AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; Tomball City Council approves focus group for Parks, Trails and Recreation Master Plan; Bellaire police secure new bullet-resistant shields in the event of an active shooter; ERCOT unveils new 6-day supply and demand forecast; Texas executes Wesley Ruiz despite ongoing fight over state’s use of old lethal injection drugs; The Rio Grande Valley is at the epicenter of an Alzheimer’s spike among Latinos and is now the focus of new research efforts; If Biden calls debt ceiling unconstitutional, what next?; U.S. is ‘absolutely’ behind on supply chain independence from China, Biden advisor says; The US military says China now has more ICBM launchers than it does, but the US still has the nuclear edge; How US Marines are being reshaped for China threat; Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey Created a VR Headset That Kills You If You Die in the Game;

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

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Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwrSlzZC31w

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   1. It;s time to snail-mail (no emails or faxes) in your application for mail-ballots, IF you qualify TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   2. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
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      8. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
      9. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
      10. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
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2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023.
   
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3. Tomball City Council approves focus group for Parks, Trails and Recreation Master Plan; By Lizzy Spangler | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 12:35 PM Feb 7, 2023 CST, Updated 12:35 PM Feb 7, 2023 CST
   1. During its 6 meeting, the Tomball City Council unanimously voted to approve the creation of a focus group for the Parks, Trails and Recreation Master Plan. …
   2. The master plan will include a site analysis of the city’s existing facilities, community engagement to determine residents’ wants and needs, a five-year action plan and a 10-year horizon plan, Community Impact previously reported. …
   3. The focus group will be made up of community members, business owners and volunteers. City staff recommended people such as Tomball Farmers Market’s Amanda Kelly, Tomball Little League President Jeanne Foster and business owner Teresa Latsis. …
   4. [Public Works Director Drew Huffman said] the focus group will be open to anyone interested in joining.
   5. ANDREW: I like that the city is encouraging anyone interested to get involved rather than just business owners. More municipal projects should involve local residents who aren’t “leaders of the community”, but just have an interest in the project area.
   6. MIKE: I agree.
4. Bellaire police secure new bullet-resistant shields in the event of an active shooter; By Melissa Enaje | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 6:02 PM Feb 1, 2023 CST, Updated 6:02 PM Feb 1, 2023
   1. The Bellaire Police Department will be the recipients of six new bullet-resistant shields after Texas officials approved the city’s request to fund the tactical equipment. [The shields were purchased when the state of Texas made a protective shield grant.]
   2. Bellaire Chief of Police Onesimo Lopez said acquiring the new shields was a “crucial” investment to protect the community and to be able to respond to cases of active shooters, such as what occurred in May at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. …
   3. The shields [six shields] cost $43,800 [~$7300 each] and will be approximately 18 inches by 32 inches in size, with an integrated viewport for the police to see, and they will be used by the city of Bellaire’s Special Response Team, according to Bellaire Mayor Andrew Friedberg. …
   4. Lopez said the shields can also be deployed during armed barricade suspect scenarios as well where first responders might encounter high-powered rifle fire. …
   5. ANDREW: While it certainly sounds like these shields will be useful in the moment of a mass shooting, this is a pound of cure instead of an ounce of prevention. People don’t do things for no reason, and that includes crime, and that includes mass shootings. Some motivators are deep-seated and psychological– hatred and bigotry, for instance– and those require cultural change, but other times people just need help, whether psychological or material, and can’t get it because state governments want to fund riot shields instead of food, housing, or medical assistance. If this money is really meant to stop mass shootings, it should be spent on making sure people have fewer reasons to commit them. But that’s not as marketable to conservative voters.
   6. MIKE: Cops fear for their lives when up against a well-armed shooter. If this helps make them safer and braver and saves one human, the investment is well worth it.
5. ERCOT unveils new 6-day supply and demand forecast; By Hannah Norton | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:44 PM Feb 3, 2023 CST, Updated 3:44 PM Feb 3, 2023 CST
   1. To improve transparency and strengthen Texans’ trust in the state power grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas released a new dashboard with the forecast supply and demand for six days.
