Two fronts?

Mario · December 16, 2021 at 10:37 pm

Two fronts and we are not prepared, nor strong enough to counter one of those. America has fallen and I don’t see us recovering. Once we had strong allies but today with our southern border wide open and castro’s kid to our north we are in a shit sandwich. If china wants Taiwan or Japan or Australia all they have to do is take them and America under biden/obamma/soros ain’t going to try to defend those nation states.

Jonathan · December 17, 2021 at 10:48 am

Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea could have nuclear weapons anytime they want to. They have the materials, the knowledge, and the security concerns.

I would not be surprised to find out they all did, or that they had all the pieces ready to assemble when a crisis comes along. That way they can claim to “not have nukes” with a straight face politically…

Noveskes Rock · December 19, 2021 at 1:14 pm

Trust you won’t mind my re-posting an extended comment I made over at John Wilder’s site regarding this a couple days ago – gracias . . .

I think the regular readers would concur that the United States is in a historically weak position. We are divided domestically, the economy is running on fumes and there is significant distrust in our institutions. Our allies are dismayed by the appalling exit from Afghanistan and our current regime does not inspire trust in the international community. It is not surprising that more aggressive countries see this as a window of opportunity to settle old scores and position themselves for the future.

The US military is more demoralized than since then end of the Viet Nam War. Most career troops have served 2-3 tours downrange during the GWOT and our exit from Afghanistan was not inspiring. The push to get jabbed with ominous consequences implied has also put a damper on morale. Traditionally 01-05 promotions were on merit then starting with 06 they became somewhat political. After 8 years of Obama and 4 years of Never Trump the military senior leadership has become extremely polarized when compared to the rank and file. This difference in political alignment creates additional grist in the mill of the machine. We have run down our war stocks over the past 20 years and the ammo bunkers are not stacked as deeply as they once were. Our ability to project force using CRAF and organic lift is also reduced. Supposedly the first thing a president asks in a crisis is “where are the carriers?” If you hit globalsecurity.org with that you’ll see that 5 of the 11 groups are deployed – the balance are in maintenance or stand down. Just for fun you can find the deployed carriers current location on marinevesseltraffic.com. So much for keeping off the radar.

Russia has spent the last few months positioning themselves to consolidate their holdings by assimilating the Donbas region. Their domestic press has ramped up the war drums, troops are deployed, pro forma diplomatic discussions have been completed and the stage is set. In the past week field hospitals have been deployed which is a significant tell. The hospital staff has peacetime obligations that have been set aside for the coming fray. Both Chinese and Russian attacks have been made daily on satellite systems for the past month; the US says none were disabled but then that is what they’d say regardless. Biden effectively green lighted the event when he made it clear that US boots on the ground were out and economic sanctions were in. One economic sanction was being exiled from the SWIFT bank exchange system. Both China and Russia established alternatives to the SWIFT system in 2019 so that dog won’t hunt. The EU needs natural gas during the winter so that sanction won’t bite. Russia sent another message in late November when they sortied 9 of their 10 Borei class boomers from Kamchatka in the course of a week. My honest opinion at this point is that Russia will only take/hold the Donbas region with the idea that this would be an excellent live fire exercise to get their troops blooded. A quick/tidy exercise would send a strong message to other potential targets that the Russians mean business when they negotiate and that the US/NATO/Quad promises of support are empty words. Bottom line is that the Russian troops on the border need to be used / removed soon. Forward deployment on “standby” status can only last so long before troops start to lose their edge.

China is watching this with interest. There are only a few months a year when the East China Sea is conducive for amphibious operations. One window is coming up around Chinese New Year. The Chinese have been pushing hard on Taiwan the past year. Taiwan has a defense budget of around 12 billion. By making 3,000 sorties near / into Taiwanese air space China has forced Taiwan to spend 900 million in fuel launching fighters. In addition to being a serious cash drain that accelerates A/B/C/D checks on the aircraft and creates a ground hog day mentality among the sensor operators/crews. At the end of October, China stopped using the AIS transponders on Chinese registered vessels – so they tend to drop off the commercial sensing systems. Officially this was to comply with their Personal Information Protection Law but it is conveniently creates significant surface clutter not immediately identifiable. We all know about the shipping backlog off Long Beach – there’s another cavalcade of container ships bobbing around off the coast of China. The ocean transport situation near China is murky at best. .China wants the Taiwanese infrastructure intact (it takes years to build a bleeding edge chip plant) but probably isn’t too concerned about civilian casualties. That makes for a different set of rules of engagement. If the Chinese can get a solid indication from the US that as long as they avoid US casualties the US won’t immediately intervene then there is “some” possibility of that adventure in the near future. In the last 20 virtual wargames that the US ran we were unable to deploy assets to Formosa in time to prevent the Chinese from successfully taking the island. If the US was significantly distracted with a deniable cyberstrike on the banking, energy or GPS networks that would increase the odds of success. Keep in mind that Hutchison Whampoa runs the Panama Canal and the Suez Economic Zone has a significant Chinese presence. If China and Russia agree to mind their own business then they free up significant forces otherwise on their mutual borders. And of course there are the whole panopoly of “assassins mace” weapons but those are still not fully fielded (hypersonic MIRVs, non-nuclear EMP devices, blinding laser rifles, etc.).

Discouraging, eh? All open source information. Just like Russia signing a 20 year defense agreement with Iran this week. Ideally our leadership is aware of all this and has a cunning plan to make the magic happen. That’s not how I’d bet though. I’m thinking best case the US continues to lose influence in the international community and trust from our allies. As the Chinese and Russians push to make their oil purchases denominated in rubles and renmimbi rather than dollars they will continue to apply pressure to the dollar status as a reserve currency. Without a deliberate, coordinated and focused campaign to restore the US position and regain the initiative I believe it’s safe to say that the sunset of the Republic is upon us. Let’s make hay while the sun still shines.