U.S. Response to Putin: Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right

You may have read my suggested response to Russia's Putin in the Ukraine Russia in the Ukraine: 90 day eviction notice, but if you missed The DiploMad 2.0: Cage Fighter vs. Pajama Boy; Putin Confronts the West, then you need to head over there right now:

Let's just say that we have on our hands a New Old Russia. Blah, blah, wishes, and pink unicorns will not cut it. On paper, Russia is not strong compared to the West. The West should be able to handle Russia relatively easily. Russia, however, has one big advantage. Russia has leadership, a determined leadership not afraid to make decisions and act. That compensates for several orders of economic and technological inferiority. The West has, well, you know what the West has, and it ain't good.

My emphasis. Somehow I don't think the Diplomad feels all warm and fuzzy about the West's "leaders."

Let's go over some suggestions:

1. Work to make sure Western Europe has alternatives to Russian natural gas. This would include exports of LNG from the U.S., restarting nuclear power plants, get fracking going in Poland and other locales where it might be profitiable.
2.  Put some real U.S. forces (101 and 82 Airborne) on the continent. Call it an "exercise" if you want. Have them "visit" NATO countries bordering Ukraine.
3.  Put a frigging ESG group in the Eastern Med, fully loaded. 
4. Dig up those "useless" A-10's and conduct an exercise with, oh, say Romania. 
5. Grow a pair.

And get over the vapors.

Russia in the Ukraine: 90 day eviction notice

Dear Mr. Putin:

In the next 30 days, unless your military forces now in the Ukraine and Crimea return to the status quo ante, the United States of America will do everything it can to shut off all aspects of your economic activity with the rest of the world.

Starting in 7 days, all assets of Russian citizens in the U.S. will be frozen pending some indication of Russian intentions.

U.S. citizens and businesses doing business or living in Russia are being asked to leave Russia or get to the American embassy as soon as is possible.

Starting in 5 days, any Russian flagged or owned merchant ships will be refused entry into U.S. ports.

The U.S. will recommend to the countries through which Russian natural gas pipelines
are routed that those pipelines be closed for "safety inspections" as soon as is practicable.

As this letter is being written, I am communicating with U.S. and allied natural gas companies about their ability to:

1. Export LNG to Europe and other areas now served by Russian gas pipeline.
2. Export fracking technology teams to promising areas of development in Europe, especially Poland.
3. Establish emergency natural gas pipelines from those fracking areas into the main distribution systems of Europe.

Pursuant to standing NATO commitments, I am ordering various elements of the U.S. military to be ready to deploy to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, or Lithuania should any their governments request security assistance (see here).  Air elements, including airborne troops and U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy amphibious units are on notice to prepare for rapid deployment. U.S. naval units will also be dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean.

If U.S. forces are deployed, there should be no doubt in your mind that assistance will be provided to the people of the Ukraine should it be necessary.

We remain in consultation with our allies throughout the world.


The next step is up to you.

With all due respect,

xxxxx

Asian Alliances: Doubts

Interesting piece by Walter Lohman of The Heritage FoundationU.S. Policy in Asia: Managing Alliances in an Upside-Down World (picked up by Taipei Times here):

Fortunately, our alliances in Asia do have a real geostrategic objective: Managing the rise of China. All of the other things we do with our allies, while important in their own right, are ultimately secondary.
***
The policy crowd in Washington has largely coalesced around some version of a China-hedging strategy: trying to bring China into the existing international order as a “responsible stakeholder” while preparing for an alternative, more adversarial outcome. In government circles, however, this clarity is obscured by the real-life complexities of the U.S.–China relationship: economic dialogue and diplomacy around hot-button political/security issues like the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.

The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it, has reconciled the complexities through indirection. The North Korean threat is a problem on its own, but it also stands in for the China threat. Administrations talk about the security of sea lines of communication, but the real problem is not pirates in the Straits of Malacca, but Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea. Weapons sales to Taiwan are about an imbalance in arms strongly in favor of the Chinese. The trilateral dialogue among the U.S., Japan, and Australia was about China. The U.S.–India relationship is in large part about China. Engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is about China.

By denying the hedges, we keep open the full range of options for working with the Chinese. Regrettably, we also obscure the real rationale for our alliance network and create uncertainty over our long-term staying power. (emphasis added)

Read it all.

And the ponder our communications to our allies and our own history.

Is The U.S. going through another one of those "isolationist" periods as far as refusing to accept a responsible role in international security - like that following World War I? See here.

Are we trying to force our allies to do more for themselves?

What is the third order cost of a U.S. weakening in the western Pacific and Southeast Asia?

Is the "pacifist" streak in the Democratic Party- that old isolationist crowd that has never really gone away- setting us up for a disaster in the Far East?