   2. The forecast dashboard provides Texans with an idea of what supply and demand for energy will look like in the future, much like a weather forecast, according to a news release from ERCOT. …
   3. The new dashboard uses real-time data and projected information on supply and demand from hourly forecasts. It can be found on ERCOT’s homepage and well as the Grid and Market Conditions site by selecting “6-day forecast” below the single-day supply and demand chart.
   4. MIKE: I make fun of ERCOT, but this new public forecast is a good thing. Also, the power outages in Austin were mostly caused by trees. That’s a utility company problem. The trees should be kept severely pruned around power lines.
   5. ANDREW: This is a good idea, but for it to work, it needs to be trustworthy. No manipulated data, and most forecasts need to come broadly true. Otherwise, it will just be another ploy to distract from the inadequacy of state Republicans’ power policies.
6. Texas executes Wesley Ruiz despite ongoing fight over state’s use of old lethal injection drugs; Ruiz was convicted in the 2007 shooting death of Dallas police Senior Cpl. Mark Nix after a high-speed chase. by Jolie McCullough | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Feb. 1, 2023, Updated: 7 PM Central
   1. On Wednesday evening, Texas executed Wesley Ruiz despite the ongoing controversy surrounding the state’s use of drugs long past their original expiration dates to kill prisoners.
   2. Ruiz, 43, was sentenced to death nearly 15 years ago for the 2007 shooting of Dallas police Senior Cpl. Mark Nix following a high-speed car chase. …
   3. In an active legal battle, Ruiz and other condemned prisoners argued the state prison system should not be allowed to continue extending the expiration dates of its execution drugs. They claim the use of old drugs violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
   4. With fewer pharmacies willing to produce execution drugs, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for years has extended the use-by dates of its existing pentobarbital, the only drug used in Texas executions, after retesting potency levels. Previous legal battles seeking to halt the practice have failed in court.
   5. In the current litigation, Texas’ high courts refused to halt a January execution, overriding a lower state court’s temporary order that prisons use only new execution drugs until the lawsuit goes to trial in March. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled the lower court could not issue any order that would seemingly cancel an execution. …
   6. REFERENCE: Pentobarbital — WIKIPEDIA.ORG
   7. MIKE: I’ve come to be against the death penalty on principle. I’m not convinced that some people don’t deserve it, but I am convinced that the whole process is too flawed to allow it. I’ve read that as many as 10% of death row inmates may not be guilty of the crime they’ve been sentenced for. And even 1 is too many. And while there’s no polite way to kill someone, the current system smacks too much of Nazi experimentation.
      
   8. ANDREW: I don’t believe that the authority in a society that decides whether someone has done something wrong should be able to also decide to kill someone for what they’ve done wrong, because if killing that person was the wrong thing to do, it would fall to that very same authority that committed the wrongdoing to find itself at fault, which is unlikely.
   9. ANDREW: The use of expired drugs for lethal injection is a case in point for this. There is good-faith concern that these expired drugs cause pain in what is supposed to be a painless process, and that would be cruel punishment, something prevented by the laws of the authority– in this case, the state and federal governments. But it falls to the state government to decide whether that is an acceptable reason to stop using the expired drugs, which would limit the authority’s power to kill offenders, and because the state government has a vested interest in maintaining that power, they have denied it.
   10. ANDREW: It’s a very clear conflict of interest, but unfortunately, it can only be resolved through action from that authority. That makes resolution difficult, but not impossible. Federal action is a reasonable possibility, due to how often the people in charge of the federal government change, but I see virtually no chance of the state government giving up their power to kill people. I see the death penalty as, among other things, a very sobering cautionary tale against giving someone power without having a clear and achievable way to take it away.
   11. MIKE: That conflict-of-interest is an interesting point. I don’t recall hearing that before. Maybe some lawyer will pick up on it.
7. The Rio Grande Valley is at the epicenter of an Alzheimer’s spike among Latinos and is now the focus of new research efforts; Compared to other large states, fewer state dollars go to Alzheimer’s disease services in Texas. Now with more national attention on research here, could that change? by Daisy Yuhas, Public Health Watch | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Feb. 2, 2023, 14 hours ago
   1. A stretch of South Texas is struggling with a crisis many parts of the nation could someday face: Cases of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias are climbing, and the state’s response has been uneven at best.
   2. There is no cure for Alzheimer’s and scientists don’t fully understand what causes this devastating form of dementia. But research shows that poor access to health care, lack of education, air pollution and other social and environmental factors leave people more vulnerable to the disease.
