Scary Monsters
Biden is world’s worst diplomat, Stoltenberg an accident about to happen, NATO is short-sighted & dangerous, Macron torpedo’s NATO, India is US naval vassal, Hun Sen hates US Cluster munitions
UPDATE: As Joe Biden jets into London for a brief visit to the UK before heading over to Vilnius for the NATO Summit, followed by a Nordic Leaders meeting in Helsinki, the President can barely disguise his hatred of Britain.
President Macron of France is right to warn NATO away from any expansion into Asia, reminding all and sundry of NATO's Atlantic design and focus. NATO's continued existence after and at the end of the Cold War has already denied peaceful unity to the broader Europe, the promise of which the end of the Cold War held open.
Tokyo, Seoul’s eagerness to ally with NATO is a “short-sighted and dangerous” move.Rifts within the NATO alliance over the potential expansion of the bloc's presence in Asia Pacific ahead of the NATO summit next week have been exposed by strong opposition from French President Emmanuel Macron.
France is holding up a deal to expand NATO’s reach into Asia, opening a split in the Western security alliance on the eve of a vital summit next week. For months, NATO officials have been discussing plans to open a liaison office in Japan, which would represent the allies’ first outpost in the region at a time of growing tension between the West and China.
Resupply and repair partnership to help fill 'big gap' in Indo-Pacific readiness. The U.S. seeks to transform India into a center for resupplying and maintenance of naval vessels in the South Asia region, where it has been stretched thin with such capabilities.
The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, has appealed to the U.S. and Ukraine not to use cluster bombs in the war with Russia as the real victims are the Ukrainians. Hun Sen mentioned about Cambodia's painful experience of the American bombardment in the early 1970s, saying that it has been more than half a century now, but they [cluster bombs] have not been all cleared yet.
Biden is world’s worst diplomat
By Nile Gardiner
As Joe Biden jets into London for a brief visit to the UK before heading over to Vilnius for the NATO Summit, followed by a Nordic Leaders meeting in Helsinki, the President can barely disguise his hatred of Britain. Misleadingly previewed by the White House as a “mini-state visit”, this will be a relatively low-key stopover before the US president meets with NATO leaders in Lithuania. Donald Trump’s official State Visit to the United Kingdom in June 2019 was a far grander affair, spread over three days, with the Queen acting as host.
Biden will be meeting with King Charles III at Windsor Castle and Rishi Sunak at Number 10, but for the US president this visit will be a chore, and unlikely to result in anything of substance. No president in modern American history has done more to undermine the partnership with the UK. His shameless knifing of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s candidacy to be the next NATO Secretary General was classic ruthlessness from Mr. Biden, who can barely disguise his sheer hatred of Britain, Brexit, and British history.
Joe Biden has been part of the Washington political ruling class for over half a century, entering the Senate back in 1973 representing the state of Delaware. He has built a well-earned reputation as one of the most crude, narcissistic, and rude politicians of our time. He has amply conveyed this approach in his dealings with Britain, bullying the British Government successfully over the Northern Ireland Protocol, sinking a trade deal with the United Kingdom after several rounds of negotiations by the Trump administration, and thumbing his nose at the King’s Coronation, sending his wife, Jill, in his place.
Biden treats Britain as a vassal state, not as America’s closest friend and ally, and thinks nothing of directly intervening in internal British political matters, especially relating to Brexit. His attacks on Liz Truss’s tax cuts as prime minister were outrageous and unprecedented, and played a vital role in discrediting her economic plans, and in precipitating her downfall, along with the relentless fire from the IMF. It is simply astonishing that the present Conservative Government has gone along with Biden’s socialist-style global minimum tax proposals, which are a huge attack on economic freedom, and significantly undermine the competitiveness of the British economy.
Biden is a president who exudes incredible arrogance while demonstrating a limited understanding of many foreign policy issues. Combined with a series of embarrassing gaffes, his presidency has been a monumental disaster on the world stage, from the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan through his shameless grovelling towards Communist China.
Britain has nothing to learn from Biden’s foreign policy and has frequently been the victim of his rambling incoherence and sneering disregard for Britain’s past, its democratic decisions including Brexit, and its key role on the international stage. Biden has been his own worst enemy, and his version of international diplomacy is taking a wrecking ball to America’s most valued partnerships and alliances. His administration’s support for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to be the next leader of Nato is incredibly short-sighted, and if implemented is guaranteed to weaken the Nato alliance, embolden delusional EU elites who wish to create a European Union army, and enhance the role of weak-kneed Germany at the heart of the transatlantic alliance.
As Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak should be standing up to Biden over the future of the Nato alliance, pushing for a trade deal between London and Washington, and telling Joe Biden to mind his own business over Brexit and Northern Ireland. But we should not hold our breath. Sunak failed to do so on his recent visit to the White House and is seen by the Bidenistas as far easier to push around compared to his predecessors, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
It may take years, even decades to repair the damage Joe Biden has done to the Special Relationship. The Biden approach is hugely counter-productive, vindictive and deeply unpleasant. The red carpet will be rolled out for the US president in London on Sunday and Monday, but in the eyes of millions of Britons, he is no friend of the British people.
Read more here.
NATO Monster Lurches Eastward
Statement by Paul Keating
President Macron of France is right to warn NATO away from any expansion into Asia, reminding all and sundry of NATO's Atlantic design and focus. NATO's continued existence after and at the end of the Cold War has already denied peaceful unity to the broader Europe, the promise of which the end of the Cold War held open.
And besides, the Europeans have been fighting each other for the better part of three hundred years, including giving the rest of us two World Wars in the last hundred.
Exporting that malicious poison to Asia would be akin to Asia welcoming the plague upon itself. With all of Asia's recent development amid its long and latent poverty, that promise would be compromised by having anything to do with the militarism of Europe - and militarism egged on by the United States.
Of all the people on the international stage the supreme fool among them is Jens Stoltenberg, the current Secretary-General of NATO.
Stoltenberg by instinct and by policy, is simply an accident on its way to happen.
In February he was drawing parallels between Russia's assault on Ukraine and China saying, 'we should not make the same mistake with China.' That is, that China should be superintended by the West and strategically circumscribed.
Stoltenberg, in his jaundiced view, overlooks the fact that China represents twenty per cent of humanity and now possesses the largest economy in the world. And has no record of attacking other states, unlike the United States, whose bidding Stoltenberg is happy to do.
Stoltenberg conducts himself as an American agent more than he performs as a leader and spokesperson for European security. Whatever his views on and from Europe, Stoltenberg does not represent the second largest European state, France, which the timely statement from the Elysée over the weekend makes clear.
Emmanuel Macron is doing the world a service putting a spike into Stoltenberg's wheel - reminding all of us that NATO is a military organisation, not a civil one and an organisation focused on Europe and the Atlantic.
Read more here.
NATO Super Creep
By Zhao Yusha
Tokyo, Seoul’s eagerness to ally with NATO is a “short-sighted and dangerous” move.Rifts within the NATO alliance over the potential expansion of the bloc's presence in Asia Pacific ahead of the NATO summit next week have been exposed by strong opposition from French President Emmanuel Macron. Chinese experts believe NATO's intention to extend its tentacles into Asia Pacific region not only exposes the selfish purpose of the US, which plays a central role in the alliance, to impose its own hegemonic intention over other NATO members' interests, but will further divide the group as in Europe, France may not stand alone in its opposition.
This year marks the second consecutive year that leaders from both Japan and South Korea will attend the summit. Observers see it as a sign that the two countries are seeking closer ties to better coordinate Washington's strategic moves to contain China. Such a "short-sighted" move will surely trigger China's strong opposition and result in regional countries' heightened vigilance.
NATO leaders will meet in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania from Tuesday to Wednesday. This summit is earmarked as a moment for making progress on the plan to open a liaison office in Japan, which would represent the organization's first outpost in the region.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is scheduled to participate in the summit for the second year in a row, will use the opportunity to stress the need for relations between Japan and NATO to be stronger, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Friday.
NATO allies are in discussion about a possible statement with four Indo-Pacific countries - Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand - that would set out deeper cooperation and reiterate that security in Europe is interlinked with security in the region, Bloomberg quoted a senior European diplomat as saying on Saturday.
However, according to a report from Politico, Macron has voiced strong opposition, expressing concerns that opening a liaison office in Japan would shift NATO's focus too far from its original mandate in the North Atlantic.
"We are not in favor as a matter of principle," stated an official from the Elysée Palace during a press briefing on Friday. The official further emphasized that the Japanese authorities themselves have not expressed significant interest in the proposed office.
Chinese experts said that French opposition may postpone NATO's move, but it may not be able to deter the alliance's growing tendency of getting more involved in Asia-Pacific matters.
There is a wide consensus within NATO that the alliance should focus primarily on transatlantic security. However, to serve its global hegemonic purpose, the US, who takes center stage of the alliance, is pushing for the organization to shift to the Asia-Pacific region, mainly to contain China, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
The US and other NATO members are divided over whether to expand its role in Asia, said Li, pointing out that amid the background of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, some European countries are worried that such a move will dilute the organization' attention on the crisis.
Speaking during a special session at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last month, NATO's assistant secretary-general for defense policy and planning Angus Lapsley said that the alliance does not wish to operate or expand in the Indo-Pacific, but it wants to be involved and engaged in the region to gain a better understanding of happenings in this part of the world, the Straits Times reported.
