“No one in charge” was one explanation for Japan’s slide from record growth into stagnation. Tokyo’s power was fragmented among opposing interest groups, wrote Dutch journalist Karel van Wolferen in 1989. Could something similar be happening in today’s Beijing?

That is a key question raised by the spy balloon that traversed the U.S. last week. Xi Jinping, thought to have achieved firm one-man rule in his decade in power, was undermined by the Chinese military. Xi’s power has always relied on the support of the People’s Liberation Army. I think they just reminded him of that.

With Sino-U.S. tensions and China’s economy worsening, last year Beijing decided to make nice with America. They need our business. Obediently, Chinese diplomacy dropped its “wolf warrior” rhetoric and invited Secretary of State Blinken to Beijing for high-level talks.

Suddenly, however, the balloon pushed us back to hostility. Blinken’s visit is “postponed” indefinitely. It looks like somebody in China doesn’t wish to pull back from the policy of expanding China’s power, which until recently had been Xi’s policy, carried out by a rapidly growing defense budget and giant overseas projects.

Xi, Western analysts thought, had secured Mao-type rule by promoting supporters and jailing possible opponents for corruption. But now we must question if Xi is so powerful.

Why would the People’s Liberation Army send a highly visible balloon across the Pacific and North America? It might as well have flashed chartreuse. Did Xi order it or even know about it? The balloon’s intelligence gains are thought to be negligible; Chinese satellites already comb our skies. The balloon could have been picking up our ground communications, but we would know that as we listened to what it transmitted back to China.

The U.S. shoot-down served the PLA’s aim of increasing hostility. It looks like the PLA is trying to veto Xi’s effort to soothe relations. Presumably, Xi does not like vetos on his policy, so look for a shakeup in China’s command structure. Are any generals fired or retired? If not, Xi acquiesces to their long-standing influence, and we can forget about improved relations.

An accident or foul-up? Likely not. This is not the first Chinese balloon to cross the U.S. At least three did so during the Trump presidency, but they were kept quiet. Trump could have shot them down, but they were smaller and flew higher; civilians did not notice them.

China sets balloons up to circumnavigate the globe and snag them when they’re back over China. They likely carry extra hydrogen to top off what is lost. Electricity supplied by solar panels keeps the balloons under Beijing’s radio commands. This is one of the features the offshore recovery will show. Splashdown avoids fragmenting the several-ton payload if it fell on land. This, rather than danger to citizens, is probably the chief reason for getting it offshore.

Beijing makes a disingenuous show of protesting our shoot-down and recovery. That’s a bit like a bank robber demanding his gun back. If I’m right, the recovered payload will reveal no special secrets because the PLA knew it would be shot down and examined. The balloon’s purpose was more political than military.

Why the Chinese attention-getter balloon this time? My hypothesis: The PLA needs the tension to safeguard its budget. The slowdown in China’s economic growth forces the military to compete with civilian spending. Most growth forms an S-curve in which a rapid increase of roughly 30 years plateaus off. No economy sustains rapid growth forever, and Beijing knows it.

How do we respond to the maneuvers of Chinese politics? The American answer should be: “You want tension? Alright, we’ll give you tension. But do you really prefer tension over commerce?” After Beijing has thought this over, time may again be ripe for diplomacy.

Meanwhile, we must firm up trans-Pacific economic and military ties. Trump foolishly withdrew from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, leaving the field to China. Rename, refurbish and rejoin the TPP, which will enhance trade balances, not worsen them.

The big, scary question: Is this preparation for China’s forcible recovery of Taiwan? One Pentagon general recently said this could happen within two years. Others put the horizon a few years later. Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan and so should Speaker McCarthy. Maintaining U.S. strategic ambiguity over Taiwan may restrain the vagaries of Chinese politics.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Informed Comment.

How many classified materials are unsecure? House cleaning by officials, including Congress, might yield plenty. The problem is far deeper than individual irresponsibility. The system is structured to work against itself and damn near impossible to fully comply with. Too many officials review too many documents.