   3. All these factors converge in the four counties that make up the Rio Grande Valley, a mostly rural, majority-Latino region where the infrastructure, education and health care systems suffer from decades of neglect. Medicare data shows that people here who are 65 and older are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia as people in that age group in most other parts of the country, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In Starr County alone, one of the nation’s poorest, nearly 1 in 4 older people had Alzheimer’s or a related dementia in 2021. That compares to 1 in 14 nationwide.
   4. When it comes to dementia among Mexican Americans, South Texas is “at the tip of the spear,” said neurologist Sudha Seshadri, who directs the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. …
   5. About 400,000 Texans suffer from Alzheimer’s or related disorders and the state spends $5 million annually on dementia-specific programs. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, it spends $4.5 million a year to fund Alzheimer’s research through a consortium of in-state institutions. It also spends $500,000 through the Texas Department of State Health Services on an Alzheimer’s Disease Program, which runs a public education campaign, provides online lists of resources and collects data. None of that money goes to train Alzheimer’s caregivers or to provide other services that directly help patients and their families deal with the disease, according to Lara Anton, a DSHS spokesperson.
   6. That spending puts Texas, which currently has a $32.7 billion budget surplus that lawmakers will allocate during the current legislative session, far behind the efforts of other large states. …
   7. Seshadri works with neuroepidemiologist Gladys Maestre, a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine, to better understand Alzheimer’s and related conditions in Mexican American communities. In 2021, the National Institute on Aging appointed them co-directors of a new, federally funded Alzheimer’s disease research center that has facilities at both of their universities. Together, they are looking at why so many cases are concentrated in South Texas and what, if anything, can be done to bring down the numbers. …
   8. Research in Latino communities could unlock clues to these diseases that would help people of all ethnicities, said Sid O’Bryant, a neuroscientist at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Latinos make up 19% of the U.S. population, and some studies show they have 1.5 times greater risk for dementia than white people without Hispanic ancestry. But so little research has been done within the Latino community that scientists don’t understand why. …
   9. Lack of access to health care is likely one of the biggest contributors to dementia in the Valley because diabetes, heart disease and other health conditions increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and related dementias. The federal government classifies all four of the Valley’s counties as “medically underserved,” meaning they don’t have enough primary care doctors, dentists and other medical professionals. Finding specialists — including neurologists who can help diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s — is especially tough for rural residents.
   10. Texas, one of 11 states that has refused to expand Medicaid, also has the highest percentage of uninsured people in the nation: 18%. The problem is acute in the Valley, where roughly half of adults under 65 live without health insurance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. …
   11. Researchers hope their work in the Valley will give them a deeper understanding of the factors that increase the risk for Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Certain genes may contribute. But so can circumstances that people can change or avoid. Some studies suggest literacy alone may have a powerful protective effect. …
   12. In Texas, O’Bryant has found that Mexican American communities can show early signs of dementia almost a decade before non-Hispanic whites. He is investigating how two nongenetic factors may be involved: the overall socioeconomic status of a community and the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension and other health problems. …
   13. MIKE: The rest of the article goes on to mostly discuss increases in funding and of government interest in researching causes of dementia in the state, and specifically why parts of the Valley seem to have higher incidences of Alzheimer’s among Latinos.
   14. MIKE: I remember years ago reading that there were so-called “hot spots” of birth defects in the Valley. I don’t recall reading much more about it, which probably means nothing was publicly identified as a cause. But one thing is always true: Poverty and political powerlessness always go together.
   15. ANDREW: Texas doesn’t fund Alzheimer’s services for the same reason that Texas hasn’t expanded Medicaid: in order to keep power, capitalism needs to keep the majority of people in a position where they are willing to be exploited, and Republicans are among the most ruthless of capitalists. If more money was spent on social programs, people would be less desperate, and if people were less desperate, they’d be willing to put up with a lot less at work.
   16. ANDREW: Now, I’m not suggesting that Alzheimer’s spending is going to enable people to quit terrible jobs in one fell swoop. But it’s part of a larger policy that’s motivated by greed. The only way to counter that policy is either to get a different set of people in power, or for the masses to obstruct or threaten to obstruct business enough (though striking or other industrial action) that their demands for more social care are met, because the alternative is the action keeps going until one side is totally penniless and/or dead. That’s a lose-lose proposition for the people at the top who profit off of the hard work of the people at the bottom. Unfortunately, sometimes the people at the top are too stubborn to see it that way.
