Meet Trump’s Incredibly Confusing New National Security Cabinet
https://reason.com/2024/11/15/meet-trumps-incredibly-confusing-new-national-security-cabinet/
Tag: national security
‘The Most Important National Security Issue Facing America, With the Least Amount of Attention’
“The cartels are now engaged in activities that make control over territory and local authorities a business imperative. Politicians and policemen are reluctant to stand up to them or are in their pockets. That helps explain why the Catholic Church stepped in to end the violence here. And Chilpancingo is the seat of the regional government, on the surface at least with the evident trappings of state authority. In the more remote hills around here and down to the Pacific coast around Acapulco, there are places run fully by the cartels. In nine municipalities they pick the mayor and police chiefs, according to a local security consultant who, out of fear for his safety, insisted we not use his name. Resistance is dangerous. Two years ago, in San Miguel Totolapan, the mayor and 20 other people were gunned down at his house and the town hall after defying a local cartel.
“The gangs love territorial control,” says Eduardo Guerrero, a former senior government security official who runs a consulting business. “You can do many kinds of business once you control territory. They seek political support. They intervene in elections aggressively. At the local level, we are losing sovereignty.””
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“Mexico’s criminal networks and their ability to whittle away at state power here present a national security threat to both Mexico and the U.S. These groups are growing in sophistication, corrupting state institutions and people, arming up and seeping into communities on both sides of the border. They pose a challenge to Mexico’s still fledgling democracy, at the federal level just 24 years old, and hence the stability of America’s southern neighbor. They have enabled a record number of migrants, mostly from other countries, to get north through Mexico. They’re responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in both countries. Some 26 per 100,000 people are killed in Mexico every year, the highest homicide rate among the world’s larger countries. Fentanyl, recently the most lucrative drug that the Mexican criminal groups traffic into the U.S., is responsible for the deaths of some 70,000 Americans every year.
Seen through the prism of violence there and its impact on the U.S., Mexico is the rich Afghanistan next door, a place where the central authorities have lost control over key territory to armed groups. Imagine if al Qaeda were killing that many Americans? “It may be the most important national security issue facing America, with the least amount of attention,” says Hank Crumpton, who ran the CIA’s covert operations in Afghanistan after 9/11 and works in security out of Texas. “I think of [the cartels] as enemies that exhibit in structure and behavior the same characteristics of terrorist networks and of an insurgency.”
Mexico’s narco-state problem matters for larger strategic reasons. Security is the biggest hurdle to Mexico fully becoming part of North America in more than a geographic sense — an economic and demographic engine for the region, and a strong and stable American ally in the global competition against China.
This more hopeful vision of Mexico can give you whiplash. The country is a daily contradiction. But put aside preconceptions and look even more closely at Mexico. The last couple decades have brought stunning violence — and stunning economic gains.”
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“If there was an easy solution, it would’ve been tried by now. The security expert Eduardo Guerrero, like some other experts on both sides of the border, says the Mexican authorities alone can’t handle the challenge from the cartels. “If we don’t stop them they will take over several key Mexican states at this rate,” he says. “We need help. We aren’t able to control these groups alone.”
Some polls in Mexico show support for U.S. help, including even the deployment of troops, which won’t be politically workable with the current government. Its critics are trying to nudge the option on the table.
What’s indisputable is that this isn’t only the Mexicans’ problem.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/06/01/us-mexico-border-drugs-immigration-00160725
Is the new push to ban TikTok for real?
“The constitutional law here appears straightforward: Congress can’t outright ban TikTok or any social media platform unless it can prove that it poses legitimate and serious privacy and national security concerns that can’t be addressed by any other means. The bar for such a justification is necessarily very high in order to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights, Krishnan said.”
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“members of Congress have not provided concrete proof for their claims about Chinese digital espionage and seem to have little interest in offering any transparency: Before the committee voted to advance the bill Thursday, lawmakers had a closed-door classified briefing on national security concerns associated with TikTok.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/24094839/tiktok-ban-bill-congress-pass-biden
US hit by ‘worst leak of secret documents since Edward Snowden’
“More than 100 classified documents relating to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, the Pacific, and terrorism are now believed to be in the public domain after they were posted in an obscure internet forum last month.
It comes after White House officials said they were investigating the appearance of highly classified briefing documents related to Ukraine on Twitter on Thursday.
The US Department of Justice said it had launched an investigation into the leak.
American officials said Russia or pro-Russian elements were likely behind the leak, but did not give further details.”
Banning Chinese Products in the Name of ‘National Security’ Could Have Disastrous Consequences
China’s Mideast buildup stirs security worries for U.S.
“Chinese state-owned firms are building up their presence near the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East, a new report says, raising the risks of a future clash with U.S. interests in one of the world’s busiest oil transitways.
The growing footprint of Chinese commercial activity in the area, including billions of dollars in investments in oil pipelines and storage terminals alongside the Persian Gulf, is fueling worries from U.S. national security hawks who fear it could provide Beijing with dangerous influence over a major choke point for petroleum shipments.”
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“China has previously used spending on pipelines, ports and other commercial facilities to pave the way for military bases near strategic locations such as the mouth of the Red Sea, the CSIS authors write. Now, China’s investment in regional ports and infrastructure in Oman and the United Arab Emirates could provide an entry point for Chinese naval ships in the strait. Such ships already travel nearby waters to patrol against pirate vessels.”
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““Everything in the private industry in China is somewhat connected to the larger CCP or the PLA,” said the official, who was granted anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to be quoted in the media. “Even if you’re a private company, you might be called upon by the Chinese government to share intel.””
Why the US is paying more for the military after the Afghanistan war is over
“The US national security establishment sees China as the most urgent threat of the moment, while the entrenched interests of the arms industry endure.
Put another way, although the US is no longer in Afghanistan, taxpayers continue to pay for the American military’s massive global presence. Absent a fundamental rethinking of how the US sees national security and the role the military plays in foreign policy, big cuts are unlikely.”
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“Congress didn’t think that Biden had committed enough to combatting China in his original defense budget request, so lawmakers added some $25 billion in all.”
Can the Government Hide Its Misdeeds as ‘State Secrets’?
“State secrets privilege, as the doctrine is known, has a long and sketchy history, evolving from bad official behavior after a 1948 plane crash that killed several civilian observers. When the observers’ widows sued in United States v. Reynolds, the government argued that information about the plane was too super-secret to be revealed in court. The Supreme Court agreed that some things are too sensitive to be used in legal proceedings and gave the executive branch a free pass to invoke the phrase “national security” as a shield against accountability.
“Decades later, declassified documents revealed that the flight had no national security import at all and that Air Force officials had perjured themselves when they told the Court otherwise,” Reason’s Matt Welch observed in 2006. “In the meantime, the ruling provided the framework for executive privilege, which the Bush administration has been trying to expand.”
Not just the Bush administration appreciated state secrets privilege, of course; all presidents enjoy the ability to act without consequence. That’s how we end up all these years later with the question of whether the state secrets privilege is so broad that it can protect federal agents from the need to square spying on Americans with the protections afforded by the Constitution.”
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“the government isn’t arguing just that some information is too sensitive for the public, but also that it should be kept from judges’ eyes. That would leave people with no recourse at all when federal agencies invoke the magic phrase “national security” to block lawsuits alleging rights violations.”