Pressures increasing on Indonesia and Malaysia in the South China Sea. By Ben Westcott and Brad Lendon

An Indonesian air force pilot prepares for taking off in an F-16 at an air base in Pekanbaru, Riau .

Chinese and Malaysian vessels were locked in a high-stakes standoff for more than one month earlier this year, near the island of Borneo in the South China Sea.

The Malaysian-authorized drill ship, the West Capella, was looking for resources in waters also claimed by Beijing, when a Chinese survey vessel, accompanied by coast guard ships, sailed into the area and began conducting scans, according to satellite images analyzed by the Asia Maritime Transparency Institute (AMTI).

Malaysia deployed naval vessels to the area, which were later backed by US warships that had been on joint exercises in the South China Sea.

Beijing claimed it was conducting "normal activities in waters under Chinese jurisdiction," but for years Chinese vessels have been accused of hounding countries who try to explore for resources in waters that China claims as its own.

Now, experts say the Chinese ships are adopting increasingly forceful tactics, which risks sparking new conflicts with major regional powers such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

Greg Poling, director of the AMTI, said the countries are more important than ever as Chinese ships expand their reach in the region, mostly due to the advanced construction of Beijing's artificial islands in the South China Sea.

"(The islands) provide forward basing for Chinese ships, effectively turning Malaysia and Indonesia into front line states," Poling said. "On any given day, there about dozen coast guard ships buzzing around the Spratly Islands, and about a hundred fishing boats, ready to go."

Nine-dash line

The South China Sea is one of the most hotly contested regions in the world, with competing claims from China, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan and Indonesia.

Beijing's territorial claims, known as the nine-dash line -- owing to the markings printed on Chinese maps of the region -- are by far the largest and encompass almost the entirety of the sea, from Hainan Island down to the top of Indonesia. China's claims have no basis under international law and were found to be invalid in a 2016 international court ruling.

Despite this, from about 2015 the Chinese government began to bolster its territorial ambitions by building artificial islands on reefs and shoals in the South China Sea, and then militarizing them with aircraft strips, harbors and radar facilities.

"These (islands) are bristling with radar and surveillance capabilities, they see everything that goes on in the South China Sea," Poling said. "In the past, China didn't know where you were drilling. Now they certainly do."

Experts say Beijing has created an armada of coast guard and Chinese fishing vessels that can be deployed in the South China Sea to harass other claimant's ships or sail in politically sensitive areas.

Growing aggression

The confrontation over the Malaysian drill ship wasn't the first act of aggression by the Chinese government in the region in 2020.

The year began with a standoff in the Natuna Islands on the far southern end of the South China Sea, territory claimed by China and Indonesia. Vessels from both countries were involved in the standoff, which began when Chinese fishing vessels started to operate inside Indonesia's exclusive economic zone.

Eventually, Indonesia deployed F-16 fighters and naval ships to the islands and President Joko Widodo personally flew to the area, in an unusual show of strength from the country.

In April, a Chinese maritime surveillance vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.

The act prompted Vietnam to send a diplomatic note to the United Nations restating its sovereignty over its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang responded by saying China would take "all measures necessary" to safeguard Beijing's interests in the region.

"I want to stress this: attempts by any country to negate in any means China's sovereignty, rights and interests in the South China Sea and to reinforce its own illegal claim are bound to be fruitless," Geng said.

China's push to modernize its military (2017) 02:26

Insecurity

Beijing has a long history of harassing other countries' vessels in the South China Sea, mostly from Vietnam and the Philippines and also occasionally from Malaysia and Indonesia.

In the past, Chinese diplomats have helped soothed aggrieved parties, but experts say the fallout from the coronavirus and the rise of so-called "wolf warrior" diplomacy in Beijing have removed any circuit breaker in the relationship between China and its regional rivals.

"What has changed is that they've really taken the glove off of the fist diplomatically. The statements are brash and unhelpful," said Poling.

Experts said Beijing's growing forcefulness in the region is partly driven by the global coronavirus pandemic, which has dealt a heavy blow to China's rapid economic growth and damaged the country's international reputation.

At the meeting of its parliament in May, the Chinese government didn't set a target for annual GDP growth for the first time in years, a sign that it is concerned about falling economic performance.

At the same time, tensions are rising with the United States and Europe over Beijing's role in containing the initial outbreak and whether it gave the world enough time to respond to the pandemic, which has killed more than 380,000 people.

