakers to pass legislation that will help bolster the nation’s digital defenses.

He also criticized of efforts by FBI Director James Comey, and others in the Obama administration, to weaken strong encryption on consumer devices to make it easier for law enforcement to conduct surveillance operations. “End-to-end encryption is good for America,” he said. “I know that it represents challenges for the FBI, but on balance it creates more security for Americans than the alternative – backdoors.”

Regarding the recent Office of Personnel Management hack – which US intelligence agencies and cybersecurity expert have blamed on China – Hayden said that as head of the NSA he would have absolutely stolen similar data from the Chinese government if given the opportunity. What’s more, he said, he wouldn’t have had to ask permission to carry out the operation.

“Fundamentally, the limiting factor now is a lack of legal and policy framework to do what we are capable of doing today,” Hayden said. “OPM isn’t a bad on China,” he said. “It’s a bad on us.”

What is vulnerable in the United States?

Project ‘Gridstrike’ Finds Substations To Hit For A US Power Grid Blackout

Turns out free and publicly available information can be used to determine the most critical electric substations in the US, which if attacked, could result in a nationwide blackout.

Remember that million-dollar Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) study in 2013 that found that attacks on just nine electric substations in the US could cause a blackout across the entire grid? Well, a group of researchers decided to see just what it would take for a small group of domestic terrorists to identify the US’s most critical substations — using only free and public sources of information.

While FERC relied on confidential and private information in its shocking report and spent a whopping $1 million in research, researchers at iSIGHT Partners used only so-called open-source intelligence, at a cost of just $15,000 total for 250 man-hours by their estimates. The Wall Street Journal, which obtained and first reported on the confidential FERC report, never publicly revealed the crucial substations ID’ed by FERC for obvious reasons, nor does iSIGHT plan to disclose publicly the ones it found.

Sean McBride, lead analyst for critical infrastructure at iSIGHT, says the goal of his team’s so-called “Gridstrike” project was to determine how a small local-grown terror group could sniff out the key substations to target if it were looking to cause a power blackout — either via physical means, a cyberattack, or a combination of the two. “How would an adversary go about striking at the grid?” McBride said in an interview with Dark Reading. He will speak publicly for the first time about the Gridstrike research next week at the S4x2016 ICS/SCADA conference in Miami.

The iSIGHT researchers drew from a combination of publicly available transmission substation information, maps, Google Earth, and grid congestion documentation, and drew correlations among the substations that serve the top ten cities in the US. They then were able to come up with 15 substations that serve as the backbone for much of the electric grid: knocking out those substations would result in a nationwide blackout, they say.

FERC’s report had concluded that the US could suffer a nationwide blackout if nine of the nation’s 55,000 electric transmission substations were shut down by attackers.

“We looked at maps and tried to … identify [power] generation facilities, and looked up both centers and what substations are in the middle that would make high-value targets,” for example, McBride says. “We tried to identify which substations have the highest number of transmission lines coming in and out,” as well, and weighed their significance.

The researchers shared the findings from Gridstrike with their customers as well as “organizations most interested from a defense perspective” to such attacks, says McBride, who declined to provide any further details on the specific organizations.

“We were extremely concerned about the amount of publicly available information” on the critical substations, McBride says. There were several documents available publicly that should not have been: in some cases, a sensitive document was sitting on an organization’s public website even though it specified that the report was not for public consumption.

The hope is that the findings will alert critical infrastructure and other organizations with ties to the power grid that understanding how an adversary thinks can help shore up defenses, McBride says. “They need to manage their recon exposure.”

What does all of this mean for the US power grid’s actual vulnerability to a physical or cyber-physical attack? McBride says the openly available intel is “reason for concern.” He says he worries more about the possibility of a regional, localized, grid attack targeting a city or area, than a nationwide attack.

As for the recent power blackout in the Ukraine that appears to have been due in part to a cyberattack, McBride says he’d be surprised if the attackers didn’t gather some of their reconnaissance via open source intelligence.

 

THAAD vs. North Korea weapon test

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I was asked today if the facts told by North Korea launching a thermonuclear weapon was accurate. My response was kinda sorta. The matter of North Korea performing this launch test was no surprise for those paying attention as North Korea warned of this last month.

One would think that after this recent North Korea test and the three previous tests, the National Security Council, the White House and the Pentagon would announce the placement of all offensive measures with respect to North Korea and Iran…so far…nothing announced at all. Hummmm.

This test appears to be a hybrid weapon of sorts or a primary test launch for that they are designing and building. Either way, there are many widespread implications and it is necessary to put China and Iran into the blame equation. The Obama White House as well as the John Kerry State Department immediately threw cold water on the whole notion of accuracy in the successful post launch announcement. Of course they did given this administration is not equipped or opposed enough to condemn the action except to pass it off to the United Nations for a lame and feeble isolation resolution.

