The High Cost of a Poor World View/Strategy, Incompetent application, and Amateurish Failure to Learn

The reaction of the long trail of deliberate choices this administration has made beginning in 2009 with Obama’s speech in Cairo reached fruition with the former Saudi Ambassador Bandar’s STARK damnation of the USA in front of the world this week.

The name of this writer is an expression of my INITIAL faith that like it’s original, a policy which enabled all people to find freedom was a universal desire. However, that is NOT the same thing as a VOTE.

Mr. Bush discovered this in Gaza, where a vote resulted in one of the most malignant, racist, violent governments on earth. This should have been a signal lesson.

FOR ALL

But it was not learned by Mr. Obama.

And now his final faith in his ability to use sweet words and reasoning on the racist, freakish, ghoul Khameinei, who has CONTINUED the appt of defense ministers being men whose beginning was at the Marine Peacekeeper Barracks  in Beirut in 1982, has destroyed KSA’s faith in the USA as allies. Not just in the leadership here but in the nation … WE ELECTED THIS FOOLISH MAN. He can GET the job, but he can’t DO the job.

NOR IS THIS the exception. Here are JUST A FEW major examples of the manifest FAILURES of this admin in foreign policy. They are STRATEGIC, WORLD CHANGING, and will take MANY YEARS, perhaps a generation of other sorts of presidents to reverse.

ISRAEL AND CHINA, from Bill Gertz:

Israel’s growing China ties seen eroding strategic bond with U.S.

TEL AVIV — China’s increasing business presence in Israel could threaten Israel’s relations with the United States, a report said.

The Shasa Institute for Strategic Research asserted that Israeli government plans to expand business ties with China harms the Jewish state’s relationship with the West, particularly Washington. The report, authored by former Mossad director Efraim Halevy, cited a proposal for China to help build a railroad from central Israel to the southern port of Eilat.

"China holding the trans-Israel railway, owning it and operating it, will not be understood by the United States," the report said.

The report said the Israeli plan would help China’s strategy in dominating the Middle East. Halevy, regarded as a strong supporter of Washington, cited Beijing’s relationship with Iran and its proxies, including Hamas and Hizbullah.

"It is clear that China is establishing varied transport systems enabling it to increase its field of interest throughout the Middle East, turning it into a major player, with broad strategic interests in the area," the report said.

In 2000, the United States pressured Israel to cancel a $1 billion military aircraft project with China. The cancellation launched a process in which Israel eventually ended its defense and military relationship with Beijing.

Do we remember? Israel was about to turn China’s Russian built IL-76 aircraft into AWACS.

Israel Russia, from Wired Danger Room:

Will Israel Sell Russia Its Prized Monster Drone?

Israel and Russia: once Cold War enemies, now partners-in-drone. Only the Russians want Israel to let the Kremlin in on its most powerful unmanned spy plane.

As part of a $400 million deal the two countries inked last fall, Israel just sent its first round of twelve drones to Russia. Included are the short-range Bird-Eye 400 and I-View Mk 150, as well as the Searcher II — a 300-kilometer range spy plane that Israel’s used in Lebanon to spy on Hezbollah from as high as 23,000 feet.

But what Russia’s really after, according to SpaceDaily and Jane’s, is the Heron TP. Also known as the Eitan, the Heron’s a powerful drone. It carries up to 1000 kilograms’ worth of sensors; flies at over 40,000 feet; stays aloft for up to 36 hours; and can perform complex tasks like midair refueling. And it’s a lethal one, too, capable of firing air-to-ground missiles.

Under last year’s deal, Russia will get the earlier, unarmed model of the Heron. But the Russians want to manufacture the Heron TP independently. It’s not hard to see why.

China- Nicaragua (REALLY? REALLY?) From US New and World reports:

Building a Canal to Power

While America’s national security leaders have been absorbed by the Middle East and the putative “pivot” to Asia, little attention has been paid to China’s newest and arguably boldest challenge to America’s preeminence: a Chinese canal in the Western Hemisphere.

Policymakers in Washington appear to have shown little concern over the revelation that a Chinese billionaire, Wang Jing, plans to build a $40 billion canal in Nicaragua to rival the Panama Canal. Yet it should be readily apparent to our leaders that Wang is more than likely a proxy for Chinese government interests. Press accounts indicate that his office displays a mural of Chairman Mao, as well as models of various Chinese military weapons. In addition, Wang’s canal consortium is backed by China Railway Construction Corporation, a huge Chinese government-owned enterprise. Wang, however, asserts that he has no Chinese government connections. 

