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Tension Rising Between China and Japan

The Japan Times has reported that a Chinese spy ship has entered Japan’s territorial waters for only the second time since the end of the Second World War. The reconnaissance vessel crossed into Japan’s waters near Kuchinoerabu Island on June 15.

Japanese aircraft ordered the vessel to move outside of the nation’s territorial waters, 12 nautical miles off the coastline, and the ship complied.

The incident is considered even more serious because it occurs within a week after Beijing sent a frigate into the contiguous zone adjacent to Japan’s territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands, which both China and Japan have claimed..

In 2004, a Chinese submarine was discovered within Japan’s territorial waters near Ishigaki Island, prompting Tokyo to hike naval security.

It’s believed that the latest incursion is due to China’s practice of shadowing other naval vessels conducting maneuvers in international waters. Two Indian ships were the presumptive targets. Beijing’s navy has also shadowed the U.S. aircraft carrier John C. Stennis.

According to the Japan Times, Kenji Kanasugi, director-general of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, has lodged a protest against China, stating “concerns about the overall activities of the Chinese military, which have been escalating tensions…”  China’s ambassador was summoned to receive Tokyo’s condemnation of the incursion.

China has also moved aggressively against American surveillance aircraft over international waters.

Beijing has ratchet up tensions in anticipation of a ruling being handed down by the Hague international arbitration court concerning China’s incursion into Philippine waters.

At the April G7 meeting in Hiroshima,  the attending foreign ministers, concerned over Beijing’s belligerence and its construction of islands for military use,  noted that “Free, open and stable seas are a cornerstone for peace, stability and prosperity of the international community. We reaffirm the importance of maintaining a maritime order based upon the universally recognized principles of international law… We reiterate our commitment to the freedoms of navigation and overflight and other internationally lawful uses of the high seas and the exclusive economic zones as well as to the related rights and freedoms in other maritime zones, including the rights of innocent passage, transit passage and archipelagic sea lanes passage consistent with international law. We call on all states to pursue the peaceful management and settlement of maritime disputes in good faith and in accordance with international law, including through applicable internationally recognized legal dispute settlement mechanisms, including arbitration, recognizing that the use of such mechanisms is consistent with the maintenance and enhancement of the international order based upon the rule of law… We are concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas, and emphasize the fundamental importance of peaceful management and settlement of disputes. We express our strong opposition to any intimidating, coercive or provocative unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions, and urge all states to refrain from such actions as land reclamations including large scale ones, building of outposts, as well as their use for military purposes and to act in accordance with international law including the principles of freedoms of navigation and overflight.”

Japan has been on edge lately, due both to China’s aggressive actions and the dramatic increase in military strength both from that nation and North Korea.  According to Tokyo’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

“Japan’s security environment is becoming even severer with the dramatic shift in the global power balance, the emergence of new threats such as terrorism and cyber attacks, and the severe security environment in the Asia-Pacific region. Such threats easily cross national borders.”

Several main concerns were stressed, including

  • “Despite the concentration of nations that possess large-scale military capability including nuclear-weapons states, regional cooperation frameworks on security are not sufficiently institutionalized.
  • North Korea’s continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs as well as its provocative behavior.
  • China’s advancement of its military capacity without transparency, and its further activities in the sea and air space.”

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China’s naval power has escalated to an extraordinary degree. It currently has more submarines than the U.S., and overall it will have a larger navy than the U.S. within four years. Beijing has also developed land-based missiles that can disable ships 900 miles away.

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Montenegro to Join NATO; Sweden, Finland Next?

Montenegro is set to become NATO’s 29th member.

The alliance’s mission has been seen, once again, as vital to the security of Europe in the wake of Russia’s vast military buildup, and its aggressive foreign policy which has included the recent invasion of Ukraine, incursions into the air and sea space of several nations, and the harassment of NATO air and naval forces.

A statement released by the Atlantic alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated:  “Membership will give Montenegro the ability to help shape NATO policy. It will bring more stability and security to the region, and therefore promoting prosperity”

Further dramatic changes may take place for the alliance, as Sweden and Finland both consider joining the organization. Finland, long threatened by Moscow, recently completed an analysis  considering key points.

