Potential collisions between the U.S., Russia or China are not even back-burner issues this election year. Meanwhile, we are consumed by the coronavirus, the crashed economy, racial divisions and riots that have ripped apart cities like Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Kenosha since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.
In northeast Syria last week, a U.S. military vehicle collided
with a Russian armored vehicle, injuring four American soldiers.
Both
the Americans and Russians blame each other for failing to follow established
rules of the road. Had an American been killed, we could have had a crisis on
our hands.
Query:
With the ISIS caliphate dead and buried, why are 500 U.S. troops still in Syria
a year after Donald Trump said we would be pulling them out? What are they
doing there to justify risking a clash with Russian troops who are in Syria as
the invited allies of the Damascus regime of Bashar Assad, whether we approve
of his regime or not?
Nor
was this the only U.S.-Russian faceoff last week.
Over
the Black Sea, two Russian military jets swept past the nose of an American
B-52, one of the bombers on which the airborne leg of our strategic deterrent
depends. The Russian Su-27s flew so close to the B-52 that their afterburners
shook the eight-engine bomber.
What
was a nuclear-capable B-52 doing over the Black Sea, which is to Russia what
the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are to us?
That
B-52 overflight of the Black Sea was part of an exercise in which six U.S.
B-52s overflew all 30 NATO nations in one day — from the U.S. and Canada to
Spain and the Balkans and to the eastern Baltic Sea — in a military exercise to
test Russian air defenses.
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At
the end of August, the Russian navy conducted its own war games near Alaska,
involving dozens of ships and aircraft, the largest such drill in these
northern seas since Soviet times.
Russia’s
navy chief, Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, said 50 warships and 40 aircraft took part
in the Bering Sea exercise, which involved multiple practice missile launches.
Said the admiral: “We are holding such massive drills there for the first time
ever.”
As
Trump rebuilt the U.S. military, Vladimir Putin reciprocated.
And,
last week, Putin had a pointed warning for any nation that meddles in Belarus.
With Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian autocrat facing huge and hostile
demonstrations demanding he resign, Putin put out word that outside
intervention to effect Lukashenko’s removal could cause Russian special forces
to intervene.
The
fall of Lukashenko from power, after 25 years ruling Belarus, could lead to a
crisis as NATO allies Lithuania and Poland both border on the former Soviet
republic of 9.5 million people.
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Also
in late August, on the other side of the world, China conducted a huge naval
exercise in the South and East China seas and Taiwan Strait.
After
an American U-2 overflew its ships during the exercise, Beijing denounced the
“naked provocation” and test-fired four ballistic missiles into the South China
Sea. Two of those missiles have been described as “carrier killers.” They are
said to have been developed to attack aircraft carriers such as the 100,000-ton
vessels that serve as the backbone of the fleets the U.S. Navy deploys in these
same waters.
The
U.S. has been sending its own warships into what an angry China claims are its
territorial waters around the atolls and reefs it has fortified and converted
into air and naval bases in the Paracel and Spratly islands.
What
exactly is our ultimate goal here?
China
has also been ramping up pressure on Taiwan by having military planes and
warships circumnavigate the island and by sending aircraft across midpoint in
the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan
recently purchased 66 US F-16s for delivery over the next 10 years. Yet, its
armed forces are no match for Beijing’s. And China has put the world on notice
that any move by Taiwan toward independence would cross a red line and be
crushed by Beijing.
Is
America prepared to fight China over fortified rocks and reefs in the South
China Sea to which we have no territorial claim? Are we prepared to fight China
to prevent the gradual absorption of Taiwan, which Richard Nixon conceded in
1972 we do not deny is a part of China?
In
its confrontation with Iran, the U.S. seems about to suffer a setback in the
Security Council. Our attempt to effect a “snapback” of U.N. sanctions on Iran,
for violating the 2015 nuclear deal, seems certain to be rejected by our three
principal NATO allies, as well as Russia and China.
How
would Tehran’s victory in the U.N. over the U.S., which would open the door to
sales and purchases of weapons by the ayatollah’s regime, be received?
Potential
collisions between the U.S., Russia or China are not even back-burner issues
this election year. Meanwhile, we are consumed by the coronavirus, the crashed
economy, racial divisions and riots that have ripped apart cities like
Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Kenosha since the Memorial Day death of
George Floyd.
Still, Leon Trotsky had a point when he
said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
https://buchanan.org/blog/where-will-all-these-war-games-lead-142105
