The D Brief: Chinese boat in the Taiwanese river; Have AI 3D print a drone; Army mobile trainers; USCGA official resigns, citing cover-up; And a little more.

A former Chinese naval officer is said to have successfully navigated a speedboat to a strategic river mouth. which leads to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and now the authorities of the autonomous island are investigating how this could have happened, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The small boat was detected off the coast but apparently was not interdicted until it began interfering with ferry traffic. on the other side of the Tamsui River, writes AP.

A related scenario was discussed with Dmitri Alperovitch for our upcoming Defense One Radio podcast. Alperovitch has just published a book entitled, The World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race to the 21st Centuryand he revealed key themes during a 40-minute conversation with Defense OneIt's Patrick Tucker. The first pages of his book describe how a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan could unfold.

Using as its lens Chinese leader Xi Jinping's public desire to unify Taiwan with the mainland, Alperovitch explained that Xi's military has in recent years built capabilities for amphibious assault ships capable of carrying out aerial assaults against key installations such as ports and carrying out an assault on the river that snakes through the island to the heart of Taipei. But they don't have it yet, he said.

Using helicopter assault ships and air-cushioned landing craft, the Chinese military refines its unloading capacity at the opening [or] the mouth of the river, the Tamsui River, which takes you to Taipei, and in 10 minutes these boats full of Chinese marines can be in the heart of the Taipei government district, trying to decapitate the government, Alperovitch said.

Any invasion will have to start on the coasts where Taiwan has seven commercial ports. But few are as large as that at the Tamsuis Mouth, which was significantly expanded in 2012. Taiwan's vast network of rugged mountains and winding rivers has enabled the rapid transportation of large numbers of people. [Chinese military] an armored force from any other port or beach to the capital is virtually impossible, he writes in the prologue to his new book. It will be essential for the Chinese to take [Taiwans] ports to unload more than half a million troops they will need huge amounts of logistics, [an] a huge number of vehicles needed to occupy a country of 24 million people, he said.

But Taipei Port is apparently the most vital of Taiwan's seven ports. You can get close to that port very quickly, he explained on the podcast. You can unload your boats at the mouth of the town and reach Taipei City in 10-15 minutes.

Alperovitch is not alone in suspecting that the Chinese might try to kill or capture Taiwan's leaders. Retired Australian Army Major General Mick Ryan said much the same thing in a similar conversation for Defense One Radio. (He published a fictional account of a possible future war for Taiwan with his 2023 book, War of the White Sun.) What the Russians Tried to Do and Failed [in Ukraine] and what the Chinese will definitely try to do is decapitate national leaders, Ryan said.

They will want to ensure that there is not a Zelensky type figure in Taipei. or somewhere in Taiwan that unifies [or] rallies the nation and is able to secure diplomatic and other support from abroad, the general said. And I think the Taiwanese are looking at these kinds of issues very, very closely through the lens of Ukraine, Ryan said.

After all, Ukraine blew up the runway at its main airport near kyiv, effectively torpedoing Russia's chances of unloading massive numbers of troops right next to the capital in February 2022.

And that begs the question: If an invasion began, would Taiwan choose to blow up Taipei Port? To make the decision to destroy the port, or even block it, the river must be done very quickly, Alperovitch said. You have a few minutes to decide, [and] this decision must be passed, of course to your forces, they must be positioned to make it.

And guess what the Chinese are going to do? He continued. They will try to destroy command and control nodes, to try to jam communications. It is therefore not even certain that the decision will be made and that it will be transmitted at the right time to the right people.

Perhaps this is why a 60-year-old Chinese fisherman might choose to snoop the port and see what response it causes. Or maybe he just got lost. Learn more about AP, here; and stay tuned for our conversations with Alperovitch and Ryan, which should be going live very soon

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Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, presented by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or comments here. And if you're not already a subscriber, you can do so here. On this day in 1942THE Battle of Bir Hakeim ended in the Libyan desert. The two-week defensive stand was apparently a loss for French-led forces attempting to block the advance of German Nazis and Italian fascists on the port city of Tobruk; but the delay caused by the defense of Bir Hakeim led the Nazis to cancel their planned invasion of Malta, which housed a vital British air and naval base in the Mediterranean Sea. The French still commemorate this battle with a subway station And bridge in Paris which bears his name.

Remember when Tony Stark had JARVIS beat a new version of his Iron Man costume? Something similar is happening within Task Force 99 which is developing Air Force drones. Earlier this year, the unit tested a software prototype to design 3D printed drones with artificial intelligence, reports Defense OneIt's Audrey Decker.

The tool significantly reduced the time it took for the TF-99 to design and build a small UAS, from weeks and months to hours and days. said Col. Jeffrey Digsby, who commands the Air Force's Central Command Unit. Digsby said the AI ​​software meets a set of requirements, such as how far the drone must travel and the weight of the payload it must carry, and then 3D printing machines build the drone in one day. Continue reading, here.

Sophisticated Army training becomes mobile to form a far-flung Pacific coalition. During a recent exercise in the Philippines, the U.S. Army Pacific conducted the first deployment of its Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center-Exportable unit, which brings a fully instrumented suite of fire equipment and other capabilities to assist countries partners to obtain the best possible training. Defense OneJennifer Hlad reports from Hawaii.

The Pentagon suspends the development of its essential data analysis tool. DOD's new data chief wants improvements to the infrastructure of the Advana platform, which tracks aid to Ukraine and more. Advana will remain operational, but users banking on new features or applications will have to wait an indefinite amount of time or find a workaround. Defense OneLauren Williams has more, here.

Coast Guard Academy official resigns, saying leaders told him to lie to Congress about sexual assault cover-ups. Shannon Norenberg, head of sexual assault prevention at the academy, said CNN that she was devastated when she recently discovered old documents showing how executives used her as part of the cover-up of Operation Fouled Anchor, a secret internal investigation into a sexual assault cover-up that CNN exposed last summer. More, here.

And finally: Last year, the Army gate security drama led to a guilty plea. An unusually dangerous situation occurred at the entrance to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, exactly one year ago, the Justice Department reminded us with an update on a federal case Monday in the District western Missouri.

A 32-year-old man drove a stolen vehicle to the north entrance of Fort Leonard Wood shortly after 1 a.m. on June 11, 2023, the DOJ announced Monday. After erratic behavior during questioning, the suspect showed gate guards an ax in his passenger seat, then fled initiating a brief high-speed chase, leading him to crash into the drop arm barrier of the north gate of the base.

According to the charges, he shouted at the officers: “If you tase me, I will kill you.” The Justice Department says: “He then charged at the officer, his fists clenched, and the officer assigned him to attack. His hostile behavior did not stop there (continue reading for the rest). He pleaded guilty Monday to one count of assaulting a federal officer and one count of threatening to murder a federal law enforcement officer, which could result in up to 18 years from prison.