8. If Biden calls debt ceiling unconstitutional, what next?; By Michael Meeropol | WAMC Northeast Public Radio | Published February 3, 2023 at 3:52 PM EST [Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of Economics at Western New England University. He is the author with Howard and Paul Sherman of the recently published second edition of Principles of Macroeconomics: Activist vs. Austerity Policies]
   1. Last week, [the author, Michael Meeropol], delivered a commentary that began with the assertion that the debt ceiling law was in direct conflict with the Constitution and ended with the following recommendation for President Biden:
   2. “If the Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling, Biden should say the debt ceiling is unconstitutional and refuse to abide by it. He can then order the Treasury to borrow money over and above the debt ceiling.
   3. Let the Republicans sue — by the time the suit gets to the Supreme Court, the Democrats will have swept the extremist Republicans out of power in the [2024] elections.”
   4. ([T]his was last week’s argument: “… [Biden] should say that the debt ceiling law is unconstitutional because it conflicts both with section four of the 14^th Amendment and with the original rules prescribed for Congress in Article One, Section 8, Clause 1 of the [Constitution]. The latter reads in part “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts …”. … The 14^th Amendment emphasizes that point when it says, “The Public Debt of the United States … is not to be questioned.” In short – when you combine both of these sections of the Constitution, we find the debt ceiling law is in direct conflict. If the Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling, Biden should say the debt ceiling is unconstitutional and refuse to abide by it. He should then order the Treasury to continue borrowing money to meet the obligations that Congress HAD ALREADY VOTED FOR.”)
   5. Now, this legal analysis has never been tested because the US government has never actually gotten to the point of default, though we did get close back in 2011 as [the author] noted in the longer written version of last week’s commentary. And certainly, if the Biden Administration opted to take this tack, the case would end up in the courts almost immediately. …
   6. If we begin the discussion where [things were left in last week’s article,] the first question is, would the Biden Administration take such a drastic step? Would the Justice Department think that the argument presented about the Constitution would work? [M]any lawyers] think it would have a fighting chance. Obviously, the Biden Administration won’t even think of this until the Republicans show they really are trying to force a default. The reason … the Administration might consider this is because a default would be too much of a disaster for them to let it happen — yet allowing the Republicans to hold the debt ceiling hostage just encourages them to do it next time. (And even the “coming close” back in 2011, did lead to a temporary downgrade of US debt instruments which ended up costing money as the interest the US paid went up. …)
   7. So, once we get to the Biden Administration deciding to call the debt ceiling unconstitutional, how does that action get into the courts? The first interesting issue would be, who would have standing to sue the Biden Administration for blowing through the debt ceiling? (The idea of legal standing involves being able to show that you have some REASON to sue. You have to prove you were injured by the person or entity you are suing.)
   8. Perhaps members of Congress could have standing because the Biden Administration would be disregarding a law. But they could not file as individuals but only as representatives of the institution. Would every Republican in the House vote to empower the Speaker to sue on behalf of the entire House? (I think we can be pretty certain that no Democrat would vote to force a default. Would EVERY Republican?)
   9. [So] some individual members of Congress might sue. But why would they have standing? How would they be able to claim they had been “harmed” by the Biden Administration’s blowing through the debt ceiling? … [It] would be extremely hard to claim that they had been harmed when the Biden Administration’s disregarded the debt ceiling. That is because breaching the debt ceiling does not add a penny to the deficit that hasn’t already been voted for by Congress. In fact, … many individuals could make strong cases that they AS INDIVIDUALS would be harmed by a failure of the Biden Administration to spend money Congress has already appropriated.
   10. Instead, the issue might get to the courts from another direction. A law professor friend suggested that creditors (banks, insurance companies, even individuals) might ask a court for a declaratory judgement that money borrowed in defiance of the debt ceiling must be honored just like all US government debt — that would in effect ask a Court to validate what the Biden Administration was doing. They would have standing because they want guarantees that the bonds they own will keep their value – something that would definitely not happen if the US were to default.
