It was bittersweet watching one of my all-time favorite shows, Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone, ride into the sunset last week. The ending was beautifully poetic, foreshadowed by a scene with characters from 1883, its spinoff prequel, yet longtime lead Kevin Costner’s inexcusable absence cast a Montana-sized shadow over the otherwise well produced final six episodes.
If you’ve never watched Yellowstone, you should probably stop here and start watching the show from the beginning. It’s well worth your time, especially for the brilliant ways the show pays homage to the past and the people who practice a way of life that is quickly fading away in America.
I enjoyed the plotlines, but the quiet scenes on the ranch or the rowdy, often hilarious ones in the cowboy bunkhouse were every bit as enjoyable, if not moreso. Those characters were as likable and relatable as any I’ve ever seen on the small or big screen, and that speaks not just to Sheridan’s writing, but also his choice to often put real cowboys in acting roles for which they are perfectly suited, lending an authenticity that’s hard to find in Hollywood these days.
After watching the finale, which saw Beth and Kayce avoid the crippling inheritance taxes that came with their father’s death by selling the ranch to the Natives for a pittance and a promise that their ancestors would be honored and the land would be protected from development, I had my own opinions but was particularly interested to find out what my fellow right-wingers thought.
I had a feeling where they would go, and I was right:
“Final Yellowstone episode was Natives dismantling the ranch, taking off the Y, pulling it all down,” Jack Posobiec posted on X. “If you don’t see this as overtly politically leftist, congrats, you got sucked in by Hollywood. Just like they always planned.”
J.D. Sharp called the show “a 5 year psyop to normalize powerful white landowners being forced to abandon their property.”
“What did we learn after 5 seasons of Yellowstone and multiple spinoffs? Sacrificing to protect land for your family is pointless and Christians are evil,” wrote Jeff Hunt.
There were plenty more reactions like this from our side, and to be fair I completely understand the sentiment. A key tenet of leftism, after all, is the supposed return of land to so-called “indigenous peoples,” even though every inch of livable land in the world has been conquered, purchased, reconquered, and repurchased countless times throughout human history. Yet, the only people under pressure to give away everything is, you guessed it, white people. So the sensitivity on this issue from our side, especially regarding a show that in so many other ways is decidedly the opposite of ‘woke,’ is understandable.
But, in this particular narrow case, I tend to disagree. If you watch the prequels and the rest of the original show, you will notice a vein that runs throughout - love and appreciation for nature and the beauty of the land. The Duttons, though undoubtedly wealthy from being the first to claim such a massive parcel in such a rich area, had but one goal in mind throughout, to properly steward the land and keep it from being ruined by development. (And if someone had to make a visit to the "train station" in furtherance of this goal, so be it!) This was a goal that was also shared by the nearby Indians led by Chairman Rainwater, and both sides, though at times adversarial, often joined forces when confronted by outside influences that seeked to develop the land.
Turns out, I’m not alone in this view. Conservative commentator Dana Loesch expressed similar sentiments and brought up a poignant final scene that would never have made the cut if the director was as woke as he is accused of being:
“The last episode of Yellowstone was great for the people who actually watched it,” Loesch wrote. “The tribal elders and the Duttons realized they were on the same side all along and Mo defended the family's sacrifice for the land.”
Indeed, woke grave desecrators and statue destroyers would have cringed at a scene of one of the coolest and most likable Native American characters in the history of television absolutely berating a group of ignorant Native kids for pulling down the gravestones of white people.
Yellowstone ended exactly as it was foretold in that prequel scene where the Indian chief at the time, after granting the Dutton ancestor the land, prophesied that it would be returned to the Natives in seven generations. “In seven generations, you can have it,” James Dutton, played by Tim McGraw, wryly replied.
