Could Trump still win the Republican nomination?

Amazing though it might seem for most of us, there is still a chance that Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election. It's amazing because despite all the hugely negative stuff around about Trump and what he did or didn't do when he was president for four years, there are still so many devoted fans that they appear prepared to shut their ears to all the bad things and just vote for him anyway. Why? Because he is big and brusque and claims to have the answers to all the world's troubles, like his boast that he could solve the Ukraine war drama within 24 hours of taking office. It's almost worth having him back in the White House just to see what exactly he has in mind. I did say almost.... I assume what he would do is ring his old friend Putin on Day One and shout at him to stop the war and then ring Zelensky and give him an ultimatum, stop fighting or the US arms production line to Kyiv comes to an abrupt end. Would he, could he do that? Yes he could and would, and order Nato allies to do the same. Trump announced he was standing again four months ago and since then he has been on the campaigning beat. The latest poll figures in the US indicate that Trump is miles ahaead of his putative biggest rival for the Republican nomination, Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Nikki Haley, the only other Republican to have offered her name for the 2024 battle, will be a breath of fresh air and could do quite well to start with but unfortunately I don't think she will stand a chance if the Big Boys, Trump and DeSantis, line up for the fight. The other likely males, Mike Popmeo and Mike Pence, also haven't a hope in hell. So, yes, there is a very high possibility that Trump will win the nomination. As I said, amazing that I have to come to this conclusion. Here in the UK, they say Boris Johnson is a busted flush and will never make it back to Downing Street. But Trump could be the chosen one for the Republicans for 2024. However, he will have to have another go at beating Joe Biden who right now must feel pretty confident about winning a second term. If he decides to stand that is.

Beware what could happen to Taiwan

The United States is not ready to confront the possibility of a war with China, even though it might be “just around the corner”, a report by an American think-tank has warned. The US Navy’s top commander Admiral Mike Gilday warned four months ago that China could invade Taiwan before 2024. Yet the strategic implications of Taiwan falling into Beijing’s hands have not been properly assessed, the report by Pacific Forum, a US foreign policy research institute, concludes. If the breakaway island of Taiwan were to be seized by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with or without US military intervention, the impact on America’s credibility around the world would be devastating, the Honolulu-based institute says. Ian Easton, an acknowledged Taiwan/China authority and one of the authors of the report, called The World after Taiwan’s Fall, outlined two “nightmare scenarios”: *Taiwan falls to the PLA without any US or allied intervention. *Taiwan is stormed and occupied by the PLA in spite of belated US and allied attempts to forestall the invasion. Under the first scenario, the government in Taiwan faced with an overwhelming PLA invasion and without any international help, decides to engage in peace talks. But during settlement negotiations in Hong Kong, a lightning invasion goes ahead and Taiwan “falls without an all-out fight”. The invasion would start with PLA armed drones taking out radar sites and intelligence-collection facilities on Taiwan’s outer islands, followed by submarines launching unmanned underwater vehicles which sever fibre-optic cables connecting the island to Japan and Guam where US forces are based. Soon after, missiles, guided rockets and attack drones “shower Taiwan, devastating the government”. When the full-scale invasion is launched, the PLA seizes advanced American weapon systems based on the island and China takes control of Taiwan’s micro-chip plants on which the US and other western nations rely. In the second scenario, headed “Too little, too late” Taiwan falls after an intense battle that ultimately includes the US and allies after protracted attempts by Washington to forge a coalition with Nato, Japan, South Korea and Australia. The US and allies discover the PLA is far more capable than Russia’s inadequately supplied and commanded invasion force in Ukraine. Hundreds of American and allied pilots are lost over the Western Pacific. Thousands of US Marines manage to land on Taiwan but suffer 50 per cent casualties before surrendering. Most of the US Pacific Fleet is sunk. “Regardless of how Taiwan is captured by the Chinese authorities, the region and the world will have lost a leading democracy, and the security architecture of the region will be altered. This would be a traumatic and potentially catastrophic event in the history of American foreign policy,” Easton writes. By invading and occupying Taiwan, Chinese bombers and missile units based on the island “would be able to hold US forces in Okinawa [Japan] and Guam at risk of surprise raids”, Easton warns. From Taiwan, China could also launch a special forces and amphibious invasion of Japan’s Ryukyu islands whose sovereignty is disputed by Beijing. “The top of the South China Sea would be ‘corked’, providing PLA ballistic missile submarines with a maritime bastion and further reinforcing China’s military dominance of Southeast Asia,” Easton writes. “Nuclear arms racing would start and could easily spiral out of control. The likelihood of World War Three breaking out could climb higher than anything previously seen,” Easton writes. He envisages that Japan would be forced to “go nuclear” and North Korea could seek China’s help to attack South Korea. “It is possible that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would [also] cause a 21st century version of the great depression. Globalisation would probably cease to exist as the world splintered into hostile trade and security blocs,” Easton warns. “Supply chains, already significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and instability in the Middle East, would be shattered,” he writes. The fall of Taiwan, Easton concludes, would undermine perceptions of the US as a world leader. “China would be viewed as the most powerful nation in the world and the primary mover of the 21st century,” he writes. The warning from the institute, founded in 1975, has coincided with a bleak assessment provided to Congress this month which revealed that the Pentagon has inadequate stocks of long-range anti-ship missiles for attacking and destroying Chinese warships engaged in an invasion of Taiwan. Pentagon war games designed for intervention in the event of an attack on Taiwan concluded US fighter bombers would need 1,000-1,200 long-range anti-ship missiles for the pilots to stay at a relatively safe distance from Chinese air defences, according to the testimony given to the House armed services committee. “The current US inventory contains less than 250 of these missiles,” the committee was told by a former senior US Navy commander. At the current rate of production – between 38 and 88 a year – the Pentagon would reach 1,200 of these vital missiles by 2035-2050 “which is a bit late for comfort”, the committee heard. Beijing has always said that reunification of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland, including by force if necessary, was a priority goal. Intensified PLA military invasion rehearsals in the last six months have suggested Beijing might have plans for reunification-by-force in the next two or three years. Admiral Gilday’s warning appeared to back that timetable. President Biden has on several occasions pledged that the US would defend Taiwan if the PLA launched an invasion, and in the light of that promise, given in off-the-cuff replies to questions from journalists, the Pentagon has plans to boost training for the Taiwanese defence forces. The 30 American military trainers currently in Taiwan are to be increased to around 200, according to reports. At the same time about 500 Taiwanese troops are expected to participate in training in the US later this year.

