By Hugh Murray
After China launched its hypersonic missile in July 2021, one which circled the globe and returned to China to come close to its target, American Gen. Mark Milley called it a “near Sputnik moment.” America had been shocked by the Soviet launch of its first satellite into orbit in 1957, and America's military is similarly stunned by China's rapid advance in hypersonic technology that may be a game changer in the military balance of power. Such missiles, traveling at 5-times the speed of sound, might sink our air-craft carriers before radar could detect, much less destroy, the incoming projectiles. I described this in my previous blog post, a review of Andrei Martyanov's DISINTEGRATION. Here I shall discuss other aspects of this “new” sputnik.
When the original Sputnik first orbited, much of America was truly shocked, as there was massive media coverage of the new moving star in the night sky. In 1957 America was enjoying unheard of prosperity in the history of the world. We were #1. The Great Depression of the 1930s was over; the sacrifices of WWII, the loss of lives, the shortages, the rationing, all seemed to end with Allied victory. The fears of a post-WWII depression proved wrong. True, some like the appliance makers Powel and Lewis Crosley, who in 1920 introduced a cheap radio and soon became the world's largest radio manufacturer, a few years later owned the world's most powerful radio station of 500 thousand watts, and in 1939 introduced a cheap, compact car, sold at department stores. Thinking there might be an economic downturn, Crosley returned to its small, cheap, compact autos after the war while competitors issued larger, more comfortable vehicles. By the early 50s Studebaker introduced its airplane influenced auto (which did not sell well), but the Crosley disappeared. Others added more chrome. Bigger, speedier, with cheap unrationed gas, America was on the go. And real estate developers were attracting them to the new suburbs, combining the airiness of the country with nearness the city with access by the big cars. Pres. Eisenhower, who helped defeat Germany, was impressed by its autobahn. Under Ike the federal government invested huge sums to build a national highway system in America.
Most factories and people transitioned well from armed services and war work to new peace-time employment with good wages. At first, they were rare, expensive, perhaps seen inside a bar or a special place, but prices of the new televisions dropped, soon they were the new entertainment center, and inside the home. Air-conditioning changed the South from people sitting out on the porch, to inside watching TV. Kitchen appliances changed house work, as women who had had their first jobs during the war were replaced by men, but found house work easier. These appliances provided VP Nixon ammunition to defeat Khrushchev in the famous kitchen debate in Moscow. America was clearly #1, and living better then any other people in the history of the world.
While all of this was happening, our image of Russia and the USSR was of the dark, dreary, poor dictatorship, backward in everything – except weapons, propaganda, brainwashing, and spying. The only reason they had the A bomb and H bombs was because spies had given them our secrets. The Russians surely could not have done it on their own, Americans concluded.
This is why Sputnik 1957 was such a shock. How could they steal this from us, if we did not have it at all? How could a land of shoddy, simple products beat the US into space? It made no sense. Then, the first explanation – it was the Germans, the German scientists captured after WWII and taken to the Soviet Union, it was they who gave the Russians the ideas and technology to create Sputnik. When America responded by placing in orbit a tiny baseball sized satellite, an American cartoonist portrayed the 2 satellites passing each other in space, and speaking to each other in German. Of course, one of the leaders of the American space program was Werner von Braun who had helped develop the V-1 and V-2 rockets for the Reich.
Americans quickly realized we were in a new area of competition with the Soviets – space. And we were behind. America responded. Schools placed more emphasis on math and science, universities gave more scholarships in these fields. Nerds gained esteem. Politicians got in the act, and in the 1960 Presidential debate between Nixon and John Kennedy, the Democrat accused the Republicans of allowing a missile gap to develop. (It may not have been true, but after Sputnik, it was credible). Kennedy won, and promised America that we would be first to the Moon. And in 1969, just 12 years after beginning late and behind, America landed a man on the Moon; we won the race.
By contrast, the Chinese hypersonic missile feat of 2021 has received little publicity in America. And it is not just the news of 2021. On 7 March 2022 Tony Capaccio wrote for Bloomberg News, “U.S. Efforts to catch up with China and Russia in developing hypersonic weapons may be set back after Lockheed Martin Corporation's air-launched missile suffered 3 consecutive test failures that left it on a tight schedule.”
