Standing firm/together ...
WATCH: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other
officials give remarks on Ukraine crisis
PBS NewsHour
Jan 24, 2022
32:20 min.
Standing firm/together ...
WATCH: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other
officials give remarks on Ukraine crisis
PBS NewsHour
Jan 24, 2022
32:20 min.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (25th January 2022), Chris (24th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (24th January 2022), modwiz (24th January 2022), Wind (24th January 2022)
hmm ...
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (25th January 2022), Chris (24th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (24th January 2022), modwiz (24th January 2022), Wind (24th January 2022)
"Total Football" ...
South Korea’s Quest to Build the Future of Football
The B1M
7:41 min.It’s not just a stadium, it's an investment in the next generation of footballers. Unreal Engine is changing how projects like this get built - https://bit.ly/3KNRbVM
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (26th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (26th January 2022), modwiz (26th January 2022), Wind (26th January 2022)
'Russian belligerence has drawn the world’s attention back to the eight-year-old secessionist rebellion in the Donbas region: a deadlocked, time-warped conflict with no end in sight.'
In the Trenches of
Ukraine’s Forever
War ...
"Pisky is as wronged a place as you will find in Ukraine. The village is on the front line that separates forces of the Ukrainian military from those of a secessionist statelet that calls itself the Donetsk People’s Republic. Backed by Russia, the D.P.R. has been at war with Ukraine for nearly eight years. Its fighters fire on the Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainians fire back. Or vice versa. No ground is taken, none ceded. The combatants rarely set eyes on one another. Rockets miss their targets and land in Pisky instead, the explosions echoing through the frames of the already-shattered homes and what was once the nave of the church. The priest fled years ago. So did most of the villagers" ... Read more here
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (27th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (27th January 2022), modwiz (27th January 2022), Wind (27th January 2022)
Time to standup and lead ...
Russia-Ukraine conflict: Is Germany letting the West down?
To the point | DW News
Jan 27, 2022As tensions rise between Russia and Ukraine, Germany faces fierce criticism for promising to supply Kiev with medical supplies, but not weapons.
Our guests: Jessica Berlin (Military expert), Alexander Rahr (Russia expert), Michael Thumann (Die Zeit).
_
0:00 "Russia-Ukraine Conflict: Is Germany letting its allies down?"
03:24 Internal problems dominate German politics
06:00 NATO and eastern Europe
07:20 How much can Ukraine rely on Germany as a partner?
09:43 NATO is weakened by German indecision
11:21 Could the new foreign minister Baerbock change German diplomacy?
13:03 Military means, do they deterr or provoke Vladimir Putin?
14:51 Will the Normandy Format talks lead to a diplomatic solution?
15:51 What does Vladimir Putin want?
18:00 Will Russia invade Ukraine?
18:54 Is there a face saving compromise?
19:47 Can Ukraine become a member of NATO?
22:23 What sanctions against Russia could work?
26:08 min.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (28th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (27th January 2022), modwiz (27th January 2022), Wind (28th January 2022)
As Putin prepares to march into Ukraine ...
And NATO's (EU) unity/response is pretty much kaput ...
The U.S. must focus/prepare for this looming strategic crisis.
January 26, 2022
in News
How the Computer Chip Shortage Could
Incite a U.S. Conflict With China
WASHINGTON — The war game scenario conducted by a Washington think tank began with a sudden failure at three Taiwanese semiconductor foundries that make high-end computer chips used in such items as smartphones, automobiles and military equipment.
The halt in production raised questions of whether a cyberattack by Beijing was responsible — touching off an international crisis between China and the United States that the researchers said could grind the global economy to a halt and incite a military confrontation.
The war game and study by the Center for a New American Security, which is set to be released on Thursday, illustrate how dependent the world is on Taiwanese computer chips — and how that dependence could draw the United States and China into various kinds of conflict.
The report comes as Congress has put new energy into bills to increase domestic production of semiconductors in the United States. Diversifying the global supply chain for computer chips is a key recommendation in the report.
Last week, President Biden urged Congress to pass those bills and promised he would work to bring production of semiconductor chips back to the United States.
