From the moment President Biden appointed John Kerry as his administration’s representative for climate change, Washington foreign policy establishment types, or members of “the Blob,” started writing critical articles saying that of course climate change is important, but it must not be allowed in any way to reduce U.S. attention or expenditure on the really important threat: China.
We need to read these articles in conjunction with the news about Hurricane Ida, and of course the long series of heatwaves, wildfires, and droughts in the western United States in recent years. For national security means little in the end if it is not related to some real degree to the lives and wellbeing of ordinary citizens; and it is not China that has killed almost 60 people in the United States in recent days, deprived millions of electricity, and done untold economic damage.
In fact, for many years now, China has not killed a single American. Nor of course has America killed a single Chinese; whereas floods in China over the same period have killed thousands of Chinese citizens, while air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels kills hundreds of thousands of Chinese each year.
Seen in the context of climate change, weirdest of all has been the issue of the South China Sea — China’s obsession with building bases on the uninhabited reefs and sandbanks there, and America’s obsession with the supposed dreadful threat that this poses. Future historians will not know whether to laugh or cry. For them, this will quite literally be a non-issue — because climate change will have meant that these reefs and sandbanks will long since have disappeared beneath the rising waves.
Both the Biden administration and the Chinese government have declared climate change to be an “existential threat” and a “national priority,” but their overall strategy suggests that they have not really understood the meaning of these phrases. For the whole point about a priority is that it comes first, which means that, by definition, something else comes second in terms of importance.
And if climate change is truly an existential threat to the United States, China, and modern civilization as a whole, how can it possibly be placed in the same category of risk as a limited rivalry over geopolitical precedence in the Far East? U.S. bases in Guam and Okinawa do not threaten to invade and destroy China; nor can China eject U.S. forces from those bases without nuclear war. The two sides could very well just leave each other alone, while they concentrate desperately needed attention and resources on the efforts to limit carbon emissions and to strengthen national and international resilience against the effects of climate change.
The Biden administration also needs to take to heart the words of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who told Mr. Kerry during his visit to Beijing this week: “The U.S. side hopes that climate cooperation can be an ‘oasis’ in China-U.S. relations, but if that ‘oasis’ is surrounded by desert, it will also become desertified sooner or later.”
The United States should learn this from what should have been limited rivalries with other countries (for example, with Russia over Ukraine) has led Washington to break off cooperation even in areas where both sides have clear common interests. Then again, Mr. Wang should also apply his words to Chinese government approaches to the United States, and to the “Wolf Warrior” diplomats whose lack of diplomacy is approaching that of John Bolton on a bad day. This “anti-diplomacy” by both American and Chinese diplomats is also not likely to attract the respect of future historians — if there are any.
Anatol Lieven is Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College London.
Tape warns commuters not to enter a closed subway station at 28th street, which was heavily flooded when the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida brought drenching rain and the threat of flash floods to parts of the northern mid-Atlantic, in New York City, U.S., September 2, 2021. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg (L) moderates a conversation with Palantir CEO Alex Karp (R) during a forum in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. (Screengrab via thehillandvalleyforum.com)
It’s only been six years since thousands of Google employees forced their employer to pull out of an AI contract with the U.S. military. At the time, it seemed like a watershed moment: Despite long historical links to the Pentagon, Silicon Valley appeared poised to shake off its ties with the world’s most powerful military.
But a lot can change in half a decade, as Palantir CEO Alex Karp gleefully reminded his audience in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday. “I historically would have been one that would rage against Silicon Valley venture [capitalists],” Karp said, joking that he used to have “all sorts of fantasies of using drone-enabled technology to exact revenge.”
Now, patriotic investors and officials are “coming together around some obvious truths,” he argued. In Karp’s telling, these principles include a realization that Western values must be protected against burgeoning threats from America’s adversaries in China and Russia as well as the dangerous “pagan” forces behind pro-Palestinian protests.
