That "JV" Team? Well, "FBI chief calls ISIS bigger threat to U.S. than al Qaeda"

CBS News has a video: FBI chief calls ISIS bigger threat to U.S. than al Qaeda

FBI Director James Comey credits social media with helping ISIS grow and influence others. He said Twitter accounts associated with the group have more than 21,000 English-language followers around the world.

FoxNews has Army chief Odierno, in exit interview, says US could have ‘prevented’ ISIS rise:

The Army’s top officer told Fox News Tuesday it’s “frustrating” to watch the gains he helped achieve in Iraq disintegrate at the hands of the Islamic State, saying in an exit interview that the chaos now unfolding “might have been prevented” had the U.S. stayed more engaged.
***
“It's frustrating to watch it,” Odierno said. “I go back to the work we did in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 and we got it to a place that was really good. Violence was low, the economy was growing, politics looked like it was heading in the right direction.”
***
Odierno said the fall of large parts of Iraq was not inevitable, reiterating concerns about the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal there.

“If we had stayed a little more engaged, I think maybe it might have been prevented,” he said. “I've always believed the United States played the role of honest broker between all the groups and when we pulled ourselves out, we lost that role.”

In 2009, while still the top commander in Iraq, Odierno recommended keeping 30,000-35,000 U.S. troops after the end of 2011, when the U.S. was scheduled to pull out. The recommendation was not followed.

Hmmm. Someone made the decision to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq despite the advice of military commanders. Now, let's see, who was it?

Oh, yes - President Obama took credit in 2012 for withdrawing all troops from Iraq. Today he said something different.. Yep, trying to do the memory wipe. Obama adjusts Iraq narrative, now blames Bush for troop withdrawal: U.S. military airstrikes against Islamic State prompt revisionist history:

The president who spent years touting the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq suddenly has had to distance himself from that action.

At the White House on Saturday morning — less than 48 hours after authorizing airstrikes against Islamist militants and humanitarian air drops to save the lives of trapped Iraqi civilians — President Obama blamed his predecessor, George W. Bush, for the absence of American troops in Iraq and rejected the assertion that he could have left a small peacekeeping force in the war-torn nation.

"Could have?"

But didn't.

Now US citizens are looking at protecting themselves and others from the "JV."

Well, there's a nice retirement package for an ex-president, so he's got that going for him.

The New Domino Theory: Assisting Ukraine May Cause Russia to Help China Take Control Over the South China Sea Region

There is this National Interest piece by Harry J. Kazianis, "Russia Could Make China King of the South China Sea"

***
Events thousands of miles away in Ukraine could set off a chain reaction that could see China become the undisputed ruler of this large body of water thanks to a large infusion of Russian weapons and technology— if the West starts arming Ukraine.
***
Imagine this scenario: The West decides that it is time to arm Ukraine. Russia decides it needs to strike back— and not just in Europe. President Putin pulls out his map of the globe and looks for a place where Russian power would best stick it to the United States. His eyes light up on the one area that could not only strengthen ties with a potential partner but do real damage to America’s efforts to “pivot” to that part of the world: the South China Sea.
***
While Russia might not be a superpower anymore, it does have the power to create lots of havoc for the United States and its allies all over the world. Such moves would then see the West again look to strike back at Moscow, creating a dangerous dynamic that would see the conditions ripe for a new Cold War that is in no ones national interest. This is all the more reason for all parties concerned when it comes to Ukraine to find a political settlement to the crisis.

So, under this new "domino theory" (for info on the old "domino theory" see here), the inter-connectedness of the former "communist" (read complete dictatorships) countries would allow Putin to "send a message" to the U.S. by agreeing to sell very modern arms to China, which can then use those to cement its position  as regional hegemonic demon over the South China Sea region. That is, unless, of course, the West agrees to cede all or part of Czechoslovakia Ukraine to Hitler Putin in some sort of "political settlement." We know from history how well such appeasement agreements have work out. See Munich Pact, for example.

However, the argument is that failure to give up bits and pieces of Ukraine will cause Putin to knock over a domino piece elsewhere, most specifically the China piece.

But, isn't China doing just fine without agreeing to buy more Russian equipment? What with stolen plans, weak sister neighbors and a somewhat flaccid U.S. response so far to it bullying and island grabs, what does it need Russia for?