What never does get mention is what are the defenses against a successful more destructive launch either by Iran or North Korea? We DO have them.

Missile Defense

Learn about THAAD. Perhaps a courtesy of Ronald Reagan and his ‘star wars’ mission.

THAAD = Terminal High Altitude Area Defense

THAAD

THAAD


Gertz/FreeBeacon: Preliminary U.S. intelligence estimates have concluded that North Korea’s fourth underground nuclear test on Tuesday involved a small explosion that could be a component of a larger-scale thermonuclear device.

U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports of the underground test estimated the low yield of the detected blast to be between 5 kilotons to 7 kilotons—far less than would be detected in a two-stage thermonuclear blast, or hydrogen bomb.

The Pyongyang government announced that the test that took place Wednesday morning local time at a nuclear testing site in northeast North Korea and that it was a successful “first H-bomb test.”

The test was announced in two official statements broadcast on state-run radio and television.

Unlike the past three nuclear tests, the regime conducted the test with no advance notice. Past tests were preceded by stern public warnings in state-run media.

Also in a break with practice, the two official North Korean statements asserted the test was directly ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A copy of Kim’s written order was shown on North Korean television, and he was shown signing the order.

kimorder

Another unusual feature in the handling of the nuclear test were statements indicating the blast was carried out “safely and flawlessly” without harming the environment. The statements noted that North Korea is a responsible nuclear power and would not be the first to use nuclear arms in a conflict and would not transfer nuclear technology unless “hostile forces infringe upon its sovereignty.”

Initial U.S. intelligence analysis of the official statements indicates the test had two goals.

One key objective for the underground blast was to bolster statements last month by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the North has developed a hydrogen bomb.

By conducting the test, Kim is seeking to cement his position within the regime. The supreme leader turns 33 on Friday and is widely viewed by intelligence analysts as inexperienced, compared to his father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.

A second objective of the test was to persuade China, North Korea’s main patron, to back off pressuring the regime to abandon its nuclear program.

The harsh language used in the official statement—including a threat to adopt a more hostile posture in the coming months—were interpreted as a sign that the current tense relations with China over its opposition to the nuclear program was a main driver behind the surprise nuclear test.

“Initial reports indicate the North Koreans may be bragging a little bit too much,” said one official of the claims of a hydrogen bomb test.

The test was widely reported on social media shortly after it took place based on detection of a 5.1 magnitude seismic event Tuesday evening near a nuclear test site called Punggye-ri, in Kilju, North Hamgyong Province.

The test prompted international condemnation but a limited reaction from the Obama administration, which sought to play down the latest nuclear provocation.

In New York, the United Nations held an emergency meeting during which additional sanctions on North Korea were discussed. Sanctions were imposed after earlier nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, and 2013.

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who was briefed on the test by Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. Forces in Korea, spoke by telephone to South Korean Defense Minister Han Min Koo. Both officials agreed the test was an “unacceptable and irresponsible provocation” as well as a “flagrant violation of international law and a threat to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the entire Asia-Pacific region,” according to a statement.

Carter stressed in the call the United States was committed to maintaining U.S. extended nuclear deterrence protection for South Korea.

The White House said the United States and regional allies would take up the test at the United Nations, which sanctioned North Korea for past nuclear and missile tests.

“What is true is that North Korea continues to be one of the most isolated nations in the world and their isolation has only deepened as they have sought to engage in increasingly provocative acts,” spokesman Josh Earnest said.

On Capitol Hill, senior Republican leaders criticized the Obama administration for weak policies toward the rogue state.

House Speak Paul Ryan said the increasing nuclear threat posed by North Korea grew out of the failed nuclear agreement with North Korea reached by the Bill Clinton administration.

“This is exactly what happens when we appease and embolden rogue regimes,” Ryan said, noting the test had not been confirmed.

“President Obama has been guilty of this on more than one occasion,” he added, noting failed policies in Syria and Iran.

“The world is a safer place when we stand up to brutal regimes like those in Tehran, Damascus, and Pyongyang—and that’s not happening under our current president,” Ryan said.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry said the test shows “the world is rapidly growing more dangerous, and the United States cannot afford to focus only on ISIS or Iran or Russia.”

“We must be prepared to protect our national security against many threats,” Thornberry said. “Unfortunately, the view around the world is that U.S. leadership is in decline while the administration’s inaction only fuels those concerns.”

Thornberry called for deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in South Korea and for strengthening the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, criticized the president’s policies.

“We are watching seven years of President Obama’s failures play out—this is what ‘leading from behind’ has wrought,” said Rogers (R., Ala.)

“While the president has wasted his two terms in office, North Korea has continued to develop its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities,” Rogers added.