From beginning to end, Yellowstone wasn’t about ‘woke.’ It was about cowboys and Indians and cattle and ranches and rodeos, but most of all it was about stewardship of the land and (mostly) good people, for better or for worse, trying to beat back the tide of progress. And it was perfectly summed up by the words of 1883’s Elsa Dutton hauntingly coming to life in the present day:
“Men cannot truly own wild land, to own land you must blanket it in concrete, cover it with buildings, stack it with houses so thick, people can smell each other’s supper. You must rape it to sell it. Raw land. Wild land. Free land can never be owned. But some men pay dearly for the privilege of its stewardship. They will suffer and sacrifice to live off it and live with it, and hopefully teach the next generation to do the same. And if they falter, find another willing to keep the promise.”
NEW YORK, NY — In a move intended to capitalize on his popularity with the show's audience, NBC announced that UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione would host next week's episode of Saturday Night Live.
The show, which was originally scheduled to air a rerun this weekend due to the Christmas holiday, switched gears and swung a deal to secure Mangione as host after learning how beloved the accused murderer was by viewers.
"We know what our audience wants," said SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels. "Once we heard the tremendous ovation Luigi received when he was mentioned on last week's show, we knew we had to bring him in to host. Viewers love seeing their heroes featured in prominent roles, and nothing is more prominent than hosting Saturday Night Live. We just hope he likes the jokes we write for him, because… well, you know."
Despite Mangione's lack of showbiz experience and pending murder charges, cast members expressed excitement about working with him. "It should be a great episode," said longtime performer Heidi Gardner. "We're always eager to work with celebrities who are really popular with the audience, and I don't know if we've ever had anyone as popular as Luigi. Plus, have you seen him? He's a total smoke show. It'll be fun. Hopefully, we all make it out alive."
At publishing time, expecting Mangione's episode to be a hit, producers were also making calls to line up future hosting spots for Son of Sam, Casey Anthony, and the BTK Killer.
We’re starting to see the results of the November election in a variety of ways, both within our movement and among the enemy. Look, folks, we’re dealing with human beings. That means we’re dealing with human nature. And human nature never changes. We’re just as susceptible to its vagaries on the right as they are on the left. That means we’re going to fight among ourselves within the newly formed Trump coalition. That means people on our side are going to jockey for power, positions, prestige, and, of course, money. As far as the other side, despite the fact they are alien lizard people, they’re going to do what human beings tend to do. They will retreat to doing what’s comfortable, even if it isn’t the most effective tactic. We need to take advantage of that.
Human nature could end up handicapping us. Human nature could also end up handing us victories. We’ve got to be smart. We’ve got to be objective. We’ve got to think through what we’re doing to minimize our internal conflict and maximize the chaos on the other side. Are we doing that? The wackiness about the continuing resolution last week was an example of what we face. On our side, we have a very narrow majority which empowers dissenting individuals far out of proportion to their numbers. We’re also trying to navigate the reality that this is Donald Trump’s party and not the same GOP we grew up in. He’s the loudest voice, but he’s not the absolute dictator. There are incentives and rewards both for following him and defying him – as well as risks. How we manage our new coalition is the question. Our new coalition is not just conservatives. We conservatives make up a big chunk of it, but it’s also populists, anti-war folks who reject the old foreign policy consensus, as well as RFK granola/crunchy Make America Healthy Again types. Organized labor has an unprecedented presence too. Our Trump coalition is a new thing, a potentially unstable thing. We’re going to have growing pains.
This new coalition is unstable both because of competing interests and the fact that it hasn’t yet developed the institutional structures that minimize the disruption caused by internal disagreements. Let’s look at what happened with the continuing resolution. At one time, the Republicans were supposedly the budget-cutting party. They were the fiscal sanity folks, the deficit hawks. There’s still that faction in our coalition. But there’s another part of our coalition that really doesn’t care about debt that much. Donald Trump did not come into office as a budget cutter. Though he wants to see DOGE streamline the government and cut regulations, he did not get elected by promising to take a meat cleaver to America’s finances. In fact, he took entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, and all the rest, which are the majority of our spending, completely off the table. So, you can see the problem. We’ve got both budget hawks and budget doves inside our tent. And that conflict has to be resolved.
