Soros and China vs. M1A1’s and F-35’s: Irregular Warfare

Posted on September 3, 2015September 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

A kinder, gentler weapon, software, economic terrorism and exploiting weakness. What the U.S. military knows and what government leaders know but find difficult to defeat, IRREGULAR WARFARE.

The main protagonist in this section of the history book will not be a statesman or a military strategist; rather, it will be George Soros. Of course, Soros does not have an exclusive monopoly on using the financial weapon for fighting wars. Before Soros, Helmut Kohl used the deutsche mark to breach the Berlin Wall–a wall that no one had ever been able to knock down using artillery shells [see Endnote 13]. After Soros began his activities, Li Denghui [Li Teng-hui 2621 4098 6540] used the financial crisis in Southeast Asia to devalue the New Taiwan dollar, so as to launch an attack on the Hong Kong dollar and Hong Kong stocks, especially the “red-chip stocks.” [Translator’s note: “red-chip stocks” refers to stocks of companies listed on the Hong Kong stock market but controlled by mainland interests.] In addition, we have yet to mention the crowd of large and small speculators who have come en masse to this huge dinner party for money gluttons, including Morgan Stanley and Moody’s, which are famous for the credit rating reports that they issue, and which point out promising targets of attack for the benefit of the big fish in the financial world [see Endnote 14]. These two companies are typical of those entities that participate indirectly in the great feast and reap the benefits.

Soros pours out all his bitterness in his book, The Crisis of Global Capitalism. On the basis of a ghastly account of his investments in 1998, Soros analyzes the lessons to be learned from this economic crisis.

When it comes to the axiom, Know Thy Enemy, China has made an art of this objective. China does so by any means possible with notable success.

In 1999, China used analysts to understand their adversaries such that the primary mission was to achieve a wide set of competitive edges, all under the ethos of ‘Unrestricted Warfare’.

Going beyond the common air or ground war operations, there are countless other methods to gain advantage or defeat others in a competitive world.

A 200 page essay published in 1999 came to the attention of U.S. military leaders. It is a compelling read and germane to conflicts today and well into the future.

Unrestricted Warfare by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui

Qiao Liang is a Chinese Air Force Major in the People’s Liberation Army and co-authored a book titled ‘Unrestricted Warfare’. The scope of the book is China’s Master Plan to Destroy America.

Meanwhile, if you can stand more, there is Russia. The two countries are using the very same software warfare tactical playbook and it too has not gone unnoticed.

EU sets up unit to counter Russia’s disinformation campaigns

Janes: The EU announced on 27 August that it is forming a small “rapid response” team of officials within the European External Action Service (EEAS) to deal with Russian propaganda.

To be launched on 1 September, the team will monitor Moscow’s propaganda manoeuvres and advise EU and national authorities and their media campaigns accordingly, said EU officials.

The move comes in response to a request in March by EU leaders to Federica Mogherini, the EU’s chief of foreign and security policy, to mount a response to “Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaign”.

The team will be comprised of 8-10 Russian-speaking officials from Sweden, the UK and other countries within the EEAS, the EU’s foreign policy wing.

***

The Cyber War: As tension between the United States, Russia and China continues to escalate, reports of cyber warfare between the nations has become increasingly prominent. Modern warfare can be waged in numerous ways, and it seems that this virtual form of conflict will be an increasing theme as the 21st century develops.

The cyber warfare between the United States, Russia and China is part of an overall epoch-defining conflict between the three nations. This is largely based on economic disagreement and rivalry, but has also spilled over into military and territorial disputes as well. Although this war has remained physically peaceful thus far, the potential for future conflict between the three nations remains significant. And with the likes of Edward Snowden revealing the extent of government snooping, we can expect more reports of governmental cyber attacks in the future.

Meet Criminal Ebrahim Shabudin Costs Taxpayers Millions

Posted on September 3, 2015September 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Thomas S. Wu, Ebrahim Shabudin, and Thomas T. Yu

Exec at center of first TARP bank failure gets 8 years in prison

Fraud scheme cost taxpayers more than $300 million

More from Drew Harwell at the Washington Post: In 2009, less than a year after its $300 million taxpayer-funded rescue, the United Commercial Bank burned through the cash to become America’s first bailout-boosted bank to fail during the financial meltdown.