China is embracing a new brand of foreign policy. Here's what wolf warrior diplomacy means

Concerned about appearing like its grip on power is slipping, the ruling Communist Party is doubling down on its rhetoric and on its nationalistic agenda, which includes control of the South China Sea, experts said.

Beijing is keen to foster a narrative that the US is retreating as a global power to solidify its hold on the region, said Ian Storey, senior fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

"It will want to show Southeast Asian claimants that American military power is on the decline and its commitment to the region is waning," Storey said. "(It will want to show that) the economic problems that China is facing will not impact its policy on the South China Sea."

So far, Malaysia and Indonesia have tried to avoid letting South China Sea dominate their relationship with China, but with Beijing marking its territory in the region, the days of quiet diplomacy might not last forever.

"At what level of aggression does it become impossible to ignore? ... At what point do they add their voice to the criticism that you've been getting for years and years from Hanoi and Manila?" AMTI's Poling said.

US increases military pressure on China as tensions rise over pandemic

Free-for-all

Facing an entrenched Chinese presence on their doorstep, now might seem like the time for Southeast Asian nations to band together and face down Beijing's presence in the region.

But Storey said with regional powers preoccupied with coronavirus as well as their own economic and political crises, any hope of unity in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was unlikely.

"No matter how hard China pushes I don't think we're going to see the ASEAN members coalesce and present that strong united front against China," he said.

"I think going forward in the next six months, towards the end of 2020, we can expect China to double down on its assertive behavior in the South China Sea."

Malaysia has long worked to balance the benefits of a close relationship with China with running its own independent foreign policy, AMTI's Poling said, which is why previous clashes with Chinese vessels in Malaysian waters were kept out of the media as much as possible.

Indonesia has in the past opened fire on Chinese fishing vessels that failed to leave its waters, and President Widodo's tough behavior in January showed he will not sit by while Beijing moves into the Natuna Islands.

But experts say China won't be easily deterred.

"Beijing believes it can wear down Indonesian opposition; and eventually Indonesia, much like Malaysia, will realize that it has little choice but to accommodate China's presence," Foreign Policy Research Institute senior fellow Felix Chang wrote in January.

Still, there is risk too for the Chinese government. The United States is already increasing its freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, holding half as many in the first five months of 2020 as it did in the whole of last year.

Coronavirus may be giving Beijing an opening in the South China Sea

Washington is

also working to directly support Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea. The Malaysian Navy received its first batch of surveillance drones from the US in May.

And, during the West Capella's operations, US Navy warships performed what the US Navy called "presence operations" near the drill ship while it was being monitored by the Chinese vessels.

"The US supports the efforts of our allies and partners in the lawful pursuit of their economic interests," Vice Adm. Bill Merz, commander of the US 7th Fleet, said in a statement at the time.

Speaking in a public lecture in May, James Holmes, a professor at the US Naval War College and former Navy officer, said that as Beijing pushes harder in the South China Sea, the US may look like the better bet for a steady friend.

"I think China has actually seriously overplayed its hand by being so bullying and by being so aggressive," Holmes said.

"That starts driving together allies that are worried about Chinese aggression ... The more China pushes the more coalition partners are likely to unite and push back."

Any push back could cost Beijing economically.

China has close trade ties with many of its regional neighbors, such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, and needs them for parts of its international agenda such as its much trumpeted Belt and Road Initiative -- the country's interlinking web of regional trade deals and infrastructure projects.

"I think there's already been a lot of unease in the region about how China has used Covid-19 to push its claims in the South China Sea," said Storey, from ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

"China won't want to completely destroy its relations with Southeast Asia by pushing too hard."

After Copying F-35's Stealth, China's J-20 Duplicating its Non-Stealth Features

J-20 fighter

China's J-20 stealth jet, believed to be a copycat design of the US-made F-35, is now duplicating its non-stealth feature - to carry weapons on external pylons.

The F-35 and J-20 carry missiles and bombs in an internal weapons bay to avoid radar detection. However, for some missions requiring heavier weapons load, these are mounted on external pylons, at the expense of stealth.

On Monday, local media posted photograph showing a J-20 prototype undergoing a test flight with two external pylon adapters, one under each side of its wings.

The Chinese jet previously had the capacity to carry four PL-15 missiles in its main weapons bay and two PL-10 short-range missiles in its side weapons bay. The external adapters will enable the jet to carry four more missiles.

