The seriousness we need and are not going to get
The world stage is particularly hot at the moment, and post-America is not prepared to deal with it
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I hope I effectively made one of the points I wanted to put front and center in my second to last post. Here’s how I stated it there:
I don’t set much store by comparative arguments about whether our society was flourishing or not at a given moment. There are ample arguments for both basic positions - that we’ve never had it so good, with the level of comfort, convenience and safety we enjoy, or, on the other hand, that our bedrock institutions have never been so eroded, nor our society so atomized.
. . . [H]istory shows us that no culture anywhere has ever been free of palace intrigue, disingenuous defenses of obviously bad policies, dysfunction in the most influential families, reckless handling of resources, and outright advocating of oppression.
Let me expand. Holding this grand American experiment together has been touch and go even in the most stable of times. That is even more true of the task of holding together a safe and predictable world order. While we speak of the 79-year period since 1945 as a golden age of world-stage comity - and historically low poverty levels, rising literacy and technological advancement bear this out - it’s offered us no shortage of the kind of carnage previous periods have been characterized by: Cold War proxy conflicts (Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Central America, southern Africa), jihadism of both the Shiite and Sunni variety, the festering threat from North Korea, a reconfigured alliance of Latin American leftist regimes.
And now there’s the current array of attention-warranting developments.
China’s quest to dominate the Pacific Rim continues apace:
China and the Philippines accused each other of causing a collision between their two vessels Saturday in the latest flareup of tensions over disputed waters and maritime features in the South China Sea.
In a statement posted on social media, Chinese coast guard spokesperson Liu Dejun was quoted as saying that a Philippine ship maneuvered and “deliberately collided” with a Chinese coast guard ship “in an unprofessional and dangerous manner.”
Philippine officials in Manila said it was their coast guard ship, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, that was rammed thrice by the Chinese coast guard without any provocation, causing damage to the Philippine vessel.
It was the second confrontation in days near Sabina Shoal, about 140 kilometers (85 miles) west of the Philippine province of Palawan, in the internationally recognized exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.
The Philippine ship, the Magbanua, has been anchored in Sabina since mid-April after Manila suspected that China may construct a structure to seize the uninhabited atoll. China harbored the same suspicions and recently filed a diplomatic protest against the Philippines due to the ship’s prolonged presence at the shoal.
China is rapidly expanding its military and has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea, which is crucial to international trade. The tensions have led to more frequent confrontations, primarily with the Philippines, and could drag in with the United States, which is bound by a treaty to defend the Philippines. The longtime territorial disputes also involve other claimants including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.
China has rejected a ruling by a U.N.-backed arbitration panel that negated almost all of its historically based claims in the South China Sea.
So how is the US positioned to deal with this? Not adequately:
Battle force retirements have largely outpaced new procurement for the past two decades. Unstable funding and changing demands have left industry to cut down their shipbuilding operations to stay profitable, hollowing out domestic shipbuilding capacity and limiting our ability to build the fleet of the future. As former Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday bluntly put it, “The biggest barrier to adding more ships to the Navy is industrial base capacity.”
Furthermore, the fleet is aging. As ships become older, they become more expensive and difficult to maintain. Ships are being tied in up in compounded maintenance delays, taking numerous ships off the line. Copious maintenance delays for the surface fleet resulted in less than 68 percent surface fleet ships deemed “mission-capable,” last year. Submarines face a similar situation, with just 63 percent of attack submarines available in the last year, further shrinking the true size of our Navy.
As Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti recently emphasized, “The threats to our nation and our interests are real and growing.” A strong Navy is essential to our prosperity. Failure to reverse the fleet’s decline is emboldening America’s enemies and will only get more costly the longer they keep at it.
A shrinking Navy cannot match growing threats, jeopardizing not only our security but also the very foundation of global stability that relies on a strong and forward-deployed naval force. While this comes at a cost, our Navy is no mere expenditure. It’s a strategic investment in that pays dividends in both American and global prosperity.
Would things change for the better in a second Very Stable Genius administration? Not likely. The VSG would employ his trademark transactional approach to foreign policy:
Words matter in international diplomacy, and Donald Trump has spewed out some that are especially dangerous. He signaled that he might not defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. “Taiwan should pay us for defense,” he told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview released on Tuesday. “You know, we’re no different than an insurance company.” Trump went on to imply that protecting the island was not even possible. “Taiwan is 9,500 miles away,” he said. “It’s 68 miles away from China.”
The comment typifies Trump’s view of foreign policy as a business transaction, and likely appeals to a political base weary of Washington’s superpower responsibilities. But although such talk may be good domestic politics, it makes for atrocious geopolitical strategy. The Chinese dictator Xi Jinping is listening for clues about American intentions in Asia, and factoring them into his calculations for promoting Chinese influence. Trump’s Taiwan remarks play right into his hands by undermining the most fundamental, yet fragile, source of U.S. global power: confidence in American leadership.
Plus, there’s the VSG’s inclination to admire dictators:
Former President Donald Trump said Saturday that Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders reached out to him following last week’s assassination attempt.
“And I got along very well with President Xi. He’s a great guy, wrote me a beautiful note the other day when he heard about what happened,” Trump told the crowd at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Most of the leaders did.”
“Great guy.”
Russia has been particularly savage in its assault on Ukraine:
Russia launched an overnight barrage of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv, Ukraine's air force said Monday, as children prepared their return to school across the country after the summer vacation.
Several series of explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital in the early hours. Debris from intercepted missiles and drones fell in every district of Kyiv, injuring three people and damaging two kindergartens, Ukraine's Interior Ministry said. City authorities reported multiple fires.
Russia launched an attack at the city of Kharkiv on Sep. 1, injuring at least 47 people, local authorities reported.
