The U.S. and Russia are on a collision course. The U.S. and China are on a collision course. The U.S. and North Korea are on a collision course. The U.S. and Iran are on a collision course.
President Trump yesterday signed the bill to impose more sanctions against Russia. The bill was overwhelmingly passed – 98 to 2 in the Senate and 419 to 3 in the House. The bill was veto-proof. It requires the president to obtain congressional approval from Congress to remove the sanctions.
The bill was originally created to apply sanctions and pressure on North Korea and Iran. Russia was added a few weeks ago after Trumps meetings with Putin in Germany during the G20.
Russia retaliated by announcing the U.S. would have to reduce its diplomatic staff by 755 employees, bringing the total down to 455, and seized two diplomatic compounds.
The earlier sanctions were imposed to punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine, arms shipments to Syria and meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Russia’s support of the Assad regime in Syria successfully ended America’s status as the sole superpower in the Middle East. Russia intends to retain its status as the sole superpower in the Baltics.
Russia is building its military presence on the borders of Ukraine and the NATO Baltic states for its largest military “exercise” since the Cold War. Russia ordered 4,000 rail cars to move the 1st Guards Army tanks for the upcoming military exercise in September. This on the heels of Russian and Chinese warships holding joint naval drills in the Baltic Sea last week. The first joint naval exercise both countries have held in the area. As a result, the U.S. military for the first time is putting together a plan to provide lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 18 that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and European Command are preparing a proposal to arm Ukraine.
Vice President Pence speaking in Tallinn, Estonia on Monday said that “the president and our Congress are unified in our message to Russia – a better relationship and the lifting of sanctions, will require Russia to reverse the actions that caused the sanctions to be imposed in the first place.
A new Cold War is in America’s face. It can easily turn hot!
This is doubly true with the military support Russia is giving China and North Korea. Last year, Russia and China held joint naval exercises in the South China Sea, which China claims in its entirety, a claim the U.S. opposes by carrying out U.S. naval patrols in the area and periodically sends U.S. Navy P-3 Orion reconnaissance planes to the area that are dangerously intercepted by Chinese jet fighters.
Russia and China see their budding military relationship as a way to show America and the West that they are not alone in their opposition to U.S. geopolitical policies.
Russia is again re-engaging its military co-operation with North Korea, filling the vacuum China is leaving as it tries to restrain North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The U.S. flew two B-1 bombers over South Korea in a show of force after North Korea again tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last Friday. “The era of strategic patience is over,” Vice President Pence said while in Estonia.
“North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability,” Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander said in a statement announcing Sunday’s flyover of B-1 bombers.
Russia’s dangerous political liaisons with China, North Korea, Iran and Syria must be brought to a screeching halt to avoid the pending global hot war. President Trump needs a foreign policy coup to re-establish his political standing at home and as an effective world leader. His next moves to de-nuclearize North Korea will be critical – with or without China’s support – preferably with!