Too Much Ambiguity
I spend about three hours a day trying to keep track of political and governmental news.
Watching China, Ukraine, Iran, and the U.S. Congress, there is just too much ambiguity to have any sense of what is really happening.
I spend about three hours a day trying to keep track of political and governmental news. Still, I find it almost impossible to really understand the situation.
Let’s start with President Donald J. Trump’s visit to China. Some people believe it was a terrific success, President Trump being one of them. Others believe the Chinese engaged in a whole series of petty maneuvers to make Trump look bad. The American billionaires apparently did not impress the Chinese Communists.
The thing which worried me most was the issue of Taiwan. Since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger went to China, we have been mastering a careful balance. On one hand, we assert that Communist China cannot invade Taiwan. On the other hand, we tell Taiwan that it cannot declare its independence.
To save face for the Chinese Communists and avoid provoking a big war, we have consistently walked this balance which protects Taiwan but does not challenge the Chinese Communist argument that the island is China’s 19th province.
When the President indicated on the way home that he was wavering on the proposed $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, it was a dangerous signal. Anything which leads to ambiguity about the strength of our commitment to Taiwan increases the potential for an effort by Beijing to take over the island by force. This could lead to a massive, costly, and dangerous war.
On Ukraine, I am also confused about whether we are focused on helping the Ukrainians defeat the aggressive assault on their country by the Russian dictatorship — or on making Vladimir Putin feel good enough that he will never use nuclear weapons. The Ukrainians are clearly getting better at using their drones. They are building more sophisticated drones with greater range. They have been targeting the Russian petrochemical industry in a way which hurts the Russian economy and undermines Russian morale. Putin and the hardline Russians are increasingly infuriated by the failure of their air defense system to stop the Ukrainians. It is a profound embarrassment for Putin when the national capital’s petrochemical facilities are hit and there is black smoke which everyone can see.
There is a danger that Putin in desperation will use tactical nuclear weapons, but even in a dictatorship there are apparently real opponents in the nuclear systems directorate who know what a disaster this would be, and they apparently keep blocking such an action. It is confusing when President Trump has a more than one hour-long call with Putin while the flow of weapons and help for Ukraine continues.
The Iranian situation is equally filled with ambiguity. President Trump keeps finding reasons not to reopen the bombing campaign. The Iranians are using the time to rebuild their anti-aircraft defenses and replenish their drone and missile stockpiles. We should not have any doubts about the dictatorship using the truce periods to repair damage and rebuild their forces. There is also no question that the Russians are shipping weapons and supplies across the Caspian Sea to help the Iranians rebuild their capacity for war.
There is a dominant (and wrong) view in Washington that the combination of economic and diplomatic pressure will force the Iranians to agree to abandon 47 years of history and sign a truce which strips them of everything for which they have been working.
This is a deeply anti-historic view.
Why would you expect a dictatorship which survived 1 million casualties fighting Iraq to be intimidated by a few weeks of bombing?
Why would you think a dictatorship which killed 42,000 of its own citizens earlier this year would worry about economic pressure and blockades?
We keep applying values and principles which would affect us — but the Iranian dictatorship is not us.
Finally, there is equal ambiguity about what the Congress can achieve this summer. Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries clearly intend to cause maximum damage to the American economy — and maximum obstruction to efforts to reform the federal government. They hope that the ensuing failure and frustration will be blamed on President Trump and the Republicans. And they will succeed if Republicans let them.
Hopefully, over the next few weeks these areas of ambiguity will clear up in positive ways.
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I agree with you. I would like to see more consistency and timely follow through with China and Iran. I cannot figure out what we are doing with the Ukraine situation. That has been a puzzle to me since Hillary Clinton’s reset. I would not give Iran time to reconstitute itself. It still thinks it can take the USA and Israel out. I would hold the line on Taiwan. Why do we need to be cozy with the CCP anyway? They are not ones to appease. That would be like appeasing Nazis. I thought we learned that with World War II. These regimes are evil. We talk with them but we do not compromise our allies and ourselves and our values. Likewise with Putin . He is not our friend. Maybe Ukraine is not perfect and Europe needs to do more, but Putin should never have invaded Ukraine. What a trouble maker. We make all our allies worried when we waffle with these evil guys. No one can count on us including us. I know something about sociopaths and psychopaths. They must be contained and kept unable to act. You talk with them and hear what they are thinking but you do not swallow their poison. They will not change and will try to outsmart you and others and take over. That is how they think and what they know. We need to say no and mean it. We say yes to what is good and healthy when we can. We do not want them developing anything in our country and we do not want them intimidating countries around them. I know we need rare earth elements. Too bad we made those business deals in the past with them that helped them get a stranglehold on rare earth elements. If we could get vaccines going for Covid, I bet we can do something fast about rare earth metals. Inviting the CCP in and being reciprocal has not helped. That has been like inviting cancer to drop by and settle in a bit.