But this week, one of the imploded bank’s former senior executives was sentenced to eight years in prison for covering up its collapsing loans, becoming one of the few high-ranking bankers to face punishment for crisis-era crimes.

Ebrahim Shabudin, a former chief credit officer for the San Francisco-based bank, falsified records to hide major loan losses from auditors and investors in what prosecutors called a “delay-and-pray” scheme, even as the bank sought and pocketed cash from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The bank, which once managed nearly $11 billion in assets and ran more than 50 branches across the United States, China and Taiwan, became the ninth largest to fail since 2007 even with help from the multitrillion-dollar bailout. Its dramatic failure cost the federal fund that insures Americans’ deposits more than $675 million.

The bailout’s chief watchdog called the years-long investigation into Shabudin “one of the most significant prosecutions” for crimes in the shadow of the financial meltdown. In March, after a six-week trial, a federal jury convicted Shabudin, 66, of seven counts of conspiracy and corporate fraud, making him one of the rare high-level bankers to head to court due to crisis-era crimes.

“Shabudin had every opportunity to do the right thing, but he was motivated instead to preserve the bank’s reputation at all costs, even if it meant committing a crime,” said Christy Goldsmith Romero, the special inspector general for TARP. “He was essentially gambling with taxpayers’ bailout dollars, and it was taxpayers who ultimately lost.”

But his sentencing may do little to quiet criticism that few big fraudsters have been punished in the meltdown’s long aftermath. The watchdog has secured convictions against 200 bank officers and other officials, but most were involved in smaller community banks, not Wall Street titans like those that used taxpayer money to pave over bad bets or dole out big bonuses.

Originally specializing in lending to Chinese Americans, the bank grew aggressively through commercial real-estate loans, becoming the first U.S. financial institution to buy a Chinese bank.

Its high-risk lending nearly doubled the bank’s loan portfolio between 2004 and 2007, to more than $8 billion, and made a rising star of chief executive Thomas Shiu-Kit (“Tommy”) Wu, who in 2006 was named auditing giant Ernst & Young’s financial-services Entrepreneur of the Year.

But as the bank’s river of risky loans began to fail, Shabudin and Wu held off on downgrading loans they knew were falling apart, ordered subordinates to understate the bank’s losses by at least $65 million, and blasted out false information in press releases, earning calls and annual reports.

Federal watchdogs including from the Federal Reserve, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the FBI joined the case, making Shabudin and bank senior vice president Thomas Yu the first senior bank officials charged with fraud at a bailout-boosted financial institution.

Shabudin was the bank’s third officer to be criminally convicted, after Yu and chief financial officer Craig S. On pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges late last year. An outstanding warrant is in place for Wu, the chief executive, who has not yet been apprehended.

[SIGTARP proves that some bankers aren’t too big to jail]

Though credited with helping stabilize the wobbling economy, the bailout is remembered by many for its corporate largesse, including the hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses paid to the heads of failing banks rescued by taxpayer cash.

Yet many of SIGTARP’s cases have focused on brazen acts of accounting fraud and smaller banks’ misspent millions. In one case, the executive of Mainstreet Bank, a community bank in Missouri, used nearly $400,000 of the bank’s $1 million bailout to buy a waterfront Florida condo.

The first person convicted of stealing bailout funds, Charles Antonucci, pleaded guilty in 2010 to bribes, fraud and embezzlement while serving as president of the Manhattan-based Park Avenue Bank. He was sentenced last month to 30 months in prison, down from a potential maximum of 135 years, because prosecutors said he cooperated with the bank probe.

William K. Black, a former bank regulator and University of Missouri associate professor specializing in white-collar crime, said Shabudin’s role in only the ninth-largest bank failure highlights the failure of regulators to combat larger frauds.

The Justice Department has still “prosecuted no banking leader for leading the three epidemics of fraud that hyper-inflated the bubble, drove the financial crisis, and caused the Great Recession,” referring to appraisal, loan and secondary-market fraud.

“Thousands of elite bankers reported pathetically inadequate” estimates of their bad debts similar to this bank’s, “and they face no investigations, much less prosecutions,” Black said. “The larger bank frauds were all bailed out this time around.”

When Global Leaders and the UN Retreat….

