Morning Rant: Is Washington really paying attention to China and Russia?

WSJ.com put an opinion piece up this week from Seth Cropsey of the Hudson Institute on The Two-Headed Fight for Ukraine and Taiwan.

Incidentally, the writer of this piece may have a greater interest in U.S. naval readiness than the U.S. Navy does, give the obsession among our current military brass with "diversity, equity and inclusion" and such.

These aren't mere regional hot spots, as Russia and China work together to upend world order.

Although separated by geography, Ukraine and Taiwan occupy similar positions in the Russian and Chinese strategic experience and historical imagination. Capturing each is essential to all other strategic objectives. For Russia, taking Ukraine would secure its hold on the Black Sea and open other pressure points against vulnerable NATO members Romania and Bulgaria. For the Chinese Communist Party, seizing Taiwan would allow the country to break out of the First Island Chain and conduct offensive operations against Japan, the Philippines and even U.S. territories in the Central Pacific.

Some people would add Australia to that last list.

Here's an interesting take: "Taiwan and Ukraine are simultaneously menaced but the target is Washington."

If you think in terms of "World Power", that's probably right. Wouldn't Russia and China just love to wipe us out as a world power?

Richard Fernandez had a good question:

Has it ever occurred to the DC elite to ask: why now?

I have a couple of additional questions:

• I see bluster from time to time concerning some national security threat or other from Russia or China, but how many effective, systematic actions have the Washington elite taken which indicate that they believe these threats are worth taking seriously (without damaging Americans)?

• If they did ask "Why now", would they come up with different thoughts than non-elite Americans would?

• If they did ask "Why now", would they change their behavior? Would our news look different?
  

What do you think?

Richard Fernandez may have a different perspective than the typical Washington elitist partly because he lives in Australia and partly because he has tangled with Maoists in the Philippines in the past. Perhaps threats from China seem more immediate to him.

This brings up the behavior of our allies:

Let's take Australia as an example. There was a recent kerfuffle over Australia canceling a deal for French-made nuclear submarines. Interesting comment by John Kerry. Heh. There's more concerning those negotiations:

Here's one perhaps relevant portion of an incredibly interesting discussion between Balaji Srinivasan and Tim Ferriss. Balaji remarks that the AUKUS deal in which the US was to provide Australia nuclear submarines was (1) a reaction to the failed Afghanistan exit, looking for a photo-op and to show a "pivot" to Asia; (2) did more damage than good by showing divisions within the Five Eyes as well as with France, India, and Japan; and (3) was never serious in the first place. Here's Balaji on that last part:

Then what did Australia get? Australia got subs, but you know what the fine print is, the first nuclear submarine that Australia builds is going to appear? Do you know what the date that they've got is? 20 years. 20 years!

The thing is, this is not a serious thing. This is basically something -- it reminds me of the San Francisco $300 million bus lane that took almost two decades. Patrick Collison has a website called Fast. I'll give you the exact URL. It is patrickcollison.com/fast. He shows that stuff in the past was built way faster. Just as one example... The first nuclear submarine was built [in less than five] years, relative to this one which is to take 20. How is that possible the first sub that's built 40 [actually, more than 60] years ago is faster than this one? Or like The Empire State Building was started and finished in 410 days.

Australia has been acting sort of totalitarian concerning COVID, too. Chinese influence?

And then there's Europe. I saw a piece from Upworthy on Facebook (keep seeing Upworthy posts even though I never click on them) written by an American woman who had decided to live permanently with her family in Germany. She was in love with Germany because she knew she wouldn't have to worry about affording health care, and because she knew her taxes would be used to help other families. She didn't seem to be worried about Germany giving up its nuclear energy capacity or becoming dependent on Russia for its energy needs. Or about possible Russian aggression in Europe in the future. No need for any German taxes to be dedicated to defense!

Back here in the USA:

None of these things help prevent power-grabs by China and/or Russia:

I'm confident that you can think of some other things that don't help.

Thanks for stopping by to ponder and discuss.

Photo notes: Coco the Colobus Monkey (at the top of the post) lives at Zoo Atlanta. The conclave of Colobus Monkeys just above lives at Hogle Zoo.

posted by K.T. at 11:15 AM

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