The future is unrolling before our eyes as idiots parade around in the US not knowing what they are doing.
I am always amazed at how prescient Tom Clancy was.
Richard Fernandez has a post about China and Russia’s resources in Siberia. That was the plot of the Tom Clancy novel, “The Bear and the Dragon.” In it he predicted a war between China and Russia for the riches of what he described as “The Northern Resource Area.”
The battle of Khalkhin ended Japan’s plan for ” Hokushin-ron”
Clancy’s concept was that China would some day adopt this strategy and it seems to be coming to pass. The Soviet Union, prior to the German invasion of 1941, was strong enough to repel Japan, which concluded a nonaggression treaty, this freeing their rear for Pearl Harbor. Now, Putin’s Russia may not be strong enough to repel China. David Goldman sees the Chinese strategy in a time of US weakness and fecklessness.
Everything in tragedy happens for a reason, and the result always is sad; most things in comedy happen by accident and the outcome typically is happy. Sino-American relations are not destined for conflict, although that is possible. The misunderstandings that bedevil relations between the world’s two most powerful countries remain comedic rather than tragic. That probably is as good as it gets, for no amount of explanation will enable Chinese and Americans to make sense of each other.
Where the Chinese are defensive and cautious, the Americans tend to perceive them as aggressive; where the Chinese are expansive ambitious, the Americans ignore them altogether. The United States is a Pacific power accustomed to maritime dominance.
Under Obama, few can understand US foreign policy, least of all him.
Chinese analysts are dumbfounded about the US response to what they view as a sideshow in the South China Sea and only tangentially concerned about India. They struggle to understand why a vastly improved relationship with Russia has emerged in response to US blundering in Ukraine.
Ukraine is important to Europe since the large gas pipelines go through Ukraine.
Aside from that factor, Ukraine is of little importance to US foreign policy. After Obama cancelled US missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, the US policy toward eastern Europe is a mystery. Our policy toward Russia is in disarray after Obama has abandoned rational actions in Europe and the Middle east.
Western analysts, to be sure, now observe that the new Russian-Chinese rapprochement might be a challenge for the West. The New York Times devoted a front-page feature to the opinions of the usual suspects among Soviet watchers in its November 9 edition.
This was obvious months ago, and should have been obvious before the fact: the West merely threw B’rer Putin into the briar patch to his east. Of all the miscalculations in Western policy since World War II, this was perhaps the stupidest. The Chinese are left to scratch their heads about their unanticipated good luck.
Nothing makes sense to Goldman or Richard Fernandez, or to me for that matter.
The economic impact of this is hard to fathom, but it is likely to extend Chinese influence westwards on a scale that the West simply hasn’t begun to imagine. It is not at all clear whether China has a clear idea of what the implications of the New Silk Road might be. The implosion of America’s geopolitical position has placed risks and opportunities at Beijing’s doorstep, to Beijing’s great surprise.
A year ago, Chinese officials privately reassured visitors that their country would “follow the lead of the dominant superpower” in matters relating to Middle East security, including Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. For the past several decades, China has allowed the US to look out for the Persian Gulf while it increased its dependency on Persian Gulf oil. By 2020, China expects to import 70% of its oil, and most of that will come from the Gulf.
The Chinese view has changed radically during the past few months, in part due to the collapse of the Syrian and Iraqi states and the rise of Islamic State. It is hard to find a Chinese specialist who still thinks that the US can stand surely for Persian Gulf security.
Obama and Kerry have made a gift of Europe and the middle east to China.
Recently McClatchy reported that “President Barack Obama will welcome the 566 leaders of federally recognized tribes to Washington Wednesday. Or, as he’s referred to by the tribal leaders, Barack Black Eagle Obama.”
In the aftermath of the 2014 elections American politics appears to have split in two. Chief Black Eagle, having been beaten everywhere else, is busy fighting the color wars. There’s the Green War. He has suddenly become very concerned with regulating ozone. There’s the Black War in Ferguson Missouri. There’s the Brown War as exemplified by the amnesty of illegal aliens. There’s even the Red War as he accepts delegations from the former stronghold of Sitting Bull.
The other part of the body politic sees civilians doing what government used to do. The oil industry has crippled Russia and possibly Saudi Arabia. Reuters reports that Exxon, not the State Department, is the principle prop of Kurdistan. It’s crazy. The bugle has sounded for the settlers to ride to the rescue of the cavalry. And there they go.
What we have left is the American private sector, inhibited by Obama as best he can but, fortunately, he is ineffective there as well.
When the West imposed sanctions on Russia in retaliation, Moscow moved eastwards – an obvious response, and one that strongly impacts Western power. Not only has Russia opened its gas reserve to China, but it has agreed to supply China with its most sophisticated military technology, including the formidable S-400 air defense system. Russia was reluctant to do so in the past given Chinese efforts to reverse-engineer Russian systems, but the Ukraine crisis changed that.
China is still looking for a rational explanation to insanity.
There is simply no explanation for the actions of Obama and the political left that drives him.