Based on the mission, different types of loadouts can be chosen. “Beast mode” with more munitions can be activated in low-risk and low-threat missions.

In addition, the Chinese media speculated that the J-20 fighters could also carry external fuel tanks for extended range.

Lockheed F-35 jet

The J-20’s sensor system also looks similar to the F-35’s Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) in terms of shape and placement. In 2007, Chinese hackers allegedly stole technical documents related to the F-35 from Lockheed Martin.

Daniel Coats, in a congressional testimony published in May 2017, named Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as “Cyber Theat Actors.”

“Adversaries will continue to use cyber operations to undermine U.S. military and commercial advantage by hacking into U.S. defense industry and commercial enterprises in pursuit of scientific, technical, and business information,” Coats stated.

“Examples include theft of data on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, and the MV-22 Osprey. In addition, adversaries often target personal accounts of government officials and their private-sector counterparts. This espionage reduces cost and accelerates the development of foreign weapon systems, enables foreign reverse-engineering and countermeasures development, and undermines U.S. military, technological, and commercial advantage.”

6 Types Of Submarines: The Russian Navy’s Extreme Modernization By H I Sutton

Russia and America do things differently. The U.S. Navy is currently building just one type of submarine, the general-purpose Virginia Class. From October it will be joined in the shipyards by the Columbia Class ballistic missile submarine, making it two types. In contrast, Russia is simultaneously building six distinct classes.

Despite budget challenges, and resulting delays, Russia is investing big in submarines. Together the six types represent the greatest modernization since the Cold War.

Russia has a history of building multiple classes of submarines going back to the Cold War. Each submarine fills a distinct role, but also there were often alternative designs meeting the same basic need. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent economic woes curtailed Russian submarine building. Many projects were cancelled, or continued at a snail’s pace. Now the submarine industry has began to recover.

1. Borei-II Class Ballistic Missile submarine

The first improved Project-955A Borei-II class submarine, ‘Knyaz Vladimir,’ was handed over to the Russian Navy on June 1. Six more are expected to be built, forming the backbone of Russia’s seaborne nuclear deterrent for decades to come. Each submarine can carry 16 Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles.

2. Belgorod Class Special Mission Submarine

After the famous Typhoon class, this will be by far the largest submarine in the world. Yet this ginormous submarine defies classification. It is at the same time a ‘special mission’ spy submarine and a carrier for the Poseidon strategic weapon.

As a spy sub it will act as a mother-ship for the famous Losharik deep-diving nuclear-powered midget submarine. This could be used for operations like interfering with undersea cables.

The Poseidon weapon is unique. It is best described as an intercontinental, nuclear armed, autonomous torpedo. It is twice the size of a typical ballistic missile, have virtually unlimited range and be armed with a nuclear warhead. Exactly how Russia plans to use it is unclear, but it appears to be a second-strike doomsday weapon to literally go under missile defenses.

3. Khabarovsk Class Strategic Submarine

The most enigmatic submarine on the list, Khabarovsk is expected to be launched this month. Public information is sorely lacking. What is known is that it will carry six of the massive Poseidon strategic torpedoes, like the Belgorod. This could be the defining submarine of 2020.

4. Yasen-M Class Cruise Missile Submarines

A powerful cruise-missile armed submarine, the Yasen class has a reputation for stealthiness. They are armed with three types of cruise missile which can be loaded in combinations. Kalibr is a land-attack missile with a very long range, generally equivalent to the U.S. Navy’s Tomahawk. The larger Oniks is a supersonic missile which is optimized against ships but can also hit land targets. And the smaller Zircon anti-ship missiles can travel at hypersonic speeds.

5. Lada Class Attack Submarine

This is the latest generation of non-nuclear submarine built for the Russian Navy. Unlike the America, Russia still values having a large number of smaller and cheaper non-nuclear boats in its ranks. In the future these boats may have Air Independent Power (AIP) like Sweden and other nations'.

6. Improved Kilo Class Attack Submarine

The Kilo Class goes back to the 1980s, but improved models are still being built. The latest versions can launch Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles. Unlike the Yasen Class they have to be put in the torpedo room, so only a few can be carried.

So many different classes of submarines has pros and cons. It is seen as less efficient, but equally each type can be better suited to its intended role. And the massive spy sub, and Poseidon related classes, fulfill roles which are unique to the Russian Navy.