According to the study, “Finland needs to adapt yet again to changing circumstances…Finland shares the broader strategic concerns of its EU partners, along with the rising challenges to both East and South of the continent. However, the EU does not possess the institutions and capabilities to deal with the full range of these strategic concerns by itself…geography gives particular importance to Russia, with which Finland shares a 1340 kilometre-long border. As an unsatisfied power, Russia has made unpredictability a strategic and tactical virtue, underpinned by an impressive degree of political and military agility. Russia has adopted a revisionist stand towards the norms and principles governing the European order…”

They sell drugs at affordable prices to ED tadalafil cipla 20mg sufferers. Maca: it is scientifically known as Lepidium meyenii. buy cialis canada http://respitecaresa.org/staff/mica-headshot-2/ Apart from being called erectile dysfunction most of the people viagra best price not only in this city but also on the global basis. It is recommended to take http://respitecaresa.org/event/parents-night-out/ buy levitra online out the frying pan. The report notes that any move to join—or not join– the alliance should only be considered jointly with Sweden.

Sweden, for its part, has moved closer to NATO, in response to Moscow’s significant threats. Moscow has moved air and missile forces close to Sweden, and is considering deploying much of its large tactical nuclear forces to the region as well. Russia possesses a ten to one advantage over the U.S. in tactical nuclear weapons.  Moscow has engaged in simulated attacks on Sweden, and its intelligence forces constitute an ongoing threat. The Swedish journal The Local  notes that “A poll released in October 2015 suggested that 41 percent of Swedes are in favor of seeking membership in the military defense alliance, 39 percent are against the idea and 20 percent are uncertain.”

As noted previously in the New York Analysis of Policy & Government, “The Scandinavian nation has already participated in some of the alliances’ activities.  Swedish forces joined with the NATO Response Force …in a joint training exercise.  Finland and Ukraine (this was before the invasion) also participated.  Both Finland and Sweden have moved closer to the alliance,  participating in key exercises and permitting NATO forces to be deployed within their nations.

[Former] NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmssen said that the relationship between the alliance and Sweden “is already strong.” Like the NATO nations, Sweden had seriously weakened its defense capabilities in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, according to Defense News. It has been estimated that the nation has only a quarter of the capabilities it had during the Cold War era. Russia has engaged in provocative activities, including simulated attacks on Sweden.  That forced a new look at the diminished capability of the nation’s armed forces, which reportedly could only endure a week in the face of an attack by Moscow. However, in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion and Russia’s enormous rebuilding of its military might, it is both re-examining its own military capabilities as well as the advantages of joining NATO.”

The publication Foreign Affairs  suggests “The West would do well to consider a more robust long-term option to deter Russia from moving deeper into Europe. NATO should offer membership to Sweden and Finland, and Sweden and Finland should accept… Expanding NATO to Sweden and Finland would achieve several important aims. From a political standpoint, it would bring the NATO border ever closer to Russia, demonstrating that military aggression in Europe carries major geopolitical consequences. Sweden and Finland’s nonalignment has offered Russia a comforting buffer zone along its northwestern border ever since the end of World War II. If Sweden and Finland were to join NATO now, that buffer would be gone… From a military standpoint, Sweden and Finland would add technologically sophisticated and well-equipped armed forces to the alliance.”

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NY Analysis examines Obama’s Immigration Policies

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Obama’s Misguided Focus on Terror

The United States has been victimized by radical elements from the Middle East since the earliest days of the nation’s existence.

In 1786, notes Blake Hall writing in Forbes,  Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain, “to discuss the unprovoked attacks of the Barbary pirates on American ships. [Tripoli’s ’] Ambassador Adja’s response to their inquiries [was] … ‘that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners…’ The justification contained in this passage never mentions economic goods like oil or political issues like Israel, most notably because the first was not relevant at the time and the second did not exist. The central driver of the war was the …duty … to subjugate the infidels.”

That historic lesson is one that the current White House has ignored. Neither the recent attacks on American soil nor the stunning crimes against humanity committed by ISIS in the Middle East have done much to readjust Mr. Obama’s focus. It should not be forgotten that his administration famously declared that ISIS was a “JV team” that Americans shouldn’t be concerned with.

