The Cradle’s Jordan correspondent

In Jordan, failing at self-censorship can land you in jail. Literally.

Freelance journalist Hiba Abu Taha, a passionate pro-resistance Jordanian of Palestinian origin, refused to self-censor. On 11 June, the Magistrate Court in Amman sentenced her to a harsh one-year prison term for violating the kingdom’s controversial Cybercrimes Law introduced last year.

This was due to an article she wrote for Lebanese news site, Annasher, criticizing “Jordan’s role in defending the enemy entity.” The article was published on 22 April, eight days after Jordanian, US, British, and French aircraft intercepted Iranian drones and rockets over Jordanian airspace heading towards Israeli targets.

However, Abu Taha was arrested on 13 May after Annasher published her investigative report on 28 April titled “Partners in extermination: Jordanian capital owners involved in Gaza genocide.” The timing of her arrest gave the impression that she was detained for exposing Jordanian companies transporting exports to Israel – a land corridor that government officials went out of their way to publicly deny amid growing popular outrage at Amman’s continued ties with Tel Aviv while it commits the Gaza genocide.

It is widely believed that her nearly 2,000-word investigative report, supported by a 15-minute video of evidence she gathered undercover, was the real reason for the journalist’s indictment.

Exposing government deception on Israeli trade routes

In her report, Abu Taha accused Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh and other officials of concealing the use of Jordan as a land route for UAE and Bahraini exports via Saudi Arabia to Israel to break the Yemeni Ansarallah blockade in the Red and Arabian Seas.

She cites transport and clearance company employees in Amman and Aqaba about their services to transport goods through the northern Sheikh Hussein Bridge or the southern Wadi Araba crossing. She went on to expose the names of the Jordanian companies and their influential owners, who have shown no qualms about doing business as usual with the occupation state as it commits unprecedented war crimes in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Abu Taha also identifies influential company owners acting as agents for Israeli or Israel-bound shipping companies. Resorting to official documents, she writes that Jordanian exports to Israel increased from $123 million in 2022 to $143 million in 2023, with a record monthly high of $17 million in December 2023, a month after Yemen began targeting Israeli-owned and Israel-bound cargo ships.

She notes that despite court evidence “recognizing the existence of the land bridge” as well as video footage and pictures of the movement of trucks at the Sheikh Hussein border crossing, Khasawneh insisted that:

The land bridge is a figment of imagination with no truth on the ground … The number of trucks entering and leaving Jordan for the entity has decreased, and what is being raised is nothing but self-flagellation.

Abu Taha details her exchange with government spokesman Muhannad Mubaidin, who fires back at “those accusing Jordan” of providing a land bridge for Israel as “shameful.”

She writes that he “initially tried to deny the government’s role” in this regard and “even tried to point the finger at West Bank merchants as deceiving their colleagues in Jordan by telling them that the exports are for the Arabs.”

When confronted with the facts she found, Mubaidin immediately referred to the 1994 Wadi Araba peace treaty with Israel and stressed that the government would not ban trade with the Zionist state because “such a decision is a populist one that appeases a certain party or faction.”

Meanwhile, Trade Ministry Spokesman Yanal Barmawi told Abu Taha that he was unaware of the “export issue” and that “the private sector would know.” She writes that official denials and blaming the private sector, which cannot operate without government approval, “confirms that the authorities are trying to contain the Jordanian street.”

Opinion prosecution

Despite the rigor of her investigative report, Abu Taha was prosecuted for her 22 April opinion piece. Nidal Mansour, co-founder of the Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists (CDFJ), noted that Abu Taha was convicted under the restrictive Cybercrimes Law, which was enacted shortly before 7 October 2023.

The Media Commission, a government-controlled regulatory body, filed a complaint against her, accusing her of “inciting sedition and discord among members of the community,” “threatening community peace,” “inciting violence,” and “spreading false news” through electronic media.

