The General and the Dragon

[Music] hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground today we have a special briefing that will hopefully shed some light on the recent developments with china their recent military aspirations and why it's important to understand what's going on in southeast asia now before i begin i must note that very few analysts will tell you what they suck at the information superiority complex is a massive problem in the intel world and i myself am certainly not a southeast asia analyst which is why i personally am desperately trying to get smart on chinese military doctrine tactics culture history economics and everything else just as fast as humanly possible i know at some point it would be great to do a longer more in-depth brief on china but for now since we don't have the luxury of ignoring problems we aren't experts on here we are china has been quite busy lately and they have been seemingly preparing for war at a rampant pace as demonstrated by their recent successful test of a hypersonic glide vehicle weird i know because i thought our generals were supposed to be giving each other a heads up before launch but we'll come back to that in a minute in any case it has become thought our generals were supposed to be giving each other a heads up before launch but we'll come back to that in a minute in any case it has become public knowledge that china recently launched and successfully tested a hypersonic glide vehicle so why does this matter to understand why this missile system is a problem and will definitely result in your taxes going up we must first go back and examine what has been the status quo for nuclear weapons for the past 70 years now again please forgive the overly simple explanation this is meant to give a very broad brush understanding of why this incident is a big deal or maybe not such a big deal so we're going to go with the michael scott explanation method why don't you explain this to me like i'm five in the not so good old days of the cold war the us and the soviet union spent trillions of dollars bolstering their offensive and defensive weapons during the arms race during that conflict the us and the soviet union really only had to worry about each other and as a result spent their money on systems specifically designed to defeat each other in the case of the us we knew that these soviets if they were to launch an attack at us wou oney on systems specifically designed to defeat each other in the case of the us we knew that these soviets if they were to launch an attack at us would almost certainly choose a northern polar route russia would launch her missiles on a northern route over the north pole for a few reasons for one it's a shorter distance this means that the early warning time is reduced and a shorter distance means that the missile systems would be slightly cheaper enabling the soviets to build more of them a northern route also takes the flight path over rough and inhospitable terrain meaning that it wouldn't be particularly easy or cheap to maintain early warning sites in the arctic environment but that's exactly what the us did and still does there are a handful of early warning radar sites in the arctic region that provide early warning of such an attack from missiles and aircraft remember a significant portion of the soviet and now russian nuclear arsenal is delivered via aircraft which again would almost certainly take the northern route in the event of a nuclear attack but times have changed and now in addition to the land-based and sea-based detection platforms we now have satellites to do event of a nuclear attack but times have changed and now in addition to the land-based and sea-based detection platforms we now have satellites to do a pretty good job actually a shockingly good job the us maintains a significant satellite array of what are called overhead persistent infrared or opir sensors these sensors are up in orbit just hanging out and watching and when they detect the launch of a ballistic missile from a certain known missile launch site they can do a lot of quick math to determine when and where that missile will land almost before it even clears the top of the silo pretty slick technology and also partly why the united states and russia both rely on what's called a nuclear triad aircraft submarine and land-based systems to launch their nuclear arsenals due to geography if either the u.s or russia launches a missile from a ground-based silo both countries will know about it immediately and will have hours to prepare for the impact just due to how far the missiles have to travel but if you get a submarine to launch that missile well you can cut the warning time down to just a few minutes and if you do what russia has been doing over the past few decades with unch that missile well you can cut the warning time down to just a few minutes and if you do what russia has been doing over the past few decades with torpedoes well you can reduce the warning time to absolutely zero but we'll come back to that in a bit because that my dear friends is a brilliant and utterly terrifying story itself so very generally speaking here's how a launch sequence might look from the old school perspective of the soviet union launching an attack on the u.s for the sake of simplicity i'm going to leave out submarine aircraft and other weapons delivery platforms and just talk about the classic ground-based launch scenario that we've all seen in movies alright so let's say the soviets decided to launch an attack on the us our opir sensors would detect the flashes of light from silos or trains all