Now, there’s a tendency on the part of some Republicans within the coalition to go nuclear immediately to try to force unity. Sometimes, you’ve got to go nuclear. The ridiculous opposition to Donald Trump’s nominees like Pete Hegseth was worth pushing the button on, and I don’t have a problem with putting some heads on pikes at primary time when politicians decide to put their own personal interest above what we elected them to do. For their part, some in Congress have been absolutely outraged that normal people didn’t immediately forget about politics on November 6th and kept paying attention. And boy, have we been paying attention. Thanks to Elon Musk and X, we can maintain a level of interest in, and expose, what they’re doing. The big example is Joni Ernst and her posturing against Pete Hegseth that drew attention to her, and people dug into her record only to find out she was a hell of a lot squishier than we ever imagined. She’s come around, understanding there’s a primary ahead if she doesn’t conform.
But that’s neither necessary nor necessarily wise to do every time you have an internal disagreement. Getting mad at Republican congressmen because they want to read a bill before they vote on it is counterproductive. Mike Johnson has certainly not earned that level of trust – Trump himself didn’t trust him and rejected his first CR proposal. Look, when you’re to the point of considering Chip Roy the enemy, you are losing the plot a little bit. And if you’re demanding that everybody be 100% MAGA, there’s a problem – the coalition isn’t 100% MAGA. It’s not 100% anything. The American First folks, who I identify with, are not the only faction in this coalition and they don’t make up a majority of the American people. I wish they did. They might yet if these people can get the hell together and pound out a single reconciliation bill that will square away the budget and tax issues so we can get the economy going and prove to America that America First has the keys to prosperity.
But that’s the thing. The various factions of our new coalition must work together, and that is a challenge. Everybody’s got their own interests, and human nature teaches us that people will pursue their own interests. When you don’t have a big majority, a few folks who won’t play nicely can disrupt everything. Every once in a while, you get someone who is unreasonable and insane. You can’t deal with him/her. But most people you can deal with. You have to deal with them. And that’s what we need to be doing. We don’t need to form a circular firing squad every time somebody advocates a different tactic. We’ve got to be objective. We’ve got to control our tempers. We’ve got to be focused on results.
In that way, we’re ahead of our opponents. The Democrats have managed to learn absolutely nothing from November 5th except the lesson that America is much, much more racist than they thought. Good, go with that, guys. They have no new ideas – they keep trying to stick the square pegs of their current ideology into the round holes of the political zeitgeist. You can see it happening as they repeat stuff straight out of 1996. Oh, the Republicans want to cut taxes to reward billionaires! Never mind that they’re spazzing out because we’ve now got two billionaires compared to their dozens.
And then there’s their hack CR responses. The Republicans want to stop child cancer research! Just ignore that congressional pay raise and all that woke crap behind the curtain. This doesn’t work when the regime media is not our sole source of information because they can’t count on the regime media to hide the truth. That’s why they hate Elon Musk. That’s why they are trying to use Alinsky Rule No. 13 (“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”) against him. Last week, it was “Trump is Hitler.” Now it’s “Elon Musk is the real president.” Blah blah blah blah blah. No one believes that, no one buys it. It’s not going to work. They’re shouting, and nobody’s listening.
Hell, nobody even cared about the CR except those of us on Twitter. In fact, all this stuff about who’s got political capital and who doesn’t because of the wrangling around the government shutdown is a boutique concern. Normal people don’t care. We care. We’re patriots. People in Washington care. They’re social parasites. But it really doesn’t mean anything. The only thing that means anything is macro results, which we must focus on. Donald Trump has got to get this economy going. To do that, he’s got to get his coalition to pull together on the things they can agree about and get them passed in a single reconciliation bill soon after he comes into the office. There’s a place for carrots, and there’s a place for sticks, too, but this is coalition politics. That means we must figure out a way to work together. Luckily, we’ve got opponents who refuse to learn from their mistakes. We just have to not help them out by unnecessarily fighting among ourselves.