Abu Taha’s article accused Jordan of “treason,” among other derogatory terms, for intercepting Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel and giving the US, British, and French military forces a free hand in the country to defend the occupation state.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) quotes Media Commissioner Bashir al-Momani as saying that Abu Taha’s article contained “serious insults against Jordanian state institutions, incitement to the state’s positions, and stirring up discord among the components of the people,” which he added “necessitated her prosecution.”

According to a CDFJ statement, Abu Taha was convicted under Articles 15 and 17 of the 40-article Cybercrime Law of August 2023. Article 15 stipulates:

Whoever intentionally sends, resends, or publishes data or information through an information network, information technology, information system, website, or social media platforms that includes fake news targeting the national security and community peace, or defames, slanders, or contempt [sic] any person shall be imprisoned for a period of not less than three months or a fine of not less than 5,000 dinars and no more than 20,000 dinars, or both penalties.

Article 15 also gives the prosecutor the right to take legal action “without the need to file a complaint or claim a personal right if it is directed at one of the authorities in the state, official bodies, or public administrations,” which means that Abu Taha could have still been punished even if the Media Commission had not filed a complaint.

The court also invoked Article 17 to hand her a one-year sentence. It states that:

Whoever intentionally uses an information network, information technology, information system, website, or social media platform to spread what is likely to stir up racism or sedition, targets social peace, incites hatred, calls for or justifies violence, or insults religions, shall be punished by imprisonment from one to three years or a fine of no less than 5,000 dinars and no more than 20,000 dinars, or both penalties.

Draconian laws and legal challenges

Abu Taha’s opinion piece in Annasher undoubtedly lacked the self-censorship that Amman has successfully induced by imposing a series of restrictive press and media laws over the decades.

Mansour tells The Cradle that the press and publication laws have become more draconian with the evolution of information technology, beginning with restrictive laws on the independent weekly press back in the 1990s, to online news sites in the early 2000s, and social media with the most recent “fluid” Cybercrime Law that could effectively stifle any form of free speech on these platforms.

He notes that Abu Taha’s lawyer, Rami Odatallah, appointed by the leftist Jordanian Popular Unity Party (an offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), is more experienced in defending political activists than journalists.

Abu Taha is not a member of the political party. Still, it stood by her ordeal and denounced her arrest and sentencing, demanding her release and other activists that had been “harassed and arrested” for supporting the resistance against Israel online or on the street.

Mansour reveals that the CDFJ plans to hire a lawyer specialized in the Cybercrime Law to appeal her sentence, which his organization described as “deeply concerning” and called for “abolishing imprisonment in cases related to publication and freedom of expression in accordance with international human rights standards.”

Press freedom concerns

Abu Taha’s arrest and sentencing drew attention to Jordan’s crackdown on both journalists and rightfully enraged activists by using the Cybercrime Law.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement that Abu Taha was: “the first journalist in Jordan to receive a prison sentence under the country’s draconian Cybercrime Law, which the RSF denounced prior to its adoption last year.”

Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk, said:

A prison sentence for a journalist is a scandal in Jordan, one of the few countries in the region not to have reporters behind bars. This sentence constitutes a huge setback for press freedoms in the kingdom and threatens not only Hiba Abu Taha’s safety but also the safety of all reporters. RSF already sounded the alarm about the dangers posed by the new cybercrime law. It must be repealed at once, and Hiba Abu Taha’s conviction must be overturned.

The RSF warned that “Jordan has seen a surge in harassment of journalists, including arrests, censorship, and intimidation since December 2023. Those targeted have included journalists covering demonstrations in support of Gaza or revealing information concerning relations between Jordan and Israel, and the harassment has been carried out under the Cybercrime Law in particular.”

Defense lawyer’s perspective

Defense Lawyer Hala Ahed says that no figures were available on the number of activists arrested under this law since the Israeli aggression on Gaza in October, but her office alone is dealing with 20 clients that she is defending pro bono.

She tells The Cradle that even if the authorities or courts release the defendants on bail after their detention, which often lasts up to a week behind bars, the mere existence of the Cybercrime Law acts as a deterrent and a legal intimidation tool aimed at stifling free speech and the right to protest.

