China’s Maritime Offensive

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

While American and European attention has been focused on Russian territorial grabs in Ukraine, China has been aggressively asserting its sovereignty claims far beyond the limits of its territorial sea, provoking skirmishes with Vietnamese and Philippine maritime forces. China’s expanded sovereignty claims over most of the vast South China Sea ought to be, arguably, of far greater concern to the United States than alleged Russian revanchist intentions regarding former Soviet republics on its eastern border.

                America, unlike present-day European nations, is a Pacific as well as an Atlantic power and the Obama Administration has announced a policy of realigning its military assets to provide greater emphasis on the Pacific theatre. Unfortunately for that policy, our navy will have to implement it with a rapidly shrinking fleet over an area much larger than the Atlantic and containing more logistical challenges as well as threats to our vital interests. As capable as our newer ships are, they can only be in one place at a time and they have a lot more area to cover in the Pacific, so fleet size does matter. So far, the much-vaunted “pivot to the Pacific” has consisted largely of talk, planning and more ship visits.

                Meanwhile, China has escalated already-heightened tensions with its neighbors by deploying a huge oil rig accompanied by dozens of military and civilian vessels near the disputed Paracel Islands. This action demonstrates its determination to pursue drilling for oil in distant areas of the South China Sea that China regards as its sovereign territory, extending well into areas claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines and others as their exclusive economic zones.  

                The South China Sea covers more than one and one –third million square miles, larger than the Caribbean Sea. It is bounded by heavily populated nations with growing economies and economic zones that are being encroached upon by China. About one-third of the world’s maritime shipping passes through its busy waters. It is the gateway between the Pacific and Indian Oceans just as the Caribbean is the gateway between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. China claims of sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea make no more sense than Venezuela claiming sovereignty over most of the Caribbean would.

                Why is it our concern? It’s because the United States is a maritime nation, relying on maritime shipping for approximately 90% of our imports and exports. To say that we have a vital interest in the area is putting it mildly. Additionally, we have treaty relationships with the Republic of the Philippines, a former U.S. territory, whose adjacent waters, shoals and small islands to its west are the subject of Chinese territorial claims. We also have close ties with others nations who border on the South China Sea and with Japan and South Korea to the north who rely on many vital imports, especially oil and petroleum products from the Middle East, passing through the area.

                It is essential, therefore, that China be prevented from any attempt to exert control over this vast area of international waters, especially any attempt to regulate or interfere with maritime or air traffic. The United States Navy is the only maritime force in the world with the capability and reach necessary to prevent a determined China from doing this. This will require more ships and aircraft. True, other nations, especially Japan, need to step up to the growing threat and expand their maritime forces but the United States must remain the dominant naval force in the region for the foreseeable future. There is much at stake. 

                Americans need to wake up to the fact that to remain the world’s strongest economy, we must maintain, not just a navy that is larger numerically or more capable than that of any potential adversary, but one large enough numerically and capable enough to protect its far-flung vital interest. The size of our navy must be driven by its unique mission, not the size of other navies. Our current ship-building rates are simply woefully insufficient to meet the growing challenge. Since it takes at least five years to procure, build and deploy a warship, the hour is extremely late, the threat is growing rapidly and the consequences of inaction increasing daily.

 

May 14, 2014

 

Ukraine Is Europe’s Problem

Ukraine is Europe’s Problem—————————————————————————————————-

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                The situation in Ukraine has re-ignited east-west tensions and even threatens a resumption of the Cold War. Western nations, including the United States, must bear at least some of the responsibility for this. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was wrong, of course, but to Moscow’s way of thinking, so are efforts by the Obama Administration to raise the stakes involved in this regional crisis in Russia’s back yard. I am not an apologist for Russia, but I believe there is at least some merit to this viewpoint.

