Are things today on a path similar to what Professor of Government Graham Allison called events in 1941 that led to war between the US and Japan?
Clearly the risk of confrontation between the US and China is real by accident or design — even though policies of yesteryear’s imperial Japan and today’s China are world’s apart.
Graham pretends that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was beyond Washington’s imagination.
US intelligence broke the Japanese code, understood what was coming, tracked the Japanese fleet across the Pacific, failed to warn Pearl Harbor commander Admiral HE Kimmel, and let the attack happen to give FDR the war he wanted.
It’s highly unlikely that hawks from both wings of the US war party want belligerent confrontation with a nation like China able to hit back as hard as it’s struck by an aggressor.
At the same time, US war on China by other means rages, posing a risk of escalating to direct confrontation.
Trump is a political novice, a geopolitical know-nothing, an intellectually challenged businessman/reality TV personality, awakening one morning to discover he was president-elect.
He’s the first US president with neither government or military experience.
Profoundly ignorant about what a head of state should know, he’s surrounded by hardliners, notably manipulative ones on geopolitical issues.
He understands only what they feed him and Fox News rubbish, his favorite TV station, manipulating his mind, brainwashing him on major geopolitical issues.
He’s not a reader, favors oral communications, keeps briefing sessions short when held, and dislikes details he lacks interest in and may not properly understand on major issues related to affairs of state.
He may not know that ISIS, al-Qaeda, and likeminded jihadist groups are US creations — perhaps because this reality was never told him by his handlers.
He’s ignorant about international, constitutional, and US statute laws, likely knowing little or nothing about the legal limits of his duties and powers.
He’s a public personality performer, not a deep thinker, perhaps unaware of disastrous US foreign policy on his watch with endless preemptive wars raging in multiple theaters and risk of unthinkable war with China, Russia, and/or Iran.
Is he sleepwalking toward belligerent confrontation with one or more of these nations that could go nuclear if launched?
He likely has no understanding of the destructive power of today’s thermonukes — able to turn cities like New York to smoldering rubble.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) is running a series of articles on possible war between the US and China.
It explained that when Pompeo met with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top diplomatic aide Yang Jiechi weeks earlier, nothing was achieved toward smoothing increasingly hostile bilateral relations — both nations remaining on a possible collision course.
Days earlier, Pompeo roared that “(t)he world (sic) will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire,” adding:
“America stands with our Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources…(We) reject any push to impose ‘might makes right’ in the South China Sea (sic).”
Might makes right is what the US does worldwide, what its preemptive wars by hot and other means are all about — the rule of law never an obstacle to its pursuit of its imperial agenda.
Did Pompeo’s hostile remarks infer US military action against China in waters it claims as its own?
Does Trump understand the potential seriousness of what’s going on?
Is he so tunnel-vision focused on the November election that he’s mindless of possible belligerent confrontation with China, Russia, and/or Iran?
Is he sleepwalking toward Gomorrah with blinders, out of his element and ignorant about the risk of pushing things too far beyond the point of no return — with potentially catastrophic consequences.
SCMP stressed that “growing distrust and hostility between Beijing and Washington has not only made China-US rivalry a self-fulfilling prophecy, but also left much of the world deeply polarized” at a time of worsening coronavirus outbreaks and economic crisis conditions, adding:
“…China-US relations are unravelling at an unprecedented speed, government officials and pundits have warned.”
China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations president Yuan Peng believes Beijing should prepare for belligerent confrontation with the US.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that Sino/US relations are worse than any time since they were officially established in 1979 — because of US strategic misjudgments and McCarthy-style paranoia, he said.
The provocative presence of US warships in the South China Sea close to its territory risks potential confrontation that could explode to something much more serious.
US-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security’s Gal Luft believes with Washington in full containment mode, things passed the point of no return.
Mistrust is increasing, direct person-to-person dialogue dying, a situation fraught with dangers.
A months earlier Trump regime policy paper acknowledged the failure of Washington’s engagement with China since official relations were established — without admitting where blame lies.
In 2018, Henry Kissinger said “(f)rom a historical point of view, China and the US are almost destined for conflicts.”
Former Chinese deputy foreign minister Fu Ying explained that “(t)he greatest uncertainty for both militaries lies in the fact that both sides have yet to set up an effective crisis management mechanism and there remains ambiguity over each other’s bottom lines, rules about interactions as well as the ‘red lines.’ ”
“As a result, both sides need to constantly test each other, increasing the risks of incidents and uncontrollable outcomes.”
Possible belligerent confrontation between the US and China is the most important geopolitical issue of our time.
I’ll have more to say on this in follow-up articles.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