First, overclassification is pervasive. Most documents are classified at least one grade higher than they should be, maybe two. Many top-secret documents should be just secret or even confidential, the lowest level. Bureaucrats figure, though, it’s better to be ultra cautious than accused of laxity. The result resembles college grade inflation: everybody does it.

“Classified” is almost meaningless until we know the subject matter, its source (human, satellite, signals) and its intended user. It would take panels of security experts or “special masters” to evaluate each document. Many would be too trivial to merit classification. Those that let adversaries figure out sources and methods, of course, must be rigorously guarded.

Years ago I held two positions that brought me “top secret” security clearances, standard in the federal government. I discovered that top-secret materials generally reflected what one might read in a reliable publication like the Economist or Atlantic.

“Humint” (human intelligence) may draw on the same sources: foreign journalists and government officials who speak to both our spooks and our writers. One difference: the published articles appear much faster. Both can fall for inaccurate “rumint” (rumors intelligence).

You might not be better informed from classified materials. Go back and read the news stories by top reporters covering the Vietnam War. They grew skeptical, eventually critical. Then read secret memos in the Pentagon Papers within the highest levels, such as department secretaries and deputies, for the corresponding years. They too grew skeptical, even exasperated. More nuance but not much difference.

Although the classified document may closely track public news articles, it alerts our adversaries as to what our officials believe to be true, itself valuable intel.

The value of intelligence is its ability to predict or at least anticipate. Classification does not guarantee this. Some government reports are junk.

The U.S. embassy in Saigon churned out optimistic PR reports. Critics in the field, both newspeople and U.S. officials, knew better and scoffed at them. Reports at the highest levels seen by a handful, however, were accurate and pessimistic.

Turning out garbage makes some officials resent being used to protect their bosses — who are under pressure to show progress — and leak truthful accounts to news media. Daniel Ellsberg served in Vietnam and on the team that produced the Pentagon Papers. Dismayed that they were simply locked up, he delivered photocopies of them to the New York Times and Washington Post. Lesson: You can’t keep secrets forever. They will leak. Get used to it.

And in a democracy, some things should leak. The Pentagon Papers did no harm when published in 1971; Americans, negative on the war since 1967, had a right to know. Nixon’s overreaction destroyed his presidency. He should have just blamed LBJ.

The underlying problem, probably insolvable, is that to be useful classified materials must be read by many eyes, but the more eyes, the bigger risk of leaks, either deliberate or inadvertent. Cybersecurity presents the same dilemma: networks used by many are vulnerable to hacking and fraud. Choose: tightly held or widely distributed.

If I were in a position to review classified reports — say, on a congressional committee or in the White House — I would simply avoid them: “Get these things out of here! They are misleading and can get me in trouble. I’ll base my judgments on public sources.”

Another big problem with classified materials is the workload of high officials. Eight-hour workdays are a luxury; twice that is not rare. Unless you take work home, you may never see your family. So you take documents home even if it violates security regs.

This is where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server got her in trouble. A classic double bind: You must do something — work at home — but are prohibited from doing it.

Our shambolic system may so confuse our adversaries that they act on nothing they obtain. A report from State contradicts another from the Agency, and the Defense Department dismisses both. False reports may be deliberately planted to confuse our adversaries. Trouble is, we too are confused and paralyzed.

Trump and official Washington believed Riyadh’s line but kept it quiet. Pompeo now publicizes it. The former secretary of state and CIA chief put it in his pugnacious new book, “Never Give an Inch,” Pompeo’s opening shot for a presidential bid. It may do him more harm than good.

Two points:

Is the substance of the charge true?

Probably not.

Does Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS — Mr. Bone Saw) believe it?

Almost certainly yes. Autocratic regimes always fear overthrow and take Draconian steps to prevent it.

A long line of Middle East autocracies has indeed been overthrown: Nasser ended Egyptian monarchy in 1952. His heir Anwar El Sadat was assassinated in 1981 and Hosni Mubarak overthrown in 2011. Gaddafi ended Libyan monarchy in 1969 and then himself was ousted and killed in 2011. Iraq’s British-installed monarchy was overthrow in 1958.