Former Pentagon nuclear forces official Mark Schneider said the reported low yield of the test indicates the blast was not a thermonuclear device.

“It could be a fission trigger or primary for a thermonuclear weapon,” he said.

Schneider said nuclear specialists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are betting at estimating nuclear yields than U.S. intelligence agencies, which during the Cold War consistently underestimated Soviet thermonuclear tests.

“If the yield is significantly higher than the 6-kt estimated in [news reports], it could be more than a primary test,” Schneider added.

North Korea is estimated to have a stockpile of between one and several dozen missile-deliverable warheads.

Rep. Mike Pompeo, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the North Korean nuclear threat is “a frightening vision of a future with President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.”

“This is yet another example of how President Obama and former secretary [of state Hillary] Clinton’s policy of ‘strategic patience’ with North Korea has led the U.S. down a perilous path, and we are in urgent need of a new approach,” said Pompeo (R., Kan.)

“We cannot continue President Obama’s policy of turning a blind eye to North Korea and Iran.”

A Chinese government spokesman said Beijing opposed the test but warned Japan not to take provocative counter actions in response.

China has sought to rein in North Korea military provocations, including nuclear and long-range missile tests.

“We strongly urge [North Korea] to remain committed to its denuclearization commitment, and stop taking any actions that would make the situation worse,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

The European Union, in a statement, said that if the test blast is confirmed as nuclear it would be “a grave violation” of North Korea’s international obligations under U.N. resolutions not to produce or test nuclear weapons.

A nuclear test would be “a threat to the peace and security of the entire North East Asia region,” the EU said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticized the announced nuclear test. “I condemn the continued development by North Korea of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and its inflammatory and threatening rhetoric,” he said.

The latest nuclear test was not a surprise and followed a recent boast from Kim, the North Korean leader, that his state had developed a thermonuclear bomb.

South Korea’s Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Defense Command, a Defense Ministry group, stated in a report made public Sunday that a nuclear test was expected but that it likely would not be a large-scale thermonuclear blast.

“We can’t discount the possibility that the North’s excavation of a new tunnel at its Punggye-ri test site could be designed for thermonuclear weapons tests,” command said. “Considering its research of nuclear technology, its history of underground and projectile tests, and elapsed time since its nuclear development, North Korea has the foundation for thermonuclear weapons, the report added according to the semi-official Yonhap news agency.

Thermonuclear bombs are advanced weapons that employ a nuclear blast to create a larger hydrogen blast.

Former Defense Intelligence Agency official Bruce Bechtol said if the test was a hydrogen bomb “this means the North Koreans are advancing their nuclear weaponization program at a faster and more efficient—and deadly—pace than most analysts have predicted in the past.”

“Yes it changes things,” he added. “It increases the possibilities regarding the threat that North Korea can pose to South Korea, the region, and the USA.”

The nuclear test follows North Korea’s successful submarine missile ejection test Dec. 21 from a submerged submarine. The test was regarded by U.S. intelligence agencies as a significant advance in Pyongyang’s bid to develop nuclear-armed submarine-launched missiles.

The submarine used in the test, known as the Gorae, or Whale, suffered a serious malfunction in attempting an ejection test Nov. 28. That test nearly sank the submarine, which returned to port listing at a 45-degree angle, according to U.S. officials.

China: Needy and More Provocative

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Now China Wants Okinawa, Site of U.S. Bases in Japan

DailyBeast: Beijing is pushing out in all directions, from the South China Sea to several Japanese islands, with an eye on the eastern Pacific that laps American shores.

On the day after Christmas, three Chinese boats, one modified to carry four cannons, entered Japan’s territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands in the southern portion of the East China Sea. The move, a dangerous escalation, is the first time the People’s Republic of China sent an armed vessel into an area that Tokyo claims as its own.

The sending of the three Chinese vessels on Dec. 26 appears to signal a new phase of incursions to grab not just the Senkaku Islands but the nearby—and far more important—Ryukyu Islands. Those include Okinawa, which hosts more than half of the 54,000 American military personnel in Japan, including those at Kadena Air Force Base, the Army’s Fort Buckner and Torii Station, eight Marine Corps camps, as well as Air Station Futenma and Yontan Airfield, and the Navy’s Fleet Activities Okinawa.

Geopolitically, Okinawa is key to the American-Japanese alliance and the heart of America’s military presence in Japan. But if Beijing gets its way, U.S. military bases will be off Okinawa soon. And Japan will be out of Okinawa, too.

Chinese authorities in the spring of 2013 brazenly challenged Japan’s sovereignty of the islands with a concerted campaign that included an article in a magazine associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a widely publicized commentary in People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper and therefore China’s most authoritative publication; two pieces in the Global Times, the tabloid controlled by People’s Daily; an interview of Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan in the state-run China News Service; and a seminar held at prestigious Renmin University in Beijing. Much more here.