Instead of responding to the challenge, President Obama has used the horrific tragedies in Orlando and San Bernardino to further his partisan agenda on gun control and expound on his obsessive views on the divisions within American society. He insisted on calling the Jihadi attack on Fort Hood “workplace violence.”

The tragedy in Orlando was not the result of homegrown bigotry against gays. It was the direct result of the unbridled hatred radical Islam has against anyone with different beliefs. It is evident in the Iranian practice of hanging gays from construction cranes, and the ISIS practice of tossing gays off of rooftops.

The federal agency directly responsible for countering terror attacks within America continues to focus on political partisanship rather than its primary duty of fighting terror. The Department of Homeland Security’s leader, Jeh Johnson, continues to obsess about “right wing extremism.”

Johnson’s comments about gun control in particular should raise eyebrows. In a CBS interview, he claimed that implementing the President’s views on reducing the Second Amendment were critical to protecting homeland security, stating  “We have to face the fact that meaningful, responsible gun control has to be part of homeland security as well, given the prospect of homegrown, home-born violent extremism in this country.”

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Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Homeland Security has had a terrible record of ignoring real threats and painting innocent Americans as a problem.  It must be recalled that in 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano despicably called returning U.S. veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan a threat.

The shootings in San Bernardino and Orlando were not the fault of the Second Amendment, which has been in existence since the Constitution was ratified centuries ago. Those incidents were a result of the failure to effectively confront radical Jihadis, neither with appropriate military action or with ideological counteractions.

Indeed, exactly the wrong message has been sent. The President began his Administration with an “apology tour” of the Middle East, in which he ignored the reality that Americans had no reason to apologize to those nations. Perhaps Mr. Obama was unaware that in the 1950’s, the United States defended Egypt against attempts by the United Kingdom and France to take control of the Suez Canal. Possibly the President forgot that when Muslims were being slaughtered in the Yugoslav breakup, it was the United States that rescued them.

Mr. Obama’s statements made after the San Bernardino shootings regarding American attitudes towards Muslims have been wholly incorrect. Despite the long history of hostility from the Middle East, Muslims in the United States have not experienced official bias by the government or substantial episodes of prejudice from the general population.  One can always point to an isolated act by biased individuals, but that’s all they are—isolated incidents.

Effective action has not been taken in response to the escalating threat. The failure to respond to the Benghazi attack and the lies told by President Obama and then-Secretary Clinton extended n image of weakness. Our airstrikes against ISIS continue to be inadequate to the task on hand. The White House refuses to provide the Kurds, who have been the most effective in combatting ISIS, with the types of weapons necessary for victory. His refugee admission program continues to ignore the plight of Christians, Kurds and Yazdis who have been the chief victims of terror; less than 1% of those brought to the U.S. are from those oppressed groups.

Mr. Obama must face facts. The Orlando, San Bernardino and Fort Hood tragedies were not the result of faults within American society, or the ownership of guns by private citizens.  They were another in a long history of attacks by radical Islam against the United States.

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CIA Report on ISIS

John O. Brennan, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency briefed Congress yesterday on the threats from ISIS facing the nation.  Several vital points standout from Brennan’s testimony:

  • ISIS has the ability to strike at global targets.
  • ISIS is expanding its efforts to produce more assaults such as those seen in San Bernardino, Orlando, and Paris.
  • ISIS will use refugees as a way of getting its fighters into the world’s nations.
  • The turmoil in Egypt and Libya has opened the door for ISIS to expand dramatically in those nations.

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These salient points raise significant questions for the Obama Administration, including:

  • Why did it help put into motion the events in Libya and Egypt that opened those nations up for turmoil?
  • Why does the President insist on continuing his Syrian refugee program when it is being used by ISIS as a means to smuggle its fighters into America?
  • Why are so few of the refugees admitted of Christian, Yazdi or Kurd background?
  • Why does the President and his supporters insist on blaming incidents such as those which occurred in San Bernardino, Orlando, and Fort Hood on issues such as American gun ownership and his perception of internal bias?

