Trump's Grand Strategy

 

A map of the contiguous 55 states.

Trump’s foreign policy moves—wanting to annex Greenland, wanting to annex Canada, wanting the Panama Canal returned, wanting to take Gaza—might seem random outbursts, back of the envelope ideas. But they all make sense on one strategic principle.

Trump is preparing for war with China or perhaps a China-Russia coalition. He is not inclined to be caught flat-footed, as Britain was in 1939.

This is just as well, since China seems to be preparing for war, and Russia has already started.

Trump needs Greenland as a source of rare earth minerals, necessary for chip production. China has the other great cache of rare earth, and the US as well as the rest of the world is currently reliant on them. Doom in case of war.

Denmark is just not big or strong enough to protect Greenland and its sea lanes if China or Russia struck first. Perhaps the US could take it back, but that’s a much more difficult proposition than defending it well in the first place. And taking it back is not enough. Mines must be developed and a supply chain set up in advance of conflict. Otherwise American will not be able to make the weapons needed to take it back.

The same applies to Canada’s North. It too is rich in minerals, including strategic oil and uranium. Like Denmark, Canada is not strong enough to defend this vast territory. And on top of oil and minerals, the Northwest Passage may soon become more navigable—if not due to global warming, due to improved icebreaking technology. This could then become a critical supply route for both the US East Coast and Europe—a shorter route than the Panama Canal. But a route vulnerable to Russia nearby.

Supply routes become critical in time of war. Britain defeated Germany in both past wars largely due to blockade; while Germany’s best hope was cutting off the North Atlantic convoy with their U-boats. Britain always pursued a similar strategy of owning the choke points for trade: Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore, Quebec, Aden, the Cape of Good Hope. America cannot rely any longer, as it once could, on a strong Britain to keep trade routes open.

And so too the importance of the Panama Canal. The US needs to hold that choke point, and keep it away from China. Panama cannot defend it. It connects the American East and West coasts.

And now look at Gaza. Note how close it is to the Suez Canal. A US military base in Gaza is at least in easy striking distance—across good flat tank terrain, let alone in bomber range. The US does not need Suez for its trade—but Europe does. Thus Trump should want to control it, both to protect Europe and, if necessary, to keep Europe in line.

This is also why Trump has just declared 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. These are strategic materials, needed for tanks, artillery, airplanes, ships, shells. America cannot import their steel from China, fostering that industry, while their own withers. And it is better not to rely on vulnerable and not entirely reliable Canada either—unless Canada joins the union, with the US armed forces to build and maintain strong defenses.

Canada not entirely reliable? No; Justin Trudeau has demonstrated that to the Americans. Canada can elect governments with Chinese and totalitarian sympathies; and Americans remember Cuba. Canada has proven vulnerable to Chinese and Indian espionage and influence over its electoral process. Canda is letting in a lot of immigrants who may not be democratic or pro-Western in their allegiances.

I used to be a firm believer in free trade. But its advantages are gone in case of war. America’s great advantage has always been its massive industrial production and self-sufficiency, protected behind oceans from sudden attack. It could always win a long war. Trump must restore that massive industrial production and security of resources to make America safe again. 

Once we see the strategy, we can perhaps predict Trump’s future moves. One can expect him to act quickly and decisively to bring chip production onshore from Taiwan and Indonesia. Expect big tariffs here. I would not be surprised if he offered Denmark statehood, during Greenland negotiations, in order to control the entrance to the Baltic Sea.

Other ideas are welcome in the comments.

The Art of War

Sun Tzu

It seems rather little noticed, in the midst of the general apocalypse, but Donald Trump declared a state of national emergency yesterday. Not because of the coronavirus; that was already a declared state of emergency. About a threat to the power grid.

He says foreign adversaries are creating and increasingly exploiting vulnerabilities.

The emergency order bans the importation of equipment from “adversary nations.”

Something is going on, and it does not sound good.

I argued in this space a few days ago that war between the US and China was improbable; both had more to lose than to gain.

But I was thinking of conventional war.

What seems to have happened, and become apparent suddenly, is the emergence of a new Cold War, between the US and China, in which China is seeking dominance by non-military means, but no other holds barred. By indirection.

It is strange that this is coming to a head at the same time as the coronavirus pandemic, if the coronavirus pandemic is not a part of this plan.

It is too much to think the Chinese deliberately let the virus loose In Wuhan; the virus is indiscriminate, and they would not start by killing their own people. But once it was loose, they seem to have behaved suspiciously: shutting down travel out of Wuhan except overseas, by air. There are signs they deliberately spread the virus to north Italy: one guy who was part of a Chinese government front organization was standing on street corners asking for hugs with the sign “I am not a virus.” They withheld and suppressed information to other governments, while buying up all the protective equipment they could on the world market. Now they are shipping out protective equipment, and test kits, that turn out to be defective. Is this incompetence, or design?

It may be, too, that the virus escaped from a government lab. And it may be that the lab was working on weaponizing viruses.

Meantime, things seem to be heating up in the South China Sea. This seems to have been initiated by China, sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat, then driving off a US Navy ship. They are trying, as they were inevitably going to sooner or later, to assert sovereignty over those sea lanes. Perhaps they hope the US will be too distracted by the virus to respond.

The rumours are spreading that, apart from electrical equipment, many things being imported from China have built-in vulnerabilities allowing Chinese spying and, potentially, control: 5G, Zoom for teleconferencing, HuaWei phones, and so forth.

A couple of weeks or so ago, Trump called out the navy to stop drug trafficking, suggesting there was a sudden surge in the middle of the pandemic. We have long been thinking the problem was Mexico, and I was thinking Venezuela. On that basis, the call made little sense: the border with Mexico was closed. And the navy was of no use at that border. But the ultimate source for most of these opioids is China. They must come across that ocean. Has China been deliberately flooding the Americas with these drugs, inspired by what opium did to disrupt and weaken Qing Dynasty society?

It is beginning to look, as well, as though China has been doing a lot of bribery around the world. The belt and road initiative has been buying governments, but that is above board. There is something else going on. The WHO is in their pocket. This does not seem to be adequately accounted for by the official funding: as Trump keeps saying, the US pays ten times the portion of their budget that China does. It looks as though people, government officials and others, are being bought individually. We are recently hearing of American academics having been bought. The absurdly pro-regime coverage recently from the CBC makes me suspect that Canadian journalists are being bought. Other evidence is how media outlets in the US and Canada swiftly fell in line behind the claim that it was racist to call COVID-19 the "Chinese virus." YouTuber JJ McCullough tells of being offered money by the Chinese government to spread their propaganda on his channel.

It belatedly occurs to me that this is exactly the Chinese way. No open conflict. Everything is done through “back doors.” One day you wake up, and someone new is calling the shots.

It’s war, Jim, but not war as we know it.

The Coming War with China

This writer speaks of war with China within the next two years as a foregone conclusion.

He might be right. Although war makes no sense for China, it might make sense for the Communist leadership.

He envisions a war in which China faces off simultaneously against the US, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Singapore. Lots of luck with that...