MrG's Blog & Notes

* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with weekly entries collected by month.

[MON 06 JUN 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 23

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Billionaire Elon Musk has been working hard at attracting attention as of late, notably working to take over Twitter and restore "freedom of speech" -- a concept that he doesn't quite seem to understand.

Less noticed has been the usefulness of the SpaceX Starlink "internet in the sky" satellite constellation. Musk has made no secret of SpaceX sending large numbers of Starlink terminals to Ukraine, with company officials downplaying US government support of the Starlink network. Actually, inspection of government contracts show the Feds are deeply involved in the effort; SpaceX may be simply trying to keep government support under the radar. In March 2022 Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian minister of digital transformation, said over a Starlink connection: "We are using thousands, in the area of thousands, of terminals with new shipments arriving every other day."

It is estimated that Ukraine has over 10,000 Starlink terminals. It is not entirely clear just how far Ukrainian exploitation of Starlink goes. Are they using it to support tactical networks? They could use it to provide datalinks to long-range drones for pinprick attacks deep inside Russia. It is known that Russia has tried to jam Starlink, but so far SpaceX engineers have kept ahead of them. The Kremlin has complained -- as always -- and said that Musk would be "held accountable".

The Chinese have taken notice of the utility of Starlink, with a paper released by a research group under by Ren Yuanzhen -- a researcher with the Beijing Institute of Tracking and Telecommunications funded by the Chinese state -- suggesting that China develop a capability to defeat Starlink: "A combination of soft and hard kill methods should be adopted to make some Starlink satellites lose their functionality and destroy the constellation's operating system."

The paper noted that the US military has a strong interest in Starlink: "In May 2020, the US Army signed an agreement with SpaceX on the use of Starlink's broadband to transmit data across military networks; in October 2020, SpaceX won a USD 150-million contract to develop military-use satellites; in March 2021, it announced its plan to work with the US Air Force to further test the Starlink Internet."

* Yeah, good luck with that: the Chinese are launching similar constellations, and any actions taken against Starlink could readily be taken against Chinese satellites. China is now starting to be seen as something of a paper dragon: a decade ago, Chinese ambitions and capabilities seemed open-ended, but now the capabilities seem less impressive.

As a major case in point, an article from ECONOMIST.com ("Not So Spooky", 1 June 2022), points out that while Chinese intelligence is good at hacking and harassing dissidents, it leaves much to be desired in other areas. After Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing on a cordial visit on 4 February 2022, the Chinese didn't seem to be aware that the invasion of Ukraine was imminent. When it came off three weeks later, there were no plans in place to rescue Chinese citizens in Ukraine.

China's embassy first advised them to stay at home or fix a Chinese flag "on an obvious place on your car". It quickly became apparent that was not a good idea, since China's support for the invasion unsurprisingly caused resentment of Chinese among Ukrainians. A few days later, the embassy announced: "Don't show your identity or display identifying symbols." More profoundly, Chinese diplomats struggled to create a coherent position, having been particularly surprised at Ukrainian resistance to Russia and at Western support for Ukraine. It was clear nobody had thought anything out. Before the war, a foreign diplomat in Beijing recalls Chinese contacts naively telling him they had limited understanding of Central and Eastern Europe, but were fortunate to have the Russians to explain it for them.

True, China has certainly expanded its espionage activities and capabilities in recent years. Much of that has focused on stealing technology in industries it seeks to dominate, such as robotics, aerospace and biopharma. Chris Wray, the director of the US FBI, said early in 2022 that his agents open a China-related counter-intelligence case roughly every 12 hours -- adding that China's cyber-espionage activities are especially brazen, outstripping those of all other countries combined.

China has got better at human intelligence as well. Some American officials blame a Chinese mole -- as well as a compromised communication system -- for the jailing or execution of many CIA sources in China between 2010 and 2012. China's spies have moved beyond the ethnic-Chinese sources they used to rely on, often using stolen data to identify those with vulnerabilities, and making approaches via LinkedIn and other social media. China has also escalated efforts to secure political influence in democracies, often by offering funding or perks to politicians -- although that's usually done through a Communist Party branch called the United Front Work Department, not its spy agencies.

