Unfortunately current administration all do is talk and has no concrete plan of retrieving the island illegally occupied by Chinese despite of UNCLOS verdict that island is owned by Philippines. Current president is promoting China's ideology and doctrines and instead insulted the US president and telling the world openly in public that he is not a fan of US and recently announced procuring Chinese weapons.
Did the Brits really give the Americans ''space to grow'' or was it because they were unable to do anything about it or because it wasn't in their interests to stop the Americans from ''growing''? Take the Caribbean for example; when America was making the Caribbean an American lake, it was quite prepared to use military means to face any European power that stood in it way. It just happened that no European power decided to intervene; either because they lacked the means or because it wouldn't have benefited them.
I suspect that it's mostly talk. Sure the Philippines might buy some gear from China and Russia but at the end of the day; the Philippines will still rely on the U.S. for diplomatic and military support. The Philippines has had a colonial like dependency [to quote Robert Kaplan in ''Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific''] on the U.S. for decades and I doubt if this will change; despite what Durtarte says. Also, if Durtarte was really serious about pursuing what he calls an independent foreign policy, then he should renounce the U.S./Philippines Mutual Defence Treaty and reject any more offers made by the Americans for the transfer of pre-owned military gear! The Philippines Coast Guard will be the beneficiary of a pair of ex-U.S. Army Sherpas in December - the fact remains that the Philippines benefits immensely from its close ties with Uncle Sam. All the recent announcements by Durtarte with regards to the U.S. is music to China's years. The Chinese will be more than happy to fill that void by offering increasing their level of investments and offering military gear at ''friendship'' prices.
Most likely it wasn't worth the effort for Britain (or any other European power) to get involved in a pi$$ing match in the Caribbean. Spain was really the only player that the US took issue with. Besides, India and the Far East were Britain's crown jewels and nobody could interfere with them until WW1.
Exactly right and certainly there are some worrying similarities today in the SCS.
Malaysia has always portrayed itself as neutral or non-aligned and has made great efforts in being best mates with the Chinese. The fact remains however that Malaysia has had a decades long close defence relationship with Uncle Sam and the relationship is reaching new levels - there are regular military exchanges, regular air, sea and land exercises and the first ASEAN country F-22s participated in a bilateral exercise was in Malaysia. The only difference [compared to some of its neighbours] is that Malaysia often plays down the extent of its defence ties with Uncle Sam and does not allow for the permanent deployment of U.S. military assets in the country.
Oh yes. Not because of any benevolent feelings for the American rebels, but because in the early days of the USA the UK preferred it to be independent than to be under the control or influence of any other European country. And the same applied to the Spanish colonies after their wars of independence. So the Monroe doctrine was effectively enforced by the Royal Navy.
Willing to acknowledge Germany's position as a continental power, but not the continental power. And not one in control of the low countries. That was a red line which must not be crossed, like Russian control of the Turkish straits.
I fully understand that it is an explanation of why it happens.Three things.
First, it's not so much about justification. Those come later. It's about reasons for action. It matters far more why China is acting the way it is then how it justifies those actions.
Second, when actions in relatively recent past (like the post-Cold War settlement) have a giant impact today, pretending that the past is the past isn't really fair. And comparing the treatment of China over the late 19th and first half of the 20th century to something that happened by geopolitical entities that haven't been around for centuries isn't really relevant. The US has a whole network of small islands in the Pacific. That isn't the historic result of some ancient events. It's the direct result of a deliberate imperialist policy in modern history. I'm not saying the US needs to hand over those islands, but I am saying that Chinese desires are modest compared to what the US already has. Chinese behavior is problematic not only because of the behavior but also because there is no currently acceptable international framework to deal with a rising power without conflict.
Third, it's not so much about countries losing importance. That's a significantly smaller problem. If Russia was getting weaker and feeling insecure about it, it would be no big deal. It's the fact that Russia was weak and is getting stronger again, and wants to undo what was forced (or "persuaded" in exchange for promises made and not always kept) on it when it was weak. Much the same but on a bigger scale applies to China. And unfortunately there is the Middle-Eastern powderkeg, a startling and very unpleasant parallel to the pre-WWI Balkans.
It seems to me Waylander that you are approaching the problem in terms of right and wrong. But these are not useful categories when we are talking about politics. It doesn't matter how "right" the US position is vis-a-vis international law (that the US had a major hand in writing, and China got little to no say in) if the US being right still leads the world into WWIII with a tens of millions death toll, and entire countries laid to waste. This is why I think situations like Ukraine and the SCS are alarm bells that the current order is in trouble, and the process of looking for a new one needs to begin.
