Tag Archives: China

The Not-So-Distant Future of the U.S. and Israel

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Putin must be laughing up his sleeve at Biden’s upcoming lecture on human rights, Biden’s demilitarization program, and Biden’s ongoing demolition of the U.S. economy in the name of “climate change”. In the meantime, Putin will continue to test Biden’s resolve with costly and disruptive cyber-attacks on the U.S.

Xi is watching closely, and probably will make a bold move against U.S. interests if Biden blinks in his confrontation with Putin.

Biden will blink in the confrontation with Putin. And Xi will make a bold move. Not the boldest possible move, like an attack on Taiwan, but something clearly provocative, such as a naval deployment to reinforce China’s territorial claims in and around the South China Sea.

Biden will blink again. It’s not only in Biden’s nature to blink, but there is also the matter of Hunter’s China and Ukraine ventures. Putin and Xi must have all the inside dope about those deals, including the depth of Papa Joe’s involvement. And I’m not just talking about Joe’s role in setting up the deals. Joe must have made quite a haul from the deals, which he has kept well-hidden thanks in part to his media collaborators.

All of this blinking will bring Russia and China close to the end of the long game that Putin and the CCP have been playing for decades. The end game is to knock the U.S. from its superpower perch and have their own way (economically) with Europe and the Pacific. It won’t come to war because neither the U.S. nor Europe has the stomach for it. Russia and China will simply make demands, and Europe and the U.S. will accede to them. In the case of the U.S., the sniveling will continue until a Churchill rises to replace the Obamacrats. But, even then, it may be too late to do any good.

In the meantime, the Ayatollahs are watching with glee as they prepare to build nuclear weapons and stronger conventional forces with the money that Papa Joe is bent on sending them. The Ayatollahs are as excited as virgin newlyweds about the prospect of hegemony in the Middle East under the aegis of Russia and China.

The Israelis are watching all of this with foreboding. With a weak and eager-to-compromise U.S. president up against Putin and Xi, the handwriting is on the wall for Israel’s continued survival. Thus Netanyahu’s massive (and warranted) retaliation for the rocket attacks aimed at Israel. And thus (in all likelihood) the sabotage by Israel operatives of a major Iranian warship and refinery. Netanyahu’s prospective successor may be to the right of Netanyahu, but he must placate Arab-Israelis and left-wing Israelis to stay in power. All of which bodes ill for Israel’s resolve in the face of coming trials that will make the recent one seem mild.

And so the last two bastions of liberty will, for all intents and purposes, vanish from Earth. The U.S. will simply rot away. Israel will be annihilated.

Unless a man on horseback arrives soon.

Related posts:

A Grand Strategy for the United States
Patience as a Tool of Strategy (Dictatorships have it; fickle “democracies” don’t.)
American Foreign Policy: Feckless No More? (A premature paean to America’s foreign-policy future under Trump.)
The Second Coming of Who? (About the man on horseback.)

Is a Perfect Electoral Storm Brewing?

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The storm that I have in mind is one that sweeps the board for the GOP in November. What might its ingredients be? Here’s my non-exhaustive list:

THE ECONOMY

An economic recovery that is largely limited to States governed by Republicans, while States controlled by Democrats continue to flounder.

OR

A quick, nationwide economic recovery, including a stock-market rally and the rehiring of millions of workers.

DEMOCRAT POLITICS

Solid evidence supporting Tara Reade’s claims about Joe Biden.

AND/OR

A rancorous Democrat convention which, at least, leaves Biden badly damaged and results in the abstention of Bernie supporters in November, and which saddles Biden with a VP candidate who will drive away independent voters (e.g., Stacey Abrams).

OR

A pre-convention deal that allows Biden to withdraw gracefully (though not without shame) and substitutes a more dynamic and less tainted candidate who has his own baggage (e.g., Cuomo and his failure to protect nursing homes from COVID-19).

