America’s Cutting-Edge Weaponry Is Dependent on Chinese Tech, Experts Warn
American defense startups are far too reliant on Chinese parts—and that poses a serious risk of exploitation by Beijing, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Business is booming as hundreds of defense startups have joined the growing U.S. military-industrial complex since 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal. But defense contractors are heavily dependent on China for parts for weapons systems, including motors, chips, and rare-earth minerals, which poses potential avenues for Beijing to exploit or hamper American technologies, experts said.
“This is a serious problem for two reasons,” said John Lee, senior defense expert at the Hudson Institute. “First, as we saw during the pandemic, overreliance on Chinese supply chains for components and inputs leaves countries and economies vulnerable to politically or policy-motivated restrictions being imposed by Beijing.”
“Second, components can have elements inserted into them without the knowledge of the end user. This could be spying equipment, channels for China to disable or damage the component from a distance, or even materials that can weaponize the component,” Lee said.
New defense contractors particularly rely on these parts because they don’t enjoy the same cash reserve that the industry giants do, and China makes and sells the parts for a cheaper price.
But these startups don’t want to be so reliant on China, given that the country is actively trying to undermine the U.S. and would likely be an adversary in a global war scenario, industry executives told The Wall Street Journal.
Decoupling from China-based entities proves difficult and expensive, defense startups told the Journal, though it’s the only option in the long term.
“There’s a lot of lip-flapping about national security resilience manufacturing. But there’s no money for us to do this,” Scott Colosimo, CEO of defense startup LAND Energy, told the newspaper. LAND has some funding grants from the Pentagon, but needs more support to thrive, Colosimo explained.
The rare-earth minerals that China provides U.S. defense contractors—including neodymium, yttrium, and samarium—are of particular value, given that they are essential for most high-tech military equipment, including laser and missile systems, jet engines, communications devices, and even nuclear propulsion systems.
“Critical minerals are the building blocks for many of the most sensitive products in our defense industry,” said Adam Savit, director of the China Policy Initiative at the America First Policy Initiative. “China can abuse its dominant position in other critical mineral supply chains at any time.”
“The only long-term solution to this is to enact comprehensive permitting reform to approve domestic mining projects, and work with allied nations to develop new production when the U.S. lacks the relevant natural resources,” he said.
Savit’s warning that China can upset the supply chain of rare-earth minerals also invokes a broader problem: China can cut the supply line for any of the parts needed by U.S. defense contractors, for any time or reason it chooses.
“If your supply chain runs dry, you have nothing to sell,” Ryan Beall, founder of drone manufacturer TILT Autonomy, told the Journal.
The Hudson Institute’s Lee warned that the problem exposes the U.S.’ and West’s gaps in domestic supply chain capabilities for their respective defense industrial bases, which creates a vacuum that other actors such as China find ways to exploit.
China supplies more than 90% of the magnets used in motors for ships, missiles, satellites, and drones, according to the Journal. Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Rob Wittman of Virginia sent a letter to an Air Force official Sept. 25 and called the reliance on China “a serious national security threat,” pointing to an example in a report last year that found the Air Force increased its dependence on China for parts by 69%.
The idea to stop relying on China for resources became more popular after the COVID-19 pandemic, which created massive supply chain shortages in various sectors, including health care products. But in the defense capacity, it will take years to produce parts domestically, according to the Journal.
“There has been a hollowing out of manufacturing and industrial capabilities in the West, which provides China with an enormous advantage,” Lee told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In the event of a crisis against a country such as China, this will become very dangerous for the U.S. and its allies.”
Unable to wait for domestic capabilities to improve and increasingly wary of buying from China, new defense contractors are turning to other alternatives for parts, according to the Journal. Sourcing components from Mexico and Southeast Asia, utilizing 3D printing, and buying parts in bulk have been some of the creative ways contractors are solving the problem.
Industry experts also expect that the U.S. government is likely to restrict some Chinese parts used by contractors in a bid to move toward domestic capabilities, according to the newspaper. Some restrictions on items used to produce cameras and radios already exist.
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Christian Mom Says She Was Blocked From Substitute Teaching Because of Her Faith
A conservative Christian mother of five who narrowly lost a contentious school board election in Virginia that involved transgender issues nonetheless decided she would apply to be a substitute teacher. After the school district ran a background check, approved her, and assigned her to a class, the school board denied her employment, and she suspects it did so for ideological and religious reasons.