MBS has plenty to fear. As he waits to take formal power on the death of his ailing father, King Salman, 87, he fears other princes competing for the office more than he fears Muslim fundamentalist radicals. The Kingdom brutally suppressed the likes of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State but knows that there are other claimants to the throne.

To wit: In May 2017, the year before they murdered Kashoggi, the Riyadh regime put some 200 suspicious princes and wealthy Saudi businessmen under arrest in the Ritz-Carlton, accused of “corruption” and cut off from their fortunes and private jets. One died in captivity. MBS feared they were conspiring to end his rise to top power; he may have been right.

MBS, convinced that Kashoggi was in touch with and serving the aims of a movement for more democracy, tricked him into entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get the plans and names of leading plotters. When Kashoggi tried to fight the 15-man hit squad, he was throttled and dismembered. His body has never been found.

What does this mean for U.S. policy? Please, Washington, remember this is the Persian Gulf. Systematically mistrust anything its regimes put out. Mistrust our published intelligence briefings. Their working levels may be accurate and perceptive, but their politically appointed chiefs deliver what the White House wants. Remember the rushed and botched intelligence on Iraq in the run-up to George W. Bush’s invasion of that country.

Understand that Gulf regimes perpetuate themselves by “clientelistic” relationships, that is, by generously spreading money among various groups, including foreign ones. Basically, governance by bribery is the Gulf’s deeply etched norm. Reforming that in favor of democratic transparency risks system breakdown. Showy surface reforms such as letting women drive are okay.

Has anyone checked Pompeo’s financial backing and their origins? As they say on Fox News, “just raising the question.” President Trump’s first overseas trip was to Saudi Arabia. Jared Kushner visited the Persian Gulf to promote regional peace — the “Abraham Accords” — and came away with billions in credit to save his Manhattan misinvestments from total collapse.

Do not suppose we’ve got Gulf regimes “on our side.” They want us to think that as they line up U.S. power to support them, especially to protect them from revolutionary surges from Iran. Our interests in the Gulf are limited and grow more limited with every increase in renewable energy. Do not fight yesterday’s wars over yesterday’s energy sources. These sheikdoms are simply too shaky.

Give Pompeo credit: His dramatic weight loss does wonders for his political fortunes. If only his cognitive abilities had kept up with his physical appearance.

Let us, as the intel people say, “walk the cat backwards” — ask a series of questions, each reaching further back in time and leading to some logical conclusions.

Santos is openly gay. He says he has a husband and wears a wedding band. Fine. But why then did he marry an American women in 2012 and stay married to her seven years, until 2019? If he were born in the U.S., he wouldn’t need a marriage of convenience. But if he were born in Brazil, he would. 

Is there any record of Santos and his wife actually cohabiting? Where did they live? Do friends and neighbors confirm that? The Immigration and Naturalization Service tries to guard against fake marriages by asking the American spouse detailed questions, such as the applicant’s toothpaste brand. Did the INS do this? 

After several years with a green card, holders may apply for naturalization. Did Santos? Or did he merely proclaim he was a U.S. citizen and nobody checked? Much could be cleared up if Santos merely showed the media and law enforcement his birth certificate. Why has he not done this? The listed hospital could be checked with a phone call. If it’s a U.S. birth certificate, end of story. But if it’s Brazilian, story is just beginning. Well, Republicans invented birtherism.

And what’s the story with Santos’s “wife”? Why has she never been interviewed? What, in fact, is her name? Did she receive any money from Santos? She seems to be making herself scarce. Why would she do that? Because if she participated in a “green-card marriage,” she committed fraud and could suffer fines and jail time along with the applicant. 

A green card issued under false pretenses is invalid. And using it to apply for naturalization is invalid. Therefore, any such naturalization and subsequent awarding of U.S. citizenship would be invalid. The applicant would remain a foreigner. 

Did New York’s third congressional district (on Long Island) elect a foreigner to Congress? Well, Brazil is a very important country and deserves representation on Capitol Hill.

The New York Times reports that Republican state leaders were early and amply warned about Santos’s fabrications but chose to remain silent. The investigators who discovered this either resigned or were fired. They could be called upon to testify. Non-disclosure agreements cannot be used to cover up wrongdoing. 

