As the “Sky Soldiers” of the 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team deploy from their base at Vicenza, Italy, and set up camp in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, let us reflect on the world and America’s place in it.
There is no serious threat from the Russian Federation to any of these four countries, which is why President Barack Obama sent our troops there.
The old wisdom is that in a president’s second term, his attention naturally shifts to foreign affairs as it is the arena in which he has the most authority and the where he can best burnish his legacy.
One year deep in the morass that is President Barack Obama’s second term, we are seeing his administration struggle to cobble together a coherent program whose only consistent themes are pandering to domestic politics and the interests of Iran.
As we watch events unfold in Ukraine, it seems so long ago that in January, Team Obama was taunting Russian President Vladimir Putin, running down his Winter Olympics and celebrating the band # Riot, a band of radical Russian feminists arrested and jailed disrupting worshipers with rogue performance inside Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral.
This is what the liberals call “soft power” and “the return of diplomacy.”
Would it be impolite to suggest that Russia might be a little hacked-off?
Without defending the seizure of Crimea and the apparent moves by Russian agents to secure other parts of eastern Ukraine, no one would dispute that Putin is immune to Obama’s pleading after the way the president treated him and his Olympics.
Meanwhile, are we supposed to just ignore that the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances obligates the United States and the United Kingdom to defend with military forces the territorial integrity of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan?
As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, did Obama text Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk: #jk?
Some wags have mentioned that Ukraine was equally betrayed by the United States because the Ukraine sent 1,600 troops to serve in Iraq alongside our own forces—certainly more than other countries we consider better friends: #hellofrance. But, before beating that drum, the record of the Ukrainian forces was, um, mixed.
The Poles showed up with 2,500 troops in Iraq, and their record was, um, mixed, but they were not as bad as the Ukrainians. Maybe that is why they merited a 150-trooper company of Sky Soldiers.
Of the 40 Estonians sent to Iraq, 18 were wounded and two were killed. The Latvians sent 136 soldiers and the Lithuanians stayed home.
Our total commitment to Poland and the Baltic states is going to be 600 men, roughly three companies, who will be rotated in and out in a sustained American presence.
In case that thought crossed your mind, it is a 3.5-hour flight from Vicenza to Warsaw.
In case that other thought crossed your mind, it is a 2.5-hour flight from Vicenza to #Benghazi.
I am not saying. I am just saying.
On the other side of the world, East Asians should be watching the events in Europe as a warning that when the People’s Republic of China comes on strong, they should not expect America to stand up for them any more than we did for Ukraine.
Maybe we will send a company of paratroopers to Thailand?
ChiComs have ongoing territorial and or fishing ground disputes with Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea
The ChiComs have ongoing territorial and or fishing ground disputes with Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea.
Of these five, Japan is both the most delusional and the first in line for China to settle business.
In the coming months, China will stop talking and seize the Senkaku Islands.
It is almost cruel that Obama is in Japan right now telling the Japanese that America sides with Japan in the dispute, as if he would actually lift a finger. Perhaps, China will suffer the same “dire consequences” Obama promised Russia if it crossed the line into Ukraine?
When the crisis comes, China will play to win. For the last two years, the Chinese media has prepared and educated their people about the dispute to the point that the Chinese are now demanding that government do something about it.
The Japanese media has told its people repeatedly not to worry: There will be no war because America will protect us.
In the past, whenever China made trouble for our East Asian allies, all we would do is send over a carrier group. Now, things have changed. We only have 11 active carriers, which really means at any one time, only four are at sea at any one time covering the globe.
Now, too, the People Liberation Army Navy has its own aircraft carrier with fighter jets and escorts. If the Chinese send a carrier off the coast of Japan, are we going to send two carriers? No. We are not going to send any. Bet on it.
Seriously, what is the lesson our East Asian allies should learn from how we treated our ally Ukraine? Easy: Learn Chinese.
Neil W. McCabe——
Bio and Archives
Neil W. McCabe is the editor of Human Event’s “Guns & Patriots” e-letter and was a senior reporter at the Human Events newspaper. McCabe deployed with the Army Reserve to Iraq for 15 months as a combat historian. For many years, he was a reporter and photographer for “The Pilot,” Boston’s Catholic paper. He was also the editor of two free community papers, “The Somerville (Mass.) News and “The Alewife (North Cambridge, Mass.).”
