TRIPPING ON RICE

The headlines scream about big trouble in the China Sea and there are, of course zillions of concerned citizens who insist that the United States must stretch its hand out and calm the waters. They think we should get involved. That's one point of view. It's not mine. When you think about involving ourselves in that clusterfu#k you have to ask yourself two very important questions:

1.  Do you honestly think Obama and our State Department could do anything in this case that would be anything other than devastatingly bad for the United States and its interests?

2. What possible benefit would we reap from involving ourselves in this fight?

Arguably, we should have been engaged in as many Freedom of Navigation exercises as possible since China declared an Air Defense Identification Zone over the China Sea that overlaps the national sovereign airspace of half the countries in the region. I haven't heard of any FONS but that is not to say that they haven't been happening.

The problem with air navigation exercises such as this when playing with a country that knows it has nothing to lose, is that it is hard on our airmen who get shot down, captured, killed or indefinitely detained. Let us say that finding the motivation to send men and women to play these sorts of deadly games requires a certain amount of faith that if something dire does happen, there will be consequences.

U.S. Navy frontline spy plane detained in Communist China 2001

The planning staffs at CINCPAC and the Far East Air Forces have a pretty good idea what Obama's response is going to be if China shoots down another one of our aircraft and they have probably come up with some of the tamest little non-FONS anybody never heard of.

About the worst thing I can think of is to let Kerry and the State Department have a lash at 'coordinating' affairs with Vietnam and China. We'd be firing missiles and shooting at people within a month. They'd have both China and Vietnam angry at us and also piss off the Philippines, Malaysia, Japan, Korea and, based on their past performance, the only dictator over there that would feel any sense of satisfaction would probably be the Sultan of Brunei who just rammed sharia law down his peoples throats.