(11-10-2017 12:17 AM)UCF08 Wrote: 1. What has Trump done about those islands since becoming President? Oh, he had a "frank" discussion? Well would you look at that?
2. The Trump campaign literally changed the GOP position on Crimea so as to downplay what occurred there. So, no, things wouldn't have been better with Trump.
Fact is, sanctions and condemnation is all you're going to find over issues like Crimea and the South Sea islands because two nuclear powers aren't going to start a shooting war over that. So, you know, maybe try to figure out exactly why you have such strong negative emotions about Obamas foreign policy. If you can't, maybe re-evaluate your stance?
There are three major potential hot spots in the world--Eastern Europe, the South China Sea, and the Middle East. All three got worse on Obama's watch.
Crimea is tricky. As I've pointed out in the Obama years, it's hard to make even a significant show of force there because the Montreux Convention makes it a violation of international law for us to transit aircraft carriers through the Bosporus and Dardanelles into the Black Sea. Putin's big problem is that Russia's presently constituted borders provide no natural barriers facing Europe, and thus are difficult to defend. Add to this the fact that the military-age population in Russia is declining so that it will be impossible in a few years to maintain the armed forces at current levels. These two factors combined may exert some expansionist pressures on Putin in the next decade, before he runs out of troops. I don't know that there is anything we really can do except hope that Putin does not give in to the impulse to push his borders back to at least the Carpathians. I think the best strategy is to try to work diplomatically to calm Russian fears while negotiating real limits on how far he can go. It's definitely playing God with things that are not ours, but the eastern Ukraine is predominantly Russian, and that might be a trading chip at some point.
As for China, at this point I think that if we can keep them inside the so-called First Island Chain, we would be okay. The PLAN is really not set up to be a blue water navy at this point--none but ours really is--and achieving blue water status is probably several decades away. A key part of that chain is the Philippines, which appear to be flipping toward China. I'm not sure whether we can turn that process around or not, but it should probably be a priority. One thing, if we drew down our presence in the Mideast significantly, China then has to extend its naval resources perhaps beyond breaking point to preserve and secure its oil trade routes with the Gulf region. That could slow down their ambitions quite bit. It could also lead to conflict with India or Japan.
As for the Middle East, we simply don't understand the cultural and ethnic issues very well. The idea that we could bring democracy to Iraq, and that would bring stability to the region, was wrong on two counts. We couldn't and it didn't. Obama pursued a policy of making Iran the regional hegemony. They may become so anyway--they clearly want to, at least historically. But I'm fairly certain it is not in our best interests to facilitate that.
At this point I would pursue polices of negotiation and helping out allies maintain some level of equality in all three areas.
