US Condemns Chinese Military Build-Up the US Itself Provoked | New Eastern Outlook
By BRIAN BERLETIC - 22 MARCH 2022
US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John Aquilino has recently complained about China’s militarization of the South China Sea. He has accused China of placing anti-aircraft and anti-ship systems along with other military facilities on islands scattered throughout the South China Sea.
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PART 2
Since this paper was written in 2016, the US has incrementally implemented policies to prepare for the conflict described by the RAND Corporation.
By 2021, US State Department-funded media Radio Free Asia in an article titled, “US Indo-Pacific Command Proposes New Missile Capabilities to Deter China,” would note (emphasis added):
The assessment calls for “the fielding of an Integrated Joint Force with precision-strike networks” along the so-called first island chain — referring to missile strike capabilities — and integrated air missile defense in the second island chain, USNI News reported. The document also calls for “a distributed force posture that provides the ability to preserve stability, and if needed, dispense and sustain combat operations for extended periods.”
EXTENDED MILITARY OPERATIONS is precisely what the RAND Corporation called for in its 2016 paper. Additionally, the US has transformed its Marine Corps into a “ship-killing” force equipped to deny China naval access to various territories across the Indo-Pacific region including straits vital for trade.
Defense News in its 2020 article,
“Here’s the US Marine Corps’ plan for sinking Chinese ships with drone missile launchers,” would report:
The US Marine Corps is getting into the ship-killing business, and a new project in development is aimed at making their dreams of harrying the People’s Liberation Army Navy a reality.
The article also cited Lieutenant General Eric Smith, chief of the US Marine Corps’ requirements and development, noting:
“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.”
What the US has prepared to do across the Indo-Pacific is implement the RAND Corporation’s “War with China” policy recommendations, implementations aimed at crippling Chinese maritime shipping, strangle its economy, and eventually collapse its government. In other words, the US is creating in the Indo-Pacific region, an existential threat to China’s continued existence as a nation-state.
US Marines are also currently present on Taiwan, according to Voice of America – Taiwan being territory considered by Beijing to be part of China – a fact even the US itself recognizes through the “One China Policy.” Thus, the positioning of US missiles across the region, the navigating of US naval vessels near territory claimed by China, and the placing US military personnel on Taiwan, are all meant to incrementally encircle and encroach upon China – pushing ever closer to, or even crossing over red lines established by China in the interest of basic self-preservation.
JUST AS THE US HAS DONE TO RUSSIA THROUGH UKRAINE IT IS NOW DOING TO CHINA THROUGH THE SOUTH CHINA SEA AND TAIWAN. When conflict eventually breaks out between China and either the US itself or one of its proxies in the region – most likely the administration of Taiwan – it will be a conflict provoked entirely by the United States on the other side of yet another ocean, yet again thousands of kilometers away from American shores, and again endangering the lives of hundreds of millions of people toward THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICAN HEGEMONY and at the expense of another region’s sovereignty and perhaps even self-preservation.
US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John Aquilino left all of this very important context out of his observations that China is overseeing a major military build-up – ignoring entirely the major military threat the US has placed at China’s doorstep.
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Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”, he is a former member of the U.S. Marine Corp. (USMC).
RAND Corporation ("research and development") is an American nonprofit Global Policy Think Tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations, universities and private individuals. Its number of staff (2015): 1,700 head counts. Subsidiaries: RAND Europe.
RAND was created after individuals in the War Department [the early name of Pentagon], the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and industry began to discuss the need for a private organization to connect operational research with research and development decisions. RAND's Washington Office is located in Metro Tower at Pentagon City, near the Pentagon.
Since the 1950s, RAND research has helped inform United States policy decisions on a wide variety of issues, including the space race, the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms confrontation, the creation of the Great Society social welfare programs, the digital revolution, and national health care. Its most visible contribution may be the doctrine of nuclear deterrence by mutually assured destruction (MAD), developed under the guidance of then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and based upon their work with game theory. Chief strategist Herman Kahn also posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On "Thermonuclear War". This led to Kahn being one of the models for the titular character of the film Dr. Strangelove, in which RAND is spoofed as the "BLAND Corporation".