Britain's Tempest Fighter Is Going To Leave The F-35 Far Behind. Sebastien Roblin

 The UK, France and Germany have all now proclaimed their intent to develop sixth-generation stealth jets and backed that up with initial investments. However, it will likely be a while before we can tell whether the respective governments can sustain the long-term financial outlays, international cooperation, and technically challenging development processes to produce Europe’s first stealth jet.

With a flourish of a silk curtain at the Farnborough Air Show on July 16, British defense secretary Gavin Williamson unveiled a full-scale model of the Tempest, the UK’s concept for a domestically built twin-engine stealth fighter to enter service in the 2030s. The Tempest will supposedly boast a laundry list of sixth-generation technologies such as being optionally-manned, mounting hypersonic or directed energy weapons, and capability to deploy and control drone swarms. However, it may also represent a Brexit-era gambit to revive defense cooperation with Germany and France.

London has seeded “Team Tempest” with £2 billion ($2.6 billion) for initial development through 2020. Major defense contractor BAE System is leading development with the Royal Air Force, with Rolls Royce contributing engines, European firm MBDA integrating weapons, and Italian company Leonardo developing sensors and avionics.

Design will supposedly be finalized in the early 2020s, with a flyable prototype planned in 2025 and production aircraft entering service in 2035, gradually replacing the RAF’s fourth-generation Typhoon fighters and complementing F-35 stealth jets. This seventeen-year development cycle is considered ambitious for something as complicated and expensive as a stealth fighter.

The Tempest mockup suggests a relatively large single-seat, twin-engine delta-wing fighter with a cranked trailing edge and two vertical stabilizers (tail fins) canted inwards as on the F-22 stealth fighter. According to analyst Justin Bronk, these last improve maneuverability and suggest emphasis on kinematic performance over pure stealth. The larger airframe also implies a desire for greater range and weapons load than an F-35 can muster in stealth mode. However, reportedly no performance parameters such as maximum speed, range, radar cross-section etc. were stated in the presentation.

Rolls Royce boasts that the Tempest’s stealthily recessed adaptive-cycle turbofans will be made of lightweight composite materials, feature superior thermal management and digital maintenance controls, and generate large quantities of electricity through magnets in the turbine cores.

Surplus electricity may be of particular interest for powering directed energy weapons, which could range from lasers to microwaves. The U.S. Air Force plans to test a defensive anti-missile laser turret for its jets in the early 2020s, but the Tempest presentation mentions using direct energy weapons for ‘non-kinetic’ purposes, which may imply disrupting or damaging adversary sensors.

The Tempest is to have a modular internal payload bay which can be reconfigured for various sensors or weapons. A Meteor long-range air-to-air missiles and a SPEAR-3 cruise missile were displayed next to the mock-up, and compatibility with next-generation “Deep Strike” missiles is also listed. The presentation at Farnborough also lists hypersonic missiles (which travel over five times the speed of sound, making interception extremely difficult) and swarms of deadly drones as offensive capabilities. To ease the workload on the pilot, the aircraft would utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize the drone’s behavior.

Like the F-35, the Tempest would employ a diverse array of passive and active sensors, and a Tempest pilot may able to gaze “through” his or her own plane using a helmet-mounted device, which may also replace conventional cockpit display panels. “Cooperative Engagement” technology would also allow a Tempest to fuse sensor data with friendly aircraft, ships or ground forces using “reconfigurable” communication systems and data links. This could allow one platform to hand off sensor data to another platform, which could then launch missiles without exposing itself.

However, the F-35’s networked computers have aroused fears that it is vulnerable to hacking—thus the presentation lists “resilience to cyberattack” as a characteristic of the Tempest. This could pose additional challenges given plans for the Tempest to be “optionally manned”—which means it can be flown remotely without an onboard pilot if preferred. Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles are generally thought to be the future of air warfare, but air forces so far are opting to test the waters by contemplating optionally-manned fighters. However, though optionally manned fighters offer a means to avoid putting pilots at risk on dangerous missions, they still come with the cost and performance disadvantages of manned aircraft.

The Tempest was unveiled alongside a new “Combat Air Strategy” document marking the UK’s reorientation to preparing for high-intensity conflicts and the danger posed by modern anti-aircraft weapons. However, the document largely focuses on industrial and financial matters, particularly on keeping British military aerospace sector sustainable despite constrained defense budgets and the steadily increasing cost of high-performance platforms like the Type 26 frigate.