“Today we barely produce 10 percent of the computer chips, despite being the leader in chip design and research,” Mr. Biden said. “And we don’t have the ability to make the most advanced chips now — right now. But today, 75 percent of production takes place in East Asia. Ninety percent of the most advanced chips are made in Taiwan. China is doing everything it can to take over the global market so they can try to outcompete the rest of us and have a lot of applications — including military applications.”
Even if Congress approves new government investments in America’s microchip production capacities, matching Taiwanese expertise is years away, if it is even possible, the report’s authors say. The United States is already more dependent on Taiwan’s high-end microchips than it was on Middle Eastern oil in decades past, the report said.
China, the war game predicts, could use economic coercion, cyberoperations and hybrid tactics to try to seize or harm Taiwan’s semiconductor industry — and the United States must become better able to identify and counter Chinese tactics that could threaten the microchip supply.
War games like this one involve current and former officials, academics and other experts sitting around a table playing various roles. After an initial scenario is presented, the teams take turns making strategic decisions. Such exercises are supposed to yield insights about how different players would act, and lay plain what sort of moves each group might make.
Becca Wasser, who helped design and lead the scenario, said while many war games were conducted to study China, most focus on conventional military threats, giving short shrift to the many ways China could exert pressure on Taiwan.
And countering those pressure points is difficult, especially if the United States and Taiwan are at odds over the best strategy. In the scenario, the U.S. team presumed the Taiwan team would go along with its strategies to counter China. But Taiwan’s interest sometimes led it to cross-purposes. For example, when the United States wanted to bring semiconductor engineers to the safety of America, Taiwan resisted, worried about a brain drain.
“Whatever the United States tried to do by itself in the game really fell flat,” Ms. Wasser said. “We have seen a variety of examples of that in real life.”
As a result, multilateral responses and global efforts to build resiliency in the supply chain for computer chips are most likely the best strategy, the report said.
Taiwan has relied on its dominance of the microchip industry for its defense. The “silicon shield” theory argued that because its semiconductor industry is so important to Chinese manufacturing and the United States consumer economy, actions that threaten its foundries would be too risky.
Martijn Rasser, a co-author of the study and a former C.I.A. analyst, said it was crucial for the international community to convince Taiwan that its shield strategy needed to be internationalized. “The long-term play has to be a geographic dispersal of those capabilities out of Taiwan in exchange for enhanced security guarantees for the island,” he said.
The Biden administration has made clear that in the case of Ukraine, while the United States would economically punish Russia for any invasion, it would not commit troops to fight alongside Kyiv to stop any intervention by Moscow. The longstanding American policy toward Taiwan calls for shoring up its defenses and practicing strategic ambiguity over whether Washington would militarily intervene in a conflict over the island.
But Taiwan and its semiconductors are far more important to America’s economy than Ukraine is — meaning it would very likely be far more difficult for the United States to stay out of a conflict involving Taiwan.
Taiwan accounts for half of the overall production of microchips that are critical to the functioning of mobile phones, consumer electronics, cars, military equipment and more. South Korea, the nearest competitor, has about 17 percent of the overall market. But Taiwanese chips are the smallest and fastest, and its foundries account for 92 percent of the most advanced designs.
“It’s almost impossible to duplicate Taiwan’s manufacturing capability of high-end chips, of low-end chips,” said Dan Blumenthal, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s just the manufacturing hub of the world.”
Although the United States and Europe are trying to boost their own domestic design and production of semiconductors, they do not have the abilities to mass produce the most advanced designs that the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, can make.
“If the semiconductor supply chain is infringed upon by China in some way, all of the sudden the things that Americans look to in their daily lives, to get to and from work, to call their loved ones, to do a variety of different things, those disappear,” Ms. Wasser said.
Other experts said it would be an overstatement to say that the United States would be dragged into a war over microchips. China will decide what kinds of coercive measures it will take against the Taiwanese based on the perceived threat to its sovereignty and the expected international backlog, said Bonny Lin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“China is not going to base their Taiwan policy, or any decision to use force against Taiwan, based on chips,” Dr. Lin said. “China thinks about the costs of an invasion of Taiwan — there are significant political and military costs. That is why I don’t think chips would figure among the top three factors of using military force against Taiwan.”
