NavyCDR comments

All it will take will be for the ASEAN nations to grow the cajones to stand up to China.

China can win against any single small state, but if they all stay united China can only win a single battle, and will lose the long war.

While I hate to see the US dragged back to SE Asia, a sea war there is nothing like a land war, and the US unparalleled resources to obliterate China's navy, and they know it.

Even when the Liaoning becomes fully operational - years from now for effective carrier operations - the US has the full carriers, as well as the LPH's with Harriers now and F-35's in the future, to overwhelm Chinese assets. If you take India's current carriers, and Australia's future carriers, you could overwhelm China without the US.

So, Vietnam and Phillippines and Malaysia and Singapore, grow the cajones and stand up to them!

Ultimately there will be a naval alliance of the US with not only Japan but also Philippines and Vietnam and Australia and India.

China, by itself, could win over any one of these except the superb US Navy, but when you combine even the current naval resources of these other nations, ignoring the improvements we can expect in the other nations, China does not stand a chance.

At some point China will have to decide if they want economic expansion, or if they want to be simply the big bully of the Western Pacific.

Her choice.

Some day, I hope the Japan that I love will abandon such practices as the slaughter of dolphins and whales.

The world will be a better place, and Japan will be respected and admired.

That's a rather silly comment.

Manufacturing decisions are made on the basis of economics, including tariffs and cost of production and local preferences, and not as a reward for proper behavior.

If Honda, or other Japanese companies, wish to put pride above profits, that 's fine, as long as their shareholders agree.

I'm amazed at the number of ex-Soviet plants posting here to support the Russian invasion of Crimea.

Moldova, you're next for a partial takeover, and then Russia will finish Ukraine, and then the rest of Moldova.

Putin is a dangerous megalomaniac, with or without shirt.

The US should stop providing the needed military strength for the EU, and force those nations to spend the money, and grow the cajones, to provide for their own defense to dissuade future Russian aggression. It's time for the Germans to stop using the excuse of their post WW2 constitution, and to stop allowing the German industrial empire to move that nation to be little more than a soulless business-state.

It will have to be a gradual process, but the US should set a timetable for its effectual withdrawal from Europe as anything more than a suppurating military partner

Simple solution; Japan volunteers to donate all whale flesh, incidentally resulting from their "scientific" experiments, to zoos outside Japan with nothing going back to Japan beyond "scientific" data.

If Japan is being honest, then they will agree.

Do please let us all know about the Scottish and Catalonian thugs and foreign troops in those two regions. That plus show us their referendums in which "remain as is as current" will not be on their ballot. The Russian thugs, and "covert" troops - I mean really, taking off insignia and wearing face cover? - are not there to promote a status quo, are they?

Dennis 711 is the first person to get to the heart of the matter.

Militarily, the US is the only nation which could stop Putin's Russia, but even a small misstep could result in global destruction, with Russia obliterated, and the US mortally wounded, and the radioactive fallout would poison the entire globe.

But, if the entire industrial world stand together, and economically devastate the shaky Russian economy, even the mad Putin will pause before trying to take back the rest of Ukraine, or Poland, or Estonia, or Latvia, or Lithuania.

In the meantime, the US should continue to move fighter aircraft, and AWACS and air refueling planes into former Soviet Bloc nations with which it now has a NATO relationship. Strangely, the mad Putin, who detests FSU nations joining NATO, May have given such nations not now part of NATO strong reasons to try accelerating the path toward NATO membership.

Therefore, that which Putin feared most, may now happen more quickly because of his actions in Crimea, and fears of what might be next for FSU nations.

Good heavens someone needs a dose of prunes.

Why the obsession with Council on Foreign Relations, pal?

As to the article, it is insightful and well written. It's a shame her grandfather isn't around to watch her; he'd be arrogantly resentful, but proud.

Ms Edbardoe must live in the People's Democratic Republic of Dununderstan, rather than in the USA. Otherwise I can not understand the faulty analysis of the Ukrainian problem, nor the bizarre characterization of the political leadership of the USA. Perhaps if she listened to Bob Gates, as well as Zbigniew Brzezinski, she might begin to appreciate reality.

People would be wise to pay attention to Bob Gates, Republican and former SECDEF, for Bush and then Obama, who warned politicians to stop their inane cheap shots at Obama, as Bush was also faced with the same kind of military takeover of parts of Georgia by Russia in his final year in office. Russia could do this to a nation on their borders, just as any powerful nation could do in similar circumstances. Absent WW3, you can't stop that kind of convenient aggression, you can only punish the aggressor. Sadly it appears that most of Europe is willing to do little to Russia, given their economic relations. In Sunday's NY Times there is an excellent article by Canadian MP Chrystia Freeland, indicating the cost which Russia will pay outside the feckless European response, and the isolated US response.

Chinese violations = BAD

Japanese violations = GOOD

What total male bovine manure from Japan.

I presume that the feeble-minded Virginia legislators will next allow the Gulf of Mexico to be alternatively called the Gulf of the South-from-USA-and-East-of-Mexico.

Amazing, and appalling.

For Mr Suzuki, perhaps the US should reconsider its past willingness to defend Japan against potential enemies, China being the most obvious.

The difference, sir, is that the US does not seek or need Japan's military support, but Japan clearly does need the us military, even with today's relatively impotent foreign force projection from China.

Give China another five or ten years, and Japan will not be so lucky.

