China and Russia just wrapped up a week of joint military exercises with hundreds of ships and planes.
This was “the latest in a recent slew of military exercises and joint patrols between Russia and China that come on the heels of vows from Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to tighten military cooperation,” CNN said (read story here).
These drills “underscore how Moscow and Beijing increasingly view each other as key to projecting strength.” Washington is watching with increasing concern,” CNN says.
Yeah, well, whatever. I’m American, maybe you’re American, and we want our country to tell others what to do instead of the other way around.
I say “maybe” because I know this blog has Russian and Chinese readers. I have no military secrets to give away. If that’s what they want, they can get guest passes to Mar-a-Lago and read the classified files stashed in the bathrooms there.
I almost laughed when I read that Washington is “concerned” about Chinese-Russian military cooperation. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, but let’s consider for a moment their concerns about us.
For 42 years, from 1961 to 2003, the “SIOP” contained America’s plans to fight a nuclear war. (SIOP is the acronym for Single Integrated Operational Plan.) It was super-secret then, but isn’t anymore. We now know that if either Russia or China had attacked us during the Cold War, we would’ve annihilated both.
I assume the strategic reason was that if America was severely weakened by a nuclear attack from Russia, we didn’t want to leave China intact to take over what was left of the world, so we’d take out them too.
I would guess that when Beijing learned this, they thought we were a problem. In any case, they embarked on a huge military buildup, including a vast expansion of their ICBM force and nuclear arsenal. Now they’re teaming up with Russia, too. But why wouldn’t they, if they’ll be dragged into any direct conflict we have with Russia?
God forbid that peace should ever break out. What would our strategic thinkers do with idle time on their hands?
While I’m on the subject of China and Russia, look at the map below. What do you see? That’s right, China has access to the world’s oceans and sea lanes only through a few narrow passages between islands. Think blockade.
Russia is in even worse strategic shape; its only warm water ports are on the Black Sea, and to get from there to the oceans, its warships have to pass through the Bosphorus Strait, the Mediterranean, and the Gibralter Strait.
Mother Nature must have loved the future United States, because when Pangea broke up into the continents, ours was gifted with thousands of miles of coastlines with excellent natural harbors, and nothing between us and all the world’s oceans.
The leaders of China and Russia understand they’re at a severe geographical disadvantage, if push comes to shove. They’re paranoid about us. Therefore it’s not surprising they’re leaning on each other for mutual support in case of conflict with the U.S. and its allies, who include all of the island countries blocking China’s access to the Pacific; Turkey, which controls the Bosphorus; most of the countries bordering the Mediterranean; and Britain, which controls Gibralter.
I’d rather be us than them, and the Pentagon naturally wants to keep things that way; and faced with the new prospect of possibly having to fight Russia and China together, instead of separately, its planners want to expand our forces.
The U.S. isn’t about to lose global hegemony, but the goal of continued mutual deterrence looks like an increasingly thin reed as China grows more aggressive in the South China Sea and Russia pursues aggression in East Europe.