On 1 December 2021, when VP Kamala Harris addressed the new Space Force, she stressed that the new priority should be, nothing to do with hypersonic weapons, but climate change. She also wanted to get more students into the STEM courses.
But unlike the 1950s, can America's new educational establishment accommodate getting the best students into STEM?
At a recent televised press conference of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, one player declared how proud he was of the diversity there as he looked to the others being filmed. They were all black players. Diversity once met varied, but in some areas of America now, it means people of color, or simply blacks. The left proclaims Diversity is Our Strength. If it were an all-black squad, this would violate the rules set by government in other areas of life, like the workplace and university enrollment. To the government, diversity is quotas in one form or another promoting proportionality in most fields. Should quotas be enforced to require diversity on basketball teams? Whites are still a majority nationally. So each major basketball team should have a majority of white players. About 20% Hispanic, 14% Black, and about 6% Asian. If this were required of all basketball and football teams, would it improve the play of the teams? Their standing? Each team would decline in skills and play as diversity was imposed.
So why do we play this quota game in corporations, and especially at major universities? And even more and more in the STEM departments?. Do you think this will improve those departments? Make them more able to catch up with China? In the 1950s, universities were allowed to choose the best qualified students. Any could apply at some excellent schools, and most accepted were white males. And America got to the Moon before the Soviets. Filling seats in hard subjects with lesser qualified candidates, simply because they are black, Hispanic, trans, women, Amerindians, deprives the department of the best qualified, and will result in resentment by the quota people who cannot follow what is happening, and encourage racism and sexism in the truly qualified, who observe that some quota hires cannot keep up.
If America wants to win the hypersonic race with China and Russia, we should engage with our best performers, not those who did poorly but fit the race or gender requirements of our politically correct comisars. Racial and gender favoritisms holds America back. And we are in a serious race for survival. Restore merit and the color blind ideal; end racial and gender quotas, preferences, disparate impact law, diversity, and equity. Those are all terms for racial and gender discrimination. If we return to merit, we have a chance against Russia and China. We have a chance to win.
Why is the new hypersonic Sputnik important?
The perfect storm may be on the horizon. From the time of the Nixon and Kissinger trip to “open” China in 1972, a major objective of American foreign policy has been to split the USSR and China. Russia and China surely had their differences, so generally the American policy was successful, until recent years. With the fall of the wall, the Soviets withdrew its forces from the east European nations and the West pledged not to expand NATO beyond the Elbe River. However, NATO did expand to Poland and other former members of the Warsaw Pact. As the book RED HANDED shows, many influential American politicians were less worried about China, because they were being heavily bribed, directly or indirectly. The Biden family had received a large sum, through Joe's son Hunter, from the Ukraine. When Putin invaded the Ukraine in 2022, Pres. Biden and the West strongly favored Ukraine.
Before the invasion, Putin attended the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in February 2022. He may have dozed for part of the event, but the visual was the reality – Russia and China stood together. American policy of keeping them apart seems to have failed. China is still not condemning Putin's thrust into Ukraine. Ukraine as a distant nation means little to the United States. Even if Russia would annex all of it, that would not change the balance of power. But America needs Taiwan to remain independent from mainland China. Taiwan has only been a part of mainland control for about 2 years since 1894. China sees Taiwan as part of its territory, and America agreed to a one-China policy when Nixon went to China and Carter confirmed it later in the 1970s. We divided China from Russia, but at the same time we were seemingly pulling the rug that held up the island nation, abandoning Taiwan to the mainland.
In recent years China made vast claims on the South China Sea, built up islands there and militarized them. China overtly threatens the Philippines and Vietnam and other nations on that sea. There is a string on non-Communist nations, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, and then down to Australia and New Zealand. If Taiwan falls to Communist China, the chain is broken. If Taiwan falls, it is a main producer of computer chips, and our production of many products will be disrupted. If Taiwan falls, it will be treated as Hong Kong, with no democratic freedoms. Even though legally, we may have a weaker case, militarily, we must not let it fall to the repressive Chinese Communist Party.
The new Putin-Xi alliance makes it more difficult to contemplate a war we may have to fight – for Taiwan and for free Asia, and for ourselves. Ukraine will not change the balance of power much either way. Taiwan will. Many of our politicians are bought by Beijing. Will we be prepared for the storm that is coming?