Key excerpts from Brennan’s testimony:

Our hearing today takes place against the backdrop of a heinous act of wanton violence that was perpetrated against innocents in Orlando, Florida last weekend. … This act of violence was an assault on the values of openness and tolerance that define us as a Nation.

[Despite some losses] ISIL… is a formidable, resilient, and largely cohesive enemy, and we anticipate that the group will adjust its strategy and tactics in an effort to regain momentum.

In the coming months, we can expect ISIL to probe the front lines of its adversaries for weaknesses, to harass the forces that are holding the cities it previously controlled, and to conduct terror attacks against its enemies in Iraq and Syria. To compensate for territorial losses, ISIL will probably rely more on guerrilla tactics, including high-profile attacks outside territory it holds. A steady stream of attacks in Baghdad and Damascus demonstrates the group’s ability to penetrate deep inside enemy strongholds….Yet ISIL is adapting to the Coalition’s efforts, and it continues to generate at least tens of millions of dollars in revenue per month, primarily from taxation and from crude oil sales.

Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.  The resources needed for terrorism are very modest, and the group would have to suffer even heavier losses of territory, manpower, and money for its terrorist capacity to decline significantly. Moreover, the group’s foreign branches and global networks can help preserve its capacity for terrorism regardless of events in Iraq and Syria. In fact, as the pressure mounts on ISIL, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.

Since at least 2014, ISIL has been working to build an apparatus to direct and inspire attacks against its foreign enemies, resulting in hundreds of casualties. The most prominent examples are the attacks in Paris and Brussels, which we assess were directed by ISIL’s leadership. We judge that ISIL is training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks. ISIL has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West. And the group is probably exploring a variety of means for infiltrating operatives into the West, including refugee flows, smuggling routes, and legitimate methods of travel.

Further, as we have seen in Orlando, San Bernardino, and elsewhere, ISIL is attempting to inspire attacks by sympathizers who have no direct links to the group. Last month, for example, a senior ISIL figure publicly urged the group’s followers to conduct attacks in their home countries if they were unable to travel to Syria and Iraq. At the same time, ISIL is gradually cultivating its global network of branches into a more interconnected organization. The branch in Libya is probably the most developed and the most dangerous. We assess that it is trying to increase its influence in Africa and to plot attacks in the region and in Europe.

Meanwhile, ISIL’s Sinai branch has established itself as the most active and capable terrorist group in Egypt. The branch focuses its attacks on Egyptian military and government targets, but it has also targeted foreigners and tourists, as we saw with the downing of a Russian passenger jet last October…In sum, ISIL remains a formidable adversary, but the United States and our global partners have succeeded in putting the group on the defensive, forcing it to devote more time and energy to try to hold territory and to protect its vital infrastructure….

as I often tell young officers at CIA, I have never seen a time when our country faced such a wide variety of threats to our national security. Run your fingers along almost any portion of the map from the Asia Pacific to North Africa and you will quickly find a flashpoint with global implications. China is modernizing its military and extending its reach in the South China Sea. North Korea is expanding its nuclear weapons program. Russia is threatening its neighbors and aggressively reasserting itself on the global stage. And then there is the cyber domain, where states and sub-national actors are threatening financial systems, transportation networks, and organizations of every stripe, inside government and out.

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Unanswered Questions About Obama’s Policies

The effects of presidential policies endure well past the term of the Chief Executive who establishes them. This is particularly true currently, when two of the remaining three contenders to replace the current White House occupant have vowed to continue or even enhance those policies.

Mr. Obama’s actions have raised many serious, unanswered questions that an overwhelmingly supportive media has refrained from asking. Since the November election will, in many ways, be a referendum on his actions, The New York Analysis of Policy and Government urges the President to candidly explain to the American people his goals and his actions in the following crucial areas:

  1. Middle class jobs declined under Mr. Obama’s watch, and the assets of middle class Americans have deteriorated. While the White House contends that unemployment is at a low level, (a statistical point not supported by closer review) the reality is that decent-paying full time jobs with benefits have been replaced with low-paying jobs, many of which are part time and without benefits.
  2. It’s not just the middle class that has suffered. Inner city residents at the lower end of the pay scale have faced dramatic levels of unemployment, as many positions once filled by Americans, especially minorities, are now occupied by illegal immigrants willing to work for even lower wages.
  3. Why has the President ignored existing laws in his policies towards illegal immigration? The Department of Justice has been chastised for intentionally deceiving the Court about the Administration’s blatant disregard for the law in this area.
  4. In the wake of the IRS’s partisan actions, the failure by the Department of Justice to prosecute cases which could embarrass or inconvenience the current executive branch, and other instances of misuse of federal agencies, trust in the federal government is at an extraordinarily low level. Pew Research notes that “Currently, just 19% say they can trust the government always or most of the time, among the lowest levels in the past half-century.”The President needs to explain why he has encouraged executive branch agencies, paid for by taxpayers, to be used for partisan purposes.
  5. Jonathon Gruber, architect of Obamacare, has openly admitted to defrauding the American people about key details of the program. Considering that this adjusted one-sixth of the entire American economy, how does the President justify this deception?
  6. Similarly, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes “spearheaded the charge to mislead elected lawmakers and the American people about the Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations that led to the agreement.” Why did the President feel it was permissible to deceive the people? In a similar vein, why did Mr. Obama believe he could confide more in Russian officials than the American people about his plans to limit U.S. missile defenses?
  7. Why does the President tolerate discussions by his attorney general about launching criminal charges against those that disagree with his environmental policies? Similarly, why does the President repeatedly insist that his views on the issue are “settled science,” even though he received a petition from 31,000 scientists disagreeing with him?
  8. Even under the best of all possible outcomes, the Iran deal gives that nation a free hand to develop and deploy nuclear weapons in about a decade. Why did the President agree to this?

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  9. Why did the President essentially give Moscow a lead in strategic nuclear weapons in the New Start treaty?
  10. Why did the President unilaterally reduce U.S. forces in Europe shortly before Moscow’s Ukraine invasion?
  11. Why did the President endorse the ouster of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in favor of a Muslim Brotherhood leader?
  12. Why did the President assist a regime change in Libya that replaced a leader who was anti-ISIS and anti-al-Qaeda with a weak government that has helplessly watched that nation turn into a region where terrorism thrives?
  13. Why did the President mislead the American people about the causes of the Benghazi attack, and why did he refuse to allow American forces to mount a rescue attempt?
  14. Why is the President negotiating with the Taliban, a group so instrumental in the 9/11 attacks?
  15. Why has the President substantially reduced American armed forces at a time when Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are rapidly building theirs up?
  16. Why has the President alienated allies such as the United Kingdom and Israel?
  17. Why is Mr. Obama transferring control of the internet, a largely American invention which has been administered by the U.S. in a manner open to all without censorship, to an international group comprised of members who believe in and have practiced restricting free speech?
  18. Why did the Administration attempt to put federal monitors in newsrooms?

These are only some of the existing questions. The President owes the nation an explanation.

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Bill to Curb IRS Abuse Passes House

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed legislation that seeks to limit the Internal Revenue Service from ever again being used as a partisan political tool, a practice that the Obama Administration has used to a degree never before experienced in American politics.

The weaponization of the IRS, which came to light in 2013, took two major forms. First, attempts to form tax exempt organizations by groups opposed to Mr. Obama’s agenda were road-blocked. Between 2009 and 2012, only a single conservative oriented organization was granted tax exempt status.

Lois Lerner, who served as the director of the Exempt Organization Unit of the IRS, was the central figure in the scandal.  Lerner is an unindicted serial abuser of political rights who used her positions both in the Federal Election Commission and later the Internal Revenue Service to illicitly employ the machinery and assets of the federal government against those with differing views.  An equally unscrupulous Justice Department allowed her to avoid criminal prosecution.

The second form consists of attempts to force tax exempt organizations to disclose donor lists.  This information would allow the White House to use federal agencies to intimidate those that oppose it.

