"Like it or not, the USA, Australia and New Zealand helped create these conditions through neglect born of entitlement and no small dose of arrogance." That used to be called Benign Neglect. We do so at our own peril.
Reminds me of 2005, Hurricane Katrina, that lawyer who famously told cops and the National Guard, "Treat me with benign neglect" when they came to seize his guns and force him from his intact and dry home for his own safety. Often when the game is afoot, the foot is wearing a jackboot. https://artdiamondblog.com/archives/2005/09/treat_me_with_b.html
Yes it was. I was there in '94-'96 for the turnover of all aids to navigation from the USCG to the Palauans. Uncle Sam had us do some casual walking around and low-profile "tourist photography" (from street level) of Palauan infrastructure. It wasn't hard to figure out why.
When foreigners did this in China, it was called gunboat diplomacy, and can easily be seen as the tactics of a bully. Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Japan, and the U.S. were all participants. Remember the movie “55 Days at Peking”? Using force for economic goals is still force. As long as the PRC remains communist their goals will never change. Our challenge will be to stay true to our principles.
The problem with being a communist is that market forces act on your nation even though you are a communist. It's like having a political meeting and voting to repeal the law of gravity.
As the USSR demonstrated, communist governments, by definition, must have central planning committees. Essentially, PRC had no choice but to use that model. The only real question is how far into the crash the current governing authorities think they can fly the plane before blaming someone else - a model that has ALSO not worked out well for Chinese leaders.
Poppi, that’s simply wrong. There are authoritarians who want to micromanage your life on every spot on the political spectrum. Florida’s Governor, for example, is as authoritarian as they come. Communism is based on principles unrelated to authoritarianism. The problem the Chinese government has is that the ideology they are wedded to simply does not work.
The scary thing is, we could be in the locals' good graces cheaply enough. Improve some harbors, airfields, and roads as part of Guard/Reserve exercises, same thing with medical care, and maybe let some people go to college on Uncle's dime. Slightly overpay for a couple bases, have a FAC squadron (we need a couple dozen corvette-sized missile boats) patrolling the area, and a couple of Coast Guard cutters helping bust poachers.
But the area "isn't nice enough" for State and Defense.
How much of that $24 Billion is BS? Too often people embrace dubious government accounting standards for political reasons. A fair amount of the equipment is older stuff that would have been scrapped if it wasn't sent to Ukraine. It's wrong, but we wouldn't have been able to buy a surplus Bradley. We would still have to pay the instructors teaching the Ukrainians how to use the equipment. The "we'd go back to 150,000 people in the military" idea doesn't even rise to the level of BS.
But it makes people on both sides of the debate feel good about themselves.
"Biden's request comprises $13 billion for defense and $11 billion for economic and humanitarian aid in Ukraine." Pick your poison. At the very least the $11 Billion is real money added to our debt. Play the word game you want with the $13 Billion- whatever makes you feel better. https://bit.ly/45Bg5kU Nothing that we are doing for Ukraine makes me feel better. Frak the Ukes, it has to be a European problem to solve, not ours.
Hardly a genius when he is giving the Ukes $$Billions that are added onto our debt. Unlikely Russia will attack a NATO country, IMO. Both of the crooks, Biden & Zelensky, are willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. A Pox on both their houses.
"But the area "isn't nice enough" for State and Defense."
If the locals are not fully lefty liberal activists, then DOS rebukes them for failure to celebrate Diversity and all that crap. It's THEIR country, and we need to recognize that their culture may differ from ours, and respect that, and just try to get along enough to be to our advantage. Our goal is to look out for U.S. interests not to bully every trivial spot on the globe into behaving like a Democrat run urban utopia.
Even brutal thug dictators have to be considered, and coddled a bit if they are OUR brutal thug dictators. The locally available options may be even worse, including being brutal thug dictators for our adversaries.
DOS is on the side of the Democrat party, and neither are working for the best interests of the United States of America.
"DOS is on the side of the Democrat party, and neither are working for the best interests of the United States of America."
