This week's look ahead

There is lots happening out there in the national security threat world

Welcome back, TAT readers,

I hope everyone’s Labor Day weekend was enjoyed, as it should be. As we dip our toes into the week ahead, there is much to consider in global and domestic goings on. Not all of the issues at hand are sensational headlines but taken altogether, represent serious national security threats to our nation, allies and in fact, the globe. It will be difficult to succinctly put all of this into a coherent narrative, but I’ll do my best.

1. The first two issues regard threats to US democracy from the MAGA crowd.

   1. The first, regarding the impeachment of the TX Attorney General, Ken Paxton

   2. Secondly, the assault on education and books from the same MAGA crowd that always whines dishonestly, about, theirs’s, not everyone’s free speech.

      1. Fighting the MAGA crowd in order to protect Public Education. (truthaboutthreats.com)

      2. It’s no longer Liberal vs. Conservative… It’s reality vs detachment from it. (truthaboutthreats.com)

2. Russia, Ukraine and how BRICS is lining up behind Putin’s Ukrainian genocide.

3. The US national security community is impotent to protect us from the mis and disinformation of our adversaries, domestic and foreign.

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1. The first two issues regard threats to US democracy from the MAGA crowd.

Since we are fully immersed in our next “political season,” the 2024 election, everyone is jostling for position and trying to clean up old messes. Here in Texas, where politics is a contact sport, characterized by sensationalized headlines, our Attorney General, Ken Paxton is being impeached and today marks the beginning of the trial. On the surface, this is a good thing but let’s not get excited yet. Remember, this is about next year, more than it is about doing good for the people of Texas.

Paxton is just about as trumpy as his higher profile mentor, the former and also indicted POTUS. Paxton, who had been indicted long before his last election win has evaded prosecution for years. He’s also under investigation by the FBI for charges related to this impeachment proceeding. Most vile, to those of us Texans who still desire a non-Texas-Taliban, theocratic state, Paxton was deeply involved in the activities leading up to the very minute of the January 6th, armed insurrection. Greg Abbott and the TX GOP in Austin, still refuse to produce the FOIA requests about whether the taxpayers of TX, paid for Paxton’s sojourn to Washington for the insurrection.

The bottom line here is that even the anti-patriots running Texas for the last 30 years exclusively, are unwilling to be embarrassed further by Paxton, whether he is convicted or not. To my mind, Paxton belongs in Federal prison, for his activities in support of overthrowing the US government. The TX GOP included election denial in their 2022, Midterm platform last year so I don’t think they much care about his Seditious activities.

Get your popcorn ready. This impeachment trial will no doubt put Texas’s wild west politics on display.

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2. Russia, Ukraine and how BRICS is lining up behind Putin’s Ukrainian genocide.

Putin is pursuing actual and cultural genocide against his sovereign neighbor, Ukraine. A year and half into the devastation of Putin’s war, the once artificially touted, mighty Russian war machine is but a hollow shell of its former self. While that Ukraine does the dying, NATO and the rest of the responsible members of the global community are supporting Ukraine, successfully. Here in the US, despite strong efforts to the contrary, from the right side of the aisle, we are doing what Americans do, support freedom. This must continue. Despite the big numbers of our investment in Ukraine and the globes future, what we’ve spent is but a fraction of what it would cost to put Putin back in his box, by ourselves, even with NATO.

Putin is a serial aggressor and would not have stopped at Ukraine, in his pursuit to recover his fantasy of the former Soviet Bloc. The world cannot tolerate aggressive large powers, unifying against liberty for all. We went down this road in the era leading up to and through the second world war. That should have been a lesson but somehow, it wasn’t. Over the past decade or so we have experienced a global wave of far right and other forms of authoritarian rule, mostly based on the false narratives of the global thugs like, Putin, Xi, Modi, Bolsonaro, Trump, Orban, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud etc. We’re slowly pulling out of this dive towards the bottom for humanity but, the threats still exist… everywhere. Case in point, the first section regarding Seditious Conspiracy and further MAGA aggression against US democracy.

Leaders who have performed badly. Top Row: Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi. Bottom Row: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán. Composite: EPA, Getty, Reuters, AP

To this point regarding authoritarians, the G 20 meets this year in New Delhi, India where there are plenty of high-profile distractions. Xi won’t show, Putin will be arrested if he shows on an international criminal court warrant for crimes against humanity, the intent for BRICS expansion to rival the G 20, all against the backdrop of closer cooperation between Putin, Xi and Modi. Every one of these topics and more, deserve a deep-dive and some I have already covered in prior writing. These are below:

• Declawing Pooh or... stopping the threat from Xi's global aggression (truthaboutthreats.com)

• US National Security means giving Central and South America real attention, and honesty. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• Can anyone in the National Security community please explain to knowledgeable Americans, why Modi's India, is a trustworthy ally? (truthaboutthreats.com)

• Ukrainian genocide is not enough for Putin. Now… he wishes to starve millions globally, again. (truthaboutthreats.com)

• When it comes to Modi’s India… Caveat Emptor (truthaboutthreats.com)

So, here’s the threat in a nutshell, regarding the ever-closer alignment of the BRICS crowd: A group of nations, mostly authoritarian and devoid of responsible human rights and commercial consciences, wishes to compete with the global, RBIO, Rules-based, international order. They wish to create a global system that advantages them significantly against the rest of us playing by international law, policies, rules and norms. The more power they acquire, the worse the threat to global stability and commerce. For the most part, this is akin to the Cold War paradigm between East and West.

