Normally I don't pay attention to videos because unlike articles I can't scan them to see if there are any pearls worth harvesting, and far too often I find videos end up wasting my time. But there are exceptions. Peter Zeihan's videos have proven to be worth my time more times than not. Below are two of them I think are worth your time, along with my comments.
Over the years I've written a lot about China. Their economy, their corruption, their military, and most importantly, their intentions, and nothing is ever as it appears in China.
I've also commented on the fact they now have aircraft carriers, but they're based on very old Russian technology. Peter Zeihan outlines this, and compares China's aircraft carriers to air craft carriers around the world, and to American aircraft carriers.
However, what I see is China's aircraft carriers are largely obsolete and nonfunctional. Any new carriers based on this technology will be obsolete while still on the drawing board. Drones and laser technology are going to be the future of warfare, and overcoming all that will require massively new and effective technology. They don't have it, and even if they steal it, which is what they, just like the Soviet Union have always done, will still find that to be massively expensive, and technologically challenging for a culture that based on central planning. A planning system where Lysenkoism thrives.
I've also written about the idea China will invade Taiwan. They won't. And this analysis of China's aircraft carriers I think further confirms that view.
Now, having said all that, no matter how flawed their ships may be, we have to recognize this is nothing short of provocation to those nations butting up against China, and China's bully boy efforts to create an economic hegemony via military intimidation. And guess what? These nations are prepared to do something about it, including Japan.
The question is can China keep up with all this militarization of their culture economically? The Soviets couldn't do it and collapsed. So, in my opinion the answer is..No!
China's economy is based on central planning, corruption, and full employment, not profitability. Xi is a mini Mao, who was an economic illiterate who was happily destroying China until Richard Nixon bailed him out by opening up international trade with China. All of which has financed all this militarization. Thank you Richard Nixon.
So, what does all this militarization of China mean? Hopefully, with Xi at the helm, it means they'll follow the Soviet Union and collapse.
During WWII, and right after, air craft carriers, advanced aircraft, and then jet aircraft, along with tanks were the keys to victory, and has been so for all these years. Since the end of WWII, they've been the backbone of military effectiveness. Well, that's over!
Some years ago there was a SciFi show that was a spin off from the Stargate series called Stargate Universe. In one of the episodes they came across "Berserker Drones" which attacked en masse. In spite of the advance technology of their ship, they had to develop an escape plan to avoid being destroyed. The numbers were just too great.
That's playing out now, and we saw how Ukraine destroyed Russia's Black Sea fleet with a drone attack. Extensive use of massed drones is going to be impossible to
stop, just like trying to defend against a killer bee hive.
These are not people, they're machines, totally dispensable, and made to be so, and easily replaced. The only training involved deals with technicians who are nowhere near the battle field sitting in front of a computer/video console directing the actions. When there's a lot of drones, there will
always be some that will break through. The only effective counter measure is destroying the communication connection between the drones and the technicians. With advancements, that's not so easy now.
For some years I've been
following this effort to create military lasers, and written about it,
and just about everyone laughed, just as so many laughed at Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, AKA, Star Wars program to shoot down Russian missiles. It's not so funny now, and once again we see Reagan was far smarter than his critics as he saw farther, deeper, and wider, than all the arrogant, smarmy leftist snots who called him stupid.
From all I read I knew what was on the
horizon, and now we're seeing the beginnings of it, including Israel. Even H.G. Wells saw that potential in 1895 in his book The War of the Worlds.
“However it is done, it is certain that a beam of heat is the
essence of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead of visible, light.
Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like
water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass …”
Since the discovery of laser technology in 1960 there have been amazing advancements. Let's understand, just because the atom bomb wasn't created until 1945, the principles for an atomic bomb were outlined by physicists in the 1890's. The same will be true of militarized lasers, and in point of fact, the Air Force actually developed a system that worked in the early 2000's.
The
problem was all of them required huge equipment and massive amounts of
energy. In the early 2000s, the US Air Force tried packing a chemical
laser, the Airborne Laser YAL1, onto a Boeing 747. It worked, shooting
down a couple of training targets, but cost billions of dollars and was
ultimately canned.
But research didn't end, and now they've come up with something called the The Laser Weapons System (LaWS):
......one of the first of a new breed of
more compact systems based on the fibre laser. Fibre lasers can
generate laser beams at efficiencies of 40%, far higher than
conventional lasers, and achieve kilowatt powers. High power fibre
lasers are already used in industrial cutting and welding machines, some
with laser power of 100 kW and capable of welding blocks of metal parts
30 cm thick. A 100 kW infra-red laser is exactly the ‘heat-ray’ that Wells
imagined—equivalent to using a giant, kilometre-wide magnifying glass to
focus the sun’s heat energy onto a single point the size of your
fingernail.
H.G. Wells' "invisible, inevitable sword of
heat.”
Here's a video showing an effective laser weapon already being used by U.S Navy.
Let there be lasers: Israel to surround borders with 'biblical pillar of fireBy WND News Services
February 20, 2022 - Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has
announced his nation will be
fast-tracking the development of a laser-based defense system for the
Israel Defense Forces to use against attacks from Gaza and Hezbollah.
