Posted on 07/06/2021 8:47:44 PM PDT by eekitsagreek
Speaking at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, on July 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attempted a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, Pompeo repudiated more than four decades of American policy toward China. Pompeo argued that the days of the U.S. holding out hope for political liberalization was over. And he called on free nations around the world to lock arms against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) various schemes and threats.
On the other hand, Pompeo said he did not want to “seem too eager to tear down President Nixon’s legacy.” While Nixon’s presidency ended in disgrace, he is still widely considered something of a foreign policy success—the man who initiated America’s great opening to China. Pompeo didn’t want to directly undermine Nixon’s supposed accomplishment. “I want to be clear that he did what he believed was best for the American people at the time, and he may well have been right,” Pompeo said of Nixon’s diplomacy with the Chinese.
Pompeo’s use of the word “may” was telling. Maybe Nixon was right—or maybe he wasn’t. Given the substance of his speech, it is quite possible that Pompeo thinks Nixon was wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at fdd.org ...
who will we ally with to defeat china?
russia
russia.
No. that situation is now reversed. China is now famous for reforestation. currently they reforest about 800 square miles a year.
one way or the other. the usa needs to rebalance relationships with the big continental powers in favor of russia.
Allying with Red China did not help us defeat the USSR.
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true. the reapproachment with china was merely a pressure point.
And it was us who actually (unfortunately) saved the USSR because having them fall to the Nazis would have put that enemy on our back doorstep.
True. It is something I’ve heard putin mention from time to time: that while the USA and russia are currently adversaries—in two great wars of the 20th century—the USA and russia were allies. That’s why Putin doesn’t currently want or need a military alliance with China. He also understands that in the west he’s faced with poodles in western europe.— which given the wokeness of infecting the academies—is a status the USA is on the way to.
If you look at your sentence above you’ll know the choice of siding with the USSR was one of choosing between the lesser to two weavels.
Similarly, rebalancing relations again —as Kissenger did-but this time in favor of Russia—would not help us in a war against china. Rather it would make the Chinese more afraid to commit themselves to war—in places like taiwan—knowing that their principal ally —Russia —would not provide them with any backing at all.
Nixon “played the China card” to triangulate against the Soviet Union— at the time the greatest threat to world freedom since the Axis powers. He would never have condoned the later sellouts engineered by crony capitalists and their hired hands in the State department.
Nixon’s secret plan was Vietnamization, which he began to implement immediately he took office. He succeeded in ending American ground involvement in VietNam and withdrawing of combat troops, which was the goal of the plan.
> Also “it worked out pretty well with the collapse of the USSR”. NOPE.
I disagree. So maybe you knew people involved and saw a bunch of stuff (briefings, incidents, actions, etc.) happen. That sort of thing has always gone on and the “no shit this really happened” stuff is always happening. I was making an observation about the highest level strategic calculus. At the time (almost 50 years ago!), the USSR was the big threat. China wasn’t. It is now. That says it’s time to modify the high level policy. I’d bet that something will change high level policy in the next 50 years. Wanna take that bet? ;-)
Did everything play out perfect? No, it never does. Nobody has perfect forward vision and can only do what they see now.
The Soviet’s primary weapon in Afghanistan was the Hind helicopter gunship, which ravaged the afghans from the air, and for which they had no answer until we sent them the Stingers. All the Chinese rifles in the world were useless against them.
Yes. At the time he didn't think China would become a manufacturing superpower. I'm not sure if he saw it coming by the end of his life, but China had come out of turmoil and famine only a few years before, and it wasn't at all clear that China's leaders would ever encourage capitalistic development or break out of the economic stagnation that Communist regimes were experiencing in those days.
“The Soviet’s primary weapon in Afghanistan was the Hind helicopter gunship, which ravaged the afghans from the air, and for which they had no answer until we sent them the Stingers. All the Chinese rifles in the world were useless against them.”
The Stinger missile story is a popular one, but simply not true:
*The Soviets suffered 70,000 casualties in 10 years of war. The vast majority before the the Stingers showed up in 1986.
*The Afghans had shot down plenty of Soviet helicopters using Chinese made AA guns and missiles before we sent them the Stingers
*The Soviets decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made before the first Stinger missile arrived in theater.
I disagree. But agree that nothing will happen under the current administration.
imho that re setting of relations with Russia was on Trump’s agenda—but so much of the democrat party is paid for by china that—that dems were incented to successfully sabotage his efforts.
“Ho was a nationalist Vietnamese first....”
In 1920, 20 year old Ho Chi Minh (or whatever his actual name is) attended the Congress of the Socialist Party of France. He wanted French socialists to join Lenin’s Comintern. By 1923 he was in Moscow as a high ranking member of the Comintern.
During the long nationalist war against French rule in Indochina Ho spent his energy betraying his fellow united front leaders who weren’t Viet Minh. Ho wasn’t just a Marxist, he was a committed Leninist. Kill off any rivals to future power. As with Fidel Castro, the story line that Ho was a potential ally of the US is leftwing fiction designed to mask what he really was.
Thank you!
*The Soviets decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was made before the first Stinger missile arrived in theater.*
Interesting-didn’t know that-Proof?
I have been observing all that Pillsbury NOW says about the U.S.-China relationship, longer than Pillsbury has been admitting it.
The CCP in China is not culturally different than the Chinese emperors of old, nor lacking in their Chinese nationalist and imperialist ambitions. If the last empress of China had not been so weak, and had begun modernization and industrialization as early as Japan, history in east Asia may have been different, but the global aims of China would not be different than they are today. The CCP dictators are merely a modern collective version of the old Chinese emperors, and rule domestically just as ruthlessly.
Wasn’t on Putin’s agenda. But he underestimated Trump.
than reading what backbenchers and armchair historians wrote post-hoc the events.
There is a great book called the Long Goodbye on the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It’s a troubling read because page after page you could substitute USA for USSR as 30 years later we kept trying to do the exact things the USSR did.
Gorbachev was selected in part because he wanted to end the war and the Politburo had decided on a withdrawal by the end of 1985.
After that the Soviets began to pull back their troops and instead rely on their Afghan allies. This process lasted three long years as they wanted to somehow arrange the withdrawal to not look like a defeat.
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