January 17 2025

TikTok appeal
1. US Industrial Base Crisis Threatens Military Readiness
2. SpaceX Starship Explodes After Successful Booster Catch
3. Trump Cabinet Picks Near Senate Confirmation Without Major Fight
4. Democratic NYC Mayor Adams Meets Trump at Mar-a-Lago
5. Battle for Eurasia Update: China Population Decline Continues, TikTok Influence on Taiwan Youth, China Builds Taiwan Invasion Barges
January 17, 1953: Corvette unveiled

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FLASH…LA fire containment…Palisades Fire: 27% contained…Eaton Fire: 55% contained…Hurst Fire: 100% contained…

Article Source: https://www.fire.ca.gov/

TikTok appeal

Editors note: we’re waiting for a ruling on TikTok today from the Supreme Court. Congress voted to ban the app effective 1/19 and a federal appeals court upheld that ban. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling but I would be very surprised if they did. If I were to bet, TikTok goes dark this Sunday 1/19.

1. US Industrial Base Crisis Threatens Military Readiness

America’s military and industrial strength to deter and defeat adversaries has eroded to its lowest point in decades. Preventing large-scale conflict demands the immediate mobilization of a national industrial base capable of rapidly producing lethal, software-enabled hardware at scale. The current political, technological, and financial environment offers an opportunity for transformation, but we must act quickly and decisively. Failure to act puts America at near-term risk of fighting — and potentially losing — the next war. The foundation of military deterrence lies in the ability to deliver lethal hardware at a scale that compels adversaries to reconsider aggression. Following the Vietnam War, the U.S. adopted the “Second Offset,” emphasizing low-volume, high-cost, and highly classified systems to counter Soviet numerical superiority. This focus on expensive and highly sophisticated technology created barriers to industry competition and stifled investment in high-volume production. Simultaneously, U.S. commercial strategies prioritized technological innovation ideation – becoming the global “tech idea generator” – while offshoring manufacturing to nations with less stringent labor and environmental laws. America now struggles to build critical systems at scale, and this diminished domestic manufacturing capacity has created a national security crisis. The combination of a diminished industrial base and an outdated defense acquisition process has left America unable to field necessary deterrence capabilities at scale. To address this, lawmakers and the DoD will have to implement significant reforms

Article Source: Study funded by Mike Bloomberg

2. SpaceX Starship Explodes After Successful Booster Catch

SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket test flight Thursday saw the spacecraft break apart during its ascent, just moments after a dramatic, successful booster catch at the launchpad. SpaceX confirmed in a statement on social media that the uncrewed ship had experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn” after the launch from its Starbase site in Texas at 4:37 p.m. local time.  

Editors note: after Blue Origin’s successful orbital flight yesterday, it’s worth noting that in the grand sweep of history, we’re still in the Space Age, like the Bronze Age or the Age of Exploration. It began in the 1950s with the US-Soviet space race.

Article Source: WaPo

3. Trump Cabinet Picks Near Senate Confirmation Without Major Fight

When President-elect Donald Trump first unveiled his picks to staff his new administration, some of the more unconventional names sparked gasps and speculation that they could not amass enough support to be confirmed even in a GOP-controlled Senate.  But three days ahead of Trump’s return to the White House, many of his most prominent Cabinet choices have sailed relatively unscathed through their hearings and are poised to win confirmation as Republican senators rallied around them and appeared largely unwilling to defy Trump’s wishes.  Pete Hegseth, who is seeking to lead the Department of Defense, and Pam Bondi, Trump’s selection for attorney general, were greeted warmly by Senate Republicans during their confirmation hearings, despite withering questions from Democrats about their independence from Trump and other matters. Senate GOP opposition to many of the current Trump picks has not materialized, at least not publicly, after Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original pick for attorney general, withdrew under pressure. No Republican lawmakers have said they will oppose Hegseth, though a handful have not made their intentions clear. Trump’s nominees can lose three Republicans at most and still be confirmed if no Democrat backs them.

Article Source: WaPo

4. Democratic NYC Mayor Adams Meets Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, his re-election chances in doubt and a federal indictment looming over him, flew to Florida on Thursday to meet with President-elect Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago just four days before the inauguration. The mayor, a Democrat, made the trip with no advance announcement. His aides said only that the two men would discuss “New Yorkers’ priorities” when they meet on Friday. Mr. Adams joins a diverse roster of leaders from around the world who’ve made the trip to Mar-a-Lago since the election, and he is not the first Democrat. John Fetterman, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, met with Mr. Trump last week. Other recent visitors have included Viktor Orban, the authoritarian prime minister of Hungary, and Justin Trudeau, the liberal prime minister of Canada, who is leaving office soon. The mayor requested the meeting, according to two people with knowledge of the trip. The city is funding the trip because it has a “city purpose,” the mayor’s spokeswoman said. No other city officials will accompany the mayor, aside from his security detail, she added. Mr. Trump has publicly commiserated with Mr. Adams and seconded his depiction of a Justice Department run amok. Mr. Adams has expressed openness to the notion of receiving a presidential pardon. While a pardon for Mr. Adams might clear up some legal problems for the mayor, it could also prove politically toxic for an incumbent already facing an uphill path to re-election in a highly competitive June primary in a city dominated by Democrats.