Karp’s free-wheeling presentation was the most entertaining of Wednesday’s Hill and Valley Forum, a four-hour-long event featuring a who’s-who of the growing defense tech ecosystem. But, rhetorical flourishes aside, the series of talks gave a unique window into the increasingly porous border between Silicon Valley’s most hawkish entrepreneurs and their ideological allies in Washington.
Above all, the two groups came together around their shared hatred for the Chinese Communist Party and its various nefarious doings. Panelists called for everything from slashing regulation of the weapons industry to fielding fully autonomous weapons, lest our enemies get a chance to do it first.
“Technology is moving extremely quickly, and you have your adversaries that are moving super quickly as well,” remarked Alex Wang of Scale AI. “We’re in a moment where we have to act really quickly.”
The conduit for this growing collaboration is Jacob Helberg, the event’s baby-faced organizer. In recent years, Helberg has shed his more conventional think tank background to become Silicon Valley’s man in Washington. He’s convened countless meetings between policymakers and tech leaders where attendees pitch policies to stick it to China.
Helberg now works both as an adviser to Palantir and a member of a congressional commission on U.S.-China relations. Some say this dual-hatting amounts to a conflict of interests given that he now “stands to benefit from ever-frostier relations between the two countries,” a claim that Helberg strenuously denies.
Some of Helberg’s efforts, like the campaign to ban TikTok, have already paid off. But he has his sights set on something bigger, according to the Washington Post, which reported Wednesday that the young hotshot has already started drafting an executive order for a potential future Trump administration that would strip away President Joe Biden’s AI regulations (limited as they may be).
Helberg’s convening powers were on full display Wednesday: Some of Washington’s most powerful politicians graced the stage, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), as well as Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who holds an important position on the House Appropriations Committee.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — who, you may remember, is currently fighting for his political life — took time out of his schedule to warn the crowd about the threat China poses to our very way of life. “We must make clear that if America and American companies lose, that means China wins,” Johnson said.
Even Donald Trump made an appearance, if only in the form of a brief, pre-recorded statement filmed on what appeared to be the ex-president’s private jet. “Our country’s going through a lot of problems right now, but we’re going to make it bigger, better, and even stronger than before,” Trump said, noting that he’d had a “very productive” meeting about AI with Helberg.
The day’s panels had an odd quality to them, possibly because none of the journalists in attendance were invited to moderate. Instead, the audience was treated to a series of largely unstructured conversations between politicians and the kind of people who can buy an island.
Graham warned the audience that Chinese cars could be little more than “roving spy labs” meant to gather information on American patriots. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) argued that Americans will have to come around to the idea of AI drones that make “life and death decisions” because our enemies will surely do the same.
The growing bonds between Silicon Valley and Washington are “recreating a culture that says it is great to be American,” remarked Josh Wolfe, a VC at Lux Capital, adding that “we do have adversaries with malicious aims” that can only be countered with good old-fashioned American capitalism.
The funhouse mirror aspects of the event, plentiful as they were, are a distraction from the fundamental problem: A growing part of Silicon Valley is ready to unshackle AI from most if not all oversight, and Congress is more than happy to help them.
There is perhaps no greater evidence of this fact than the effusive praise Sen. Booker lavished on his fellow panelists, all of whom lead various AI firms. “Often unsung heroes are those that are the innovators and the scientists and those who are creating systems and opportunities that we now in our generation take for granted,” the lawmaker said. “You three are frontline players in ways that have me humbled and in awe.”
In a hearing of the House Armed Services committee today, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) pressed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about the potential harms' way that U.S. service members might be in while they work on the planned humanitarian pier project in Gaza.
Bottom line: U.S. military will be armed (they always are) and will have the ability and authority to defend themselves if they are shot at from the beach (ostensibly they will be on the pier that will be anchored to the Gaza coast). When Gaetz asked if there was a likelihood they will encounter unfriendly fire, Austin said yes.
More:
Gaetz: (Ms. Slotkin) just said there'll be about 1,000 U.S. service members operating a pier system off of Gaza. How many of them will have guns, Mr. Secretary?