Can Ukraine ever get Crimea back?

President Zelensky has said it a hundred times. The war in Ukraine cannot end until his forces have not only recovered all territory seized during the Russian invasion but have also liberated Crimea from Russian occupation. The latter demand is going to be the make-or-break issue for any "peace" settlement. Putin annexed it without a fight in 2014 and has no intention of ever giving it up. If he did so, willingly, he would no longer remain as president. In my view. So it will be the major sticking point for as long as Zelensky demands its return to Ukrainian sovereignty whether by force or by negotiation. So, total impasse. The US certainly has no idea as yet how to resolve this conundrum. Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, was asked this question and he didn't have an answer. He deliberately avoided the question, preferring to say that the focus right now was on Kyiv retrieving territory lost to the Russians in the east and south. Crimea would be discussed sometime later, he said. The 12-point peace plan put forward by China doesn't address this impasse, although it does say that a country's sovereignty needs to be honoured. Does Beijing accept that Crimea was unlawfully annexed in 2014 and, if so, would President Xi Zinping agree that Crimea belongs to Ukraine and should be handed back? Somehow I think not. So what on earth is going to happen to Crimea no one knows. Moscow has stuffed it with tens of thousands of troops, air defence systems and missiles, so I don't see Putin agreeing to even an inch of Crimean territory being handed back to Kyiv. If someone as clever as Jake Sullivan can't think of a Crimea resolution it's difficult to think of anyone coming up with a solution to please everyone.

Actually, Harry, you should apologise

It is being reported in the papers that Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, former good guy, wants a private apology from his father, King Charles, over the way he and Meghan have been treated before he agrees to attend the coronation in May. It's the latest alleged proof of the bitterness that divides the Windsor family ever since Harry and hs wife waltzed off to live in California and opt out of royal duties. I still feel sorry for Harry despite his liking for outrageous publicity, airing all his grievances both in television extravaganzas and in his book that seems to sit in every bookshop window around the country. But demanding an apology from Charles seems a bit steep. Surely it should be the other way around. Harry should ring his father and say sorry sorry sorry for everything and please let's kiss and make up. Then maybe he could come to the coronation, with or without his wife, and keep quiet in the background. Whether he can ever win back his brother, Prince William, I don't know but surely he should have a go. They used to be mates. But once again it will require a huge set of apologies. From Harry. I fear however that Harry is too far gone to grovel before either his father or his brother. I seriously don't think Meghan will let him but I hope I'm wrong because now is the time, before the May coronation, for the royal family to be reunited.

Ukraine will have to wait a long time for their Abrams tanks

Ukraine may have to wait until next year or even later to receive the first batch of American Abrams battle tanks, a senior Pentagon official has warned. While Germany is pushing ahead with its delivery of 14 Leopard 2A6s to Ukraine, the dispatch of the 31 promised Abrams tanks appears to be further down the line than had previously been predicted. Military analysts have said the Abrams with its superior firepower, armour and combat range would have a strategic impact on the battlefield. The expected long delay in their arrival will be seen as a blow to President Zelensky who plans a counter-offensive against the occupying Russian forces later this year. “We’re looking at what’s the fastest way we can get the tanks to the Ukrainians. It’s not going to be a matter of weeks,” Christine Wormuth, US Army secretary (the top army civilian), said. “None of the options that we’re exploring are weeks or two months. There are longer timelines involved but I think there are options that are less than two years, less than a year and a half,” she said. Zelensky has said he hopes the war will be over by the end of the year which could mean the Abrams tanks arriving too late to make a difference. The challenge for the Pentagon is that it claims to have no excess tanks available from storage sites. The Abrams in store also tend to be refurbished older versions of the tank, the M1A1. Under current plans the tanks to be sent to Ukraine will be new Abrams M1A2s which will have to be built by General Dynamics but they will not be fitted with the classified depleted uranium armour plating put on the tanks solely for US Army use. Wormuth hinted for the first time that it was possible the 31 Abrams offered to Kyiv might not necessarily be new ones after all. There was a variety of different ways to produce the tanks, she said, building them “from scratch” as the US is doing currently for Poland, to drawing from the US inventory. She explained the delay by saying there were a lot of details still to be worked out, including all the support vehicles needed to repair, recover and refuel the Abrams, as well as ammunition and training. Poland’s purchase of 250 M1A2 Abrams is going to take until 2025 or 2026 for delivery and Warsaw is first in the queue on the General Dynamics production line. Wormuth said the army would present the options to Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, and the final decision would be made by President Biden.

Ukraine bomber pilots with new weapon

Ukrainian bomber pilots are for the first time using longer-range weapons to hit Russian-occupied positions which were previously too far behind their front lines. Eleven explosions in the city of Mariupol on Ukraine’s southeast coast suggest the Ukrainian air force may now be armed with the extended range version of the American joint direct attack munition (JDAM-ER). With a potential launch range of about 50 miles, this precision-guided weapon would be a significant addition to Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian ammunition and fuel dumps which were considered until now to be relatively safe from attacks either by air or from ground-launched rockets. The JDAM-ER which has a special wing attached has three times the range of the basic JDAM, allowing Ukrainian bomber pilots to fire on targets from a much greater stand-off position, reducing the risk of being shot down by Russian air defences. Kyiv has been appealing for longer-range weapons for months. But the US and allies have been reluctant to supply weapons that could be used to attack targets inside Russia or Russian-annexed Crimea. The Pentagon has yet to confirm the delivery of the 50-mile range JDAMS, although it was reported by Bloomberg that the more advanced version of this missile was included in the $1.85 billion arms package announced by the US on December 21. One of the strikes on Mariupol which was seized by Russian forces on May 20 last year after a devastating three-month siege destroyed an ammunition depot near the airport. Previously the Ukrainian military have used domestically-produced drones and special forces sabotage units to strike at Russian positions behind their frontlines as well as against bases over the border into Russia itself. A statement from the Ukrainian general staff that the 11 strikes had been carried out by aircraft appeared to confirm that a longer-range weapon had been used. To avoid Russian air defences, Ukrainian ground-attack aircraft have had to fly in low to hit targets. Armed with the basic JDAMS with a range of only 15 miles, it meant the limited reach was even further reduced because of the altitude of the jet. With JDAMS-ER, pilots can initially fly in low and then climb to a higher altitude and toss the missile, giving it even further range. The guidance system guarantees a hit within a few feet of the target.

