The U.S. Military Would Do Anything To Avoid A Second Korean War It would be horrible. by Robert E. Kelly

Assuming the U.S. air campaign did not end in short order, the North would almost certainly start wrapping potential targets with civilians. The North Korean elite let one to two million of its citizens starve to death in the late 1990s famine. They would have no compunction to once again sacrifice their people.

The idea of retaliating against North Korea has, of course, been around for a long time. North Korea provokes South Korea, Japan, and the United States regularly. Several of those provocations were severe enough that military action would likely have enjoyed some global acceptance. In 1968, the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo, a naval intelligence vessel, and held the crew for almost a year. In 1969, North Korea shot down a U.S. reconnaissance plane, killing the crew. In 1998, North Korea shot a missile over Japan. In 2010 North Korea sank a South Korean corvette and shelled a South Korean-held island, killing fifty. Yet in each case, the United States, South Korea, and Japan choose to defer. The reasons for that restraint are broadly still in place and will likely inhibit President Donald Trump as they have previous U.S. presidents:

1. Seoul is extremely vulnerable to North Korean counter-fire:

This is probably the greatest military constraint. South Korea is badly configured for a protracted bout of tit-for-tat retaliation and counter-retaliation with North Korea. This is not like Israel’s ability to strike Arab opponents with limited counter-strike vulnerability. Seoul and its surrounding Kyeonggi province lie right on the demilitarized zone border. Kyeonggi includes 55 percent of the entire South Korean population and is the economic and political heart of this highly centralized country. This megalopolis makes for a big, hard-to-defend, easy-to-hit target should Pyongyang hit back against an airstrike.

2. Trump would need the political approval of South Korea and Japan:

Those countries would bear the brunt of any retaliation. Legally, Trump could proceed of course, but he would destroy the U.S. alliance with either or both if they did not approve. While Japan under hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might run the risk, South Korea is effectively unable to respond now, because its president has been impeached. Seoul is led by a caretaker government at the moment, and the left, which would almost certainly disapprove of airstrikes, is widely expected to win the upcoming May election.

3. Such a strike would not be brief or ‘surgical;’ it could last days or even weeks:

As such, it would soon look more like a war rather than a limited action. North Korea has spent decades tunneling to protect its military assets after it suffered under an extraordinarily punishing U.S. air campaign during the Korean War. It has also invested in road-mobile launchers and submarines. If the US were to try to hit all of North Korea’s nuclear and missile assets, the air campaign would likely be extensive and lengthy. If it did not, North Korea might well use its remaining assets to strike South Korea and Japan. The longer the campaign dragged on, the more likely North Korean counter-action would become. A slide toward all-out war would loom.

4. We do not know what North Korea’s red-lines are:  

The Korean People’s Army (KPA) presumably has war plans, just as we do. Those plans almost certainly have flash-points for how to respond to allied action. Given that its nuclear and missile programs are North Korea’s most valuable assets, after the leadership itself, it is easy to imagine that the KPA would hit back. Also, the longer the U.S. air campaign lasted, the more it would look like a war, not a limited action. There would be rising pressure throughout the North Korean elite to do something, and given that the KPA’s access to the highly-constrained national budget turns on its reputation as the state’s ferocious defender, the brass would almost certainly be howling to hit back hard. Again, the slide from a limited action toward war would loom.

5. North Korea would almost certainly use human shields:  

Assuming the U.S. air campaign did not end in short order, the North would almost certainly start wrapping potential targets with civilians. The North Korean elite let one to two million of its citizens starve to death in the late 1990s famine. They would have no compunction to once again sacrifice their people.

6. Such an airstrike would wreck America’s relationship with China, the most important bilateral relationship in world politics, for years, perhaps decades:  

Any U.S. campaign would take place over China’s objection, and the United States would almost certainly not provide any advance notification. China loathes North Korea but fears its collapse and U.S. military hegemony in Asia even more. The U.S. has always grappled with how much to let North Korea impinge on its relationship with China. While Washington desperately wants Chinese assistance on the North, it has never risked the entire relationship, in all its many important aspects—trade, investment, China’s dollar reserve holdings, the South and East China Seas, climate change, and so on—on the North Korea question.

These costs and constraints do not make airstrikes impossible, but they have impeded kinetic options in the past, and I see no reason why they do not this time as well. That the United States is considering airstrikes anyway, despite these high hurdles, suggest just how dangerous North Korea has now become.

What’s Behind China’s Growing Military Activity Around Taiwan? by J. Michael Cole

A worrying spike in Chinese military activity near Taiwan since the beginning of 2020 has led some analysts to conclude that Beijing is exploiting a moment of distraction within the international system due to the COVID-19 pandemic to intimidate Taiwan and create a fait accompli in the Taiwan Strait. Closer analysis of trends that predate the outbreak, however, suggests that Beijing would have adopted the same escalatory strategy regardless of the international situation.

