China has suspended exporting certain rare earths that the United States relies on to make everything from autos to missiles, as per this front page article in the New York Times today. It quotes James Litinsky, chief executive of MP Materials, as saying that cutting off rare earth supplies to military contractors was of particular […]…
America’s Digital Pearl Harbor–As published by the AsiaTimes.
The Asia Times just published this piece by Steve Soble and myself. Here’s the link and here’s a taste of the text: US and its allies are undergoing a digital Pearl Harbor attack by William J. Holstein and Stephen M. SobleApril 3, 2025 Image: Industrial Cyber The reports may seem fragmentary and anecdotal but they add up to a […]…
Tom Friedman and the New York Times editorial page keep hallucinating about China
There they go again! The editorial pages of the august New York Times once again has sent columnist Tom Friedman to China for a FULL week and once again he comes up with the most incredulous piece arguing that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping should sit down together and come up with a master framework for […]…
The Salt Typhoon Failure
The American government and private sector have essentially failed to respond to China’s Salt Typhoon penetration of U.S. telecommunications systems, including those of AT&T and Verizon. They used Cisco routers to get inside. One key problem is that the private sector does not want to spend billions of dollars on building systems that are truly […]…
President Trump, ever hear of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs?
This is the kind of downward spiral you may be triggering.. Can you spell d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n? From Wikipedia: The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 4), commonly known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff,[1] was a law that implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. […]…