   11. [MIKE: The article then goes into some theoreticals about how the Supreme Court might act or react depending on certain internal outcomes.]
   12. [T]he important thing to hope for is that the Biden Administration will be willing to make this their last resort tactic to prevent a default. The idea of them yielding to the hostage takers is too awful to contemplate. There are a few months before push will come to shove. Right now, Biden has asked Speaker McCarthy to “show me your budget” so they can actually have something to talk about. After March 9, when the President’s proposed budget is released, [this writer] will undoubtedly have lots of things to say.
   13. ANDREW: I’m very impressed by this argument– maybe I shouldn’t be, considering it comes from an economics professor… then again, it comes from an economics (I kid.)
   14. ANDREW: I find the points about who could sue really interesting, though I do wonder if Republicans in the court system might put party over law and let a suit without standing advance anyway.
   15. ANDREW:
   16. ANDREW: I think the professor’s argument is weakened by brushing over the politics, though. Mike observed pre-show that any lawsuit would likely be on an expedited docket because of potentially important implications. I agree. If the case is heard quickly, it could reach the Supreme Court well before November 2024 and who knows how it would affect voters. If the case is lost, it would lock this particular tactic away, but it may also have farther-reaching policy consequences we can’t see yet.
   17. ANDREW: I think the professor also glosses over the additional political work necessary for the Democrats to win in 2024 and thus earn short-term immunity from a loss in court. The Biden administration would have to use that open debt space wisely; guns and bombs would not help them win. The Democrats would have to pull their party together and come up with some serious assistance for the working class to spend that money on in order to get undecided, apathetic and unregistered voters to turn out and vote for them. The Republican House would limit what they could get passed alone, but expanding current programs as riders to larger legislation might be an easier sell, especially if strategic deals can be made with centrist Republicans. Just pushing back the debt ceiling won’t mean an election victory, and whether that push is politically risky will be a major factor in whether Biden tries it.
   18. REFERENCE: The debt ceiling is unconstitutional – President Biden should ignore it; By Michael Meeropol |ORG | January 27, 2023
   19. REFERENCE: The Constitutional Case for Disarming the Debt Ceiling; The Framers would have never tolerated debt-limit brinkmanship. It’s time to put this terrible idea on trial. By Thomas Geoghegan | NEWREPUBLIC.COM | January 6, 2023
9. US is ‘absolutely’ behind on supply chain independence from China, Biden advisor says; Natasha Turak@NatashaTurak | CNBC.COM | Published Tue, Feb 7 20234:53 AM EST
   1. … The U.S. has some rapid catching up to do if it is to secure the reliability of its supply chain and its independence from competitors like China, a top White House advisor admitted this week. …
   2. China controls roughly 60% of the world’s production of rare earth minerals and materials, according to a recent report by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Those resources include lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese and other rare earth elements crucial for making things like electric vehicles, batteries, computers and household goods.
   3. They’re also essential for renewable technology like solar panels and wind turbines, which are central in the U.S.’s attempt at an energy transition away from fossil fuels. As just one example, China refines 95% of the world’s manganese — a chemical element used in batteries and steel manufacturing — despite mining less than 10% of its global supply.
   4. For the U.S., whose relations with China can currently be described as tense at best, this poses several security risks, were China to decide to weaponize that market dominance at any point. The Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have also highlighted the fragility of the global supply chain. …
   5. MIKE: I hate to say that this has been a predictable strategic economic outcome for decades … but it has. This is like the US being so demobilized after WW1 that we went into the war without enough guns to train new troops, without enough helmets, and with an inadequate air force. Folks who complain about how expensive our military is today weren’t alive during the pre-WW2 era.
   6. MIKE: But the issue now isn’t capability; it’s capacity. Do we have enough industrial capacity that we can expand to fill our own needs in a crisis? Look at the predicament the Russians have found themselves in, and they were strategically stupid enough to start a major war on their borders in spite of it. We have stockpiles of strategic supplies, but the Russians have learned how quickly a high-intensity war consumes those stockpiles. And even though we have about a dozen countries helping us supply Ukraine, so have we. I think it’s been a strategic eye-opener. This story is part of that belated recognition.
