Start a war with China — say Blinken and Admiral 'Nod'

07 August 2021

Warmongering is so much fun!

Just after I wrote yesterday's blurb — about America's happy Kill-the-Bastards psychosis — the American Ship of State immediately proved my point.

In steps bloated authority in a pretty suit

One of America's many 4 star blowhards stepped up to Aggressive Pomposity's Plate:

The United States is capable of assisting and defending Taiwan in the event of a military crisis, the commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific said Thursday.

Adm. John Aquilino, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said [that:]

“I want to be very clear — we have the world’s greatest military on the planet.

“We are here to continue to operate to ensure peace and prosperity through the region, and we have to be in a position to ensure that status quo remains as it applies to Taiwan.

“[I]ntegrated deterrence is designed for the entire joint force to be able to operate in a synchronized fashion in all domains — as we integrate cyberspace and space capabilities — as we do it with all forms of U.S. national power.

"And as we synchronize those with our most critical asset — and that is our allies and partners."

Of this historically stimulating announcement . . .

. . . Dave DeCamp, at AntiWar, drily observed that:

Aquilino and other US military leaders in the Pacific have an interest in hyping up the threat of China moving to take Taiwan by force.

His command has been selling Congress on the Pacific Deterrence (PDI), a plan to spend over $27 billion between 2022 and 2027 to boost US military capabilities in the region.

President Biden’s Pentagon budget request for 2022 includes $5.1 billion for the PDI.

We can infer that Admiral Aquilino thinks that escalating his prestige and institutional budget is absolutely worth the human price of provoking another world war.

More or less simultaneously . . .

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cleverly stuck a hot poker in China's eye:

Secretary Blinken called on the PRC [People's Republic of China] to abide by its obligations under the international law of the sea and cease its provocative behavior in the South China Sea.

He raised serious concerns about ongoing human rights abuses in Tibet, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang.

The Secretary also noted deep concern with the rapid growth of the PRC’s nuclear arsenal which highlights how Beijing has sharply deviated from its decades-old nuclear strategy based on minimum deterrence.

"Minimum deterrence"

One might give Chirping Tony some credit for perspicacity, until one recognizes that China has about 350 nukes.

That comparatively pitiful number contrasts with the United States' 5,500. Which are currently in the process of a widely announced (projected $1.5 trillion-funded) modernization and numbers expansion.

See:

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Fact Sheet: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Modernization: Costs & Constraints, armscontrolcenter.ogr (22 January 2021)

Thus, Secretary of State Blinken's sense of proportion seems to have escaped into the Land Grossly Hypocritical Fearmongering.

(You can imagine how the Chinese feel about the United States' interminable face-shaming of them.)

The moral? — We're the US, and we can push everyone around?

I suspect that one day, perhaps not too far away, somebody's gonna ram a missile-serious retort up our ass.

History reliably indicates that aggressive warmongers, like the United States, eventually receive the rewards of their incessant shit-talking. Often so by accident.

The idea that the US can prevent China from recapturing Taiwan, at some time in the future, is an absolutely idle dream. Fred Reed published an arguably insightful perspective regarding that unlikelihood, here. And I doubt that millions of Americans would knowingly be willing to 'croak' themselves to force the issue.

This is what happens when Crazed Dementia infects the United States.

'Psychosis' is a solidly accurate diagnosis of our national condition.

PeteFree.com

Start a war with China — say Blinken and Admiral 'Nod'