World Affairs Brief, May 15, 2015 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.

Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).

This Week’s Analysis:

Osama bin Laden Exposé a Fraud

US Nuclear Missile Assessment is Dismal

US Bluster Toward China, Nothing More

DHS Busing Somalis into California from Mexico

More Evidence of US Role with ISIS

Push for Bad Trade Deal

Oil Price War

GMO Crops get a Foot in the Door in Europe

[…]

US BLUSTER TOWARD CHINA, NOTHING MORE

I can see the back story to this: the Pentagon politicians are worried about looking weak in the face of increasing Chinese aggression in the Far East, so they decide to take a hard verbal stand—but that’s all it is, talk. The announcements this week are just rhetoric with no intention on backing it up with military power. The Wall Street Journal said,

 The Pentagon announced this week that it is considering [take note that no action is required] deploying military ships and planes to patrol territory near China’s newly built islands in the South China Sea. Such a plan, if approved by the White House, would open a new phase in the struggle to shape Asia’s balance of power. [Now here’s the wishful thinking] U.S. policy makers and their Asian counterparts have long hoped that as China becomes more internationalized, it would gradually embrace political [reform]….

Bill Gertz, of the Washington Free Beacon is a hard liner against Russia and China, but even he gets deceived by the token moves by the Pentagon:

 In a major policy shift, the Pentagon declared Wednesday the United States will directly defend U.S. national security interests in the South China Sea against China’s expansive and illegal maritime claims.

But Gertz apparently forgot to listen to the part where a senior US official said “We’re just not going within the 12 miles — yet,” a tacit international recognition of a 12 mile limit around any nation’s sovereign territory. Why would they recognize any such limit unless they were trying to placate China’s intent to take over the Spratley Island reef—where they are building a new airfield for future military purposes? Watch how the US will continue to bluster and caution even as China puts down concrete and buildings on the ground. They will never do anything to interdict this military growth until it’s already operational and too late to stop short of going to war!

The Australian Herald-Sun quoted China as demanding that “US warships keep away from disputed South China Sea islands” Gertz continues.

 Tensions are set to escalate in the South China Sea as China seeks assurances [they aren’t seeking assurances but demanding] the United States will not send warships to test its determination to lay claim to a string of remote, strategic islands.

 China urged “the relevant country” to “refrain from taking risky and provocative actions to maintain the regional peace and stability”, Hua told reporters. Since 2010, China has been actively asserting sovereignty over what it calls the “Nanyang” Sea, known in the West as the South China Sea, a 5.6 million square kilometre stretch of water, islands and reefs between it, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines. Hua said China’s upholds the international principal of freedom of navigation in the area — but that doesn’t mean foreign forces can operate freely there.

What China is doing is setting up a “string of pearls” chain of bases that can support naval and air power essential to her war plans. This is the time for the US to step in and stop the expansion—not after the bases get built. But they won’t do this, because the US wants this coming war. It will dally and delay, harking continually to the virtues of diplomacy, until it’s too late.

Of greatest concern should be the fact that the US now admits that China has created Multiple Individual Reentry Warheads (MIRV) for its DF-5 missiles. As the anti-war, and anti-nuclear pacifist site, FAS.org wrote,

 The biggest surprise in the Pentagon’s latest annual report on Chinese military power is the claim that China’s ICBM force now includes the “multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV)-equipped Mod 3 (DF-5).”

And they also note that,

 Indian weapons designers have already hinted that India may be working on its own MIRV system and the US Defense Intelligence Agency recently stated that “India will continue developing an ICBM, the Agni-VI, which will reportedly carry multiple warheads.”

Meanwhile, the US just removed all its multiple warheads from its remaining ICBMs.