SPYGATE (A.K.A. RUSSIAGATE)

The indictment of senior officials (e.g., John Brennan, Susan Rice, James Comey) of the Obama administration on charges related to Spygate (e.g., obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, filing false claims with the FISA court, perjury).

AND A CLINCHER

The inclusion of a thinly disguised Barack Obama as an “unnamed” conspirator in the indictment.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

The collapse of Iran’s regime.

AND/OR

An attempt by Iran’s regime to disrupt the flow of oil from the Middle East that is met with prompt, devastating, and decisive action by the U.S.

AND/OR

The death or overthrow of Kim.

AND/OR

Conclusive evidence of China’s malfeasance in the COVID-19 pandemic.

There must be a lot more, but that will do for a start.

 

Presidential Treason

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I see, in recent events, the makings of a New Axis, formed on Russia, Iran, and China. The New Axis, if unchallenged, would be able to isolate and extort the United States. The stark alternatives will be a rerun of World War II or de facto surrender by the United States.

Without a sudden and massive reversal of America’s disarmament, there will be little hope of defeating the New Axis in a rerun of World War II. A 21st Century Alliance would be weaker (relatively) than the World War II Alliance because Britain would not be the player that it was — in spirit or in war-making potential. Continental Europe would sit it out, for fear of retaliation from Russia, even though a victorious Russia would quickly roll up the continent. Israel, India, and Japan would be tied down (if not knocked out quickly). Thus, the U.S. would stand almost alone, with relatively insignificant support from Australia and Canada (maybe).

This gloomy scenario, it seems to me, is the inevitable — and foreseeable — dénouement of Obama’s foreign and defense policies, which seem calculated to encourage Russian and Chinese expansionism. The evidence is there in Obama’s calculated fecklessness in the Middle East, and in his dealings with Russia and China.

As one commentator puts it:

… The fate of the free world no longer rests with the US. It now rests with Putin. He and the mullahs in Iran, presented with the spectacle of the preening narcissist in the White House gazing in rapt adoration at his own reflection, are surely laughing fit to bust.

And why shouldn’t the First Narcissist preen? For he has achieved precisely what he wanted, his true goal that I described in this blog when Obama first ran for President: to extend the reach of the state over peoples’ lives at home, to emasculate the power of America abroad, and to make the free white world the slave of those he falsely characterised as the victims of that white world’s oppression…. (Melanie Phillips, “Putin Checkmates America,” Melanie’s Blog, September 15, 2013)

Norman Podhoretz delivers a fuller version of this thesis; for example:

… [A]s astute a foreign observer as Conrad Black can flatly say that, “Not since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, and before that the fall of France in 1940, has there been so swift an erosion of the world influence of a Great Power as we are witnessing with the United States.”

Yet if this is indeed the pass to which Mr. Obama has led us—and I think it is—let me suggest that it signifies not how incompetent and amateurish the president is, but how skillful. His foreign policy, far from a dismal failure, is a brilliant success as measured by what he intended all along to accomplish….

… As a left-wing radical, Mr. Obama believed that the United States had almost always been a retrograde and destructive force in world affairs. Accordingly, the fundamental transformation he wished to achieve here was to reduce the country’s power and influence. And just as he had to fend off the still-toxic socialist label at home, so he had to take care not to be stuck with the equally toxic “isolationist” label abroad.

This he did by camouflaging his retreats from the responsibilities bred by foreign entanglements as a new form of “engagement.” At the same time, he relied on the war-weariness of the American people and the rise of isolationist sentiment (which, to be sure, dared not speak its name) on the left and right to get away with drastic cuts in the defense budget, with exiting entirely from Iraq and Afghanistan, and with “leading from behind” or using drones instead of troops whenever he was politically forced into military action.

