The Chop-Stick Wars: America’s Impending Stomach Ache - Japanese Sushi; Chinese Fried-Rice; Korean Kimchee.
As most of you know by now, the China Sea abounds with a variety of military equipment honing in on an assortment of targets ranging from ships, planes, submarines and even volcanic islands. The apparent reasons for this bouillabaisse of nationalities, animosities and rationales ranges from old WWII festering wounds; rising nationalism; and the most consistent variable of all--- forging for gas and oil!
Santayana, the venerable chef of ancient hostilities, once revealed the secret recipe of conflict: history must repeat itself! The antecedents of WWII appear in full force. Once again, Japan reasserts its expansionist ambitions through a rationale that redefines their past aggressions during WWII, as an ‘Act of Liberation From American/ European Imperialism’. Not to be out done by China and Japan, South Korea, the buttress of bilateral hostilities, claims territorial and psychological demands from both Japan and China. However, this South China Sea bouillabaisse is still without the piquant flavor of Vietnamese pho; Phillipine sisig; and Indonesian mei beef. China believes that it is entitled to assert its Middle Kingdom prerogatives as a matter of historical imperatives, combined with perceived ancient wounds, such as the Communist/Nationalist army “failure” to prevent The Rape of Nanjing [by Japan].
Where is America in all of this?
As expected, CINPAC, the primary military and judicial arbiter of East Asian conflicts is busily trying to lower the temperature of the overheated cauldron of conflicting demands, entitlements and provocations. These demands placed on CINPAC at a time of sequestration, Navy scandals and continuing Middle East military entanglements makes their job far more complicated. The requirements for CINPAC are primarily strong negotiation abilities across a spectra of different cultures and psychological profiles; as well as a projection of force that co-opts, rather than confronts, the different military provocations that will inevitably arise.
America has to be able to delineate the boundaries of navigation and trade acceptable to all parties concerned while appealing to the higher moral court of neutrality. At the same time, CINPAC must enforce its long-standing state operational code of ‘denial of access’.
In Hollywood parlance, one would say that CINCPAC would have to become a cross between “Clarence Darrow”, the lawyer, and “Dirty Harry”, the enforcer.
Is it possible?
I hope so.
I hope so.
That's asking a lot from a group of wary sailors. The US Navy has had to defend the Straits of Hormuz in an undeclared war for thirty years. And then the US Navy was by ordered by the White House to “assist” during the unnecessary conflagrations of Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan , Yemen and Syria.
Can we depend on our Navy? We have no other choice.
Bouillabaisse! An excellent description Dr pieczenik! Not only is it a famous Marseilles fish dish of many components but the word bouillabaisse derives from the verb " bolhr"(to boil) and abaissar(to reduce heat or simmer) very apt description indeed!
ReplyDeleteThere's not going to be any war in Asia. Too many people have nuclear weapons and there's no insurgencies in the offing so there we are.
DeleteWhat's pathetic is that the US military is now basing their planning on remote, totally-impossible and frankly stupid scenarios claiming that Asia now demands our presence.
Now that the US military has shown what they can do in the Middle East [pretty much fuck everything up] which was the focus of planning in my days over twenty years ago......
Now they have to fabricate another set of ficticious enemies in the future so they can put their pencil-necked planners to work justifying all these stupid aircraft carriers, missiles and planes, which are otherwise pointless...............
I'm sure to justify continued defense spending in the next twenty years the US will start schlepping carriers groups and Marines up and down here and there, forward basing the way they did in the early 1900s in the Philipines.
And this itself is dangerous. When the Chinese and others see all this otherwise pointless and purposeless American might pointed at them some in their respective countries will draw sinister conclusions, and then we have the genesis of aggrevation and suspicion.
The best thing to do with the US military is disband it like we did after WW1 and WW2, dismantle the national security state, and start focusing on fighting where in counts.......in trade and economics.
The Chinese own us financially, and could bankrupt us tomorrow if they wanted to, so these military scenarios about shooting wars with them are just idiotic because all they'd have to do to destroy us is call in our debts. They hinted at this in 2008 and they can do it anytime they want. They only keep us alive because they need us.
There seems to be a growing consensus among the gold-bugs that China has amassed enough in gold reserves that they can now begin to dissever their dependence the dollar in a real way... So long as we stay out of their business, allowing China the regional supremacy that they believe is rightfully theirs, they will monetarily "hold their fire" so to speak... But yes MITmichael is right our debt is the trump card they perpetually hold against us until we can somehow miraculously pay it all off.
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese can never be independent from the dollar because:
Delete1.all their export revenues from the US
2.all the oil they buy
3.all the bonds they hold
Keeping the US healthy is vital for them. That's why all these stupid Pentagon scenarios about a war with them are insane.
Disband the US military!