Allies pay attention to issues which could involve their ally in a potential military action.

Abe does not understand, or does not care, and that could be catastrophic for the people of Japan.

Whether China is socialist or communist, they are clearly pushing a nationalist agenda.

However, until Japan admits it's WW2 atrocities to every nation it affected, and until Japanese politicians cease paying tribute to the radical right wing in Japan, the Chinese will have easy targets to attack and use that to hide from worldwide reactions to their expansionist objectives.

Japan has become its own worst enemy, and too many Japanese refuse to hold their government to account.

Very sad.

If only Japan would grow up, and openly and frankly discuss the horrible things their army did in China and Philippines and Singapore and Burma and elsewhere in Asia during the 30's and 40's.

That would pull out the rug from under the less-than-honest government of China, and give Japan a better position in disputes with China.

German Chancellor Merkel was right in her criticism of Japan's delusions and lies about WW2, and Germany has showed the world what true words and sorrow about their past can mean for all of us.

When will Japan learn?

It continues to amaze me, a centrist lifetime Republican, that the uber zealots of the radi,cal right of my party do not understand the severe damage which they are doing to the USA.

President Obama was a better candidate then either McCain or Romney, but he has proved to be less capable on most international matters than either George HW Bush or Bill Clinton. Bush junior was a disaster, and Obama, while much better than junior for either the US economy or international stability, lacked the political skills, and personal involvement, of Bill Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton displays half of her husband's skills, she will be a shoo-in for election as President, given the dolts that my own party seems to be generating.

Describing China's military as the "world's largest" is close to meaningless, unless you simply want to defend your homeland against invasion.

It's very much like those neo-cons in the US who cry because the US Navy has fewer ships than during the presidency of Reagan, without understanding the difference in capabilities of those ships and support forces. As to China's one aircraft carrier, there is a huge gap between refitting that Ukranian carrier for operations, and successfully launching and recovering sorties of fighters and attack aircraft, on a regular basis.

China could certainly do damage to Japan, and South Korea, and Philippines, and Vietnam, but they would risk far greater damage to their own military complexes and major industrial cities, and that would end the Chinese progression toward world domination by economic power.

Therefore, even if they had a military half as powerful as the US - and they are decades away from that - they would not risk serious military action. Yes, there could be some low scale miscalculations by China, or by Japan, but I doubt it would lead to serious military conflict.

To cornbread1, I seem to remember a couple of US B-52s flying right through the new Chinese ADZ shortly after China created it; did you miss that, friend?

If Japan allows theirs textbooks to reflect reality in the thirty years leading up to and through WW2, then their apologies, such as they are, might be more believable.

One can love the Japanese people and Japanese culture, as I do, and still reject the revisionism and lies, about what Japan did in those decades, told by countless Japanese governments and ultra-nationalist Japanese.

Angela Merkel has it right, and Germany has been a model for recognizing and publicly admitting, inside it's nation as well as outside before the world, the evils which the Nazi government committed.

Japan should grow up, and be like modern Germany.

If Sea Shepherd use questionable tactics, it is only because of the pathetic farce of so-called "research" claimed by the Japanese.

Those who then buy whale meat in Japan simply contribute to the lies and distortions of GOJ and their industrial allies.

Just make it impossible for the Japanese "research" ships to sell whale meat or other residual products from their killing of whales, and you will see the so-called "research" end.

Similarly, very little of the "Sea of Japan" is Japanese territory, and very little of the "Gulf of Mexico" is Mexican territory.

The US Navy has sailed its ships in the South China Sea far longer than the Chinese Navy, and will continue to sail in these and other international waters.

If China wants some ships of its Navy to sail around Guam or Hawaii, be our guest.

While I agree that no sensible should go to war over some "rocks and goats", it's also true that nations have made such mistakes throughout history. China's actions today might reasonably compare to the United States, but only the USA of the late nineteenth Century, not that of the early Twenty-First Century.

China is acting stupidly, and if Japan has been at all unwise in the process it has at least not tried to ratchet the potential hostilities to a hair-trigger catastrophe situation.

Claims on islands, or "islands", wherever in clearly international waters, should be taken to international arbitration. That also applies to Japan, or Korea, or other nations disputing territory.

But China should not be allowed to impose self-proclaimed defense zones to disputed islands, and the cost of potential armed actions should be made clear to China.

The United States does take serious its mutual defense obligations, and China is unwise to test such resolve. Japan would have to take the first steps to militarily protect disputed territories, but if China then threatens the Japanese homeland their defense forces include all United States military forces in the Pacific.

For the sake of accuracy, and not as a matter of "points scoring", HMS Daring, which arrived in Cebu, Phillippines 17th November, had been in Singapore, relatively close to Phillippines. The much-larger, and more useful (for relief purposes) British aircraft carrier,HMS Illustrious, is presently in the Persian Gulf, a much longer voyage, and is expected to arrive Phillippines 24th November.

Clearly relative proximity to the disaster area is a key factor in providing speedy relief, but the Brits are going all out on this mission, given the small size of its Navy and its home base half a world away. The Yanks (bless them) continue to be the global naval power, and their dual ocean operations allow maximum assistance in recoveries from disasters in island nations such as Indonesia or Phillippines; of course it also takes will, and not all Pacific nations care as much as the US and Japan, or the more distant Atlantic nations like the UK.