The Need to Know

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Mishandling of defense-related classified information in the United States has become so frequent that it hardly makes the list of leading public concerns anymore. It occurs at every level of seniority ranging from young enlisted military personnel and civilian employees to senior officers and government officials and even cabinet members and presidents. The public no longer seems shocked by it. It should be. The compromise of highly classified material can cause immense harm to our nation, to other nations and to individuals. Americans at every level who are entrusted with our nation’s secrets need to learn to take the rules for safeguarding them very seriously. And when they fail to do so, there must be consequences serious enough to deter others from failing to do so. No one is too senior (or too junior) to not be held accountable.

                The need to know is the underlying principle for determining who should have access to certain classified materials. It is not a privilege that conveys with seniority or rank. In other words, access should be granted only to persons whose duties or special assignment requires access to specific classified materials. The rules for safeguarding classified materials are largely self-enforced making it sometimes easy to conceal infractions. Appropriate background investigations are required before security clearances are issued and those granted clearance should be trained in the proper handling and stowage of the material. It isn’t just the physical material itself that needs to safeguarded. Information concerning it cannot be shared in any form with persons other than those who have been granted access to it by proper authority. Judgement and trustworthiness, then, are essential attributes required in those who are granted security clearances and access to sensitive materials.

                Questions have been raised concerning why a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman named Jack Teixeira was entrusted with extremely sensitive material. According to an FBI affidavit, Teixeira was charged with possessing classified documents pertaining to national security. How could an enlisted man with no authority or rank possibly have a need to know the reportedly sensitive information contained in these materials which reportedly included screen shots from a government computer?

                The short, official answer appears to be that Teixeira had a need to access these files in order to perform his duties of mining the internet for useful intelligence, much of which, apparently, is done by young, computer-competent digital natives like Teixeira because they tend to be very good at it. At a recent Pentagon briefing discussing the security breach, a spokesperson noted that it isn’t uncommon in the military to give young people a tremendous amount of responsibility. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made a similar observation. That’s certainly true but is it relevant to this situation? Young men and women in the military are, in fact given tremendous 1 responsibility in operating complex weapons systems and machinery under the supervision of qualified superiors but it’s not the same as handling information directly affecting the security of the nation and the lives of people under rules that are largely self-enforced and secrecy and restraint in essential.

                The human brain is not fully matured at age 21. In fact, the prefrontal cortex, the part that influences restraint and judgement, is not fully developed until age25. Young people are also more subject to peer pressure than older persons and tend to be more addicted to social media. Teixeira reportedly created the social media site Discord that discussed, inter alia, the war in Ukraine and other global conflicts and he reportedly shared some of what he was learning at work with members to prove his opinions. According to reports, a group member said that Teixeira started posting screen shots of actual classified material. These postings, shared with other platforms, apparently attracted the attention of federal authorities who arrested him at gunpoint. He faces a maximum of ten years in prison if convicted. An older person with more mature judgement would be more likely to consider the consequences of such behavior than would a 21-year-old.           

                Unfortunately, the damage is done and authorities are scrambling to determine the extent of the damage to the security of our nation and perhaps to others. Congress is demanding answers and so should the public. Early responses seem to defend the use of very junior, young, low-paid enlisted men and women, with no authority or operational training, to search the internet for useful intelligence, giving them access to the files they may help create. The data they collect are not their property to discuss with chat groups or anyone else. They belong to the government. A retired Air Force intelligence analyst said “(t)he problem is the (intelligence} community needs these people. It can’t work without them.” Well, perhaps it must learn to. It may seem like a cost-effective use of low-cost manpower but not if the security of the nation is compromised in the process. Security doesn’t come cheap.

                The Pentagon spokesperson seemed to dismiss these concerns, saying it’s common to assign junior people in the military heavy responsibility. That’s certainly true when it comes to fighting and leadership in combat but dealing with the nation’s secrets requires maturity, judgment and the ability to keep secrets. It’s often heard said by people who apparently are ignorant of the brain development process, that if a man or woman is old enough to fight and die for his or her country, then he or she is old enough to vote, drink, drive, etc. Not necessarily.