Note: This article was inspired by an op-ed column written by David Mastio and published in the Kansas City Star on December 19th. It is, however, my original work, supported by my own research. Any errors or omissions are, of course, my responsibility. This is my third article on deportation published in November and December, 2024 in American Thinker.
President Trump, and his nominee for “Border Czar,” Tom Homan, have made it clear they are dead-serious about deporting millions of violent criminals who are also criminal aliens.
They intend to start with the nearly 1.5 million criminal aliens already served with Orders of Deportation who have either not left America or who have snuck back in across Biden’s remarkably porous border over the past four years. Their initial target, according to Vice President-elect J.D.Vance, will be 1.0 million criminal aliens per year, focusing on those already legally ordered to leave America and not return.
Critics, including those cited by CNN recently, allege that the costs of just one million deportees would be in the neighborhood of $1.0 trillion, a preposterous sum.
It has been made up, apparently, of a combination of hot air and fevered dreams.
These same critics claim that deporting even 1.0 million criminal aliens who already have valid Orders of Deportation would be impossible. President Obama had no trouble deporting that many and more during his term in office, giving lie to that claim as well.
They are trying to use pseudo-logical reasons – four of them – for why targets easily met by previous administrations won’t be met by Trump and Homan.
It is just wishful thinking of the kind that helped America become mired along the length and breadth of our borders with Mexico and Canada, as well as our open sea-frontier borders on the Atlantic, Gulf Coast and Pacific borders.
The following are four myths presented by Mr. Mastio, who supports my view that deportation is do-able, followed by my own analysis as to their flaws.
Deporting Criminal Aliens with Existing Orders of Deportation Would Cost Way Too Much
In several years during the first Obama term, that president’s team managed to deport a quarter-million criminal aliens per year. In 2009 and 2010, Obama budgeted just under $4.0 billion per year in 2024 dollar values for this deportation. Multiplying that number by a factor of four yields 1.0 million criminal aliens and quadrupling the budget for a full million aliens would come to roughly $16.0 billion per year, for 1.0 million criminal aliens per year. This is hardly $1.0 trillion, as some critics claim.
Even if the budget gets out of hand and soars to double those numbers, we’d still be under $32.0 billion per year. And, in roughly 18 months, we will have deported – physically, and not just “legally” – 1.5 million pre-convicted criminal aliens already deported – at a sum not to exceed $48.0 billion. That’s a far cry from the $1.0 trillion Trump and Homan’s critics have trumpeted about in their frenzy to create numbers too high to be considered.
The second myth, that we don’t know who to deport, is even more flawed than the budget-busting estimate offered by the Far Left. Why? Because each of the first 1.5 million or so criminal aliens will have already been through the existing legal process for deportation, followed by a judge of competent jurisprudence giving those aliens a valid Order of Deportation.
These people already have photos, fingerprints, DNA and other incriminating evidence, such as prominent gang tattoos, to help Homan and ICE to find them and send them packing. Having already been convicted, the process is no more difficult than:
A. Identifying the individual
B. Linking the individual with an outstanding Order of Deportation
And that, as they say, is that. Unlike the huge budget deficits that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are pursuing, this isn’t rocket science. ICE and local law enforcement (LEO) agencies will have some significant thousands of these people incarcerated within the United States. As for the rest, they are far from impossible to locate and take into custody.
We’ll Violate the Civil Rights Guaranteed Under the Constitution to Even Already-Deported Criminal Aliens
Perhaps, but violating anyone’s rights is not necessary in order to get them out of our country and back into their home countries.
To accomplish this, I recommend the following:
Hire more – perhaps a lot more – immigration law judges to provide for the swift rendering of justice, along with prosecutors and public defenders who would specialize exclusively in the realm of deportation of criminals who are also criminal aliens. Just as with the FISA courts, lots of new judges will be needed, but as with the item above, this is not rocket science. Law schools have produced – and continue to produce – more attorneys than there are openings in private law firms. Many of these people go on to become prosecutors or public defenders; however, any such attorney working in the field of justice for already-deported criminal aliens would also be competent – in principle – to be judges dedicated exclusively to dealing with deportation issues.