In any context, seeing through the Tempest project to completion would prove daunting. The Tempest itself is a successor to the BAE Replica, a two-seat British stealth-fighter concept that was abandoned in 2005, though BAE leveraged technology used in its creation to become a major partner in the F-35 program. Currently, the UK is currently receiving forty-eight F-35B stealth jump jets for its Queen Elizabeth-class carriers, and theoretically plans to order another ninety F-35s for the Royal Air Force. While an RAF officer at Farnborough claimed Tempest would “have no impact” on F-35 acquisitions, it is difficult to foresee where else in the budget the money would come from.

However, at this stage the Tempest is surely a political game piece in a Brexit-bound UK, which risks being isolated from European markets. It happens that only a few months earlier, Germany and France trumpeted that Dassault and Airbus would work together on their own sixth-generation stealth jet program, Future Combat Air System—notably without inviting British companies, though their eventual participation was not ruled out, likely depending on how Brexit plays out.

In truth, both stealth-fighter program could easily prove prohibitively expensive without buy-in from multiple countries. Two billion pounds is a lot of money, but is far less than one-tenth of what a successful Tempest program would cost. The preferred scenario might be for a “European” stealth fighter combining the two stealth-fighter programs. A glance at the FCAS’s projected capabilities shows they are broadly similar to those of the Tempest.

The Tempest therefore may not only be an attempt by London to retain a domestic aerospace sector capable of building stealth jets, but also part of an elaborate courtship to entice EU nations into reconsidering joint-development of one. Indeed, Airbus Defense CEO Dirk Hoke made a comment “welcoming” the Tempest program. Possible British partnership with Sweden—producer of the capable Gripen fighter—is also frequently speculated for the Tempest, and it’s worth noting that BAE recently signed on to assist Turkish TAI in producing a TF-X stealth fighter.

The UK, France and Germany have all now proclaimed their intent to develop sixth-generation stealth jets and backed that up with initial investments. However, it will likely be a while before we can tell whether the respective governments can sustain the long-term financial outlays, international cooperation, and technically challenging development processes to produce Europe’s first stealth jet.

How a Supersonic Metal Spray Could Make Subs Even Deadlier “Cold spray” technology can speed repairs on submarines, keeping them at sea instead of the shipyard. BY KYLE MIZOKAMI

• The Australian Navy is researching cold spray, a form of additive manufacturing, to repair submarines.
• The tech blasts surfaces with tiny bits of metal at high speed, binding it to a surface.
• The process could keep submarines out of shipyards and at sea where they’re needed.

• The Royal Australian Navy is investigating so-called “cold spray” technology to repair its six Collins-class attack submarines (pictured above). The tech would allow the service to repair parts on submarines, even the pressure hull, while still at sea. A form of additive manufacturing, cold spray could revolutionize shipboard repairs aboard subs worldwide.

  Cold spray involves blasting a damaged metal surface with a supersonic gas filled with metallic particles. The particles fuse with whatever surface it's sprayed upon, forming a buildup of solid metal. The technique takes its name from the fact that, unlike repairs done with welding, the fusing is done far below the melting point. Here’s a video demonstrating cold spray released by ASC, the Australian government organization that builds and maintains the country’s submarine fleet.

• Cold spray is safer than welding, the traditional means of making repairs to metal ships. Unlike welding, there’s no flame that could ignite gasses such as hydrogen—a real danger on submarines where flammable gas buildup can cause a serious explosion. There’s no heat that could cause burns to ship maintainers (though being hit with a blast of supersonic metallic particles probably isn’t much fun either). There’s also no storing of flammable welding gasses because current cold spray processes use non-flammable nitrogen.

• From an engineering perspective cold spray is in some ways better than welding. Welding can damage cold-rolled steel, a type of steel known for its high strength and use in submarine hull construction. This could lead to restrictions on a repaired sub’s diving depth. Cold spray, on the other hand, doesn’t heat the repaired metal’s surface and risk damaging it.

  One major advantage of cold spray is that damaged ship parts can be repaired onboard a ship. According to Naval Today, the Australian government is developing portable equipment to be carried on the sub at sea. Submarines are notorious for traveling vast distances, and a submarine that must return to port for a relatively simple repair could lose days or weeks of deployment. Cold spray repairs made underwater would allow the Collins-class boats to remain at sea without having to travel hundreds of miles—or even thousands—of miles to a qualified shipyard.

  If Australia can bring cold spray printing to the underwater world of submarines, the technique will likely spread to other navies. We may never have a 3D printer in every home, but few would have thought that additive manufacturing might someday come to every submarine.

