China-Cuba Alliance Alarms Congress
House Intel Chairman Rick Crawford sees Chinese signals intel in Cuba as "significant threat to U.S. national security."
Over coffee this morning I reviewed Ukraine’s geographical position relative to Moscow. The northeast border of Ukraine is about 500 miles from the Russian capital.
The Russians found the prospect of sophisticated U.S. military and CIA assets in Ukraine a bit too close for comfort.
Now let’s look at the position of Havana, Cuba relative to Washington D.C., about 1,130 miles away.
The Kennedy administration found the prospect of a Russian missile base in Cuba a bit too close for comfort, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.
I was just reminded of this incident when I saw a Fox News report about Congress being upset about China setting up a signals intelligence facility in Cuba. As House Intel Chairman Rick Crawford put it:
The CCP’s poisonous alliance with Cuba has posed significant threats to U.S. national security for decades," House Intel Chairman Rick Crawford, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. Their alleged involvement in signals intelligence hubs in Cuba is outward, unconcealed adversarial behavior against the U.S. The CCP’s actions are becoming increasingly more bold and thereby detrimental to Western Hemisphere security." . . .
"The PRC is positioning itself to systematically erode U.S. strategic advantages without ever firing a shot," read a letter penned by Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., China Committee Chair John Moolenaar, R-Mich., Transportation and Maritime Security subcommittee Chair Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., and Rep. Sheri Biggs, R-S.C.
"The geographic proximity of suspected PRC-linked facilities in Cuba to sensitive U.S. installations, including Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Kennedy Space Center, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, may enable the PRC to monitor American detection and response capabilities, map electronic profiles of U.S. assets, and prepare the electromagnetic environment for potential future exploitation," the lawmakers wrote.
Naturally, the United States government doesn’t like China—it’s alleged adversary who also happens to be its largest foreign creditor (holding $1.2 trillion of U.S. debt)—having a signals intelligence post so close to the American homeland.
I suspect the Chinese are having fun getting U.S. politicians to make statements like those of Crawford and Green, thereby revealing the astonishing parochialism of the U.S. government.
When it comes to world affairs, the U.S. government maintains the Monroe Doctrine of claiming the entire Western Hemisphere to be an inviolable sphere of U.S. influence.
However, if Vladimir Putin reacts with fear to the U.S. parking CIA and military assets on his border, 500 miles from his capital, that’s just his fault for failing to recognize the “good intentions” of the U.S. government.
Maybe the USSA should STOP THREATENING (like the TERRORIST that it IS) and SANCTIONING, every country on the planet!
Of course, the State Department and the DOD in recent decades have been fully aware of creating the threat that provoked Russia. Interestingly, it was not such provocation that ultimately brought on this war, but rather the shelling of the Russian speaking people of Eastern Ukraine by the Azov (Nazi) Battalion. It would be analogous to D.C. sending waves of Antifa goons to attack Texans year after year and then Mexico, tired of seeing so many Spanish speaking people getting killed, deciding to go to war with D.C.