Josh Rogin, Bloomberg: U.S. Misses Real Threat of China's Fake Islands
The Barack Obama administration has been very busy dealing with nuclear negotiations with Iran, a war against the Islamic State, a new conflict in Yemen and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Yet the understandable focus on these other crises has obscured China's efforts to speed up its militarization of the South China Sea. Now, Chinese progress has reached the point that senior Pentagon officials and Congressional leaders are demanding the administration do something about it.
There is no shortage of evidence of China’s rapid buildup of infrastructure and armaments in disputed territory far from its physical borders. Satellite photos released last month show that in the past year, China has built several entirely new islands in disputed waters using land-reclamation technology, and then constructed military-friendly facilities on them. In the Spratly Islands, new Chinese land masses have been equipped with helipads and anti-aircraft towers, raising regional concerns that Beijing is using thinly veiled military coercion to establish control in an area where six Asian nations have claims.
WNU Editor: Being overwhelmed elsewhere is probably one reason why the U.S. is not focused on China's "moves" in the South China Sea ... the second being a lack of strategic thinking from the White House on how to confront China's long term goals in Asia.
19 comments:
WNU Editor,
Until the Chinese build a "seabase" in a shipping channel, the US has no legal grounds to challenge,
Other ASEAN Nations with overlapping claims, do, but only in court,
And of course, they are built of sand, are 15 feet above sealevel, and between cyclones and sea level rise, will probably more problem than they are worth.
Exactly Jay .... a major cyclone should put everything "back to normal" .... but until then ....
Sounds like crisis fatigue. Osama Bin laden's objective of defeating the US by drawing it into useless, un-winable wars has worked so well that perhaps it is beyond his wildest dreams. The US looks very weak right now be it no direction from the top, other than do nothing, political or monetary issues and the powers of the world are making their moves. In 2016 it may well be impossible for the US, even with a new and aggressive President, to restore the country to its formerly strong position in the world.
Bob,
I don't think it's a matter of "can", but one of will.
It's can, not will.
The US can sanction China, but then all the Walmarts, Micky D's will have to close, and you can give up all your digital toys,
The US can send a USN and Marine Expeditionary Force to the islets, along with every fireboat in the US, and wash the islands back into the sea, but that would lead to a war with China, and nobody wins that.
You can divest from China in stages.
You do not have to completely divest, but enough that the shelves do not go bare.
Jobs can go to other countries or better yet back to America.
It is a matter of will and greed.
The greed is not all at the 1% level. It is throughout.
Will has a lot to do with it.
Aizino,
Nope. american's tolerate barely, McJobs, because they have McToys.
When GM was the worlds largest corp, they directly employed over 150,000 people, at a minimum of good union wages and full benifits.
Apples 38 times their size, and they employ directly, 8,600 employees, most at minimum wage.
Aside from Prison Labour, nobody in the US is going to assemble an I-Phone or I-Pad for $1.68 a day, and at minimum wage, an I-Phone G5 skyrockets to $4,780 USD.
It's the natural state of Free Market Capitalism.
Unless you want to go back to the days of Nationalistic Capitalism, with all the tariffs, duty, subsidies, protectionism, trade barriers, then you can't in this Globalized Free Trade World economy, engage in actions, with out taking a hit,
Often major, often decades long.
GM was already in trouble before 2000.
Anyone reading the WSJ knew that pensions were just going eff it up.
I don't get the WSJ anymore and do not have a subscription to search it database.
they spun off an auto part division adn that was the 1st to succumb.
Anzino,
Talking about the 60's, 70's GM, back when it was a World Leader, World wide, before it got passed by the Japanese, or the Germans, or the Swedes, or the Koreans, soon, the even the Indians,
The good old days of the 90% marginal top tax rate, when the US was building highways, factories, infrastructure, not tearing it all down.
You can't just "hand off" I-Phone assembly to Vietnam, or the Phillipines, or Myanmar. it took 25 years of State subsidized investment for China to get to that level of manufacture and assembly, India doesn't invest that way, and Korea's too expensive.
Besides, 97% of the Dems and 100% of the Repubs would call security on you if you even mentioned "protectionism" or "investing in industry".
Free Market Rules, National Economies drool and Corporations, which are the only people that matter anymore, are International now.
"Being overwhelmed elsewhere" is maby the most stupid thing I've heard from this blog lately. So, if something happens elsewhere, US don't know what to do? Cuz of lack of awareness... OMG.
The US has focused on a 2ADV level of forces for a long time.
That's Two Wars, Two opponents, world wide at any one time.
The US is currently trying to run military ops in 27 nations world wide against 39 different direct opponents at the same time, and failing at all.
"The good old days of the 90% marginal top tax rate, when the US was building highways, factories, infrastructure, not tearing it all down."
The good old days, when it feels like you moving through molasses.
Funny your economic analysis does not account for the effects of war.
Look at WW1 and farm prices.
You can't have a military if you do not have a manufacturing base.
Have you ever been in manufacturing? From what I see you make cabinets. not exactly the same thing.
Raise the taxes some more and we will see some manufacturing go to Brazil.
But hey then you can get a trucking job.
Failing at all?
They can't get Kony, because they do not want to get him.
It is a failure at the CINC level and all the little lawyers running around.
They would rather Kony mess up 1 million people, then to violate international law as they interpret it. funny thing is if they ever got Kony to the Hague, they would not care much about how he got there.
Markers have been placed. they will be judged by history, G-d, their fellow man, whoever.
Hans ... the common perception is that government is aware of everything .... and they are capable and able to makeo the right decisions when the time arises. Alas .... being someone who worked for a foreign office and for the UN .... I can say without any hesitation that such is not the case. There may be hundreds of thousands of people working for a government, but the decision powers rest in the hands of a very few, and they are always .... especially in the West .... very careful on what should they focus on, and what they should not. The South China Sea has not been a priority for the White House because they are focused/overwhelmed elsewhere, and no lower ranking bureaucrat, politician, or General is going to make a decision on their own unless the people in the White House Situation Room makes it for them first.
WWII magazine or one of them had an article on the German staff of WW2.
The point of the article was the German staff was so small, they were overwhelmed by the landing at Sicily and Stalingrad.
As an aside, if they had not been overwhelmed, I don't think they had the resources to do much better.
One of the staff officer later was head of NATO (or high up) and he was amazed by the # of staff officer that NATO had.
If NATO has enough or more than enough staff officer, the DoD probably does.
IMHO the fault lies not in not having enough analysta and satffer for 20 or 100 different crisis or world problems. the problem in Washington and especially this White House is that national politics and political consideration take precedence over reviewing and deciding on these crisis.
Plus people in other countries be they allies or brown people or both, just do not matter.
Aizino,
I worked High Tech Manufacturing, from Industrial Controls, through Plastics and Deepsea Robotics, to Touchscreens and Military Hardened Computers for three decades. None of those companies exist anymore, 3 were offshored to China, one, Germany.
I know a factor that has 6 models of heavy equipment.
One is manufactured in Brazil exclusively. They raise taxes more another model will be Brasilian exclusively, the high volume one.
That will have a further domino effect on the other 4 models making them marginally more expensive.
A lot of supplier and logistics jobs will go away just not the line assembly jobs.
Back in the "old days", taxes were tied to tariffs.
So the import tariffs on the Made in Brazil model, would make it cost the same, or more, than a domestically manufactured model.
It's called Protectionism, and it's how the US went from being an agrigarian economy, to an industrial and technological powerhouse.
Smoot Hawley did not work out so well.
Although one could legitimately argue that America has been de-industrial to a large extent and tariffs are needed.
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