As a country dedicated to abiding by every resident’s – legal or illegal … or deported – right to a speedy trial, we will need the infrastructure that is needed to execute on those existing orders of deportation.
What other civil rights might be damaged has yet to evolve into a consensus of the far Left. But with enough under-employed attorneys adrift in America, the roles of judge, prosecutor and defender will soak up those with excellent training but insufficient luck.
Perhaps the most laughable so-called barrier to success comes from the idea that Countries Won’t Take Back Their Deported Citizens.
This assumes, of course, that these countries have yet to face down soon-to-be President Trump in one-on-one negotiations, discussions which will include words like “tariffs” and “trade embargoes” and sequestering of “remittances” that would otherwise be sent home by the criminal aliens to their kin in their home countries. Once those national leaders realize that President Trump is dead-serious, they will begin negotiating in earnest. The consequences of ignoring our president would be draconian, to say the least.
A major issue involves “remittances,” the funds that are sent home by both legal and illegal aliens. Should the president “suggest” that there would be an embargo placed on such funds transfers unless and until the country in question agreed to accept deportees from America, the source of these illegal criminal aliens will fold like a soggy house of cards. Will this be sufficient leverage? The sum total of these funds was in excess of $800 billion dollars per year in 2022, as estimated by the World Bank. For one country – Tajikistan – 43 percent of their Gross Domestic Product is represented by the funds sent home; while Egypt’s migrant receipts are triple the value of the revenue generated by the Suez Canal, the most heavily-traveled canal on Earth.
With this kind of financial leverage, there is little that a hard-nosed, America-first negotiator such as Donald Trump cannot achieve.
To sum it all up, if President Obama could deport hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens per year, including conducting the trials leading up to valid Orders of Deportation, imagine what President Trump can do almost two decades later. Further, the Left’s seemingly four logical reasons why “it can’t be done” – when analyzed, using open-source information easily available on the internet – suggests that the costs are manageable, that additional legal infrastructure is possible because so many attorneys are currently under-employed, and because – when Trump gets through with them, national leaders like Trudeau will be eager to do our president’s bidding.
A breaking report outlines something we have predicted for well over six months. A new era technocracy group formed around candidate and now the incoming administration of President Donald Trump. The group holds financial interests, albeit currently in alignment with ideology.
Palantir (Peter Thiel) and defense contractor Anduril are teaming up with SpaceX (Elon Musk) and OpenAI to form a consortium group that will collaboratively bid on USG Federal contracts (likely Defense).
VIA REUTERS – Dec 22 (Reuters) – Data analytics firm Palantir Technologies (PLTR.O), opens new tab and defense tech company Anduril Industries are in talks with about a dozen competitors to form a consortium that will jointly bid for U.S. government work, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The consortium, which could announce agreements with other tech groups as early as January, is expected to include SpaceX, OpenAI, autonomous shipbuilder Saronic and artificial intelligence data group Scale AI, the newspaper said, citing several people with knowledge of the matter.
“We are working together to provide a new generation of defence contractors,” a person involved in developing the group told the newspaper.
The consortium will bring together the heft of some of Silicon Valley’s most valuable companies and will leverage their products to provide a more efficient way of supplying the U.S. government with cutting-edge defence and weapons capabilities, the newspaper added. (read more)
Without Peter Thiel there is no JD Vance. Many might argue that without Elon Musk there is no President-elect Donald Trump. I would agree with the former and disagree with the latter while admitting the Musk factor was positive in the election.
What we are seeing now is what CTH predicted we would see as a natural outcome of this tech group who purposefully aligned with Trump in the summer of 2024.
