A chilling article from Business Insider…
One of the guests, an influential Chinese professional, talked about the simmering conflict between China and Japan over a group of tiny islands in the Pacific.
Read the whole article HERE.
This mirrors what the ‘real’ intel folks are saying, and the administration is blithely ignoring them…
As the cuts to the military continue, the US military is truly becoming a hollow force, and nobody seems to care. I can’t help but remember a statement back in 2003/4 to the effect that America was at war, and Americans were at the mall.
There has been really NO impact on John Q. Public by the 10 years of fighting, other than the losses the families of the dead have experienced and the traumatic injuries experienced by those who’ve served. And since BO was elected, this has pretty much been ignored by both this administration and the MSM…
I believe what this administration has NOT done in response to the Chinese aggression in the Senkaku incident has given China a tacit hint they will not be opposed…
However, we DO have a joint defense treaty with Japan, which mandates we respond if the Japanese respond to any ‘incursions’…
If it comes down to it, words will not work, only actions… And we are sadly outnumbered…
And then there is this…
“We would trade away size for high-end capability,” Hagel said July 31. “This would … reduce the number of carrier strike groups from 11 to eight or nine.”
Read the whole article HERE.
I sat through the SOTU speech, and not a word one was said about the cuts to the military that are ongoing… NOT A @#$% WORD… But he’s going to sign an EO giving all federal contractors a ‘living’ minimum wage of $10.10 an hour. Reality is all of the government contractors ‘I’ know make a lot more that $10.10 an hour…
But he was ALL about ‘diplomacy’… Give diplomacy a chance… And he wants to build trust???
Yeah, right…
Sigh…
I do not believe this president will do anything meaningful should China move to take those islands. I think the Committee in China would agree with that. That would imply activity within the next year.
Japan? My guess…. hung out to dry on the same line as Israel.
+1
We’ll act if the CIC wants to act . . . or our military will be told to stand down. I suspect I know his choice. Treaties mean little to this p.(small p).resident.
“This would … reduce the number of carrier strike groups from 11 to eight or nine.”
Fewer targets to try and track and the loss of a single ship has a greater impact on operations. Remember this no longer 1940’s. Satellite technology means it is much harder to hide a battle group than at any time in history.
They seem to have forgotten that a large fleet stopped aggression by intimidation. What message does a shrinking fleet send?
Because this administration’s diplomacy has worked so well.
From the frame of reference of Obama as anti-American, this all makes sense.
DeSousa, the man who explained why Obama is anti-American is now in custody…
I thought perhaps – at first – that the president was clueless. Now I believe it’s deliberate. But somehow he thinks that he will be immune to attack/invasion/takeover.
I just hope the country can last until we can vote again. We need one more chance to recover before the invasion occurs.
CP- Good point… dammit…
This is a tempest in a teapot. While it’s true that China and Japan hate each other and have good reason to do so, Japan doesn’t dare make a move without the United States to back it up. One will plant the flag, the other will try and plant their own and the rest of the world will set the odds and cover the bets.
Not that it makes any difference but I agree with Mad Jack!
Dammit, What man in his right mind would ask a woman “What if…”
“that America was at war, and Americans were at the mall.”
The origin of this was a young E-5 being told by a reporter that “America is at war”, and he replied, “No. I’m at war. America is at the mall”.
The ones who will benefit from B.O.’s “raise” are employees at the fast-food restaurants in the museums like the Smithsonian. They wind up in rags like the Washington (com)Post every few weeks as they whine about having flipped burgers at those McDonalds franchises for years without getting any real raise. Obviously the idea of going to work somewhere else just doesn’t compute for these socio-economic bottom-dwellers but they vote so B.O. is flipping them a bone..and the rest of us the finger.
Art/WSF/Bill- Agreed… dammit…
Gerry- You know as well as I what message it sends… sigh
PH- yep
Opus- Concur!
LL- Yeah, I probably should have included that too…
Rev- Good point.
MJ- What if Japan reacts with ‘tacit’ approval based on the mutual aid pact, expecting back up and nobody shows???
Brighid- Me 🙂 Because I want to know what others think!
Prof- Thanks!
Murph- I didn’t know that… I ‘thought’ they were considered employees of the parent company… Thanks!
1) As I understand it, it works out to three decks deployed, three doing workups, and three in refit, with one or two either in overhaul or on contingency. The cut to 9 carrier strike groups means two, maybe three on float, unless we start shortening workups and refits. I’m not quite old enough to remember the ’70s, but this is starting to sound a lot like the sea stories I heard as an E-nothing in the ’80s. Quotable quote from the first rounds of the BRAC debates: “Smaller isn’t better. BETTER is better.”
2) My takeaway from the linked article is, “Never underestimate the incentive that national pride gives for irrational decisions…” (The more recent example that comes to mind is Argentina versus Britain in the Falklands). I’m not in the loop for intel, either, but the scuttlebutt I get is that the PRC is getting scary good at blue-water ops – better than they’ve ever been (and almost certainly better than the Argentinian Navy was). My understanding is that the JMSDF is capable, but still small; they’d need the US to be able to counter any PRC effort towards the Senkakus. And if national pride comes into play for them, the Japanese aren’t going to back down, either.
3) So, in-theater correlation-of-forces is somewhere between ambiguous and adverse; distances favor the Chinese; we’re obliged by treaty to back the Japanese; and the rhetoric from both sides is sounding more and more like the run-up to a shooting war; and we’re reducing our capabilities.
Conclusion: nothing good.
Mike- You are EXACTLY right… dammit…
We are SO screwed.
Real Scary Damn It!