Because 2020 just didn’t have enough tricks up its sleeve, the specters of multiple wars seem to be popping up all over the place.
- The most worrying, from our perspective, is the possibility of a U.S./China military confrontation over a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
After Beijing officials have repeatedly charged Washington with violating the decades-long status quo “One China policy”, and amid ratcheting tensions over Taiwan given the highest-level meeting between Washington and the self-ruled island in decades is currently taking place with Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar meeting government officials in Taipei Monday, the region is on edge after satellite images showing a significant Chinese military build-up near the island have reportedly emerged.
The New Zealand Herald reports the alarming development that “satellite images reportedly show amphibious armored vehicles and mobile missile launchers massing at military bases near the island nation.”
Specifically, according to the report, the images show “the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) moving the military vehicles into the Eastern Theatre Command on China’s coastal cities across the strait from Taiwan, with missile launchers well within range to hit any targets in Taiwan.”
It comes after threats and counter-threats of military build-up between the two, with regional analysts cited in the report saying there’s currently high risk for military clash or incident.
While it’s unclear where the newly published image featured in the New Zealand Herald is ultimately sourced from (the satellite images first appeared in Kanwa Defence Review – a Canadian military magazine focused on East Asian affairs and diplomacy), many are convinced that Beijing is sending a clear signal to Washington and Taipei. However, the satellite image could also simply reveal a military base vehicle storage depot, common at most any nation’s military bases.
- I’ve covered the slow motion Chinese-Indian War before, but that’s not going away any time soon. Both side continue their military build-up along the Line of Actual Control.
- Tensions are also high between Greece and Turkey, with Turkey sending a military escort along with an oil exploration ship into (disputed) Greek waters.
Tension remained high Tuesday between Greece and Turkey, both of which have warships in the eastern Mediterranean after Turkey sent a research vessel to carry out seismic research for energy resources in an area Greece says is on its continental shelf.
Greece will be requesting an emergency meeting of the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council, the prime minister’s office announced following a meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias.
Ankara announced on Monday that its research vessel Oruc Reis and two support vessels would be operating in the Mediterranean Sea between Cyprus and Greece until Aug. 23. The vessel arrived in the area Monday morning, escorted by Turkish warships.
Greece slammed the decision as an illegal act that infringed on its sovereign rights, saying the Turkish research vessel was inside an area covered by the Greek continental shelf. Greek warships were in the area and were monitoring the Oruc Reis, and the military was on alert, officials said.
NATO allies and neighbors Greece and Turkey have traditionally had testy relations and have been at odds for decades over a wide variety of issues. The two have come to the brink of war three times since the mid-1970s, including once over drilling exploration rights. Recent discoveries of natural gas and drilling plans across the east Mediterranean have led to renewed tension.
Yeah, but Greek-Turkish enmity goes back much farther than that, almost a millennium back, to when the Turkic Islamic Seljuk Empire started their conquest of the Hellenized Byzantine Empire’s Anatolia, up through the Ottoman Empire’s conquest of Constantinople in 1453, and the Ottoman conquest of almost all of Greece over the next hundred years. There then followed many unsuccessful Greek revolts, until Greece threw off the Ottoman yoke with the Greek War of independence (1821-1830). The two have fought each other several times since then, until the breakup of the Ottoman Empire led to the creation of the modern state of Turkey and the Grecco-Turkish War (1919-1922), where a Greek attempt to seize back Anatolian land led to a disasterous defeat culminating in the Great Fire of Smyrna. And don’t forget the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, resulting in the effective division of the island.
Are any of these actually going to blossom into full-blown war? I suspect China is just sabre-rattling over Taiwan. Their best play would seem to be to wait for the possibility of a Biden Presidency to escape the vice that President Trump’s sanctions have put them into. And China thinks it can continue to eat away at Indian territory if it just bides its time.
As far as a new Greek-Turkish War, that’s a more likely possibility, because the two really do hate each other. But one wonders whether Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ploy of another military adventure to distract Turkish voters from the quagmire of his current military adventures in Syria (yes, two, if you count the Afrin-Idlib incursion separate from the Kurdish buffer zone) will play well with Turkish voters.
The post title is not an invocation, but a reference to pioneering punk band Fear’s song of the same name from their album The Record
Tags: China, Communism, Foreign Policy, Greece, India, Jihad, Military, Ottoman Empire, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Taiwan, Turkey
Not too many years ago, getting involved in a ‘land war in Asia’ was considered a bad idea because China, with its huge population, could send endless waves of soldiers into combat. That’s changing, primarily because of China’s lengthy one-child policy. Those only children, called “little emperors” by the Chinese, are now grown up. They are spoiled and adapt poorly to military life. Nor are Chinese parents with but one son going to accept a war that might take that son away from them.
To conquer Taiwan, China will need to invade with sea-borne forces. All Taiwan needs to do to prevent an invasion is make clear that such an invasion will be very costly in lives. That worked for the British in WWII. It will work for them.
Most completely underestimate the willingness of China (and the CCP specifically) to acquire Taiwan. Taiwan presents a political challenge to the CCP by its mere existence, with a fairly happy and well-off population seeing no need to communize under the CCPs all-knowing leadership. Getting rid of Taiwan isn’t just about the geography or about historical claims, it’s about eliminating a threat to the CCP’s legitimacy as the one and only ruler of Chinese people anywhere. To that end expect the Chinese do whatever it takes, even if it comes at a horrendous price of blood and treasure.