Presidents and 'presidents' BY JOSEPH BOSCO,

“The time has come,” the walrus said,
 “to talk of many things: 
of [Presidents, both true and fake,
and] cabbages and kings ...
And why the sea is boiling hot, 
and whether pigs have wings.”  
— Apologies to Lewis Carroll

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on the occasion of her Second Inauguration and called her “courage and vision in leading Taiwan’s vibrant democracy an inspiration to the region and the world.” It was the highest expression of support for a Taiwan president ever made by a sitting U.S. Secretary of State.

Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, in fluent Mandarin, and other U.S. officials also sent congratulatory messages. The secretary and his administration colleagues all addressed her as President Tsai.

Predictably, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expressed its “strong indignation” and said Pompeo “seriously violated” the “one China” principle and the three communiques. It condemned all the officials’ references to Tsai as president of a separate political entity. But, unlike the occasion of Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996, it did not fire missiles toward the island to protest.

Former vice president Joe Biden, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, also tweeted congratulations but seemed to comply at least partially with China’s demands by referring to Taiwan’s newly reelected leader as “Dr.” rather than as president.

By happenstance, on the same day as Tsai’s swearing-in, the Washington Post ran a story on the annual meeting of the World Health Assembly, which has excluded Taiwan from participation under Beijing’s pressure. The Post article referred to “President Trump” (no Donald) and to “Chinese leader Xi Jinping”  (no President). 

Even more interesting, the caption to the montage of photos accompanying the Post story listed the national heads of state as follows: “Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga … Chinese leader Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.” 

If avoiding the title of president for Xi was the Post’s intent, it could have used one of his other, more appropriate, positions such as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. While the Chinese Embassy in Washington surely reads the local/national paper every day, it has not revealed whether it noted the asymmetry in titles in the Post’s reporting and registered a protest. But, except for one later photo caption that referred to Xi only as “China’s top leader,” subsequent Post articles made sure to refer to him as “President Xi.”

Historians and scholars generally ascribe the title of president to a national government’s democratically elected head chosen directly or indirectly by the people. The position and the term originated in the United States in 1787 and the first head of state to bear the title of president was George Washington.

Several Latin American and Caribbean nations, after liberation from Spanish rule, soon set up republics and elected presidents as their national leaders. The first European ruler to adopt the title, but for distinctly nondemocratic purposes, was Napoleon Bonaparte, proclaiming himself President of the Italian Republic in 1802 before going on to become King of Italy and Emperor of France.

The first Asian government to make its national leader president was the Republic of China in 1912 and the man was Sun Yat-sen. 

After the eras of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping as Paramount Leaders, the CCP found it useful to seek the patina of international respect and democratic legitimacy that was accorded the title of president and enjoyed by leaders of the United States and other democracies. Jiang Zemin was the first Chinese leader to use the title of president on a regular basis with foreign audiences. But neither he nor his successors had any intention of adopting Western democratic methods to elect the Chinese president. Instead, they followed the authoritarian Napoleonic model and simply appropriated the honorific.

Xi clearly relishes Western officials and media calling him president and putting him on the same level of official respect and international legitimacy as the American president. Trump, who prefers to call most world leaders by their first names to show his personal familiarity with them, seems only too happy to address and refer to the Chinese leader as President Xi, rather than as Jinping. Xi so enjoys the title and the power that goes with it that he has discarded the CCP’s tradition of two five-year terms and made himself president-and-everything-else for life.

George Washington, America’s and the world’s first president and called “the indispensable man” for his time, was offered such a lifetime position. He declined it, believing that no man is indispensable and confident in the knowledge that the young country of less than half a million people eligible to serve had plenty of perfectly capable leaders who could move it forward on its freedom destiny. Xi and his CCP comrades do not believe the Chinese people are capable of finding competent alternative leaders among China’s 1.3 billion population. More likely, they fear that the real China dream is the same as the American Dream and of people around the world: freedom.

Perhaps some day “President” Xi will demonstrate the same political courage that President Tsai has shown twice by taking her case to the Taiwanese people and respecting their judgment.  President Trump also relies on the democratic process to pursue his vision of America’s future, and, like Tsai, is willing to have the American people judge his record and decide whether they want to continue with his leadership. He might want to suggest that his Chinese friend give it a try. After all, Xi is supremely convinced that only he is fit to govern China and that the Chinese people must surely agree, so Trump might ask him, “What do you have to lose?

