Both Russian and Chinese weapons have been found in abundance in Iraq. It cracks me up - many on the Left and even, sadly, a few here, love to point to "Reagan helping Saddam" or "Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam" and blab on, untruthfully, that supposedly "Saddam's WMDs were supplied by the US." To set the record straight, the US supplied some small number of CONVENTIONAL weapons and choppers to Saddam very early in the 80s to counteract radical Iran. That was it. That stuff, if not used in the Iran - Iraq War, long ago passed its shelf life. EVERYTHING supplied to Saddam since the mid 1980s HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY THE USSR, RUSSIA, THE PRC, THE DPRK, SYRIA, FRANCE, GERMANY, UKRAINE, PAKISTAN, SERBIA, BOSNIA AND CUBA. End of discussion.
In 1995, a then obscure geopolitical analyst published a paper that was strangely prophetic. The name of that author, since rewarded by the benefits bestowed by a best selling book, was none other than Yossef Bodansky. The title of the still rather unknown paper was "Beijing's Surge For The Strait Of Malacca" .
The paper outlined the tangled but effective web of relationships that, at the time, tied together the People's Republic of China with a wide ranging asymmetrical war making capability aimed at the West. The web who were, and are, effecting the asymmetrical offensive included the Pakistani ISI, the Filipino rebel group Abu Sayyaf, and, various other well known "terrorist" groups. The conclusion of this Bodansky paper was that the PRC were using "terrorism" as a proxy intended to sow instability around the Strait of Malacca thereby, ultimately, giving Beijing and nations of her "Trans-Asian Axis" geopolitical entrance to a key maritime choke point and oil rich area.
Since the time of publication of the aforementioned paper, the relationships between the PRC and Pakistan, Iran, Syria and other nations currently the focus of much US attention have blossomed. In and of itself, this apparent solidification of a Beijing led Axis is troubling. However, on July 16, 2001, a new geopolitical event multiplied the risks enormously.
Little mentioned in the Western media, and receiving virtually no coverage from large corporate media outlets, a treaty was finalized. The treaty was between the People's Republic of China and Russia. Although relations between Beijing and Moscow had already thawed considerably since the late 1980s, this treaty marked the first formal solidification of the relationship since the late 1950s. An official press release by the PRC government lauded this development. The treaty has since been approved by the Russian Duma and signed by Vladimir Putin.
To put it as plainly as possible, the Trans-Asian Axis had grown considerably through the de facto inclusion of Russia. The Axis now has access to the world's largest armory of nuclear weapons, and, beyond that, a vast array of both tactical and strategic military capabilities.
In the years leading up to this historic turn of events, Russia had also been quietly staking out relationships with states known to sponsor "terrorism." By the late 1990s, the relationships with Iran , Iraq and Syria were open and were cause for Western concern. In yet another obscure paper by Bodansky, the early stages of Syrian arms build ups were revealed. In the now much discussed case of Iran, Moscow had essentially broken an agreement brokered by Al Gore Jr. regarding a ban on supplying of advanced weaponry including Kilo class submarines to Tehran. More recently, Russian involvement in both commercial and military deals with Iraq has been noted.
It is against the background of all of these geopolitical behaviors that we would be wise to view a recent sequence of events. The first such event was the EP-3 incident involving the People's Republic of China. The second was the attack on the USA on September 11, 2001. And, most recently, the upsurge in asymmetrical warfare perpetrated by the PLO in Israel constitutes another. I shall leave the detailed acquisition of data on these events and their ties to the Trans-Asian Axis to the intelligence community. It does, however, stand to reason that given the stated anti Western and anti American aims of the Trans-Asian Axis, such events have served as rather convenient means of both directly attacking Western interests, as well as pronounced distractions affecting our levels of attention focussed on the wider geopolitical arena. Beyond that, they have been a direct resource drain on our military and other resources. This is particularly disturbing given the current apparent lack of large scale war time mobilization of either the defense community or the main stream civilian economy - we are clearly not preparing for any sort of wider war between great powers and if anything are becoming less prepared for any such contingency.
Like the UK, the world's lone superpower during the years between World War One and World War Two, we are seemingly confounded by what seem to be an array of conflicting indicators and apparent (and in certain cases, I believe, fabricated) "signals" regarding the overall direction of geopolitics. We seem to not quite understand just who are our likely major adversaries, and, who should be our allies. We seem to assume that great powers conflicts are, in accordance with wishful thinking that has welled up since the apparent "fall of the Eastern Bloc" 1989 - 1991 , a characteristic of some past age, and that we should therefore couch current data in terms of a "new" set of assumptions.
Unfortunately, the consequences of of these assumptions being erroneous carry downside risks that are nearly unbearable to contemplate. In the opinion of this author, it is time for an extensive, harsh, and, worst case examination of the current geopolitical realities, our position in them, and what specific actions will be needed to master the situation and preclude an outcome far worse than that visited upon the UK in 1940 . Let us not be in denial about the continuing existence and anti Western behavior of the Trans-Asian Axis, and let us proactively rise to meet the challenge with initiative, courage, and determination to emerge victorious from the next, and, stochastically unavoidable, great powers conflict. Through diligent use of contingency management techniques, coupled with aggressive outward communication of our limits of tolerance, backed by overwhelming offensive, defensive and civil defensive capabilities, we might stand a chance of meeting the inevitable crisis with ourselves in control of the initiative. Given the current situation, any failure on our part to achieve such a result may well be looked upon by future historians as our last fatal error as a nation and as a great civilization. This author must therefore state, "not on my watch."