Is Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling just macho gamesmanship?

No one talks about Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) anymore. It was very much the lingo of the Cold War, an easy acronym to remind the world that the two biggest nuclear powers, the US and Russia, understood that the massive arsenals of nuclear weapons each nation held were there for deterrence not for war. War with strategic nuclear weapons would effectively bring the planet to an end. Thus the MAD concept was supposed to be kind of reassuring. They never would press the button, right? Because that way lies Armageddon. But Putin seems to have come round to the view that threatening to use nuclear weapons, or in his latest speech, hinting at the possibility of restarting nuclear testing and/or renewing the nuclear arms race is a perfectly legitimate strategy. Putin has around 6,000 nuclear warheads under his control and loves reminding the West of this power at his fingertips. It may look like dismissable macho gamesmanship but it's dangerous and unsettling and typical of a man who seems to care not a jot for world peace or for the safety and stability of this vulnerable planet. Suspending the New Strategic Arms Treaty signed by Obama and Putin's "predecessor" Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, is a further sign that the former KGB lieutenant-colonel is enjoying throwing his weight around. His hatred of the West is now so great that I cannot envisage any hope of relations improving between Moscow and western powers while he remains the boss of the Kremlin. Xi Zinping clearly believes this too which is why he is planning to visit his "dear friend" Vladimir Putin in Moscow in the months ahead. He will want to exploit the situation to his and China's advantage.

Biden's train ride to Kyiv

President Biden’s trip to Kyiv involved an elaborate three-part journey which including a flight in Air Force One from Washington to a military base in Poland, a long overnight train ride into Ukraine and an armoured motorcade in the city. With security the biggest challenge for the president’s unannounced visit, US Air Force fighter jets from Lask in central Poland mounted a combat air patrol along the Polish/Ukrainian border to monitor all potential airborne threats as his train crossed the frontier. The Ukrainian national railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, provided the train which crossed the border at Przemysl, taking more than ten hours to reach Kyiv. The train service which has been used by numerous western political leaders and other VIPs since the Russian invasion nearly a year ago, has been labelled “Iron Diplomacy” to signify the protection given to presidents and prime ministers wanting to shake the hand of President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital. The full details of the long journey from Washington to Kyiv were kept secret. But Biden took off on board Air Force One from Joint Andrews base outside Washington at 4.15am, eastern standard time on Sunday. Biden was not due to begin his pre-announced visit to Warsaw to meet with his Polish counterpart until later on Monday. So the presidential aircraft would have flown to a Polish military base where US Air Force fighter jets are deployed , before being taken to board the train to Kyiv. The special VIP train which is not armoured to withstand aerial attacks arrived in Kyiv via Lviv at 8am local time where he was welcomed by Bridget Brink, US ambassador to Ukraine. The US embassy has a Marine security guard detachment which would have been involved in protecting Biden during his walkabout in Kyiv, as well as his own Secret Service detail and Ukrainian special forces.

Excuse me Mr Putin, the president of the United States is on his way

One of the more sobering things about superpower politics is that there is always the world-changing danger of a nuclear war catastrophe because of a serious miscalcuation or, worse still, an error of megaton significance. I am referring to the bizarre but somehow comforting fact that a couple of hours before President Biden in huge secrecy arrived by train in Kyiv from Poland to see Volodymyr Zelensky, the Kremlin was officially warned of the imminent trip so as to avoid any possibility that Moscow might order a missile attack on the Ukrainian capital. With or without knowledge of Biden's presence in Kyiv, a missile strike which killed the president of the United States as he was engaged in a walkabout in the city would have been so disastrous that it could just have led to the Third World War. So, better to tell the Kremlin through the usual high-powered channels rather than risk an assassination either by error, by coincidence, or by devious intention. Putin got the message and sure enough there was no missile strike on Kyiv during the five hours Biden was there, although a MiG-29 took off and started flying in that direction setting off air raid alarms across the country. That was probably Putin's way of saying to Biden, "ok this time but I was tempted". So all in all it was quite reassuring that Putin has not lost all his marbles. He hasn't loosed off tactical nukes against Ukraine because he knows from persistent warnings from Washington that were he to do so the consequencees would be too dire to contemplate. Likewise he knew that if he tried to target Biden in Kyiv, even if his missile operators missed, he would now be facing military retaliation. Not by Ukraine but by the US. Big time. War is a dirty business but amidst all the slaughter and potential crimes against humanity going on against Ukraine, Putin knows there are some red lines he cannot and should not cross.

Putin will want a victory parade in Kyiv

Nearly a year after Putin sent 150,000 troops to invade Ukraine, the Russian autocratic ex-KGB leader clearly still has one dream in mind which is to see his successful army celebrating victory in the streets of Kyiv. Commentators are suggesting that he will be happy to grab the Donbas region and then possibly look for a settlement to end the war. But I don't see Putin backing down in any way. He wants that victory parade in Kyiv, he needs that victory parade in Kyiv. Anything less will look like partial defeat. So even if the Russian troops do manage to seize the whole of the Donbas region in the east, Putin will want more. He wants Ukraine begging for mercy and he has the extreme right in Russia on his side. So I am convinced that when he handed command of the invasion forces to General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, his orders would have been simply, "finish the job, destroy everything if necessary". The extraordinary thing is that despite 12 months of setbacks on the battlefield, Putin remains totally in charge in the Kremlin. Despite hopes in the West of a putsch against him, I don't see that happening. He has surrounded himself with all his former KGB mates and there is no realistic opposition to his leadership nor to his war. For these reasons the war will continue until Putin believes he can claim victory. Joe Biden's mantra has always been that the US and Nato will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, repeated this today in a TV interview. But it's the same for Putin. He will continue trying to destroy Ukraine for as long as it takes. President Macron's remark at the Munich security conference that Putin should not be humiliated by total defeat and that at some point there must be a deal to end the war without crushing Russia may have sounded realistic six to nine months ago. But not any longer. It has all gone too far for face-saving deals. Putin doesn't want a face-saving deal, he wants Ukraine and Zelensky to be forced to surrender. In Putin's mind, to accept Macron's argument would be to accept humiliation. That's never going to happen. I assume Biden and co realise this.

