China, India, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, Viet Nam, and the South China Sea

As if the arguments over China laying claim and total rights to all of the South China Sea including the right to prevent its usage by other nations and to intercept and claim all goods on any ship found in its waters wasn’t enough to drive the rest of the countries of Asia to the brink, the recent launch of a three stage rocket which proved capable of placing an object in orbit, even if not under total control, has made the games even more interesting. China’s South China Sea claims pushed India, Japan, and Viet Nam to join their forces and hold a joint naval operation in a move of unity and signaling their defiance of China’s claims. Japan has even taken the initial steps of amending their Constitution in order to allow them to strengthen their military making it able to operate away from their coastal waters and serve as more than simply a home-front guard. The levels of apprehension emanating from China’s neighbors are more than a simple reaction to China’s growing power, but are equally likely a reaction to the apparent diminishing of American power in South East Asia. With China rapidly expanding their naval power and soon to be launching modern aircraft carriers the nations in the area are starting to doubt if the United States will still be able to uphold their part of the treaties and conventions which had held the balance in the area until recently. With the announcement by United States President Obama that the American Navy will soon be downsized, and most critically, reducing the number of aircraft carriers and fleets by as much as one third has sent ripples of panic through the nations who had been dependent on the American Navy to be the overwhelming force in the Pacific but now are looking at a new order rushing into place where China is the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the Pacific Ocean. This situation will deserve close attention as it may be the best indicator of the waning of the United States as a global power and the emergence of China as one of the new central figures in the coming new order.

Enough said on China which has been well covered and on to this recent semi-successful launch by North Korea and its effect on the area. Already there have been reaction coming from politicians in Japan and South Korea and they are taking opposite sides. As has been the recent trend in South Korea to the developments and challenges coming from their northern neighbors, North Korea, they are once again preaching appeasement. South Korea has been slowly sliding towards some form of reconciliation and reuniting with the North Korea and away from their United States orbit. They have all the signs of a tired people who have simply accepted their inability to influence or alter the inevitable. The passivity of South Korean politics likely reflects the mood of the younger citizens as most polls show a continued desire to resist any influences coming from North Korea while indicating that the younger South Koreans favor compromises and finding a path that is non-combative and more agreeable, avoiding possibilities of conflict or misunderstanding. Time will tell if the political pendulum will continue to swing in this current direction or if it is reaching its apogee and is soon to begin to swing back towards defending the difference between the two Koreas.

Meanwhile, Japan is taking the exact opposite approach. Japanese politicians have almost universally expressed dismay and proposed defending their islands from the growing threat posed by North Korea. Where developing nuclear weapons has thus far mostly been a subject left untouched on the shelf, this reaction from Japan is consistent with their reactions to China’s growing militarism and aggressive attitudes over the South China Sea. Japan has been reaching out and establishing ties with India among other Asian countries who also feel threatened by China and now North Korea. Japan is currently working to free themselves from what was historically a self-imposed passivity after World War II when they insisted that being restricted militarily to a self-defense force by their constitution. Needless to say, the United States gladly complied. That restriction is very likely to become a relic of an age that is passing into history with few who recall the reasoning and desires that gripped Japan after the devastations brought upon themselves by their aggressions which led to World War II and their eventual crushing defeat. So, it appears that the old historic rivals may both soon be building militaries once again and heading for another episode in the series of conflicts that have been regular occurrences throughout all of history. As they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same. The one fact that makes this scenario even more threatening is the fact that China has a demographic time-bomb ticking away due to their one child per family laws. This has had two dangerous effects; the first is a rapidly aging population and the second is the large percentage of male children among the generations since the passage of the one child rules which has always historically led to wars since beginning of time.

Beyond the Cusp

Obama Will not Use Options on the Table Until Election

We have been hearing from officials from the Obama Administration just as we did from the Bush Administration that all options are on the table concerning the Iranian Nuclear Program. Right from the top I wish to make clear that blame for the inaction by the United States towards the potential Iranian threat, should they be allowed to produce nuclear weapons, falls just as hard on President Bush as it does on President Obama. My reasoning is that if President Bush even had the slightest glimmer of a hint that the incoming Obama Administration would take no actions preventing an Iranian Nuclear weapon, then it was completely upon his shoulders to have taken action before he left office. Currently, though, all blame now rests with President Obama as he is the sole person empowered to address this issue as it currently stands. From what we have observed, the military option is still sitting on the table while the sanctions placed on Iran are increased one minimal increment after another. The problem with this use of sanctions is we are slowly bringing the water to a boil on the frog in the pot. By ramping up in as measured amount of steps each new set of sanctions does not feel all that more restrictive than the last. Granted, when all these steps are considered as a whole, the sanctions are relatively severe, but since they have stepped up slowly and consistently over a long stretch of time, their bite has not had that pounding effect one usually wishes to impart using sanctions. What has been necessary for quite some time has been a serious ramping of sanctions whose pain was unavoidably felt thus a definitive mark. Unfortunately, to reach such an effect today would take a near total sealing of the Iranian borders not allowing any land, sea, or air transport or trade. This is a nearly impossible goal. So, what is left?

