By COREY DICKSTEIN | STARS AND STRIPES Published: January 19, 2021 Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for defense secretary, committed Tuesday to rebalancing decision-making power in the Pentagon from military officials to career civilians and named addressing China and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as his top priorities, if he is confirmed. Austin, who spent 41 years in the Army and retired in 2016 after leading the Defense Department’s U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he understood the “enormous difference” between leading in uniform and serving as the civilian leader of the Pentagon. Like former Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, President Donald Trump’s first defense secretary, Austin requires a waiver of the law that mandates a seven-year “cooling-off period” for retired military officers before they can serve as the Pentagon’s top civilian.
Tech giants are giving China a vital edge in espionage
Chinese company Baidu launches on the NASDAQ in New York in 2005. Some 15 years later, questions are being asked about its links with the Chinese Communist Party. Â
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In 2017, as US President Donald Trump began his trade war with China, another battle raged behind the scenes. The simmering, decade-long conflict over data between Chinese and US intelligence agencies was heating up, driven both by the ambitions of an increasingly confident Beijing and by the conviction of key players in the new administration in Washington that China was presenting an economic, political, and national security challenge on a scale the United States had not faced for decades â if ever.
What’s Next for the Western Sahara Conflict?
A Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria. (EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid, https://flic.kr/p/bxuHsR; CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en)
On Dec. 10, Morocco scored a long-dreamed-of foreign policy victory. After decades of international impasse and intense lobbying, the United States recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara territory, which Morocco has occupied since 1975. The U.S. recognition, in exchange for Morocco normalizing relations with Israel, opens a new chapter in an issue that has long been static. And it has implications not only for Morocco and the Polisario Front which represents the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the government in exile that aims to govern Western Sahara but also for those indirectly involved: Algeria, the United States and the European Union.
Brent is a senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at The Heritage Foundation. Sailors and Federal Firefighters combat a fire onboard USS Bonhomme Richard at Naval Base San Diego on July 12, 2020. U.S. Navy / Handout / Getty Images
Key Takeaways
The Navy’s announcement to decommission the USS Bonhomme Richard following July’s catastrophic fire illustrates the frailty of our naval defense industrial base.
While the loss of this ship is significant on its own, it provides several important insights as the Navy seeks to compete in the maritime domain.
More energetic and creative initiatives are called to bolster an industrial sector critical to its security.
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