A worrying spike in Chinese military activity near Taiwan since the beginning of 2020 has led some analysts to conclude that Beijing is exploiting a moment of distraction within the international system due to the COVID-19 pandemic to intimidate Taiwan and create a fait accompli in the Taiwan Strait. Closer analysis of trends that predate the outbreak, however, suggests that Beijing would have adopted the same escalatory strategy regardless of the international situation.

Well before the outbreak of COVID-19 in late December 2019, Beijing had steadily increased the frequency of People’s Liberation Army Navy and Air Force transits across the Taiwan Strait as well as through the Strait of Miyako between Japan and Taiwan, and the Bashi Channel that separates the democratic island-nation and the Philippines. Brief intrusions by PLAAF aircraft near or into Taiwan’s Air Defense and Identification Zone (ADIZ), added to penetrations by Chinese military aircraft across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, were already more frequent prior to the global pandemic. 

The motives for this gradual increase in PLA activity near and around Taiwan are instead related to two key factors. First, higher traffic has been the natural outcome of China’s attempt to expand and consolidate its presence beyond the first island chain into the West Pacific and the South China Sea. This expansion is also related to Beijing’s ongoing effort to push the U.S. military out of what it regards as its avowed sphere of influence. Due to the vagaries of geography, Taiwan happens to stand in the middle of all that activity. Thus, while every sortie, passage, transit and exercise causes alarm in Taiwan and compels its military to scramble interceptors, it would be mistaken to regard the Beijing’s more assertive military activity in its totality as a javelin aimed at Taiwan.

Nevertheless — and this leads us to the second factor — the Chinese leadership has no compunction with the psychological effects that its military escalation may have on the Taiwanese public, even if, in some instances, such considerations may be secondary. Be that as it may, a substantial component of PLA activity in recent years has indeed been directed at Taiwan. This activity stems from the need for an increasingly expeditionary Chinese military to familiarize itself with, as well as collect intelligence about, Taiwan and its surroundings; to challenge an uptick in passages by U.S. and foreign military air and naval platforms in the region; as well as to wage, as we saw, a psychological war against the Tsai Ing-wen administration in Taipei. 

The latter is of particular importance in explaining recent PLA activity around Taiwan, and is the direct result of a failed Taiwan policy in Beijing by two successive regimes. China’s increasingly belligerent stance on Taiwan is the result of eight years of “rapprochement” during the Ma Ying-jeou administration (2008-16) which nevertheless failed to take Taiwan anywhere near closer to what Beijing has long described as “peaceful unification.” In fact, while officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their counterparts in Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) wined and dined and signed a number of cross-Strait agreements, public opinion in the young democracy moved in the opposite direction: rather than win hearts and minds, closer interactions with the Chinese side sparked a counter-reaction. And when, in 2014, the Ma administration was seen to be getting too cozy with Beijing, Taiwan’s monitory democracy stepped in, resulting in the Sunflower Movement’s occupation of the Legislative Yuan. Two years later, and despite an unprecedented, albeit mostly symbolic, meeting between Ma and Xi Jinping in Singapore, Taiwanese voters elected a new leader who promised to be more skeptical of Beijing’s intentions. Early on in her administration, President Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also secured a majority of seats in parliament in the same elections, extended an olive branch to Beijing by making a number of concessions — among them a commitment to upholding the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait. Despite this gambit, Beijing almost immediately shifted gear and embarked on a punitive strategy that sought to isolate Taiwan internationally. At the same time, it also ramped up the various elements of its United Front activities against Taiwan to assail the Tsai administration, undermine the good functioning of and support for Taiwan’s democratic institutions, while using disinformation and co-optation to balkanize Taiwan — in other words, to erode state cohesion and complicate relations between the central government in Taipei and local municipalities. Through this, Beijing hoped to turn Tsai into a one-term president and to increase the Taiwanese public’s sense of isolation as official diplomatic allies shifted sides by recognizing Beijing, and Taiwanese officials once again found themselves unable to participate in various international fora. 

Not entirely satisfied with punishing Taiwan, Xi on January 2, 2019, upped the ante and emphasized that “one country, two systems” remained the only formula for unification while stating that force remained an option. In the same address and subsequent ones, Xi also dropped longstanding references to taking the desires of “Taiwanese compatriots” into account and protecting their way of life. A crisis in Hong Kong later that year drove the final nail in the coffin of “one country, two systems” for Taiwan, although even before that, both the ruling DPP and opposition KMT had already stated that the offer was unacceptable. More and more, it was becoming difficult for the KMT to even get away with formulations such as “one China, different interpretations.” Under Xi, it had become clear that there are no “different interpretations,” no wiggle room: there was only one China, and that was the People’s Republic of China: the Republic of China had ceased to exist in 1949, and Taiwan was a mere province of the PRC. 