Among this crowd of existing and expanding group called BRICS are two of the world’s biggest economies, China and India. China and Russia account for two of the world’s largest armies and are two of the three largest nuclear arsenals in the world. Coercive support for lesser BRICS members guarantees commitments to whatever measures China, Russia and India cook up, with very few exceptions. The only protection for the RBIO, is to remain unified in pursuit of more equitable commerce and dedication to all-important, human rights. China, via their “China Dream”, with the BRI as the vehicle for acquiring global dominance by 2049, already has a plan to put the entire world under the thumb of a genocidal China.

To tie this to our domestic threats from MAGA or more accurately, the MAGA controlled, GOP here in the states, share much of their ideology with the Russian far right. This now serves as the Republican platform, if they actually bother to write one, aligns better with BRICS, than the RBIO. This is not a political statement but based on years of research and analysis, in the national security world. A quick spin around the US, NSS/ National Security Strategy shows this quite clearly when laid alongside of current GOP talking points.

To put a sharp point on the reasons China, India, Russia and other BRICS nations have a symbiotic relationship can be found in India and China’s desperate need for cheap Russian oil. Most of the BRICS nations use Russian weapons systems and all have existing, co-dependence issues across the board. For these reasons and more, relationship building rather than the Trump crowd’s isolationism is the key to managing our external threats. Domestically, it means building resilience in US citizens via narrative-centric campaigning that puts the emphasis on real US values, rather than the fake-patriotism of MAGA.

Here’s the formula: National security depends on unity, unity depends on resilience and resilience depends on authentic, identity-based values, not what’s currently popular with nearly half of American voters, in the GOP. 

-Cobaugh
- 5 Sept. 2023

3. The US national security community is impotent to protect us from the mis and disinformation of our adversaries, domestic and foreign.

Finally, to wrap up today’s article will be just a couple of paragraphs on my personal and professional passion, the failure of the US national security community to protect Americans from mis and disinformation. I have written on this topic professionally for years and despite being part of that community, on and off of battlefields, I see little to no progress in our past 4+ decades of failure in ethical influence. To civilians, the corresponding perspective would be like, an enormous retail chain, car manufacturer or brokerage house that was an utter failure at marketing and sales for decades and still spending a fortune on the same failed, marketing expertise.

Our Enduring Role 

The need for a strong and purposeful American role in the world has never been greater. The world is becoming more divided and unstable. Global increases in inflation since the COVID-19 pandemic began have made life more difficult for many. The basic laws and principles governing relations among nations, including the United Nations Charter and the protection it affords all states from being invaded by their neighbors or having their borders redrawn by force, are under attack. The risk of conflict between major powers is increasing. Democracies and autocracies are engaged in a contest to show which system of governance can best deliver for their people and the world. Competition to develop and deploy foundational technologies that will transform our security and economy is intensifying. Global cooperation on shared interests has frayed, even as the need for that cooperation takes on existential importance. The scale of these changes grows with each passing year, as do the risks of inaction.

- National Security Strategy
- The White House
- Oct 12th, 2022
- Page 7

Please remember that my constructive criticism of my former community, is based on two decades of operations, analysis, research and strategy. If we don’t get influence right, we cannot sufficiently achieve a single objective, in our NSS. For the salient points that make this relevant to today’s article:

1. Everything we need to be safe as a nation and global leader, requires ethical influence.

2. This is most especially true here at home, in order to protect citizens from the so-called “fake news” and other forms of mis/ disinformation.

3. The US national security community is competent in only a fraction of the required efforts.

4. If we cannot protect the minds of citizens so that they can vote with real information rather than the bizarre, global, far-right conspiracy theories, often stemming from Putin’s Russia, then we are highly likely to succumb to the threat we faced, from 2015 - today. MAGA talking points are nearly synonymous with other thugs like Modi’s BJP party operating on the Hindu version of WCN/ White Christian Nationalism. It’s called Hindutva.

   1. The same talking points that make up the MAGA movement are little different from those in Brazil, Hungary, India, Russia, the party of Marie le Pen in France, with the Taliban, Iran, etc. Rabid, dishonest theocracy is the same worldwide, regardless of the religious beliefs. Even within the Catholic Church, Steve Bannon spent years after being fired from the White House drumming up support from ultra-conservative Catholic leadership, plus rank-and-file Catholics, against the Pope.

   2. The financiers for such nonsense are typically oligarchs, foreign and domestic. Big oil plays a role here for example, as in my home state of Texas. The biggest donors to the Texas Taliban of Greg Abbott, have primary financing from the fossil fuel industry.

Data from Open Secrets

In summary to this point, if we don’t accurately keep our citizenry well-informed, how can they make good decisions about important issues and candidates at the polls. In 2016, Putin’s influence practitioners swayed the 2016 election and continue to influence the US. This is the precise reason that the MAGA hordes, support handing Ukraine over to Putin, to complete his genocide, cultural and actual.

Issues like climate denial, gender issues, election denial, guns, CN/ Christian Nationalism etc., are financed by the same financiers of all so-called political media that support these far-right talking points. High profile names like Koch Industries and Peter Thiel to name but two, along with the US fossil fuel industry are mostly devoted to opening their checkbooks to any politician that prevents oversight of their business dealings while concurrently legislating tax deductions, credits etc., that keep these folks from paying what you and I pay the US government.

The bottom line is that American voters are under attack from these adversarial influencers and marketers. The US national security community is impotent to manage these threats and half of American mostly on the right side of the aisle, believe all this propaganda.

I tried to keep today’s offering a little shorter for those just recovering from a long weekend. I hope you find some of this valuable and that this information, makes everyone more aware of these deep threats to our nation.

My very best for your slightly shorter work week,

Paul