Peter Thiel (Palantir) has been very successful in gaining federal contracts for the software that combines facial recognition with artificial intelligence capabilities. Palantir’s AI can be used in DHS surveillance, as well as military operations to make targeting decisions more precise and effective.
Elon Musk (SpaceX and xAI) already have extensive contracts with the Federal government. Now we are seeing ancillary tech groups join in collaboration with Thiel and Musk due to the access created by their relationship with President Trump and JD Vance. None of these subsequent financial windfalls are accidental, they are all strategic and by design.
The old school of defense heavyweights, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, are being challenged by smaller more technologically aligned companies Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX and supporting AI companies. The new guys have an insider track due to their prepositioning on the Trump campaign.
The open question is who selected whom? Did the new era Technocrats select Donald Trump as their strategic avenue for financial benefit; or did President Trump select the new era Technocrats as tools for election victory; or was it just a merge of interests for mutual benefit.
I suspect we are not as far away from finding out as most might think.
China’s true military spending is likely much higher than publicly reported figures, forcing free nations to rethink their attitudes towards national defence.
Democracy is undoubtedly the best form of government humans have ever devised. Democracies are – on average – more prosperous, more free, and more safe than non-democratic nations. Countries that transition to democracy tend to do much better in the long run.
Democracies are more responsive, can test out ideas, and can more rapidly address mistakes and correct those mistakes.
Democracies also tend to make many small & easily-survivable errors, whereas autocracies, dictatorships, communist states, theocracies, and other non-democratic systems often make large-scale nation-ruining errors.
Above the moral and ethical reasons why democracies are successful – which are of course important – is a more practical one. Democracies utilize more brainpower when it comes to making decisions. Even the smartest dictator and their small circle of loyalists cannot hope to effectively manage a nation of tens of millions of people with limited input and little incentive to address errors, whereas in a democracy the perspectives, experiences, and opinions of every voting-eligible citizen can be taken into account.
Most importantly, while not everyone gets involved in the democratic process, those who hope to gain power must be constantly attuned to the public mood. This process alone generates a level of accountability and ongoing learning that ensures democracies succeed in the long run.
With that said, non-democratic states often have one ‘advantage’ over democratic ones: They can make more decisive moves to gain power in the short to medium term.
Because non-democratic states are less concerned with public opinion, individual freedom, and property rights, they can often rearrange society to achieve a large overarching goal. Now, this is not actually a good thing, and the checks and balances that make democracy indecisive are what protect us from the whims of ‘dictator-lite’ elected officials who go power-mad.
However, the ruthless decisiveness that authoritarian states can show when focused on the singular goal of their leader can put them in a powerful situation relative to free nations, if those free nations aren’t paying attention to what is happening.
This was seen most notably in the 1930s. While the German fascists were initially elected, they quickly moved to destroy Germany’s nascent democratic institutions. Once control of the government and media was established, Germany embarked on a massive – and partially concealed – military buildup. It took years for democratic nations like the U.K. and France to respond to this buildup, as internal debate and a public desire to ‘avoid war’ and spend on things other than the military often won out against voices warning of the need to rearm. Though rearmament did come, it came too late. Germany had acquired a military advantage over Europe and used that advantage to conquer much of the continent.
Japan did the same. Despite having an economy 17 times smaller than that of the United States in terms of national income at the start of the war, Japan managed to score early victories against the United States because Japan had single-mindedly focused on military power while America was struggling through the aftermath of the Great Depression. It took years for America to get its economy ready for war, and much suffering occurred in the interim years.
This is a challenge we face today, and it is probably something democracies will always face to some extent. Voters will understandably vote for policies that bring them the most benefit – as each person sees it. That tends to be lower taxes and stronger social programs. Finding the right balance without going too far into debt is generally the foundation of most political debates one way or another.
It is far tougher to make the case for military spending, which – depending on how world events shape out – either brings the maximum possible benefit by helping ensure the survival of the nation – or is largely ‘wasted’ if no conflict occurs (though high military spending can prevent conflict through deterrence, that is a tough political argument to make when people see billions spent on weapons that could have been spent on tax cuts or healthcare).