Journalists say that the authorities seek to “make an example” of Abu Taha because the court turned down her lawyer’s repeated request for her release on bail since her arrest and was quick to hand her a one-year prison sentence within one month.

The authorities, they add, want to send a clear message that anyone, journalist or otherwise, daring to publicly challenge the shameless US-allied official line that opposes the Iran-allied resistance will land in jail, be that through the Cybercrime Law or any other.

Previous arrest and defiance

Abu Taha is no stranger to persecution. She was arrested after she was sentenced to a three-month prison term on 8 August last year, just a few days before the enforcement of the Cybercrime Law and months before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was launched.

She was charged with “defaming an official body” for a Facebook post where she accused King Abdallah II of normalization with Israel and included an edited picture of the monarch with an Israeli flag during Israeli settler invasions of Al-Aqsa Mosque – which is supposed to be under Jordanian Hashemite guardianship like all Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. Abu Taha was released a couple of days later upon appealing the sentence. 

On 11 August 2023, she posted a picture of herself smiling with her eyes closed on her Facebook page, writing that she was “dreaming of a reality devoid of normalization with the enemy and without treason by the smallest to the most senior state official.”

She said that since the court “considered normalization with the Zionist entity an accusation, I demand the prosecution of all normalizers that head the Prime Ministry and rule the country instead of prosecuting me for rejecting and criticizing normalization with the historical enemy of the nation!”

The journalist added in the same post that “restrictions and jail cells do not intimidate us” and “we will continue to criticize and condemn normalization without exception.”

She closed her message with: “Enough oppression and brutality with the sword of martial law and release the detainees.”

https://www.theinteldrop.org/2024/06/24/journalism-under-fire-jailed-for-exposing-jordans-secret-support-of-jewish-terrorism/

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The G7 and the subsequent Swiss ‘Bürgenstock Conference’ can – in retrospect – be understood as preparation for a prolonged Ukraine war. The three centrepiece announcements emerging from the G7 – the 10 year Ukraine security pact; the $50 ‘billion Ukraine loan’; and the seizing of interest on Russian frozen funds – make the point. The war is about to escalate.

These stances were intended as preparation of the western public ahead of events. And in case of any doubts, the blistering belligerency towards Russia emerging from the European election leaders was plain enough: They sought to convey a clear impression of Europe preparing for war.

What then lies ahead? According to White House Spokesman John Kirby: “Washington’s position on Kiev is “absolutely clear”:

“First, they’ve got to win this war”.

“They gotta win the war first. So, number one: We’re doing everything we can to make sure they can do that. Then when the war’s over … Washington will assist in building up Ukraine’s military industrial base”.

If that was not plain, the U.S. intent to prolong and take the war deep into Russia was underlined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: “Authorization for Ukrainian use of American weapons for cross-border attacks extends to anywhere [from which] Russian forces are coming across the border”. He affirmed, too, that Ukraine can use F-16s to attack Russia and use U.S. supplied air defence systems “to take down Russian planes – even if in Russian airspace – if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace”.

Ukrainian pilots have the latitude to judge ‘the intent’ of Russian fighter aircraft? Expect the parameters of this ‘authorisation’ to widen quickly – deeper to air bases from which Russian fighter bombers launch.

Understanding that the war is about to transform radically – and extremely dangerously – President Putin (in his speech to the Foreign Ministry Board) detailed just how the world had arrived at this pivotal juncture – one which could extend to nuclear exchanges.

The gravity of the situation itself demanded the making of one ‘last chance’ offer to the West, which Putin emphatically said was “no temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor was it about freezing the conflict”; but rather, his proposals were about the war’s final completion.

“If, as before, Kiev and western capitals refuse it – then at the end, that’s their business”, Putin said.

Just to be clear, Putin almost certainly never expected the proposals to be received in the West other than by the scorn and derision with which they, in fact, were met. Nor would Putin trust – for a moment – the West not to renege on an agreement, were some arrangement to be reached on these lines.

