Obama High Seas Confusion Dooms U.S. Trade

Obama has no military or civilian experience and no White House staff either that knows about the 'turn to Mahan' policies.  It is not clear on who is calling the shots. So now, the United States is forfeiting its dominance over the security of free world trade. A political disaster, our economy will suffer too.

The public debate over the federal budget often obscures the relation between our domestic and foreign interests. 

Such debates may often cloud democracy’s prudence by forcing a choice between immediate, easily perceptible problems and the distant,  often silent strategicObama confers with his U.S. Navy Admiral in Oval Office. interests underpinning our foreign policy. Obama, as a community organizer, always dumbs down an obvious problem with just a simple fix everyone understands while ignoring complicated underlying aspects entirely. After all, why confuse those American people with other relevant pesky little pertinent facts?

FACT: An enduring strategy that enables U.S. political and military strength through our commercial superiority hinges on naval power. As Alfred Mahan wrote, naval power often proves “more silent than the clash of arms...as influential as it is quiet."

Yet the influence of sea power on commerce and national security is almost always pushed aside each time a nation feels domestic financial pressures - it's like how Obama finances Obamacare, College Tuitions, FHA Loans, UAW Union Bailouts and Food Stamps. 

Alfred Thayer Mahan understood it. A naval officer and strategist whose 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783, was a theoretical treatise as well as a history that argued for American national greatness through control of the seas.  Mahan was in his time a strong influence on politicians such as Theodore Roosevelt and on a generation of foreign-policy theorists. So today, outside of a small circle of naval officers—including Chinese officers who admire his idea that "under the right circumstances sea power is the key to national greatness"—Mahan and his contribution to the American century has been largely forgotten. Notwithstanding, more than ninety percent of the world’s trade is conducted by water, and the world’s waterways are and will remain the most efficient means for transporting goods.

Read & Learn from world history:

The Chinese will be the main beneficiaries of Britain's and the United States misreading of the geopolitical realities of the NWF (North West Frontier provinces). The North-West Frontier Province was a former province created by the British in their vast territories in South Asia then called British India. It was established in 1901 and dissolved in 1955, after eight years as part of the independent state of Pakistan. Like the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the problems between India and Pakistan stem from the ill-conceived and poorly implemented geopolitics of the partition of the British Empire in 1948.

Afghanistan's old ethnic conflict has become a proxy war for the bitter feud between the region's two nuclear powers, Pakistan and India. And the Taliban are being supported by Pakistan because the Pakistani generals fear being squeezed in an Indian nutcracker, faced with not only a massive Indian presence to their south but a pro-Indian regime to the north in Afghanistan.

As war was waged against the Pashtun peoples of the area thinking they were synonymous with Al Queda (they never were, only giving sanctuary to the Saudi intruders) - this was always an impossible war to win; and only served to destabilize Pakistan. Now besides India, what other country would want Pakistan unstable? 

Chinese Escort Ship in So. China Sea

How about the U.S. who wants a strong ally with a growing naval presence in the South China seas? That ally is India who has its self-interest to deter threats of control by the Chinese ‘string of pearls’ strategy with ‘Deep Blue Water‘ naval subs and ships strung across the South China Sea as internal Chinese waters, over 80% under an assertion of Chinese sovereignty? - A major international waterway for more than half of the world’s annual merchant tonnage passes through as well as a third of the global trade in crude oil and over half of LNG trade. The South China Sea, bordered by eight nations, has long been considered international waters.

FYI: ‘Deep Blue Water‘  is taken as one able to operate over 200 miles from shore, in other words long range, deep water, oceanic maritime projection bringing with it sea power and control of commerce on the high seas.

The United States Navy has recognized a similar ‘blue water’ drive by another rising power, the People’s Republic of China. China’s “turn to Mahan”, referring to the theories of the American naval strategist, is similar to India’s, as is Japan’s. This brings the Chinese Navy out into the Indian Ocean, with China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy across the Indian Ocean.

"Accordingly, Indian strategists and pundits fret over the prospect of a Chinese “string of pearls,” a network of naval bases encircling the subcontinent. Many view commercial ports such as Colombo, on Sri Lanka, or Gwadar, in western Pakistan, as the makings of a string of pearls. The good news from the Indian or American standpoint is that converting a commercial port into a full-blown base is a major undertaking, unlikely to escape the notice of watchful rivals. For one thing, Beijing would have to convince the host country to permit such a project — at the risk of antagonizing India, the regional heavyweight. Negotiations might attract attention. For another, Mahan notes that the hallmarks of a naval base are position, strength, and resources. Many prospective pearls occupy opportune strategic positions, to be sure. But most of them also lie within easy striking reach of the Indian Air Force, not to mention the U.S. and Indian fleets."

Over two-thirds of a century, since the end of World War II, have encouraged us to take for granted that the oceans are safe for navigation.  The U.S. Navy has created a status quo that we now believe is natural, and we take for granted the origins of this liberal regime on the water - this era can turn ship on a dime! So then Look out for a challenge to America’s influence on the ocean and it won't be friendly - Don't expect the United Nations to monitor and protect international shipping lanes commerce either!

Chinese Navy Strategic Doctrine: The modern People's Liberation Army Navy (Plan) is largely the creation from the 1960s of one of modern China's most powerful generals, Liu Huaqing. He laid down a much-quoted 'blue-and-green water' strategic doctrine.

At first, China should develop a 'green-water active defense': It would protect relatively shallow, thus 'green', territorial waters and enforce China's sovereignty claims in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

In the second phase, General Liu argued, the Plan should develop a 'blue-water navy' - capable of projecting power into the far blue yonder of the Pacific and Indian oceans.

Just before his retirement in 1997, Gen Liu published an article insisting that for this second stage, it was 'extremely necessary' for China, as it became a major trading power, to have carriers to protect its commercial sea lanes.

‘Blue Water Navy’, politically, is long range extension of a state’s presence, in which theObama's Navy Ship U.S. Navy in 2013 now shrunk size below China, the leader, to take a second rate "also-ran" status as the U.S. continues to further drop down under to "Lead from Behind" as outlined in the Obama foreign policies. The U.S. seems to be heading to a ‘green water navy‘ status. 

‘Green Water Navy’ refers to a border perimeter patrol in a country's coastal waters only, leaving international seas and traffic lanes to the United Nations' oversight and protection.

 NOTE: I sure do hope that as the 21st century progresses China will allow the U.S. to pay its 'U.N. shipping tariffs' so it can ship and receive the permitted measured "international allotments" for goods and services in and out of our ports according to United Nations' Gross National Products guidelines! ~ Or will we retain our own U.S. national sovereignty to secure our own economy?

Our United States Presidents had learned firsthand about our military readiness and understood from their service experience on what it took to be in the world's largest military force before leading it.  Take a look at them as they proudly wear their uniforms before becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the United States..