So, those who advocate for strong military spending in democratic nations often lose the argument. In Canada, that argument has been lost over and over and over again for decades.
The same has happened in much of the rest of the free world. Even in the United States, defence spending as a percentage of GDP is near a record-low (which is why people should avoid being distracted by ‘big numbers’, since overall spending always looks ‘bigger’ over time).
The situation in Canada and much of Europe is far worse.
Meanwhile, China and Russia have embarked on massive military buildups. And while Russia is already waging war against the free nation of Ukraine, China’s buildup continues to expand.
Thus, we are seeing the same war production gap opening up between free nations and non-democratic states that we saw in the lead-up to WW2.
U.S. Department of Defense Report on “Military and Security Developments Involving The People’s Republic of China”
The full report is 182 pages, so I encourage you to read it for yourself, but a few key things stand out:
“PLA Navy (PLAN). Numerically, the PRC has the largest navy in the world, with a battle force of over 370 ships and submarines, including more than 140 major surface combatants.
The PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-mission ships and submarines. In 2023, the PLAN continued to grow its ability to perform missions beyond the First Island Chain (FIC) by conducting the first extended area deployment of its new YUSHEN-class amphibious assault ship and three deployments with CV-17 Shandong to the Philippine Sea, a record number for any PLAN carrier in a calendar year.”
“PLA Air Force (PLAAF). The PLAAF is modernizing and indigenizing its aircraft and unmanned aerial systems rapidly, matching U.S. standards. In 2023, the PLA transferred significant portions of PLAN shore-based, fixed-wing combat aviation units, facilities, air defense, and radar units to the PLAAF.Given time, this shift will probably enable better command and control over the PRC’s integrated air defense systems as well as the network of ground-based air domain awareness radars supporting the PRC’s national integrated air defense system network.”
“PRC Defense Spending. A survey of multiple models of the PRC’s defense budget estimates that Beijing spends 40% to 90% more than it announces in its public defense budget, which equates to approximately $330 billion–$450 billion in total defense spending for 2024. The consensus among experts is that the PRC’s publicly announced defense spending figure does not contain the entirety of PRC investment in its defense, so alternative approaches are used to assess the total value of this spending.”
“Developments in Defense Industry. The PRC’s hypersonic missile technologies have greatly advanced during the past 20 years. Many PRC missile programs are comparable to other international top-tier producers. The PRC is the world’s top ship-producing nation by tonnage and is capable of producing a wide range of naval combatants, gas turbine and diesel engines, and shipboard weapons and electronic systems, making it nearly self-sufficient for all shipbuilding needs.”
The PRC, the top commercial ship-producing nation in the world by most industry measures, has sufficient capacity to produce any required numbers of naval classes: submarines, surface combatants, and auxiliary and amphibious ships. The PRC has developed unmanned underwater systems, publicly revealing a long-range system in 2019. The PRC has been constructing major new shipyards, such as Hudong Shipyard on Changxing Island, in recent years to replace smaller and older yards in support of its commercial and naval shipbuilding programs, which seek to increase shipbuilding output. The PRC domestically produces naval gas turbine and diesel engines (under license from foreign companies or via domestic development) as well as almost all shipboard weapons and electronic systems for its military shipbuilding sector, making the industry nearly self-sufficient for all shipbuilding needs.
“Armaments Industry. The PRC’s production capacity is improving all PLA ground system categories: main and light battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, assault vehicles, air defense artillery systems, and artillery systems. Notably, the PRC began testing unmanned Type 59 tanks in 2018 as part of its military modernization program. In November 2022, the PRC unveiled an unmanned model of its VT-5 light tank, which is an export variant of the Type-15 light tank. The Type-15 entered PLA service in 2018 and was meant to replace aging Type-62 light tanks that first entered service in 1962. The PRC can produce ground weapon systems at or near world-class standards, although customers cite persistent quality deficiencies with some exported equipment, which could inhibit the PRC’s ability to expand its export markets in certain regions.”