                Attempts to lure Ukraine into the western orbit were bound to antagonize Russians including ethnic Russians living in Ukraine which borders Russia. Whether we agree or not, Moscow believes Ukraine lies within its sphere of influence. Vladimir Putin regarded the breakup of the Soviet Union as a disaster. The loss of the former Socialist Republics of eastern Europe and especially the Balkan and Baltic states was bad enough. The idea of Ukraine, one of the jewels of the former Soviet Union, with a large ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking population, forging close ties with western Europe and perhaps becoming part of the European Union and NATO was, to him, clear evidence of western encroachment and provocation.

                Putin’s reactions to the violent overthrow of a Russian-leaning, elected Ukrainian president were predictable. He believes and has asserted that he is empowered and obligated to protect ethnic Russians in the former Soviet states, many of whom clearly seek closer ties, if not unification, with Russia. He demonstrated his determination to do this in Georgia and Moldova and is doing so again in Eastern and southern Ukraine.

                Crimea, with a largely Russian-speaking and Russian-sympathizing population, voted to seek re-union with Russia of which it was formerly a part. It contains the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and the Russian navy’s only year-around ice-free port. Moscow considers this peninsula vital to Russian interests. Attempts to restrain Mr. Putin, who enjoys an approval rating twice that of Barack Obama, are not working. If further accelerated, they may even make things worse, especially if it draws Russia into a closer alliance with China which has similar ambitions regarding what it considers its sphere of influence, notably the vast South China Sea.

                President Obama is in an untenable position made worse by his warnings and threats. Economic sanctions aren’t enough to stop Putin. Western Europe, heavily reliant on Russian energy resources, has little stomach for tough sanctions that will risk further tension and military action is simply out of the question.  Providing military aid to Kiev, as proposed in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial and some Obama critics, would be, in my view, irresponsible. The Ukrainian military is weak and ineffective, its government inept and much of the population is pro-Russian. Many favor closer links with Moscow or at least greater autonomy from Kiev whose forces those in the eastern part of the country regard as hostile outsiders. These are the ingredients of civil war. Do we really want to get involved in it or arm a participant?

                Russia will use continued violence in eastern and southern Ukraine, especially when directed against ethnic Russians, as an excuse for military intervention. Its troops remain massed on the border, ready to act. Why do we seem surprised and outraged? Isn’t it likely that we’d react the same way if a similar situation existed on our border? Didn’t we nearly go to war over Cuba? Remember Grenada?

               We can blame all this on Russian provocation, but that doesn’t change the fact that Ukrainians are deeply divided and we can’t do much about that. It’s not as if a member of NATO were being threatened in which case we would be obligated by treaty to act. We are, in essence, powerless to do much about this situation without engaging in a confrontation that could easily escalate and which neither Europeans nor the American public would support. Mr. Putin knows this, of course.

               Perhaps some sort of federation is the answer. In any event, we have no dog in this fight, as the saying goes. Europe and the Russians, however, clearly do. Let them and the Ukrainians sort it out.

The Search for Answers

April 10, 2014

It’s become a familiar sequence. Breaking news announces another shooting at a school or a mall or a military installation. The media rush to the scene with cameras and reporters to film and interview dazed survivors and relatives, relentlessly recording their grief and fragile emotions in order to meet the evening news deadline.

The nation recoils in horror again and asks the same question. How can anyone take a gun or a knife and randomly kill and maim innocent bystanders, often children? Then comes the search for answers. What was the killer’s motive? Was he (it’s almost never a female) bullied or abused? What pushed him to the breaking point? Could it have been foreseen and prevented?

The media will milk every last ounce of news and emotion from the tragedy. It’s what they’re paid to do, of course, and the public has an insatiable appetite for the details. And herein lies much of the problem.

We are today exposed to violence nearly everywhere we turn. It permeates our entertainment from movies and television to video games and rap lyrics and the kids soak it up. They become conditioned to it and it loses its shock effect. After all, it’s only a game or a song or a movie or a video. It’s not real. Until it becomes real.

Bullying has become the reason du jour. When a kid brings a gun or a knife to school and uses it, the first question asked is “Was he bullied?”  But kids have dealt with bullying throughout history without resorting to mass murder. Granted, the internet and social media have created cruel new venues for bullying but bullying isn’t a new problem. School shootings, on the other hand, are a relatively new problem. What’s behind the increase in these massacres?

