Is Turkey Playing a Double Game with NATO?

Pictured: A Russian S-400 missile battery. (Image source: Vitaly Kuzmin/Wikimedia Commons)

 

• Why would Turkey first order a Russian defense system and then turn around and make a cooperation agreement with Europe for the same purpose?
• This goes back to America’s apprehension that if Turkey uses the S-400s along with the U.S. F-35s, Russia could gain access to information about the aircraft’s sensitive technology.
• If Turkey is playing a double game with NATO, let us hope that the United States does not fall prey to it.

In January, 2018 Turkey reportedly awarded an 18-month contract for a study on the development and production of a long-range air- and missile-defense system to France and Italy, showing — ostensibly — Turkey’s ongoing commitment to NATO. The study, contracted between the EUROSAM consortium and Turkey’s Aselsan and Roketsan companies, was agreed upon in Paris, on the sidelines of a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Restrict China, protect Canada

Spying has been in the news of late. It’s the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise hitting the silver screen, a Canadian naval officer pleaded guilty last week to selling military secrets to Russia, and the U.S. House of Representatives’ intelligence committee warns Chinese state-owned companies shouldn’t be allowed to own firms in highly sensitive sectors of our economies, for fear of corporate espionage.

The committee warned last week that Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp., two Chinese-based telecommunications giants, should be expelled from the U.S. market to minimize the risk of spying.

Obama’s Lost in Space

As the Clinton admin has done, so has the Obama admin. Yet the general blind public’s reaction is “shock” or disbelief when hearing how the PLA technology is on par with US military technology now and the threat it causes.

Administration approves controversial export license allowing sensitive space technology transfer to China

The Obama administration recently notified Congress that it has agreed to license exports of sensitive U.S. space technology to China from a U.S. company that was fined in the past for illegally supplying space support that improved Chinese ballistic missiles.

The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, the unit that licenses exports of sensitive technology, notified House and Senate leaders on Wednesday of plans to go ahead with an export license for a deal between Space Systems/Loral and AsiaSat, a company owned in part by a Chinese state-run investment company linked to past satellite deals in the 1990s.

Additionally, U.S. government reports indicate that China’s People’s Liberation Army, which is currently engaged in a major space warfare program that involves anti-satellite missiles and lasers, used AsiaSat communications satellites in the past.

An intelligence report produced by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center stated that AsiaSat satellites were used by the People’s Liberation Army for military-related communications.

…

Documents obtained by the Free Beacon reveal that the Obama administration appeared to ignore two U.S. laws prohibiting space cooperation with China. They include sanctions against selling military goods to China imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre by Chinese military forces, and a 1999 law requiring all space exports to China to be treated as military transfers.

The State Department justified its approval of the Loral license as permitted under the 1992 U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act, which the department said exempts Hong Kong from other U.S. laws restricting exports of space technology and defense goods to China. The British colony reverted to Beijing control in 1997.

…

Because of close ties between Chinese civilian and military space development, there is a “high likelihood that space-related items and technology will be diverted from a civil use and applied to military programs,” under relaxed U.S. export controls, the report said.

“As China advances in operational space capabilities, it is actively focusing on how to destroy, disrupt, or deny U.S. access to our own space assets,” the report said.

The report said China is building several new classes of offensive missiles, upgrading older missile systems, and “developing space-based methods to counter ballistic missile defenses of the United States and our allies, including anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons.”

Regarding space technology transfer, the report said: “Inadvertent or deliberate transfer of space-related expertise poses the most significant potential harm to U.S. national interests.”

Richard Fisher, a specialist on Chinese military affairs, said he is opposed to loosening controls on space technology transfer to China.

“We do not have a required level of transparency with China’s overall space program to be relaxing rules sufficient to enable commercial cooperation,” said Fisher, with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

“We are still not able to assure that U.S. technology will somehow assist some future Chinese space weapon,” he said. “China still laughs at our efforts to promote such transparency.”

Full Article: Obama’s Lost in Space (Washington Free Beacon)

French defense contractor flouting export rules

Thales Alenia Space selling sensitive technology to Chinese…

The U.S. government cut off exports of satellites to China in the 1990s after U.S. aerospace companies helped make China’s strategic nuclear missiles more reliable by improperly assisting China’s space launchers.

According to the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military, the Chinese are developing an array of space warfare capabilities, including anti-satellite missiles and lasers. The report said China’s military has stated that it plans on “destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance … and communications satellites” in a future conflict. The report also said such systems and navigation and early warning satellites are targets in an initial phase of attack that would “blind and deafen the enemy.”

China’s development of space warfare capabilities is a major concern of U.S. national security officials opposed to loosening export controls on commercial space technology.

Thales built the Chinasat 6B satellite in 2007 and in 2008 began advertising Spacebus 4000 satellites for sale as “ITAR-free.” It then exported several of the satellites, including some to China, a country limited from such sales by under the International Traffic in Arms (ITAR) regulations.

Full article: French defense contractor flouting export rules (Free Beacon)