If so, why then did President Putin make such a proposal last weekend, if the West cannot be trusted and its reaction was so predictable?

Well, maybe we need to search for the nesting inner Matryoshka doll, rather than fix on the outer casing: Putin’s ‘final completion’ likely will not credibly be achieved through some itinerant peace broker. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin dismisses devices such as ‘ceasefires’ or ‘freezes’. He is seeking something permanent: An arrangement that has ‘solid legs’; one that has durability.

Such a solution – as Putin before has hinted – requires a new world security architecture to come into being; and were that to happen, then a complete solution for Ukraine would flow as an implicit part to a new world order. That is to say, with the microcosm of a Ukraine solution flowing implicitly from the macrocosm agreement between the U.S. and the ‘Heartland’ powers – settling the borders to their respective security interests.

This clearly is impossible now, with the U.S. in its psychological mindset stuck in the Cold War era of the 1970s and 1980s. The end to that war – the seeming U.S. victory – set the foundation to the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine which underscored American supremacy at all costs in a post-Soviet world, together with “stamping out rivals, wherever they may emerge”.

“In conjunction with this, the Wolfowitz Doctrine stipulated that the U.S. would … [inaugurate] a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic zone of peace”. Russia, on the other hand, was dealt with differently—the country fell off the radar. It became insignificant as a geopolitical competitor in the eyes of the West, as its gestures of peaceful offerings were rebuffed – and guarantees given to it regarding NATO’s expansion forfeited”.

“Moscow could do nothing to prevent such an endeavour. The successor state of the mighty Soviet Union was not its equal, and thus not considered important enough to be involved in global decision-making. Yet, despite its reduced size and sphere of influence, Russia has persisted in being considered a key player in international affairs”.

Russia today is a preeminent global actor in both the economic and political spheres. Yet for the Ruling Strata in the U.S., equal status between Moscow and Washington is out of the question. The Cold War mentality still infuses the Beltway with the unwarranted confidence that the Ukraine conflict might somehow result in Russian collapse and dismemberment.

Putin in his address, by contrast, looked ahead to the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system – and of a new architecture emerging. “The world will never be the same again”, Putin said.

Implicitly, he hints that such a radical shift would be the only way credibly to end the Ukraine war. An agreement emerging from the wider framework of consensus on the division of interests between the Rimland and the Heartland (in Mackinder-esque language) would reflect the security interests of each party – and not be achieved at the expense of others’ security.

And to be clear: If this analysis is correct, Russia may not be in such a hurry to conclude matters in Ukraine. The prospect of such a ‘global’ negotiation between Russia-China and the U.S. is still far off.

The point here is that the collective western psyche has not been transformed sufficiently. Treating Moscow with equal esteem remains out of the question for Washington.

The new American narrative is no negotiations with Moscow now, but maybe it will become possible sometime early in the new year – after the U.S. elections.

Well, Putin might surprise again – by not jumping at the prospect, but rebuffing it; assessing that the Americans still are not ready for negotiations for a ‘complete end’ to the war – especially as this latest narrative runs concurrently with talk of a new Ukraine offensive shaping up for 2025. Of course, much is likely to change over the coming year.

The documents outlining a putative new security order however, were already drafted by Russia in 2021 – and duly ignored in the West. Russia perhaps can afford to wait out military events in Ukraine, in Israel, and in the financial sphere.

They are all, in any event, trending Putin’s way. They are all inter-connected and have the potential for wide metamorphosis.

Put plainly: Putin is waiting on the shaping of the American Zeitgeist. He seemed very confident both at St Petersburg and last week at the Foreign Ministry.

The backdrop to the G7’s Ukraine preoccupation seemed to be more U.S. elections-related, than real: This implies that the priority in Italy was election optics, rather than a desire to start a full-blown hot war. But this may be wrong.

Russian speakers during these recent gatherings – notably Sergei Lavrov – hinted broadly that the order already had come down for war with Russia. Europe seems, however improbably, to be gearing up for war – with much chatter about military conscription.

Will it all blow away with the passing of a hot summer of elections? Maybe.