 

According to the signals from President Obama and his Administration, the only thing left is more of the same. The theory and the plan appear to be one and the same and if the theory fails, well, there is no other plan. The safety of the world is to depend on the dulcet and irresistible charms which are the orations of President Obama with the threat of presumably severe sanctions should diplomacy fail to turn Iran away from seeking nuclear weapons and rule of the Middle East for now and the world given time. The Israelis have been told both directly and indirectly to simply stand by and wait for the sanctions to work. If Israel appears to be imminently set on actually taking concrete actions, then the sanctions will be ramped a little tighter. We have placed the final set of sanctions on Iran three or four times, it is hard to keep track as final appears to be a relative term which always allows for one more final round to be applied. It is like a bad slasher movie with a fiendish, disfigured, demonic entity which stalks the hapless victims and dies at the end but returns from the grave to make another movie of the same plot timed for release around Halloween every year.  Such is the current best laid plans concerning preventing Iran from reaching their goal. In this movie we get repeats on ratcheting sanctions and Iran’s willingness for talks or IAEA inspections only to turn evil and renege on any and all promises as soon as the threats from Washington and the European Union are safely aborted. Lately we have been treated to one new wrinkle, with Israel appearing to tire of the endless and ineffective song and dance being performed between Iran and Washington. President Obama has had either Secretary of State Clinton or Secretary of Defense Panetta come out and make a statement charging that Israel is about to or will be attacking Iran by such and such a date. These announcements to the press are intended to force Israel to deny and make statements affirming their backing and willingness to continue with the plan, always, the never ending plan.

 

Meanwhile, the table with all the options on it that we keep hearing about has been moved to a safe location. It has been stashed in an armored vault and President Obama gave his wife Michelle the key and claimed loudly that he does not want to see the key, or the table, until after Thanksgiving. This, of course, has nothing to do with an election coming three weeks before Thanksgiving. So, this is where we sit and have been sitting for some time. The Europeans, the United States, Canada, and a few others are pretending that there are strong and crippling sanctions placed upon Iran making the leaders in Tehran very nervous and anxious and they will break any moment now. Meanwhile, Russia, China, North Korea, and to a slightly lesser extent Japan and India are all still trading with Iran. They are all buying their oil from Iran and have been allowed to use whatever currency suits them as long as it is not dollars. There are some European companies who are still honoring contracts they have made with Iran though nobody is willing to call them on this. There are other players also trading with Iran buying their oil to the point that Iran continues to pump oil as fast as they ever did and are easily selling the bulk of that oil. Also proceeding without any regard to President Obama and his Administration are Iraq and Afghanistan who are cozying up to Iran and making mutual deals and promises as they are waving good bye to the leaving American troops. What a great plan we have to prevent Iran from making progress on their nuclear program. Listen carefully and you can hear the Ayatollahs laughing hysterically as they throw darts at a targeted picture of President Obama.

 

Eventually one of two outcomes will have to happen. Either Israel will take their best effort to end, at least for the time being, the Iranian nuclear program or somebody will be the test subject of Iran’s first half dozen nukes and the associated EMP and then it all goes dark as the world plunges into what may very well be the end of civilization as we have come to know it. As I have been saying, what a great plan we have going.

 

Beyond the Cusp

For What Else will President Obama be Blamed?

All this coming week we can expect to see pundits, editorialists, journalists and others who make their livelihood commenting on politics heaping blame for the events unfolding in New York. There will be those who will claim that President Obama should have worked more diligently to alter the scheduling and subject matter of the Durban III Conference in order to prevent the conference from devolving into simply another blame Israel and Zionists for every evil in the world while ignoring virtually every other culprit all in the name of celebrating the one decade birthday of the original Durban Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. I doubt any actions available to President Obama would have been capable of having any influence to alter Durban III from being anything other than a collective hate-fest against Israel and Zionists in particular and all Jews in general. Simply put, the Durban Conferences will never ever change their discourse or the chosen victim of the vile echo-chamber first set in stone by the first conference held in Durban, South Africa back in 2001 just one week before the horrific 9/11 terror attacks.