Well, these Pacific nations do have a plethora of small, secluded islands that would be perfect for the construction of very exclusive resorts. There has to be some interest in those.
It would not surprise me to find out this is being repeated around the globe. Quoted from the Vanuatu story - "At least four of the people were reported to hold a Vanuatu passport, which would normally afford them an extradition process."
Wherever a politician can be found who is willing to go around their own country's laws to gain favor with Beijing, you can expect this is happening.
"Wherever a politician can be found who is willing to go around their own country's laws to gain favor with Beijing, you can expect this is happening."
Didn't we just discover a bunch of PRC police in NYC?
Prigozhin Listed as Passenger on Plane That Crashed, Killing All Aboard. The authorities did not confirm whether the Wagner mercenary leader, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, was on board when a private jet crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, killing 10 people.
South Pacific is the backyard of OZ and the Kiwi's for quite some time or, that's what State keeps telling itself when ever there's a challenge in the area. Unfortunately our friends in Oz and the Shire instead of looking at those South Pacific territories as being a part of the great quilt of strategic depth, they instead view the area as a vending machine for cheap migrant labor.
We had a chance to step-up during the Tonga volcano disaster, instead we deferred to our AUKUS friends, resulting in several ships from China off-loading all manor of generator, tractors and other necessary equipment to help with the clean up and rebuild. State doesn't view SE Asia or the South Pacific has a choice assignment, ergo we're not getting the most talented diplomats and officers. DoD seems to have started to take notice with more EX in the PI however it's going to take more than just uniforms to fight this dragon.
AP reports United States has signed a new agreement with Palau, which gives American ships the authorization to unilaterally enforce maritime regulations in the tiny Pacific island nation’s exclusive economic zone
"Like it or not, the USA, Australia and New Zealand helped create these conditions through neglect born of entitlement and no small dose of arrogance." That used to be called Benign Neglect. We do so at our own peril.
Reminds me of 2005, Hurricane Katrina, that lawyer who famously told cops and the National Guard, "Treat me with benign neglect" when they came to seize his guns and force him from his intact and dry home for his own safety. Often when the game is afoot, the foot is wearing a jackboot. https://artdiamondblog.com/archives/2005/09/treat_me_with_b.html
Benign Neglect would have ignored the coup.
Now, the active promulgation of these conditions can be referred to as Beijing Respect.
People: This game was afoot in The Republic of Palau when I was there in ‘94-‘96. AND…
There’s a strategic reason Japan took it from the Germans and decades later the U.S. Navy took it from the Japanese.
Apparently, “we” are willing through malign neglect to let the Chinese peel/steal it from our SOI.
PATHETIC!
Yes it was. I was there in '94-'96 for the turnover of all aids to navigation from the USCG to the Palauans. Uncle Sam had us do some casual walking around and low-profile "tourist photography" (from street level) of Palauan infrastructure. It wasn't hard to figure out why.
Now talk about the Solomon's
Probably best we try to appeal to the Cargo Cult people first, the politicians second. We could pull that off better than the Chinese.
In many ways, politicians (ours included) ARE cargo cult people.
"We are waiting for John Frum...Lockheed Martin!"
When foreigners did this in China, it was called gunboat diplomacy, and can easily be seen as the tactics of a bully. Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Japan, and the U.S. were all participants. Remember the movie “55 Days at Peking”? Using force for economic goals is still force. As long as the PRC remains communist their goals will never change. Our challenge will be to stay true to our principles.