The legislation, which must still be approved by the Senate, is HR5053, (and sent to the White House, where approval is, at best, questionable) the “Preventing IRS Abuse and Protecting Free Speech Act.” It was introduced by Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R-Illinois.) The measure would amend the Internal Revenue Code to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from requiring a tax-exempt organization to include in annual returns the name, address, or other identifying information of any contributor. The bill includes exceptions for: (1) required disclosures regarding prohibited tax shelter transactions; and (2) contributions by the organization’s officers, directors, or five highest compensated employees (including compensation paid by related organizations).U

Under current law, tax-exempt groups and organizations don’t have to reveal their donors to the public, but they do have to reveal any donors giving more than $5,000 to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Under H5053, those groups would no longer even have to reveal their donors to the IRS. Without the list, it would be difficult for the IRS to find opponents of the Obama Administration to intimidate.

The legislation, introduced on April 26, passed the House Ways and Means Committee on a 25–13 party line vote on April 28. It has progressed in extremely rapid fashion, a response to the anger still felt as a result of the IRS’s misdeeds.

The Legislations’ supporters stress that the bill is in keeping with the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, which includes anonymous speech.

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“Passage of this bill by the House is an important step in opposing political intimidation from the IRS. This powerful and corrupt tax agency should not be in a position to leak donor names to try to chill free speech. The Senate should take up this legislation immediately to help protect a healthy public policy discourse and rein in the IRS.”

The IRS continues to abuse its power. A U.S. Government Accountability Office examination of the IRS Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) section of the agency found that IRS practices increase the risk that the audit program’s mission of fair and equitable application of the tax laws will not be achieved…Program objectives and key term of fairness are not clearly defined…[and] SB/SE does not always require selection decisions and rationales to be documented.”  This means that businesses owned by individuals opposing the President can still be effectively targeted.

Rep. Roskam has proposed seven reforms to end IRS abuse:

  1. Force the IRS to Implement the Taxpayer Bill of Rights;
    2. Prevent the IRS from Targeting Donors to Non-Profits;
    3. Prohibit IRS Employees from Using their Personal Email Accounts
    4. Stop IRS Abuse of Taxpayer Privacy Protections
    5. Allow Social Welfare Groups to Self-Declare their Tax-Exempt Status
    6. Permit Organizations to Appeal Denied Requests for Tax-Exempt Status
    7. Fire Employees Found Guilty of Targeting Americans for Political Purposes.

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China’s Growing Threat in Latin America

For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, America faces a significant military challenge within its own hemisphere.

While Moscow plays a growing role in the militarization of the region as its navy returns to Cuba and its nuclear bombers land in Nicaragua, it is China that has become the most prolific foreign influence in the region. The Wilson Center  reports that despite the end of the “Golden Decade” of the commodities boom, China will continue to be a game changer for the region.

A Strategic Studies Institute study  found that “the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has expanded its military ties with Latin America in multiple important ways. High-level trips by Latin American defense and security personnel to the PRC and visits by their Chinese counterparts have become commonplace. The volume and sophistication of Chinese arms sold to the region has increased. Officer exchange programs, institutional visits, and other lower-level ties have also expanded. Chinese military personnel have begun participating in operations in the region in a modest, yet symbolically important manner. Military engagement among Western countries traditionally has focused on securing greater capability for confronting an adversary, including alliances and base access agreements,  that confer strategic geographical position. By contrast, Chinese military engagement primarily supports broader objectives of national development and regime survival.

An example is the recent agreement between China and Argentina.  The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) notes: “China’s recent agreements with Argentina will prospectively feature the purchase or coproduction of fighter aircraft, APCs, and naval vessels; enhanced military-to-military exchanges; and the implementation of a space tracking facility tied to satellite imagery sharing. Together, these agreements would represent a new phase in China-Latin America military engagement if accomplished…These developments would mark an expansion of China’s broader defense engagement with Latin America that would carry several implications for the United States…the United States may face a new regional security hazard, albeit harmless in the absence of an external conflict. Third, regional actors might use Chinese arms in ways unfavorable to U.S. interests or perceive their security options to have expanded.”

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China’s growing commercial investment in the region (Cover notes “In 2000, the Chinese share of Latin American trade was merely 2%, while that of the United States was 53%. As of 2010, the Chinese share had grown to 11% of the total, while that of the United States had dropped to 39%…) has direct military applications. Commercial Chinese firms have bases on both sides of the Panama Canal, vital to the U.S. military, and Huawei, a telecommunications firm with strong ties to the Chinese military, has invested in the region, providing  a boon to Chinese intelligence.