“I was absolutely shocked when the school board violated its own policy by taking action in closed session to strike my name from the personnel list before coming out in open session to vote,” Lindsay Rich, the former candidate, told The Daily Signal on Monday.
Rich, 40, has three daughters currently in southwestern Virginia’s Montgomery County Public Schools in the area around Blacksburg, the city where Virginia Polytechnic and State University (commonly known as Virginia Tech) is located. Last November, she lost the Montgomery County School Board race to represent District E by a narrow margin. Derek Rountree, her former opponent, now sits on the school board.
“I believe the school board members removed me [as a substitute teacher] for the same reason many attacked me during my campaign,” Rich said.
During Rich’s campaign, a Virginia Tech official responsible for DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—attacked her and a fellow school board candidate for supporting “Model Policies on Ensuring Privacy, Dignity, and Respect for All Students” championed by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
These policies require parental involvement in any school encouragement of a child’s transgender identity and designate bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams by biological sex rather than claimed gender identity. Montgomery County’s school board previously adopted pro-transgender standards developed under Youngkin’s Democratic predecessor, Gov. Ralph Northam.
“I support Governor Youngkin’s commonsense policies that base bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports on biological sex—not gender identity—which is also tied to my religious beliefs that God created male and female,” Rich told The Daily Signal.
“I have sat at the last two [school board] meetings until close to midnight waiting on an explanation and will continue to do so until I get answers,” Rich added in a text. “I won’t be pushed out of my children’s schools; they say there is room for ALL in MCPS, which includes conservative Christians like me.”
Lindsay Rich’s Approval
Rich said she took a training course Sept. 11 and received an assignment to teach Sept. 19. She forwarded emails to The Daily Signal showing that Montgomery County Public Schools had given her access to the online portal and had put her on the schedule to teach.
On Sept. 11, after Rich had taken the substitute teacher training, Dawn LaPuasa, MCPS supervisor of personnel, sent an email to Superintendent Bernard Bragen with a list of substitute teachers for the school board to approve. The list, intended for a Sept. 17 board meeting, gave Rich and the other substitutes an “effective date” that coincided with their training.
Yet on Sept. 17, the school board approved a list of substitute teachers that did not include Rich’s name.
09.17.2024. Personnel Report – Total – 5 pagesDownload
Rich and her supporters say that the school board altered the list during a closed session to discuss personnel, part of the board meeting that is not public.
Daniel Rich, the would-be substitute teacher’s husband, filed a request for information under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act and obtained an email that shows Bragen, the superintendent of schools, took a personal interest in Rich’s employment.
On Sunday, Sept. 15, two days before the meeting, Bragen reached out to Amanda Weidner, director of human resources at MCPS.
“Is the Lindsay Rich on the personnel agenda for a substitute the same person who ran for the school board?” Bragen asked. Weidner confirmed that it was indeed her.
“Let’s review it tomorrow,” Bragen responded. “That is presenting a problem that we may need the attorney to discuss.”
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Postponing This Partisan Lecture Isn’t Enough
Radical political historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat was scheduled to speak at the U.S. Naval Academy on Oct. 10 as part of the Bancroft Lecture series, but according to a recent article from The Federalist, this lecture has been “postponed.”
In September, Ben-Ghiat announced that she would be speaking at the Naval Academy in a Substack post, yet in the same announcement she connected her topic of lecture, that of “militaries under authoritarian rule,” with former President Donald Trump and what she proclaims to be “his authoritarian character.”
Ben-Ghiat, in the same post, also suggested a voting preference, stating that several people, notable to the military audience she intended to reach, will be “voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in November.”
It is troubling that the Naval Academy invited an explicit partisan to lecture future military officers at an authorized event on federal property, especially since Ben-Ghiat has deliberately denounced a current presidential nominee as an authoritarian akin to “Fascist Italy, Pinochet’s Chile, and the Russian military during the war on Ukraine.”
It is even more troubling that the only reason this lecture is publicly known is through Ben-Ghiat’s Substack post announcing her partisan intent. The Naval Academy never publicized this event, despite having recently publicized a Forrestal Lecture in which the speaker talked about the far more appropriate topic of command leadership.
The concern over this Bancroft Lecture was publicized in a recent Daily Signal article. Since then, the Naval Academy has apparently postponed Ben-Ghiat’s lecture. Nonetheless, concerns still remain. There has been no official statement from Naval Academy leadership disclosing the status of the lecture, nothing to explain the logic for hosting an event of this political nature in the first place, and no remorse over the apparent politicization of the institution.
The Defense Department’s Directive 1344.10 explicitly states that service members shall “not engage in partisan political activity.” With such proximity to an important election, it appears that the Naval Academy, by inviting a radical anti-Trump speaker, has been acting in a political fashion. It calls into question whether academy leadership violated the Defense Department’s directive.
The Naval Academy ought to publicly explain itself, or else it will have missed the point entirely. The point is not that the lecturer is an extreme partisan, or that due to optics the lecture ought not to occur. The point is also not that leadership should simply postpone a lecture as soon as it receives heat from the public eye.
The point is that this is one instance of what could be a very dangerous broader trend.
The Naval Academy should take note of the articles publicizing exactly what is wrong, the letters from members of Congress urging leadership to take a look, and Ben-Ghiat’s expressly political language in describing a nominee for the next commander in chief. These should all serve as warning signs calling for more institutional vigilance, procedural compliance, and integrity.
The lack of remorse, the denial of responsibility, and the absence of any acknowledgment of an internal review show a lack of accountability. They show a dangerous sense of complacency and a complete misunderstanding of what the Naval Academy ought to be—an apolitical, nonpartisan military institution.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/09/postponing-partisan-lecture-isnt-enough/
*******************************************************Secret to long and healthy life more down to genes than diet – research
It is widely believed that eating fewer calories can lengthen life, with some studies suggesting cutting intake by as much as 25% can slow down ageing by up to 3%.
But new research on mice suggests genes may play a greater role in living longer than simply reducing food intake.
Scientists say this may be because these genes, which are yet to be identified, can make bodies more robust and stay resilient in the face of adversity.
The team found that mice that lived the longest were also the ones that lost the least weight while consuming less food, suggesting fasting helps some live longer but not others.
The team said further research is needed to explore whether restrictive diets such as intermittent fasting – an eating plan that alternates between periods of eating and fasting – and calorie restriction, which involves reducing the amount of calories consumed while still getting enough nutrients, can extend lifespan in humans.
They also added the findings could have implications on how diet studies are conducted on humans.
Gary Churchill, a professor at The Jackson Laboratory in the US, said: “Our study really points to the importance of resilience.
“The most robust animals keep their weight on even in the face of stress and caloric restriction, and they are the ones that live the longest.
“It also suggests that a more moderate level of calorie restriction might be the way to balance long-term health and lifespan.”
For the study, the researchers investigated the effects of intermittent fasting and calorie restriction on nearly 1,000 female mice.
The scientists said each mouse was selected to be genetically distinct, which “allowed the team to better represent the genetic diversity of the human population” and made the study “one of the most significant investigations into ageing and lifespan to date”.
The mice were randomly assigned to one of five different diets.
The first group was allowed to freely eat any food at any time, while in the second and third groups, the animals were provided with only 60% or 80% of their baseline calories each day.
In the final two groups, the mice were not given any food for either one or two consecutive days each week but could eat as much as they wanted on the other days.
The creatures were studied for the rest of their lives with regular blood tests looking at health markers such as body weight, body fat percentages, blood sugar levels and body temperature.
The team found that mice on unrestricted diets lived for an average of 25 months, those on the intermittent fasting diets lived for an average of 28 months, those eating 80% of baseline lived for an average of 30 months, and those eating 60% of baseline lived for 34 months.
They found animals that lost the most weight were likely to have low energy, compromised immune and reproductive systems, and shorter lives.
And mice that naturally maintained their body weight, body fat percentage and immune cell health during low food intake were found to survive the longest.
But the researchers said that within each group, they found the range of lifespans varied widely.
The team said that in the group where mice ate the fewest calories, the creatures had lifespans ranging from a few months to four and a half years.
Analysing data to try to explain this wide range, the researchers said they found genetic factors had a far greater impact on lifespan than diets.
They said this highlights how genes play “a major role in how these diets would affect an individual person’s health trajectory”.
Prof Churchill said: “If you want to live a long time, there are things you can control within your lifetime such as diet, but really what you want is a very old grandmother.”
He added: “While caloric restriction is generally good for lifespan, our data show that losing weight on caloric restriction is actually bad for lifespan.
“So when we look at human trials of longevity drugs and see that people are losing weight and have better metabolic profiles, it turns out that might not be a good marker of their future lifespan at all.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/churchill-b2626567.html
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