China climbs the moutain

 

The rise of China is going to be the geopolitical story of this century, maybe THE story of this century.  It has been relentless, unapologetic, and historically almost unprecedented in its speed.  For a country that is supposedly communist, it has adapted to capitalism remarkably well..

China has its issues, particularly with a huge population that will inevitably age.  That, however, is not a problem at this moment.  Right now, China has penetrated its main rival, the United States, in many areas and has brought the world's largest country, Russia, into a formal alliance.

China has been on the top of the international heap for most of its existence. We have lived in in an era where China has not been the most powerful nation on the planet, which is a bit of an anomaly.   

It seems that China has decided to fix that.

China's recent rise is powered by the memory of humiliation visited upon the Celestial Kingdoms by Western powers.  Apparently this was more galling than the Mongol conquest. Nonetheless, after retaking Hong Kong and Macau, China feels that Taiwan is next.  The US alliance with the offshore island, a remnant of Nationalist China and unfinished business from the Chinese civil war in 1949. 

China has set a target date of 2049 to become the world's more powerful nation.  With an economy that seems primed to over take the US by 2023 and a navy that is growth seeming exponentially, it might achieve its goal earlier that that.   

With the US in the middle of internal turmoil and what seems to be a weakening will, China will probe out into the South China Sea and use that to break out into the Pacific toward what is called the Second Island Chain.  As you have probably guessed, the First Island Chain is Taiwan.

There are some interesting events on the horizon.

Time for a new US foreign policy

 

The United States has essentially been pursuing the same foreign policy since about 1950, or even a bit further back to the end of the Second World War if you really want to get technical about it.  Old habits die hard, but when you are twenty plus years into a new century, it might really be a good idea to kick the tires of your foreign policy and maybe get an oil change.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, America was trying to focus on an enemy that was not there.  President Clinton squandered the "peace dividend" after the Cold War, expanding a NATO that was not really needed, taking a confrontational role with anything on the horizon, and trying to shoehorn Saddam Hussein's Iraq into the role vacated by the Soviet collapse.

Then after the horrifying events of 9/11, "Islamic extremism" was used as the villain that was missing and President Bush embarked on a series of events that led to the US floundering in Afghanistan, pursuing mirages in Iraq,  launching missile strikes in Yemen, destroying Libya for no discernible purpose, and utterly failing to remove Assad from Syria. After all of the destruction and misery visited upon people who did nothing to us, the US is trying to recast Russia as the menace to Europe while not really sure what to do about the real threat--China.  And of course, many wonder why American servicemen are spread across the globe on hundreds of bases on every continent except possibly Antarctica.  The US armed forces have no business on the Syrian-Iraqi border while the US-Mexican border remains unguarded. 

Simple geography shows that the United States cannot fight two major wars at the same time while handing a contingency somewhere else, a grand strategy that dates back to the 1960s.  With problems here at home, the task facing the US armed forces proves even more daunting.  Some may use this an excuse to pump up the $800 billion dollar Pentagon budget, but I advise hitting the breaks on that line of thought. 

We shell out $800 billion a year and have yet to decisively win a war this century or at the very least, accomplish some sort of meaningful objective.  Not to mention, redirecting a few billion elsewhere can do wonders for our crumbling infrastructure. Or repair some damage from self-inflicted damage from idiotic COVID lockdowns. 

I suggest maybe not antagonizing Russia since its military has the world's largest nuclear arsenal.  I also think we can reach an accommodation with China while not abandoning our ally Taiwan.  And reducing, or even eliminating, our ground presence in the Middle East will do wonders for America's image there.

North Korea is, well, North Korea.  I can see the reason for leaving some US forces in South Korea.

I am not sure our political leadership is up to any sort of challenge, but the upcoming US-Russian summit in Geneva might be a ray of hope.  After all, Reagan and Gorbachev met there in 1985, leading to more summits in both Moscow and Washington and even led to the reduction of nuclear weapons arsenals on both sides.

And tell our idiot media to try to be optimistic for a change!