Ep. 42 | After Rising Lion and Spiderweb: U.S. Vulnerabilities and CCP Sabotage

Vandenberg Flash Focus

Ukraine through Operation Spiderweb and Israel through Operation Rising Lion surreptitiously smuggled drones behind enemy lines and successfully neutralized critical Russian and Iranian assets. As we continue to watch the aftermath of these operations, Operations Rising Lion and Spiderweb raise urgent questions for the United States; namely, how vulnerable are we to technologically driven attacks here? And how exactly is our leading adversary, China, interpreting some of the more innovative new operations in these conflicts? Jacqueline Deal, Vandenberg Advisory Board member and Co-Founder of the American Academy for Strategic Education, and Michael Sobolik, Vandenberg Advisory Board member and Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute, join Flash Focus to explore U.S. vulnerabilities in light of these events and measures we can take to strengthen them.

The Vandenberg Coalition has published a number of policy products related to CCP domestic influence campaigns, including a February 2025 poll of U.S. attitudes towards TikTok and a podcast episodedissecting it, a primer on the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, and a brief of Amici Curiae commissioned in support of the U.S. government in Tiktok Inc., et al. v. Merrick B. Garland (No. 24-656).

The Final Struggle: Inside China's Global Strategy by Ian Easton https://www.amazon.com/Final-Struggle-Inside-Chinas-Strategy/dp/1788692756

Document 9 https://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation

(2:44) Initial Reactions to Operations Rising Lion and Spiderweb

(9:27) Concerns About Law Enforcement Using CCP-Linked Drones

(15:10) Securing Supply Chains and Industrial Policy

(18:55) What It Means When the CCP Uses Our Data

(24:36) CCP Farm Land Grabs

(29:22) TikTok and Information Warfare

(38:15) TikTok and Political Sabotage

(39:50) Recommendations for Strengthening Our Vulnerabilities Now