Article Source: NYT

5. Battle for Eurasia Update: China Population Decline Continues, TikTok Influence on Taiwan Youth, China Builds Taiwan Invasion Barges

Editors note: This ongoing conflict pits the West, led by the United States, against an axis of adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. At stake is dominance over the vast and strategically critical landmass of Eurasia. The conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and rising tensions with China in East Asia are all interconnected, forming part of a larger struggle: the Battle for Eurasia. To dive deeper into my framework for understanding the Battle for Eurasia, see my article.

A. China’s population falls for third straight year  

China’s population continued to decline last year—though births edged up for the first time in eight years—falling for a third straight year as deaths outpaced births. China had seen birth numbers plummet since 2017, the year after it ended the one-child policy, despite Beijing’s encouragement of couples to have three children. At the same time, the number of deaths in China had been creeping up as the population ages.  The data for last year produced a brief reversal of the trend. Births rose to 9.54 million from 9.02 million in 2023, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday. That is still a far cry compared with the more than 16 million in 2015, the final year of the one-child policy.   

B. Is China using TikTok to brainwash Taiwanese youth?  

Last spring, pupils at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School in southern Taiwan were set an unusual topic for their annual essay exam: “How to negotiate with a dictator”. The students had to choose the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbour — prevent war at all costs, or deter through strength? The exam paper mentioned Russia’s assault on Ukraine, but the unspoken parallels with China’s threat to their own country were obvious. Teachers say they were stunned when they got the scripts back: nearly all the teenagers argued that Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it. “Almost without exception, they wrote that, being small and weak, Taiwan must avoid appearing as a threat to China,” says Chu Yi-chun, who teaches Mandarin. “No matter how they harass us, we must tolerate it.” Such submissive sentiments are in sharp contrast to those held in Taiwan’s society at large — and young people have traditionally been among the most passionately patriotic and pro-independence citizens in the country. According to data published by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation polling organisation last year, people between 20 and 24 are no longer the age group who feel their Taiwanese identity the strongest, bucking a long-established pattern. And there are indications that, among young people, Taiwan’s decades-old trend towards ever stronger support for independence might also be going into reverse. There are many potential reasons for these changes. But for a number of Taiwanese social scientists and ruling party politicians, one of the main causes is TikTok, the controversial Chinese social media app that has amassed more than 1bn monthly active users worldwide.  The app “cannot necessarily make Taiwanese youth identify with the Chinese nation or agree to unification with China”, says Eric Hsu, a researcher at the Taiwanese think-tank Doublethink Lab who is working on the first systematic survey of TikTok’s impact on Taiwanese society. “But it can probably lower their apprehension towards China and their will to resist.”  

C. China builds barges that can only be used for Taiwan invasion  

China is building a new class of mobile piers, satellite images reveal, which could bolster its ability to land an invading force in Taiwan, a major step in its preparations for a potential future attack. Satellite images captured on Friday and reviewed by the Financial Times show six barge-like vessels equipped with extendable ramps under construction at China’s state-owned Guangzhou Shipyard. The vessels could help the People’s Liberation Army transport heavy military equipment such as tanks and artillery across mudflats or seawalls on to firm ground.  

Editors note: longtime readers may be confused as I normally cover the Ukraine war in the “Battle for Eurasia” but the point is everything on the Eurasian landmass should be thought of as one broader conflict, from Ukraine to China.

Article Source: WSJ, FT

January 17, 1953: Corvette unveiled

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Sources

1. https://www.fire.ca.gov/

3. https://www.mikebloomberg.com/news/strategic-edge-a-blueprint-for-breakthroughs-in-defense-innovation/

4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/17/spacex-starship-launch-lost-explosion-debris/

5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/17/trump-nominees-bondi-hegseth-gabbard-patel/

6. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/nyregion/eric-adams-trump-mar-a-lago.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

7. A https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-sees-a-fresh-decline-in-population-despite-a-rise-in-births-abc62c1d?st=prpCWq&reflink=article_copyURL_share
B https://on.ft.com/40DRGM5
C https://on.ft.com/4hc67Mz