By then, the CCP showed it had lost all hopes of being able to collaborate with the KMT on “peaceful unification” and lamented that KMT officials only ate their food and drank their wine without lifting a finger to realize the dream of “national unification.” Unable to regain its footing and yet understanding that democracy compels it to adopt a more indigenous stance in the Taiwan Strait if it ever hopes of winning future elections, the KMT had lost much of its luster in Beijing’s eyes, forcing the latter to instead work with smaller pro-unification parties like the New Party, the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), the Taiwan Red Party as well as non-state organizations within Taiwan and co-opted businesspeople. 

Beijing then completely misread the outcome of municipal elections in November 2018, in which the DPP lost control of a number of municipalities. Those elections also saw the emergence, in Kaohsiung, of Han Kuo-yu, a populist firebrand who seemed to be exactly the man Beijing needed. Han, along with other KMT mayors who had just been elected, also vowed to embrace the so-called “1992 consensus,” a precondition set by Beijing for the resumption of negotiations whose existence the Tsai administration rightly refused to acknowledge. Besides fragmenting Taiwan, this also yielded the impression — which CCP outlets worldwide broadcast with unbridled enthusiasm — that the Taiwanese public had grown weary with Tsai’s DPP and was once again embracing “peaceful unification.” No sooner had Han defeated his opponent from the DPP than Mr. Han traveled across the Taiwan Strait and held meetings with Chinese officials in Hong Kong, Xiamen, Macau and Shenzhen. Three months later, and riding on a wave of popularity, the seemingly unstoppable Han announced that he was seeking the KMT’s nomination for the presidential election in January 2020. 

Beijing’s hopes were quickly dashed, however, and its enthusiasm over the November 2018 elections had been misplaced. Local factors had weighed much more heavily in voters’ decision on that day than cross-Strait relations, views on the latter which, for the most part, are instead expressed in presidential and legislative elections. Thus, after nearly four years of punishing Taiwan and a sustained political warfare campaign to atomize its government, Taiwanese voters not only elected Ms. Tsai to a second term, but did so with a record-breaking 8.2 million votes and still gave the DPP a majority (though reduced somewhat) in the legislature. In the same elections, pro-CCP candidates nationwide failed to garner sufficient votes to be elected. Beijing’s top candidate, Han had to put his larger ambitions back in his locker and returned to Kaohsiung — only to be removed, five months later, in the first successful recall action, and the first such attempt against a sitting mayor, in Taiwan’s history. 

For Beijing, the twin defeats of rapprochement (2008-16) and coercion (2016-2020) must have been hard to swallow and put Xi, who has staked his legacy on China’s so-called “rejuvenation,” in an unenvious position within the CCP. After seven years in office, Xi had completely failed to bring Taiwan to heel; in fact, Taiwan was more distant than ever, more firmly opposed to unification than it ever had been in the past. And President Tsai, Xi’s nemesis, had been re-elected with a strong public mandate. Since 2016, her administration had more than compensated for the loss of official diplomatic allies — seven at this writing — by deepening Taiwan’s ties with significant democracies worldwide, chief among them the U.S. After her re-election, her administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and success in providing medical assistance to countries worldwide, boosted Taiwan’s visibility at a time when browbeating by Chinese representatives abroad soured perceptions of China in many capitals. By June, when Mr. Han was removed from office, President Tsai’s approval had reached unprecedented levels (73%) in Taiwan’s democratic history.

At this point, Beijing had concluded that the twin policies of “goodwill” and “punishment” had failed. Taiwanese society was slipping away. Its frustrations took shape during the National People’s Congress in May 2020, when, for the first time, the term “peaceful” was removed from the regime’s talk on unification. Much ink has been spilled since then analyzing the meaning and ramifications of this rhetorical elision. Suffice it to say that the decision to leave “peaceful” unmentioned had more to do with domestic consumption than with the Taiwanese, who have known all along that “peaceful unification” was little more than a reassuring euphemism for a hostile takeover. 

Stuck in a corner of its own making after years of cultivating ultranationalism among the Chinese, Xi’s CCP had little choice but to demonstrate that it was doing something about Taiwan. It could not admit that the past decade had been one of utter, unmitigated failure in Beijing’s cross-Strait policy. The Taiwanese public was slipping away (though state media in China still could not admit so, preferring instead to refer to groups of “separatists” and their “foreign allies”), but one thing wasn’t: Taiwan’s real estate. Thus, all else having failed, Taiwan would have to be subjected to a greater dose of military coercion — in fact, starting in 2019 some hawkish military strategists within the PLA, people like Wang Hongguang, were already admitting that “peaceful unification” was no longer an option and that force would be necessary to “retake” Taiwan. Consequently, it is seven years of a failed cross-Strait policy under Xi, rather than COVID-19, which helps explain why PLA activity around Taiwan has become more assertive, and frequent, in recent months. Tsai’s re-election, above all, constituted the green light. 