The coming phase seems likely to entail western escalation, with provocations occurring inside Russia. The latter will react strongly to any crossing of (real) red lines by NATO, or any false flag provocation (now widely expected by Russiam military bloggers).

And herein lies the greatest danger: In the context of escalation, American disdain for Russia poses the greatest danger. The West now says it treats notions of putative nuclear exchange as Putin’s ‘bluff’. The Financial Times tells us that Russia’s nuclear warnings are ‘wearing thin’ in the West.

If this is true, western officials utterly misconceive the reality. It is only by understanding and taking the Russian nuclear warnings seriously that we may exclude the risk of nuclear weapons coming into play, as we move up the escalatory ladder with tit-for-tat measures.

Even though they say they believe them to be bluff, U.S. figures nonetheless hype the risk of a nuclear exchange. If they think it to be a bluff, it appears to be based on the presumption that Russia has few other options.

This would be wrong: There are several escalatory steps that Russia can take up the ladder, before reaching the tactical nuclear weapon stage: Trade and financial counter-attack; symmetrical provision of advanced weaponry to western adversaries (corresponding to U.S. supplies to Ukraine); cutting the electricity branch distribution coming from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania; strikes on border munition crossings; and taking a leaf from the Houthis who have knocked down several sophisticated and costly U.S. drones, disabling America’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) infrastructure.

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BY Brian Berletic

The US openly declares that it seeks to maintain a monopoly over shaping the “international order” following the Cold War and America’s emergence from it as the sole superpower. 

This policy is not new.

The New York Times in a 1992 article titled, “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop,” would note that the Pentagon sought to create a world, “dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.” 

This policy set the stage for decades of US wars of aggression, political interference, regime change, US-sponsored terrorism, economic sanctions, and a growing confrontation directly between the US and a reemerging Russia as well as a rising China, all of which continue playing out to this day.

Emerging from the Cold War as the sole “superpower,” the US carefully cultivated public perception through likewise carefully chosen conflicts showcasing its military supremacy. While the US still to this day cites its wars with Iraq in 1990 and 2003 along with the toppling of the Libyan government in 2011 as proof of its uncontested military power, in truth, both targeted nations were not nearly as powerful or as dangerous as the Western media claimed at the time.

This facade has crumbled since. “American primacy” is now not only facing serious challenges, the premise it is based on – the notion that a single nation representing a fraction of the global population can or even should hold primacy over the rest of the planet – has been revealed as wholly unsustainable, if not self-destructive.

Not only is US military and economic power visibly waning, the military and economic power of China, Russia, and a growing number of other nations is rapidly growing.

The special interests within the US pursuing global primacy, do so in perpetual pursuit of wealth and power, often at the expense of many of the purposes a modern, functional nation-state exists to fulfill. Often this process includes the deliberate plundering of the key pillars of a modern nation-state’s power –  industry, education, culture, and social harmony. This, in turn, only accelerates the collapse of US economic and military power.

Ukraine Lays Bare American Weakness 

Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine has laid bare for the world to see this fundamental weakness. US weapons have proven less-than-capable against a peer adversary, Russia.

America’s expensive precision-guided artillery shells, rockets, and missiles were built in smaller numbers than their conventional counterparts, supposedly because they could achieve with just one round what several conventional rounds could. A single US-made 155 mm GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shell, for example, is claimed by Raytheon to achieve what would otherwise require 10 conventional artillery shells.

This myth of quality over quantity has unraveled on and over the battlefield in Ukraine. Russia is not only capable of producing vastly more conventional weapons than the US and its European proxies, it is able to produce vastly more high-tech precision-guided weapons as well, including its own precision-guided artillery shells (the laser-guided Krasnopol), precision-guided multiple launch artillery systems (the Tornado-S), as well as larger quantities of ballistic and cruise missiles (Iskander, Kalibr, and Kh-101).

In other areas, Russia possesses capabilities the US does not have. Russia fields two types of hypersonic missiles, the Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile and the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile. Russia also possesses air and missile defense as well as electronic warfare capabilities the US cannot match – not in quality, not in quantity.