Still, China's global interests have been expanding so rapidly that its intelligence service has been struggling to keep up with an overwhelming torrent of data that is very difficult to sift through. Peter Mattis, a former CIA analyst who is now at the Special Competitive Studies Project, an NGO in Virginia, says: "If you're searching through massive data, your results are only as good as your queries."

The Chinese have not been much good at analysis of the data they have -- partly because they work for an authoritarian bureaucracy, where they may not feel free to tell their superiors what they don't want to hear. They are also not good at recruiting significant foreign sources, and their operational "tradecraft" is weak, with operatives hardly concealing their activities. In 2021, China suffered an embarrassment when Afghanistan expelled about a dozen suspected Chinese spies. The Chinese have particular problems with spying on Russia. The two countries are not natural allies, having clashed in the past, and China is not tightly economically integrated with Russia.

In any case, Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to be making significant decisions on the basis of dodgy intelligence. It is not clear if the root cause is the information itself, the analysis applied, or how it is communicated to China's leaders -- but the results might be calamitous for China. In particular, suppose China decides to take military action against Taiwan. The Chinese do have intelligence sources there, but they are generally pro-unification people with little access to the Taipei government. In such a crisis, Chinese intelligence might not have any good idea of what the USA would do. Worse, even if they did, would they tell Xi things that he didn't want to hear?

* Along with Starlink, even as Russia is pressing Ukraine to the limits in the Donbas region, the US and NATO are providing more formidable weapons:

• Shore-launched US-made Harpoon antiship missiles.
  
  
• Various sorts of self-propelled "shoot & scoot" 155-millimeter guns. It is not clear if Ukraine is obtaining rocket-boosted GPS-guided 155-mm rounds along with them.
  
  
• US-made Gray Eagle drones, the Gray Eagle being an improved Predator -- not as formidable as the US-made Reaper, but with a bigger warload than the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones currently starring in the Ukraine drone arsenal. It is also not clear if the Ukrainians have loitering antiradar drones, to keep Russian air defenses blind against the Bayraktars and Gray Eagles, but they would seem to be a necessity.
  
  
• Most significant, US-made HIMARS wheeled launchers for GPS-guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles. The GMLRS can handily outrange Russian artillery, is very accurate, and hits very hard.

These weapons need to be in service yesterday, but it takes time to get them to Ukraine, train crews to operate and maintain them, and so on. It will be interesting to see what happens when they get up to speed.

US President Joe Biden is doing all he can to support Ukraine, even as he is erroneously criticized for dragging his feet, and talk circulates in the background of Ukraine accepting a cease-fire agreement. Ridiculous; Vladimir Putin simply wants to erase the Ukrainian state and national identity, with a cease-fire doing nothing more than giving him time to refit and re-arm, to continue the war later. A cease-fire would absolutely not be in Ukrainian interests, and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy has made it clear that, as far as he's concerned, Russians will be driven from Ukraine, end of story.

The US Right, particularly Donald Trump, only gives lip service to supporting the war in Ukraine, with Trump flatly saying that the US shouldn't help, and early on even congratulating Putin on the invasion. The Right has tried to use the war against Joe Biden, accusing him of doing a bad job. In a recent interview, a reporter from Rightist propaganda channel Newsmax asked Zelenskyy if, in so many words, Putin would not have attacked Ukraine had Trump been re-elected.

Of course, that is a completely unanswerable question -- and given Trump's gaslight messaging on Ukraine, his outspoken contempt for NATO, and his clear fondness for Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy had no reason to take the question seriously. He also had no reason to get involved in American political squabbling; he neatly sidelined the question, first praising Joe Biden for his support, but saying it was the American people who were supporting Ukraine, and that any American government would need to carry out the will of the people:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Zelenskyy, of course, knows Trump cannot be trusted. Anyone caring to read an oblique slam on Trump in Zelenskyy's comments can feel free to do so.

* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("US Begins Production Of Its Latest Air-Dropped Nuclear Munition" by David Szondy, 09 December 2021), the latest version of the venerable B61 "Silver Bullet" nuclear bomb is now in production, the first "B61-12 Life Extension Program First Production Unit" having been rolled out, towards a total production of 400 to 500 units.

The B61 has been America's primary air-dropped nuclear bomb since it was deployed in 1968. Unlike the larger strategic B83 bomb, it can not only be carried by heavy bombers like the B-52 and the B-2, but also by strike aircraft flown by the US Air Force and NATO allies.

There are currently four versions of the B61: the 3, 4, 7, and 11. The first three are tactical weapons, the 11 is a strategic weapon, but they share a variable-yield design that gives them a yield from 0.3 to 340 kilotons of TNT as desired. They can carry a variety of fuses and can either drop on a ballistic arc, or retard their forward flight by using air drag to drop almost straight down.

However, these variants are obsolete and becoming decrepit. The Pentagon is now updating them to the "B61-12" variant. It will replace three of the older B61 variants, as well as the 1-megaton-yield B83. Such an overpowered weapon never made much sense; even a yield of a few hundred kilotons is an order of magnitude more than that of the bombs dropped on Japan. In addition, the B61 is a guided munition, with a Boeing Tailkit Assembly, and the ability to precisely target it means that its yield can be limited to the range of 0.3 to 50 kilotons.

The B61-12 will enter service in 2022, with the last delivered in 2026. Each weighs about 320 kilograms (2026), and they can be carried by almost all US bombers and attack aircraft.

[MON 13 JUN 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 24

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The first hearing of the House 1-6 Capitol riot commission was this last week, which was history in the making. Actually, there was a hearing at the outset, focusing on the Capitol Police, but that was just a prologue.

GOP Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming was in the spotlight, saying:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

The committee provided an outline of Trump's "sophisticated seven-part plan":

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Testimony from Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr was presented, flatly rejecting Trump's claims of election fraud:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Trump's daughter Ivanka was also cited saying that it was obvious Trump had lost the election. The hearings may well be an inflection point, as Trump's fans tire of him and the weight of evidence against him piles up. Much has been said about Cheney's dim prospects in the fall election -- but though she may have reversals, they are likely to be only temporary. At the start of the hearing, Cheney threw down the gauntlet to the MAGA in the GOP:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

As the saying goes: By being in the rear of the advance, you can be in the forefront of the retreat. Might she be president one of these days?

* For myself, I'm not paying that much attention to the hearings. I know what's coming down; I'm less interested in what will be said than I am in who says it. I can keep up by watching video clips on Youtube.

There was commentary that the committee would pressure the Department of Justice to take action on Trump. Not really: Trump committed the biggest political crime in US history, and is the target of a proportionally huge DOJ investigation. The House investigation is handy to the DOJ in some ways, notably in sweeping aside Republican political resistance to the investigation of Trump -- but, since the DOJ does not and cannot conduct investigations in public, the 1-6 committee investigation has to be kept at arm's length.

Trump's lawyers are certain to argue in his (inevitable) trial that the House investigation means he can't get an unbiased trial; the DOJ can see that trap and is not going to fall into it. There is no reason to believe the DOJ investigation would go much differently whether there was a House investigation or not. Certainly, Attorney General Merrick Garland is under no public pressure to take action, because he's not an elected official. He's under pressure, but it's independent of what the voters think.

Interestingly, there is little evidence of obstructionism from the GOP in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has never made any secret of his dismissive attitude toward Trump. McConnell has no problem with Trump being taken down, as long as his own hands are clean in the matter. I suspect he has a tacit deal with the committee: ~"I'll make sure Senate GOP keep their mouths shut, and you don't need to concern yourself with them." Sounds like a deal.

In any case, the DOJ needs to hit Trump with everything they can throw at him, for two reasons: they want to make sure Trump doesn't get away, and they want to make sure that no other clown tries to pull any of Trump's stunts ever again. One of the things about a crushing case against Trump is that he may be encouraged to cop a plea, which would mean no troublesome trial. In addition, a GUILTY plea from Trump would undercut all the lies generated in his defense. However, we shall see about that.