The problem with being a communist is that market forces act on your nation even though you are a communist. It's like having a political meeting and voting to repeal the law of gravity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/business/china-economy-property.html?unlocked_article_code=MHZrf_zYjjRRpEkvx68iM3rKDkPg9L9aSQVspnt_gyA19pMhquxDdRmurerLptOuv8cQAHnkfzt4WxJBD-UUxam-CcWUnePCqa23I0lSi-UKQIdCc_-Bprb2HbJLokpMmfh8oH2pLOcZ8XXnqtQflY0IRfxQN_pW-4czQ-M2xoK_GzW3q-URqlq3Bm5S4f1zf6EtXVOo88cjZpe4ajgiJ1Gm68fnCKuyQQT9C6y6spdjLcP8qg2nmINF4auoX_NYmfFWeayYt0puU7EWfkewR_rJZM9Jb6h2zJY2kzsGIuTSjBqXI0blRfiQJzsUwYFeYEKlPApgTrWx_ARoTTVIymo&smid=url-share
As the USSR demonstrated, communist governments, by definition, must have central planning committees. Essentially, PRC had no choice but to use that model. The only real question is how far into the crash the current governing authorities think they can fly the plane before blaming someone else - a model that has ALSO not worked out well for Chinese leaders.
Communists always want to be the highly centralized authoritarians who micromanage every aspect of your life.
Poppi, that’s simply wrong. There are authoritarians who want to micromanage your life on every spot on the political spectrum. Florida’s Governor, for example, is as authoritarian as they come. Communism is based on principles unrelated to authoritarianism. The problem the Chinese government has is that the ideology they are wedded to simply does not work.
The scary thing is, we could be in the locals' good graces cheaply enough. Improve some harbors, airfields, and roads as part of Guard/Reserve exercises, same thing with medical care, and maybe let some people go to college on Uncle's dime. Slightly overpay for a couple bases, have a FAC squadron (we need a couple dozen corvette-sized missile boats) patrolling the area, and a couple of Coast Guard cutters helping bust poachers.
But the area "isn't nice enough" for State and Defense.
Rather our empire building dollars go there than slide decks.
Yeah. We paid--in blood--for a lot of these places. You'd think we would expend a little effort to keep them in our orbit.
How much good could we accomplish with the $24Billion for America, and our Pacific Friends, that Biden is asking for Ukraine?
How much of that $24 Billion is BS? Too often people embrace dubious government accounting standards for political reasons. A fair amount of the equipment is older stuff that would have been scrapped if it wasn't sent to Ukraine. It's wrong, but we wouldn't have been able to buy a surplus Bradley. We would still have to pay the instructors teaching the Ukrainians how to use the equipment. The "we'd go back to 150,000 people in the military" idea doesn't even rise to the level of BS.
But it makes people on both sides of the debate feel good about themselves.
"Biden's request comprises $13 billion for defense and $11 billion for economic and humanitarian aid in Ukraine." Pick your poison. At the very least the $11 Billion is real money added to our debt. Play the word game you want with the $13 Billion- whatever makes you feel better. https://bit.ly/45Bg5kU Nothing that we are doing for Ukraine makes me feel better. Frak the Ukes, it has to be a European problem to solve, not ours.
The genus of Biden is he's letting Ukrainians kill Russians so the Poles and Germans don't have to.
Hardly a genius when he is giving the Ukes $$Billions that are added onto our debt. Unlikely Russia will attack a NATO country, IMO. Both of the crooks, Biden & Zelensky, are willing to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. A Pox on both their houses.
Pshaw, I can't think of a better use of our tax dollars than to degrade the Russian military.
"But the area "isn't nice enough" for State and Defense."
If the locals are not fully lefty liberal activists, then DOS rebukes them for failure to celebrate Diversity and all that crap. It's THEIR country, and we need to recognize that their culture may differ from ours, and respect that, and just try to get along enough to be to our advantage. Our goal is to look out for U.S. interests not to bully every trivial spot on the globe into behaving like a Democrat run urban utopia.
Even brutal thug dictators have to be considered, and coddled a bit if they are OUR brutal thug dictators. The locally available options may be even worse, including being brutal thug dictators for our adversaries.
DOS is on the side of the Democrat party, and neither are working for the best interests of the United States of America.
"DOS is on the side of the Democrat party, and neither are working for the best interests of the United States of America."
