Beneath the regalia of the President’s Asian perimeter tour lies a narrowing field of options for addressing an expanding risk. It is highly appropriate and extraordinarily timely for the President to press the flesh with the area Leadership; hands on, eye to eye, particularly given Mr. Trump’s remarkable skills for tactical-reading.
The President is about to confirm that his hunch relating to N. Korea and the region are, in fact, a functional reality:
(1) China’s economic capabilities, to the extent they are a threat, are the result of U.S.-led Banking/Economic/Trade Policy beginning back to the days of Nixon and systematized-to-actionable-status in the early 90’s thru the adoption of various trade agreements intended to exploit/control the area and establish a ready-market for Western-owned energy resource located in the South China Sea.
(2) That China’s economic footprint has sufficiently leached into the Asian economic theatre making it difficult, if not impossible, to respond in a manner that would allow for a surgical or even a targeted result. To muster alignment among the numerous players whose loyalties are to their vested economic interests and not to the American People whom they openly exploit, will likely fatigue toward an impasse of futility. In short, China, for all practical and non-ethical reasons, really has no reason to do anything and for any number of reasons. The U.S. can certainly force China’s hand however, as you can see from the manner in which the Swampy-Elite have turned on him domestically, an adversarial response from China would be the least of the President’s concerns.
(3) The Military response limits are not necessarily due to the immediacy of China’s Military or even Russia’s Naval presence from their Port in Vladivostok or the Russian-Chinese Co-Defense Treaty. That’s not to mean that either of these Countries are afraid of the U.S., but more so that they simply don’t want a direct entanglement with the U.S. whose presence, they consider, to be limited and a simple matter of knocking out a few aircraft carriers which they know would be a huge psychological loss for the U.S. in terms of lives and posture-of-unassailability.
(4) The U.S., except for Japan, has very little across-the-board, in practical non-political boots-on-the-ground, military support including those Countries (Vietnam, India, Philippines) in the immediate area while S. Korea’s reliability will only ever be truly known at point of conflict.
(5) Although a part of the Military quotient, and yet distinct unto itself, is the Nuclear (fallout) risks:
(a) How far along, really, are the N. Korean’s in their production/developmental capacity?
(b) What is and from whom are their material dependency (filled)?
(c) What can we do to insure a WMD is never fired? If one does, how best to insure a trajectory over non-populated areas?
(d) What is the state of their delivery capabilities (Nuclear)? Range? Accuracy?
(e) Iran; how deep is the connection and developmental parallels? Can Iran respond similarly to those N. Korea claims to possess?
(f) What is the follow-on actionable-strategy post removal of the current Regime?
(g) Are we nation-building or do we turn it over to a now unified Korea where Seoul, with U.N. assist, handles the assimilation of formerly known N. Korean People and their infrastructure?
All of this is a function of 5 decades of Western-led Dystopian Strategic Planning done for the express purpose of maintaining control by maintaining adversarial-tension. In the end, as the President knows, if the U.S. wants to act in accordance with its own Ideals of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness then he’ll find very few companions who understand that this animal-like form of abuse is not only predatory, it is equally demonic. And to let it stand makes us all equally complicit.
Curtis C. Greco, Founder