Posted on September 3, 2015September 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

When the United States as part of the P5+1 negotiated with Iran on a nuclear deal, at no time were demands placed on Iran to stop the tyrannical and militant support of Bashir al Assad’s civil war in Syria. The same holds true, when any diplomatic efforts between Russia and the United States avoids Russian support for the Assad regime. With 11 million Syrians that have fled their home country, the damage, the costs and the deaths coupled with desperation leads to a global crisis, where advanced world leaders shirk their duty to protect.

Nothing is more shameful when refugees fleeing to freedom by any means possible including boats, where passengers are attacked and or drowned such that bodies wash up on shore.

From the DailyMail:

Refugees lay on train tracks in fear of being taken to camps

Scuffles break out at a small Hungarian train station as refugees lay on the train tracks in fear of being taken to camps.

Riot police, who were waiting at the small station of Bicske, ordered the asylum seekers off the train. Many clung to the doors and some wrestled trying to get back on board.

One man threw himself on the tracks with his wife clutching their crying baby in fear of being sent to a camp.

On arriving at the town of Bicske, which has a migrant reception centre, many refugees were shouting “No camp, no camp!”

The train left Budapest’s Keleti station bound for the town Sopron, near the Austrian border, this morning after more than 1,000 people poured into the capital’s main terminal.

Hungary’s rail operator said no direct trains are running to western Europe due to “railway transport” security reasons. Despite this, desperate refugees pushed themselves and their children on to carriages through doors and windows. Many cheered as trains pulled into the station.

Hungary had initially allowed people to travel on Monday, letting more than 1,000 people pack on to westbound trains from Budapest, but then withdrew the option 24 hours later.

The decision to allow people inside the train station today came hours before Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met European leaders in Brussels to discuss the growing humanitarian crisis.

He said that because so many migrants wanted to reach Germany, it was a “German problem”, however European Parliament President Martin Schulz argued that fair and just distribution of people was needed.

‘A German problem’

“The problem is not a European problem. The problem is a German problem.”

“Nobody would like to stay in Hungary, neither in Slovakia, nor Poland, nor Estonia. All of them would like to go to Germany. Our job is only to register them,” he said.

Mr Orban said EU rules state that countries must protect their boarders and refugees looking to leave the country without registration is “totally against European regulations”.

Under EU regulations, refugees must seek asylum in the first country they arrive in, however this has come into question after Germany said it would accept asylum claims from Syrian refugees regardless of where they entered the EU.

Austrian authorities say refugees arriving in Vienna from Budapest will not be checked or registered and will be allowed to continue their onwards journey.

Police chief Gerhard Puerstl said: “What we certainly can’t do is check all those people coming through, establish all their identities, or possibly even arrest them – we can’t do this, and we have no plans to do this.”

Meanwhile, Czech police announced that they will stop detaining Syrian migrants who have claimed asylum in Hungary but are attempting to travel to Germany, according to local media in the country.

Hungary is the gateway to Europe

More than 150,000 refugees and economic migrants have travelled to Hungary this year as it is the gateway to the EU for those crossing by land through Macedonia and Serbia. Many of those, who have come from Syria or Afghanistan, are looking to travel to western countries such as Germany and Austria.

The mass influx of refugees seeking asylum in Europe are fleeing war-torn countries from the Middle East and parts of Africa.

Eritreans, who are granted refugee status when they reach Germany, make up a large number of those fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe – around 15 per cent of the total reaching Europe’s sea border are from the country.

Most of the Eritreans arriving in Europe have travelled by sea, initially, via Ethiopia and Sudan.

More than Half of Immigrants on Welfare

Posted on September 3, 2015September 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

Contrary to declaration from the White House:

How do immigrants strengthen the U.S. economy? Below is our top 10 list for ways immigrants help to grow the American economy.

