The Network Behind America's Next Global War is Breaking Ground at Purdue University

SK Hynix is the newest addition to West Lafayette’s tech landscape. The South Korean semiconductor manufacturer is currently constructing a $3.8 billion chip packaging plant in the northern outskirts of the college town. But why in Indiana, and why relocate to the United States more broadly?

If you listen to interviews with Purdue’s Dean of Engineering Mark Lundstrom, its just a simple matter of proximity to Purdue University and other engineering schools. “…if you draw a 250-mile radius around Indianapolis, something like 30% of the engineering degrees in the nation are produced in that radius”.

While that no doubt presents an advantage to the South Korean firm in recruiting fresh talent, there also exists powerful incentive structures to attract chip manufacturers to West Lafayette and United States. Lundstrom makes brief reference to both in the same interview, the Purdue Research Foundation (PRF), and the 2022 CHIPS Act.

The PRF, the university’s non-profit investment vehicle, owns the land that SK Hynix will build on and partners with the company to push rezoning efforts. Meanwhile, the 2022 CHIPS Act provides SK Hynix with $458 million dollars via the Department of Commerce.

SK Hynix’s choice of West Lafayette seems to be based on the independent awards by the PRF and the Department of Commerce, however, the CHIPS Act and the PRF are much less independent than it appears at first glance.

Keith Krach is the central, albeit unspoken, player in bringing SK Hynix to West Lafayette. Krach, head of the PRF subsidiary the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy, is also one of the chief architects of the CHIPS Act.

During the first Trump administration, Krach held the title of Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment. In this role, he helped negotiate the deal that brought the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to build $12 billion in facilities to the United States. TSMC comprises ~70% of global semiconductor manufacturing, with almost all of that manufacturing taking place in Taiwan. The onshoring of these factories to the United States and Arizona (the state they were built) was a not only an incredible development for the economies of the state and country, but also a massively important geopolitical development, as the semiconductors TSMC manufactures are the backbone of most modern technology, from cell phones to fighter jets.

During this process, Krach himself visited Taiwan, being one of the highest US officials to visit the country despite the fact that the US does not acknowledge Taiwan as an independent state from the People’s Republic of China.

Following the TSMC deal, Krach worked with Senators John Cornyn (R), Mark Warner (D), Chuck Schumer (D), and Todd Young (R) to create the two separate bills (the Endless Frontier Act and the CHIPS for America Act) that would later be combined to become the CHIPS Act.

The act provides massive funding to companies like TSMC or SK Hynix to relocate to the United States and build enormous billion dollar facilities, and, evidently, is successful in doing so considering SK Hynix is the newest addition to West Lafayette.

But why should billions of Americans’ tax dollars be poured into foreign tech corporations? If we return to Keith Krach’s PRF subsidiary, we can begin to learn why.

The Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy’s central mission appears to be preparing ground for conflict with China, whether that be economic or military.

With phrases like “China Contingency Plan” or “What if Xi pulls a Putin”, the Krach Institute’s mission of “tech diplomacy” is a jingoistic play at ensuring American global dominance. The Krach Institute raises the alarm bells that “Xi [may] pull a Putin” and invade Taiwan, casting China as inevitable aggressor, meanwhile ignoring the fact that this year alone the United States has initiated military action against 7 different countries.

The Krach Institute fears that China will treat Taiwan in the way the United States treats Latin America or the Middle East, and if that were to happen the backbone of global tech, semiconductor manufacturing, would fall into the hands of China.

Through massive chip manufacturing being moved to the US, Keith Krach is preparing America for its next great war.

He’s not alone in this project either. He has been greeted with bipartisan support from senators like Chuck Schumer and Todd Young. Even the progressive Ro Khanna helped propose the Endless Frontier Act and celebrated the CHIPS Act keeping us “competitive with adversaries like China”.

Beyond congressional support, Krach’s millenarianism surrounding a war with China is supported by another, more shadowy think tank that he belongs to, the Vanderburgh Coalition.

The Vanderburgh Coalition is chaired by a former Reagan and W. Bush official named Elliott Abrams. If remembered for anything at all in his years in government, its likely his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Abrams was central in the illegal funding of Nicaraguan Contras via arms sales to Iran. During the operation, he was the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, and had knowledge of the funding which he then lied to Congress about later. Abrams pleaded guilty to perjury although was later pardoned by George H.W. Bush.

He was also essential in the push for the Iraq war, as in 1998, he created the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think tank, in which he, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield, and many other former and future officials laid out the blueprints for the Iraq war. These same men, only a few years later, executed their plans

PNAC dissolved only a few years later in 2006 (by that time over half a million Iraqis had already been killed), however, its militarism and hawkishness has been reborn in the Vanderburgh Coalition. Abram’s new think tank, instead of Bush and Reagan officials, is stocked with former and current Trump officials.

It includes several National Security Council members, the Associate Director for Homeland Security, and a Senior Advisor to the Ambassador to Israel among many others. The Executive Director is a former State Department official responsible for Cuba and Venezuela, as well as a co-founder for an Israeli startup non-profit.

The Vanderburgh Coalition functions very similarly to the Krach Institute albeit without Krach’s specific focus on tech. They publish articles and podcasts about how China is infiltrating college campuses, or how its “too late too avoid conflict with China”, or why the US needs to pursue regime change in Cuba immediately. One advisory board member even wrote an article titled “Judge the CHIPs Act as defense policy, not industrial policy”.

The Krach Institute and the Vanderburgh Coalition function to peddle the idea that a global war with China is inevitable, that China will be and is the aggressor, and that such a war will disable the global supply of semiconductors and paralyze the United States.

To avoid this future which they view as inevitable, West Lafayette and other small American cities must now be dominated by monoliths to transnational capital despite any environmental or economic concerns. The process becomes specific and material in Indiana or Arizona, but is nonetheless inextricably intertwined with the prospect of global war.

To this network of tech companies and think tanks, war with China is not only an inevitably, but presents an opportunity. It’s a possibility for massive profits via arms deals, government subsidies, and the destruction of (in their view) a enormous rival economy. It’s an opportunity for national revitalization via the death and impoverishment of hundreds of thousands.

These think tanks are not fringe groups. The Vanderburgh coalition’s numerous current and former Trump officials, along with the Krach Institute’s high profile advisors such as Mike Pompeo (who Purdue President Mung Chiang served as an advisor for), Todd Young, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt make these group powerful and influential in university, state, and federal policy.

SK Hynix’s facility is the materialization of this network’s militaristic dream. The company has received massive handouts from the federal government, support from the PRF, and could receive up to $80 million from the state government via the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. While the chips packaged at this plant may be used in benign, civilian products, they mark another step towards a hyper-militaristic future, courtesy of Keith Krach, the Purdue Research Foundation, the Vanderburgh Coalition, the United States Congress, and the State of Indiana.