   7. ANDREW: My concern, as I’ve said before, is more with civilians than troops. If some idiot in government pulls us into a war we don’t need, and it cuts off our trade with China, there’s going to be a lot more hardship, and a lot of people are going to be at risk of starving. In order to avoid that, I think the US needs to stop favoring multinational corporations that outsource their manufacturing to countries where they can pay officials to keep wages and labor rights depressed. Government financial support to businesses should come with the condition that a supermajority of their operational expansion happens in the US. That would create jobs, increase competition leading to more affordable living for consumers, and help rebuild the US’ ability to supply itself.
   8. MIKE: Practicality and legality aside, I think I agree.
10. The US military says China now has more ICBM launchers than it does, but the US still has the nuclear edge; Jake Epstein | BUSINESSINSIDER.COM | Feb 7, 2023, 10:47 AM
    1. Anthony Cotton, commander of the US Strategic Command, sent memos to both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees in late January detailing the status of China’s ICBM activities as of October 2022.
    2. “The number of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers in China exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States,” Cotton wrote in letters sent to the respective committees on January 26 and obtained by Insider. US Strategic Command — or STRATCOM — is responsible for nuclear operations, command, control, and communications. 
    3. Cotton added that the number of ICBMs in China’s active inventory “has not exceeded the number of ICBMs in the active inventory of the United States.” He also said that the “number of nuclear warheads equipped on such missiles of China has not exceeded the number of nuclear warheads equipped on such missiles of the United States.” …
    4. The Wall Street Journal first reported the unclassified information distributed by STRATCOM to Congress earlier on Tuesday. US officials and experts told the outlet many of China’s launchers are just empty silos, and officials also noted that STRATCOM’s warning about China’s launcher advantage doesn’t include two legs of the nuclear triad where the US has a distinct advantage — long-range bombers and submarines.    
    5. That said, China’s edge in land-based fixed and mobile launchers does bring Beijing closer to fielding a more robust ICBM capacity. …
    6. The report also predicted the continued expansion of Chinese nuclear arsenal. It estimated that China had at least 400 operational nuclear warheads in its stockpile and was on pace to beef that figure up to 1,500 by 2035. By contrast, the US has well over 5,000 warheads in its arsenal — second in the world only to Russia. 
    7. To counter the nuclear threat posed by China — and also Russia — the US is working on an expensive new missile to replace its current ICBMs, though it would take years before becoming operational. The US military also recently unveiled a new nuclear-capable stealth bomber, and work is underway on a new class of ballistic missile submarine.
    8. MIKE: It has come up several times on this show in past weeks that, in my opinion, a geopolitically multipolar world is a more dangerous place. This story is telling us that in a different way.
    9. MIKE: First, some historical context based partly on research and partly on my recollections. In the late 1950s and early 60s, there was talk in the US of a “missile gap” between the US and the USSR. In response, the US hurriedly built new missiles, and also developed something called MIRVs: Multiple Independently-targeted Re-entry Vehicles. This enabled the US to put up to a half dozen or more warheads on a single missile. This ultimately led to a first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty — or SALT — between the US and the USSR that led to the USSR having more “launchers” than the US, but not more deliverable warheads. There was SALT 1 and SALT 2, and then the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties — START 1 and START 2. START 2 expired in 2002 with Russian withdrawal from the treaty.
    10. MIKE: What enabled SALT and START to be negotiated in this instance was a relatively simple two-party negotiation. Other nuclear powers at the time were too small to be much concerned with in negotiations. The parties were concerned with a massive first strike by one side leaving a fearsome second-strike capability surviving. This was became known as MAD, for Mutual Assured Destruction.
    11. MIKE: Returning to this story, the Chinese may have more launchers than the US (or may not), but without MIRVs, the US can still have more deliverable warheads.
    12. Now consider a three-party situation, where two parties can gang up on a third party, totally annihilating any realistic danger of massive retaliation.
    13. MIKE: In a world with no SALTs, no STARTs, and three parties trying to come up with a way to protect themselves from two others, the world is going to be far more dangerous than during the Cold War, and defense budgets are likely to get much, much larger.
    14. ANDREW: I think the core flaw in your analysis is the idea that two parties ganging up on a third would prevent massive retaliation. I think history has shown us that the more states are involved in a conflict, the bigger the conflict gets. Consider World War I, which was aggravated from a relatively small-scale conflict between two nations into an entire world war, just through defensive pacts and alliances.
