Another incident of China’s militarized coast guard ramming a Filipino vessel in the South China Sea hundreds of miles from China … this time with 60 Minutes on board.
We are headed toward World War III. People deserve the truth from those who pretend to lead.
Years ago, I would have advocated bringing our troops home. Today, I think it’s too late. A military pullout by the United States would be disastrous for both Asia and us. And anything less will require standing up to China. Now or later.
Not to mention that ending the U.S. role in Asia is not even being discussed.
Which means that U.S. assets in the region will eventually be attacked. Already we see the harassment of Taiwan and the bullying of the Philippines and others in the South China Sea. The U.S. has treaty commitments to fight for Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — plus, through the Taiwan Relations Act, we have pledged to help Taiwan stay free.
I would therefore call for spending more on the military. On weapons of war. On military capabilities half a world away. (Hard to believe it myself.) And I would prepare the country for the horrific possibility of war.
I think that is the only way to back China down from its aggressions against just about every neighbor as well as the rule-based international order and, ultimately, us.
The best news on this front is that the U.S. is not having to beg and plead for support for an alliance to check China or to go it alone:
- Germany just sent warships through the Taiwan Strait for the first time in two decades.
- Taiwan has nearly doubled its defense spending.
- Japan is doubling its military spending and mending relationships in the region to form closer alliances.
- The Philippines has given the U.S. four bases in strategic territory.
- Even Vietnam has befriended the U.S.
Why? All fear China.
Right now what the world needs is an alliance of the free. And a leader … to be very brave.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “Home of the Brave”
While — G_d knows! — I could be wrong, I think that the Chinese state is more likely saber-rattling for other effects, and is not prepared for open war.
If the Chinese state truly hopes soon to conquer all to which it has laid claim, then that state has played its hand badly in simultaneously picking fights with so many of its neighbors, driving them to form alliances rather that to pursue policies of appeasement.
Xi Jinping is not a military leader; whomever Xi might pick to lead an open war would ipso facto become a rival, and Xi does not want rivals. (And Xi would surely recognize that a man competent to lead a war would recognize that Xi would seek to remove him after conclusion of the war.)
Though the Chinese state has been throwing resources into a huge military build-up, the military is not in good shape, in no small part do to the corruption that comes naturally under an order of the sort that has prevailed in China for decades.
Taiwanese assets that the Chinese state hopes someday to claim, such as the Taiwanese semiconductor industry, would be destroyed by such a war, if only because the US would destroy the plant.
All that said, even if the conduct of the Chinese state is mostly pretense, they certainly could miscalculate, in a manner that caused a terrible eruption of violence.
“Years ago, I would have advocated bringing our troops home. Today, I think it’s too late.” — Paul Jacob
“From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ‘To a gas chamber — go!’ ” — Whitaker Chambers
Anyone who has read and understood Chambers’ review — regardless of whether he or she agreed with it — would say that you’re attempting some use of his words that simply does not fit.
Paul is nowhere claiming that those who disagree with him on this matter are wicked.
He’s saying (rightly or wrongly) that war has become inevitable, with the only things left to choose being when and how to fight it, on a presumption that immediate surrender is unacceptable.