South China Sea tensions surge as China lands plane on artificial island

Reuters: China’s first landing of a plane on one of its new island runways in the South China Sea shows Beijing’s facilities in the disputed region are being completed on schedule and military flights will inevitably follow, foreign officials and analysts said.

China’s increasing military presence in the disputed sea could effectively lead to a Beijing-controlled air defense zone, they said, ratcheting up tensions with other claimants and with the United States in one of the world’s most volatile areas.

Chinese foreign ministry officials confirmed on Saturday that a test flight by a civilian plane landed on an artificial island built in the Spratlys, the first time Beijing has used a runway in the area.

Vietnam launched a formal diplomatic protest while Philippines Foreign Ministry spokesman Charles Jose said Manila was planning to do the same. Both have claims to the area that overlap with China.

“That’s the fear, that China will be able take control of the South China Sea and it will affect the freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight,” Jose told reporters.

China has been building runways on the artificial islands for over a year, and the plane’s landing was not a surprise, although it will almost certainly increase tensions.

The runway at the Fiery Cross Reef is 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) long and is one of three China was constructing on artificial islands built up from seven reefs and atolls in the Spratlys archipelago.

The runways would be long enough to handle long-range bombers and transport craft as well as China’s best jet fighters, giving them a presence deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia that they have lacked until now.

Work is well underway to complete a range of port, storage and personnel facilities on the new islands, U.S. and regional officials have said.

Fiery Cross is also expected to house advanced early warning radars and military communications facilities, they said.

Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed that the new islands would be mostly for civilian use, such as coast guard activity and fishing research.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at the weekend that the test flight was intended to check whether the runway met civilian aviation standards and fell “completely within China’s sovereignty”.

Leszek Buszynski, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said he believed military landings on the islands were now “inevitable”.

An air defense zone, while unlikely soon, was feasible and possible in future once China’s built up its air strength.

“The next step will be, once they’ve tested it with several flights, they will bring down some of their fighter air power – SU-27s and SU-33’s – and they will station them there permanently. That’s what they’re likely to do.”

DE FACTO DEFENCE ZONE

Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said he expected tensions to worsen as China used its new facilities to project power deeper into the South China Sea.

Even if China stopped short of formally declaring an Air Defence Identification Zone, known as an ADIZ, Beijing’s need to protect its new airstrips and other facilities could see it effectively operating one.

“As these facilities become operational, Chinese warnings to both military and civilian aircraft will become routine,” Storey said.

“These events are a precursor to an ADIZ, or an undeclared but de facto ADIZ, and one has to expect tensions to rise.”

Hua, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said on Monday that there were no immediate plans for an ADIZ in the South China Sea.

“As for whether China will establish an ADIZ, the decision will be based on our judgment of the situation and our needs,” she aid, adding that Beijing respected other nations’ rights to international freedoms of navigation and overflight.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade ships every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

The United States has no claim in the South China Sea, but has been highly critical of China’s assertiveness and says it will protect freedom of navigation.

China sparked condemnation from the United States and Japan in late 2013 when it declared an ADIZ over the East China Sea, covering uninhabited islands disputed with Tokyo.

Chinese officials have reserved their right to do the same in the South China Sea but have said the conditions do not warrant one yet.

However, regional military officials say they are logging increased warnings to aircraft from Chinese radio operators, including some from ground stations on Fiery Cross reef.

2016 Journalists Predictions in Foreign Affairs

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Not too sure anyone can argue with the 2016 predictions below except the one pertaining to climate change. Sheesh. There are in fact a couple of items missing with particular note hacking by rogue foreign regimes.

What Will Be the Big Story of 2016?

ForeignPolicy: From new flu strains to refugees to Obama’s final moments as U.S. president, FP’s Voices predict a year of big change and challenges.

The world is melting

Thomas E. Ricks

My guess is that global warming will become the top story of 2016.

This will happen because we will face a series of anomalous and odd weather events — big storms in unusual places, storm surges in cities that historically have not been flooded, shifts in ocean currents, and such. One effect of this will be to sweep away the lingering skepticism about global warming. Another short-term bottom line: I wouldn’t invest in Florida banks or real estate anytime soon.

A year of borrowed time

Stephen M. Walt

Trying to predict the “big story” of 2016 is a mug’s game, because surprises are inevitable and vivid events — like a terrorist attack — receive too much attention, while subtler but more important developments are often neglected.