Wang’s Nicaraguan canal is still in the planning stages and there is much that could go wrong with the project, even before it starts. So there is a real possibility that this venture, like the first attempt by the French to build a Panama Canal, could be abandoned. For now, however, the plan is to begin construction in late 2014 and complete the canal in five years. This is such a massive undertaking, with an expected price tag of more than $40 billion, that the stated costs and timeline are certainly just approximations at best. But while this canal is far from a done deal, the U.S. must not take this bold venture lightly.

The lack of concern in Washington over this potentially huge geopolitical shift is partly due to the fact that we do not have a clearly defined Latin American policy. While the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, along with its Roosevelt Corollary, was the policy of the U.S. for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, it no longer is – and nothing coherent has taken its place. This lack of a comprehensive policy regarding Latin America, and our focus on other geographic regions (such as the Middle East and Asia), has created an opportunity for a soft power play that could allow China to gain a strategic foothold in the Western Hemisphere.

Some would argue that having an additional canal in Central America is good for international commerce. But the economics do not point to any reasonable justification to build a canal through Nicaragua; even if the new canal could equal the Panama Canal in revenue from day one, it would take at least 40 years for it to even break even. So why would the Chinese want to build a canal that does not make economic sense?

Beijing’s true motivation may lie more in geopolitical purposes than in trade.

BTW, our aircraft carriers are too large to pass thru the Panama Canal. They have to sail ALL THE WAY AROUND South America to reaxch the Pacific, ALONG WITH THEIR ENTIRE TASK FORCES. No one is sending an american aircraft carrier around Cape Horn alone.

China Turkey (NATO???? REALLY? REALLY?) from WSJ

NATO Chief: Turkey Hasn’t Completed Chinese Missile-Defense Deal

Decision Had Prompted Concerns Among Member States

Turkey had yet to complete a multibillion-dollar missile-defense deal with a Chinese military contractor that has raised concerns among some allies, the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said in an interview on Monday.

Tensions emerged last week when Turkey indicated it would buy a long-range missile-defense system from China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp., or CPMIEC, choosing it over rival offerings from U.S. and European consortia and a state-owned Russian arms maker.

Western diplomats questioned how a missile-defense system built with Chinese hardware could work alongside the existing technology provided by Turkey’s NATO allies.

"I understand that no final decision has been made," said NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, referring to statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr. Rasmussen said NATO’s 28 members understood the future of the alliance included a commitment to entwine their military forces under its Connected Forces initiative, a goal some Western diplomats said would be challenged by running a Chinese-built missile-defense system alongside other assets run by the organization.

China-Australia (I MEAN, AYFKM?) from the
Australian Defense White Paper

The Australian White Paper asserts that the “government does not approach China as an adversary”. It declares that Australia “welcomes” the rise of China and insists that “the most likely future,” is one where Washington and Beijing “are able to maintain a constructive relationship”.

Much of the commentary in the establishment media has focussed on this language, summed up in headlines such as “Defence paper softens Australia’s China stance”. A less optimistic appraisal was made in the previous 2009 White Paper. Authored amid the economic fall-out from the global financial crisis, that document openly expressed fears within the Australian ruling class that China’s rise posed the danger of war.

China, the 2009 paper emphasised, would emerge by 2030 not only as the world’s largest economy but “the strongest Asian military power”. There was, it declared, a “small but still concerning possibility of growing confrontation” between China, Russia, India, Japan and the US, as they competed in the vacuum left by the wane of American influence. It warned of the possibility of “high-intensity wars among the major powers”, and labelled China’s military expansion as a “potential cause for concern”—a formulation that provoked protests from the Chinese regime on the basis that it defined China as a threat.

The 2009 document reflected the foreign policy stance of then prime minister, Kevin Rudd. Rudd had championed the view—shared in some strategic circles internationally—that Washington could not contain China’s rise and therefore had to accommodate to its ambitions in order to avoid conflict. The frank contemplation of the possibility of war, which was allegedly inserted into the White Paper against the advice of Australian and American intelligence agencies, was intended to force discussion on Rudd’s calls for an “Asia Pacific Community”, which would work to mediate and reconcile US-China tensions. In June 2008, his proposal of such a forum had already been rejected by the US and other regional states.