Immigrants start businesses. According to the Small Business Administration, immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start a business in the United States than non-immigrants, and 18 percent of all small business owners in the United States are immigrants.
Immigrant-owned businesses create jobs for American workers. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, small businesses owned by immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people in 2007, and according to the latest estimates, these small businesses generated more than $776 billion annually.
Immigrants are also more likely to create their own jobs. According the U.S. Department of Labor, 7.5 percent of the foreign born are self-employed compared to 6.6 percent among the native-born.
Immigrants develop cutting-edge technologies and companies. According to the National Venture Capital Association, immigrants have started 25 percent of public U.S. companies that were backed by venture capital investors. This list includes Google, eBay, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems, and Intel.
Immigrants are our engineers, scientists, and innovators. According to the Census Bureau, despite making up only 16 percent of the resident population holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, immigrants represent 33 percent of engineers, 27 percent of mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientist, and 24 percent of physical scientists. Additionally, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy, in 2011, foreign-born inventors were credited with contributing to more than 75 percent of patents issued to the top 10 patent-producing universities.
Immigration boosts earnings for American workers. Increased immigration to the United States has increased the earnings of Americans with more than a high school degree. Between 1990 and 2004, increased immigration was correlated with increasing earnings of Americans by 0.7 percent and is expected to contribute to an increase of 1.8 percent over the long-term, according to a study by the University of California at Davis.
Immigrants boost demand for local consumer goods. The Immigration Policy Center estimates that the purchasing power of Latinos and Asians, many of whom are immigrants, alone will reach $1.5 trillion and $775 billion, respectively, by 2015.
Immigration reform legislation like the DREAM Act reduces the deficit. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, under the 2010 House-passed version of the DREAM Act, the federal deficit would be reduced by $2.2 billion over ten years because of increased tax revenues.
Comprehensive immigration reform would create jobs. Comprehensive immigration reform could support and create up to 900,000 new jobs within three years of reform from the increase in consumer spending, according to the Center for American Progress.
Comprehensive immigration reform would increase America’s GDP.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that even under low investment assumptions, comprehensive immigration reform would increase GDP by between 0.8 percent and 1.3 percent from 2012 to 2016.

Report: More than half of immigrants on welfare

USA Today: More than half of the nation’s immigrants receive some kind of government welfare, a figure that’s far higher than the native-born population’s, according to a report to be released Wednesday.

About 51% of immigrant-led households receive at least one kind of welfare benefit, including Medicaid, food stamps, school lunches and housing assistance, compared to 30% for native-led households, according to the report from the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for lower levels of immigration.

Those numbers increase for households with children, with 76% of immigrant-led households receiving welfare, compared to 52% for the native-born.

The findings are sure to fuel debate on the presidential campaign trail as Republican candidates focus on changing the nation’s immigration laws, from calls for mass deportations to ending birthright citizenship.

Steven Camarota, director of research at the center and author of the report, said that’s a much-needed conversation to make the country’s immigration system more “selective.”

“This should not be understood as some kind of defect or moral failing on the part of immigrants,” Camarota said about the findings. “Rather, what it represents is a system that allows a lot of less-educated immigrants to settle in the country, who then earn modest wages and are eligible for a very generous welfare system.”

Linda Chavez agrees with Camarota that the country’s welfare system is too large and too costly. But Chavez, a self-professed conservative who worked in President Reagan’s administration, said it’s irresponsible to say immigrants are taking advantage of the country’s welfare system any more than native-born Americans.

Chavez said today’s immigrants, like all other immigrant waves in the country’s history, start off poorer and have lower levels of education, making it unfair to compare their welfare use to the long-established native-born population. She said immigrants have larger households, making it more likely that one person in that household will receive some kind of welfare benefit. And she said many benefits counted in the study are going to U.S.-born children of immigrants, skewing the findings even more.

“When you take all of those issues into account, (the report) is less worrisome,” she said.

Chavez, president of the Becoming American Institute, a conservative group that advocates for higher levels of legal immigration to reduce illegal immigration, said politicians should be careful about using the data. Rather than focus on the fact that immigrants are initially more dependent on welfare than the U.S.-born, she said they should focus on studies that show what happens to the children of those immigrants.

“These kids who get subsidized school lunches today will go on to graduate high school … will go on to college and move up to the middle class of America,” Chavez said. “Every time we have a nativist backlash in our history, we forget that we see immigrants change very rapidly in the second generation.”

The center’s report is based on 2012 data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation. It includes immigrants who have become naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents, those on short-term visas and undocumented immigrants.

Camarota said one of the most shocking findings from the report was the high number of native-born Americans also on welfare. About 76% of immigrant households with children are on welfare, but so are 52% of native-born households with children.

“Most people have a sense that if you were to work for $10 an hour, 40 hours a week, you couldn’t be receiving welfare, could you? You couldn’t be living in public housing, could you?” he said. “The answer is yes, you can. That’s one of the most surprising things about this study.”