If the US is unable to match or exceed the military industrial output of Russia at the expense of losing its proxy war in Eastern Europe, how will US design to encircle and contain China along China’s own coasts unfold?

Growing Disparity and the Super Weapons Sought to Overcome it

The US military fears that any conflict with China would leave the US unprepared and vulnerable. A recent article in Defense One titled, “The Air Force wants to build lots of bases around the Pacific. But it still needs to determine how to protect them,” admits that US air and missile defense systems are too expensive and too few in number to defend the growing number of US military bases being established ahead of potential war with China.

It should be remembered, however, that shortages of US air and missile defense systems, particularly the Patriot missile system, began before the US began sending the systems to Ukraine. US military industrial output was unable to keep up with the demands of just Saudi Arabia amid its conflict with Ansar Allah in Yemen.

Similar concerns exist regarding the number of US military aircraft, naval vessels, and the missiles each will depend on in any potential conflict with China in the Asia-Pacific.

Understanding the large and growing disparity between US ambitions toward global primacy and its actual military means to achieve it, Washington and US-based arms manufacturers are seeking a new design and production philosophy to produce a new generation of cheaper and more numerous munitions.

At the forefront of this effort are “start-up” arms manufacturers, including Ares and Anduril. Both companies believe the US is capable of out-innovating China, based on the notion that the US is somehow inherently more innovative than China. However, their attempts to address this growing disparity reveal how disconnected US foreign policy is from the actual world it seeks to dominate.

Ares: Cheaper but More Numerous Missiles… 

The War Zone in an article titled, “New ‘Cheap’ Cruise Missile Concept Flight Tested By Silicon Valley-Backed Start-Up,” explains how Ares seeks to augment America’s existing arsenal of expensive but scarce long-range precision guided missiles with smaller, cheaper, and more numerous missiles.

The smaller, cheaper missiles will be less capable than their more expensive counterparts, including Raytheon’s Tomahawk cruise missile and Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), but are meant to be produced in larger quantities. The cheaper Ares-built missiles will be used for lower-priority targets, while their more capable but less numerous counterparts are used for critical targets.

The article claims:

Ares does not yet appear to have released any hard specifications, current or planned, but says that it is targeting a $300,000 unit cost for its missiles.

In addition to how far off from reality Ares’ missiles actually are from seeing the battlefield, even the stated goal of building these missiles for $300,000 each seems to fall far short of the sort of revolutionary innovation required to meet or exceed even Russia’s military industrial production, let alone China’s.

This is because according to even Ukrainian-based media, Russia itself is already producing far more capable missiles for as cheap as $300,000 per unit. Defence Express in a 2022 article titled, “What is the Real Price of russian Missiles: About the Cost of ‘Kalibr’, Kh-101 and ‘Iskander’ Missiles,” would place the cost of a Kalibr cruise missile somewhere between $300,000 and $1 million – vastly cheaper than comparable missiles produced in the West.

While the 2022 article was easy to dismiss at the time amid Western headlines claiming Russian missile stockpiles were exhausted, since then it has been admitted by the same Western media that Russia is firing over 4,000 missiles at targets across Ukraine each year. This suggests Russian missile production is as economical as it is vast.

Thus, even before Ares produces its first missile, the very premise of what it is trying to achieve falls far short of what Russia’s military industrial base is already doing on a vast scale, saying nothing of what China’s military industrial base is capable of.

There is also the reality that in addition to higher-end munitions costing as little as Ares’ proposed lower-end missiles, both Russia and China are perfectly capable of augmenting their existing arsenals with cheaper, less-sophisticated munitions as well.

Russia’s deployment of its UMPK-fitted FAB series glide bomb is a perfect example of this. The guided glide bombs went from concept to mass production over the course of the Special Military Operation, with improvements made based on their performance in combat, providing a cheaper, more numerous, yet still effective alternative to more expensive long-range precision-guided munitions.