* The war in Ukraine grinds on brutally, with heavy casualties on both sides in the battle for the Donbas region. Ukraine is waiting on guided multiple-launch rocket system (GMLRS) launchers and missiles, which are precision-guided weapons that hit hard and outrange Russian artillery. They have 90-kilogram (200-pound) warheads with 160,000 tungsten pellets, which would likely clear a target area at least out to 30 meters (100 feet). The delay in getting the GMLRS launchers into service is clearly due to logistics and training. There's a lot of impatience among the Twitter public at the delays, but the weapons pipeline to Ukraine can only handle so much so fast.

I've been following one Thomas C. Theimer on Twitter, the fellow being ex-Italian Army field artillery, now working in video in Austria and Ukraine. He points out that the sophisticated digital control systems normally fitted to Western artillery have been removed from weapons provided to Ukraine, one reason being that they can't fall into Russian hands.

The other reason is that the Ukrainians have their own sophisticated "geospatial information system (GIS)" named "Arta", developed by Ukrainian programmers in cooperation with British GIS firms. Using tablets and smartphones, Ukrainian troops can get real-time information on enemy dispositions, and precisely target them. It has been hooked up to the Starlink satellite constellation for wide-area use. The system integration is likely far from perfect, but it would not help the Ukrainians to have weapons not integrated into their own systems.

* As discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Microbes Are Siphoning Massive Amounts Of Carbon From Earth's Tectonic Plates" by Raleigh McElvery, 22 April 2021) it is well-known that microorganisms live deep into the Earth, but not much is known about them. Research now suggests the "deep life" is accumulating carbon from the upper world to support its existence, with the prospect that it could release it back again into the upper world.

Along with the atmospheric carbon cycle, there is also a "deep" carbon cycle, that operates on a much longer time period, of hundreds of millions of years. Slabs of ocean crust flow into the Earth's mantle at subduction zones, hauling carbon down with them for long-term storage in the mantle. Some of this carbon, dissolved in rising blobs of magma and gasses, is then re-emitted from volcanoes. However, much of the carbon isn't emitted by volcanoes, and researchers aren't sure why.

They found some of the missing carbon in 2017, when they inspected gases and fluids bubbling up from more than 20 hot springs in Costa Rica. The springs were 40 to 120 kilometers (25 to 75 miles) above the subduction zone where the Cocos Plate dives beneath Central America. It turns out that some of the CO2 pulled down with the descending plate is transformed into rock, and never reaches the deep mantle or the atmosphere -- but there were also hints that more CO2 was being siphoned off the plate than rock formation alone could explain.

The ratio of carbon isotopes in the samples suggested microbes are trapping the CO2 from the descending plate and turning it into organic carbon to "feed" and grow their own community. In fact, the researchers found many bacteria in their hot spring samples that had the genes necessary for such a chemical reaction. If that's how things really work, microbes under this small swath of Costa Rica could be sequestering enough carbon each year to total the mass of from 650 to 6500 blue whales.

According to the researchers, these microbes could be sequestering 2% to 22% of the carbon previously thought to reach the deep mantle. By keeping carbon close to the surface, where it is likely to eventually percolate up and re-enter the atmosphere, the microbes could be helping warm the planet over the long term -- not much at the 2% end, substantially at the 22% end. The researchers also found evidence for a second group of microbes that live off the organic leftovers of the carbon-sequestering bacteria. The researchers suspect similar activity is taking place in other subduction zones all over the world.