Russia accused of crimes against humanity

It's all blood and thunder at the annual Munich security conference with every western leader vowing to stay the course against Russia and on the side of Ukraine. Kamala Harris, the US vice president, has officially accused Russia (ie President Putin) of crimes against humanity with the slaughter of civilians, rape and other horrific abuses. In other words there is no chance of a settlement. In fact there never was. But judging by the mood at the Munich gathering, Nato is hell-bent on helping Ukraine to defeat Russia. So we can expect a whole new load of longer range weaponry to back up Kyiv's planned counter-offensive due in the spring to try and drive the Russian forces out. I fear it could be a bloodbath on both sides. If Belarus enters the war, as its autocratic leader has warned, then it will get even worse, although I suspect this is more blather than a real threat. I suspect it won't be long before Nato agrees to provide fighter jets, despite the reluctance to do so. Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded for combat jets for so long I don't see how Nato can delay it much longer. With everything he needs to back him up it is just possible that Zelensky's prediction of a victory against Russia might happen. But then what will Putin do? Could he survive, politically, a Russian defeat in Ukraine? Might the generals and the political elite turn against him? This is the year when all these questions might be answered.

How a headline wrongly summed up the shocking story of Nicola Bulley's disappearance

The New York Times has a singularly inappropriate headline in today's newspaper above a story about the tragic case of Nicola Bulley, a 45-year-old mother of two children who disappeared while walking her dog along a local river in North West England on January 27 and has not been seen or found since. The headline said the case had "captivated Britain". If ever a word was wrongly selected for a headline "captivated" is certainy it. It implies we are all mesmerised by the woman's disappearance. There is a degree of pleasure and entertainment implied in that word. The truth is that everyone in this country is totally shocked by the appalling story, and more so as we hear of how the police have been carrying out their investigation to try and trace her last movements. No one is captivated by what they are reading in the papers and seeing on television. Everyone is horrified. Her poor family are being put through a nightmare of anxiety and dread, made worse by the mass of speculation about what might have happened to her. The police decided for reasons that have yet to be explained that there were other circumstances that may have played a part in her disappearance including the fact that she had alcohol issues driven by the suffering she had undergone by going through the menopause. I only repeat this to add my own dismay at the police publication of these personal details, none of which will help to lead to her reappearance or recovery. Personal medical details should have been kept private. It is beyond belief that the police decided to make these private matters public at this stage in the investigation. Her family have made it clear that Nicola would not have wished such details to be put into the public domain. All of which makes that headline with the word "captivated" at its centre so insensitive. The tragedy is that the police are no nearer finding out what hapened to her than when they started searching three weeks ago.

Could the mystery aerial objects end up as a damp squib?

No one yet knows what these three aerial objects are or were before they were shot down by US fighter jets. But there is now a chance, oh dear, that they could be unrelated to the Chinese spy balloon, despite the incredible coincidence of their presence in the air so soon after the spy balloon arrived. And may be, just may be, they could be innocent balloon-type research vehicles launched by some American company. If this turns out to be the case, why has no one stepped forward and admitted these flying objects belonged to them? It really would be a damp squib if these things in the air are nothing to do with espionage, let alone Chinese espionage. Now we hear that in one case the US Air Force fired two missiles, not just one because the first one missed. So that means the Pentagon has spent around $1.3 billion for no reason, and that's not counting the cost in fuel involved in having so many aircraft engaged in the mission to track and destroy the objects. I mean, to be honest, it's the best end to the drama because they weren't all super secret Chnese spy machines but it could be one of the biggest anti-climaxes of all. But the huge spy balloon was a real espionage operation, right?

