Every several weeks there is another incident at sea or in
the air with an adversary’s ships or planes maneuvering aggressively or
dangerously, right in front of our ships
or planes. Most of the recent ones have
been Chinese misbehavior, although we also
used to get this from Putin’s Russia, before he got so bogged down in Ukraine.
The most recent incident with the Chinese in the Taiwan Strait is pictured. The Chinese warship cut dangerously close across the bow of a US destroyer (and a Canadian warship). Under normal circumstances, this is egregiously-incompetent behavior risking a collision like that. But these circumstances are not normal: we are being tested for signs of weakness!
Our typical measured response is to slow down or change course to avoid the collision, which is exactly what happened in this case. It’s a non-aggressive way to avoid the danger, and to avoid provoking any conflict. Any normal civilized person would not misinterpret that.
But, these countries
are run by dictators who do NOT think like that! Both Putin in Russia and Xi in China are would-be
Adolf Hitler clones, out to secure as
much world domination as they can. You
have to understand that, in order to
understand how they interpret our measured responses as a sign of
weakness. The proof of that thesis is
that they continue to do these aggressions quite frequently.
The only way to stop this, is to respond strongly in terms they actually understand: raw naked force. It has nothing to do with logic, common sense,
or civilized behavior. It has
everything to do with effectively “slapping the dictator upside his head”.
You see that 5-inch gun turret on the foredeck of our
destroyer in the picture? We have to use
it, in the centuries-old unmistakable
way, of first responding with a shot
across the bow of the offender. If the
offender persists, then we hit him with
it on the second shot. If he shoots
back, we sink him. The ship has missiles that will do that, since only one little 5-inch gun is too small
a force to do a quick sinking.
It’s called “gunboat diplomacy”, and it has worked, for centuries. But,
it is really hard to do gunboat diplomacy if your boats lack guns. Some of ours have no guns, only missiles. That was a mistake.
Yes, it is
conflict. No, it will not start a general war, other than a war of words (about which we
should not care much). But it WILL put a
stop to the offensive behavior at sea!
In the air, it is
adversary fighter jets zooming too close across, next to,
and in front of, our unarmed
“patrol bomber” spy planes. We have to
arm them, or else provide an armed
fighter escort. The inherent short
ranges of fighters would suggest we instead just arm the spy planes. To accomplish the analog to gunboat diplomacy
at sea, these planes need both guns and
missiles, and you need to put tracer
ammo in the guns.
What you do when the adversary starts to zoom in too close, is put a line of highly-visible tracer gunfire
in front of him. If he persists, you then hit him with a missile. Yes,
it is armed conflict. No, it will not start a general war, only a war of words. But it WILL put a stop to the egregious
behavior!
Arming these planes does impact their mission. From that point forward, you must keep them in international airspace
only; you never violate sovereign territory
with them again. But, international airspace is where they do most
of their missions anyway, so it is only a
small change.
The analog with Putin’s Russia is that Ukraine MUST win its
war! They are our proxy to stop Russian armed
aggression. A draw, or a negotiated peace without Ukrainian
victory, is just a sign of our weakness
in Putin’s eyes. He will just keep on
doing these egregious things, unless we
smack him very hard to stop him. That is
just the nature of these Hitler-clone dictators. There is no other way.
Of the two, China is
the more dangerous one, because it has a
much bigger economy than today’s Russia.
But, there are also many other
minor Hitler-wannabees out there.
Kim Jong Un in North Korea,
is one. For him, I would suggest that the next time he
launches a rocket, we shoot it down
before it gets very far. We have that
capability. What could he possibly do
about it? Nothing. It starts only a war of words, and it WILL constrain his future
behavior!
The key here is that we respond to these dictators’
misbehaviors with significant force, each
time and every time! They understand
only force as a strong response! Anything
less is taken as a sign of weakness,
inviting further ever-escalating misbehavior.
And that escalating misbehavior DOES eventually lead to
general war! We’ve seen this
before, a bit over 8 decades ago. It cost over 15 million military lives, and over 38 million civilian lives, even without nuclear weapons (except two right
at the end). The cost today with nuclear
weapons is in the billions of lives.
A war
of words, or billions dead. You choose.
Then tell your elected representatives what you want them to tell the
military to do, when these dictators act
up.
And
when they don’t do what you said, elect
somebody else.
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Some related articles:
“Russian Lies” posted 27 Dec 2022
“How To Stop the Ukraine War”
posted 27 Nov 2022
“Nuclear War Warning” posted 12 Sept 2022
“What the Ukraine Thing Is Really
All About” posted 20 Feb 2022
“Bullying Demands Resistance”
posted 8 June 2019 -almost the same
topic, just Russian, not Chinese!!
“The Time Has Come to Deal With
Iran and North Korea” posted 8 April 2017
“Cold War 2?” posted 18 March 2014 – this was the REAL start
of the Ukraine war: taking of Crimea.
Use the navigation tool on the left. All you need is date and title. Click on the year, then the month, then the title if more than one article was
posted that month.
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Update 6-9-2023: A close version of this article appeared on the op-ed page of the Waco "Tribune-Herald" as a column from the board of contributors, of which I am a member.
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