Source:This post How the Computer Chip Shortage Could Incite a U.S. Conflict With China appeared first on New York Times.
Last edited by Gio, 28th January 2022 at 06:20.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (28th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (28th January 2022), modwiz (28th January 2022), Wind (28th January 2022)
In clarifying my views here ...Originally posted by giovonni
Putin pretty much has Germany (and most of the EU) by the balls,
with the gas pipeline project/deal, and China is pretty much
up into Germany's (port) back door with this deal ...
It appears Germany got itself a three-way going on
from the front and the back (if you get my drift) ...
And the U.S. is - well just fucked.
PS ...
Allies - my definition:
those your willing to have sex with, but
won't bring home to meet your mother.
Last edited by Gio, 28th January 2022 at 07:12. Reason: PS
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (28th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (28th January 2022), modwiz (28th January 2022), Wind (28th January 2022)
This to shall pass ...
I Will Survive
Gloria Gaynor
4:45 min.
Last edited by Gio, 28th January 2022 at 07:34.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (28th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (28th January 2022), modwiz (28th January 2022), Wind (28th January 2022)
“I went back to warn them, but they already knew and didn’t seem to care.”
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (28th January 2022), Dreamtimer (28th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (28th January 2022), modwiz (28th January 2022), Wind (28th January 2022)
China's ambassador to the U.S.
warns of 'military conflict' over
Taiwan
NPR: Listen read here
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (28th January 2022), Dreamtimer (29th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (28th January 2022), modwiz (28th January 2022), Wind (28th January 2022)
The reported latest ...
US and Germany step up pipeline warnings to Russia
DW News
The United States called for a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the situation at the Russia-Ukraine border, seeking to apply more pressure on Russia to negotiate its concerns. The United States and Germany on Thursday warned Russia that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was at stake if Russian troops cross the border. "If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward," said Victoria Nuland, the US under secretary of state for political affairs.
9:51 min.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (28th January 2022), Dreamtimer (29th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (28th January 2022), modwiz (31st January 2022), Wind (28th January 2022)
Where the values stand ...
Ira Glasser on Free Speech | Real Time with Bill Maher
Jan 28, 2022The former ACLU Executive Director and subject of the documentary, "Mighty Ira," joins Bill to discuss the importance of protecting free speech.
6:52 min.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (29th January 2022), Dreamtimer (29th January 2022), Emil El Zapato (29th January 2022), modwiz (31st January 2022), Wind (29th January 2022)
From Astoria Queens ...
A Massive Storm Just Hit NYC…
Cash Jordan
descriptive
This guy is one of NYC's most popular real estate agents ...
Today he's giving us a look at the city after this weekends
storm ... He's filming at home (and neighborhood) with his
wife and daughter in this one ... Some might ask if he's such
a great agent why is he living in such a place ... Well he has
a rent stabilized apt and he and his wife are saving for when
they enroll their daughter into a preferred (and costly) NYC
private pre-schools.
Jan 30, 2022
8:30 min.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (31st January 2022), Dreamtimer (31st January 2022), Emil El Zapato (31st January 2022), modwiz (31st January 2022), Wind (31st January 2022)
I'm all about the content ... wink/wink
Reuben the Bulldog: SNOW!
Jan 30, 2022It's not often that Reuben gets to experience snow where we live (Wilmington, North Carolina) so we had to make sure he got a little time out in the elements to experience the sights.
5:37 min.
Last edited by Gio, 31st January 2022 at 07:31. Reason: wink/wink
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (31st January 2022), Dreamtimer (31st January 2022), Emil El Zapato (31st January 2022), Wind (31st January 2022)
Don't doubt any of this at all ...
FBI Director Wray On Efforts To Halt China’s Economic
And Political Spying | Full Interview
NBC News
Feb 1, 2022In an exclusive NBC News interview, FBI Director Chris Wray tells Pete Williams that Chinese spying in the U.S. has become so widespread that his agency is opening an average of two investigations a day, estimating a total of some 2,000 investigations.
15:34 min.
Presenting an alternative to the alternative community.
Aragorn (2nd February 2022), Dreamtimer (2nd February 2022), Emil El Zapato (2nd February 2022), modwiz (2nd February 2022), Wind (2nd February 2022)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks