The Chinese art of war . . . and it is war.

India's recent power outage in July of this year of almost 50% of the country's generation capacity was a shocker to most in the West.  Over 640 million people in 19 states in India lost power.  The alleged cause of the power grid failure was the higher demand from the use of water pumps by rural farmers due to drought, causing the need to pump water from distant sources.  However, One India News reported that there may have been another contributing factor, aside from demand.  (http://news.oneindia.in/2012/08/22/china-s-hand-in-india-s-power-blackout-1057676.html)

The blame surrounding the failure of India's northern power grid has been attributed to corruption, graft, greed and, most recently as related in the Washington Times citing One India News, by a purposeful strategy by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to undermine India's power grid.  Whether or not this was a demonstration by the PRC's military of their ability to disable a potential adversary's power grid through a concerted cyber attack as was alleged by India, or a red herring by India's power companies to assuage blame has yet to be determined.  (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/29/inside-china-missile-defense-conspiracy/#ixzz25S8WR6fB)

What is known is that over the last few years, PRC companies undertook the modernization of the northern India power grid with successful bids worth several hundreds of millions of dollars.  These contracts were to install new control infrastructure, new transmission facilities and equipment, including switching centers to transfer loads from one area to another, and key components to modernize and to upgrade the power grid as part of a master plan to modernize India's power grid.

The PRC companies are alleged to have installed "back doors" into the computerized control systems for the power grid.   These "back doors" are alleged to be for the benefit of the Chinese military to exploit. The PRC companies are also alleged to have installed faulty components that broke down under load.  It has been alleged that the PRC's military undertook a concerted cyber attack against the control facilities using the alleged "back doors".

Where have we heard those allegations before?  From our very own Department of Defense. 

SecDef Leon Panetta has complained and warned of electronics parts and machined parts supplied to western defense contractors used in NATO and U.S. equipment as being defective and failure prone.  Panetta has also stated that the PRC suppliers have provided a "back door" to much of the communications and computerized systems purchased from PRC suppliers. 

It was recently disclosed that a major new weapons system, the Boeing P8 Poseidon, a replacement for the Navy's land based P3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft was compromised by defective electronic components and components having a "back door" accessible to the PRC military.  The P8 is a modified Boeing 737-800 aircraft modified for the military sub hunting mission. 

Defective and counterfit integrated circuits supplied by PRC companies have also been found in Thales military communications gear used by NATO and U.S. forces world-wide.

It is simply incredible to think that the United States is buying critical military components from a country that has a nuclear first strike policy against the United States!  Further, the United States Navy has sacked at least one Pacific Fleet Carrier battle group commander for the failure to detect a PRC Navy submarine that actually surfaced to disclose its presence to the American Navy earlier this year.  A submarine the P8 is designed to detect . . ..

PRC telecommunications companies have publically disclosed that they have hacked much of the U.S. telecom infrastructure using PRC supplied equipment installed in the U.S. as a starting point for the hacks.  The assault by the PRC on U.S. companies' mainframes and other computer infrastructure, including power grid and water system control systems has been admitted by U.S. officials.  The loss of data to the PRC is unknown.

The Pentagon has recognized the threat with the creation of the new Cyber Command.  Yet, the PRC military has ignored the assertions by our SecDef that an attack on U.S. power grid or other common control infrastructure that would have national impact would be construed as an act of war.  The cyber attacks against our military computing infrastructure is a daily occurrence.  Same for the attacks attributed to the PRC military against our commercial data infrastructure, and command and control systems for our power grids and water supplies.  Our telecommunications systems are already compromised.

Sun Tzu:  The Art of War

III.  Attack by Stratagem

"1. . . . In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole

and intact;

2.  Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

. . . 6.  Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

  7.  With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.

 . . . 17. Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:

(1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

(2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

(3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.

(4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

(5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign."

If what was conveyed by the Washington Times is true, we have had a precursor of the strategy of the PRC's military in using commercial and military cyber resources to attack the infrastructure of a target state.  Our State Department and our President need to let the SecDef and the U.S. military do their jobs of protecting U.S. infrastructure unfettered by illusions of "good will" on the part of the Red Chinese where there are none on the part of the Red Chinese.

Whether we like to admit or not, another layer of strategy of the PRC in its undeclared conflict with the United States may have been revealed by the alleged cyber attacks against India's power grid in July of this year.  We can either pay attention and focus on eliminating our weaknesses in our cyber control systems, or, we can pay the price:  ". . . He will win who . .  .waits to take the enemy unprepared." 

The PRC is not playing games.

Sarah Palin--she's baaaack!

FINALLY, OUR GOVERNOR IS BACK IN ALASKA ACTING LIKE A GOVERNOR!

The Road to Nome, a long overdue improvement to the State's overland infrastructure is now being proposed by Gov. Palin. This is the first time there has been support by any administration since Walter Hickle in the late 60s.

Even more telling is the beginning of a thaw between Exxon and the State with the approval by DNR for Exxon to drill two gas wells at Pt. Thompson this year, along with building necessary pad and ice road support infrastructure. Granted, a long way to go to settle the State's angst against Exxon for delaying and setting upon gas leases when Alaska and the United States could use the royalties and natural gas. The natural gas would offset Middle East sources, meaning less money to the terrorists and cheaper gas for Americans.

The progress towards the start of a 24 inch natural gas in-state pipeline from the North Slope to Palmer or Anchorage is positive with a potential completion in 2014. That's cutting it too close for my liking in terms of completion before Cook Inlet reserves are depleted, but at least it is a date.

The Healy coal power generation plant sale to Golden Valley Electric is another good decision. The new power plant will reduce costs to central Alaska power consumers and demonstrate that a clean coal generation facility is a necessary and viable power generation technology for Alaska and the U.S. That plant has set idle for better than 10 years after a tremendous investment by the Dept. of Energy and the State of Alaska.

Now, if Sarah will get spending under control and show us the "fiscal conservative" side of the Palin Administration, the Sarah Palin I voted for and supported will be occupying the Governor's office.

The next item should be a vocal and public challenge by our Governor to the ANILCA restrictions regarding rights of way. The Izembek NWR land swap is an indication of unfairness in ANILCA. The State of Alaska should be allowed to build roads as it needs them and where it deems fit, just as every other State has been allowed to do so. To deny Alaska is to impose a restriction that is bad faith with respect to the intent of our Statehood Compact.

WELCOME BACK, SARAH, AND KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

National Energy Policy

Like Winnie the Pooh, who ignores the obvious, the United States of America is slowly declining into straits that would be familiar to the second and third world.

It is recognized that there is growing pressure on the power grids of America. In California the highest power demand ever was recorded at 5.3 gigawatts as a result of the recent high temperatures. 20 small California communities suffered rolling blackouts as power was shuffled to keep Los Angeles residents’ air conditioners functioning.

Fuel prices continue to skyrocket, which will result in accelerated inflation until demand, speculation, and supply stabilize.

Unlike, Europe and Japan, our gas prices have more to do with the lack of refining capacity than government taxes. The U.S. national tax on motor fuels is 24 cents per gallon for diesel and 18 cents per gallon for gasoline. E.U. taxes are a minimum of $.42 EU per liter. This is amounts to a rough equivalent of $1.68 per U.S. gallon for taxes in the EU.

For those who believe motor fuels costs in the U.S. should be as high as it is Europe or Japan, that means increasing taxes on motor fuels by up to at least 5-8 times over the current level of taxation.

There is a potential answer to this energy dilemma that you will not hear about in the main stream media. The United States Air Force is working to wean the USAF off of fuel refined from foreign oil to support domestic training and operations.

The USAF is building a pilot refinery to convert coal to fuel and another to convert bio sources to fuel. Were these refineries to be proposed on private lands, they would be opposed by the nimby crowd and the eco freaks. Law suits would blossom in the courts as prolific as dandelions in a Spring lawn. Fortunately, the USAF showed some intelligence in its planning and provided for the location of these facilities on its own military reservations.

The largest landholder in the U.S. is government at every level.

Military reservations can become a haven for new refineries and new power plants.

It would be logical for the military to provide for its own needs by reducing dependence and competition with the civilian market for fuel sources.

Coal fired power plants can be built, new coal to fuel conversion plants can built, and new nuke power plants can be built on government lands. Either on military reservations exclusively, or upon government lands away from population centers, but within the surface transportation infrastructure and within the electrical power grid infrastructure.


To meet the needs of the U.S. in general, the use of other government lands could provide locations for the refining and power generation infrastructure necessary for the civilian market.

What it would take to ensure the success of such an initiative to prevent the U.S. from degenerating into a third rate power, is a mandate from the President authorizing the various branches of the U.S. military to utilize military lands for the installation of power plants and refineries in order to become independent of foreign oil using the USAF model. That is the first step.

The next step is for the President to declare a national emergency and to prioritize increased energy generation capacity and fuel refining capacity to resolve the looming energy crisis. The President could do this by authorizing the utilization of government lands to be leased to power companies and leased to companies desiring to build large scale refineries and fuel conversion facilities. Lands that would be reasonably situated, lands that would not require decades of impact studies before construction could begin.

The courts have been the tool of those who desire the U.S. to be less. By making this a national emergency/defense issue, the courts would no longer play spoiler.

The cost of fuel is high in the United States for one basic reason. Refining capacity in the U.S. has been artificially limited by those in this country who put their own interests above that of the nation. There is plenty of oil. Oil supply is not the underlying problem.

There is no doubt that between developing coal to fuel conversion capacity, tar sands development, increasing nuclear power generation capacity, lifting the ban on oil and gas drilling off the coast of the U.S., opening ANWR to oil and gas development, and constructing a natural gas pipeline to bring Alaska’s natural gas to market in the U.S., that the United States would eventually be in the enviable position to virtually eliminate foreign oil and natural gas dependence.

Nuclear power generation would free natural gas for home heating, fuel cell, and other uses, by reducing the need for natural gas for power generation.

To remove the need for foreign oil would also reduce rising tensions in the world over the supply of that oil.

Increasing power generation capacity reduces the cost of power, and should favorably impact the economics associated with hydrogen generation, and electric automobiles. Reducing cost of power should accelerate the introduction of these alternatives.

Seems to me, the nimbys and the eco freaks would figure this out.

I am not advocating money. Just a means to provide the land upon which to build the infrastructure to keep this country from becoming less and less by reducing the opportunity for sabotage through the courts of needed new refineries and power plants.

The USAF has shown the way.