Good to know..which means that despite our "interests" we have no right to control it or to try to destablize an unfriendly government in order to try to control it. That means we just sail around instead. Why? Because we can without war or bullying, as you so nicely pointed out in your other segmented replies.
So you reject your earlier statement that the U.S. should pursue her interests, in favor of the new claim that the U.S. should instead pursue a path of avoiding conflict?
Is "sail around it" your answer to the Strait of Hormuz as well?
Sorry, don't generalize or twist my words. I have made it very clear when military intervention is acceptable...simply because it might make things "easier" for us or "more profitable" does not constitute my support for a war.
You suggested we pursue our interests, and do so with allies. If you wish to put a caveat on that of "unless it means that we may risk getting into a war over those interests", then you need to make that explicit.
Thats a circular world policeman argument that I don't buy. "The oceans are free because WE keep them free, and we keep them free because the oceans ARE free."
Not at all. Shipping lanes are free because we keep them that way, and we do so because it is in our best interest to do so. It is an incredible public good provided by the U.S. because we net-benefit from it.
Sorry, did you miss the part about "act of war?" Chinese or Iranian naval action (i.e. military action of national forces like the act Obama contemplates in Syria) is an act of war. Piracy is reserved for "independent" gangs of individuals.
Right. Except that
you are the one who suggested that the threats to free-shipping lanes would come from pirates. The point I am making to you is, in the absence of a global hegemon that provides a security guarantee to global sea lanes, the world breaks back into local, regional hegemons in which each central power (in Asia that is China, in the Persian Gulf, Iran) extends control over the region and suffers no competitors. Except that these powers are not the liberals that we are - they are mercantilists. The Chinese leadership does not believe it is in its' best interest to maintain the Malaccan straits (should they get the ability to do so, which they would in the absence of a forward-deployed 7th Fleet) for the World Trade Organization and all its' member-states; they believe it would be in the best interest to control them for
China.
Nice try, but no. We don't keep the oceans free.
Er, yes, we objectively do maintain that as a task for the United States Navy / Marine Corps. Having engaged in collection against the threat and then performed and supported these
missions, I'm rather directly aware of them.
Here is the worlds' shipping routes:
You will notice there is significant overlap between major choke points (where the sea lanes concentrate) in the worlds' oceans and regional competitors in both the Pacific and the Persian Gulf, but no such overlap for the concentrations in the Carribbean or the Atlantic, where the dominant power is the U.S. and there are no nations seeking regional hegemony.
Now here is the U.S. Naval Map from STRATFOR as of 29 August:
Notice how we're poised to project power into those same concentrations? East Coast naval units don't deploy to patrol the English Channel, they deploy to the 5th Fleet out of Bahrain. West Coast naval units don't focus on Panama, they move to Japan, and then down through the South China Sea to Australia to maintain presence near the SCS Straits.
They are free because they are simply too big to control (or patrol) and because any nation that tried would lose trade doing so.
:lol: Why in the world would any nation that demonstrated an ability to increase the cost of other nations' shipping while decreasing its' own lose trade?
The history of our sea-faring empires belie this claim - control of the worlds' key geography as relates to sea lanes has
always enabled - not reduced - trade.
If you mean they are free for US to go just about wherever we want because we currently have the biggest navy...that lasts only as long as we KEEP the biggest navy. Notice China is building up their navy there partner? I wonder how much longer we will have the biggest navy the way our economy is going....
Well you are right to notice that the biggest threat to our own ability to project Naval power is our own fiscal profligacy.
We have no moral high ground to act as the world's policeman.
Sure we do. Of all the worlds' policemen and hegemons, we are the first to do so on behalf of providing a Global Public Good, rather than simply a narrow-self-interest that seeks relative advantage in a zero-sum game. When one recognizes that the alternatives are not "no one polices the world" or "the UN polices the world", but rather "China, Russia, and Iran police their regions of the world as the globe descends into another game of grab-what-you-can", the superiority of the American option becomes almost tautological.
In fact, we have no moral high ground at all
Then if that is the case - and nations do not attain nor ever have the moral high ground - then it is a useless measure, as it cannot ever be applied.
we simply have the power currently to bully just about anyone we want
And yet we
do not do so. We do not colonize, we do not invade simply to show off our prowress, we do not massacres others for "The Glory Of [insert capital city or monarch here]". The United State has a very high threshold indeed on when to employ it's incredible might to serve its' interests; and when it does so, feels obliged to do so in a manner so as to at least somewhat benefit those upon whom it is acting. Which makes us rather different from empires of eras past, and is what gives us that "moral high ground" you derided a second ago.
That's why Obama drew his "red line in the sand," because he thought Assad would never cross it. Now he's stuck between acting and maybe getting us into another little dirty war, or backing off and embarassing us internationally.
:shrug: the most important part of a threat is being willing to back it up. But refusing to back up the U.S. security guarantee is a sure loser, and will lead to more deaths and abuses, not fewer.
If we didn't keep acting the bully, we would not be getting into such messes in the first place.
Really. Please tell me what act of bullying on our part caused Syria to descend into civil war? :roll:
And you'll have to forgive me if I look upon the statement "Saying 'Do not use chemical weapons against your own people' is a bullying act" with a rather jaundiced eye.