The consequent erosion of American power was going very nicely when the unfortunately named Arab Spring presented the president with several juicy opportunities to speed up the process. First in Egypt, his incoherent moves resulted in a complete loss of American influence, and now, thanks to his handling of the Syrian crisis, he is bringing about a greater diminution of American power than he probably envisaged even in his wildest radical dreams.

For this fulfillment of his dearest political wishes, Mr. Obama is evidently willing to pay the price of a sullied reputation. In that sense, he is by his own lights sacrificing himself for what he imagines is the good of the nation of which he is the president, and also to the benefit of the world, of which he loves proclaiming himself a citizen….

No doubt he will either deny that anything has gone wrong, or failing that, he will resort to his favorite tactic of blaming others—Congress or the Republicans or Rush Limbaugh. But what is also almost certain is that he will refuse to change course and do the things that will be necessary to restore U.S. power and influence.

And so we can only pray that the hole he will go on digging will not be too deep for his successor to pull us out, as Ronald Reagan managed to do when he followed a president into the White House whom Mr. Obama so uncannily resembles. (“Obama’s Successful Foreign Failure,” The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2013)

I dare call it treason.

*     *     *

A small sample of related reading:
Walter Russell Mead et al., “Putin Tells His Ambassadors: The West Is All Washed Up,” The American Interest, July 9, 2012
Erica Ritz, “Troubling? Putin Overseas Largest Russian Nuclear Tests Since the Cold War,” The Blaze, October 20, 2012
Caroline Glick, “The Goal of Obama’s Foreign Policy,” RealClearPolitics, November 26, 2013
Benjamin Kerstein,”The Iran Deal: American Influence Retreats,” The Federalist, November 26, 2013
Mandy Nagy, “What the White House Didn’t Report on the Iran Nuke Deal,” Legal Insurrection, November 29, 2013
Brian T. Kennedy, “Early Warning: The Continuing Need for National Defense,” Imprimis, March 2014
Editorial board, “President Obama’s Foreign Policy Is Based on Fantasy,” The Washington Post, March 2, 2014
Daniel Greenfield, “Obama Enters Putin’s World,” Frontpage Mag, March 3, 2014
Bruce Thornton, “Sacrificing the Military to Entitlements,” Frontpage Mag, March 3, 2014
Robert Tracinski, “The Eighties Called: Do We Want Their Foreign Policy Back?,” The Federalist, March 3, 2014
Michael Auslin, “Crimean Lessons for East Asia,” WSJ.com, March 4, 2014
Thomas Lifson, “China Watches Ukraine, Eyes Taiwan,” American Thinker, March 4, 2014
Rick Moran, “TNR: Romney Got Russia Right,” American Thinker, March 4, 2014
Mark Thiessen, “What Can Obama Do in Ukraine? Plenty,” AEIdeas, March 4, 2014
Walter Russell Mead et al., “The Dragon Sharpens Its Claws,” The American Interest, March 6, 2014
Ed Lasky, “Obama to Cut AWACS Fleet by 25%,” American Thinker, March 11, 2014
Roy Gutman, “Russia’s History and Politics, Not U.S. Policies, Drive Russia in Ukraine, Book Argues” (a review of Putin’s Wars: The Rise of Russia’s New Imperialism, by Marcel H. Van Herpen), McClatchy Washington Bureau (published in various media), April 2, 2014
Robert Spencer, “Obama’s Treason: Even Worse Than We Thought“, Frontpage Mag, June 7, 2018

Related posts:
Why Sovereignty?
Liberalism and Sovereignty
Delusions of Preparedness
A Grand Strategy for the United States
The Folly of Pacifism
Why We Should (and Should Not) Fight
Rating America’s Wars
Transnationalism and National Defense
The Folly of Pacifism, Again
Patience as a Tool of Strategy
Defense as an Investment in Liberty and Prosperity
The Barbarians Within and the State of the Union
The World Turned Upside Down
Defense Spending: One More Time
The Fall and Rise of American Empire

Preemptive War and Iran

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My post, “Preemptive War,” is mainly a general argument for preemption, where American’s vital interests are at stake. But it was prompted by ” the imminent acquisition by Iran of material with which to produce nuclear weapons.”