over the soviet union historically mostly from ukraine but this has changed obviously in recent years and by the time the missiles are a few seconds into their flight our opir sensors can automatically determine where they're going their flight path and time of arrival for a missile to successfully hit its target it has to stay on a very specific course being propelled 're going their flight path and time of arrival for a missile to successfully hit its target it has to stay on a very specific course being propelled up in the atmosphere by a rocket engine giving it enough power to reach orbit from there gravity takes over and the re-entry vehicle guides the warheads back into the atmosphere after which the warheads separate and independently glide down to their intended targets for the us one of the first steps is obviously to launch all of our missiles as well if this were to be a total worst case scenario launch this is an important distinction that i will come back to later because i personally think that any strike less than a full-on launch is a far more terrifying option but for the sake of our scenario here let's say that these birds are in the air and the us is trying to intercept the incoming soviet missiles so we launch our own interceptor missiles and try to shoot down the incoming ballistic missiles well here we have a problem we kind of suck at this the us government freely admits that our current ground-based mid-course defense or gmd systems are only about 55 effective in order for them to be 99 effective three interceptor missiles our current ground-based mid-course defense or gmd systems are only about 55 effective in order for them to be 99 effective three interceptor missiles would have to be launched for every incoming warhead and considering that most ballistic missiles carry as many as 14 warheads and russia and china have hundreds of missiles well you can do the math so what does all of this have to do with china well it's pretty simple china's successful test of a hypersonic weapon system means that almost all of our ballistic interception technologies are obsolete and completely ineffective maybe and here's why hypersonic glide vehicles are vastly different than traditional ballistic missiles rather than being propelled to a higher orbit like a traditional icbm a thousand miles above the earth's surface a hypersonic launch vehicle can be launched at a much more shallow orbit maybe 100 miles or so which in theory means that the united states early warning radar sites will have less time to actually detect the missile before it's too late to do anything about it and perhaps most significantly a hypersonic glide vehicle is maneuverable in orbit so unlike a traditional ballistic missile which cannot dev about it and perhaps most significantly a hypersonic glide vehicle is maneuverable in orbit so unlike a traditional ballistic missile which cannot deviate at all from its course a hypersonic glide vehicle can be launched in any direction and maneuver in orbit this also means that this system can take evasive maneuvers to evade any interceptor missile also remember how i said that our opir sensors can detect the launch angle and the speed of a missile pretty much the instant it leaves the silo well with these new systems china could literally launch a missile in any direction and our systems wouldn't be able to tell when or where it would land and that's exactly what they did in this test the world thought that china was simply launching a rocket for their space program but also on board was a hypersonic glide vehicle so from now on any launch from china no matter how innocent it looks could be a nuclear strike once they get this technology perfected and since this system actually achieves a stable orbit instead of a normal icbm that can't stay in orbit this means that china's new system has an unlimited range it can strike any place on the earth so the bottom line reason for everyo an't stay in orbit this means that china's new system has an unlimited range it can strike any place on the earth so the bottom line reason for everyone freaking out about this is that china has demonstrated that they have a nuclear weapon system that can be launched in any direction so as to avoid those north facing radar sites evade any interceptor missiles and land in any place on earth with almost no warning pretty scary stuff if you were to turn the video off right now based on the information that we have given the astute observer might ask well if this is such a devastatingly effective weapon system why hasn't anyone thought of it before well it turns out that someone did think of this the soviet union china as a nation but particularly militarily has relied on intellectual property theft as the main tool with which to grow and expand there is almost nothing in the entire chinese military arsenal that hasn't either been stolen or purchased from russia or the united states stealing the research and development of other nation states rather than develop things on their own is just a core part of their military doctrine and from the chinese perspective it isn't necessarily a ba ates rather than develop things on their own is just a core part of their military doctrine and from the chinese perspective it isn't necessarily a bad move on their part of course there are exceptions to this policy but when it comes to nuclear development it should come as no surprise that china is essentially copying a program that the soviet union experimented with back in the 1960s a program called the fractional orbital bombardment system or fobs now in china's defense when it comes to strategic strike capabilities and the significant developments made during the cold war there is almost nothing that hasn't been thought of in fact if you are watching this video and you are thinking of different ways of launching or intercepting nukes i can guarantee you that 99 of the time not only has your idea been thought of before but chances are that an entire military development team congressional subcommittee and funding program was established on it back in the day so in the context of strategic weapons it might not be so fair to pick on china's defense industry for copying something that's already been done and this kind of system has been heavily developed by the soviets so you mig n china's defense industry for copying something that's already been done and this kind of system has been heavily developed by the soviets so you might ask okay the soviets built this system then why don't the russians use it today well it turns out there are quite a few problems and downsides with this system and interestingly enough this is how we know or at least have a pretty solid assessment using only open source data that this new chinese system is pretty much the same thing as the old-school soviet fob system because china's system suffers from the same problems and one of the major problems that the soviets had decades ago was accuracy to put it bluntly the soviets couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with their version of this system remember space travel was in its infancy during the 1960s and the complexities of such a system were simply too significant to overcome at the time another main reason for the soviets eventually scrapping this program was the absurdly small payload that the system could carry simply put it doesn't make a lot of sense to have a really good delivery vehicle if you can only put a single tiny warhead on it unless a nation were to outfit thousan sn't make a lot of sense to have a really good delivery vehicle if you can only put a single tiny warhead on it unless a nation were to outfit thousands of missiles like this which would have cost at the time several times the gdp of the soviet union having only a handful of missiles that can surgically strike targets isn't really worth it if that nation that you're striking is going to respond with every icbm they have anyway and also the main reason that the soviets developed the fob system was to get around what is generally referred to as the us abm or anti-ballistic missile defense system at the time back in the 60s and 70s the us was putting a serious amount of money into ballistic missile defense with the goal of having a large master system that would function as kind of like a shield over the united states well it turns out the us never really built such a system even to this day we don't really have a massive coordinated ballistic missile defense system what we do have is a selection of interconnected and even some independent systems that work to provide ballistic missile defense at various levels we have ground-based interceptors and naval based aegis systems such as th nt systems that work to provide ballistic missile defense at various levels we have ground-based interceptors and naval based aegis systems such as the sm-3 interceptors we have mobile systems like the terminal high altitude area defense or thaad systems and even surface-to-air systems like the hawk which can have some limited success against ballistic missiles in certain situations so the u.s never really built a gargantuan abm system but rather a lot of smaller systems that kind of fill the role and reduce the effectiveness of the fob's system oh and one more thing one of the main reasons for developing the fob system for the soviets was to get around u.s early warning radar sites or at least reduce the effectiveness of such detection capabilities the logic being well the united states has a bunch of radar facing the north pole so if russia developed a system that allowed them to launch a missile around the south pole there would be much less warning time well the us in response simply built a better radar network so when the soviets found out that in a few years the u.s would be able to detect their fob's launches from any direction anyway combined with several failed test launc s found out that in a few years the u.s would be able to detect their fob's launches from any direction anyway combined with several failed test launches in a row well this was kind of the final nail in the coffin for the program for the most part now we start to put the pieces together to form a much more clear picture of what this means for china in recent years it has become quite clear that the united states intelligence community senior leadership and chief analysts have been criminally negligent and utterly incompetent as a whole almost all strategic level intelligence is purely politics at this point and not based on any real analysis well it's honestly been that way for decades but for all of these anonymous sources coming out and saying that the us was blindsided by this and that they have no idea how the chinese did it that's bs even the skiff idiot knows that the chinese were working on this technology for a while china literally paraded hypersonic missiles during a military parade last year and has been openly testing this technology for years so the sudden surprise by the so-called unnamed intelligence officials either means that these quotes are made up or the people technology for years so the sudden surprise by the so-called unnamed intelligence officials either means that these quotes are made up or the people who gave the quotes are complete and utter morons or they know what they are doing and are feigning surprise so that they can scare congress into funding their defense contracts and even the average citizen not in the intelligence community could have guessed that much like most nuclear states china's space program is mostly a cover for developing their nuclear program in addition to serving as a test bed for future space-based weapons and as we have shown hypersonic glide vehicles are not new either not only did the soviets figure out how to do this at least in testing back in the 1960s but even to this day a variant of that program is still around the general concept of the fob system didn't completely die out and has been tweaked and reworked over time since the fall of the soviet union by russia in fact russia currently has a hypersonic glide vehicle in combat service called the avant-garde system and the us well we've had a system like this in place since 2011 and lockheed is currently in the process of converting all of our miss t-garde system and the us well we've had a system like this in place since 2011 and lockheed is currently in the process of converting all of our missile systems to include hypersonic glide vehicles in fact darpa literally just tested the hypersonic air breathing weapons concept or hawk last month and that's just one of many systems that are currently being tested or in various stages of development granted these systems for both the us and russia are highly classified so we cannot comment on how these already fielded systems stack up next to china's new delivery vehicle but in any case common sense would dictate that it's probably not the same china just demonstrated the proof of concept for their own nation while the united states and even russia have been at the later stages of development for years clearly not the same level of capability and also there is another element to this incident that not many people are publicly commenting on but is a painfully obvious consideration for anyone who reads history china showcasing this capability could just be taking a page out of the soviets book by developing a technology and proving that it works just so that the us is now obligated t bility could just be taking a page out of the soviets book by developing a technology and proving that it works just so that the us is now obligated to spend trillions of dollars on a defense system for it just like the development of the f-22 raptor back in the day that aircraft was developed to combat a new generation of soviet fighter aircraft that were never actually built this is partly due to a variety of factors from the superior soviet deception campaigns to the overzealous nature of our own military-industrial complex plus the desire to just have the best futuristic weapons platforms that we could possibly make just in case but that's a long story and there's vastly more to it than that the point is that maybe just maybe the chinese are doing the same thing with their hypersonic missile this is a brilliant move from a warfare standpoint and exactly the kind of thing that a struggling nation like china would do to even the odds china builds one or two test platforms to show the world look what we can do and the us looks at this and says well now we've got to spend trillions of dollars on defending against this system force the us government to spend trillions of dollars on s and says well now we've got to spend trillions of dollars on defending against this system force the us government to spend trillions of dollars on a defense system for a weapons system that china has no intention of developing further and every dollar that the us spends on a defense system for a weapon that won't be used is a dollar that is not spent on things like aircraft expeditionary resources conventional weapons electronic warfare development things that most assuredly will be used when a war breaks out and this is exactly what has happened the us has already spent billions of dollars and will continue to spend billions of dollars developing both our own weapon systems and detection and interception systems as well but even if this is a deception plan or or even if it's both maybe it's a genuine attempt by china to develop a significant weapons capability and also at the same time force the us to spend money on a defense system for it yeah whatever the case this is still kind of a catch-22 hypersonic weapons clearly are what nuclear nation-states are moving toward that's a given russia has been working on this and now china so it makes sense to develop defenses for these k nuclear nation-states are moving toward that's a given russia has been working on this and now china so it makes sense to develop defenses for these kinds of weapons but what if china is developing this technology just solely to force the us to be preoccupied with defense against it so that when china invades taiwan the u.s doesn't have enough resources to defend china's expansion to the nine-dash line the first island chain or beyond so you can see how this is maddening even if it is largely a deception plan we kind of have to go along with it just in case proving the old adage in the intelligent services that no deception plan can ever fail even if the deception plan is discovered the entity being deceived will either change their behavior just in case or they will think that everything else is a lie muddying the waters see how complicated this stuff can get it's crazy in any case what is certain is that this event and all of the press that has been generated from