If I were Putin and I was looking at arming China, I'd be worried about my resource rich eastern areas that are so very close to China and its
area of influence. A Chinese "invasion" of Siberia has been discussed for some time and also discounted (oddly, both linked articles look at demographics to make their cases).

Frankly, if the information on some number of Chinese emigrating to Siberia is true (and perhaps even if is not) Putin has, through his assertions of "protecting ethnic Russians" in his Ukraine push, provided the Chinese with an argument to take action in Siberia to protect "ethnic Chinese." I imagine someone in the U.S. world of think tanks might be looking at how a signal to the Chinese about such an action might be viewed by the West if Putin pushes harder in the west.

Further, there is this interesting look at U.S.-China relations from a former U.S. Seventh Fleet commander in this U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings opinion piece, "Storm Warnings?":

• According to The Washington Post , China has increased its use of oil at the average pace of 6–7 percent a year since 1990—more than 20 straight years! At this pace, the PRC will catch the U.S. rate of petroleum usage in just over 20 more years.

• By 2020, China is expected to import 7.3 million barrels of crude oil per day—one half of Saudi Arabia’s planned output, as reported in Foreign Affairs . By way of comparison, today the Chinese import 4.7 million barrels per day and the United States about 9.7 million.

• A recent article in the International Herald Tribune states the PRC is preparing to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the coming decade as the rest of the world. However, electrical demand is growing so rapidly in the PRC that even if that happens, they will generate only 9.7 percent of the country’s power.

• According to National Geographic Magazine , today China produces and consumes nearly one third of the world’s steel, more than long-time industrial powers Japan, Germany, and the United States combined.

• David Hale Global Economics indicates that China now consumes 25 percent of Australia’s exports, up from 12 percent just two years previously, and has invested $44 billion in Australia since 2007.

• According to the South China Morning Post , while the PRC accounts for more than 20 percent of the world’s population, it has only 7 percent of the world’s fresh water, and its vast system of 87,000 reservoirs is not in the best of shape; 43 percent are said to be in poor condition.

All of this is to say that China is facing serious natural-resource challenges, including the need to import an ever-increasing amount of raw materials.

VADM Crowder notes that these external resource dependencies would support a strong blue water navy to protect China's sea lines of communication.

Admiral Crowder makes several excellent points in the piece, not the least of which is the need for some plain speaking on the part of the U.S.:

In fact, if the United States were a lot more transparent about its concerns in the region with regard to China, it could probably reach a glide path that moves more toward cooperation than confrontation. But until the Chinese show us by their words, and more important, their deeds, that their naval buildup is not about coercing the nations of the region—particularly over resources—then we have to be capable of making such an outcome, quite simply, not worth the risk.

On the other hand, if there truly are vast resources of oil, gas, and iron just sitting outside China's border with Russia . . . and exploiting those resources would not require the use of vulnerable sea lanes . . . well, I suspect there are Chinese operation plans on just how grabbing a big chunk of Russia's "far east" might happen, especially if Putin gets Russian forces heavily engaged in the west.

The point is that while Putin might be tempted to tip some dominoes, he really needs to be very careful. The West/U.S. does not need to cede anything at all because it has its own domino strings to push.

A Good Start to a Debate on Geopolitics

A couple of heavies fire broadsides in a discussion of geopolitics at Foreign Affairs:

First, Walter Russell Mead 's The Return of Geopolitics:

But Westerners should never have expected old-fashioned geopolitics to go away. They did so only because they fundamentally misread what the collapse of the Soviet Union meant: the ideological triumph of liberal capitalist democracy over communism, not the obsolescence of hard power.

Second, a reply from G. John Ikenberry in his The Illusion of Geopolitics: The Enduring Power of the Liberal Order:

But Mead’s alarmism is based on a colossal misreading of modern power realities. It is a misreading of the logic and character of the existing world order, which is more stable and expansive than Mead depicts, leading him to overestimate the ability of the “axis of weevils” to undermine it. And it is a misreading of China and Russia, which are not full-scale revisionist powers but part-time spoilers at best, as suspicious of each other as they are of the outside world.

I think Mead's piece is available without an account, but the Ikenberry bit may require a log in (which may be free).

Read them both, though. Thinking is good for you.

You can read about H. J Mackinder's "The Geographical Pivot of History" (of which the illustration at the top is a representation) here or read his original piece as a pdf here.

Your views may vary.