Seeking experience in a time of war, US president-elect Barack Obama will keep Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in that job — if only temporarily — and he has chosen a retired Marine general to be his national security adviser, officials said on Tuesday.
Gates and retired General James Jones bring years of experience to the Cabinet of a 47-year-old commander in chief with a relatively thin foreign policy resume.
Obama, who rolled out the key components of his economic team this week, plans to announce his foreign policy brain trust after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Gates, who has served as US President George W. Bush’s defense chief for two years, will remain in the Cabinet for some time, probably a year, said an official familiar with discussions between the two men.
A Democratic official said Jones was Obama’s pick to head the National Security Council, the part of the White House structure that deals with foreign policy.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not authorized anybody to discuss the deliberations.
Gates, a moderate with long-standing ties to Republican administrations and the Bush family, would fulfill an Obama pledge to include a Republican in his Cabinet.
Retaining Gates would also provide stability for a stretched military fighting two wars during the changeover in administrations.
Keeping Gates might afford Obama a sort of extended transition, in which critical military issues are left in trusted hands while Obama focuses most intensely on the financial crisis.
This will be the first wartime presidential transition since 1968, when the Vietnam War was under way. There are extra concerns about security vulnerabilities during the handover.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday vowed to investigate claims made in a YouTube video about China’s efforts to politically influence young Taiwanese and encourage them to apply for Chinese ID cards. The council’s comments follow Saturday’s release of a video by Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) and YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” on China’s “united front” tactics. It is the second video on the subject the pair have released this month. In the video, Chen visits the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Park in Quanzhou in China’s Fujian Province and the Strait Herald news platform in Xiamen, China. The Strait Herald — owned by newspaper
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