Tag Archives: foreign policy

National Defense in Asia

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Japan has begun taking a more aggressive approach to its national defense and to its partnership with the US in regional defense.  This may be spurred by the People’s Republic of China’s naked aggression in the South China Sea against the Republic of the Philippines and their threats against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam over the latter’s activities in the Sea.  This may be spurred by northern Korea’s attempted launch of an ICBM—Japan had already announced they’d attempt to shoot it down if its path were over/toward Japan.  This may be spurred by the fact that the PRC said last March that it plans to increase defense spending over 11% in 2012, making their defense spending second highest in the world after the our own.

Adding to this is the US talking more aggressively about our own self- and regional-defense responsibilities.  A newly appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and Pacific affairs will give “serious consideration” to the sale of F-16 C/D fighters to the Republic of China (recall that this administration last September acquiesced to PRC demands that we not sell the RoC these models—instead we agreed to sell markedly less capable A/B models).  Bloomberg reports our administration’s bigger talk, now: A jet sale

“warrants serious consideration given the growing military threat to Taiwan,” Robert Nabors, the White House’s director of legislative affairs, said in a letter [26 April] to Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

On top of this, the administration is working a deal to base a small number of American troops at a location on Australia’s northern coast.

So far, though, little Japan, with its constitutionally mandated limits on its military posture, seems to be taking the more aggressive action.  As The Wall Street Journal reports,

“Japan will promote…enhancement of its defense posture in the area, including the Southwestern Islands, in coordination with the US strategy of focusing on the Asia-Pacific region,” [Prime Minister Yoshihiko] Noda told [the paper], referring to a chain of islands in the East China Sea over which China and Japan have clashed.

It’s also useful to note that the Southwestern Islands loosely bound the East China Sea, and they are part of a longer island chain that loosely connect Japan with the Republic of China.

The WSJ cited Mr Noda further as describing

…a number of concrete measures that would spread Japan’s military presence throughout the region.

The two nation will develop the American-controlled Pacific island of Guam as “a strategic hub” and consider building joint training facilities there and on nearby islands—a move that would establish for the first time a permanent Japanese military presence on US territory.  Mr Noda said one possible location would be the Northern Mariana Islands.

We’ll see in time whether our own moves are just more of a piece with President Obama’s foreign policy technique—idle chit-chat—or whether it’s serious.  Still, it’s a promising beginning.  In an election season.

Another Thought on Self Defense

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I wrote, a short time ago, about individual self-defense.  In this post, I’d like to explore a little bit of the self-defense rights of a nation.  Senator Jon Kyle (R, AZ) asked, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “What’s at Stake in the Missile-Defense Debate?”  His question also raises a larger question concerning a nation’s right to self-defense.  I’ll address the second question first, then I’ll talk about the role of missile defenses within that right.

As our Declaration of Independence acknowledges, all men have a right, among other things, to our Lives, our Liberty, and our Happiness.  In that earlier post I demonstrated the right, and the obligation, of each individual to defend himself—lethally, if necessary—against threats to himself, his family, his property, and to extend that defense to others whom he might see under similar threat.

Far too often, that individual is incapable of conducting that defense, even acting in concert with a few of his fellows.  This is why, as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, et al., have demonstrated, men come together to form social compacts, nations, with governing structures.  Universal among these men’s demonstrations was a purpose of those compacts: to defend the individual members against external threats.  Thus, nations are formed for an explicit purpose of defending its citizens—of defending itself.

The right of a nation to defend itself thus flows directly from its members’ individual rights to defend themselves.

Within a national right of self-defense, where do missile defenses fit?  Plainly, a nation that does not use all of the tools at its disposal is limiting itself in its ability to carry out its duty of defending its citizens, of defending itself.  A nation that disgorges itself of any of the tools it has, and/or turns its back on acquiring all the tools it might, that are useful in defending itself is turning its back entirely on its obligation to defend itself.

This failure is exacerbated in a nuclear world, where one of the weapons of attack is fully capable of destroying an entire city, murdering the hundreds of thousands or millions of people who live(d) there.  A missile defense capability becomes critical to national defense, even to national survival, when such offensive destruction is possible.  Certainly, a missile defense of the kind discussed by Lyle and dismissed by President Obama is useful only against missiles and is not proof against those missiles.  However, with our enemies capable of missile delivery of nuclear destruction, not defending against that threat is not just amoral, it’s actively immoral.

For the United States to walk away from a maximally capable defense capacity solely to appease our enemies who have that nuclear offensive capability is not just amoral, it’s actively immoral.  Yet this appears to be the path on which Obama is setting us.  He already has withdrawn missile defenses against rogue Iranian missiles from eastern Europe (where they could defend Israel and Europe against Iranian attack) at Russia’s behest.  Now he’s telling outgoing Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin that, given time to win his reelection before being pressed on our missile defense system, he’ll then no longer be accountable, and he can give the Russians everything they want in the complete removal of any American missile defense capacity.