Another factor that could help explain the intensification of Chinese military activity around Taiwan and within the region — including along the border with India, where clashes have occurred recently — is the situation within China. Given the nature of the regime and the incessant clampdown on free expression, it is difficult to determine how the Chinese economy and its society were affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan. For the first time in decades, the Chinese government has decided not to release projections for GDP growth this year, and there are signs that an already fragile economic recovery is encountering new headwinds. Notwithstanding assurances that Beijing handled the outbreak with brio and a global propaganda campaign to that effect, it is quite possible that Mr. Xi’s image, along with that of the CCP, has been damaged by its early response to the outbreak. Just how much is difficult to quantify. A deepening trade war with the U.S., which is turning increasingly into an ideological war as well, has also sparked accusations of mishandling, and a number of voices, Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Chairman Wang Yang reportedly among them, voiced opposition to Xi’s imposition of a new national security law in crisis-prone Hong Kong. Having installed himself as president for life, Mr. Xi’s insecurities may be coming to the surface: amid chatter that some enemies of Xi within the CCP may seek to oust him by 2022, when, in theory, his second term would have ended, the Chinese leader has been busy eliminating more of his potential opponents within the party while appointing his close allies to key positions. 

Thus, while it is impossible to fathom the extent to which Xi may feel embattled, it is nevertheless within the realm of reasonable speculation to posit that a more tenuous position domestically might tempt the Chinese leader to consolidate his position by tapping into nationalist sentiment. And that, above all, invites externalization — conflict abroad, and the cultivation of a sentiment of injustice at the hands of external foes. In this context, Taiwan provides a highly potent emotional distraction, especially as its 23.8 million people have, in the Chinese view, been unacceptably rude in their refusal to embrace China by subjecting to its unification dreams. 

Despite internal tensions and a highly charged ideological environment, there is little reason to believe that the Chinese leadership is acting irrationally. So far, and unless the domestic situation threatens the very survival of the CCP, the Chinese regime has calculated along rational lines and refrained from taking actions which could spark major retaliation by the U.S. and other powers. It therefore appears to remain committed to a policy of gradualism, or “salami slicing,” within its sphere of influence, and thus is unlikely to behave in a highly provocative manner. Cool heads still prevail within the PLA and the CCP, where there is general agreement that China still doesn’t have sufficient military capability to take on the world’s No. 1 superpower. There is an ongoing debate on the matter, and arguments for both sides have appeared in the pages of state-controlled media, but given the extreme risks of confrontation, the CCP can be expected to continue to edge on the side of caution for the next few years, 

What this means for its future behavior toward Taiwan, therefore, is that rhetoric and military maneuvers are primarily intended to act as instruments of psychological warfare against its people and leadership. The likelihood that Beijing would call upon the PLA to launch a major amphibious assault to seize and pacify Taiwan — according to many specialists, under conditions that would make such un undertaking the most onerous in military history —  therefore remains relatively low, and should continue to do so as long as the (a) Taiwan presents a credible deterrent; (b) the U.S. continues to provide security guarantees to Taiwan; and (c) the PLA leadership remains unconvinced that his has the capabilities and experience to embark on such an adventure. Given the likelihood of escalation, there is also a low probability that China would attempt to invade Taiwan’s main outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu. A likelier scenario is one in which the PLA would invade and gain control over islets controlled by Taiwan in the South China Sea. Already, state media have announced that the PLA will conduct exercises in the area in August simulating an assault on such features, with some reports claiming that the simulation to turn into the real thing (other analysts argue that the islets have lost their geostrategic importance after China has built eight artificial islands in the area). Militarily speaking, seizing islets controlled Taiwan in the Pratas or Spratlys would not be too difficult or costly a task, and while destabilizing, it is equally unlikely that Taiwan, the U.S., or other regional claimants would risk major armed conflict with China for their protection (lines of communication between Taiwan’s southernmost tip and its assets in the South China Sea are of such length as to make the islets practically indefensible against sustained attack). 

Still, seizing an islet under Taiwan’s jurisdiction would provide the Chinese leadership with a much-needed gain, while conferring upon the PLA further strategic depth. There would also be a political component to such action, as this would embolden opponents of the Tsai administration in their accusations that her policies are resulting in an erosion of the ROC’s territory. The effects of such an outcome would be rather limited, however, as the great majority of Taiwanese have little if any sense of attachment toward islets in the South China Sea, and certainly would not be in favor of risking the lives of their young men and women defending them.  

