Category Archives: defense policy

A Cost of Biden’s Red Sea Dithering

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As Progressive-Democrat President Timid Joe Biden continues to respond to Houthi terrorist attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea with namby-pamby—the recent strikes against some terrorist launch sites in Houthi-occupied western Yemen are proving to be a one-off, with Houthi attacks continuing, with Biden shying away from further response (his Tuesday potshots don’t count)—Egypt is suffering considerable shipping drops from the reduced shipping through its Suez Canal.

International Monetary Fund figures show 35% less cargo was transported through the Suez Canal in the first week of 2024 compared with the same period last year.

The shipping rate drop is made clear in these graphs. The first is an Agence France-Presse graph:This one is from the IMF’s Port Watch:

The key part of this 4-yr graph is the blue-highlighted last-six-months date range at the right. The rest of the four years just shows how steady shipping was before the Houthi attacks and Biden’s timidity in the face of them.

As usual, right click and select the Open Image in New Tab option for a larger versions of the graphs.

From that shipping drop, Egypt’s Suez Canal-related revenue is down 40% in just the first 10 days of this year compared to 2023, as a result of the Houthis’ attacks.

The Houthis’ terrorist attacks on commercial shipping aren’t what’s isolating the Suez Canal from the world’s shipping lanes, though. It’s Biden’s tolerance for those attacks, and his meek acceptance of them as the new status quo, that are doing that.

Timid President Fails Again

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On the heels of the just-concluded Republic of China election, in which the DPP Presidential candidate won a plurality and so won the Presidency (giving the DPP, which opposes “reunification” with the People’s Republic of China, a third consecutive term in that office), but lost its legislative majority, our own Progressive-Democratic President Joe Biden…messed up again.

We do not support independence [for the RoC]

That’s a clear signal of meekness to the PRC, and it magnifies the danger to the RoC.

As I noted in a comment in another venue*,

We betrayed the RoC 50 years ago, and that policy remains shamefully wrong today. It’s never a reasonable thing to support a wrong policy; its age confers no legitimacy.

It’s long past time we extended formal diplomatic recognition, again, to the RoC, and long past time we got off the dime on selling them/lend-leasing them the arms they need to mount an effective defense—and offense: there’s no defense like having the offensive initiative, which would allow the RoC to control the pace and depth of the fight. Waiting defensively to block or slip the enemy’s blows only allows too many of the enemy’s blows to land.

We also need to be far more active in air and naval patrolling of the Taiwan Strait and the waters close by the PRC-occupied islands of the South China Sea, along with low altitude overflights of those islands, and we should do so, but not exclusively so, in joint exercises with Australia, Japan, and the nations rimming that Sea.

*Claire Berlinski’s The Cosmopolitan Globalist is well worth the subscription.

Step in the Right Direction

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If Germany will follow through promptly.

The German government has approved the export of air-defense missiles to Saudi Arabia, underlining a softening of its hard line of recent years toward arms exports to the kingdom.

They’ve approved a whole 150 air-to-air missiles for Iris-T air defense systems.

And:

Germany is open to delivering more Eurofighter jets…to Saudi Arabia.

That’d be cool, too, if they’ll actually follow through promptly, and if the other nations of the Eurofighter consortium also agree and follow through promptly.

But it’s only a step. How about some Eurofighters and associated weapons and maintenance suites for Ukraine, which is involved an a truly existential struggle against barbarians? Or does Germany still think those Slavs are too dumb to be able to fly such an airplane, even after the UA demonstrated Germany’s…error…with Leopard tanks?

Bring It

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Texas’ Republican Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law a bill which authorizes Texas’ law enforcement personnel to arrest illegal aliens and further authorizes Texas State judges to order them deported.

The Biden administration objects.

In a letter to Abbott…the Department of Justice says it will “pursue all appropriate legal remedies to ensure that Texas does not interfere with the functions of the federal government.”
The letter says that the law “intrudes into a field that is occupied by the federal government and is preempted,” citing a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, US v Arizona, which found that the federal government has the power to enforce immigration law….

Abbott has committed to fighting the Biden/Garland DoJ as far and for as long as is necessary, given the Progressive-Democrat President’s decision to erase our southern border and in pursuant of which he has abrogated his Constitutional obligations, one, to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed with his deliberate decision to ignore our immigration laws and, two, to safeguard our nation by defending our borders.

I say bring the lawsuit. Discovery, all by itself, will be illuminating. Let’s see what you got.

Watching and Learning

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The Houthis, the gang of terrorists ruling over parts of Yemen, fired anti-ship missiles at USN combat ships in the Red Sea.

The Navy engaged three ballistic missiles provided to Yemen’s Houthis by Iran. It was the first time the Navy shot down an incoming anti-ship ballistic missile in combat, officials say.
Naval assets, including the USS Laboon and F/A-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, shot down 12 one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack missiles fired by the Houthis over a 12-hour period, US Central Command said.

What troubles me about this, aside from Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s cowardice in not responding to these attacks in any serious manner, is this. There are three combat ships of the People’s Republic of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy in the immediate area.

Those three PLAN ships aren’t there to stop pirates or to protect commercial shipping from terrorist activity. They’re there to watch the US Navy engage anti-ship missiles and rockets. And to learn. This as the PRC prepares its invasion of the Republic of China and its…neutralization…of the USN in support of that invasion.

The PLAN—and the Russian navy, et al.—are going to watch what we do and where we do it; that’s unavoidable. Done right, though, the watching could be a deterrent as they see how capable we are and how we’re willing to use that capability. But done right, particularly in the present case, necessarily includes using our capability as a coup de main to eliminate Houthi ports and launch sites and the Iranian ports in a matter of some hours or a day or two, to eliminate the threat altogether.