Well, these Pacific nations do have a plethora of small, secluded islands that would be perfect for the construction of very exclusive resorts. There has to be some interest in those.
Didn't stop them from repeating in Vanuatu two years later.
https://www.dailypost.vu/news/six-chinese-face-deportation/article_fef7f311-679d-5d1b-9ec5-4f44e73118bb.html
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/393995/vanuatu-in-dark-over-charges-in-china-deportations-minister
The video of the Fiji captives being "escorted" off the plane in China can be seen in the middle of this story.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/336646/china-hails-joint-operation-with-fiji-to-deport-suspects
It would not surprise me to find out this is being repeated around the globe. Quoted from the Vanuatu story - "At least four of the people were reported to hold a Vanuatu passport, which would normally afford them an extradition process."
Wherever a politician can be found who is willing to go around their own country's laws to gain favor with Beijing, you can expect this is happening.
"Wherever a politician can be found who is willing to go around their own country's laws to gain favor with Beijing, you can expect this is happening."
Didn't we just discover a bunch of PRC police in NYC?
War Plan Orange. Read it.
Aww. C'mon Man!
This isn't important.
The Earth is boiling! Those islands will be underwater in a year!
The Climate Emergency is upon us!!!!
https://youtu.be/h4fOHsL9d2s
[The SCIENCE! is Real!]
But not to fear you Minions...
Our brave new military will protect you...
https://twitter.com/GigaBeers/status/1691105587109740544?s=20
You can't tell the difference between US and UK or Aussie uniforms?
You can't recognize /sarc ?
Poe's Law applies here. It still looks in earnest.
You must be new here.
You can't tell who is in the USN ...or not...
https://www.ky3.com/2023/07/21/biden-picks-female-admiral-lead-navy-officials-tell-ap/
Not sure what your point is. Why don't you explain it?
I just see a link to a story about the former commander of the Sixth Fleet and VCNO, a career Surface Warfare Officer, moving up to CNO.
"I just see a link to a story about the former commander of the Sixth Fleet and VCNO, a career Surface Warfare Officer, moving up to CNO"
VCNO wearing Army cammo...
Indicative of how the USN leadership is uninterested is reforming the quite troubled USN back into an actual **Navy**
Also, the previous pic is illustrative of how the crotch gazing US military establishment has infected others across the West.
I know, you don't see it.
"stole a march"
Yep, exactly.
Meanwhile, in the Solomons, astride the shipping lanes between the U.S. and Australia ...
We basically have to win the individual and societal bribe-bidding war with China.
One thing we could offer Fiji is visa-free access to the USA, Europe and Australia. Fijians have visa-free access to China. and Ireland.
With Palau and Marshall Islands it's vice versa.
Solomon Islands, visa free to Canada and Europe, visa required to China, USA, and Australia.
Tonga, visa free to China and Europe.
Whoops, looks like somebody fell out a window.
Prigozhin Listed as Passenger on Plane That Crashed, Killing All Aboard. The authorities did not confirm whether the Wagner mercenary leader, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, was on board when a private jet crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, killing 10 people.
South Pacific is the backyard of OZ and the Kiwi's for quite some time or, that's what State keeps telling itself when ever there's a challenge in the area. Unfortunately our friends in Oz and the Shire instead of looking at those South Pacific territories as being a part of the great quilt of strategic depth, they instead view the area as a vending machine for cheap migrant labor.
We had a chance to step-up during the Tonga volcano disaster, instead we deferred to our AUKUS friends, resulting in several ships from China off-loading all manor of generator, tractors and other necessary equipment to help with the clean up and rebuild. State doesn't view SE Asia or the South Pacific has a choice assignment, ergo we're not getting the most talented diplomats and officers. DoD seems to have started to take notice with more EX in the PI however it's going to take more than just uniforms to fight this dragon.
Quintessential “too little too late” this:
AP reports United States has signed a new agreement with Palau, which gives American ships the authorization to unilaterally enforce maritime regulations in the tiny Pacific island nation’s exclusive economic zone