Austin: Typically all of the deployed service members carry guns, and they have the ability to protect themselves if challenged.
Gaetz: If someone from land in Gaza shoots at our service members who are on the $320 million pier that we're building, you're telling me our service members can shoot back?
Austin: They have the right to return fire to protect themselves. Now, again ...
Gaetz (interrupting): I want to move to the likelihood that you think someone from land in Gaza might shoot at our service members on this pier. Do you think that that's a likely scenario?
Austin: That's possible, yes.
Gaetz: This is a very telling moment, Mr. Secretary, because you've said something that's quite possible, that could happen, right? Shots from Gaza on our service members, and then the response our armed service members shooting live fire into Gaza. That is a possible outcome here so that we can become the Port Authority and run this pier. Right?
Austin: That's correct. And I expect that we will always have the ability to protect themselves.
Gaetz: Don't you think that counts as boots on the ground? President Biden told the country that we weren't going to have boots on the ground in Gaza.
Austin: And we won't.
Gaetz: Okay, but you guys parse the distinction between... Like when Americans think boots on the ground, they think Americans in harm's way or engaged actively in a conflict. You guys seem to be sort of saying that boots on a pier, connected to the ground, connected to service members shooting into Gaza doesn't count as boots on the ground?
Austin: It does not.
Gaetz: I think you're gonna find the the American people have a different perspective on that. And if we're gonna have people shooting into Gaza, we probably should have a vote on that, pursuant to our war powers.
Watch:
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Army mariners assigned to the 368th Seaport Operations Company and 331st Transportation Company construct a causeway adjacent to the Merchant Vessel Maj. Bernard F. Fisher off the coast of Bowen, Australia, July 29, 2023. (Photo Credit: Sgt. Ashunteia' Smith)
According to reports today, satellite images are showing that the massive U.S. project to build a pier and causeway to help surge humanitarian aid into Gaza has finally begun.
President Joe Biden first announced the plan during his State of the Union speech, on March 4.
The problem is it was supposed to be complete in "early May" but Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system is no where near being in place. In fact, according to this Associated Press report, an American military engineering unit is currently "training" to build the 1800-foot causeway, which is supposed to be anchored right off the Gazan beach, with another Israeli military unit, up the coast. The article doesn't say how the American unit is accomplishing this without boots on the ground, which was promised up and down and sideways by the Biden administration.
The U.S. Naval vessels are in place about 7 miles away in the waters between Gaza and Crete. They will first build a floating pier onto which humanitarian aid will brought from inspection centers in Crete. Then the aid will be shipped by vessels to the causeway and then onto a staging area on the beach. This is where this gets tricky. Supposedly the Israelis will be providing security on the beach and the U.N. will be delivering it into Gaza, but the project came under mortar fire on the beach last week and Hamas has pledged to "resist" Israel or any other foreign force brought in to guard the area. In short, the entire gambit has become a head scratcher.
Furthermore, according to Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, the whole thing is going to cost the U.S. taxpayers $320 million (in addition to the $26 billion approved last week) up front. This is quite a bit to swallow given that there are check points and ports in Israel that could be surging aid into the starving Palestinian population but are not. Nevertheless, officials say they still expect this to be up and running in "early May."
None of this has escaped the attention of even the biggest pro-Israel hawks on Capitol Hill. "This dangerous effort with marginal benefit will now cost the American taxpayers at least $320 million to operate the pier for only 90 days,” charged Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), in an interview with Reuters, which broke the story about the cost.
“How much will taxpayers be on the hook once – or if – the pier is finally constructed?” Wicker asked further.
“For every day this mission continues, the price tag goes up and so does the level of risk for the 1,000 deployed troops within range of Hamas’s rockets.”
Interestingly the pier is no longer considered a temporary fix. According to CNN this morning, "the ultimate goal is to turn it into a full-time commercial operation that can be used by other countries and non-governmental organizations."