Mystery aerial objects pose a real challenge for the US

The whole US intelligence community is poring over the images of the three unidentified aerial objects flying in North American air space in the hours before they were shot down by fighter jets. As yet there appear to be no definitive conclusions. The stark questions are these: where did they originate from, did they contain surveillance or electronic jamming equipment, were they guided, how were they powered, and was China behind all three as well as the spy balloon? The first obvious fact is that the three objects were nothing like the spy balloon. They were much smaller - the size of a small car as the Pentagon revealed in one case. They operated at between 20,000ft and 40,000ft and there was no apparent sign of intelligence-gathering antennae protruding. One was described as of cylindrical shape and the third was said to be octagonal “with strings attached” . None of them were travelling at supersonic speed, undermining the notion they might be alien UFOs. A large percentage of claimed UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) have reportedly had the ability to accelerate at fantastic speeds. US officials have described how the three objects broke up when they were targeted by Sidewinder missiles, suggesting that they were metallic. Without any obvious propulsion system on the outside – the spy balloon was fitted with solar panels - it could be that what powered the objects was contained inside. General Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) which is responsible for warning of all potentially hostile aerial or space systems approaching the US and Canada, said the objects might have contained a gaseous-type balloon inside the structure. The three objects were all travelling at wind speed, suggesting that some form of balloon system was involved. The chances are that if the 200ft Chinese spy balloon flying into US air space at more than 60,000ft had not woken up Norad in its Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado to the continent’s alarming radar detection failures, the three aerial objects might never have been spotted, let alone shot down. They would have produced an extremely low radar cross-section. More than 45,000 commercial aircraft fly into or out of the US every day, and then there are military flights, (regular and classified prototypes) drones and balloons (commercial and US air force). Objects the size of a car can get lost in the radar traffic. Norad has been forced to widen its radar apertures to embrace the routes apparently taken by the balloon and the mystery objects to approach the North American coastline from the west. VanHerck has admitted what he calls “domain awareness challenges”. Detection of such objects in the future will need to be traced well before they reach the North American continent, both to give more time to assess the potential risk they pose and to pinpoint their launch location. The balloon is known to have taken about a week to reach the US, having taken off from the Chinese military base at Hainan in the south. But where did the three aerial objects come from, surely not all the way from Hainan or from some other Chinese military base? And if they were not equipped with surveillance antennae what was their role? Shooting them down may have been politically and militarily unavoidable but each AIM-9X Sidewinder cost $472,000, so it has been an expensive operation; and finding the debris to resolve the puzzle is going to be a lot harder than trying to rebuild the remnants of the huge spy balloon which landed conveniently in 47ft of water off the South Carolina coast. One option to be considered is that all three unexplained objects could have been launched from a submarine? Launching radar-detection balloons from a submarine, for example, is a technique that has been used by the US for decades. Submarine-launched balloon tests were first carried out by the CIA in the 1950s. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, a US Navy submarine surfaced near Havana Bay to release balloons carrying radar reflectors. A US Navy warship sailing beyond missile range off Cuba had transmitted a signal that simulated the sound of an American fighter jet flying at speed towards the island from Florida. The mission for the submarine-launched balloons was to see how quickly the Russians in Cuba would switch on their surface-to-missile tracking radars. The arrival of the aerial objects so soon after the dramatic presence of the high-altitude spy balloon had been spotted and tracked by Norad and two U-2S Dragon Lady spy planes flying at more than 70,000ft, suggests that all four systems were linked. The coincidence is too great unless these type of car-sized aerial objects have been entering US air space regularly over a much longer period and have never been detected. It is known that China sent a high-altitude airship around the world, including over North America, in 2019. Called the Cloud Chaser, it received scant attention at the time. The US understands the value of balloons in surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations. The Pentagon’s research establishment, Darpa, has an “adaptable lighter than air (ALTA)” programme which involves developing and demonstrating a high-altitude air vehicle capable of wind-borne navigation over extended ranges. These type of balloons will be capable of flying at more than 75,000ft. They will not have independent propulsion but will be fitted with sensors. This will enable them to navigate by changing altitude, taking advantage of different wind profiles.

So what does the US do about China now?

If the two unidentifiable/unidentified objects shot down over Alaska and Canada turn out to be Chinese-made and Chinese-deployed, as well as the spy balloon which even Beijing admits was theirs (though just a weather-tracking balloon, ho ho), it begs the question: what should happen now in terms of relations between the US and China? The trouble is in this globalised world the two countries are so interlinked that it's impossible just to cut them off. Trade between the US and China has actually gone up significantly throughout all this period, so the options are pretty limited for the Biden administration. In these dangerous times it's far better to be talking to your potential worst enemy than shunning them. But Beijing cannot be trusted to be telling the truth even when the truth is staring everyone else in the face. Piling on sanctions isn't going to work. Kicking out all Chinese "diplomats" in consulates and trade missions and other organisations dotted around the US will only lead to tit-for-tat retaliation by China. Expelling a few known Chinese intelligence officers from the embassy in Washington will likewise provoke similar action by Beijing. So it's difficult to know what Biden can do that will punish China without freezing relations with Beijing for the rest of his administration term. But here's a thought, and one for America's intelligence services to answer. What if Xi Zinping and Vladimir Putin have together concocted a secret plan which involves a twin approach to undermining the West: Putin persists with his invasion of Ukraine, despite early setbacks, knowing that the West will be obliged to continue rushing weapons and money into the country, massively reducing available stocks of weapons and munitions in the process, and Xi steps up spying operations against the US to raise deep concerns about national security vulnerabilities. My God, if that was their plan at the meeting between the two men on September 15 last year, then the West has been seriously caught in their trap. We know Putin and Xi vowed at that meeting to strengthen their strategic anti-West relationship and here we are five months later obsessed with two things: the draining of our national defence weapons inventories of rockets, tanks, air defence systems, artillery, shells, drones, ammunition, rifles etc etc and we are all on high alert for Chinese spy balloons. At just under $500,000 each, the US has already fired three Sidewinders to destroy the spy balloon and two unidentified objects. Perhaps, all part of the Putin/Xi plot to batter the US economy and embarrass Biden.

A flying car - the world has gone mad

An airborne object the size of a small car posed the latest threat to America's national security. The breaking news last night that Biden had ordered the second shootdown in his two years in office both within a week of each other provided further proof that the world is going mad. What on earth this flying object was we have yet to be told. But at 40,000ft and moving along quite smoothly and not that fast - so not a hypersonic alien spaceship - it was unmanned and appeared not to be engaged in surveillance while travelling over Alaska. But it was in the way of commercial aircraft, so Biden, prompted by the Pentagon, ordered it to be shot down. What is so ironic is that the US Air Force's F-22 Raptor, one of their most advanced stealth fighters capable of flyng higher than any other American fighter jet, had never previously fired a shot in anger, until that Chinese balloon and now the unidentified flying car turned up in US air space. The pilots must have been really chuffed. At last they get to launch a missile and actually see it work very nicely. F-22 pilots will be queuing up to shoot down the next thing that dares to venture across US territory. I loved the statements put out last night. Clearly neither the super-capable Pentagon nr the whole of the Biden national security team were able to say or even guess what the small object was or where it came from and what its purpose was. So all they could come up with was that it was roughly the size of a small car. A flying Mini Cooper perhaps, or a Fiat 500?

The balloon question is not going to go away

So many unanswered questions over the Chinese spy balloon. Perhaps the most interesting one relates to an admission by the Pentagon that previous balloon flights over the US were put down as unidentified aerial phenomenon! So balloons or something like them had been detected before but absolutely no official recognition that they might be hostile spying machines. How on earth is this possible? The US has 300 satellites looking out for anything that might seem remotely in US air space with evil intent, ie rockets, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, nuclear-bomb-carrying long range aircraft, hypersonic glide vehicles etc. But no one seems to have considered the possibility that intelligence-gathering balloons might be on the way to the US to snoop. None of the satellites nor any of the myriad of radar devices around the gobe had picked up the latest balloon until it was too late, or any of the previous balloon trips from China. That's a very oops moment for the US and for the threat-monitoring command bunkers in the US. Unidentified aerial phenomina (UAPs) are going to have to be looked at with a helluva lot more attention and expertise in the future. Not just in case they might contain aliens dressed in space outfits but because the hand of China will be behind them.

