Less Pilot Training, but TTPs

interrogation by other means

A lot of the reports on this story seem to be focused on the pilot training aspect of this, and … that is just plain missing the story.

There is a lot more here than just, “pilot training” - and much more dangerous. The PRC is a big nation with a big military. Basic pilot training is not all that difficult. I really doubt they are short instructor pilots - and neither should any retired military pilots.

There is a reason that for two decades we have discussed here the absolute strategic stupidity on our part allowing People’s Republic of China (PRC) passport holders to take so many of the post-graduate and doctoral position at our best research institutions of higher learning. They are almost all directly or indirectly under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

If you have not been to a graduation ceremony at a top-tier STEM university in the last 10 years, you cannot fully appreciate the absolute state of it all.

Admissions to the best positions at our best universities is a zero-sum game. Each bran you improve for the CCP is one less brain improved for the USA.

The PRC is not content with simple business snooping, military espionage, and wholesale intellectual capital theft. No … that is just a small part of a larger play.

They want to understand HOW we think, HOW we work, and the mechanisms and procedures we will use to fight. That way, they can copy what looks good - adopting without cost decades of trial and error development - and also have a better view of critical capabilities, vulnerabilities, etc.

Before I dive in to a 3,000-word Operational Planning overview - if you are not familiar with Vulnerability Assessment (I prefer this term now as the Cultural Marxists have ruined the phrase “Critical Analysis”), I’d like you to at least read RAND’s “Vulnerability Assessment Method Pocket Guide: A Tool for Center of Gravity Analysis”. If you have time, also look over Dr. Joe Strange, USMC War College, and Colonel Richard Iron, GBR A’s, “Understanding Centers of Gravity and Critical Vulnerabilities“ over at Australia’s The Forge, and then come back.

This should give you insight as to why the below would be of such value to the PRC and of such concern to the Five-Eyes nations;

China is continuing efforts to recruit Western military pilots to train its forces, often using privately-owned companies and “lucrative contracts” with vague terms to obscure the true customer.

That is the conclusion of a dossier released on 5 June by the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance, an intelligence sharing and collaboration partnership between the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

While China’s efforts to use the expertise of Western aviators to benefit its own armed forces are not new, the intelligence summary offers new details about the programme.

“To overcome their shortcomings, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been aggressively recruiting Western military talent to train their aviators, using private firms around the globe that conceal their PLA ties and offer recruits exorbitant salaries,” says Michael Casey, director of the US National Counter Intelligence and Security Center.

Read the full dossier and then come back. It’s just a couple of pages. Yes, I know, I’m giving out a lot of homework, but this is more important than is being led on.

The PLA wants the skills and expertise of these individuals to make its own military air operations more capable while gaining insight into Western air tactics, techniques, and procedures.

They are after our intellectual property, and they will pay handsomely for it.

Why make the effort to recruit serving officers as spies when you can simply buy their brains after they retire?

How do you counter this?

One action Five-Eyes should look at is the peer-pressure aspect of most people in aviation. I am sure they know who is working for these PRC front companies and allowing their honor to be purchased.

Name them and shame them. That would help put a disincentive in play while the law catches up. Give them 2-weeks notice they are going to be named, and if they stay, well, that’s on them.

Just an idea.