Chinese spies may have put chips in US aircraft

From the Apr 17, 2009 Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Chinese-spies-put-chips-in-US-planes/articleshow/4412075.cms

US counter-intelligence officials reveal yet another act of cyber warfare; this time with counterfeit chips and routers that have made their way onto US military aircraft. To quote an intelligence official, "You don’t sneak counterfeit chips into another nation’s aircraft to steal data. When it’s done intentionally, it’s done to degrade systems, or to have the ability to do so at a time of one’s choosing.”

If these electronic equipment have made it onto military aircraft, what about naval vessels?

More Wisdom from Sun Tzu

Planning a Siege
- So it is said that if you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
- Therefore those who win every battle are not really skillful--those who render other's armies helpless without fighting are the best of all.

Nine Grounds
The question may be asked, can a military force be made to e like this swift snake? The answer is that it can. Even people who dislike each other, if in the same boat, will help each other out in trouble.

Another look at Nurusultan Nazarbayev

So, I did a bit more reading into Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev, the man pushing for his country to become a global uranium fuel bank for Iran, among other countries.

Paraphrasing from a 2007 BBC profile on the man.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4489174.stm

• He is perceived to have concentrated power in his hands and those of his family, to have suppressed the opposition, and to have failed to deliver democratic and fair elections.
• He pushed through reforms that granted him unlimited Presidential terms.
• In 2006, he announced his belief that Kazakhstan will become one of the world's 50 most developed countries and one of the world's top 10 oil exporters in the next seven years.

Paraphrasing from his Wikipedia profile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursultan_Nazarbayev

• Transparency International ranked Kazakhstan 124th in its list of countries by corruption in 2004 with a score of 2.2 (on a scale of 0-10 with 0 indicating a "highly corrupt" state).
• He is believed to have transferred at least $1 billion worth of oil revenues to his private bank accounts in other countries and his family controls many other key enterprises in Kazakhstan.
• Nazarbayev has exerted effort to highlight his Muslim heritage and apparently shares a strong "religious and cultural" bond with Ahmadinejad. In a recent announcement of a railway link, Nazarbayev expressed religious solidarity with Iran, as he was quoted as saying, "Today I will pay a visit to Turkmenistan where we will agree on the construction of a railway through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Iran with access to the Persian Gulf. This will bring us closer to our Muslim brothers."

Obama May Cede Iran's Nuclear Rights

From the April 10, 2009 Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KD10Ak03.html

So, apparently the Obama Administration's way to confront Iran's nuclear ambitions and promote nuclear non-proliferation is to...encourage Kazakhstan, the world's #2 holder of uranium reserves after Australia, to create an international uranium fuel bank. The theory, as I read it, is that Iran would stop sensitive internal uranium enrichment if it could obtain the uranium globally and peacefully for use in nuclear power plants. I need to do some more research on whether this uranium from a fuel bank can't be used for weaponization.

The article's author, a former Indian diplomat, editorializes (there's a lot of this with The Asia Times) that Kazakhstan President Nurusultan Nazarbayev (who according to the author, supposedly could've been the Soviet Union's PM if not for its collapse) is a shrewd veteran politician who's been trying to build support for this global uranium bank for a while. Apparently, the Japanese are big supporters of this idea as it is the world's 3rd largest importer of uranium, after the US and France, and it gives them a stable source. China and Russian are understandably not pleased with improved US-Japanese-Central Asian relations. Companies from both nations had been trying to persuade Kazakhstan to grant exclusive contracts, thereby increasing their influence on yet another Central Asian energy-rich nation.

US Electricity Grid Mapped by Spies

From the Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

Foreign cyber intrusions into US systems has been going on for a while but the big reveals in 2008 were that these intrusions increased, that Chinese and Russian sources attempted to map the US electrical grid, and these intruders left malicious software that when activated could disrupt electrical systems. When could these programs be activated? Well, according to intelligence officials...during a war.

Chinese Active Defense and Strategic Deception

The following is an excerpt from the 2006 Annual Report to the US Congress on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2006/2006-prc-military-power03.htm

Two interesting pieces.

• Active Defense defined
  "The 'active defense guideline posits a defensive military strategy and asserts that China does not initiate wars or fight wars of aggression, but engages in war only to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity...Beijing’s definition of an attack against its territory, or what constitutes an initial attack, is too vague to clarify matters to outsiders, however, in cases where Chinese use of force involves core interests, such as sovereignty or territorial claims (including Taiwan), Beijing could claim military preemption as a strategically defensive act...This logic could also add ambiguity to the dimension of China’s policy of 'no first use' of nuclear weapons."

• Strategic Deception
  The writings of Master Sun make an appearance again. Recent Chinese doctrinal materials define the goals of strategic deception as “to lure the other side into developing misperceptions . . . and to [establish for oneself] a strategically advantageous position by producing various kinds of false phenomena in an organized and planned manner with the smallest cost in manpower and materials.”
  
  

The Chinese Way (from an Indian perspective)

The following 2007 Indian Defense Review article is a long, but detailed analysis of China's modern growth and potential future ambitions under Communist leadership.
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/2007/01/the-chinese-way.html

Here are two interesting points.

• A nation's global strategy can be captured in a formula.
  “Global objectives + means to be taken to achieve the objectives”
  (strength × guiding principle or policy)
• Deng Xiaoping advised future Chinese leaders to lean heavily on Sun Tzu's principles, including the following.
  Tao guang yang hui (lit. hide brightness, nourish obscurity) that actually means “to hide one’s capacity and bide one’s time.” The word tao also means ‘the art of war.’ Taolüe, literally ‘the strategy of concealing’ means ‘military strategy.’
  
  Bu chu tou (lit. don’t stick your head out) implies ‘never be the leader.’ That means China should keep a low profile, hiding its true features and intentions.
  

Ancient wisdom from Sun Tzu

Let's start this blog off with some ancient wisdom from Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Strategic Assessments
- Military action is important to the nation--it is the ground of death and life, the path of survival and destruction, so it is imperative to study it.

- Attack when they are unprepared, make your move when they do not expect it.

Emptiness and Fullness
- Those who are first on the battlefield and await the opponents are at ease; those who are last on the battlefield and head into battle get worn out.

- What causes opponents to come of their own accord is the prospect of gain. What discourages opponents from coming is the prospect of harm.

- Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.