In many ways, what Ares is attempting to do is a poor imitation of what Russia and China have already done and will continue doing.

Anduril: Out-Innovating China and Russia…  

Like Ares, US-based arms manufacturer Anduril imagines cheaper and more numerous systems can help even the odds as Russia out-produces the West amid the conflict in Ukraine and as China’s production of warplanes, ships, and missiles surpasses the US and its European proxies.

Anduril proposes achieving this through “software-defined manufacturing,” a process it claims allowed electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla to build better and more numerous vehicles than legacy car manufacturers by building its vehicles around its own in-house software and electronics.

The advantage is clear. Legacy car manufacturers build the physical cars themselves, but many of the subsystems are outsourced to other companies, including the operating systems used by modern cars, as well as sensors and other electronic components and systems. Often this collection of software, sensors, and other components is outsourced to a large number of different companies. Any change in the car’s design requires working with this large number of companies, making modifications and improvements cumbersome.

By including all subsystems within a single in-house developed software and building the hardware around it, changes can be done faster and larger quantities of higher-quality cars can be made more rapidly as a result.

Anduril imagines using this same process to build vast numbers of drones, missiles, and other weapons and munitions, matching or even outpacing China. The problem for Anduril is that software-defined manufacturing is already extensively used by China’s vast and advanced industrial base. With this “advantage” rendered moot, the US finds itself again at a severe disadvantage. Not only is China capable of producing conventional military arms, ammunition, and equipment in vastly greater quantities than the US, it is also able to build advanced, rapidly improved, software-defined systems like drones and missiles.

This means anything the US attempts to do, China is capable of doing better and on a vastly greater scale.

Flawed Premise, Doomed Outcome 

The premise Ares and Anduril operate from is fundamentally flawed. Both companies, like the circles of special interests they serve on Wall Street and in Washington, believe the US is inherently superior to adversaries like Russia and China. In their collective minds, any disadvantage the US finds itself with is incidental and overcoming it merely a matter of summoning sufficient political will. Russia and China having larger and more capable industrial bases is seen as a temporary lapse in America’s own political focus and willpower, and by taking steps to expand America’s own industrial base, the US will inevitably find itself on top again.

In reality, Russia and China’s industrial bases are larger than America’s because of a number of factors, including factors no amount of American political will, can overcome. China in particular has a population four times greater than the US. China graduates millions more each year in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics than the US, and the physical size of its industrial base – military or otherwise – reflects this demographic disparity.

Even if the US had the political will to reform its military industrial base, stripping away profit-driven private industry and replacing it with purpose-driven state-owned enterprises, even if the US likewise transformed its education system to produce a skilled workforce rather than squeeze every penny from American students, and even if the US invested in its national infrastructure – a fundamental prerequisite for expanding its industrial base – it still faces a reality where China has already done all of this, and done so with a population larger than it and its G7 partners combined.

The premise that the US, representing less than 5% of the global population, should maintain primacy over the other 95% is fundamentally flawed.

Unless Americans were truly, inherently superior to the rest of the world, which they are not, achieving primacy over the world can only be done by dividing and destroying the other 95% of the world’s population. In many ways, this is what has defined generations of Western hegemony over the planet and is what Washington has set out to do today.

Despite this, the rest of the world has caught up in terms of economic and military power, precisely because the US is not inherently superior. Western hegemony was a historical anomaly, not proof of the West’s superiority. With the rest of the world having caught up in terms of economic and military power, and with numbers on their side, the next century will be determined by a multipolar world.

For this emerging multipolar world, the factors that have given it rise – a geopolitical balance of power built on cooperation over conflict, industry and infrastructure driven by purpose over profit, and progress built by practical education and hard work over the blind pursuit of power-must be firmly cemented as the fundamental principles of this new world.

Should the multipolar world weather US attempts to divide and destroy it and continue investing in the principles that gave rise to it in the first place, no type of US-made super-weapon can overcome it.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

https://journal-neo.su/2024/09/03/us-seeks-super-weapons-to-reign-as-sole-superpower/

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