Other findings in the report:

Immigrants are more likely to be working than their native-born neighbors. The report found that 87% of immigrant households had at least one worker, compared to 76% for native households.
The majority of immigrants using welfare come from Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. The use of welfare is lower for immigrants from East Asia (32%), Europe (26%) and South Asia (17%).
Immigrants who have been in the U.S. more than 20 years use welfare less often, but their rates remain higher than native-born households.

If you need some immigration advice, contact a team of immigration lawyers who will help you out.

Threats from China and Russia with Battleships?

Posted on September 3, 2015September 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

U.S. Shadowing Russian Ship in Atlantic Near Nuclear Submarine Areas

High-tech spy vessel carries cable-cutting gear, mini-subs

FreeBeacon: U.S. intelligence ships, aircraft, and satellites are closely watching a Russian military vessel in the Atlantic that has been sailing near a U.S. nuclear missile submarine base and underwater transit routes, according to Pentagon officials.

The Russian research ship Yantar has been tracked from the northern Atlantic near Canada since late August as it makes its way south toward Cuba.

Defense officials familiar with reports on the Russian ship say the Yantar is believed to be gathering intelligence on underwater sensors and other equipment used by U.S. nuclear submarines based at Kings Bay, Georgia. The submarines, their transit lanes, and training areas stretch from the coastal base through the Atlantic to Europe.

Intelligence analysts believe the ship, one of Russia’s newest military research vessels commissioned earlier this year, is part of a larger strategic intelligence-gathering operation against U.S. nuclear missile submarines and other targets.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information, said the ship is a concern because it is equipped with deep-sea surveillance craft and cable-cutting equipment.

In addition to cutting or tapping into undersea cables, the Yantar’s gear also could be used to rescue submarines if they become entangled in underwater cables.

A second defense official said the Yantar’s mission is not only to prepare to disrupt underwater communications. The ship is also part of a Russian underwater reconnaissance program to identify undersea communications trunk lines and nodes.

A major target of the program is the Department of Defense Information Network, known as DoDIN. Moscow is seeking to map the global information network that is vital for U.S. warfighters and policymakers and is a key target of Russian information warfare efforts.

The network includes dedicated military links as well as leased communications and computer systems.

Another concern related to the sea-based intelligence activities is that Russia has been adopting new warfighting techniques the Pentagon has dubbed hybrid warfare.

Hybrid conflict combines traditional military capabilities with information warfare techniques, such as cyber attacks. The disabling of undersea Internet cables could be a part of future hybrid warfare attacks as nations become increasingly reliant on global information networks, officials said.

Non-government military analysts identified the Yantar off the coast of Nova Scotia around Aug. 24.

More recently, an underwater military blog called “7 Feet Beneath the Keel,” reported the Yantar’s location on Sept. 1 as 90 miles north of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, some 769 miles from Kings Bay.

A Pentagon spokesman said the military is aware of the ship. “We respect the freedom of all nations to operate military vessels in international waters in accordance with international law,” the spokesman said.

The Yantar—Russian for “amber”—was built in a Baltic Sea shipyard of the same name and launched in last spring, the state-run Sputnik news agency reported on May 23. The ship will be used for deep-sea research and rescue operations.

The ship is part of Russia’s Northern Fleet and is equipped with two deep-sea remotely piloted submersibles.

“The ship carries the latest, most innovative equipment for acoustic, biological, physical, and geophysical surveys,” the report said.

“The Yantar is equipped with a unique on-board scientific research complex which enables it to collect data on the ocean environment, both in motion and on hold. There are no similar complexes anywhere,” said Alexei Burilichev, director of deepwater research at the Russian Defense Ministry, Sputnik reported.

Steffan Watkins, a Canadian-based open-source intelligence analyst who monitors Russian ship movements, said the Russian navy sends such auxiliary vessels to the region once or twice a year to check on existing U.S. underwater sensors or cables that have been detected previously. The ships also search for new equipment on the sea floor that would reveal U.S. operations.

In April 2014, the Pentagon said it was watching two Russian spy ships, the Viktor Leonov and Nikolay Chiker operating in the Atlantic near Kings Bay.

