Dead Drop: August 11

THE TUBERVILLE FOLLY: Senator (Call me “Coach”) Tommy Tuberville is continuing to hold the line against allowing promotions and assignments of flag or general officers to be confirmed by the Senate. It appears that the ban may soon trickle down to lower-grade officials who need confirmation before promotion board actions can take effect. Chain of command picture boards at entrances to the Pentagon and other military facilities are increasingly being dotted with blank frames where some senior officer’s mug shot would normally appear. The Coach’s delay of game penalty is impacting not only generals and admirals – but spouses, children, and lower-level folks whose next assignments are also on hold as a result.  Some military officials we talked with expressed concern about the impact all this will have on recruiting and retention of the most junior personnel.  “If you are considering a career in the military and you see one Senator disrupting up a four-star general’s life,” this veteran told us “…you might be asking yourself how readily some politician someday might choose to screw up the lives of E-4s.” A recent poll of Alabama voters shows that while 54% agree with Tuberville that DOD should change its policy, a slightly larger number (58%) think he should drop his block and move on. Meanwhile, Tuberville has chosen to continue to demonstrate his military expertise. Appearing on Fox News he told host Laura Ingram that it is pointless sending any aid to Ukraine because “…at the end of the day, it’s a junior high team playing a college team. They can’t win.”

PICK YOUR POISON: It is hard to go a day without seeing some story about attempted, thwarted, or successful Chinese espionage against the west.  And one must wonder – if these are all the instances we are hearing about, how many are flying under the radar? The British intelligence services recently submitted a report to Parliament describing the goals and scope of their Chinese counterparts. The report, as summarized in Business Insider, says that China “almost certainly” has the largest intelligence operation on the planet “with tens of thousands of officers, most of whom work for three civilian and military agencies.” The British report said that the Chinese intelligence operatives are charged with flushing the “Five Poisons” from their body politic. Those poisons are “Taiwanese independence, Tibetan independence, Xinjiang separatists, the Falun Gong, and the Chinese democracy movement.” Last week, Taiwan announced it had detained an army major and several associates on suspicion of passing military secrets to China. Four suspects were said to have been released on bail ranging from $630 to $19,000 (which sounds pretty cheap by U.S. standards.) The idea of Army majors passing secrets may not seem all that surprising – but we also learned that last month, Taiwan detained a “Chinese yo-yo instructor” on similar charges.  OK, we admit we didn’t see that one coming.