The big story for 2016 is how much will remain unchanged. The U.S. economy will continue its modest recovery. The European Union will struggle with an array of intractable challenges. The Islamic State will still be a problem. Russia’s power will wane, and China’s influence will continue to rise, along with global sea levels. The nuclear deal with Iran will remain in force, but there won’t be significant thaw between Tehran and Washington. Venezuela, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, and Argentina will continue to disappoint. China, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States will dominate next year’s Olympics. There will be no progress toward “two states for two peoples” in Israel/Palestine and no lasting peace agreement in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, or Ukraine. Terrorist attacks will kill more innocent people but in all likelihood not very many. Despite the Paris agreement, atmospheric temperatures will continue to rise, with alarming long-term implications.

In short, the global agenda a year from now will look a lot like the one we see today.

But one event looms large: The world’s most powerful nation will elect a new president. U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign-policy record is far from perfect, but everything we know about the people vying to replace him suggests they are likely to be far worse. My advice for the New Year: Enjoy it while you can.

America, a country divided

Bruce Stokes

The biggest news story of 2016 will be the deep partisan divide in the American public’s perception of the U.S. role in the world and the way this affects the tenor of debate in the U.S. presidential election campaign.

Nearly a third — 29 percent — of Americans cite terrorism, national security, or the Islamic State as the most important problem facing the country today, according to the most recent Pew Research Center survey. One year ago, just 4 percent of the public, when asked the same question, cited any of these international affairs-related issues. And there are wide partisan differences over such challenges.

83 percent of the Republicans are very concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism around the world, but only 53 percent of Democrats agree.

Such differing perceptions shape public views on what the next president should do. Two-thirds of Republicans (66 percent) favor sending U.S. ground troops to Iraq and Syria. But 64 percent of Democrats oppose such an effort.

Whoever is the next president, he or she may face seemingly unbridgeable divides in public opinion over how Washington deals with global challenges. And these partisan differences may well do more to influence the next administration’s posture in the world than any discrete event.

Obama’s push for North Korean diplomacy

Jeffery Lewis

There is no point in predicting the big story for the coming year unless you are willing to be fantastically wrong. After all, no one will remember this blurb unless I predict something very unlikely (in which case, I’ll be able to dine out on these 200 words for years). I am tempted to predict that 2016 will finally be the year when we screw up and drop the Big One, but that’s too dark for the holiday season. So, with some leftover Christmas spirit, let me predict a surprise diplomatic engagement with North Korea.

Things are probably going to take a turn for the worse in the spring, but that only means they will have nowhere to go but up. And every two-term president gets a little greedy once the toadies and boot-lickers start mapping out exhibits for the presidential library. Bill Clinton, in 2000, had simultaneous peace deals in the works in North Korea, Northern Ireland, and Israel/Palestine. (Clinton was, of course, a man of enormous appetites.) Barack Obama, too, will be tempted in his more modest way to launch a surprise, but ultimately unsuccessful, late-term push to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

The year of strange flu

Laurie Garrett

I think 2016 could be the year when at least one of several disturbing trends finally hits its critical tipping point, taking on newfound urgency. These are the sorts of global issues smart folks have scratched their heads over for years, but leaders have kicked down the road in favor of seemingly greater emergencies and exigencies. Examples include antibiotic resistance: Now that two genes have appeared that effectively render all our anti-bacterial drugs useless, will 2016 see them spread globally? Sea levels: With 2015 the warmest year on record and Greenland’s melting surging, will 2016 be the year that critical islands and shores are overrun by rising waters? Virulent influenza: More strange strains of flu are circulating now in birds, swine, and people than ever before, prompting concern about a breakthrough strain — could 2016 be the year? El Niño: The Horn of Africa is in its worst drought in decades, due to global rainfall change, and climate experts predict 2016 will witness severe storms, droughts, and heat waves thanks to the overheated eastern Pacific Ocean. Will El Niño serve as a tipping point that destabilizes already fragile areas?

 

The demise of Western values

James Traub

When Hungary’s prime minster, Viktor Orban, declared in a 2014 speech that “illiberal democracy” was the wave of the future, he was dismissed as a right-wing crank. Now it seems he may be right. With Europe and the United States reeling before the linked phenomena of Islamic terrorism and massive refugee flight, 2016 could be the year when the West loses its grip on its own core values.

Right now, a few countries — Germany, Sweden, Canada — embody the belief that “the West” is a community of values, including the obligation to accept refugees embedded in such core Western documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Hungary, Poland, and others that have closed their borders to the refugees seem to regard the West, like East Asia or Latin America, as a common culture: white, Christian, and democratic (but not necessarily liberal, especially toward the non-white and non-Christian).

Which side will win this immense, if evanescent, battle? Elections in Poland, France, Austria, and elsewhere show that right-wing nativist parties have more adherents than mainstream parties of the left or right. The nationalist Sweden Democrats is now the most popular party in Europe’s most liberal nation. In the United States, Republican candidates for president vie to show who will most ardently defend “the homeland” against terrorists and Syrian widows and orphans. More terrorist attacks like the one in France could decisively tip the scales toward anti-liberalism.