“I don’t think the Yantar is actively pulling up underwater cables,” said Watkins. “It seems more likely‎ they’d use their underwater sensors to map out defenses to prepare for future operations, and to avoid, blind, or destroy the sensors.”

Officials said another factor increasing U.S. concerns about Russian reconnaissance is Moscow’s recent adoption of a new military doctrine that places a greater reliance on strategic nuclear forces.

In addition to research ships, Russia’s military also is building a new class of intelligence-gathering and electronic warfare ships called Yuri Ivanov-class vessels.

Germany’s Bilt newspaper reported last month that the new spy ships are designed to track and follow U.S. warships. The ships will also provide communications and fleet management, conduct electronic warfare capabilities, and gather radio and electronic intelligence. The first ship was launched in July and three others are planned.

The new Ivanov spy ship was launched the same day that President Vladimir Putin unveiled a new Russian maritime doctrine that divided naval operating areas into six regions: Atlantic, Arctic, Antarctic, Caspian, Indian Ocean, and Pacific.

Russia’s priority for shipbuilding under the new doctrine will be ballistic missile submarines and nuclear attack submarines for its Northern and Pacific fleets.

Russia is deploying a new class of nuclear missile submarines called the Borey-class and maintaining existing Delta III and Delta IV missile submarines. Another generation of submarines beyond the Borey-class is also planned for 2030 to 2050.

A Russian embassy spokesman did not respond to an email request for comment.

Chinese Warships Spotted Off Alaska Coast, A New Chapter In Chinese Assertiveness

Inquisitor: Five Chinese warships have been spotted operating off the coast of Alaska, Pentagon officials told the Wall Street Journal. The task group includes three “combat ships,” a supply vessel, and an amphibious landing ship. The warships are being tracked in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands, a territory that is under joint U.S. and Russian control. According to the Department of Defense, this is the first time Chinese warships have been seen in this area. The composition of the task group makes its purpose fairly unambiguous. This is a group of warships designed to conduct an opposed landing.

CHINA MILITARY FRIGATE

This might sound like a big call, so here is an explanation. According to NPR, the task group is made up of three “combat ships,” a supply ship, and an amphibious landing ship. The “combat ships” are likely guided missile frigates or destroyers, deployed to protect the High Value Units (HVU), being the supply vessel and amphibious ship. Anyone familiar with naval operations will know that this is a classic configuration for an expeditionary task group, purposed with landing troops, supplies, armor, or all of the above on a hostile beach.

The frigates or destroyers maintain a dynamic screen around the other warships, acting as missile defense and attack dogs for the more vulnerable units in the group. The amphibious ship carries the troops, armor and supplies, while the supply ship is usually an underway fueling vessel designed to significantly increase operational range.

Given this, the Pentagon’s assessment that the Chinese warships are not acting in “any aggressive way” might seem a bit incongruous. It’s not. The vessels are in international waters and all ships, including Chinese warships, have a legal right of innocent passage. So long as they do not live fire any weapons or menace other shipping in the area, they are perfectly within their rights to be where they are. They may conduct limited military exercises, practice close manoeuvres, steam around in circles, or, in short, do whatever else they like. And one of the things that they can do, without anyone knowing or being able to prevent them, is soak up signals traffic from the area for the purposes of intelligence gathering. Chinese intelligence gathering is famously overt, a good example being the spy ship that observed and presumably recorded the last RIMPAC drills, the first to which the Chinese had been invited.

It has been suggested that the warships may have some link to the huge World War II anniversary parade celebrating China’s victory over Japan 70 years ago. More plausibly, other commentators suggest that the presence of Chinese warships near Alaska might be a direct response to increased U.S. Naval presence in the South China Sea. Whatever the reason, this incident fits neatly into the overall pattern of Chinese military and naval expansion that has been cause for significant concern over the last decade.

Chinese policy is no respecter of diplomatic or military conventions. The Chinese PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) is currently trying to re-write maritime law in the South China Sea by publicly flouting it and has previously sent warships into the zones of interest of countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. On top of this, its enormous fishing fleet militia is expanding Chinese maritime activity further and further abroad. This latest manifestation of Chinese assertiveness confirms, beyond doubt, that China is serious about its goal to establish a truly global blue water navy. All that’s in doubt now is how the rest of the world will react to this new factor in the global balance of power.