Pushing NATO to extend its role into Asia Pacific not only exposes the US' selfishness of imposing its own hegemonic goals over other members' national security, it will also risk dividing the alliance, as some NATO members may be reluctant to follow suit, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times.
It would be a "very hostile move" to open a liaison office in Japan, Chinese experts said. The discussion comes at a time when the US is seeking to keep high-level communication lines open with China as US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just concluded her visit to China, who noted that the US does not seek to "decouple" from China.
At the same time that US politicians are uttering sweet words to assure China that US is not to seek decoupling from Beijing, on the other hand, it is sparing no effort to marshal its allies to counter China in the region. These self-contradictory moves are deeply disturbing, Li said. He noted that these actions reveal a lack of sincerity and credibility by Washington to fix China-US relations.
US vassals
Leaders from South Korea and Japan will hold a meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Lithuania next week, South Korea's presidential office said on Sunday.
Similar to Japan's eagerness to welcome NATO to expand to Asia Pacific, South Korea, which is leaning more closely toward the US, is also allying itself closer to US-led small cliques in order to counter China.
Song pointed out that a meeting between Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is set to further mend disputes between two countries and forge closer military ties to better serve Washington's goal of a trilateral alliance in the region. However, Song said different from Japan's taking proactive gesture of welcoming NATO, South Korea to some extent has been hijacked by the US to serve the latter's interest.
In January, Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of NATO, urged South Korea to "step up" military support for Ukraine, citing other governments that have changed their policies on exporting weapons to Ukraine. Ever since the start of the Ukraine war, pressure has been building on Seoul to send its arms to Kiev, from the US, UK and EU member states.
Lü Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, described South Korea and Japan's attaching themselves to the US' chariot as a "short-sighted and dangerous" move, as standing at the front line of US containment of China will also put themselves on the front line of China's countermeasures.
Moreover, inviting extraterritorial military alliances into the Asia-Pacific region arouses heightened vigilance by regional countries, which crave stability, Lü said.
Speaking in June at a graduation ceremony for students, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said, "NATO only exists in the West, and now it seems to be involved in the Asia-Pacific region in various activities, bringing concerns for ASEAN," Cambodian media reported.
Read more here.
Macron torpedo’s NATO Creep
By Laura Kayali and Stuart Lau
France is holding up a deal to expand NATO’s reach into Asia, opening a split in the Western security alliance on the eve of a vital summit next week. For months, NATO officials have been discussing plans to open a liaison office in Japan, which would represent the allies’ first outpost in the region at a time of growing tension between the West and China.
Next week’s annual leaders’ summit in Lithuania —taking place against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine — was earmarked as a moment for making progress on the plan. But French President Emmanuel Macron has put his foot down, insisting such geographical expansion would risk shifting the alliance’s remit too far from its original North Atlantic focus.
“We are not in favor as a matter of principle,” an Elysée Palace official told reporters on Friday. “As far as the office is concerned, the Japanese authorities themselves have told us that they are not extremely attached to it.”
The French official insisted that NATO is geographically confined to the North Atlantic. “NATO means North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” the official said, adding that Articles 5 and 6, clauses at the heart of the alliance, are “geographic.”
The plan by NATO to open its first Asian office comes amid heightened concern over China’s aggressive maritime and air behavior toward Taiwan and U.S. troops in the region. Like France, China is also opposed to the idea.
“We have seen NATO bent on going east into this region, interfering in regional affairs and inciting bloc confrontation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said last month. “The majority of Asian countries … oppose the emergence of military blocs in the region. They don’t welcome NATO’s outreach in Asia.”
While some other NATO allies are also said to have concerns over the new office, three European diplomats with knowledge of the ongoing negotiations acknowledge that the strongest opposition comes from France.
Macron has been opposed to an increased NATO focus on China for years. In 2021 he said after a NATO meeting that “we shouldn’t confuse our goals,” arguing that “NATO is a military organization, the issue of our relationship with China isn’t just a military issue. NATO is an organization that concerns the North Atlantic, China has little to do with the North Atlantic.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, on the other hand, has promoted deeper connections with Asia-Pacific allies. The leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand will attend the NATO summit in Vilnius next week for the second year in a row.
“We should not make the same mistake with China and other authoritarian regimes,” Stoltenberg said in February. His comment was seen as drawing a link between Ukraine and Taiwan. “What is happening in Europe today could happen in Asia tomorrow,” he said.
Read more here.
