Array
In his book “New Cold Wars,” journalist David Sanger warns of the risks posed to the United States by a rising China and a declining Russia.
Russia’s problems are on vivid display in Ukraine, where its military is destroying itself, burning through men and material, but going nowhere. However, the country remains a nuclear power, and those weapons mean that it will always pose a threat to America and our allies. That is a threat we have understood and dealt with for decades.
China is a more complex problem. As it continues to assert itself across Asia, it may soon make a strategic move to conquer the island of Taiwan. Beijing is also adept at hacking into American computer systems, where it engages in cyber warfare as it steals information about Americans and our defenses. With its unprecedented theft of federal government records and personal emails, it also targets defense contractors who make the weapons we use to defend our freedom.
“In one of the worst instances, Chinese hackers broke into the defense contractor Lockheed Martin and stole the plans for the Pentagon’s cutting-edge new joint strike fighter, the F-35,” Sanger writes. In a willful challenge to the U.S., “The Chinese air force decided to test-fly the plane just as Robert Gates, the American defense secretary under Bush and Obama, was visiting the country.”
It is worth wondering whether they had any better luck with the designs they stole than our military has had with the designs we’ve paid so dearly for.