Northrop Grumman's New B-21 Stealth Bomber: A Technological Powerhouse? By Kris Osborn

The new stealth U.S. Air Force B-21 bomber has taken yet another key technological step toward being ready for war, through integrated computer automation designed to streamline information, improve targeting and offer pilots organized warzone information in real-time.

Air Force and Northrop Grumman developers recently completed an essential software-empowered process intended to bring greater levels of information processing, data management and new measures of computerized autonomy,  according to published statements from Air Force Acquisition Executive Dr. William Roper.

Through virtualization and software-hardware synergy, B-21 sensors, computers, and electronics can better scale, deploy and streamline procedural functions such as checking avionics specifics, measuring altitude and speed and integrating otherwise disparate pools sensor information. In effect, it means war-sensitive sensor, targeting, and navigational data will be managed and organized through increased computer automation for pilots to make faster and more informed combat decisions.

Roper’s post on LinkedIn explained it this way… the “USAF innovation hasn't missed a beat during COVID-19. Our B-21 team just ran containerized software with Kubernetes on flight-ready hardware! Another step towards “DevStar”: our initiative to bring radical autonomy to software development, partnering with Northrop Grumman.” 

While most of the B-21 development is “black,” for understandable reasons, Roper’s comment offers an interesting window into some of what developers generally describe as a new generation of sensing, computing, targeting, and processing information made possible by rapid software modernization. He referenced a number of terms which, upon closer examination, point to some technical modernization methods able to massively improve combat performance.

Containerized software, among other things, refers to an ability to program computer operating systems to streamline and compartmentalize different functions simultaneously, yet without launching an entire machine for each app, according to “Kubernetes’” website.  Roper cited Kubernetes, which is a computer system for “automating application deployment, scaling, and management.” Much of this, as cited by Roper, is made possible through what’s called application containerization; it is defined as,an operating system-level “virtualization method used to deploy and run distributed applications,” according to Techtarget.com. Containerization enables multiple “isolated applications or services run on a single host and access the same operating system.”

By drawing upon software-enabled virtualization, systems can upgrade faster, reduce their hardware footprint, and better employ automation, AI, and machine-learning applications. In all-out warfare terms, this means B-21 pilots can share information and find and destroy targets such as enemy air defenses … much faster. This is something that can expedite precision weapons attack and identify approaching air and ground threats and, perhaps of greatest importance, keep pilot crews alive.

AI-applications, optimized by new algorithms, can absorb new war-sensitive information, bounce it off a seemingly limitless database and quickly perform comparative analyses to make decisions, prioritize information and streamline the organization and presentation of data for humans operating in the role of command and control. The concept is to, as Roper put it in his post, better expedite the famous OODA-loop decision-making process. OODA Loop, made famous years ago by Air Force fighter pilot John Boyd,  stands for Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action. It refers to the importance of getting inside an enemies’ decision-making process by completing the OODA loop faster and more accurately, therefore taking key life and death actions to destroy an enemy… faster.  

The concept behind increased automation is to ease the “cognitive” burden upon the pilot by performing time and energy-consuming procedural functions autonomously… all while leaving human decision-makers in the irreplaceable role of command and control. This way, dynamic, capable human problem solving can be more fully and effectively leveraged in combat. In summary, pilots will be able to make faster and better decisions, therefore “owning the OODA Loop” as Roper put it in his published comment. 

Not only will integrated next-generation software exponentially speed-up war-sensitive decision making, but it will also increase performance for weapons systems. Things like weapons guidance systems, weapons network security, processing speeds, and major war platform functionality. Long-range sensors for an airplane’s command and control systems and of course procedures to aggregate otherwise stovepiped data systems, can all be optimized through software upgrades.

All of this pertains to Roper’s reference to “DevStar,” a strategy through which the Air Force has been expediting technical development to bring a new generation of weaponry and technology to war much more quickly. Much of this, according to Roper’s strategic vision, relies upon software integration and innovation. An Air Force DevStar paper describes it as “speed, quality, focus and collaboration.” The idea is to, at least in part, circumvent or streamline lengthy, at time bureaucratic acquisition procedures to fast-track proven systems to war, all without compromising quality. Much of this, Roper has often explained, can be expedited through digital development, essentially modeling designs and technical systems prior to “bending metal.”

Roper has long emphasized the importance of rapid software development and integration, having at one time told reporters that software modernization may indeed “decide who wins the next war.”