McMaster: U.S. Willing to Use Military Force With China

National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, aboard Air Force One ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to China, has told the media the U.S. is willing to use military force to demonstrate China’s advances in the Pacific are not in its best interests.

 

Ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to China this week, President Xi Jinping’s military has been sending its bombers in the vicinity of the U.S. island territory of Guam in a move likely meant to deter the administration from challenging Chinese movements in the region.

National Security Adviser Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster told a press gaggle during Air Force One’s flight to Japan on Saturday the U.S. is taking a very dim view of those provocations. And, he added, the Trump administration is willing to use military force to prove its resolve.

China Says It Should Prepare to Invade Taiwan

As can be found on the quotes page, war preparations against Taiwan is an actual preparation for war against America — the real intended target:

“The central committee believes, as long as we resolve the United States problem at one blow, our domestic problems will all be readily solved. Therefore, our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites.”

– Chi Haotian, Minster of Defense and vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission

 

Caption: A December 12 magazine headline in Beijing reads, “How Will Businessman Trump Change the World?” (GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Beijing is furious that United States President-elect Donald Trump said that the U.S. would not necessarily be bound by the one-China policy. In response, China is saying it should be prepared to take Taiwan by military force.

The one-China policy is a diplomatic acknowledgement of China’s view that Taiwan is not an independent, sovereign, democratic nation, but is instead a breakaway province of Communist China that will eventually be reincorporated under mainland rule. Since 1979, the policy has underpinned ties between Washington and Beijing, and has allowed the U.S. only a nonofficial relationship with Taiwan.

Understanding Russia’s Concept for Total War in Europe

This great article is well worth your time reading in full at the source. The only thing it’s missing out of the entire piece is that a ‘resurgent’ Russia is not resurgent. It has always been there biding its time.

To further explain, it had purposely laid low since it’s engineered fall, otherwise known as the Perestroika Deception, allowing for America to overplay its hand in many ways and allow for the Russians to hang it with the rope the Americans sold them. The third world war, the Cold War, never went away. It went into a new deception phase which is nearing its end now. It’s goal is to supplant the American global hegemon.

How did this happen? It’s rather simple: For decades America was fed Red Cocaine, consequently became dumbed down as a result, and easily sold New Lies for Old.

 

Russia perceives itself as surrounded by enemies, and that the strategic depth that has been its principal security must be restored. In this sense, no territory is more significant than Ukraine. Russian leadership also worries about the erosion of a zone around Russia’s borders where politically dangerous ideas can be stifled before they undermine the regime’s hold on power.

Russia’s leadership believes it can stem this erosion and achieve its objectives by combining organized military violence with economic, political, and diplomatic activity, a combination called new generation warfare (NGW). NGW is a concept for fighting total war in Europe, across all fronts—political, economic, informational, cyber—simultaneously through fear and intimidation without launching a large-scale attack. If fighting is required, it is highly networked and multi-directional. The stakes can be raised rapidly, possibly without limit.

President Vladimir Putin is confident in this approach because he sees U.S. hesitation as opportunity and believes the U.S. is overly dependent on military responses. Thus, NGW is designed to avoid giving the U.S. and other adversaries a reason to respond using military force. The U.S. needs to broaden its response portfolio to include political, diplomatic, economic, financial, cyber, covert, and other means coordinated into a comprehensive approach to counter the NGW strategy. Russia has brought total war back to Europe—in a hidden, undeclared, and ambiguous form. Failure to confront Russian opportunism will validate Putin’s approach.

U.S. Warships Surround Disputed Chinese Waters, Prepared For War: “WWIII At Stake”

 

Territorial disputes are a delicate thing… and potentially deadly as well.

That’s why the U.S. is backing up its positions with an ever-increasing presence of warships  in the South China Sea.

China is very touchy about these territories, and unwilling to give up what they perceive as their waters, even as a UN tribunal just denied their claims and strengthened the U.S. hand.

Indeed, the entire situation is combustible and very dangerous.

Great Power Realignment – To Russia?

• As the Russians insist that the Assad government is the only legitimate government, all anti-Assad fighters — ISIS, al Qaeda-related, or U.S.-backed or Turkish-backed “moderates” — are, by definition, terrorists.
• Russian — and in particular Syrian — tactics are appalling. Washington would rather not be associated with them, but has a horror of the vacuum that might emerge if Assad is swept aside. Mainly, the U.S. has hung its hat on the International Syria Support Group. The U.S. is muddled, as usual, without a clear goal, clear allies or fixed positions beyond support for a “political process.”
• The U.S. is looking less and less relevant, as historic Great Powers do what they have historically done best — fight for their national interests as they define them. President Obama appears to be conceding the lead to Russia and Russian aims.

The shelling of Syrian soldiers by the Turkish military is one more step back into Great Power politics — historic Turkish-Russian enmity played out over Kurds and Syrians. The U.S. appears to believe 21^st century wars cannot be won by military force and that battling parties can be induced to set aside their national and religious aims for a negotiated “peace.” Meanwhile, the parties to the conflict are using their armies to pursue victory.