                President Joe Biden, former president Donald Trump, former vice-president Mike Pence, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and other top-ranking officials have been investigated for mishanding classified material. There are certainly others who are vulnerable to such charges. The widespread nature of this problem at senior levels of government creates the impression that these officials consider themselves too important to be bothered by the nuisance of safeguarding classified material. Guilty or not, they are generally free to run again for higher office.  It’s a poor example to set for junior enlisted people who may conclude that it’s not all that important. But it’s usually a career-ender for a military member and often results in a prison sentence. There is clearly a double standard.

                The public deserves answers to questions involving the policies in place for safeguarding our nation’s secrets. What training is provided for those entrusted with classified materials, particularly those at the junior level? Is the supervision adequate?

April 29, 2023

More Ways to Lose a War with China———-

            A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Beijing’s reaction to the visit of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen to the U.S. and her meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCormack was followed by the usual fury, fireworks and tantrums from China’s leaders and a military exercise designed to offer a preview of what an attack on Taiwan might look like if they continued to behave like the independent country they are. This led to speculation here that an invasion of the island nation may be imminent. It’s doubtful, however, that Chinese President Xi Jinping would initiate an invasion until he is convinced that the U.S. would not react with force or would lose decisively if it did. That time, however, may be fast approaching.

                This has also led to speculation over whether or not U.S. President Joe Biden, currently vacationing in Ireland while the international situation deteriorates and our foreign policy meanders, would keep his word and respond to such an invasion with armed force. Will Americans question whether the independence of Taiwan is worth our going to war over? Well, consider some of what’s at stake. Mr. Biden has said at least twice that we would respond with force. If we renege on that promise, the president’s word would henceforth mean nothing. We would lose credibility among our allies, notably Japan, Taiwan’s nearby neighbor, and Australia as well as our adversaries. It would make it difficult to maintain alliances such as the Quad which includes India. More nations in the region would likely conclude that they cannot rely on the United States to assist in their defense and would seek accommodations with China. China would be emboldened to continue militarizing the South China Sea and threatening freedom of navigation.  

                Taiwan is a flourishing democracy with a thriving economy that ranks 21^st in the world. It is our 11^th largest trading partner, a major producer of microchips and a shipping and ship-building powerhouse. It has never lived under Chinese communist rule and in fact was ceded to Japan after the Sino-Japanese War. We have historically championed the rights and aspirations of people to live free and chose their own form of government and their leaders.

                No one wants war with China, of course, and so it is imperative that it be deterred. But the only way that can happen is to not only prepare for war, but be prepared to win it. It needs repeating with the utmost urgency that we are not prepared for a conventional major-power war which would be fought primarily with naval and air forces far from our own shores which is not to say that our own cities and bases would not be targets. By naval forces I am not speaking only of battle force combatants. The need to move military equipment and supplies over vast ocean distances puts us at a great initial disadvantage and would require a large merchant marine force. Ours is not nearly of sufficient size for such a logistical challenge nor would we have enough escorts to adequately protect the ships in transit.

                According to former deputy undersecretary of the Navy and current president of the Yorktown Institute Seth Cropsey, during the Korean Conflict, approximately 250 U.S merchant ships were required to maintain the supply pipeline. During the Vietnam Conflict, about 175 National Defense Reserve Fleet transports crewed by civilian mariners under MARAD were required to keep our forces in Vietnam supplied. In the seemingly-endless time it took to prepare for the first Gulf War, 230 merchant ships were needed to sustain the buildup. But as Mr. Cropsey has pointed out, the Navy’s Military Sealift Command has only enough ships in the Ready Reserve Force for peacetime operations and brief surges. There are not nearly enough for a sustained major power conventional conflict and we no longer have a robust commercial shipbuilding industry in the United States. Nor are there sufficient trained civilian mariners to crew them if we had the ships. The sad news, little appreciated by the public, is that our merchant marine force is aging and shrinking and our U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and state maritime academies are underfunded.

It’s not just a battle fleet of combatant warships that make a nation a great sea power. It must also have a force of logistical ships crewed by professional civilian mariners to support them while at the same time keeping the nation supplied. In a protracted conflict with China, we would have to choose between transporting military cargo or civilian goods for the rest of us back home. Some of us are old enough to remember the shortages during World War II. They were nothing to what we could expect during a protracted conventional war with China.