    15. ANDREW: Most nuclear-capable nations in the world have pledged nuclear support to either the US, Russia, or an ally of one of those nations. If China becomes the third great nuclear power, this won’t change. Even if China breaks its promises of nuclear support to Russia, it will still have promises from smaller countries that it can rely on. The details would change, but the overall situation would remain the same: if one nuke is launched, all the others will quickly follow. Global thermonuclear war.
    16. ANDREW: Even if one or more nations choose not to launch, the environmental, social, and economic consequences would still be devastating, and likely lead to the collapse of any remaining governments. Therefore, mutually assured destruction would remain intact, and the world would be no more dangerous than it is today.
    17. ANDREW: Now, I’m not saying I like more nuclear weapons (or even means to launch them) existing in the world. I’ve mentioned before on this show how I think a peace maintained by tension is actually more dangerous than occasional or even frequent small-scale conflict, because that tension can snap so easily, and all the hell it holds back would rain down at once. I believe it’s ridiculous that humanity maintains massive stocks of weapons that could wipe out all life on Earth, and I support mutual denuclearization policies and agreements.
    18. ANDREW: But to think that a country having more nuclear weapons is a threat to some nations but not others is just not realistic, and fear mongering because a US adversary is trying to close their own nuclear gap with the US only helps war hawks and the military-industrial complex.
    19. MIKE: Andrew has evolved on geopolitics. … It’s the military’s job to analyze prospective military threats, to inform civilian authority about them, and then let civilian authority make policy and budget decisions. There’s a lot in what you say that I agree with … or don’t disagree with. But national leaderships sometimes do stupid things that are ultimately against their own best interest. Again, Russia invading Ukraine is a good example.
11. How US Marines are being reshaped for China threat; The US military commitment to the Pacific was underlined in a White House meeting between the leaders of the US and Japan. But behind the scenes, this renewed focus on Asia has sparked a fierce debate within one of its most fabled military forces, writes defence analyst Jonathan Marcus. By Jonathan Marcus | BBC.COM |Published Jan 31, 2023, 8 hours ago
    1. A bitter family row has erupted in one of the US military’s most hallowed institutions, the US Marine Corps.
    2. A host of its former senior commanders are lining up to attack the current leadership over plans for its reinvention.
    3. At issue is a plan to adapt the service for a potential conflict against China – a plan dubbed Force Design 2030. Almost from its inception this plan has been under attack with a cohort of retired generals taking the unusual approach of going to the press to air their frustrations.
    4. Retired senior officers have been meeting regularly; speaking at seminars and think tanks; and devising their own alternative to a plan which they see as a disaster for the Marine Corps’ future.
    5. One prominent critic is the former US Navy Secretary and former Senator for Virginia, Jim Webb, who served as a Marine officer in the Vietnam War and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2015.
    6. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he described Force Design 2030 as “insufficiently tested” and “intrinsically flawed”. He warned that the plan “raised serious questions about the wisdom and long-term risk of dramatic reductions in force structure, weapons systems and manpower levels in units that would take steady casualties in most combat scenarios”.
    7. So what has got them all so upset?
    8. Launched in 2020 by the Marine Corps Commandant General David H Berger, the plan is intended to equip the Marines for a potential conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific region rather than counter-insurgency wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.
    9. The new plan sees the Marines as fighting dispersed operations across chains of islands. Units will be smaller, more spread out, but packing a much bigger punch through a variety of new weapons systems. Huge amphibious landings like in World War Two or massive deployments on land – like in Iraq – will probably be things of the past.
    10. Most unpopular is the plan to cut back on foot soldiers and give up all its tanks. Such proposals have led some critics to feel the Corps is turning its back on its past. …
    11. Its traditional role as America’s military first responder, capable of taking on disparate challenges around the globe, is what critics believe could be compromised by the new plan with its clear focus upon China and the Indo-Pacific.
    12. So what exactly is in the plan?
        1. some infantry battalions – the foot soldiers – to be cut
        2. around three-quarters of its towed artillery batteries replaced by long-range rocket systems
        3. several helicopter squadrons are being cut
        4. giving up all of its tanks
    13. Money for the new weapons systems, totalling $15.8 billion, are to be funded by the cuts which amount to some $18.2 billion.