[MON 20 JUN 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 25

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from FORTUNE.com ("Russia Is Failing in Ukraine" by Chloe Taylor, 17 June 2022) Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, head of British armed forces, said in an interview that Russia has "strategically lost" the war in Ukraine and is a "more diminished power" as a result of the invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin had wrecked a quarter of his army, to achieve only "tiny" gains:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Chris Tuck, a reader in strategic studies at King's College London, said that although Russian forces were having some tactical successes in limited areas, such as the eastern city of Severodonetsk, strategically the invasion of Ukraine has been "a disaster for Putin and Russia." Tuck said that Radakin's comments were intended to put the war into perspective:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Jonathan Eyal -- associate director of strategic research partnerships at defense think tank the Royal United Services Institute -- said that ultimately, Putin's strategic objective in Ukraine was to re-create the old Soviet Empire by reimposing control over Ukraine:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Putin now makes little secret of his hegemonistic ambitions, comparing himself to Peter the Great. Eyal is very correct that an independent, democratic Ukraine is a challenge to Russian influence, exerting counter-influence on neighboring Belarus and Georgia, with carry-on effects to the "Stans" to the east.

* The Ukrainians are fighting for national survival, and have no choice but to fight. There are 44 million Ukrainians; Ukraine could raise an army of 2 million men, assuming they can be trained and supplied, and for the time being are being heavily supported. Ukraine could suffer a half-million, even a million casualties, and accept it, however unhappily.

In the worst case, if Russia were to overrun all of Ukraine, there would be too few Russian troops to hold down a big country, in the face of a huge insurgency -- it would be Afghanistan x 10+. It might take a decade, but the Russians would be driven out; any puppet government they left behind would fall immediately. In reality, the Russians can't come close to overrunning Ukraine and are struggling to make gains, apparently scraping the bottom of the barrel to do so. The Ukrainians are getting new weapons, and the chances are good that the Russians will lose the narrow edge that they have now.

The biggest factor at present is the imminent arrival of GPS-guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) launchers and rockets, mentioned last week. A first batch of Ukrainian crews have been trained to use GMLRS launchers, and they are likely to go into action soon. Assuming the Ukrainians can build up mass quickly on GMLRS, the Russians will be in big trouble.

Even better weapons will follow. There's been a lot of fuss in the media about the seeming "reluctance" of some NATO leaders to support Ukraine, but it appears there's an element of disinformation in that, to confuse Putin. The delays in getting weapons to the Ukrainians are likely more due to the limited capacity of the pipeline to the country, forcing considerations of the most appropriate weapons to send. Does Ukraine need more MiG-29s? No, it needs Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile interceptors -- and it takes months to train people to use them. It is not quick or easy to modernize an army, and it is extremely difficult to do it while that army is heavily engaged with an enemy.

Might the war really last a long time? It might -- but then again, if the Russians collapse, it will happen without much warning.

* The House 1-6 Committee hearings have been continuing, with interesting revelations. The general structure of Trump's clown-car election conspiracy have been clear, but some of the details are fascinating. One of the latest concerns John Eastman, a lawyer who came up with the nutcase plan to have Vice President Mike Pence overturn the election. Of course, Pence knew that was unworkable and refused to do it; the surprising part is that, according to testimony, even Eastman knew his scheme was legally preposterous. It was just a classic Trump exercise: sow chaos and then exploit it. That generally worked for Trump in the past, but now he's in too deep. The only thing that could be said for the plot was that it made investigation very complicated, in part because the scheme seems too crazy to be believed.

In the meantime, MAGA Twitter trolls are attempting to undermine the committee hearings -- one common approach being that America has other things to worry about, so we should forget about Trump's coup. Not gonna happen! Trump committed the biggest political crime, created the biggest political conspiracy, in US history, with an investigation of comparable size as a result. Of course it's taking a long time, the case is extremely complicated and involves thousands of players. It cannot be resolved quickly.

In much the same way, Kremlin Twitter trolls are working to undermine support for the war in Ukraine -- one common approach being to say that the Ukrainians are merely pawns in a proxy war of the US and NATO against Russia. Do they think that anyone believes them? Probably not; they're just getting paid and don't care; or maybe they like being annoying.