Well it gets complicated. For example, in several towns, and not the smallest ones, there's an active push to put up monuments to Stalin. And this is coming from the public, the government has little desire to do this, much less spend money on it. The first one went up a little bit ago, in Sochi, and now a second one has appeared in a semi-legal manner, after municipal authorities ignored all public requests, in Surgut. That having been said, the government stance doesn't help things either. And Russia isn't unique in this. Ukraine is in a similar boat vis-a-vis the crimes of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, for example, and Poland recently has become more and more troubling in terms of revisionism (their MinDef recently had the gall to say that although the Volyn massacre was perpetrated by Ukrainian Nazis under German oversight, really Russian agents were behind it :hitwall ). So revisionism in general is on the rise in Eastern Europe as countries try to re-write history to suit their present-day narrative. And they're not alone in this. Few US history classes mention that Lincoln used troops to gun down anti-draft protests during the Civil War, and not many in France are willing to acknowledge the atrocities they committed during the Algerian independence war. It's a rather sad and ugly truth that this sort of thing is more common in Eastern Europe, and especially Russia (with all of the imperial ambitions).
The short answer is because Germany lost WWII, and the Soviets won it. Had the Poles lived under ~50 years of German Nazi occupation, it's not unlikely that the situation would be reversed, especially if Germany was never defeated militarily, and retained fond memories of it's time as a super power. That having been said, Poland and Russia have been at odds for centuries. For a brief time span Poland even treated Russia as a colony (this was during the Middle Ages). So there's a lot of bad blood there, not all of it necessarily relevant to the current problems.
The neighbors' islands are tools with which to oppose the US. But that's neither here nor there. Many things "could" happen in theory. But what matters is what is happening in practice. There is a cascade of smaller conflicts with great powers balancing off against each other over them. It's not a good situation.
The west funding anti-government protests, ousting an elected government, pretending that an illegal junta is anything but, and then supporting fake elections (prior to which the two largest parties in all of Ukraine were legally banned) is anything but a perceived or ancient slight. Ignoring the UN and going to war in Yugoslavia and Iraq were not perceived slights to Russian honor, but real attacks on the post-WWII international arrangement, and they didn't come from Russia or China. Turning a no-fly zone resolution over Libya into an excuse for an all out bombing campaign, with SpecOps on the ground, didn't help either. And there are American trails all over both the color revolutions and Arab Spring. Hell, I literally took a college class, here in the US of A where a college professor taught us how color revolutions are started, organized, how to make one happen. It needs to be understood that once the US became the only super power after the Cold War, it started to act like the only super power. Russia and China refuse to acknowledge this, and are challenging this in whatever ways they can. Other countries, while not directly challenging America's status, are nonetheless undermining the US position by acting in line with their own rather then US interests. The situation is untenable in the long run on multiple fronts, and if we want to avoid a major war, real consideration needs to be given to an international arrangement that recognizes the changes that have taken place since 1945, and since 1994. If you really want to make the argument that big countries can't bully small ones, then the US, Britain and France need to set the standard by being willing to follow the same principles. If the they continue to act like they're special, and can do what they feel necessary when they feel necessary, while everyone else has to follow the rules (a crooked set of rules laid down by a handful of actors quite some time ago) then we are headed for another war. This is reality. No matter whose fault it is, no matter what is and isn't justified, political actions have to be goal oriented. If you goal is to be right no matter what, you might find yourself right, and in the middle of a burned out bombed out husk of a civilization.
which I think they can use to leverage both for good deals. Stay neutral is better than lean too much toward either position. ScS is more important to China than US, and china will more likely to punish the smaller nation who lean too much on US side, such as economy,fishing right etc, while US wont do the same. Which is more important for country such as phillippine to negotiate a deal with china to allow fishing in the area, this is something only china can control, as US will not goto war with china for phillippine fishing right.
I hope it's not too off topic to explore Feanor but I find your words highly intriguing. Could they be trying to warn off potential adversaries by making these discrete actions? How would such a war begin and why do they see it to be imminent? Just having a 50 000 or so defensive NATO force close by surely should not concern Russia and neither should the one or two missile shield installations. A miscalculation incident in the air or on the water say in the Baltic or Black Sea is likely to be easily resolved once both sides have drawn first blood.
These aren't preparations for a war tomorrow. And they're proceeding at a relatively leisurely pace. But they're indications that Russian strategic planners now consider a major war more likely then before. It's also indicative that this took place in the south, close to both Ukraine and the Caucuses. Two places where Russia may find itself involved in a conventional conflict.
NATO's Eastward Expansion: Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow? - SPIEGEL ONLINE
That belief is prevalent to the point where it's assumed without even needing explicit stating or proving. And I don't think it's baseless. I think the US would certainly prefer Russia did not meddle in US geopolitical moves around the globe.
It's hard to say. For example, NATO has made it very clear that the Baltics will be protected. On the one hand Russia continues to conduct large scale exercises of their own around there, on the other hand there doesn't seem to be any directed effort at preparing for a war there, specifically. Most of their efforts are focused around the south, Ukraine, the Caucuses, and to some extent Central Asia. You're asking me to assess internal Russian decision-making, and I'm afraid I can't give you a 100% answer.
Just to put this into the pot. By sheer coincidence in today's news:
Sure, this isn't wrong, though it's not the whole picture either. And let's not conflate the economic situation of Russia with the financial situation of the Russian state specifically. The two are related but are not the same.
) which tradionally more western leaning, and the rest that try to be in the middle.