China's brazen global spying operation uncovered

The Chinese spy balloon shot down by a US fighter jet was bristling with antennae designed for intelligence surveillance, the state department in Washington has revealed. The huge balloon which flew over the US at 62,000ft was one of a fleet of similar surveillance platforms sent by China to spy on more than 40 countries across five continents. All were capable of collecting communications signals over sensitive military sites, the state department said. A senior US defence source told The Times that an urgent investigation of past Chinese balloon missions had uncovered evidence of ten previous spying operations from similar platforms over North, South and Central America over recent years. Three of them, all during the Trump administration, had penetrated US air space but had not been detected, the source said. Firm evidence that the latest balloon was not a weather-monitoring platform blown off course, as claimed by Beijing, came from two US Air Force U-2S Dragon Lady spy planes which flew more than 8,000ft above it. High-resolution imagery collected by the U-2S cameras determined the surveillance capabilities of the balloon, the state department said in a written statement. The U-2S Cold War spy planes had taken off from Beale air force base in California as soon as the balloon was detected by the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) in Colorado. The revelations from the state department raised a series of urgent questions about why the US hesitated to bring down the balloon before it reached sensitive sites which included the intercontinental ballistic missile base in Montana. The US defence source said NORAD had determined that the spy balloon was “not weaponised” and that, therefore, it posed no military hostile intent. However, once NORAD had detected the balloon entering US air space, secret jamming systems were used to prevent the Chinese platform from sending back data to China, especially when it was flying over the nuclear bases. The source said the jamming systems were classified. The balloon had taken off on January 21 from a military base in Hainan in southern China but it was not initially detected either by America’s satellites or by radar stations. The source said this was a real concern . The problem was that NORAD was focused on potential nuclear ballistic missile and bomber threats from the north, west and east. However, China, the source said, had “brazenly” flown the balloon in from the south and had proved there was a gap in US detection capabilities. None of the previous ten spy balloon missions had been detected by NORAD, the source said. “Not shooting down this latest balloon as soon as it was detected was a serious error of judgment, “ the source said. The balloon was allowed to pass over the Aleutian Islands on January 28 and then enter northern Canada, traversing to Idaho while violating US air space on January 31. The source said the rules of engagement for shooting down a spy balloon, even if it was determined to be non-hostile, needed to be changed. “An unauthorised penetration of Canadian/US air space to collect information is in itself a hostile act and should not be tolerated,” the source said. Even if the data from the spy balloon was successfully jammed, China would have gleaned which approaches to the US were more vulnerable than others. This awareness of US national security weaknesses had been underlined in 2021 when China sent a nuclear-weapon-capable hypersonic glide vehicle into space and then diverted it into the Earth’s atmosphere around the globe to its target. It took the US and allies by surprise. It was found to be difficult to detect because of its acute manoeuvrability. China’s use of undetected spy balloons has added to US concerns that China is engaged in a highly secret programme to test America’s defences. The spy balloon spent about a week travelling over the US before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina. Wreckage was collected from a wide area in shallow water in a US Navy salvage operation. While it flew across the US NORAD and the two U-2S spy planes flying above the balloon were able to gather valuable intelligence about the balloon’s surveillance capabilities.

The moment the Chinese spy balloon was shot down

Two US Air force U-2S “Dragon Lady” spy planes flew more than 8,000ft above the Chinese surveillance balloon throughout its transit across America. The Cold War U-2S aircraft which can fly above 70,000ft sent images and intelligence data about the balloon, providing the evidence that it was not an innocent meteorological platform blown off course, as Beijing has claimed. The American spy planes with high-resolution cameras were part of a package of air assets airborne throughout the drama after the Chinese balloon was first spotted by the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) based in a mountain bunker in Colorado. Apart from the two F-22 Raptor stealth fighter aircraft designated to shoot down the balloon, there were two back-up F-15Cs, a US Navy P-8A maritime surveillance aircraft and a KC-135 refuelling Stratotanker. So, with the two U-2s, the mission involved eight aircraft. The operation was controlled from the ground by NORAD’s eastern air defence sector (EADS) based in the city of Rome in the state of New York. The U-2s which first came into service in 1957 but still fly the US military’s most secret spying missions around the world, took off from Beale air force base in California. They used the call signs DRAGON01 and DRAGON99, according to the US defence website, The War Zone. The only US aircraft that can fly at such high altitudes, they maintained a presence well above the Chinese balloon which was flying at around 62,000ft. When the pilot of the leading F-22 declared “splash” on his radio, controllers at EADS knew that the balloon had been targeted and brought down. The conversation back and forth between the pilots of the various aircraft involved in the mission, was picked up by Ken Harrell, a military aviation radio monitor based in South Carolina and released on YouTube. The chatter shows that the ground controllers were adamant the shootdown had to take place off the Atlantic coast within the 12-mile territorial limit. “We are looking for you to count every single mile that the TOI [target of interest] gained offshore,” the EADS controllers, codenamed HUNTRESS, said at one point. When the moment for launching a single AIM-9X Sidewinder missile arrived, the pilot of the lead F-22, codenamed FRANK01, says: “Splash one. TOI.” HUNTRESS: “Copy. Splash.” EAGLE02 (the F-16C wingman): “That is a t-kill [target kill]. The balloon is completely destroyed.” Later EAGLE02 says: “The winds remain 50 to 70 knots out of the north. So my best guess is the debris field is going very, very, very slowly. I think you are going to find it about 15 miles or so east of our location by the time it hits the water.”

Will Putin ever sue for peace in Ukraine?

