More sightings of SysAdmin wannabes
■"Chinese, Russian Militaries to Hold First Joint Drills: Alliance May Extend to Arms Sales," by Peter Finn, Washington Post, 15 August 2005, p. A10.■"U.N. Peacekeeping More Assertive, Creating Risk for Civilians," by Colum Lynch, Washington Post, 15 August 2005, p. A10.
The Chinese and Russians are having "first ever joint military exercises" this week-first bilateral ones, that is. Does this represent two Central Asian powers getting a bit nervous that outsider America seeks so overtly to run the "great game" there since 9/11?
To a certain extent, yes.
But it's also very natural. Two legitimate Core powers want to protect their own interests and to do that means both need to be interested in influencing events in energy rich Gap territory of Central Asia. I mean, hey, it's the same logic we use!
So it's not exactly weird that China and Russia cooperate in this realm. Actually, it would be weirder if they didn't.
The two will also continue to cooperate on arms sales. Why? No U.S. Congress or White House meddling on that one, and coming from a country in which arms sales is considered an almost holy rite ("You can pry away my gun from my cold dead fingers!"), I guess I understand other great powers not exactly digging it when the U.S. decides whether or not they can have this or that "gun."
The event is called "Peace Mission 2005," and the scenario involves "10,000 troops simulating a mission to aid a third state where law and order has broken down because of terrorist violence."
Oddly, enough, at the end of the exercise Russia will deploy long-range bombers "capable of carrying nuclear weapons, which will fire cruise missiles at targets on the surface of the sea."
Signal to us? On one level, sure. It says, "we still got stuff and it works!" But real message is demo to Chinese, as in, "See how good it works! Why not buy some?"
This is what our great defense of Taiwan gets us: all sorts of Cold War era-like internal balancing among great powers who should be spending their time and effort on more useful things, like truly cooperating on peacekeeping in the Gap that shrinks the Gap.
Hell, the poor UN is trying to get more assertive there, and looking pretty pathetic doing it. If we can just move past the Taiwans and North Koreas that still exist, there is real work to be done throughout the Gap, work that can be adequately handled if enough Core militaries are involved.
But boys will be boys. More fun to plot the intra-Core stuff with bombers and what not. The SysAdmin stuff in the Gap is so boring in comparison.