While Taiwan must continue to develop its deterrent capability, on its own and in conjunction with allies within the region, so as to preclude the possibility of Beijing calculating that it can get away with a quick invasion, for the foreseeable future more limited military scenarios — intrusions, provocations, harassment and the seizing of distant islets under Taiwan’s jurisdiction — remain the likeliest. Nevertheless, given the higher density of multinational military traffic in the Taiwan Strait and around the island-nation, the possibility of accidents and inadvertent clashes will increase commensurately, and with that the dangers of quick escalation due, in large part, to the ultranationalism that currently is at boiling point in China, which would make de-escalation by the CCP all the more difficult. 

Coronavirus Can Survive Longer on Surfaces In High Humidity and Low Temperatures Another update as we try to nail down the science on this evil virus. by Ethen Kim Lieser

How long droplets with the novel coronavirus last on surfaces depends on the temperature and humidity level, according to a new study published in the journal Physics of Fluids.

The World Health Organization has said that “COVID-19 is spread through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. People can also be infected by touching a contaminated surface and then their eyes, mouth or nose.”

As these microscopic droplets can sometimes settle on surfaces, a team of researchers tried to find out how long it took the droplets to dry out—and killing the contagion inside. The longer it takes to dry out, the higher the chance that someone else could get infected.

“The outdoor weather … determines the duration of drying of respiratory droplets deposited on surfaces,” the study’s co-author Rajneesh Bhardwaj, of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, told Reuters.

“The drying time is linked to the survival of the coronavirus inside the droplets. This may not be the sole factor but definitely the outdoor weather matters ... and our study provides some evidence for this fact.”

The team compared the average drying time of droplets in six different cities with wide-ranging temperatures and humidity levels. The scientists eventually concluded that environments with higher temperatures and lower humidity are able to dry out the droplets quicker.

A study in April also found a similar link between the virus’ lifespan and temperature. At 39 degrees Fahrenheit, the virus survived for two weeks in a test tube, but when the temperature was raised to 99 degrees Fahrenheit, the virus only lasted one day.

For example, New York City had a daily rate of new infections that was 35 times higher than in Singapore. The drying time for droplets in NYC was about a minute, while it was nearly two minutes in the Southeast Asian city-state.

Although rare, a person can get infected by the coronavirus if they touch a surface or object that has the virus on it, and then touch their mouth, nose or eyes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that it “does not spread easily” that way.

“Our study suggests that surfaces such as smartphone screens and wood need to be cleaned more often than glass and steel surfaces, because droplets form blob-like shapes on the former surfaces and the droplets evaporate slowly on such surfaces, thereby increasing the survival of the coronavirus,” Bhardwaj said.

A recent study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, discovered that COVID-19 was detectable for up to 24 hours on cardboard and 72 hours on plastic and stainless steel.

Fact: Globalization Really Started 1,000 Years Ago When Viking ships touched down on the Canadian island of Newfoundland around the year 1000, the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean were connected for the first time. by Valerie Hansen

Viking ships touched down on the Canadian island of Newfoundland around the year 1000, at what is now the archaeological site known as L'Anse aux Meadows.

For the first time, the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean were connected.

When the Vikings landed, the indigenous people immediately started to trade with them. The Vikings describe this initial encounter in “Eirik’s Saga,” an oral epic written down after 1264 about the Norse voyages across the North Atlantic from Greenland to today’s Canada.

The locals brought animal pelts to trade, and in exchange, the Vikings offered lengths of red-dyed woolen cloth. As their supply of cloth began to run short, the Vikings cut the cloth into smaller and smaller pieces, some just as wide as a person’s finger, but the locals wanted the cloth so much that they continued to offer the same number of pelts in trade.

All over the world at this time, the allure of novel goods led to 1,000 years of trade and interactions among people from different places, in what is now known as globalization. They are the subject of my recent book “The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World – and Globalization Began.”

The rapid spread of the coronavirus and the resulting social and economic shutdown around the globe have changed everyone’s understanding of the dangers of globalization, including mine. A society that can get only certain necessary items from a trade partner is vulnerable as a result of that dependence. In the past, there were built-in limits in global trade that prevented earlier societies from becoming totally reliant on outside goods. Those limits no longer exist today.

A worldwide network of pathways

About 10 years after their arrival at L'Anse aux Meadows, the Vikings abandoned their settlement, most likely because of conflicts with the local inhabitants. But they continued to sail to Canada to get lumber to bring back to Greenland and Iceland, where trees were scarce.

Similar encounters around the world took place when Muslim traders and missionaries went from the Middle East to West Africa around 1000, when speakers of Malayo-Polynesian languages sailed from the Malay peninsula west to Madagascar, settling there by 1000, and across the Pacific to Hawaii and Easter Island between 1025 and 1290. A whole new system of maritime and overland routes opened up as a result of these expeditions. In the year 1000, an object or message could travel all the way around the world for the first time.

In the year 1000, of course, there was no electricity or steam power, but mass production was still possible.