China, on the other hand, has the largest ship building industry in the world with a market share of 47% and would not need to rely on chartered, foreign-crewed and foreign-flagged hulls as we would if, indeed, we could even round them up. Taiwan’s ship building industry ranks sixth in the world. If added to China’s, the People’s Republic would control over half of the world’s ship building capacity.

In a recent interview with Fox’s Tucker Carlson, former President Donald Trump once again bragged about how he built up the U.S. military. Seriously?

April 21, 2023

How to Lose a War with China

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                The basic, underlying reason why we could lose a war with China, is that we are not prepared to win an actual war with a major power like China so we must, therefore, hope that we can instead deter one. But we’re not prepared to do that, either. By “we”, I am not referring only to the U.S. armed forces but to the military defense infrastructure that produces its weapons, munitions, sensors and platforms of war, the American public in general and, with few exceptions, our political leadership and punditry,

                One of the latter is Seth Cropsey, a former naval officer, deputy undersecretary of the Navy and currently president of the Yorktown Institute, a think tank which he founded. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, he offered several compelling reasons why we are not prepared for such a conflict, one of which is that our military strategy is designed for the low-intensity conflicts that have preoccupied us since World War II. The paragraphs below contain some of his others and some of mine.

                A war with China, says Mr. Cropsey, would not be decided by high-end weapons systems but by traditional ones. We would have to fight with the weapons we had, not those we wish we had. But there are serious logistical challenges in expanding production and even transporting these supplies to the area of conflict. As noted before, much of our defense industry has been merged into fewer companies and some of it relocated overseas. We would struggle to keep up with demand in a major power conflict and would take time to ramp up production. It will also take commitment on the part of the government that the demand will justify the cost of mobilizing and survive Washington politics and changes in administrations.

                The People’s Republic of China (PRC) would have the logistical advantage of fighting closer to home, having militarized the vast South China Sea and established a growing network of bases, none of which are at serious risk of attack by rogue states like North Korea or Iran as ours are. We would have the challenge of moving and protecting forces and supplies hallway around the world to support a major conflict with China presumably over Taiwan, which President Joe Biden has said repeatedly we would defend by force. The PRC’s Navy now outnumbers ours and even if the quality of our naval assets is superior to theirs, numbers matter in a conventional war where casualties would be high.

                Our military sealift fleet is not sized for a major power war and we would have to contract for significant leased additions to the merchant fleet. There would not be nearly enough American merchant mariners to man such a fleet requiring the need to hire foreign sailors, a difficult challenge when they are required to sail into danger on our behalf. We may be a major naval power, but we are not a major maritime power in terms of building and operating merchant fleets.

                Mr. Cropsey says that we should expect an attack on Taiwan within this decade, perhaps as soon as 2025. PRC President Xi Jinping has made it clear that Beijing will rule Taiwan by force or otherwise. Why would he wait until a weak and indecisive Joe Biden may leave office in 2025 and be replaced by a more hawkish successor or give the United States more time to prepare? Cropsey warns that if we can’t scale up production of the weapons we will need in the Indo-Pacific such as hypersonic weapons, cruise and ballistic missiles and short range anti-ship weapons, we would lose a fight over Taiwan in a matter of weeks.

                It is not characteristic of American military leaders to predict their own defeat but strong words of confidence alone will not deter a war for which we are not prepared. Only actions will, and if they know that we are not prepared to deter or win a war with China it is their duty to speak out. It takes years to build ships, new aircraft and to build, test and deploy the weapons we would need to win in a worst-case scenario. Mr. Xi is unlikely to give us enough time to do so.

                There have been plenty of warnings that we are not prepared for a major power conflict with China, much less while at the same time engaged with Russia in defense of our NATO commitments and dealing with threats from North Korea and Iran. It is the height of irresponsibility for our government leaders to pretend that we are. Americans have a long history of being unprepared for war but time was on their side. This time it is not.    