    14. In addition to the new rocket artillery systems, there are to be new anti-shipping missiles that can be fired from land and new unmanned aerial systems. The goal is to equip and train the Marine Corps for a new kind of warfare that the fighting in Ukraine has already prefigured. …
    15. Many commentators insist that change is essential if the Marines are to face up to the challenges of the modern battlefield. …
    16. While the withdrawal of the Marines’ tanks has drawn particular criticism, [Dr Frank Hoffman — himself a former Marine officer – is now a Distinguished Research Fellow at the US National Defense University —] believes it is the right course. There will still be plenty of armoured vehicles, he argues, just not “the heavy tanks and their supporting cast of refuellers”.
    17. “It’s an adaptation to cover a deeper area with a more accurate mix of firepower such as we are seeing in Ukraine. The Corps has used its aviation element to have this range in the past, and now it will have a mix of traditional artillery and a family of missiles that will increase the lethality and range of its fire support.”
    18. These are all steps that many would say are justified by the lessons from Ukraine. …
    19. Force Design 2030 is very much an evolving programme. There have already been changes and there will be more. …
    20. Amphibious shipping will play a key role here. And as Nick Childs, the Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the IISS in London explains, new kinds of ships are going to be needed.
    21. “Just relying on their traditional large amphibious ships would leave them too vulnerable to the kinds of modern weaponry that they are likely to face”, he says. “So new kinds of smaller ships in greater numbers will be vital, so that the Marine Corps can operate in a more agile and dispersed way.”
    22. But getting more ships is not going to be easy. Smaller ones can be built quickly and in a wide range of shipyards but not necessarily at the pace needed. The US Navy also needs significant numbers of new warships and it is far from clear that there are the funds or the ship-yard capacity needed.
    23. It’s the age-old problem of matching strategic priorities to resources. And the crisis in Ukraine underlines that old threats can reappear just as a force is trying to focus itself in an entirely new direction.
    24. MIKE: This a historically interesting problem for a military: Persist in fighting the last war or prepare for the next one? Can you safely predict the next one? After all, it is said that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
    25. MIKE: We’ve talked on this show that the war in Ukraine gives some foresight into how future wars may be fought, and that the world’s militaries are watching and closely analyzing the tactics, strategies and counter-strategies being used by both sides.
    26. MIKE: One thing you can be sure of: The next, next war won’t be fought quite like the Ukraine war. Lessons learned will change that.
    27. MIKE: There is an interesting contradiction between this story and some others I’ve seen. “Force Design 2030” is, by definition, a strategy for designing a military to fight effectively in the Pacific by 2030. Some military people have suggested that if the US and China fight a war it might be by 2027; maybe 2025.
    28. MIKE: We actually talked about this last week. There are two factors at play here: China’s coming demographic implosion, affecting the number of personnel they need as foot soldiers and to operate their equipment, and the realignment and rebuilding of US forces which might create a short-term capability gap.
    29. MIKE: I don’t like to predict, but I want to make a couple of speculations. 1- If the US and China don’t go to war by 2030, we probably won’t within our lifetimes. 2- I think it’s entirely possible that by 2030, one of the outcomes of the Russo-Ukraine War may be the resumption of a bi-polar geopolitical world, but with the US and China; with Russia becoming a vassal state of China.
    30. ANDREW: It seems the critics of Force Design 2030 are largely taking a generalist position– we don’t know exactly what the next military misadventure will be, so it makes some sense to be as prepared as we can for as many things as we can. If I was in charge of US defense policy (pause for raucous laughter from Mike), I would probably also lean more towards the generalist approach, though with a focus on actual defense of US and allied territory rather than any first-strike or expansion preparedness.
    31. ANDREW: I think we should also consider the cultural and political effects in the US that will result from the war machine changing its target so physically. It’s well documented that the US news media made very noticeable changes when the US began its wars in the Middle East. Pop culture shifted as well to reflect and reinforce the paranoia and manufactured consent that the public had been settled into. Government assistance programs lost funding in favor of defense spending, and establishment politicians competed over who was the bigger warmonger. I don’t know if I like to predict or not, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to speculate that the same things will happen again but with a twist(!) now that the DoD is focusing on China.

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