One doesn’t have to be a behavioral scientist to recognize at least two of the contributing causes. First is the prevalence of violence in entertainment that socializes our youth to accept it as normal and sometimes even glamorous. Second is the extensive media coverage given to these horrific acts and to those that commit them.  It may be a well-intentioned belief in the public’s right to know and every gory detail and account of the shooter’s life may be eagerly sought by the public, but it is a huge part of the problem because it provides the publicity and attention that most perpetrators undoubtedly seek.

When a person reaches a point where he feels compelled to punish an uncaring society for wrongs real or perceived, he wants that punishment to be horrific enough to capture national attention. He wants his story told with pictures and bold headlines. He wants society to know that he was not powerless to react to these wrongs against him. And he knows just how to inflict maximum shock and horror because he has watched and read countless replays and accounts of past massacres. In fact, that’s undoubtedly where he got the idea in the first place.

Just as when the media sometimes glamorize notorious criminals and gang leaders with cool-sounding nicknames and descriptions of their lavish lifestyles, extensive coverage of mass murderers   almost certainly encourages copy-cats. The media, of course, will insist that it’s their duty to report every detail that they decide the public wants to know and they would describe any attempt to limit such coverage as censorship. But at least they could tone it down a bit. No detailed history of the perpetrator. No pictures of him. Better yet, let him remain nameless and deny him any of the publicity and attention he seeks. Close the trial to the public and the media.

If such a policy could result in even one less copy-cat episode, wouldn’t it be worth trying?

 

(Kelly, a resident of Coronado, is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who writes on military and defense  issues.)

Viewing Things through Different Lenses

April 15, 2014

In weighing the merits of opposing arguments, we naturally tend to view the issues through our own lenses and perspectives. These perspectives are conditioned, of course, by our own experiences and biases and we sometimes seem genuinely mystified when the other side can’t see things our way. Or, as Professor Henry Higgins, in My Fair Lady, put it, “Why can’t everyone be like us?”

It’s useful sometimes to put ourselves in the shoes of those with whom we disagree and try to understand how they view things and what experiences helped form their perspectives. It might help in the search for common ground and compromise.

Sometimes that search is elusive or even futile. If, for example, you are opposed to abortion and contraception on moral or religious grounds there probably is no common ground and no amount of argument or persuasion is likely to dissuade you from those deeply-held beliefs, nor will laws. By the same token, many if not most women will feel that laws outlawing abortion on any grounds will violate their rights to control their own bodies.

Time after time in foreign policy relations, we seem to think and act based upon how we think our adversaries should think and act. Later, we seem surprised and distressed when they act differently. Jimmy Carter seemed astonished when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, shattering his naïve illusions that we could all just get along if we kept talking to one another and that peace and justice would always prevail. George W. Bush famously looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and saw his soul. Here was a man he could work with. What he didn’t see, apparently, was Mr. Putin’s grim determination to restore Russian power and influence after the embarrassing collapse of the Soviet Union.

Neither, apparently, did President Barack Obama when he launched his policy of re-setting relations with Russia. Since then, his administration has conducted foreign policy as if any issue could be resolved by talk, warnings and the threat of sanctions, dispatching the Secretary of State on countless trips to discuss the American position. But how often did we attempt to examine how experiences and culture form other’s perceptions and predict behavior in spite of words and promises?

People and governments will generally act in their best interest, not ours or anyone else’s. Why, then, do we seem surprised and unprepared when this happens? Mr. Putin saw the dissolution of the Soviet Empire as the worst day of his life. He has since focused on restoring Russia’s influence on world affairs and on power and control in the former Soviet Socialistic Republics of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

Did Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry really believe that economic sanctions and appeals to honor treaty commitments would actually prevent Putin from annexing Crimea, a largely autonomous region with a Russian majority which favored annexation to Russia of which Crimea used to be part? Did they Prevent Russia from intervening in Georgia and virtually reclaiming two Russian-speaking provinces? And will they prevent Putin from intervening In Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian sentiment is high, in spite of Putin’s assurances that he won’t? Never mind what they say. How others view the world is the best predictor of how they will act.