Is this our common future? If so, the Islamic State will have gained a victory of incalculable proportions.

 

A trend in terror

Aaron David Miller

In 2016 there’s only one story that will sit at the nexus of U.S. foreign policy as well as domestic and election politics, and that’s jihadi terror.

In the latter part of 2015 it was terrorism and Donald Trump that dominated the conversation. In 2016 it’s likely to be terror—and I’m not entirely sure about the Trump part. No other issue carries the power, resonance, media interest, or the capacity to destroy a presidency or buoy or sink the hopes of presidential aspirants. It will be the dominant story of 2016, in large part because of the strong possibility, perhaps even probability, of another Islamic State inspired or even directed attack. Indeed, the recent success of Iraqi and American forces in Ramadi may actually increase the odds of IS terror as the jihadis seek to strike out.

It matters not a wit that as of Dec. 2, during 209 of the 336 days that had passed so far this year, “there was at least one shooting per day” that, as the New York Times reported, “left four or more people injured or dead.” Nor does it resonate much that ordinary gun violence claims many more lives a year than jihadi terror. September 11th and the rise of jihadi groups created a new prism through which Americans view violence related to jihadi terror as far more frightening and consequential than gun violence which is actually far more deadly.

The tragic story of 2016 could play out in one of three ways: 1) a series of San Bernardino-type attacks carried out by some network of American born jihadis; 2) an IS-directed or IS-orchestrated attack that attempts to mimic or rival Paris in its coordination and precision; or 3) the downing of a U.S. commercial airliner by IS or an al-Qaeda affiliate. For all our sake, I’m desperately hoping my predictions here prove unfounded.

The year the world forgets refugees, again

Lauren Wolfe

On Dec. 18, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) predicted that the number of people forcibly displaced in the world in 2015 is going to smash all previous records, with more than 60 million people forced to flee their homes. As UNHCR put it, that’s one in every 122 people on Earth. (That doesn’t even include many cases of protracted displacement, says the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center in Geneva.)

Intensive pushback in the EU and the United States is only part of the story — 40 million of these people are displaced within their own countries, with about 8 million of those inside Syria alone as of July. And despite what U.S. politicians have been saying about single male Syrian refugees being potentially dangerous, more than half of those displaced are women and a third are under age 17.

With neither the Syrian war nor the stream of people leaving other countries in conflict (Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq) showing any indication of slowing, I predict that 2016 will become the year the world allows — yet again — millions of families and people in need to continue to suffer through no fault of their own. With a lack of funds allocated to properly feed, house, and school those fleeing war, in my opinion, the global refugee crisis will yet again be the story we can’t ignore, but somehow do.

 

The long reach of limiting civil rights in Europe

Leela Jacinto

France is ushering in 2016 in a state of emergency that has its roots in the bloody 1950s Algerian War of Independence. The measures, approved by the National Assembly after the deadly Nov. 13 Paris attacks, are set to expire on Feb. 26. But the government has already backed a plan to enshrine a state of emergency provision in the constitution — including a controversial measure that would strip dual nationals convicted of terrorism of their French citizenship. The familiar tussle between increased security and decreased civil rights will dominate France — and much of Western Europe — as the continent grapples with the threat of domestic radicalization, the migrant crisis, and the increasing allure of right-wing politics. It will be the most important underreported story of the year.

Mounting security threats will always outweigh declining liberties in the headlines and the public imagination. But as hundreds of Europe’s citizens are being arrested without warrants in extrajudicial raids that officials often say are “linked to the Paris attacks” and newsrooms with finite resources let the official versions pass unchallenged or lightly questioned, the continent’s sizable, already aggrieved Muslim population — which is being disproportionately affected by the measures — will increasingly feel like second-class citizens. This will not help the long-term security of a continent on the front lines of the international fight against radicalization.

As the U.N.-sponsored political road map to peace in Syria, set to be unveiled this year, looks increasingly like a deal hammered out by President Bashar al-Assad with his friends, Russia and Iran, there is a real fear of rising Sunni disenfranchisement across the world.

As French courts get clogged with legal challenges against the excesses of tightened security measures, this is a story that cannot — must not — be ignored.

The fall of the House of Europe

James Stavridis

The three obvious big stories of 2016 are going to be: 1) the fight against the Islamic State; 2) deepening tension in the South and East China Seas; and 3) Russian obstructionism in Ukraine and beyond. But big doors swing on seemingly small hinges, and the story for which 2016 may well be remembered will be a bureaucratic unwinding: the beginning of the end of the European project.

