The View As Seen From The Other Side

[Yooper]

CDR Salamander with a short, but excellent, post on the constraints of geography:

SLOC’s Matter

If you ever wonder how blessed a nation the USA is, just wander over to the nearest globe or large map. Just look at those wide open oceans to our east and west. Just look at all our friendly neighbors. It is enough to make a nation get a bit complacent about its maritime security....

blog.usni.org

What China faces is similar to what Russia faces. Not excusing the blights that are those countries/governments; just presenting one aspect as to how "Red Teaming" works.

* SLOC: Sea Line of Communications.

** The Jaime Seidel article (from Australia) linked to in CDRS' blog post is also quite good (especially the last paragraph):

A Chinese military presence at Dara Sakor would outflank Vietnam, forcing Hanoi to divert forces from its northern border to the west. But the airfield would also position Beijing’s forces within easy reach of Indonesia’s Natuna islands – and put its strategic bombers within range of India’s southernmost military facilities.

Read both CDRS' and Seidel's posts (if you have the time and interest).

--- End of line (MCP)

 

[stgislander]

Sounds like India is the big question mark now. And we don't have the best of relations with them.

 

[Gilligan]

Wow..I read all of the source article. Not the least bit surprised.

 

[Yooper]

Sounds like India is the big question mark now. And we don't have the best of relations with them.

True. But getting better. It's been a long road (of course, having much to do with the friction coming from our support of Pakistan back in the 1970s).

I was working in that part of the world in the mid-2000s and we pushed hard (in both DoD and State) to start a meaningful dialog where even if the U.S. and India has differences we shared a common problem with China. Was a hard slog as folks on our side were annoyed the Indian military still had strong(ish) ties to Russia (many of India's senior military leaders attended schooling in Russia) and the pro-Russian tilt of the Indian military leaders made progress toward a rapproachment with the U.S. difficult.

Lots of mutual suspicion. Time for it to go away(ish).

--- End of line (MCP)

 

[stgislander]

True. But getting better. It's been a long road (of course, having much to do with the friction coming from our support of Pakistan back in the 1970s).

I was working in that part of the world in the mid-2000s and we pushed hard (in both DoD and State) to start a meaningful dialog where even if the U.S. and India has differences we shared a common problem with China. Was a hard slog as folks on our side were annoyed the Indian military still had strong(ish) ties to Russia (many of India's senior military leaders attended schooling in Russia) and the pro-Russian tilt of the Indian military leaders made progress toward a rapproachment with the U.S. difficult.

Lots of mutual suspicion. Time for it to go away(ish).

--- End of line (MCP)

That's good news. Especially with Philipine President Duterte threatening to cancel the VFA with the US.