“The PRC aims to overtake the West in AI R&D by 2025 to become the world leader in AI by 2030. The PRC has designated AI as a priority, national-level S&T development area and assesses that advances in AI and autonomy are central to intelligentized warfare, the PRC’s concept of future warfare. Beijing views the integration of military and civilian institutions as central for developing AI-enabled military capabilities and has established military-civilian R&D centers and procured commercially-developed AI and robotic technologies to ensure PLA access to cutting-edge AI technologies. PRC researchers are world leaders in certain AI applications, such as facial recognition and natural language processing, and PRC companies are marketing domestically designed AI chips. While the PRC remains reliant on certain foreign capabilities to produce AI hardware, such as advanced semiconductor fabrication tools and software, PRC researchers continue to explore new materials and design concepts for next-generation semiconductors.”
“Nuclear Warhead Stockpile
In 2020, DoD estimated the PRC’s operational nuclear warhead stockpile was in the low-200s and was expected to at least double by 2030. However, Beijing has accelerated its nuclear expansion, and DoD estimates this stockpile has surpassed 600 operational nuclear warheads as of 2024, on track to exceed previous projections.
The PRC is establishing new nuclear materials production and reprocessing facilities very likely to support its nuclear force expansion. Although these efforts are consistent with the PRC’s goals to increase nuclear energy generation and close its nuclear fuel cycle, Beijing likely considers this dual-use infrastructure as crucial to supporting its military goals, judging from PRC nuclear industry reporting and think tank publications. The PRC has not produced large quantities of plutonium for its weapons program since the early 1990s and probably will need to begin producing new plutonium this decade to meet the needs of its expanding nuclear stockpile. Despite its public support for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the PRC has rejected calls for a moratorium on production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. It is likely that Beijing intends to produce nuclear warhead materials for its military in the near term.”
“Hypersonics and Fractional Orbital Bombardment. The PRC probably is developing advanced nuclear delivery systems, such as a strategic HGV and a FOB system, in part due to long-term concerns about United States missile defense capabilities as well as to attain qualitative parity with future worldwide missile capabilities. A “long-range” DF-27 ballistic missile is deployed to the PLARF and likely has a HGV payload option as well as conventional land-attack, conventional antiship, and nuclear capabilities. Official PRC military writings indicate this range-class spans 5,000–8,000 km, designating the DF-27 as an IRBM or ICBM, and PRC media indicates that it can potentially range as far as Alaska and Hawaii. In 2023, a PRC-based commentator stated that the DF-27 can be used to strike high-value targets on Guam, indicating that the DF-27 would primarily be used for regional conventional strikes during a conflict. On July 27, 2021, the PRC tested an ICBM-range HGV that travelled 40,000 km. The test likely demonstrated the PRC’s technical ability to field a FOB system, which can facilitate difficult to track attacks on the U.S. homeland. The PRC does not appear to have tested a FOB system in 2022 or 2023.”
Everything noted above must also be viewed in the context of China’s immense manufacturing capabilities:
We must recognize what this means. In a potential future global conflict, China alone could outproduce all free nations, and could thus supply countries like Russia, North Korea, and Iran with near-limitless amounts of weapons, enabling the Authoritarian Axis to win a brutal war of attrition.
China is clearly preparing for such a scenario.
The free world is not.
We are still largely locked into complacency, pretending all is normal, and assuming that debates about tax rates and internal political squabbles are the most important things.
We have fallen into the same trap as the democracies in the 1930s.
Of course, many recognize the threat facing free nations. There are many people here in Canada and across the free world who realize that we need a substantial military buildup to counter the Authoritarian Axis and ensure that free nations remain the most powerful countries in the world. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you are someone who recognizes how important it is for us to build up our military strength. And so, I encourage you to share this article with as many people as you can and reach out to your elected representatives to encourage them to support a significant increase in military investment.