In China’s Fujian province, dragon kilns, which stretched over 300 feet up the sides of hills, were fueled by wood, coke or coal. Producing between 10,000 and 30,000 vessels in a single firing, these kilns employed hundreds, possibly thousands, of craftsmen, who worked full-time.

Individual potters crafted vases, bottles, bowls and plates on their potter’s wheels and then fired them to higher temperatures than any other kilns in the world. The glazed pots were the iPhones of their day, goods desired by everyone because they were both beautiful and easy to clean.

Archaeologists have excavated Chinese wares in coastal ports in Kenya, Tanzania and Comoros along the world’s most heavily traveled sea route at the time, which connected East Africa, the Middle East and China.

Complete dominance of foreign markets was impossible

Chinese ceramics were among the the most highly coveted trade goods of their day, but Chinese potters never succeeded in dominating foreign markets in the way that modern exporters can.

Two important factors prevented them from doing so. First, even though Chinese kilns could produce thousands of pots in a single firing, production was not sufficiently high to flood the markets of other countries. Second, ship transport in the past was much less reliable than modern transport today.

Historically, ships could be blown off course during storms or sink when they ran into rocks. The uncertainties of transport limited the amount of goods reaching foreign ports. My research has revealed that China’s export ceramics never overwhelmed local manufacturers, who copied Chinese jars and pots.

For instance, archaeologists digging in the modern city of Shush in Iran excavated local knockoffs of Chinese pots. The imitations were ingenious, but inferior. Because they had been fired at much lower temperatures, they were much more fragile than Chinese pots, and the glazes are not smooth. Despite their defects, local copies have surfaced at archaeological sites alongside imported vessels from China at multiple Indian Ocean ports, showing that local manufacturers were able to innovate and hang onto market share. Even if the supply of Chinese ceramics was cut off, local consumers could obtain the goods they needed.

When supply lines have been cut off in the past, people have managed to find new sources of the goods they desired. The clearest examples were during World War I and World War II. When it became impossible to import something from enemy powers – and this could happen overnight – ingenious merchants located new supplies or created an equivalent such as synthetic rubber or the ersatz teas Germans blended from herbs when they could not access real tea.

Today, the vast capacity of cargo planes and modern ships means that they can supply a community with entirely imported goods and eliminate all local production. The coronavirus pandemic has made Americans realize how dependent they are on foreign countries for key goods.

In 2018, for example, a confidential U.S. Department of Commerce study concluded China supplied 97% of all the antibiotics Americans consumed. Ceramics aren’t as important to people’s health as antibiotics, but modern imports of all kinds can overwhelm local manufacturers today in a way that was not possible in the past.

That’s the challenge for the future: figuring out how to tame globalization so that local producers can survive alongside manufacturing superpowers. The past gives us reason to be optimistic: When supply lines have been cut off, people have managed to come up with alternative sources.

5 Reasons Why You Should Think Twice Before Attacking An Aircraft Carrier Large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are the signature expression of American military power. by Loren B. Thompson

Here's What You Need To Remember: The bottom line on aircraft carrier survivability is that only a handful of countries can credibly pose a threat to America's most valuable warships, and short of using nuclear weapons none of those is likely to sink one.  Although the Navy has changed it tactics to deal with the proliferation of fast anti-ship missiles and the growing military power of China in the Western Pacific, large-deck aircraft carriers remain among the most secure and useful combat systems in America's arsenal.

Large-deck, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are the signature expression of American military power.  No other combat system available to U.S. warfighters comes close to delivering so much offensive punch for months at a time without requiring land bases near the action.  As a result, the ten carriers in the current fleet are in continuous demand from regional commanders -- so much so that extended overseas combat tours are becoming the norm.

Nobody really doubts the utility of large-deck carriers.  There's nothing else like them, and the United States is the only nation that operates a fleet big enough to keep three or more carriers continuously deployed at all times.  However, two issues have come up over and over again since the Cold War ended that have led at least some observers to question why carriers are the centerpiece of America's naval fleet.  One concern is that they cost too much.  The other is that they are vulnerable to attack.

The cost issue is a canard.  It only costs a fraction of one-percent of the federal budget to build, operate and sustain all of the Navy's carriers -- and nobody has offered a credible alternative for accomplishing U.S. military objectives in their absence.  Critics say carriers are more expensive than they seem because an accurate accounting would include the cost of their escort vessels, but the truth of the matter is that the Navy would need a lot more of those warships if it had to fight conflicts without carriers.

The vulnerability issue is harder to address because putting 5,000 sailors and six dozen high-performance aircraft on a $10 billion warship creates what military experts refer to as a very "lucrative" target.  Taking one out would be a big achievement for America's enemies, and a big setback for America's military.  However, the likelihood of any adversary actually achieving that without using nuclear weapons is pretty close to zero.  It isn't going to happen, and here are five big reasons why.

