Tag Archives: US Navy

The heart of the matter in the South China Sea, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on August 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

China doesn’t seem to harbor any ambitions in the Caribbean, but the US government thinks the South China Sea should be a US lake. US policymakers seem offended by the fact that the Chinese government has other ideas. From Pepe Escobar at asiatimes.com via zerohedge.com:

The battle for the contested maritime region is over before the shooting even begins and China has won

When the Ronald Reagan and Nimitz carrier strike groups recently engaged in “operations” in the South China Sea, it did not escape to many a cynic that the US Pacific Fleet was doing its best to turn the infantile Thucydides Trap theory into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The pro forma official spin, via Rear Adm. Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz, is that the ops were conducted to “reinforce our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, a rules-based international order, and to our allies and partners”.

Nobody pays attention to these clichés, because the real message was delivered by a CIA operative posing as diplomat, Secretary of State Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo: “The PRC has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region”, in a reference to the Nine-Dash Line. For the State Dept., Beijing deploys nothing but “gangster tactics” in the South China Sea.

Once again, nobody paid attention, because the actual facts on the sea are stark. Anything that moves in the South China Sea – China’s crucial maritime trade artery – is at the mercy of the PLA, which decides if and when to deploy their deadly DF-21D and DF-26 “carrier killer” missiles.

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Cold War Escapades in the Pacific, by Patrick Lawrence

Posted on July 21, 2020 | 1 comment

The US government and military still see the Pacific as a big US lake. The Chinese government sees things differently. From Patrick Lawrence at consortiumnews.com:

There is a lot to read into this moment, but one thing’s clear. The U.S. doesn’t know what time it is.  

The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group steams in formation during a cooperative deployment in the Indian Ocean on July 20, 2020. (U.S. Navy. Donald R. White Jr.)

First came the Defense Department’s formal request to Congress for a $20 billion check to upgrade its presence across the Pacific. That was last March. A month later the U.S. Navy sent three warships (and ever-faithful Australia one) to the waters off Malaysia because an unarmed Chinese vessel was conducting routine seismic surveys in an area thought to contain significant resource deposits.

Then a two-month pause, at least on the military side. The grandstanding denunciations, bans, bars, and sanctions have continued apace.

In early July the Pentagon sent two aircraft carrier strike groups into the South China Sea in its latest and largest-ever “freedom of navigation” exercise, just as the Chinese Navy was conducting exercises nearby. Last week came the caker: Mike Pompeo, our Dummkopf secretary of state, asserted that China’s various maritime claims in the South China Sea are “completely unlawful.”

This was an abrupt departure from Washington’s previous pretense of neutrality on the question of jurisdiction over waters where assertions of sovereignty intersect. It was greeted in some quarters, not least the government-supervised New York Times, as opening the door to war in behalf of those nations — Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei — contesting China’s claims.

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US Naval Coalition in Gulf – a Provocation Too Far, by the Strategic Culture Editorial Board

Posted on July 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

If the US sticks enough boats in the Persian Gulf, it may get the war John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Benjamin Netanyahu so desperately want. From the editorial board at strategic-culture.org:

America’s top General Joseph Dunford this week announced plans for a US-led naval coalition to patrol the Persian Gulf in order to “protect shipping” from alleged Iranian sabotage.

The move is but the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to mobilize Arab allies into a more aggressive military stance towards Iran. It follows recent visits to the region by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, both of whom have been urging a more organized military front led by the US to confront Iran.

The latest naval coalition proposed by General Dunford will be charged with escorting oil tankers as they pass through the Strait of Hormuz exiting the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, and also through the Bab al Mandab entrance to the Red Sea on the Western side of the Arabian Peninsula. The former conduit serves oil supply to Asia, while the latter position between Yemen and Eritrea leads shipping to the Suez Canal on the way to the Mediterranean and Europe. Both narrow sea passages are strategic chokepoints in global oil trade, with some 20-30 per cent of all daily shipped crude passing through them.

The apparently chivalrous motives of the US to “guarantee freedom of navigation” sounds suspiciously like a pretext for Washington to assert crucial military control over international oil trade. That is one paramount reason for objecting to this American proposal.

Secondly, the very idea of sending more military vessels to the Persian Gulf under Pentagon command at this time of incendiary tensions between the US and Iran is a reckless provocation too far.

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Girding for Confrontation, The Pentagon’s Provocative Encirclement of China , by Michael T. Klare

Posted on June 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

If the US government continues to regard the whole world as its oyster (i.e. the America empire) then there may well be a war with China someday. From Michael T. Klare at tomdispatch.com:

On May 30th, Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced a momentous shift in American global strategic policy. From now on, he decreed, the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), which oversees all U.S. military forces in Asia, will be called the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). The name change, Mattis explained, reflects “the increasing connectivity between the Indian and Pacific Oceans,” as well as Washington’s determination to remain the dominant power in both.

What? You didn’t hear about this anywhere?  And even now, you’re not exactly blown away, right? Well, such a name change may not sound like much, but someday you may look back and realize that it couldn’t have been more consequential or ominous.  Think of it as a signal that the U.S. military is already setting the stage for an eventual confrontation with China.

If, until now, you hadn’t read about Mattis’s decision anywhere, I’m not surprised since the media gave it virtually no attention — less certainly than would have been accorded the least significant tweet Donald Trump ever dispatched.  What coverage it did receive treated the name change as no more than a passing “symbolic” gesture, a Pentagon ploy to encourage India to join Japan, Australia, and other U.S. allies in America’s Pacific alliance system. “In Symbolic Nod to India, U.S. Pacific Command Changes Name” was the headline of a Reuters story on the subject and, to the extent that any attention was paid, it was typical.

That the media’s military analysts failed to notice anything more than symbolism in the deep-sixing of PACOM shouldn’t be surprising, given all the attention being paid to other major international developments — the pyrotechnics of the Korean summit in Singapore, the insults traded at and after the G7 meeting in Canada, or the ominous gathering storm over Iran.  Add to this the poor grasp so many journalists have of the nature of the U.S. military’s strategic thinking.  Still, Mattis himself has not been shy about the geopolitical significance of linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans in such planning.  In fact, it represents a fundamental shift in U.S. military thinking with potentially far-reaching consequences.

To continue reading: Girding for Confrontation, The Pentagon’s Provocative Encirclement of China

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