🏭 🇺🇸 🇨🇳 In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail, retired U.S. Army Major General John G. Ferrari said he had 'grave concerns' about America's ongoing reliance on China to equip its military.

🔶️ Chinese manufacturers are deeply embedded in U.S. defense systems, providing critical technology and raw materials used in everything from air-to-air missiles to fighter jets.

🔶️ General Ferrari, who served as a deputy commander for NATO in Afghanistan, admitted that Beijing could cripple America's ability to arm itself by cutting off supply lines.

🔶️ 'If we were in a war with China and it stopped providing parts, we wouldn't be able to build the planes and weapons we needed,' he said.

No quick fix

🔶️ A startling report released earlier this year revealed Chinese firms have a stranglehold across 12 critical technologies that are vital to US national security, including nuclear modernization, hypersonic and space technologies.

🔶️ The study, which was carried out by defense software firm Govini, delivered a damning indictment on the American armaments industry.

🔶️ 'U.S. domestic production capacity is a shriveled shadow of its former self,' the report said.

🔶️ 'Crucial categories of industry for U.S. national defense are no longer built in any of the 50 states.'

🔶️ Perhaps most worryingly, Govini found that more than 40 per cent of the semiconductors that sustain Department of Defense (DoD) weapons systems are now sourced from China.

🔶️ Advanced semiconductors are crucial components of missile guidance systems, cyberware and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.

🔶️ It has sparked fears that Beijing has been left with an array of tools to sabotage American defenses, from planting defective chips into air-to-air missiles to embedding spyware into DoD systems.

🔶️ 'You can't just turn around on a dime because the [manufacturing] capacity doesn't exist here,' he said.

🔶️ He added that it could take 10 to 15 years for the U.S. to disentangle itself from China.

🔶️ 'It should be "Buy Allies", because the U.S. does not have the capacity to solve the problem on its own.'

🔶️ The US built up its reliance on Chinese manufacturing during an era of relative harmony between the two nations following the 1990s.

🔶️ Yet the DoD's reliance on Chinese equipment has continued to grow. Between 2014 and 2022, American dependence on Chinese electronics increased by 600 per cent, according to Govini.

🔶️ Courtney Manning, senior research scientist at the nonpartisan American Security Project, said the trend has been 'driven by profit'.

🔶️ But contractors have pointed to a dearth of domestic options, with U.S. manufacturing in terminal decline.

🔶️ A study by think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies has said the conflict in Eastern Europe has highlighted how quickly the U.S. military would run out of munitions in a potential conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13551371/China-military-supplies-war.html

🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇺🇦 US in talks to send Israel’s Patriot systems to Ukraine

🇷🇺 Transfer of up to eight batteries would mark shift in Israel’s relations with Moscow

🔶️ But the batteries, which have been used in Israel’s current war with Hamas, have not yet been discontinued due to concerns that tensions with the Iran-backed Hizbollah militant group could erupt into a full-blown war.

🔶️ Israel has been cautious about taking sides over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine given the clout Moscow holds in Syria, where the Israeli air force often acts against Iranian proxies.

🔶️ Former officials and analysts said the Israeli systems would most likely be sold back to the US, which could then send them on to Ukraine.

🔶️ But they added that the bigger question is whether Israel is prepared to alienate its on-off ally Russia, despite Moscow’s ever-closer relationship with Iran.

🔶️ Israel has previously denied Ukrainian requests for air defence systems. It also has an agreement with Russia that allows Israeli jets to access Syrian air space.

📎 Financial Times

— 🇮🇷/🇺🇳 Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations:

'While Iran deems the Zionist regime's threats to launch an attack on Lebanon as psychological warfare, should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue.

All options, including the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, are on the table.'

@Middle_East_Spectator

🇸🇩 🇦🇪 🇺🇳 Sudan accuses UAE of fueling war with weapons to paramilitary rivals. UAE calls claim `ludicrous’

🔶️ U.N. experts monitoring an arms embargo in Darfur reported “credible” evidence in January that the UAE sent weapons to the Rapid Support Forces several times a week from northern Chad. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Tuesday reiterated a U.S. appeal to all “external actors to stop fueling and prolonging this conflict, and enabling these atrocities, by sending weapons to Sudan.”

🔶️ Edem Wosornu, operations director for the U.N. humanitarian office, told the council the lives of 800,000 civilians trapped in El Fasher “hang in the balance,” echoing the risk of mass atrocities and warning that the violence in the encircled city “is just the tip of the iceberg.”

🔶️ Two decades ago, Darfur became synonymous with genocide and war crimes, particularly by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias, against populations that identify as Central or East African. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes.

🔶️ Last Thursday, the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its siege of El Fasher — the only capital in Darfur it doesn’t control. The council also urged the paramilitary force and Sudan’s military “to seek an immediate cessation of hostilities.”

https://apnews.com/article/un-sudan-uae-clash-war-weapons-paramilitary-fb5fde060708900d8b82774135828f85

🚀 🇺🇸 🛰 NASA awards SpaceX $843M contract to bring ISS out of orbit

🔶️ NASA picked SpaceX to develop and deliver a spacecraft that'll bring the International Space Station out of orbit after the operational life of the ISS ends in 2030, the space agency announced Wednesday.

🔶️ The spacecraft, which NASA is calling the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, needs to guide the ISS safely back through Earth's atmosphere before its planned crash into the Pacific Ocean.

https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/nasa-spacex-international-space-station-deorbit-vehicle