April 10, 2023

Fewer Choosing College

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                College enrollment, over the past decade, is declining which saddens me because I loved college, benefitted greatly from it and later enjoyed teaching adults. But enrollment data show a decline of almost 2 million students in the past decade, or about 10%. The Covid pandemic was a major factor, of course, but the decline began back in 2010 when enrollment peaked at about 18 million students. The pandemic itself accounted for a loss of about 1.2 million students or roughly 8% of total enrollment between 2019 and 2022. The enrollment decline took place mostly at two- and four-year private colleges and at four-year for-profit colleges but increased slightly at four-year public or state universities, where the cost to the students, particularly residents of the state, is far less than at private schools. Over the past decade, the average cost of college rose 25% according to research by CNBC.

                The increasing cost of a college education and growing doubts concerning its value relative to job prospects given the increasing cost appear to account for the drop in enrollment. According to a Wall Street Journal-NORC poll, 56% of respondents said that a four-year degree wasn’t worth the cost because students graduate without specific job skills. Some factors contributing to this increasing cost include: (1) reduced funding from financially-strapped states and other funding sources; (2) campus construction costs incurred mostly while enrollment was steadily rising; (3) expanded course offerings and majors, many of which did little or nothing to improve job prospects upon graduation; (4) the difficulty in completing some required courses of study in four or even five years; (5) the easy availability of student loans making it easier for colleges to raise tuition and fees and last, but not least, (6) the proliferation of programs of debatable academic value such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

                The latter are usually headed up by a dean, associate dean(s) and a legion of staffers, all contributing to the rising costs of college while adding little that can be quantified to the quality of the education. According to the Heritage Foundation, the average large university has 45 DEI personnel. The Ohio State University and the University of Virginia have 94 each while the University of Michigan boasts 163. Presumably, all have to be furnished with office space and other support. That would pay for a lot of scholarships which would probably do more for inclusion.

                One might fairly ask what it is that these folks actually do to add value to the institution, its product and the quality of education obtained there to justify their often-generous salaries. No platitudes in response, please. Just quantifiable evidence. Well, here’s one example of one of them at work. Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan of the 5^th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals was invited by the student chapter of the Federalist Society to speak at Stanford Law School, whose graduates long have been eagerly sought by elite law firms, at least, perhaps, until now. He was heckled immediately upon arrival on campus and reportedly greeted by protestors and signs reading: ”You suck”, “You’re not welcome here”. “We hope your daughters are raped” and other sentiments not printable here. The parents of these children should be ashamed. Their children are apparently beyond feeling any. So should those who contribute financially to an institution that tolerates such hate speech.

                Judge Duncan was immediately shouted down as he began to speak. These are law students, mind you. Unable to continue, the Judge reportedly asked for a responsible adult to calm the screaming students. There being none among the adults present who fit that description apparently, up rose Tirien Steinbach, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness, who delivered a speech of her own, reportedly on the topic of whether anything Judge Duncan had to say was worth upsetting the audience. The associate dean at this top-ranked law school then reportedly said, “Me (sic) and many people in this administration do absolutely believe in free speech.” Well, you could have absolutely fooled I—uh, I mean me. Judge Duncan was then escorted from the room by two U.S. Marshalls.

                This is but an example of some of the nonsense going on at some of our universities where the inmates are being allowed to run the asylum and dictate whose free speech will be allowed and even who may set foot on campus. This is contributing to the rising cost of college and the degradation of the value of the degrees and diplomas they issue. That DEI contributes enough to academic excellence to justify the cost is far from clear and DEI is often selectively applied; certainly not, for example, to income producing and alumni-pleasing college football and basketball programs where, fortunately for sports fans, only merit determines who plays.  

                Parents and students are catching on that an overpriced university degree is not the only path to success. America needs more workers who know how to actually build and fix things, like plumbers, electricians, mechanics and carpenters. As traditional college enrollments are declining, apprenticeships and internships are increasing and many firms are discovering that many if not most jobs do not require a four-year college degree or any college at all. An enthusiastic employee willing to be trained on the job may add more value to the company and its products than a college grad with a degree, an attitude and an inflated sense of worth. Parents are also asking themselves if the cost of that university degree is really worth the risk of having their children taught to hate their country and to shout down and insult those with whom they disagree.

April 3, 2023