America sounds ‘arms race’ alert over South China Sea amid fears of military conflict

The alleged ongoing land reclamation by China on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, Philippines Photo: REUTERS

The top US commander in the Pacific criticises ‘might is right’ approach as China scorns international tribunal on disputed waters

America’s top military commander for the Pacific has taken a thinly veiled swipe at China as he warned that a dangerous arms race over the disputed waters of the South China Sea could “engulf” the region.

Admiral Scott Swift said that nations could be increasingly tempted to use military force instead of international law to settle territorial claims.

Lawrence Wilkerson: “The American ‘Empire’ Is In Deep, Deep Trouble”

 

Former US army colonel and Chief of Staff for Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson unleashed a most prescient speech on the demise of the United States Empire.

As Naked Capitalism’s Yves Smith notes, Wilkerson describes the path of empires in decline and shows how the US is following the classic trajectory. He contends that the US needs to make a transition to being one of many powers and focus more on strategies of international cooperation.

Navy Intel Officer Warns of Future China Conflict

Calls for telling the truth about Beijing

HONOLULU—China’s ruling Communist Party is “rejuvenating” and preparing for a military conflict in Asia, the outgoing intelligence chief of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet is warning.

“The strategic trend lines indicate the Communist Party of China is not only ‘rejuvenating’ itself for internal stability purposes, but has been and continues to prepare to use military force,” Navy Capt. James E. Fanell said on Saturday during his retirement speech at Pearl Harbor.

Speaking on a pier across the harbor from the battleship USS Missouri, where Japan’s surrender was signed ending World War II, and near the memorial over the submerged wreckage of the USS Arizona, sunk in 1941 during the Japanese attack, Fanell said he believes Beijing prefers not to use its growing military force for achieving regional dominance.

Russian Military Activity in the Arctic: A Cause for Concern

While the West has primarily been focused on Russia’s recent actions in eastern Europe, Moscow has continued with its plans to militarize the Arctic. Russia’s strategic goals in the Arctic are to secure current and potential energy resources located in the region and to maintain military superiority above the Arctic Circle. Although the threat of armed conflict among the Arctic powers remains low, the U.S. should consider the implications of Russian militarization in the region in light of Moscow’s recent aggression in Ukraine.

Sweden May Use Military Force Against Alleged Submarine: Armed Forces Chief

STOCKHOLM, October 21 (RIA Novosti) – Sweden may resort to the use of force against the alleged foreign submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces Sverker Goranson said on Tuesday.

John Ivison: Crimea crisis forcing Harper to rethink NATO, Arctic defence

For many Canadians, the events in Crimea constitute a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom they know nothing, to quote Neville Chamberlain on the 1938 Sudeten crisis.

But Russia is not that far away. It borders our Arctic frontier. It’s a country with which we have conflicting claims over sovereignty of the Arctic sea-bed and, perhaps, its waters. And it’s a country that has shown itself prepared to use military force to satisfy its territorial ambitions.

Kremlin Prepares for Military Intervention

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — As Russian-backed armed forces effectively seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula on Saturday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia requested —and received — authorization from the Russian Senate to use military force in Ukraine.

The actions signaled publicly for the first time the Kremlin’s readiness to intervene militarily in Ukraine, and it served as a blunt response to President Obama, who just hours earlier pointedly warned Russia to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Within hours after receiving Mr. Putin’s request, Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, voted to approve it, after a debate that warned of the apocalyptic consequences of failing to stop a fascist threat from spreading to Russia’s borders. The lawmakers directed considerable fury at President Obama and others in the West they accused of fomenting the upheaval in Ukraine.

Russia’s Military Is Back

Earlier this year, in an address delivered on the day devoted to the “defenders of the Fatherland,” the Russian president proclaimed: “Ensuring Russia has a reliable military force is the priority of our state policy. Unfortunately, the present world is far from being peaceful and safe. Long obsolete conflicts are being joined by new, but no less difficult, ones. Instability is growing in vast regions of the world.”

This is not empty talk. The rhetoric has been matched by a concurrent allocation of resources; Russia is now engaged in its largest military buildup since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago, with major increases in defense spending budgeted each year to 2020. Putin has pushed for this program even over the objections of some within the Kremlin who worried about costs and the possible negative impact on Russian prosperity; opposition to the expansion of military spending was one of the reasons the long-serving Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin left the cabinet two years ago.

The rest of the world is taking notice.

Syria Has Right to Respond to U.S. Threat, Minister Says

A Syrian cabinet minister called for a pre-emptive response against the U.S. and the premier said his country wouldn’t be cowed after President Barack Obama asked Congress to approve an attack on Syria.

The U.S. has declared war and Syrians have the right to respond preemptively against U.S. interests with all means available, Syrian Minister for National Reconciliation Ali Haidar said in a phone interview today.

Germany Strengthens African Military Presence

One of the main points of discussion at last week’s high-level forum on defense and security in Berlin centered on raising the military protection of Germany’s raw materials sources.

Broadcast live via the government-financed media outlet Deutsche Welle, the forum—hosted by Berlin’s Federal College for Security Studies (baks)—had, as a top item on its agenda, ways and means of adding to the Bundeswehr’s existing presence in Africa within countries that are vital to the continuing supply of raw materials for Germany’s export-led economy.