All this comes at a time when the U.S. has reduced its economic presence in the region.  CNN Money reports that  in 2014, “Chinese banks sent nearly $30 billion in loans to Latin American governments last year, more than double the amount from 2014. It’s also more money than the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank gave to the region last year combined, according to the Inter-American Dialogue, a non-profit in Washington…The investments come as U.S. government aid and private investment in Latin America have declined for three straight years, according to State Department data and EPFR, a research firm that tracks fund flows…”What [the Chinese are] going for is influence — strategic power in the region to create dependence,” says Ilan Berman, vice president at American Foreign Policy Council. American “’influence has steadily retracted.”

 The importance of this must be understood in light of Beijing’s’ swiftly growing ability to project power, particularly naval power. The United States Navy, for the first time since the middle of the Second World War, is no longer an unchallengeable force at sea.  China already has more submarines than the U.S., and its fleet will be larger than America’s within four years.

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Quick Analysis

Appeasement will not stop terror

The ruthless assault on a gay nightclub in Orlando illustrates a reality that those who have advocated reducing America’s activist role in the world fail to comprehend.  The bitter hatred against the United States is not the result of anything America or Europe has done, not in the Middle East, not in Afghanistan, and not anyplace else. It is not the result of the size or reach of our formerly dominant armed forces.  It is not the result of our economic system.

Indeed, if no U.S. or European soldier had ever set foot in the Middle East, if no oil had ever been drilled, if no interaction had ever taken place at all, the West would still be despised and targeted, not for what it does, but for what it is.

The Jihadist’s fury exists solely because of their extreme abhorrence of the essential nature of Western Civilization itself: the concept of individual freedom, of live and let live, of the triumph of reason over primitive instincts.

Yes, I did say primitive instincts, and that will probably infuriate most of the nation’s academics and the self-righteous chattering classes. For far too long, those in positions of influence in government, education, and the media have declined to emphasize the unique and wonderful accomplishments of Western Civilization. In the rush to be “multicultural,” they have relegated the achievements that have produced the greatest freedom, prosperity, health, and, yes, tolerance for all faiths that humanity has ever experienced to a par equal to that of other civilizations that are marked by substantial degrees of continued political repression, economic backwardness, and secular hatred that have been sharply diminished in the West.

No, the West is not perfect.  But (and I realize that this will also anger many) it has done much, much better than the rest of the planet, despite its faults. By “Western Civilization,” I do not limit the definition to just a geographical or ethnic description. Consider the difference between North and South Korea. Between Israel and many of its neighbors. Even within the New World, nations that have followed western patterns of government and tolerance, such as the U.S. and Canada, have advanced, while those that have adopted, some recently, (like Venezuela) the philosophy (even though it started with western thinkers) of socialist government, which more closely resembles that of the rest of the world,  have declined.

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When terrible practices take place, such as the massive rape of females by ISIS, or the continued practice of slavery in certain parts of the world, it is not inappropriate for other nations, despite their own (far lesser) imperfections, to express horror at those heinous acts.

The typical response to Jihadi acts has been a study in self-delusion.  Responding, for example, to the terror assault in San Bernardino by criticizing gun ownership or falsely claiming there is a widespread bias against Moslems in America merely encourages and emboldens those who cling to any irrational justification for their actions. President Obama and Secretary Clinton inadvertently invited terror by their failure to respond to incidents such as Benghazi, and the ridiculous Oval Office comments following the San Bernardino shooting.

It is naïve to believe that all America has to do to avoid being targeted is to provide more diplomatic doubletalk. It is unrealistic to expect that Orlando-type attacks (or worse) can be avoided by appeasement.

The West is under relentless assault. Ignoring the crisis or blaming it on itself is a worthless and foolish response. If, indeed, the concepts of personal freedom are to survive, a far more viable and realistic response must be undertaken.