If the expected new offensive into Ukraine involving up to 500,000 Russian troops fails, will Putin have to acknowledge failure and sue for peace? The answer is bleak. Putin will never accept failure, let alone defeat, and if the upcoming offensive fails to bring about the fall of Kyiv, Putin will just sack the recently appointed supreme commander, the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, General Valery Gerasimov, and have another go with a different military chief, perhaps his defence minister, General Sergei Shoigu. The point is that Putin has the overwhelming advantage of superior troop numbers and a much bigger economy than Ukraine's to persist with the war for years if necessary. So he will carry on until the Ukrainian armed forces are literally too exhausted to lift their rifles. In some respects they be approaching that point even now. The Ukrainians will never give up because they are fighting for the future of their country. But countering an offensive of 500,000 freshly-trained troops is going to be a challenge of gigantic proportions, and they are going to have do it without all the new armour promised by the West. They are getting on well with being trained on the British Challenger 2s, but the UK is only sending 14. As for the German Leopard 2s we are talking months away and the US Abrams tanks perhaps a year away. By then, it might be too late. However, Ukraine demonstrated in February last year and during the months afterwards that they had the guts, courage and ability to drive the Russian tanks back and keep them out of Kyiv. Can they do it again? The Russians will surely have learnt from their multitude of mistakes and will do it differently the second time. Under Gerasimov it's likely to be more of a properly combined all-arms offensive with sufficient logistics supplies to keep the tanks and other armoured vehicles on the move, instead of getting stuck with no diesel and no maintenance crews. Assuming most of the western tanks don't arrive in time, the US and other Nato and allied partners will need to fill the gaps in weaponry firepower to prevent Russia sacking Kyiv. That's what the new Russian offensive and Ukrainian counter-offensive is going to be about - the future of Kyiv.

What on earth was Xi Zinping thinking?

Looking at the spy balloon saga from the Beijing end one has to ask the question: what on earth was President Xi Zinping thinking when he presumably said, yes ok let's send one of those nice big spy balloons over Montana a couple of days before the arrival of the US secretary of state Antony Blinken. Was he being deliberately provocative, trying to show Washington that he can do what he wants whenever he wants and stuff diplomatic relations? Or was he just being outrageously irresponsible and stupid? Or was he actually thinking to himself: let's put up a spy balloon and see how long it takes the US air force to shoot it down because that might give me an idea how long Anerica might take to react to an invasion of Taiwan? I reckon it's the last one. If the US waits three or four or five days to decide to send a naval task force to help Taiwan defend against a Chinese invasion that might just be enough for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to launch a massive assault and overpower the breakaway, self-governing republic before a US carrier appears on the horizon. Could that be Xi's thinking? If so, then Biden and the Pentagon played into his hands. Biden said yes to shooting the balloon down but the Pentagon advised waiting until it was safely flying over water. Perfectly understandable on the Pentagon's part, not wishing to risk anyone on the ground being hit by falling debris. But I know for absolutely sure that if a US spy balloon was spotted flying over a Chinese missile site it would be shot down immediately as a demonstration of Chinese outrage, never mind bits coming down onto people's heads. The Americans could be blamed for that. So this was all about testing the United States, and the lesson Xi learned from this whole incident was that Americans are too nice and take collateral damage very seriously. So, athough it looks as if the Chinese blundered with their spy balloon - and lost it in the Atlantic - in fact Xi will have been very satisfied with his little gamble. And he will win support from all the allies he has bribed with billions of dollars of construction programmes by ringing them to tell them that the balloon was simply checking the weather and how outrageous it was that the Americans went to war against this innocent airborne climate-change investigating system. Oh yes, I see it all now.

So Biden shoots down the Chinese balloon after all

Within minutes of my blog appearing calling for the Chinese spy balloon to be shot down, it was duly broght down by one missile fired by an F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet. Haha! I can't claim I persuaded Joe Biden to do the obvious thing. Apparently he had decided to do it four days ago (on Wednesday) but the Pentagon wanted to wait until the balloon was over water. The balloon duly obliged yesterday and down it came into shallow water off the Atlantic coast of South Carolina. Good shot. Once the US Navy has retrieved all the bits from the water, we hopefully will get a full rundown from the Pentagon on exactly what this mighty balloon contained - meteorological as Beijing claims or espionage as the Pentagon and intelligence services say. It was interesting that a small FBI team of counter-intelligence officers are part of the salvaging operation. I assume they are the experts at telling whether a piece of kit is innocent or guilty of espionage. Whatever they decide, Beijing will still claim the balloon was an innocent weather gatherer and will accuse the US of lying. So we won't be any further down the path of knowing exactly what it has all been about. If by any tiny chance the balloon equipment turns out to be what Beijing says it is it could be quite awkward for the Pentagon but I seriously doubt that's going to happen. So when the Pentagon calls a press conference and details the "proof" that China was spying, what then? I suspect that neither the US nor China will want the balloon incident to create a dangerous freeze in relations. And anyway Beijing will have got the message that any more spy balloons spotted over the US will be treated as a monstrous violation of American sovereignty and that further repercussions would follow. As for Beijing's threat to take further action following the shooting down of the balloon, I suspect that's blather. They got caught out and even the devious Xi Zinping will realise that ballooning over the US is over. At least for the forseeable future.

The balloon's gone up

This Chinese spy balloon hovering over the US at 60,000ft should unquestionably be shot down. It's so obvious it's a deliberate provocation by Beijing that to do nothing will be as good as saying to China, please go ahead and send what you like to spy on us. Beijing claims it's all a big mistake and it's just an innocent meteorological balloon that has oh dear veered off course and there is nothing to worry about. Or in their words, calm down, there's no drama. Then suddenly another one appears, this time over Latin America. I bet that all those quadcopter drones that went wizzing around US Navy warships off California a year or so back were all Chinese spy drones and not UFOs with aliens inside as so many American conspiracy theorists suggested. What would China do if the US sent spy balloons over Chinese missile sites? Beijing would go crazy, shoot them down and inform the world that the US had invaded. Look what happened to Francis Gary Powers in 1960 when he flew a U-2 spy plane over missile sites in Russia. He got shot down with a surface-to-air missile. This spy balloon is China's way of testing America's air defences and the US has decided to leave it alone. The Pentagon chiefs didn't want them shot down in case anyone was hurt by all the bits dropping to earth. Well, shoot it down over the least inhabited part of Montana or whereever it might be hovering over and tell everyone to stay indoors. I mean this is a serious provocation by China. They can't be allowed to get away with it. Surely?