The authors of “Why Obama Should Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program” (Foreign Affairs, November 9, 2011) see the wisdom of preemption:

The November 8 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report casts further doubt on Iran’s continual claims that its nuclear program is intended solely for peaceful use….

…[T]he Obama administration has downplayed the findings of the new IAEA report, suggesting that a change in U.S. policy is unlikely. Yet this view underestimates the challenges that the United States would confront once Iran acquired nuclear weapons.

For example, the Obama administration should not discount the possibility of an Israeli-Iranian nuclear conflict….

Beyond regional nuclear war, Tehran’s acquisition of these weapons could be a catalyst for additional proliferation throughout the Middle East and beyond….

…Iran’s rivals for regional dominance, such as Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, might seek their own nuclear devices to counterbalance Tehran. The road to acquiring nuclear weapons is generally a long and difficult one, but these nations might have shortcuts. Riyadh, for example, could exploit its close ties to Islamabad — which has a history of illicit proliferation and a rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal — to become a nuclear power almost overnight….

The closer Iran gets to acquiring nuclear weapons, the fewer options will be available to stop its progress. At the same time, Iran’s incentives to back down will only decrease as it approaches the nuclear threshold. Given these trends, the United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or living with a nuclear Iran and the regional fallout.

But the Obama administration — more accurately, Barack Obama — seems committed to a perverse foreign policy in the Middle East. This is from “Panetta Assures Iran It Has Little to Worry About” (Commentary, November 11, 2011):

If the leaders of the Iranian regime were worried about Jeffrey Goldberg’s prediction that Barack Obama would confound the world and launch a U.S. military strike designed to save Israel from nuclear destruction, they can now calm down. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made it crystal clear at a Pentagon news conference yesterday he has no intention of supporting an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities….

…But by publicly throwing cold water on the idea the United States is ready and able to militarily squash Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Panetta has sent a dangerous signal to Tehran that the Pentagon intends to veto any use of force against them. Combined with Russia’s pledge to block any further sanctions on Iran, the statement should leave the Khameini/Ahmadinejad regime feeling entirely secure as they push ahead to the moment when they can announce their first successful nuclear test.

This — combined with Obama’s dubious support of Israel, his unseemly withdrawal from Iraq, and his reluctant and easily reversed decision to “surge” in Afghanistan — confirms Obama’s position as the Jimmy Carter of the 21st century. Where is the next Ronald Reagan when we need him?

The “loss” of the Middle East and its relatively cheap oil would be a disaster for America’s economy. Further, it would leave an opening for an ambitious and increasingly powerful China.

Does Obama care about such things? Evidently not. He is too busy trying to remake the U.S. in the image of Europe: defenseless, bankrupt, and hostage to enviro-nuts.

See also “Some Thoughts and Questions about Preemptive War.”

The China Syndrome

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Many (most?) “deficit hawks” invoke China as a reason to reduce government debt. The hawks say something like this: “China holds a lot of our debt and, presumably, will buy more of it, which means that ‘we’ are beholden to China.”

By that logic, China is beholden to “us” because China’s purchases of U.S. government debt are financed by Americans’ purchases of Chinese products. Moreover, there is not (as far as I know) a provision in U.S. securities that enables the holder to demand payment before the securities mature.

The real “threat” is that U.S. securities will become unattractive to China (and others), and so China (and others) will quit buying them. But that possibility has nothing to do with China (or any other foreign nation), and everything to do with prospective debt-buyers’ views about the soundness of U.S. government securities. A case in point is PIMCO, a huge investment company. Bloomberg News reports:

Bill Gross, who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., eliminated government-related debt from his flagship fund last month as the U.S. projected record budget deficits.

The economic threat to the U.S. doesn’t come from China, it comes from the U.S. government.