Category Archives: Foreign affairs

11/16/21

Xi Jinping: “Let’s Go, Brandon!”

Last night POTUS Joe Biden and President-for-Life Xi Jinping had a pre-holiday call to chat about their Thanksgiving and Christmas plans and China’s strategy to take over the world and to dominate the United States.

In the lead up to the Zoom chat, President Joe Biden was asked if he was looking forward to visiting with his old pal, Xi.

Joe bristled saying he and Xi Jinping, President-for-Life, were purely business. They were not “old friends.” Huh?

During the campaign then Candidate Joe Biden had bragged that he and Xi were great amigos who had traveled 17,000 miles together, but now Joe says they’re not “old friends?”

A Chinese government financial entity did invest $1,500,000,000 with No 1 Son, Hunter Biden, when Joe came calling last time on Air Force Two, so Joe is understandably a little sensitive about being in the pocket of the Chinese. Understandable, very understandable. Sensitive.

“Ten percent for the Big Guy, Xi?”

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08/16/21

The Biden Foreign Policy in Afghanistan, the Fallout

I do not intend to discuss or critique the recent events in Afghanistan other than to say that it is clearly not the highpoint of America’s foreign policy which at this instant is entrusted to our current POTUS.

The most pathetic image of an American President ever seen? Does this project power? Reliability? Confidence?

When the current POTUS was running for the job, we were assured that one of the mitigating factors of his half a century in the swamp was that he was an old and steady hand when it came to foreign policy — hmmm, maybe not so much, eh?

A single discordant voice was former Sec Def/Dir CIA Gates who opined that Joe Biden had been on the wrong side of every major foreign policy issue for the last four decades.

Today, President Biden takes great pride in the killing of Osama Bin Laden, a mission he opposed at the time.

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09/12/20

Peace In The Middle East?

English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain came home from a meeting with Hitler in Munich in September 1938 with the triumphant notion that he brought with him “peace for our times” in the form of some nonsensical agreement with a treacherous tyrant, Adolf Hitler.

Very few men were able to realize that you cannot make peace with a wolf by feeding it. When it is hungry, it will come again to the world’s door and that is exactly what happened.

Lord Hugh Cecil, an English contemporary politician would describe it like “scratching a crocodile’s head in the hope of making it purr.”

Chamberlain had a piece of paper, a set of words — nothing of substance.

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06/27/19

Judgment And Going To War

While I recognize that you are engaged in evaluating the debates and probably don’t have time for anything else, I want to slip in a few comments about judgment.

What brings this to the fore in my V8 is the matter of President Trump deciding not to strike Iran in retaliation for having downed a US Air Force drone.

Image result for images global hawk

Here is a picture of the drone, a RQ-4A Global Hawk that is flown by three remote pilots, has the wingspan of a 737, flies at 500 MPH, carries ooooodles of tech gear to listen to and look at our enemies, and typically operates at 65,000 feet altitude.

[Big question — WTF was the Global Hawk doing operating at 22,000 feet over the Straits of Hormuz? That is within the capabilities of Iranian SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) to reach while if they had been at 65,000 feet, the Iranians could not have reached that altitude. Why?] Continue reading →

01/3/19

PRC v ROC

Big Red Car here, thinking of having Chinese food for dinner tonight, which of course brings me to the issue of the PRC (People’s Republic of China, the Communists) v the Republic of China (the democratic capitalists, Taiwan).

Related image

Taiwan is separated from Mainland China by the Taiwan Strait, 110 miles — not much warning time in the event of an attack.

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12/4/18

The French Yellow Vests — Gilets Jaunes

Big Red Car here on a lovely, sunny ATX day. On Earth as it is in Texas, y’all!

So, the French are in the midst of some political riots.

Because France is a fashion forward country, the identifying rallying call is the chic “yellow vest” — gilets jaunes. Very chic fashion statement.

Here is a picture of the riotously fashionable yellow vest crowd in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

The Arc de Triomphe is the 162 foot high arch in the Place Charles de Gaulle from which a dozen avenues radiate.

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09/3/18

Accidental War With Iran

Big Red Car here on Labor Day thinking about a weird topic – accidental war with Iran.

The reason I am thinking about this is a recent threat I have seen in several Middle East periodicals suggesting that Iran will close off the Straits of Hormuz if the US imposes sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil.

The US has already begun to impose sanctions on Iran as of early August with another round of sanctions to hit in November of this year. The November sanctions will include sanctions on Iranian oil.

Image result for images iran navy

Small rocket-equipped Iranian vessels practicing attacking shipping in the Straits of Hormuz. The Iranians have a large number of such vessels and might achieve the element of tactical surprise in their first such attack.

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05/16/18

Sanctions Work – ZTE

Sanctions, Big Red Car? How dreary for such a sunny, lovely day in the ATX, yawn! OK, Big Red Car tell me about how sanctions work. Maybe a real world example?

Dear reader, let us take up the case of Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment, known as ZTE. They are a maker of inexpensive smartphones and other telecom equipment in more than 160 countries and employ 75,000 workers.

ZTE is no small fry on the international scene. When the Chinese government wants to wiggle into bed with a country, they often provide loans as an economic development tool.  Those loans? What are they used for? To set up a nationwide cellular network built by … wait for it … ZTE!

ZTE is an important element of Chinese international policy.

The Chinese also see that a large company like ZTE can break the stranglehold that American tech companies have on China. It is a nationalistic undertaking.

But, ZTE ran afoul of American sanctions. How?

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