Mr. Putin undoubtedly believes he occupies the high moral ground and that Russia is acting properly to protect the interests of the Russian-speaking and sympathizing majorities in these regions which he and most Russians believe are within Russia’s rightful sphere of influence, a concept which the West believes died with the Cold War but which Putin clearly does not. And over three-fourths of Russians agree with him. His popularity at home is over twice that of Mr. Obama who is viewed by Putin as a weak lame duck president focused on domestic issues and downsizing the military in favor of welfare programs.

Why, then, should Putin care about what Obama says or threatens to do. He’s probably not even listening. He’s trying to view the world through Obama’s rose-tinted lenses to predict his actions and he knows that his warnings and threats will only be followed by more of the same. When the leader of the United States loses credibility and respect, the world becomes a much more dangerous place.

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(Kelly, a resident of Coronado, is a retired Navy Captain and bank executive who writes on military and defense issues.)

Water for the Delta Smelt

The greatest threats to America, I’m convinced, will not come from abroad but from within. Political correctness and extreme environmentalism will eventually do us in, I’m afraid. Both are already out of control, pushed by zealots who value ideology over common sense, affecting more and more of our freedoms.

Political correctness has infected our school campuses, warping free speech and inhibiting rational debate which ought to be more highly valued there than anywhere. Spawned by liberal faculty members often insulated from real life, political correctness requires that we say or write nothing that could be deemed offensive to any minority or political group, unless, of course that group or entity is out of favor with those faculty members, as, for example, Israel. It is quite acceptable on campus to bash Israel and its supporters because Palestinians and other Arab Muslims are among the minorities currently in favor.

Environmentalism has become a religion which, like other religions, requires faith and compliance, even in the absence of facts or logic. Everyone, of course, loves the environment but extreme environmentalists demand much more. They carry this fondness for Mother Nature to a whole new level. We must worship the earth and all its creatures and defend them against any peril at any cost, human or otherwise.

True believers can be fanatical in their zeal, resorting to violence and vandalism on occasion to thwart perceived enemies of Mother Nature and even the least of her creatures. Their creed seems to especially appeal to celebrities and other wealthy individuals with little better to do with their free time than to support such causes, perhaps under the impression that they are doing something worthwhile with their excess wealth. Perhaps it’s guilt over ill-gotten gains. But I digress.

In any event, they tend overwhelmingly to be of the liberal political persuasion and to contribute heavily to liberal candidate who, of course, often feel beholden to them in spite of their sometimes nutty views which can be extremely harmful to the economy and to people’s lives. Thus they manage to get some truly crazy laws enacted and policies implemented, especially here in California, land of fruits and nuts (and vegetables).

California sits atop vast reserves of natural gas and oil. Accessing these valuable resources in the proven-safe manner that states like Texas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania are accessing theirs, could turn our struggling state economy around, providing thousands of good-paying jobs. But if you view the world through the eyes of an extreme environmentalist, fossil fuels are evil and must be left in the ground. Big oil is an enemy which must be punished at every opportunity, even though the rest of the world will continue increasing their use of carbon-based fuels, rendering our sacrifice rather meaningless in terms of effect on the environment if, indeed, there is any measureable effect at all.

California is also the nation’s leading agricultural producer, providing about 50% of America’s fruits and vegetables, one-third of its dairy products and most of its nuts (including the human variety). Yet, extreme environmentalists, with their inordinate influence and power in Sacramento, have managed to turn parts of the fertile Central Valley into arid desert because of absurd water policies. These policies favor fish over farmers; marine life over human welfare.

The fish in question is a tiny bait fish, the Delta Smelt which mankind could probably manage to survive without. The damage to agriculture, a huge part of California’s economy and way of life, is, on the other hand, devastating. This is affecting real people, real jobs and real food prices, not just in California, but in the rest of the country and perhaps the world.