Instead, the New York GOP endorsed Santos. Repudiating this would have hugely embarrassed them. But the longer it went on, the bigger the embarrassment. Now it has national repercussions. It is likely that the major media are working on this story.

Conflict recently flared again in the Levant — in Jerusalem, Lebanon’s south and Gaza. An Israel-Iran war is just waiting to happen. Mideast belligerents act as if they’re annoyed at being bumped out of the headlines by Ukraine’s war.

Actually, the two conflict zones are connected. The link: Russian power.

As Russia unmasks its own weakness in Ukraine, it comes under pressure to withdraw from Syria, where it has propped up the brutal Assad regime since 2015. Closure of the Turkish Straits to Russian ships would cripple the Russian operation in Syria.

One of the by-products of the Russian move into Syria is the understanding it reached with Israel to rein in Iranian forces in Syria, which arrived in 2014 to save Assad from the explosive growth of ISIS. The Russian message seems to be: “Thanks, Iran, you did a great job, but now you can return home. We’ll handle things.” Putin wants Syria for Russia.

This made an odd relationship in Syria. Either Russia allowed Israel to gather intelligence on the arrival of Iranian weapons there, or Russians did it for them. Granted, much can be learned from satellite intel — supplied by the U.S. — but nothing beats observers on the ground. Then Israel either takes out Iranian arms depots by air strikes or follows its trucks to pinpoint where Iranian weapons are cached in Lebanon.

Israel conducted dozens of air strikes on Iranian targets in Syria. Why did the Russians permit them? Their S-400 air defense system could easily prevent Israeli air strikes, but Russia made no effort to do so. Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met many times with Putin and emerged smilling. Current Prime Minister Bennett seems to have no contact with Putin, and the arrangement may be fraying.

Putin, one surmises, told Netanyahu that he’d help him limit Iranian arms if Israel refrained from all-out war with Iran in Syria. This is what Jerusalem meant when it said it had “security interests” that prevented it from openly supporting Ukraine.

That may be over. Israeli public opinion, led by Ukrainian-born Natan Sharansky, who spent nine years in the Soviet gulag, dislikes and mistrusts Russia. (BTW, Louise Nevelson, Rockland’s gift to sculpture, was born in Ukraine.)

Putin wants to prevent an Israel-Iran war in Syria so he can resume Russia’s push into the Middle East, an effort that goes back to the 19th century and caused the original Crimean War of 1853-56. The Soviet Union poured massive amounts of money and weaponry into Egypt and Syria.

Now, what would happen if Russia withdrew from its Syrian installations, the port at Tartus and its air base near Latakia? Israel, calculating that Iran, which supplies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, will soon have nuclear weapons, would be under no constraints and really hit Iranian targets, in Syria and elsewhere. Arab Gulf states would like the Iranian threat reduced.

The Point: Pressures for a new, major Mideast war may be building. What could stop it? Iran’s realization that it would face not only Israel but the U.S. and Arab Gulf monarchies and would get little or no Russian help. Rationally, Tehran should back down, but nationalistic rage still dominates Iran, which will not likely give up its nuclear program any more than North Korea will.

Iranian nuclear facilities are underground. The U.S. has provided Israel with deep-penetration bombs (“bunker busters”), but if they are insufficient, Israel could use some of its 200 or so nukes. The next Mideast war could be nuclear. We should work to prevent that.

The world would be calmer if leaders understood and accepted the universality of nationalistic pushback: Move against my country, and we’ll push back. My nation will not submit but will arm and fight. NATO always was and still is one big pushback against Russian power. Now even Sweden and Finland may join.

Leaders — especially autocratic ones, who have silenced domestic opposition — cannot comprehend that their foreign targets will push back. Japanese militarists supposed the U.S. after Pearl Harbor would leave Asia to them. Although warned of a strong Russian reaction, the U.S. kept pushing NATO eastward. Putin is astonished at Ukrainian and Western pushback against his invasion. Putin’s body language suggests he is depressed that his actions have isolated Russia and multiplied its adversaries.