U.S. Naval Creep
Resupply and repair partnership to help fill 'big gap' in Indo-Pacific readiness. The U.S. seeks to transform India into a center for resupplying and maintenance of naval vessels in the South Asia region, where it has been stretched thin with such capabilities.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to comprehensive defense and economic partnerships when Modi visited the White House in late June for a summit with Biden.
"The U.S.-India Major Defense Partnership has emerged as a pillar of global peace and security," the joint statement from the summit reads.
The U.S. will provide India with support to develop infrastructure that will be used to resupply, repair and maintain ships and aircraft.
"We'll have much more to follow in the near future, but the aim here is to make India a logistics hub for the United States and other partners in the Indo-Pacific region," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, to reporters in late June.
As part of this effort, the U.S. Navy will sign ship repair agreements with Indian shipyards. The navy has concluded a Master Ship Repair Agreement with the Larsen & Toubro shipyard near the Indian city of Chennai, according to the White House. The navy is close to finalizing separate deals with two other shipbuilders, based in Mumbai and Goa.
The U.S. military looks to build readiness for quickly handling resupply activities and repairs in the Indo-Pacific region. If the navy has access to more hubs in the region, then vessels and aircraft will waste less time pausing operations for both. The time savings can be allocated to joint exercises with other countries.
"There's a big gap between the bases the United States sustains in the bilateral hub agreements they have in the Middle East and then the Western Pacific," said Jeffrey Payne, assistant professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. "So, India fulfills this."
At present, Japan and Singapore serve as key naval hubs for the U.S. in Asia. Harry Harris, former commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, hailed the initiative.
"Currently, we operate from Diego Garcia and Western Australia in the Indian Ocean," he told Nikkei via email. "Securing a maintenance, repair, and logistics hub on the Subcontinent is significant as this would give us much-needed flexibility in the vast Indian Ocean region."
The Chinese navy has about 355 ships and submarines, making it the world's largest numerically, according to the 2021 edition of the Pentagon's annual report on China. If American vessels cannot spend more time at sea, then the U.S. will risk falling behind China in terms of naval capabilities, weakening deterrence.
Because the Indo-Pacific is defined by large stretches of water, many believe that conducting supply activities in the region during emergencies will prove more difficult than similar activities in Europe, with its land routes.
"Are we ready today? Yes, we are," Rear Adm. Mark Melson, commander of the U.S. Navy's logistics group stationed in Singapore, told Nikkei in an interview in early June. "But I will never claim to be ready enough."
"We are certainly trying to improve the amount of access into a number of places where we can conduct expeditionary resupply, expeditionary refuel [and] if required, expeditionary rearm," Melson said.
The Biden administration plans to deepen the partnership with India beyond the Indian Ocean in the maritime space. Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, attended an event hosted by a U.S. think tank at the end of June and touched on strengthening the collaboration with India in the South China Sea.
Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met with Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo in New Delhi at the end of June. The two ministers released a joint statement that backed a 2016 arbitration ruling at The Hague rejecting Chinese claims to nearly all of the South China Sea.
This marked the first time that India expressed support for the Hague ruling, which is based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, according to Gregory Poling, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It put India in line with Japan and major Western countries on the issue.
India, as a representative of the so-called Global South emerging and developing countries, is gaining a stronger role and voice in the international community.
On the security front, India appears to have shifted focus on relations to the West. Modi's visit to Washington in June is evidence of this. India on Tuesday hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, which was held in a virtual format out of consideration for the U.S.
But the basic theme of India's diplomacy remains "strategic autonomy," which entails working with other countries according to its own interests.
In recent years, the U.S. apparently threatened to impose sanctions on India when it sought to acquire air defense systems from Russia. In 1971, the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier to threaten India during the third Indo-Pakistani War. Whether today's partnership between the U.S. and India will completely dispel the latent distrust of Washington remains to be seen.
Read more here.
Cluster Munition Monster
The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, has appealed to the U.S. and Ukraine not to use cluster bombs in the war with Russia as the real victims are the Ukrainians. Hun Sen mentioned about Cambodia's painful experience of the American bombardment in the early 1970s, saying that it has been more than half a century now, but they [cluster bombs] have not been all cleared yet.
“In the past few days, there have been news releases that the U.S. will provide cluster bombs for Ukraine to fight against the Russian army. If it is true, it will be the greatest danger for the Ukrainians for decades or hundreds of years when the cluster bombs are used in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia,” wrote the Cambodian Premier in a message on his Telegram channel on July 9.
“I know for sure that Cambodia is a small and weak country, we have no influence, but we take pity on the people of Ukraine. [Therefore,] I’d like to call on the U.S. president, the donor and the Ukrainian president, the recipient not to use cluster bombs in this war because the real victims are the people, especially the Ukrainians,” Samdech Techo Prime Minister underlined.
Read more here.