The recent heavy, but brief, rains in California could have brought some relief to farmers. Instead of diverting it to parched farmland however, most of it—an estimated 95 thousand acre-feet—was flushed out to sea to save the Delta Smelt. As for the farmers and consumers of California’s agricultural products, well, they obviously rank somewhat below the Delta Smelt on the food chain.

The part of this that truly amazes me and the residents of other states where saner policies prevail is why Californians tolerate such ridiculous policies.

Feral Cats Have Rights, Too

A commentary
By J. F. Kelly, Jr.
News item: “Animal lovers are divided over how to deal with feral cats.” It seems that some people believe that the feral cat population is getting out of control. Some advocate controlling it by lethal means. Others recommend a stepped-up program of trap, neuter and release.

As I often do in trying to form an opinion on local issues, I put the question to Mimi and Mewsetta, our family cats, as we sat on the patio drinking coffee and reading the newspapers. As usual, they greeted my questions with questions of their own.

“What’s a feral cat?” asked Mewsetta.

“Jeez, you need to get out more often,” meowed Mimi, her sister. “A feral cat is a homeless cat. We have several in the neighborhood, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“First of all,” responded Musetta, I can’t get out more often because I’m a virtual prisoner in this house. So are you. We’re lucky to be allowed out on the patio and that’s only because it’s walled in.”

“I could easily jump up and over that wall,” said Mimi.

“Well, so could I,” purred Musetta.

“No you couldn’t,” snarled Mimi. “You’re so fat you can barely jump up on the couch.”

“I’m not fat,” hissed Musetta. “I’m just full-figured and long-haired.”

“Girls, please,” I said. Could we just focus on the issue. Should feral cats be rounded up and euthanized or should they be neutered and released?

“I say just leave them alone,” answered Mimi, swishing her tail vigorously for emphasis. “Cats have rights, too. Beside what harm are they causing, anyway?’

“Well, they’re being blamed for decimating the bird population, for one thing,” I replied. “Also, they poop and urinate outside and cause sanitation problems.”

“Homeless people do, too,” hissed Mimi, “and I don’t hear anyone talking about rounding them up.”

“Perhaps we could just place cat boxes all around the neighborhood,” offered Musetta, pouncing on a small bug.

“That’s about the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, even from you,” snarled Mimi. “Who would clean them? The cat box fairy?”

“Girls, let’s stop bickering and come up with some constructive ideas,” I pleaded.

“I have an idea,” purred Mimi mischievously. Let’s round up all the people who came up with the idea of neutering cats and neuter them! Let’s see how they like that idea!”

“That’s not very helpful, Mimi,” I said. “There’s obviously a problem here and allowing feral cats to reproduce freely may result in more and more bird deaths.”

“That’s fine talk coming from you, a Catholic,” growled Mimi. Aren’t you supposed to be against artificial forms of contraception?”

“That only applies to people,’ I said indignantly.

“Are you saying that we aren’t like people?” mewed Mewsetta, sobbing softly. “If so, why do you talk to us like we are?”

“Because you’re so special,” I said stroking her fur and offering her a cat treat.

“So let me get this straight,” persisted Mimi. “It’s wrong to kill birds but OK to kill cats, which, by the way, are critically important in controlling the rat population? And let me remind you that my own father was feral.”

“Mine was a Persian,” purred Mewsetta proudly. “That means that we’re step sisters, I guess. I often thought of you as the mean step-sister. You’re the one that got us thrown out of the boarding facility.”

“We were from the same litter, stupid,” hissed Mimi. “We’re not step sisters. We just had different fathers which is possible in kittens from the same litter.”

“I’m really confused,” said Mewsetta.

“What’s new?” growled Mimi.
This discussion is going nowhere,” I said. “Let’s just leave it alone.”

“Excellent idea,” said Mimi. “Let nature take its course. In this world, survival of the fittest seems to work best. What’s for lunch?”