US funds academic consortium of hypersonic research to outdo China

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 28 October 2020

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WASHINGTON - Building hypersonic weapons in 2020 is a bit like building computers in the 1950s. One day, it will be its own specific field — but today it requires finding and convening experts from multiple discrete disciplines. Defense Department leaders hope they can accelerate this process by funding a new academic consortium led by Texas A&M University. The contract award is $20 million annually for five years.

China has already begun to establish multidisciplinary university programs that bring together students in, say, materials development or aerodynamics to design and test new hypersonics designs.

The field is so new that it needs experts from many fields to learn to work together.

The new consortium will give students experience not just in building parts of hypersonic craft but the whole thing, giving them experience beyond just their disciplines.

Established in April with $100 million in 2020 funding, her office has set six research priorities: materials; guidance, navigation and control; propulsion (airwing); environment (what is the vehicle experiencing); applied aerodynamics and systems engineering; and lethality and energetics (the warheads, etc.). The office hopes to announce 26 project solicitations in coming weeks, mostly to advance understanding of these priorities as applied to hypersonics.

Analysis: A newly restrained Trump faces the same old problems

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 23 October 2020

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By James Oliphant

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, USA - President Donald Trump turned in the restrained and consistent performance his advisers said he needed in his final debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden, but it was unlikely to alter the U.S. presidential race in any fundamental way.

With just 11 days to go before the Nov. 3 election, Trump still faces the same fundamental problem: A country battered by the coronavirus, with cases spiking anew, and an economy that has yet to fully rebound from the pandemic.

Once again, the Republican president had no real counter to Biden’s criticism of his handling of the virus that has killed more than 221,000 Americans other than to say that the nation is “turning the corner.”

Biden leads Trump in opinion polls nationally as the race enters its final stretch, although his edge is tighter in key battleground states.

Thursday’s debate in Nashville, Tennessee, was the last time for both candidates to share a stage before a large television audience, and Trump engaged in a more civil discourse with far fewer interruptions than at their first debate in September.

“Trump was fine tonight. Might even give it to him on points. It’s just not the game-changer he needs,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist in Virginia who has worked on U.S. Senate campaigns.

Trump continued to insist that businesses should fully reopen and all students should return to schools, while playing down predictions that the winter would bring a second devastating wave of cases. “We’re learning to live with it,” said Trump, who battled the virus himself earlier this month.

Polling by Reuters/Ipsos has shown that a majority of Americans have continuously faulted Trump for his handling of the pandemic, and it has remained atop voters’ list of concerns throughout the year.

Compounding Trump’s challenge: Just a small sliver of undecided voters remain, polls show, as more than 48 million Americans already have voted. And while Trump for the most part stayed composed and controlled on the debate stage, he appeared not to try to connect with that fraction of the electorate.

There was little recognition from the president that most of the public watching at home had endured a brutal year marked by lockdowns, layoffs, illness and death. When Biden sought to appeal directly to struggling families, Trump dismissed it as empty political rhetoric.

“Typical politician,” Trump said. “That’s why I got elected.”

With polls showing healthcare to be a priority issue, Trump declared that he wants to “terminate” the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the program known as Obamacare, while still offering no replacement that would protect people with pre-existing health conditions, including COVID-19.

“Voters are generally concerned with substance,” said Aaron Kall, an expert on presidential debates at the University of Michigan. “Biden’s continual focus on middle-class voters was intentional and will further complicate Trump’s task with regards to undecided voters.”

TRUMP’S MESSAGE ECHOES 2016

Biden, as has been his focus, tried to hammer Trump on kitchen-table issues including healthcare, wages and Social Security. He, too, was more crisp than in the first debate, largely avoiding his trademark digressions, and he had a memorable moment when he mocked Trump for comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln.

Trump’s vulnerability on the pandemic has forced him to turn to other stratagems to try to get back in the race, including aiming to brand Biden as a corrupt politician in the same manner he attempted to do with Democrat Hillary Clinton four years ago before he edged out a narrow victory.

Donovan said the gambit would yield diminishing returns in an election where voters have far greater concerns.

“It just feels like a ham-fisted attempt to reprise 2016, which worked – barely – because a dozen things went exactly right, and people had nothing else to worry about,” he said.

Kall said Trump may have been at his most persuasive when he suggested that Biden had been largely ineffective during his 47 years in public office, including eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president. “Undecided voters frequently are most concerned about what candidates have done for them lately,” he said.

But therein lies another hurdle for Trump as the race heads into its final week. In 2016, he was the outsider insurgent, having never held public office. As the incumbent this time, he is himself a politician, despite his assertions to the contrary.

That means when many voters look around for someone to blame for the state of the nation, he is first in line. Despite his less acrimonious performance on Thursday, the race remains a referendum on him.

Why Donald Trump’s Debt is a National Security Risk

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Written by northsouth

Category: Americas

Published: 19 October 2020

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BY JOE CIRINCIONE, a Distinguished Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, DC.

WASHINGTON - If you owe someone a lot of money, they have leverage over you. To whom, exactly, does the U.S. president owe this money?

Donald Trump’s failure to disclose his foreign debts poses a serious risk to the national security of the United States. It is not just the amount of the debt but his refusal to provide any information about to whom he owes the money and, therefore, who might have influence over him.

Trump denied at the NBC Town Hall October 15 that he owed money to any foreign interests. “Not that I know of,” he told NBC reporter Savannah Guthrie when she asked if he owed money to “any foreign bank, any foreign entity.”

This is not true, according to multiple sources, including the president’s own financial disclosure forms that list a $300 million debt to the Germany-based Deutsche Bank, and many more debts to others. Trump’s tax returns claim a total of $421 million in debt, while some sources estimate the debt as high as $1 billion.



This is an exerpt from an article publisged by Defense One on 18 October.

For the full text , visit: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/10/why-donald-trumps-debt-national-security-risk/169330/