Washington, D.C: The upcoming revised US National Defense Strategy will reportedly prioritize ‘homeland defense’—while downgrading the People’s Republic of China as a security threat.
Despite concerns of a US military drawdown in the Western Pacific, China will still get its due even as American partners in the Western Pacific are asked to do more.
Renewed emphasis on defending the homeland is a good idea—it’s just a little late. And it is often geographically inaccurate. The US homeland includes the Western Pacific—in the form of Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands—and the South Pacific, in the form of American Samoa. These Americans might wonder how they fit in to the Pentagon’s map of the homeland.
But just focusing on the US mainland:
The protection afforded by two vast oceans doesn’t exist anymore. Besides long-range missiles that can reach the continental United States, Chinese military and intelligence operatives are already in the US mainland—positioned and ready to strike.
They’ve had an open door for the last 30 years and made the most of it.
When conducting sabotage you need platforms, people, hardware—and cover. The Chinese have plenty of everything in the US.
Even a partial listing of where and how they’ve positioned themselves makes alarming reading.
And keep in mind that China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law obligates Chinese nationals everywhere to assist the PRC intelligence services.
IN POSITION AND EVERYWHERE
Chinese nationals and proxies own farmland and other property throughout the United States, often near military bases.
Chinese-owned marijuana farms have proliferated in Oklahoma, Maine, California, and many other states.
At least several tens of thousands of unaccompanied military-age Chinese males—sometimes displaying military bearing and kit—moved across the open US borders during the Biden administration. Nobody knows where they went. Even a handful of trained special force operators, say, a few hundred, properly employed can wreak havoc.
Increasing numbers of Chinese truckers—facilitated by the Chinese government are now operating on US roads. Drones and missiles in shipping containers are easily moved where needed, and undetected. Ukraine recently used trucks as weapons platforms throughout Russia and destroyed 1/3 of Putin’s bomber force. The Israelis did something similar in Iran prior to assaulting Iran’s air defenses and nuclear infrastructure.
Besides Chinese police ‘service centers’ operating in the US, Chinese-owned businesses, friendship associations, and trade groups—associated with the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Works Department—offer convenient cover, access, and support for operatives.
They also wield immense influence on US politicians at local and national levels, making preventive countermeasures even less likely.
Chinese companies operate inside major US ports. And 80% of cargo cranes are Chinese-made, capable of surveillance and also being remotely immobilized..
Chinese-owned biological labs, such as the one accidentally discovered in Reedley, California, offer platforms for biological warfare. Don’t think the Reedley lab was the only one. Chinese researchers have recently been caught smuggling crop pathogens into the US. There are probably others.
And Chinese ties with Latin American and other gangs are well established via the fentanyl trade. They can provide hardware and even ‘proxy’ services—attacking specific targets.
Moving weapons and hardware into the US is easy, hidden in the tens of thousands of shipping containers that arrive daily at US ports. And weapons can also be obtained from criminal gangs, and even US citizens who can legally buy them.
VIRTUAL PRESENCE IS JUST AS DANGEROUS
Chinese hackers—operating from outside the US—are burrowed into all parts of US critical infrastructure: including power, water, sanitation, telecom system, and in all likelihood, defense-related networks.
The ‘SIM farms’ discovered recently in New York area—reportedly connected to China—offer another ‘attack vector’ to disrupt the US telecom network on order.
It’s all impressive, and the Chinese haven’t had to break a sweat to get to this point.
SO WHAT HAPPENS?
Nothing good.
On Day One or before:
Armed drones attack the flight lines at US air bases and take out fighters, bombers, refuellers; but most importantly—killing pilots and technicians that require considerable time to train their replacements.
US Navy ships in port are also hit by drones and ‘containerized’ missiles and a large chunk of the naval surface fleet is taken out, and a few submarines as well.
US Navy ships at sea take little notice of the scores of fishing vessels pursuing schools of fish, until they turn and unleash a lethal volley of surface-to-surface missiles that destroy their sensors followed by surface drones laden with high explosives breaching the stricken ship’s hull. Subsequent drones follow in rapid succession, plowing into the hull before detonating. Capital ships sent to the bottom of the ocean with no survivors—emulating the pattern of Ukrainian drones that hammered Russian surface vessels in the Black Sea.
Power grids everywhere go down.
Diagnostic software built into solar panels receive the signal to release the dormant virus, cutting the flow of power. High wind safety locks on wind turbine generators fail and blades are programmed to aggressive angles of attack that induce catastrophic failures.
Traffic lights, fuel stations, grocery store checkouts don’t work.
The financial system freezes, bank branches are closed and ATMs don’t work.
Adding to the confusion the PRC unloads its US bonds. The short term ‘hit’ collapses the dollar and Wall Street crashes even further. Twenty-four hours later, the PRC dumps its holdings of US currency and enhances the punch by flooding the market with counterfeit US dollars.
Telecommunications are disrupted. The internet stops working.
Water supplies don’t flow in residential and manufacturing districts. Water towers and reservoirs near data centers are rapidly drained as check valves fail in the full-open position. Within hours, open-loop air conditioning systems at data centers and military installations lacking a water supply have to be shut down. As the air conditioners are shutdown, so must the computers and servers they were cooling in the command centers.
Sewerage treatment plants go off-line and emergency bypass valves are opened, dumping raw sewerage into rivers, bays and the ocean.
Offshore oil wells are plagued by stuck valves and pressure buildups requiring emergency shutdowns.
US civilian and defense industries grind to a halt in a month or two as critical mineral exports from China are completely cut off, and stockpiles empty.
Pharmaceuticals become scarce as China won’t export precursors or finished drugs.
GPS devices tell drivers they are miles from their actual location.
Ports stop operating. The US railway network doesn’t function, river transport is interrupted, and key bridges on major highways are brought down.
Food isn’t being transported.
Oil and energy supplies aren’t moving either.
Biological attacks—real or feared—cause panic. Covid, whether accidentally or intentionally deployed was an instructive test-run.
Terrorists strike. Recall the ‘DC Snipers’—a couple amateurs—who panicked the Washington, DC area in 2002. There’ll be a lot more this time, and by people who know what they’re doing.
AND NOT EVERYONE WILL BLAME CHINA
The PRC has plausible deniability for most of this. It’s covert after all, so there are few, if any ‘smoking guns’.
And pro-China groups in America and PRC proxies will blame the US and the ‘China Hawks’ for provoking China—if China is to blame—which of course it isn’t.
Antifa and Black Lives Matter will be in the streets.
Wall Street and the US business class will call for de-escalation.
There’s more, but you get the idea.
Try fighting a war in the Western Pacific, Eastern Europe, or anywhere else while this is going on.
China has thought this through.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like America’s leadership has pondered the cascading effects of synchronized sabotage.
They’d better figure out fast that the PRC is getting ready for a fight, not just in the Western Pacific. It will include the US mainland in a way Americans have never seen or imagined.
Is anybody paying attention—other than in Beijing?
Grant Newsham is a retired U.S. Marine officer and former U.S. diplomat. He was the first Marine liaison officer to the Japan Self Defense Force, and is a fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute. He is the author of the book, “When China Attacks: A Warning To America.”