The highly touted six-decade idea of a unified Europe that is safe, democratic, borderless, and an active global partner for the United States is under significant challenge. While Europe enjoys many advantages — wealth, values, culture, and education — it is increasingly prey to significant challenges that make it unlikely the grand vision will be achieved, despite the courage and brilliance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The rise of far-right parties will continue; Britain will increasingly look for an exit; the Greek damage to the EU — both economically and psychologically — will continue; the number of Syrian refugees will double; Russia will continue to do all it can to undermine the transatlantic bridge; NATO will show insufficient will to affect the course of events; and the ongoing recession will settle into Europe like a cough it can’t shake. And looming over it all is the downward spiral in demographics, which saps the vitality and energy of society and will only emphasize the inability of Europe to successfully integrate migrants. All of this will occur in the last year of the Obama administration, which is essentially running out the clock and unwilling to lean in forcefully to help.

For the United States, the long-term implications of this are significant and unfortunate. Europe, despite all our frustrations with the continent at times, represents the best global pool of partners we can find. The debate will crystalize over the year ahead, with two German chancellors on either side of the argument.

More than a century ago, Otto von Bismarck said scornfully, “Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: It is only a geographical expression.” More recently Merkel said, “Europe only succeeds if we work together.” Chancellor Merkel is, as usual, correct, but the challenges are enormous.

Obama’s last chance

Rosa Brooks

2016 will be U.S. President Barack Obama’s last year in office, and we should expect to see him focus on establishing his legacy. Expect news coverage to focus on whether he’s getting it right. Domestically, can he preserve the core provisions of the Affordable Care Act in the face of legal challenges, implementation headaches, and bad press? Can he leave his successor an economy that helps those at the bottom as well as those at the top? Can he restore American faith that “e pluribus unum” is more than just a slogan on a coin at a moment when both race relations and immigration are driving wedges between communities?

Internationally, Obama needs to decide if he’s comfortable leaving multiple unresolved conflicts to his successor — and if he cares about the legal precedents his administration has been setting. Will he succumb to political pressure from hawks and aim for a decisive military victory against the Islamic State, even if it means dramatically ramping up U.S. military efforts in the Middle East, or will he decide that unresolved conflicts are better than risking another ground war? Will he leave his successor to deal with Guantánamo and with legal and policy precedents that embrace indefinite detention on grounds of abstract “dangerousness” and that permit the United States to kill suspected terrorists in any country on earth, in secret and without external checks and balances?

When Obama took office in 2009, he had a mandate and a window of opportunity to correct the Bush administration’s excesses and mistakes. He didn’t take advantage of the window, and he risks going down in history as a president who never lived up to his promise. With one year to go, attention will — and should — focus on whether or not it’s too late.

 

The tremors of the refugee crisis

Gordon Adams

The world will be inundated by more refugees in 2016, swelling the historically unprecedented 60 million people already forced from their homes around the globe. The ripple from this flow will hit the political and economic systems of a significant number of countries.

In the United States, the fear of terrorists among the refugees will play a significant role in the 2016 presidential campaign and, if Donald Trump or Ted Cruz wins the nomination, on the election itself. In Germany, Austria, France, Hungary, Poland, and other EU countries, the refugee issue will become central to political debates, the rise of right-wing politicians, and a partial unraveling of the EU itself, as borders are closed and mistrust and fear grow.

Refugee flows will roil the politics of Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Turkey will seize on the instability at its border to deploy forces that will violently repress its internal Kurdish minority. And in Russia, fears of a terrorist influx spurred by refugees and returning, well-trained extremists will accelerate its rapprochement with the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, in order to end the Syrian civil war and defeat the Islamic State.

In Maine, where I live, Somali migrants are reviving the aging industrial town of Lewiston. Despite fears of terrorism, industrial countries will begin to figure out what Germany has already recognized: that refugees are a key element helping reverse the economic impact of aging populations. They will start to welcome refugees as a next-generation labor force that can revive economic growth.

An eye on the House of Saud

Kim Ghattas

I’ll be watching a key geopolitical trend with impact beyond the Middle East: the continuing Iranian-Saudi rivalry and the internal dynamics in each country.

In February, Iranians will vote for a new parliament and a new Assembly of Experts, the only body that has the power to choose or dismiss the supreme leader. The tussle for influence between hard-liners and moderates will play out, and though the parliamentary election changes nothing about the overall Iranian system, the outcome will shape the tone of Tehran’s dealings with the outside world.

In Riyadh, the deputy crown prince and the king’s son, Mohammed bin Salman, continues to consolidate power in his hands and work on big reforms in the military. There have been many predictions about the downfall of the House of Saud and though this isn’t one of them, watch for a potentially dangerous escalation of the rivalry between Mohammed bin Salman and the crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef.

