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1. In what now seems another lifetime ago, late 80's and into early 1990, I put serious effort into the idea of launching Western communications satellites on Soviet platforms. It was, at that time, going to be ultra cheap. I was talked out of it when it was explained to me
2. ...that despite Soviet guarantees that they would not inspect the satellites (they were going to be sent to what is no Kazakhstan for launch), even saying they could be treated as 'diplomatic bags', there was no way to trust the Soviets not to pry, spy & potentially interfere
3. ...with those communications satellites pre-launch. Those explaining the situation were U.S. export control lawyers and Commerce Department. The lawyers wanted to find a way, so did I, but not a way that would compromise Western interests. I was looking for a cheap
4. ...way to get communications satellites into orbit and I figured that if the Soviets were dysfunctional enough to do it way below real cost, then there was an opportunity to 'bank-shot' off them to deploy satellites inexpensively.
5. ...The quest to find inexpensive ways to launch satellites continues today, via Musk, Bezos, Virgin & others. Anyway, mine was a very young man's late 80's asymmetric shot at an idea to basically use the Soviets to inadvertently, massively, subsidise it.
6. The satellites would be coming from America, hence the export control lawyers & Commerce Dept. They made it clear the Soviets would have the will & motive to steal tech. I agreed with them (I've always been a very committed anti-Communist, goes with being raised Catholic).
7. And so, quite rightly, no later than Spring 1990, it was done with as an idea and I moved onto the next thing. Of course they were right, it was too risky, even in the dying days of the Soviet Union (not everyone agreed it was dying though I was certain of it).
8. Yet here we are today. Not only are we exporting key tech to Communist China, we even let CCP academics into our top institutions & companies. We train them and worse still, we manufacture so much of our tech kit there. We import their kit into our vital infrastructure.
9. If the people that protected the West from being compromised by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union could see the practices we employ with the Communist Party of China, they'd puke. It is insane & unless we do a 180, the West will lose in a way it doesn't fully comprehend.