this in our opinion is certainly not worth freaking out over to the point that we blindly write blank checks to the military-industrial process yes it is clear that the u.s would be smart to develop hypersonic weapons d oint that we blindly write blank checks to the military-industrial process yes it is clear that the u.s would be smart to develop hypersonic weapons defense capability but from where we said the speed and urgency with which we develop such weapons is certainly up for debate and we definitely don't need to stomp on the gas just because china tested this capability and the press is freaking out about it for us the elephant in the room is the integrity of the entire strategic strike process there is a reason that we keep talking about general milley and the actions of himself vice president pence and speaker pelosi and their collaboration together in the days before and after the january 6 fiasco the fact that these people conspired together to varying degrees and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has openly admitted to tampering with our strategic launch capabilities that is one of the very few things that i am genuinely terrified of so taking into account the extremely rapid developments in the field of nuclear warfare now we see why it is such a big deal for general milley to admit that he withheld strategic strike options from the commander-in-chief and why this seemingly ee why it is such a big deal for general milley to admit that he withheld strategic strike options from the commander-in-chief and why this seemingly small incident is vastly more terrifying than a chinese nuclear weapon that can strike anywhere without warning which is terrifying enough what if china or any other nation for that matter doesn't launch hundreds of nukes what if it's a single missile a missile that might be a non-nuclear cruise missile obviously we have to respond to this with strategic assets immediately but it might not warrant us hitting the big red button and ending the world a lot of people think that the president's nuclear football is simply just a big red button to launch everything which it most certainly is not there are other options most of the options are not nuclear and since a u.s general admitted to tampering with a process something that no one man should be able to do this brings into question the entire process if a covert iranian cargo ship loitering off the east coast launches a single cruise missile towards washington dc would our national leadership even be able to respond to this without sabotaging each other we used to know the answer to this e towards washington dc would our national leadership even be able to respond to this without sabotaging each other we used to know the answer to this question or we thought we did for decades the single most secure and well thought out and planned entity on the planet was the u.s strategic strike hierarchy and process but now that confidence has eroded and that's the kind of stuff that keeps analysts like me up at night as we've mentioned before every single nuclear state is absolutely asking themselves these questions if the united states the most militarily dominant nation in the history of the world can't get our act together on procedures standards and processes that should be completely foolproof then what chance do other nations have at preventing a single rogue actor from causing harm or stopping a strike in defense if millie can stop the president from launching a first strike he can certainly stop a strike in self-defense and based on his treasonous phone calls to china we now seriously have to worry that in the highly unlikely event that china launches nukes at us this guy right here might just prevent us from launching back we never used to think about these things but ely event that china launches nukes at us this guy right here might just prevent us from launching back we never used to think about these things but we're certainly thinking about them now and also on the other hand there is another argument that i would like to point out what if millie himself was mistaken what if he thinks that he can stop a nuclear strike but he really can't if you were a person somewhere in the pipeline of the nuclear strike hierarchy and were intimately aware of how the whole thing works right down to the nuts and bolts and a politically extreme and woke general says that he can stop the process but you know that he can't would you correct him no you wouldn't you would let him think that he can influence things like that and if the time comes he will think that he did something right as the birds are taking off and flying to their targets i myself disagree with this theory i think that millie being the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has much more pull than most people realize and he is intimately aware of the strategic strike process more so than most people out of all of the people in the world there are probably only a couple hundred that might know the strategic strike process more so than most people out of all of the people in the world there are probably only a couple hundred that might know more about the nuclear strike process than him so when he says that he can and did tamper with the process i'm inclined to believe him so talking about the melee problem is a far more worthwhile conversation than talking about china's new but not really new hypersonic missile system it does not matter if we have the best offensive or defensive tools in the world if one woke general can sabotage the entire process and even if he can't sabotage the process the