Senator Kyle rightly points out legal concerns about this course.

[President Obama] may have to ignore or circumvent commitments he made to Congress to secure support for the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start)—among them, that he would deploy all four phases of planned U.S. missile-defense systems for Europe, and that he would modernize the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for the protection of the U.S. homeland.

Never mind that acceding to Russian demands would eliminate

…the only U.S. theater missile-defense system capable of catching intercontinental-range Iranian missiles, making it important for the defense of our homeland.

Senator Kyle adds

It is questionable whether concessions on missile defense would induce Russia to further reduce its nuclear arsenal.  Unlike the U.S., Russia maintains a robust nuclear warhead production capability, and its national security strategy is to increase reliance on nuclear weapons.  Russia is also modernizing ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Indeed.  I’m reminded of the Third Punic War.  Rome insisted that Carthage disarm itself, and Carthage acceded to the demand.  After that, Rome attacked, razed Carthage to the ground, occupied all Carthaginian territory, and enslaved its surviving people.

But Obama has said of his moves to eliminate our missile defenses

As a nuclear power – as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon – the United States has a moral responsibility….

Sorry.  The one who would unilaterally remove our ability to defend ourselves is in no position to discuss any part of our military posture.

Further, the champion of wealth distribution, of “you’ve made enough money,” give up what I’ve determined for you as excessive for me to redistribute; the champion of denying anyone his right to live his life to the fullest of his own potential through that wealth redistribution is in no position to lecture anyone on morality.

Chinese Governance

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The rumors of a coup in the People’s Republic of China serve to illustrate the PRC’s concept of governance.

Its economic success over the last generation and a half, or so (roughly 30 years), seems apparent.  It has accumulated the world’s largest stash of foreign currency reserves (some $3.2 trillion), and it has grown into the world’s second largest economy, albeit with the world’s largest population across which to amortize that economy.  Some even argue that this success demonstrates the superiority of the Chinese method of centrally managing an economy.  After all, those folks say, the Chinese government doesn’t waste time debating; they simply decide, and promptly.  Moreover, specific leadership candidates are selected carefully and only after a proven performance record.

But at what cost has come this success?  That’s what the coup rumors highlight.  The power struggle underway (whether it’s really a coup in progress or not is unimportant to this post) is purely a Party struggle; the people of China are not at all involved other than being stuck with living with the outcome.

The current showdown—of whatever form—threatens the carefully planned change in the party and national leadership, including seven of the nine positions on the Politburo Standing Committee.  The thrust of the argument seems to be whether China should go back to a more “revolutionary”—i.e., more directed from above—form of government or reforms should be instituted that lead toward a more constitutional state.

But even at best, whose constitution?  Notice where this argument is occurring: internally, at the top levels of PRC’s Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army government—not among the people.  In fact, the people may also be discussing this, but since they have no say in their own government, their discussions “are unimportant, and [government] does not hear them.”

The coup rumors illustrate another aspect of governance PRC-style.  The rumors began appearing about two weeks ago via Sina Weibo (“China microwave” or “China microblog”), the Chinese version of Twitter.  The government promptly deleted those messages.  Now, searches for key words like “gunfire” or “Changan Avenue” (where much of the Chinese leadership lives and where gunfire allegedly was heard during the “coup”) are answered with this message:

These terms are not being displayed in accordance with the applicable laws, regulations and political guidelines.

Here is Chinese free speech.

The PRC is a one-party dictatorship: there are no checks or balances, as from an independent judiciary or legislature.  The people are unrepresented by individuals of their own choosing in an elected government.   In sum, the people are not Sovereign in their own country—the government that has placed itself above them is.

And that economic success?  Yawning cracks in it have appeared.  The vast migration over the last several years from the hinterland to the coastal cities, where the jobs are, have led to severe housing shortages in those cities, shortages exacerbated by those cities’ governmental requirements that the people must be registered with the city government in order to get city services like utilities, housing, and so on.  The migrants are denied registration, though: they’re not residents of the city.

Additionally, those who do find jobs, including the original residents, are demanding higher wages, which hurts production, which hurts job availability.  On top of that, the lack of jobs for that massive influx of migrants leaves people without money to buy goods and services other than those basic city-provided services (which the migrants can’t get anyway).  This also hurts production, and job availability.  And on top of this, those migrants generally are their families’ bread-winners and were intending to send money back home to family members who didn’t make the move.  This lack deepens the impoverishment of the hinterlands.

All of these changes are easily handled by a flexible, free market, but a centrally managed one, even managed by carefully selected government leaders, simply cannot keep up with the dynamicisms of the country’s (any country’s) real-world economic evolutions.  It’s an edifice poised for a major retrenchment, drawdown of those reserves, or hard collapse.  Or all three.