The other event for which the blame will be placed at President Obama’s feet is the expected petitioning of the United Nations in both the Security Council and the General Assembly attempting to attain recognition as a nation state with full United Nations membership. Where some of the blame is most likely legitimate to be placed at President Obama’s feet, much of the Palestinian actions were very likely inevitable and the President likely only hurried them along. The Palestinians had probably planned to make such moves to attain statehood and were simply waiting for what they would perceive as the most opportunistic of situations, and President Obama simply made now feel most opportunistic to the Palestinian leadership. Such was bound to all fall into place sooner or later no matter how prudently the rest of the world acted in order to prevent such events. Despite all those placing much of the blame for the Palestinian attempt for recognition internationally through the United Nations enabling the supplanting the need to negotiate with Israel on President Obama, the supportive actions and intent of the vast majority of NGO’s, the human rights experts and proponents, as well as much of much of Europe and numerous countries outside of the Western nations having been pounding the drums calling for the formation of the Palestinian state would have facilitated these same events sometime in the near future. So, President Obama may have made some obviously detrimental moves concerning the Middle East and Israel, his contributions were not the pivotal excuses that facilitated the Palestinians moves this week.

I guess I should find something different to lay blame at the feet of the President so as not to feel left out of all the fun and the enthusiasm of the Blame Obama movement. In an area fairly removed from the Middle East geographically actually shares a similar form of trouble as does Israel in that countries are facing a problem of an insatiable adversary attempting to infringe on territory they control and further isolate them from the rest of the area and the world by wresting control over these contested areas. The problem concerns the areas around the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Spratly Islands, and the claims of administrative possession China is attempting to force upon the rest of the countries in the area. Included among these countries are the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, and Taipei which are facing a growing military threat by China to take possession by force if necessitated. The problem is even felt as far away as India as it will affect their extensive trade with other nations in Asia, especially Japan. This problem for India with China is on top of numerous other problems between India and China which are some of the longest running conflicts between any two nations anywhere. In the past, when tempers approached boiling over, the United States would arrange some joint military maneuvers of commensurate size to deal with the expansionist policies China is pursuing against their neighbors. In the recent past, such a show of force has been shunned by President Obama under the guise of the United States international policies taking a less confrontational posture. The somewhat distressful consequence of employing such a policy for the United States has allowed for other countries wishing to expand their standings in the world and extending their control and taking leadership positions over their areas of influence, to spread into many areas where previously the United States had kept a semblance of order through displays of power. China has probably taken the most advantage of the complete lack of containment in their little corner of the world by the United States and sees this as their opportunity to push out the nations from much of the waters in order to take control of some of the outlying contested Islands and many fishing areas. The Chinese moves also are making importation by sea a more difficult and costly endeavor as international shipping lanes are falling under Chinese control allowing China to demand fees be paid by ships passing through their extended claimed coastal areas. The ships can avoid these licensing fees by diverting around the areas China is enforcing ownership which delays arrival times and increases fuel usage which causes rising prices.

This is far from a new problem as China has been applying such pressures for decades with the conflicting claims with Japan and the Philippines over fishing rights or ownership of some of the many small, but vital, islands throughout the area such as the most notable ongoing contention over the Spratly Islands. With President Obama choosing not to oppose China in even the smallest of measures while depending on the Chinese to finance much of his stimulus spending, China has felt free to act without any need for restraint pursuing their self-serving policies. One of the earlier signs of how far President Obama was willing to bend in order to not “insult” the leadership of China was exemplified by delaying a meeting with the Dalai Lama and even when meeting with this revered head of the Buddhists, he met the Dalai Lama outside of the Oval Office using an unnamed room that carried less weight of honors than an official Oval Office meeting would have conveyed. Despite such timidity and slight towards the Dalai Lama, the Chinese still objected and President, true to form, offered his earnest apologies. President has shown equal deference towards Chinese claims to extend their administration over new territories simply by refusing to send any United States naval vessels into these areas to reinforce their status as international waters independent of the control of any nation. The importance of these waters and small islands are actually very critically placed to influence and impact heavily traveled trade routes with great importance for Asia. The biggest potential losers should China continue unimpeded in their quests would be Japan and the Philippines, two stalwart allies to the United States in the past. I dare not extend that the designation of allies of the United States as such preferential titles seem to have all been reevaluated and many of those who previously were allies are no longer valued as such. Chalk this avoidance of assisting our previous allies and containing China, as they appear to be standing in opposition to American interests, as well as those of Southeast Asia, to simply be another small and unimportant step in President Obama and his Administration’s efforts towards lessening American imperialism and allowing other countries, the United Nations, or other international groups and organizations to take the lead as the United States faithfully follows along taking no responsibility for anything, especially if it should require real actions which would display American exceptionalism.

Beyond the Cusp