Dr. Samuel Johnson noted in 1775 that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. The justification then, for some of the harder to understand policies of the current U.S. administration should surprise none when they come flag-wrapped as necessary for the promotion of ‘National Security’. There’s a long historical precedent for this kind of scoundrelly [Yes, a real word, I checked] behavior.
The ‘paper’ this week isn’t research, it’s author appears to be uncredentialled and I’m worried I may be spreading ‘planted’ propaganda.
Having got all that out of the way I’m presenting it as an example of how the notion of ‘National Security’ can be riffed on as being a justification for, well, just about anything if you care to go down this road.
Parker Watts (I believe an undergraduate student) from the Pennsylvania State University attached to the College of Information Sciences and
Technology has produced a 12-page monograph [Apparently endorsed by U. Pen.] on how the U.S must establish hegemony over the semiconductor supply and take the “critical steps towards securing the United States’ semiconductor supply chain and safeguarding its future.”
He struggles to find examples of how bad actors have operated to date: “While direct evidence of such.. hardware tampering remains limited, the hardware industry tends to be wary publicly disclosing security issues in their products.” But gamely suggests it may be happening unreported. Well, sure, possibly.
Before the conclusion he wombles into how Taiwan and Korea, although being friendly to the United States are geographically close to that ‘..multifaceted national security challenge.” AKA China. so there’s no room for complacency about capacity there being safe.
Of course, I get it, and China has promulgated laws and policies in recent years that only appear to tangentially bear on National Security claiming this as a justification for their introduction.
But I was brought up to expect better of the United States.
Who would have thought the Republican Party would be so enthusiastically embracing direct government intervention in corporate affairs, proposing a stake in Intel (and now others) for example, promulgating redistributive economic policy by raiding Nvidia’s (and others it’s also being mooted) profits and becoming the most feared actor in corporate America?
In the context of National Security however it all makes abundantly good sense; perhaps to the scoundrels, not to me.
You can read Mr. Watts’ work in full via this link How Dependence on Chinese Semiconductors Endangers U.S. National Security
Happy Sunday.