fact that he thinks he can is just as big of a problem the main problem of nuclear or strategic strike capabilities has never been the technology it's always been the humans behind it and this is something that no nation has found an answer to everything can be secure and reliable but communications and authentications methods suffer from the two generals problem or hesitation on the part of the operator or who is even really and truly authorized to make a launch back in the day the soviets tried to fix this problem with systems like the dead hand system but by and large the down ly authorized to make a launch back in the day the soviets tried to fix this problem with systems like the dead hand system but by and large the down and dirty details of a nuclear strike have so many variables that nobody can be totally sure that the system will work like it's supposed to if it's needed and with millie bringing the integrity of the human factor back into the forefront of the issue i hope and pray that people smarter and with better access than me are sitting down and trying to figure out some solutions to these problems because the world is changing fast and there have never been more ways for a global war to break out instantly with zero warning russia has had a nuclear-powered nuclear-capable torpedo for decades and has now fielded it with the launch of their newest class of submarines we have no defense for this other than syncing the submarine before they launch the torpedo so russia could launch a nuclear torpedo into new york harbor with absolutely zero early warning on our part except from the ancient socialist arrays that would probably hear the torpedo but not really be able to do much about it the united states has been developing and testing space-based t arrays that would probably hear the torpedo but not really be able to do much about it the united states has been developing and testing space-based kinetic weapons for decades tungsten rods the size of telephone poles that are in orbit until they are released re-entering the earth's atmosphere at mach 14 and striking the ground without any explosives at all but the kinetic energy of a small nuclear warhead russia not to be outdone has been working on tapping and tampering with undersea communications cables for decades knowing full well that if they cut only a couple of cables the entire communications infrastructure for the world will fail giving russia a critical non-nuclear first strike capability both north and south korea have demonstrated significant leaps in their submarine launch ballistic missile technology and with their current arms race heating up no one knows how that's going to turn out china is working on hypersonic space weapons and the us is working on laser weapons american diplomats and spies are being medically evacuated around the world because of havana syndrome and clandestine intelligence agencies around the world from all nations have publicly shown emba evacuated around the world because of havana syndrome and clandestine intelligence agencies around the world from all nations have publicly shown embarrassingly bad tradecraft so much so that the cia has revealed that their officers poor tradecraft has gotten too many assets killed all of these things highlight the blatantly obvious fact that we the united states have got to do better and since we here do not necessarily have the faith that our senior military or political leadership will do the right thing we average americans have to start thinking about this stuff say what you want to about the overly willing crooked and corrupt military-industrial complex and most of the time we would agree but that does not mean that other nations are not a genuine threat to the united states and even without devolving into the military-industrial complex debate one thing that is quite clear is that we cannot buy our way out of the problems we face especially the problems within our senior military leadership and how mind-bogglingly severe the problems have become on that front we have to get smart on these topics there has never been more justification for the average american to inform thems oblems have become on that front we have to get smart on these topics there has never been more justification for the average american to inform themselves on things like national defense and international diplomacy like it or hate it globalization has worked for the people who wanted it even just a couple hundred years ago civilizations around the world rose and fell without even knowing that other civilizations existed but now a medical illness can start in one country and shut down the world economy within weeks just on speculation alone a single factory shutting down for a couple of weeks on the other side of the planet can mean entire areas of the united states go without a certain product for weeks and we have spent trillions of dollars over the past 70 years to develop the most devastating weapons ever devised only for the actions of two or three people to throw all of that into question it is quite obvious by now that the american people have a lot of enemies both foreign and domestic and with the way things are currently going more and more adversaries pop up every single day sometimes adversaries that used to be close friends so let's get smart and keep an eye out both fo g more and more adversaries pop up every single day sometimes adversaries that used to be close friends so let's get smart and keep an eye out both foreign and domestically because the world is changing fast and we don't have the luxury of slowing down [Music] [Music] you