America's Thunderbird combat drone

Proving that futuristic fictional concepts can become reality in today’s advanced technological world, the US has shown off its latest drone, the XQ-58A Valkyrie. Looking more like the computer-generated Thunderbird 2 aircraft of the popular 1960s TV series, the Valkyrie is seen blasting off from a tilted launcher during a test flight. Although the launch of the Valkyrie took place at Eglin air force base in Florida in December, images of the test flight have only just been released. The Valkyrie is an experimental stealthy combat aerial vehicle which could serve as an unmanned wingman to America’s F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter in future conflicts. Built by Kratos Defence and Security Solutions in San Diego, California, the XQ-58A Valkyrie has been designed to carry at least two small-diameter bombs and has a flight range of 3,450 miles. The drone doesn’t need a runway but takes off from a trailer-mounted launcher. It’s 30ft long with a wingspan of 27ft and weighs 2,500 pounds without a bomb payload. Its maximum speed is 0.72 Mach. The first flight took place in March, 2019. The Pentagon’s idea is to have manned aircraft and unmanned combat drones operating together, each data-linked to the other, with the pilot of the fighter jet controlling his drone wingman. Designed and developed under the US defence department’s Skyborg programme, the Valkyrie and other combat drones of the future would be able to fly ahead and check out targets, providing key intelligence to manned aircraft, as well as taking part in bombing missions. The Valkyrie’s similarity to the Thunderbird 2 is just another example of how today’s technology is catching up with futuristic fictional designs created decades ago. Thunderbird 2, piloted by Virgil Tracy in the TV puppet series, was a large, green aircraft used for rescue missions. Thunderbird 2 could also operate underwater. But Valkyrie will be developed strictly for airborne operations. The jet-powered Valkyrie drone with combat and reconnaissance roles can be built for about $2 million, a fraction of the cost of the manned fighter jets. An F-35 is closer to $80 million. The combination of manned and unmanned aircraft flying in tandem is likely to transform the air battlefield. The low cost of the Valkyrie would enable the Pentagon to launch swarm attacks to overwhelm enemy defences. The Valkyrie was originally developed for the US Air Force but the US Navy is buying two of the combat drones as part of its manned and unmanned fighter programme. Both China and Russia are known to be developing the same concept.

Can Ukraine liberate Crimea?

The Kyiv government has stressed all along that unless Crimea is liberated from its Russian occupiers there can be no deal with Moscow. While I can understand why President Zelensky and his top advisers are saying this, the reality is that unless the West supplies Ukraine with long-range (300 miles at least) rockets and missiles and all 300 of the tanks Zelensky says he needs, there is no chance that the Russian occupying forces can be driven out of the Crimean peninsula. They have been there since 2014 and have thousands of troops in well-entrenched positions. With fighting going on throughout the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine would simply not have the troop power, let alone the firepower, to drive the Russians out of Crimea. Four senior Pentagon officias effectively said as much in a supposedly classified briefing to the House armed services committee today, and General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has said the same thing in the past. But Crimea is going to be one of the major sticking points if ever Kyiv and Moscow get together for negotiations to end the war. Zelensky wants Crimea back, and Putin will never give it up. Never. So even if the fighting stops in Donbas, which seems highly unlikely, Crimea would remain a huge obstruction to peace. Crimea was seized in 2014 while the rest of the world effectively looked on. Putin got away with it because no one in the West thought he would do it, and when he did, decided there was nothing that could be done apart from impose sanctions. Putin laughed his head off. So the big question is: will Zelensky relent and leave Crimea in Russian hands if he gets a negotiated settlement to end the war without losing the whole of the Donbas region? The question is relevant but also fairly pointless. Right now we are far away from any sort of negotiated deal. The only talk these days is how Putin must be defeated. There is a mighty Russian offensive in the making at the moment and we will have to see how that progresses before even contemplating the future of Crimea. But it's not going to go away. Indeed there could be another war altogether that focuses just on Crimea. Some of the talk in Congress is that the war must come to an end this summer. I really do think that's hopelessly optimistic and unrealistic at the same time. And Crimea is one of the reasons for my pessimism.

The F-16 fighter jet everyone wants.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon may be 50 years old but it's still the combat aircraft everyone wants. Ukraine is the latest nation trying to join the F-16 club which already has about two dozen members around the world. The reason it's so popular is not because it's the most advanced fighter aircraft on the market but because it's small, fast, agile, highly manoeuvrable, lightweight and at $15-18 million each, relatively cheap. Since it has been around for so long the F-16 has engaged in air-to-air combat more than any other American fighter jet. French Mirage jets, European Tornados, American Phantom F-4s, F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats and Swedish Gripens all have their merits and battle scars. But the F-16 is basically the Mini Cooper of the fighter aircraft world. The F-16A, the single-seat version, first flew in December 1976. There is also a two-seat model, the F-16B. They were built by a consortium of five Nato countries, led by the US. The others were Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. Portugal joined the consortium more recently. In air combat it's versatility means it can outpace and outsmart most opponents. With its light fuselage and maximum speed of more than twice the speed of sound, the F-16 can withstand up to nine Gs - nine times the force of gravity. In Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 US-led mission to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's occupying troops, the F-16 flew more sorties than any other aircraft. With such a pedigree the F-16 is the Kyiv government's priority fighter jet on its shopping list. President Biden indicated he would not be sending F-16s to Ukraine in a brief comment to a reporter at the White House. However, a White House source told The Times: "I don't think jets are off the table. But I also don't think anything is imminent or likely to happen soon. If F-16s were to happen it would likely be a long term thing since the training would take a long time." "Ukraine will certainly need to control its air space in the medium to long run and I don't think there should be any objection in principle to providing F-16s to Kyiv," Eric Edelman, a former senior Pentagon official, said.