One rabbi likens it to "the biblical pillar of fire." It's kind of like
Star Wars According to Israel365News: "The lasers, using an autonomous detection and tracking system, will
superheat drones and rockets which the developers claim will catch on
fire within a few seconds. The system will supplement the Iron Dome that
operates against short-range projectiles with the lasers concentrating
on smaller projectiles.".........
This year the UK tested the ‘DragonFire’ Laser Weapon, and it was successful against an aerial target, claiming:
The laser-directed energy weapon (LDEW) is claimed
to have the
ability to hit a precision target the size of a coin from a kilometre
away. Although the exact range of the weapon is classified, the ministry
said that it can engage with any visible target. The MoD said that the
average cost of firing the laser is around £10 per shot, meaning that
the weapon has the “potential to be a long-term low-cost alternative to
certain tasks missiles currently carry out.”
The real drive behind this effective long range military use of lasers is the militarization of space, including efforts to install a base on the
moon. There's nothing there, what do they need a base on the moon for?
A launch pad to explore space? That's not the goal. Militarization
of space is the goal! It's coming, have no doubt about it.
Not today, not tomorrow, but
it's coming, and sooner than we think.
Iranian Shahed-136 (Source: Italian Institute for International Political Studies)
On October 10, Iranian loitering munitions rained over Ukraine’s
urban centers, including Kiev. Two weeks later, Israeli forces struck an
Iranian drone factory in SyriaAl Arabiya,
October 23). This demonstrated how Iran’s drone program is now beyond
Iran, both in terms of production and operational impact. Iran has
become a drone-exporting nation and Iranian drones are creating new
flashpoints in different geopolitical axes.
Tehran’s drone program is hardly new, however. In fact, it dates back
to the 1980s war of attrition with Iraq and rests on a decades-long
significant research and development (R&D) effort. Iran’s unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAV) strategy is aggressive
Farsi Al Arabiya,
April 23, 2021). It mainly focuses on utilizing UAVs to support the
government’s capabilities and strengthen its proxy forces abroad. Led by
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its drone-maker Qods
Aviation Industries (QAI), some of Iran’s existing drone technologies
are developed from reverse-engineering Western systems that have crashed
or landed on or near Iranian territory (including the ones allegedly
intercepted or captured near its coast). For example, some of the
Iranian government’s most sophisticated systems, including the
Shahed-141 and 191, are modeled after the American RQ-171 Sentinel UAV
that crashed in Iran back in late 2011....................
Last week, Ukrainian
investigators
also
discovered Western-made parts in the Shahed-136 and Mohajer-6
drones that help to steer, power and guide the drone's weapons, which
indicates that some of its parts are being directly purchased from
western nations, rather than reverse engineered in China or Iran. Based
on these findings,
are concluding that customs officials in the U.S., Europe, and
Australia, as well as businesses and governments, need to be more
vigilant about distributing commercial products with potential military
applications. Globalization is changing the way militaries produce their
weaponry, and the war in Ukraine is demonstrating this evolution
clearer than any conflict in recent memory......To Read More....
The FBI’s presence in Kenosha sets off a cascade of questions, all of the answers to which should trigger every alarm in the book.
The Rittenhouse trial has been a marvel to watch, simply because the prosecution’s presentation of this case has been a train wreck of dumpster fires. We’ve watched as the defense has absolutely filleted almost everything the prosecution has presented, as the Judge continues to make statements that will likely benefit the defense’s case.
However, a funny thing happened in the courtroom that went by even me for a bit. Here we were talking about the various videos that were taken at the scene and what they show. Here’s the one video of one angle, of one part of the street, and then there’s another of this other angle, showing these people who were involved in the shoot. Then there’s the FBI drone video directly over the shooting, and there there’s another video on the ground in front of the gas station.
Each of the videos provided its own unique view of…… wait…. go back a minute…. what’s that part about an FBI drone?? Why in the hell was there an FBI drone directly over the shooting? Have
we even considered the ramifications of what that actually means? Our
government, for any reason that they perceive to be a threat, can
conduct mass surveillance of you without a warrant?
Certainly, this
was a public place and the courts have ruled that surveillance can be
conducted in public without a warrant, however, there were local police
resources. Why would the FBI be conducting this surveillance if they had
no way of stopping or preventing what was happening, from occurring?
Regardless of the legality of it, should we as citizens become
comfortable with the idea that this is normal?
Out of an abundance of
generosity, let’s just say they were somehow justified with having a
drone overhead, why this specific area? Kenosha riots covered several
dozen square blocks of town, so if they were conducting surveillance,
were they doing so with multiple drones? There are two very simple
answers to the question: Yes and no............To Read More....
Prosecutors arguing to put Kyle Rittenhouse in prison for the rest of
his life tipped their hand on how they plan to do that in the fourth day
of testimony on Friday. Questions abound, however, about its relevance
and admissibility in court.............
Indeed, Kraus said he planned to tell the jury that Huber was a “hero” for attacking Rittenhouse because of his possible belief that Rittenhouse was an active shooter............
The judge said he’d allow the testimony and the defense could
respond. And the defense said, great, we’re going to tell the story
about that cool time when Huber held a knife to his brother’s neck and
stomach and threatened to gut him, the time he strangled someone, and
the time he threatened to burn the house down with all his family
members inside.
Good times. Indeed, there’s plenty to bring up about the “habit and custom” of Anthony Huber. Here’s part of his rap sheet, a record which likely will never see the inside of a courtroom..........
