No War Over Rocks

[marmar]

from Consortium News:



No War Over Rocks
December 18, 2013

U.S. foreign policy remains captive to unipolar hubris, enforced by neocon pundits who demand military interventions to solve the world’s problems. But this kneejerk response is particularly crazy when applied to Asian disputes over rocks far at sea, says Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland.

By Ivan Eland


One of the most dangerous international disputes that the United States could get dragged into has little importance to U.S. security — the disputes nations have over small islands (some really rocks rising out of the sea) in East Asia.

Although any war over these islands would rank right up there with the absurd Falkland Islands war of 1982 between Britain and Argentina over remote, windswept sheep pastures near Antarctica, any conflict in East Asia always has the potential to escalate to nuclear war. And unlike the Falklands war, the United States might be right in the atomic crosshairs.

Of the two antagonists in the Falklands War, only Britain had nuclear weapons, thus limiting the possibility of nuclear escalation. And although it is true that of the more numerous East Asian contenders, only China has such weapons, the United States has formal alliance commitments to defend three of the countries in competition with China over the islands — the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea — and an informal alliance with Taiwan.


[font size="1"]Islands at the center of the territorial dispute between China and Japan. (Image credit: Jackopoid)[/font]

Unbeknownst to most Americans, those outdated alliances left over from the Cold War implicitly still commit the United States to sacrifice Seattle or Los Angeles to save Manila, Tokyo, Seoul, or Taipei, should one of these countries get into a shooting war with China. Though a questionable tradeoff even during the Cold War, it is even less so today. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/18/no-war-over-rocks/

[SharonAnn]

1. Anybody remember the islands of Quemoy and Matsu during the 1960 election?

They were apparently Very Important and China's attempt to claim them had our Navy going on alert and during a presidential debate there was discussion about what type of military action the USA should take.

I was 14 at the time and paid attention to it because I thought it must be a Really Important issue!

Has anybody heart anything about Quemoy or Matsu since the 1960 presidential debates?