Failure in Iraq

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I’ve written before about the contempt with which Europe views our President.  Here is another example of their view of our leadership, this time as it concerns our precipitous departure from Iraq.   The headline says it all: ” Iraq Is Neither Sovereign, Stable nor Self-Reliant.”

Spiegel Online‘s Bernhard Zand notes

[President] Obama conceded that Iraq was “not a perfect place,” but he also pointed out that the US military was “leaving a sovereign, stable and self-reliant country with a representative government elected by its people.”

Zand then lays it on the line:

…the circumstances of the US withdrawal, and the language Obama used to whitewash it, border on negligence. [That link is worth following, also.]

Here are the facts and specifics that Zand lays out.  Nebulously, without a formal—or even physical—presence, Iran sat in on yesterday’s Arab League summit meeting in Baghdad, along with the 10, or so, Arab members who attended (of 22 members.  So much for Araby’s view of Iraq’s national viability).  This occurred through  the summit’s central question: the degree to which Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, listens to Iranian input in Iraqi affairs.  Indeed, Iraq can’t even deal with its neighbor to the northwest just beyond Jordan, Syria, without “suggestions” from Iran.  The question about the depth of Iranian influence never was clearly answered at the summit.  As Zand puts it, it’s just

difficult to detect a sense of the kind of sovereignty Obama mentioned coming from the man in charge in Baghdad.

Al-Maliki’s move against the Sunnis isn’t contributing to national stability, either.  He isn’t just acting against a few key members of Sunni leadership in (or who used to be in) the Iraqi government.  Beyond things like the arrest warrant al-Maliki issued against (Sunni) Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi and al-Maliki’s firing of one of his three Deputy Prime Ministers, Saleh al-Mutlaq, for presuming to demur from al-Maliki’s policies, al-Maliki is conducting a full-blown anti-Sunni jihad that threatens explosion into a worse civil war than that experienced in 2005-2007 before the Bush surge retrieved the country.

In Iraq’s favor, the jihad is al-Maliki’s; it’s not endemic to the Iraqi Shia.  The general (Arab) population of Shia in Iraq distrust the Iranian (Persian) Shia even more than they distrust the once-dominant Iraqi Sunnis.  And, they remember the Sunni nations—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, for instance—who played an active role in freeing them from Saddam Hussein.  But that favor can have effect only in the far future, and Iraq must survive to get there.  In the meantime, the jihad is ripping at the core of Iraqi nationhood.

Confidence in Iraq’s stability also was not enhanced by terrorist bombs going off during the summit near the Iranian embassy, just outside Baghdad’s Green Zone–where the summit was held.

Nor can Iraq be called self-reliant.  Unemployment is rampant and rising, and without the individual or public reserves that more stable countries have with which to whether such conditions.  Exacerbating what otherwise would be only an uncomfortable economic dislocation is the lack of basic services.  Other than the Kurdish lands, where the Kurds have enforced a stiff measure of autonomy from Baghdad, no one has electricity for more than a few hours a day, and even the drinking water is (barely) sufficient only through the efforts of foreign entities.  This does not permit an economy to recover.

Would things be turning out differently had Obama gotten a SOFA that would have allowed us to stay, the way we did in an earlier century after a much more bitter war?  Maybe not.  But we’ll never know because Obama didn’t even try.

Some Thoughts on a Missile Shield

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Having gotten us to accede, back in 2009, to Russian demands that we not defend ourselves or our European allies against nuclear missile attacks from rogue states like Iran, the Russians are pushing the Obama administration around again.

Russian outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev is saying that any improvement to our—or to NATO’s—missile defense capability will be taken as breaking the existing nuclear parity with Russia, and they “will be forced” to retaliate.  Medvedev insists

No one has explained to me why we should believe that the new missile defense system in Europe isn’t directed against us.

He also has instructed his defense establishment that

By 2017-2018 we must be fully prepared, fully armed.

And he repeated an earlier threat to aim missiles at the U.S.-led NATO missile shield.  Left unspoken was his generals’ earlier explicit threat to immolate Poland with nuclear war if we were to put missile shield components there.  Never mind that the US has never been a threat to Russia or to Russian allies, while Russia has actively invaded and partitioned ours—Georgia being only the latest example, with Russian interference with Ukrainian elections their latest non-military interference.  And don’t forget the cyberwar they inflicted on Estonia in 2007.

President Obama’s response?  He hasn’t made one of substance.  “I don’t bluff,” he said in a different venue.  But what does that mean, if he has to protest that he doesn’t?

It’s clear to me that the Russian threats are a prime reason for going ahead with the deployment of a missile shield at our fastest pace.  And for updating and upgrading our military establishment generally, including our nuclear and cyber forces.