Large-deck carriers are fast and resilient:

Nimitz-class carriers of the type that dominate the current fleet, like the Ford-class carriers that will replace them, are the biggest warships ever built.  They have 25 decks standing 250 feet in height, and displace 100,000 tons of water.  With hundreds of watertight compartments and thousands of tons of armor, no conventional torpedo or mine is likely to cause serious damage.  And because carriers are constantly moving when deployed at up to 35 miles per hour -- fast enough to outrun submarines -- finding and tracking them is difficult.  Within 30 minutes after a sighting by enemies, the area within which a carrier might be operating has grown to 700 square miles; after 90 minutes, it has expanded to 6,000 square miles.

Carrier defenses are formidable:

U.S. aircraft carriers are equipped with extensive active and passive defenses for defeating threats such as low-flying cruise missiles and hostile submarines.  These include an array of high-performance sensors, radar-guided missiles and 20 mm Gatling guns that shoot 50 rounds per second.  The carrier air wing of 60+ aircraft includes a squadron of early-warning radar planes that can detect approaching threats (including radar periscopes) over vast distances and helicopters equipped for anti-submarine, anti-surface and counter-mine warfare.  All of the carrier's defensive sensors and weapons are netted together through an on-board command center for coordinated action against adversaries.

Carriers do not operate alone:

Carriers typically deploy as part of a "carrier strike group" that includes multiple guided-missile warships equipped with the Aegis combat system.  Aegis is the most advanced air and missile defense system in the world, capable of defeating every potential overhead threat including ballistic missiles.  It is linked to other offensive and defensive systems on board U.S. surface combatants that can defeat submarines, surface ships and floating mines, or attack enemy sensors needed to guide attacking missiles.  In combination with the carrier air wing, these warships can quickly degrade enemy systems used to track the strike group.  Carrier strike groups often include one or more stealthy attack subs capable of defeating undersea and surface threats.

Navy tactics maximize survivability:

Although U.S. aircraft carriers are protected by the most potent, multi-layered defensive shield ever conceived, they do not take chances when deployed near potential adversaries.  Their operational tactics have evolved to minimize risk while still delivering the offensive punch that is their main reason for existing.  For instance, a carrier will generally not operate in areas where mines might have been laid until the area has been thoroughly cleared.  It will tend to stay in the open ocean rather than entering confined areas where approaching threats are hard to sort out from other local traffic.  It will keep moving to complicate the targeting challenge for enemies.  It will also use links to other joint assets from the seabed to low-earth orbit to achieve detailed situational awareness.

New technology is bolstering carrier defense:

Although there has been much speculation about emerging threats to aircraft carriers, the Navy invests heavily in new offensive and defensive technologies aimed at countering such dangers.  The most important advance of recent years has been the netting together of all naval assets in an area so that sensors and weapons can be used to maximum effect.  Initiatives like the Naval Integrated Fire Control - Counter Air program link together every available combat system in a seamless, fast-reacting defensive screen that few adversaries can penetrate.  Numerous other advances are being introduced, from the penetrating recon capabilities of stealthy fighters to shipboard jamming systems to advanced obscurants that confuse the guidance systems of homing missiles.

The bottom line on aircraft carrier survivability is that only a handful of countries can credibly pose a threat to America's most valuable warships, and short of using nuclear weapons none of those is likely to sink one.  Although the Navy has changed it tactics to deal with the proliferation of fast anti-ship missiles and the growing military power of China in the Western Pacific, large-deck aircraft carriers remain among the most secure and useful combat systems in America's arsenal.  With the unlimited range and flexibility afforded by nuclear propulsion, there are few places they can't go to enforce U.S. interests.  And at the rate the Navy is investing in new warfighting technologies, that is likely to remain true for many decades to come.

The U.S. Navy's Electromagnetic Railgun Will Fire Supersonic Ammo The next-generation hypervelocity projectile — a supersonic shell capable of striking targets up to 100 nautical miles away at speeds approaching Mach 6. by Jeff Schogol

The need to deal with supersonic threats may be here sooner than expected, especially from the so-called "great power competition" that the Pentagon sees as the greatest threat to U.S. national security: In December, photos appeared to show the China's electromagentic railgun — and, presumably, its own arsenal of supersonic HVPs — ready to rule the high seas.

The U.S. Navy quietly test-fired 20 supersonic projectiles originally intended for the service's futuristic electromagnetic railgun from the conventional deck guns during an international military exercise at sea last summer, according to a new report from the U.S. Naval Institute, signaling a potentially significant boost in the Navy's surface warfare capabilities amid challenges from competitors like China.

Unnamed Navy officials told USNI News that the USS Dewey fired off 20 of the next-generation hypervelocity projectile — a supersonic shell capable of striking targets up to 100 nautical miles away at speeds approaching Mach 6. Originally developed as ammunition for the Office of Naval Research's vaunted electromagnetic railgun system, the Dewey used its Mk 45 five-inch deck guns during the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to test out the speedy new round.

