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If you haven\u2019t paid attention to the civil war in Syria (entering its 6th year in March), the Assad \u2013 Russia coalition has moved deep into the city of Aleppo, and now controls all but part of eastern Aleppo. This means that Assad and the Russians are winning the war. It may take another year or two, but short of some untoward event, Assad has survived. It\u2019s now only a matter of time before he regains the rest of Syria.<\/p>\n
4500 miles away, about 50 miles off the coast of the Philippines, another event took place last week that may have as great a significance to the United States (and President-Elect Trump): a Chinese Navy ship seized an instrumented drone being used by the USNS Bowditch (T-AGS-52), which was engaged in conducting bottom surveys well outside of not only Chinese claimed waters, but also China\u2019s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).<\/p>\n
Although seemingly unrelated, these two events offer Mr. Trump an opportunity to reset US policy.<\/p>\n
First, it\u2019s necessary to understand how the US finds itself in this situation. In 2011, in the wake of the \u201cArab Spring,\u201d the Obama administration supported uprisings that were, in fact, backed by militant Islamic organizations in Egypt and in Syria. The US also chose to overthrow the unpleasant, but finally cooperative, Col. Qaddafi in Libya. The result of these choices was violence in Egypt (which led to a counter-revolution), the \u201cconversion\u201d of Libya into a failed state, and fueling of the civil war in Syria. Long-time regional US allies (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Egypt, Jordan) began to wonder whether the US was a dependable ally. The \u201cnuclear deal\u201d with Iran further undermined their confidence in the US.<\/p>\n
Into this ambiguity stepped Russia and Iran. Russia, using high-tech forces, Russian special operations personnel, and Iranian army units to support their client (President Assad of Syria), established a de facto \u201cDamascus Pact,\u201d stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in East Asia, despite US promises of the \u201cAsia Pivot,\u201d China began to flex its \u201cmuscles,\u201d with a substantial build-up of naval forces, intending to establish hegemony over first, the entire South China Sea, and more recently the East China Sea and all relevant island archipelagos. The US response has been at times tepid, and at times ambiguous; with the US Navy conducting operations in and through Chinese claimed waters, but doing little to support claims by friends and allies to islands now occupied by China.<\/p>\n
The Chinese have capitalized on this confusion and have continued to expand their presence in and around these various islands and over the entire South China Sea. This increasingly muscular China, and an increasingly disinterested State Department, has led to once certain US allies and friends \u2013 the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, et al, consciously distancing themselves from Washington and seeking to cozy up to Beijing.<\/p>\n
With this latest act of seizing the US bottom-survey sensor, the Chinese have changed, once again, the strategic equation in the South China Sea, making it clear that they will set the bench mark for what is and isn\u2019t acceptable behavior.<\/p>\n
Which leads to the obvious question: What should the Trump administration do once in office in less than 5 weeks?<\/p>\n
First, the US needs to reaffirm that it will support US interests, not the interests of the amorphous global community, or in the interests of an effete elite in Brussels or the ivory towers of academe. This will come as a relief to many of our allies and friends, who understand that their interests and US interests are very much in common.<\/p>\n
Second, the US needs to communicate in private to both Moscow and Beijing that there is a new administration in Washington and that what was acceptable before, is no longer acceptable. We will defend US interests. This must be backed up by clear commitment of assets supporting friends and allies both in East Asia and the Middle East. Demonstration of intent now will prevent these situations from further deteriorating, a condition that would certainly involve serious \u2013 and costly \u2013 damage to US interests.<\/p>\n
Third, the US needs to commit the necessary funding to increase the size and capability of US naval and air forces, allowing us to maintain the security of US and allied interests in the regions. Doing so will not only provide future administrations with the wherewithal to defend US interests, it will send the clearest possible signal of the seriousness of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2017 Arrias
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If you haven\u2019t paid attention to the civil war in Syria (entering its 6th year in March), the Assad \u2013 Russia coalition has moved deep into the city of Aleppo, and now controls all but part of eastern Aleppo. This means that Assad and the Russians are winning the war. It may take another year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arrian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15197"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15199,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15197\/revisions\/15199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}