Both of these developments feed into Saudi Arabia and Iran’s respective efforts to gain the upper hand in the region. After the Iran deal, Riyadh felt the balance of power in the region tipping away. The closer we get to a potential solution in Syria, the more the fighting is likely to intensify, with Riyadh and Tehran feeding the fires. This is going to be a yearlong trend; there will be no clear victor or vanquished regionally, though there could be casualties from internal power struggles. The first six months will set the tone with the Iranian elections in February and a crescendo of violence in Syria, which will lead to a spike in the number of refugees heading to Europe in the spring.

 

The shale conundrum

Emile Simpson

Will U.S. shale die or hibernate in 2016? The answer provides a bellwether for the geopolitics of 2016. If oil prices remain low over the long run, there are two basic possibilities: violence and repression in petro-states facing fiscal chaos and popular unrest, and a potential oil price shock should a reconfigured version of OPEC emerge out of necessity.

The most efficient U.S. shale producers have battled through tumbling oil prices this year to reach a break-even price of below $40 a barrel. But many more need oil at $50-$70 a barrel. In short, much of the industry is unsustainable in a world where crude prices hit $36 a barrel earlier this month.

In 2016, if Iran comes back to the market, Chinese demand slows, OPEC remains too riven by distrust to enforce any production cut, and Fed interest rate hikes continue, the run of bankruptcies in the U.S. shale industry will likely accelerate.

If that’s right, oil prices could rise as much U.S. production comes off the market. However, higher prices would once again make core U.S. shale profitable. The question, then, is whether the industry is merely in hibernation, and the tap turns back on; or whether it’s dead, and the tap stays shut. If the tap comes back on, oil prices will simply fall again. This mechanism effectively locks in low prices, all else being equal.

I’m a hibernationist: U.S. shale is more resilient than Riyadh thinks, which should worry old King Salman.

 

Saudi Arabia settles down

Elizabeth Dickinson

In the part of the world I write about — the Gulf states — I expect Saudi Arabia’s increasing assertiveness to be a major story in 2016. New leadership under King Salman and his young son and deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, appears keen on asserting a new role in direct opposition to regional rival Iran. Saudi Arabia is already leading a now nine-month air and ground campaign against Iran-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen. The country is also escalating assistance, both military and political, to Syrian rebel groups opposed to Tehran’s longtime ally, President Bashar al-Assad.

None of this is new, but 2016 will be the year in which we see the necessary transition from attacking to stabilizing. As the United States has learned in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years, bringing calm to countries such as Yemen and Syria is likely to prove far more challenging, expensive, and time-consuming than any active combat. Particularly in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is likely to be bogged down for the foreseeable future — and failing to stay on the ground could yield the tumultuous ground to extremist forces. Saudi Arabia will face significant challenges in transforming battlefield victories into regional stability. Military operations in the region have relied on local allies and proxies — regional separatist militias in Yemen, rebels in Syria, and so forth — who may or may not pursue Riyadh’s interests once the dust settles. Saudi forces have little experience in peacekeeping or civilian policing. The Saudi budget is also starting to feel the strain of falling oil prices, something that could eventually put a damper on expensive adventures overseas. Still, the country does have some advantages over Western or other forces, including long-standing local relationships and know-how, and a willingness to deploy aid quickly and generously.

This Saudi assertiveness will pose challenges for the United States, which has grown increasingly concerned by the civilian toll of the campaign in Yemen. Keeping Riyadh on Washington’s good side will mean balancing a mini-detente with Iran with Saudi Arabia’s desire to suppress Tehran’s regional influence.

The (many) crises yet to come

Whitney Kassel

Despite slow-boil conflicts with very real potential for escalation, like the territorial dispute in the South China Sea, Russian meddling in its own “backyard,” and the Mexican drug trade, the biggest story of 2016 will almost certainly be the horrific situation in Syria and Iraq, its radiating effects across Europe, and, to a lesser extent, its impact on the United States.

The moral crisis in which the world has found itself after nearly five years of watching as innocent civilians are massacred by their own government and a band of insane extremists must come to a head in 2016. Increased action, whether through sustained intervention in the form of no-fly zones, greatly enhanced assistance to local forces (including those fighting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria), robust political intervention in Iraq, or all of the above, will quickly cease to be optional, especially as the refugee crisis in Europe shows no signs of slowing and the threat of violence in Europe and possibly the United States continues to escalate.

The United States is facing its own moral demons with the xenophobic and un-American rhetoric spewing from the early days of the presidential campaign, something its people will need to confront and hopefully combat in the name of their country’s fundamental values and founding principles. 2016 will be a year of reckoning for all who have sat and hoped the newest crisis in the Middle East would somehow solve itself and for saner heads to prevail by deploying reasonable and morally defensible solutions.