U.S. defense officials had previously announced its intent to test-fire the HVP shells developed for ONR by BAE Systems in January 2018, the report signals a major step forward for a critical news capability for the U.S. surface fleet.

In 2016, officials in the Pentagon's Strategic Capabilities Office began shifting Big Navy's directed energy priorities towards simply proliferating the HVP to conventional powder weapons like the Army's 155mm howitzer rather than relying on the increasingly expensive and complicated railgun system.

Indeed, BAE's contract with ONR and SCO states the intended applications of the HVP to "the Navy 5-Inch; Navy, Marine Corps, and Army 155-mm systems; and future electromagnetic (EM) railguns."

But rather than see action as an offensive weapon, it's more likely those Mk 45-fired HVPs will largely help supplement existing missile defense capabilities for surface vessels, if only for cost purposes. As USNI News noted, the standard Evolved Seasparrow Missile or Rolling Airframe Missile cost several million dollars apiece. By contrast, the Navy's PEO Integrated Warfare Systems office put the cost of an HVP around $85,000, as HVP program manager Vincent Sabio stated in January 2017.

"We need to be able to address (all) types of threats: subsonic, supersonic; sea-skimming, land-hugging; coming in from above and dropping down on top of us," Sabio said at the time. "There are many different trajectories that we need to be able to deal with that we… cannot deal with effectively today."

The need to deal with supersonic threats may be here sooner than expected, especially from the so-called "great power competition" that the Pentagon sees as the greatest threat to U.S. national security: In December, photos appeared to show the China's electromagentic railgun — and, presumably, its own arsenal of supersonic HVPs — ready to rule the high seas.

Black Americans' True Plight Is Not Systemic Police Brutality While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called “systemic racism.” Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our big cities by Walter E. Williams

While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called “systemic racism.” Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our big cities.

Some of the most dangerous big cities are St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Newark, Buffalo, and Philadelphia. The most common characteristic of these cities is that, for decades, all of them have been run by liberal Democrats.

Some cities—such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark, and Philadelphia—haven’t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. On top of this, in many of these cities, blacks are mayors, often they dominate city councils, and they are chiefs of police and superintendents of schools.

In 1965, there were no blacks in the U.S. Senate, nor were there any black governors. And only six members of the House of Representatives were black.

As of 2019, there is far greater representation in some areas—52 House members are black. Nine black Americans have served in the Senate, including Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, Carol Moseley Braun and Barack Obama of Illinois, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Kamala Harris of California. In recent times, there have been three black state governors.

The bottom line is that today’s black Americans have significant political power at all levels of government. Yet, what has that meant for a large segment of the black population?

Democratic-controlled cities have the poorest-quality public education despite their large, and growing, school budgets.

Consider Baltimore, Maryland. In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s math exam. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test.

That same year in Philadelphia only 19% of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 16% were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4% of its eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 7% were proficient in reading. It’s the same story of academic disaster in other cities run by Democrats.

Violent crime and poor education is not the only problem for Democratic-controlled cities. Because of high crime, poor schools, and a less pleasant environment, cities are losing their economic base and their most productive people in droves.

When World War II ended, the population of Washington, D.C., was about 800,000; today, it’s about 700,000. In 1950, Baltimore’s population was almost 950,000; today, it’s around 590,000. Detroit’s 1950 population was close to 1.85 million; today, it’s down to 673,000. The population of Camden, New Jersey, in 1950 was nearly 125,000; today it has fallen to 74,000. St. Louis’ 1950 population was more than 856,000; today, it’s less than 294,000.

A similar story of population decline can be found in most of our formerly large and prosperous cities. In some cities, the population decline since 1950 is well over 50%, and that includes Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh.

Academic liberals, civil rights advocates, and others blamed the exodus on racism—”white flight” to the suburbs to avoid blacks. But blacks have been fleeing some cities at higher rates than whites. The five cities whose suburbs have the fastest-growing black populations are Miami, Dallas, Washington, Houston, and Atlanta.

It turns out that blacks, like whites, want better and safer schools for their kids and don’t like to be mugged or have their property vandalized. And like white people, if they have the means, black people cannot wait to leave troubled cities.

White liberals and black politicians focus most of their attention on what the police do, but how relevant is that to the overall tragedy?

According to Statista, this year, 172 whites and 88 blacks have died at the hands of police. To put police shootings in a bit of perspective, in Chicago alone in 2020 there have been 1,260 shootings and 256 homicides with blacks being the primary victims. That comes to one shooting victim every three hours and one homicide victim every 15 hours. Three people in Chicago have been killed by police.

If one is truly concerned about black deaths, shootings by police should figure way down on one’s list—which is not to excuse bad behavior by some police officers.