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Quick Analysis

America Disunited, and the Abandonment of Core Beliefs

In 2014, the New York Analysis of Policy and Government recalled how the scholar Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. endorsed the concept of a melting pot rather than ethnic identity politics.  As he saw it, the alternatives were stark: a single, united country, or a tribalistic society in which different groups constantly quarreled with each other.

In the two years that have followed, both race and ideological relations have deteriorated.  In Early June, horrific photos of a threatening pursuit and attempted beating of an individual merely because the victim supported another candidate were seen on numerous outlets. Even more chillingly, some, particularly followers of Progressive viewpoints, failed to condemn the heinous act.

Writing for the Center for Politics, Alan I. Abramowitz and Steven Webster, noted that “The most important influence on the 2016 presidential election as well as the House and Senate elections will be the division of the American electorate into…partisan camps…” Throughout much of the world, loyalty, above all else, to the particular clan, ethnic group or race into which one is born—has caused devastating harm. Given the clear and abundant evidence of tribalism’s horrific impact on so much of the planet, why are so many in the U.S. Progressive movement and the left generally increasingly wedded to it?  Why is tribalism occurring in America?

In an insightful comment, Don Zapsic Jr, writing in the Columbus Dispatch, noted:

“A not-so-surprising source of tribalism in America comes from the federal government…Affirmative-action programs and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have done more to divide and distance the U.S. citizenry from one another than prejudice and bigotry acting alone arguably ever could achieve. As a result, we tend to think of individuals in terms of race, religion, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation and even culture. The following questions serve as a litmus test for tribalism: Is America more of a pressure cooker than a melting pot? Do political operatives generally acquire and maintain positions of power and influence through principled leadership or more by appeasement of critical-mass voting blocs? Is group entitlement and privilege promoted and embraced at the expense of national security and long-term economic stability?”

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization has recently been at the forefront of those who reject the concept of being seen as “American” as opposed to a member of an ethnic group.  Their website states:

“We are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’…We see ourselves as part of the global Black family and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black folk who exist in different parts of the world.”

BLM seeks to use incidents such as Ferguson, in which a police officer allegedly inappropriately shot a black man, to incite violence across the nation.  It doesn’t seem to matter to either that group or the politicians who sought to capitalize on it that a review of the facts eventually found that the police officer acted appropriately.  The myth of a disproportionately large killing of blacks by Police is disproven by statistics, as noted by Heather MacDonald in Hillsdale College’s Imprimis: “The nation’s police killed 987 civilians in 2015, according to a database compiled by the Washington Post. Whites were 50%–0r 493—of those victims, and blacks were 26 %–or 258.  Most of those victims of police shootings, white and black, were armed or otherwise threatening the officer with potentially lethal force…the black violent crime rate would actually predict that more than 26% of police victims would be black.”
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The division runs far deeper than racial attitudes, ideological debates between liberals and conservatives, or the partisan wrangling of Democrats against Republicans. There is an entire segment of the U.S. population, particularly (but far from exclusively) among those schooled in the last few decades who have received little objective education on America’s history and founding principles, and who therefor have little intellectual affinity with the nation’s core beliefs.

That problem of rejection of America’s core beliefs is best illustrated, disturbingly, by statements of two U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

In 2012, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in an address given in Cairo, Egypt, stated that “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.”

Fellow Obama appointee Justice Elena Kagan believes that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted on the basis of international law. During her tenure as Dean of Harvard Law School, notes Topica, “a student could graduate without taking a course on interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. But an international law course was mandatory.”

During her nomination hearing, Kagan refused to acknowledge the fundamental underpinnings and the central reason for the founding of the United States: the concept that individuals are born with inherent rights, and those rights cannot be taken or limited by governments.  Senator Tom Coburn (R-Kansas) pointedly asked the then-nominee whether she accepted the statement in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” She declined to agree.

Without this guiding concept of inherent rights, which Kagan refused to subscribe to, there is no reason for America to exist in its current form. It was for this reason that it was born. It was for this reason that the bitter faults of slavery and segregation were finally outlawed. It is for this reason that America has succeeded.

America was not built on a concept of ethnic or religious identity. It was founded on the concept of individual freedom.  Without it, it ceases to exist in any recognizable form. Absent that unifying principle, tribalism succeeds, and chaos follows.