* As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("Eyes In The Ice", 31 July 2021), during the Cold War the US and Canada collaborated to built a radar screen, the "Distant Early Warning (DEW)" network, to protect the northern approaches to North America. As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("North America's Arctic Radar Shield Is Due For An Upgrade", 31 July 2021),

The DEW line was built in the 1950s at great expense, stretching across 5,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of northlands, under the direction of the joint Canadian-American "North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)" in Colorado. The DEW line was updated in the late 1980s,

The DEW line was updated in the late 1980s, creating the "New Warning System (NWS)". Now the two countries are considering another update. This is not simple. One problem is the changing nature of threats. The DEW line was primarily intended to spot ICBMs, which fly through the near-space environment and are easily spotted by radar; the NWS was to deal with low-flying cruise missiles as well. Modern Russian air-launched cruise missiles fly faster and farther, which means that the bombers which carry them must be spotted at greater distance.

The collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in 2019 means that Russia could also deploy ground-based cruise missiles in the Arctic. New hypersonic gliders, with the speed of ballistic missiles and the maneuverability of cruise missiles, could fly around the NWS.

The far north environment is also not easy to work in. Most of the NWS is uninhabited, with automated stations that are occasionally visited for service. They may be frozen up, with service crews having to hammer their way in. Polar bears are not unusual. In addition, the radar stations are built on land populated by the Inuit and other indigenous peoples -- and the policy of the current Canadian government is to consult with the locals before using their lands for military purposes. That was not always the case, but the Inuit are supportive of NWS. The Canadian Rangers, an army unit whose personnel are largely indigenous people, inspect many of the most desolate sites.

Finally, there is the question of money: the update could cost as much as $11 billion USD, with the US and Canada not seeing perfectly eye-to-eye on many issues -- though the disagreements are not as visible now as they were during the Trump Administration. That leads to the question of how much the NWS needs to be updated. Does North America really need a ground-based radar net? Or does the job migrate towards radars on ships, planes, blimps, and notably satellites? Maybe a space-based solution is the real answer, with a fleet of drones as a backup. The matter remains under discussion.

[MON 27 JUN 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 26

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Ukrainian forces have been pushed back by a plodding, wasteful Russian ground offensive for weeks. The Ukrainians were waiting to get GMLRS rocket launchers; it was announced a week ago that Ukrainian crews had been trained for them, meaning their arrival was imminent.

Late this last week, it was announced that GMLRS launchers had arrived. By nightfall in Ukraine, reports were starting to filter out of hammer blows on Russian positions, and panic among the Russians. Twitter was buzzing:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

For now, not much filtering back on GMLRS from the frontlines. I did have to mention on Twitter: "MLRS: Massive Losses of RU Soldiers" I also had to add on Twitter that I felt a little guilty about enjoying videos of Russian soldiers being blown to bits. "But not very much."

* The big news back in the USA this last week was that, as expected, the Supreme Court overturned the ROE V. WADE decision that guaranteed the right of American women to an abortion. It is now to be left up to the states.

Of course, a huge fuss promptly arose, though so far it hasn't turned violent. For myself, I'm going to wait and see. I have no sympathy with the "no-choice" gang -- if primarily on the basis that enforcing laws against abortion is legally preposterous, being necessarily heavy-handed and intrusive. However, I'm also certain that, though the no-choice gang has won a battle, they will lose the war. They don't have the numbers, and the global drift is against them. It's just a question of how long it will take.

It might not take that long. There will obviously be a push in Congress for a national reproductive-rights act; whether it will get through the Senate is a completely open question. One encouraging sign is that the Senate actually passed a gun-control act this last week, with Republican support. It's a very weak bill, but nonetheless significant, in that a number of GOP senators finally expressed an interest in governing and not pandering to the Rightnut fringe. What is also encouraging is that there can't be a "weak" reproductive rights act: one is either for it or against it, and there's no finessing it. We'll see what happens.

* Across the Pond, after six years Brexit -- Britain's exit from the EU -- hasn't found its footing. As discussed in an essay from ECONOMIST.com ("The Case for a Softer Brexit Is Clear. How to Get One Is Not", 23 June 2022), Brexiters were jubilant in 2016 when they won the referendum, believing they could have their cake and eat it too. Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the European Council at the time, saw clearly that was fantasy, replying in his dry way: "There will be no cakes on the table. For anyone. There will be only salt and vinegar."

