by
Austin BayApril 30, 2025
On April 28, a critical "instability" disrupted electrical power grids in Spain, Portugal and parts of France. Extensive blackouts lasted for hours.
Initial reports speculated over-reliance on intermittent wind and solar electrical technologies share part of the blame.
Whatever the cause, the widespread power loss in three first-world nations is another lesson in the vulnerability of modern energy and communication systems.
Electrical grids, communication systems and, frankly, all computer-controlled systems are vulnerable malware and malgear attacks.
Everyone with a smartphone understands malware, the cybersecurity portmanteau for "malicious software." Malware code can sabotage, spy upon, seize control of or even destroy a digital information device.
In 2020, the U.S. State, Justice and Commerce Departments concluded Communist China's enormous Huawei corporation presented a systemic threat to America and its allies. Huawei's 5G "next generation" wireless communication systems were designed to connect cellphones, the internet, the internet of things -- essentially, all things digital. Huawei has tried to position itself as the world's biggest supplier of telecommunications equipment, with the goal of dominating global and regional communications infrastructure and international digital systems.
Justice Department argued Huawei's equipment forwarded Beijing's global espionage efforts.
In an August 2020 essay, I wrote that Huawei malgear does more than spy: "During the Cold War, 'dual-use' indicated a weapon system could deliver conventional or nuclear weapons ... Huawei systems are a Trojan horse Beijing can use to launch an intercontinental digital attack. Remember, a 5G system can connect the 'internet of things,' handy things like an automatic garage door or a remote temperature control. But it can also connect things like the 'supervisory control and data acquisition' (SCADA) systems controlling a nuclear power plant or a dam's floodgates."
Could it shut down half a continent's electrical grid? Reasonable question.
In the 21st century, Communist China perfected not just how to wage a multidimensional war to weaken and destroy America while avoiding a shooting war, but how to wage a sophisticated form of Unified Action Warfare against the entire world. The term "military-civil fusion strategy" is used to describe Beijing's operation. That works, too.
An example of Chinese military-civil fusion: In 2020, the U.S. accused the Chinese of subsidizing Huawei sales of suspect malgear. Subsidies undercut real civil competitors attempting to sell equally good or superior technology.
In December 2024, Ryan C. Berg of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote an article documenting the Chinese Communist Party's penetration of Latin America. Thanks to the Trump Administration, media have noticed China's Panama Canal shenanigans. But Panama is only one military-civil fusion attack in Central and South America. Exhibit A may be the "$3.5 billion deepwater megaport in Chancay, just north of Lima." The port trims "shipping times for agricultural and mineral commodities by about 10 days." OK, that sounds high minded. However, Chancay has the "potential for dual use. The berths at the port are wide enough for the People's Liberation Army to dock naval vessels, something that has raised the concerns of the U.S. Southern Command."
China built the port of Gwadar, Pakistan, ostensibly to improve Pakistan's commercial port facilities. India says Gwadar is a Chinese Indian Ocean naval base hidden in plain sight. India is right.
Janes Intelligence Briefing recently reported (April 2025) that "the US government has raised concerns over the potential for China to exploit commercial infrastructure (built by China) for military purposes. COSCO Shipping (the Chinese company building Chancay) was identified ... as a Chinese military supply company, and the exclusive access to the new port raises concerns over the potential dual-use nature of the port and the ability of the Chinese military to have a presence in the Western Hemisphere."
On April 25, 2025, Gordon Chang of the Gatestone Institute wrote that the CCP "runs a unitary state and demands absolute obedience from all parties in society. Businesses and state research institutions may operate as separate entities and may have separate controlling institutions, but they are not separate ... All Chinese entities should, therefore, be treated as one single organization."
Unified action directed by the CCP -- to wage war on the world.