Russia’s invasion also aims to recover Moldova, a Romanian-speaking ex-Soviet republic that was part of Romania before World War II. A feasible pushback, based on Romanian nationalism: Merge Moldova back into Romania, which is a NATO member.

Can’t be done? But it was, in 1918, when the area voted to join Romania. One big catch: To the east of the Dniester River (easy to confuse with the Dnieper, further east), the Transnistria strip of Moldova is Russian-speaking and already the scene of violence.

It is now clear why President Trump insists on filling Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat with Federal Appeals Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett — so conservative she’s radical — before the November election. If the initial election count goes against him, Trump will call it fraudulent — due to mail-in ballots–and unfold a plan whereby Republican-dominated state legislatures certify an alternate list of Trump electors for the Electoral College. (This from The Atlantic’s scary new piece by Barton Gellman.)

If that procedure is challenged in a stacked Supreme Court, “originalist” Republican justices could find it constitutional 6-3. The Constitution does give that power to state legislatures. Still, the “original intent” of the Framers was that state legislatures faithfully reflect the majority vote. Will that matter? Alas, Federalists find original intent where it suits them.

Likewise, as Trump’s financial shenanigans–exposed in tax and bank records–come to light in New York state trials, Trump’s defense will insist on moving them to federal courts and then bumping them up to the Supreme Court. Which will find that Trump cannot be prosecuted. Trump could thus become not only illegitimate but invulnerable.

The Republic may at that point be in the hands of the Supreme Court, and the Court itself may block the authoritarian drift. The five present conservative Justices are all current or previous members of the “originalist” Federalist Society, as is Barrett. They may favor the Constitution over Trump. If there are nine on the court (assuming Barrett is confirmed), two conservatives may be unwilling to pervert the Constitution, producing a 5-4 decision against Trump. If there are only eight on the Court, one defection would tie it 4-4 and let the lower court’s decision stand. Best bet: Chief Justice Roberts.

But all these barriers to authoritarianism could fail. Does this mean the end of the United States as we know it? At that point, the Democratic majority of voters and at least one house of Congress may be able to thwart Trump’s worst designs, but planning should start now.

At least one house of Congress — it could be both in 2021 — could deny Trump the laws and budgets he demands. Ripe targets: Trump’s Mexico wall and unnecessary military spending. Step up cyber defense spending and require intel agencies to promptly report efforts at penetration. Pass more unemployment relief than Trump wants; make him veto it. Ally with anti-deficit Republicans to crimp Trump’s spending patterns.

In foreign policy, send congressional delegations to the multilateral meetings and institutions Trump rejects. These include global climate change, the Iran nuclear deal and trade flows (e.g., the Trans Pacific Partnership). Work around the hobbled State Department. (Many State officials will quietly help you.) If Trump leads us into war with Iran, reject authorization for the use of military force and restoring the draft.

Barrett scorns precedent and hates the Affordable Care Act. If it’s overturned, closely scrutinize Trump’s replacement for it. He has never produced one, but he may have to. It will contain cavernous faults, especially on pre-existing conditions. Find Trumpcare defective and sink it. When Trump supporters lose their rural hospitals, some may change their vote.

Civil society will also need to step up and activate itself as never before. COVID-19 deaths will approach a quarter-million by election day. “Herd immunity” (about 70 percent carrying antibodies) and vaccines will not arrive for months or even years. With the scientific staffs of federal health agencies silenced by unqualified political appointees, we must learn to work around their misinformation. A nongovernmental committee of scientists should serve as a data clearinghouse and alert system. Large states could also step in to double check the work of the Federal government, as Andrew Cuomo in New York has now pledged to do. To some extent, this is already happening.

So, even if worst comes to worst, we may survive. We can foresee that Trump will leave the Republican Party a shell of its former self. Out of the wreckage, traditional Republicans may become determined to reconstruct and join Democrats in restoring a badly weakened Republic. Yes, I think we can keep it.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

CNBC: “Amy Coney Barrett speaks after Trump announces her nomination for Supreme Court”