Now it's 2022, with Britain and the EU bitterly at loggerheads over a "hard border" between the two Irelands. Studies suggest that Brexit cost the UK over 5% of GDP, and raised food prices by 6%. Remainers are becoming more assertive, while even pro-Brexit newspaper columnists, having been mugged by reality, call for a softer line with Brussels.

Alas, the solutions are not obvious. Brexit is not going to be revoked. Should Labour return to power, which is very possible, it would not be difficult to establish a set of deals to improve cultural relations with the EU and cooperate in EU efforts, but resetting the clock on economic cooperation would not be easy. There's a push to adopt the "Norway Solution" -- to be a member of the EU single market, but not an EU member. Unfortunately, that could be seen as the worst of all worlds: canceling Brexit, but being forced to agree to EU regulations with no say in them.

The other answer, is the "Swiss Solution", to not be a member of the EU single market, but to have a matrix of agreements establishing the order between the UK and the EU. The difficulty there is that the Swiss were building up those agreements in parallel with the emergence of the EU, while the UK would take a long time to even get to the basics. The UK would also find it hard to get substantial concessions from the EU without making substantial ones in return. When Britain was part of the EU, the EU made extraordinary concessions to keep the UK happy, but now getting good deals will be hard.

In sum, Britain doesn't have cake, period. Remainers are justified in believing that Brexit has turned out as bad as they expected it would be. That doesn't make the cold reality any easier to swallow.

* While tech news tends to focus on flashy gimmickry, in reality the ecology of modern tech is dominated by mundane items. As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("How a Cheap Component Could Help Kill Off Combustion Cars" by Nick Carey & Christina Amann, 30 May 2022), one good example is the humble wiring harness, used to electrically connect the elements of autos and other systems.

The wire harness is a low-cost, low-tech product, being insulated wires with connectors and ties, assembly being dependent on manual labor. Ukraine is a major supplier of harnesses, with the supply being disrupted by the war there. Ukrainian workers did what they could to keep the supplies going, in the face of power cuts, missile attacks, and curfews.

Industry observers believe the supply crunch could accelerate the transition to a new generation of lighter, machine-made harnesses designed for electric vehicles (EV). However, for the time being auto-makers have obtained other sources of supply. Mercedes-Benz, for example, was able to fly in harnesses from Mexico during a brief supply gap. Some Japanese suppliers are adding capacity in Morocco, while others have sought new production lines in countries including Tunisia, Poland, Serbia, and Romania.

Harnesses for fossil-fuel cars bundle together cables stretching a total of to 5 kilometers (3 miles), connecting everything from seat heaters to windows. Not only are they labor-intensive to make, almost every model is unique, so it takes time to get up to speed on a new harness.

Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Bentley, said the British luxury carmaker had first feared losing a third of its car production for 2022 from the harness shortage. "The Ukraine crisis threatened to close our factory fully for several months, much longer than we did for COVID."

Hallmark said finding alternative production sources was complicated by the fact the harnesses themselves had 10 different parts from 10 different suppliers in Ukraine. He added that the supply problem had encouraged Bentley, now a division of Volkswagen, to develop a simple harness for EVs that will be run by a central computer. Bentley plans to have a pure-electric lineup by 2030. He says that EVs have a "completely different concept of wiring ... It's a fundamental change in the way that we design cars."

The new zonal or modular harnesses are split into six to eight parts, short enough for automation in assembly and reducing complexity. They are also lighter, helping improve the range of electric cars. CelLink, a company founded in 2011 to provide flex circuits for the solar, LED, and battery industries, is now building a harness plant in Texas that will have 25 automated production lines. All the designs produced will be described in digital files, with a production line able to switch to a new design in ten minutes.

Many industry officials and experts don't believe that fossil-fuel cars will be around long enough to make improving the harness schemes used in them to be worth the bother. Michigan-based auto consultant Sandy Munro, who estimates EVs will make up half of global new car sales by 2028, says: "I wouldn't put a penny into internal combustion engines now. The future is coming up awful fast."