Verbatim

Bursting Balloon!

I am not aware of any ‘fleet of balloons’. … That narrative is probably part of the information and public opinion warfare the U.S. has waged on China.Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mao Ning.

At what point do we say a … spy balloon coming from China is a threat to our sovereignty? It should be the moment it crosses the line, and that line is Alaska.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

Win, Place, Show

We thought this was the second-best military in the world, and it turns out they’re not even the second-best military in the former Soviet Union.Kori Schake, American Enterprise Institute, on Russia’s performance in Ukraine, speaking on a Council on Foreign relations webcast with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall [Jan. 11].

So, You’re Saying There’s a Chance?

They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us HIMARS systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get.Yuriy Sak, adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov [Reuters, Jan. 25].

Materiel Chain

We say ‘supply chain,’ we say ‘kill chain’; I like networks and fabrics, [because] chains are only as good as the weakest link. … Many of these systems are going to need a long-term investment.Gen. James C. McConville, U.S. Army Chief of Staff stating that the U.S. must invest in long-term defense because Russia ‘is not done’ [Breaking Defense, Jan. 19].

I, Robot

While it’s obviously not a military system, per se, I think that growing exposure of these kinds of incidental, often corporate-driven enterprises is really raising the awareness of what can go right and what can go wrong with these tools.Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Stephen Wallace on the new ChatGPT [Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer] technology, which  produces human-like conversations and content  [Defense News, Jan. 26]. 

Mature for Our Age

We’re not standing up the Space Force anymore, although there’s probably still some work. … We’re here. Now it’s time to deliver, to build capabilities, start producing on some of the promises that we’ve laid out. … We are going to have resilient, ready combat credible forces … amplify the Guardian spirit … and [strengthen] rich partnerships based on mutual trust, mutual benefit.Chief of Space Operations, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman on the Space Force’s priorities described in three lines of effort [Inside Defense, Jan. 24].

Nightmares

It keeps you up at night. It keeps you up in the day. It keeps you up most of the time.Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., comment on increasing Chinese aggression against his nation in the South China Sea [Washington Post, Jan. 31].