At around 1 p.m. local time, the first explosions were heard in Kharkiv. The Saltivskyi and Nemyshlianskyi districts of the city came under attack, according to Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
According to the preliminary data, the city was struck by Iskander-M ballistic missiles, the Prosecutor General's Office said.
As of 2 p.m. local time, 22 people were injured in the Saltivskyi district and six in the Nemyshlianskyi district. Two people are in serious condition, Terekhov said.
Later in the day, Terekhov added that two children and two medics suffered injuries in the attack on the Saltivskyi district.
As of 6:44 p.m. local time, the number of casualties has risen to 47 people, including seven children, the State Emergency Service reported.
NATO members, particularly its easternmost, know Putin’s designs don’t stop with Ukraine:
NATO faces a “pre-war era” in which “literally any scenario is possible” given the potential for aggression from Russia, according to Poland’s prime minister, the latest evidence that allies see a growing likelihood of major conflict.
And then there’s the Middle East.
I think the first distinction to make is between the Jew-hating pro-jihad Western push for a ceasefire as soon as possible, details and long-term considerations be damned, and the families of actual hostages, whose levels of anxiety, grief and hopelessness can scarcely be imagined. The latter have skin in the game of the dearest kind.
But the same basic message must be delivered in each case. Netanyahu and the war cabinet have gone to extraordinary lengths to get to a ceasefire agreement. But Hamas is not even sending a representative to the latest round of negotiations. The prattle coming out of Doha and Cairo is for naught without the other side’s presence.
This was particularly driven home by this discovery:
The six dead hostages recovered from the Gaza Strip over the weekend were killed 48 to 72 hours before their autopsy, meaning between Thursday and Friday morning, the Health Ministry said Sunday.
The ministry added that an examination carried out by Abu Kabir Forensic Institute found that all six hostages were shot multiple times from close range, indicating they were executed.
The IDF had said that Hamas terrorists murdered the hostages relatively shortly before troops located their bodies on Saturday afternoon in a tunnel in Rafah.
They’d been captive since last October and Hamas decided to off them at this particular time.
What clues do we have regarding candidate Harris’s thinking on this subject?
In a late-night statement, President Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” and declared, “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.” Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris responded with a statement declaring, “Hamas is an evil terrorist organization. With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands.” She added that “the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel—and American citizens in Israel—must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza.”
But it’s worth remembering that for months, Israel pushed to enter Rafah, which is where it believed Hamas terrorists were concentrated and where the terrorist group was holding hostages, and for months, Biden and Harris warned Israel in the harshest of terms not to launch a major offensive in that area of Gaza.
Biden warned that a major Israeli operation in Rafah was a “red line” for him and suggested it could trigger a cut-off of offensive weapons. In a March ABC interview, Harris said, “We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you something, I have been studying the maps.” She added that she would not rule out “consequences” if Israel moved forward.
Keep in mind, these statements came a month after Israel rescued two hostages in Rafah.
But bless their hearts, the Biden folks are still begging Hamas to come back to the table:
Biden officials say it’s not clear whether the discovery of the six hostages would make it more or less likely for Israel and the Hamas terrorist group to reach agreement.
“Does it derail the deal? No. If anything, it should add additional urgency in this closing phase, which we were already in,” the official said.
“U.S. officials are going to be burning up the phones over the next 48 hours to see if a deal can still be reached,” a second senior U.S. official told the Post.
And let us keep foremost in our minds that one of the six murdered hostage was a US citizen. That’s an act of war, isn’t it?
And a major Hamas hangup seems to be the Philadelphi corridor. Just why is that?
An article at Iran’s IRNA state media is clear on this. “Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, says no agreement is possible for a ceasefire in Gaza without the Israeli regime's withdrawal from Philadelphi, Netzarim, and Rafah corridors.” When Hamas says something it is not just rhetoric. Hamas clearly understands that the IDF control of these areas is preventing Hamas from controlling all of Gaza. Hamas currently controls the central camps area of Gaza; Bureij, Maghazi, Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat, and it controls areas in northern Gaza and Khan Younis.
However, Hamas has control has been partially checked by the IDF control of the corridors in southern Gaza and Netzarim in the center.
It's worth recalling that IDF control of Netzarim and Philadelphi is not something that just happened in this war. The IDF took control of these areas in previous wars and operations. When Israel controlled Gaza from 1967 to 2005, the control of these areas was key to securing Gaza.
In those days, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s Israel established communities in those areas to secure them. Israel also had communities in Sinai near the Philadelphi border. Yamit was a key to this area and a key to securing the border. It was evacuated in 1982.
It's worth noting that the IDF had to operate in the Philadelphi corridor during the Second Intifada to uproot terrorist infrastructure. Hamas, founded in the late 1980s, has always understood the need to control the border area. Hamas knows Gaza, its key leadership almost all come from Gaza. Therefore Hamas understands that control of the border with Egypt and central Gaza is a key to its return to power.
How does Hamas smuggled items into Gaza? Some of it may come from underground tunnels, but it is likely a lot of the power of Hamas comes from controlling the overland route via Rafah. It brings in dual use items that it repurposes for terror needs. It is likely that underground smuggling is not the real story these days. Control of the overland route is more important. That is one reason Hamas wants to return to control Rafah.
Hamas knows that an internal debate exists in Israel about holding on to the Philadelphi corridor. It exploits this and uses language that is designed to sow internal discord. For instance, it accuses Israel’s leadership of seeing the corridor as “more important than Israeli captives.” The fact is that it is Hamas that sees this area as more important. It is Hamas that took hostages. It is Hamas that used the border area to become stronger and launch a genocidal attack on Israel. It is Hamas that murdered the hostages.
Now, which US party on the ballot in two months would bring the requisite seriousness to the sum total of these developments?
Yeah. That’s how hosed we are.