U.S. officials seek to counter China move on potential naval base in Atlantic

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that U.S. intelligence believes China is seeking to use the port of Bata in Equatorial Guinea, on Africa’s West coast, as a forward base for naval operations in the Atlantic.

There has been speculation about such a move for some time.  I wrote in May 2021 about an earlier report at the Washington Times, which cited Army General Stephen Townsend, Commander of U.S. Africa Command, expressing concern that China was seeking a naval base in West Africa.  General Townsend didn’t mention a specific country or port, but prior information indicated Senegal, Cape Verde Islands, and Western Sahara were possibilities.  (That article also dealt with reports that China wants to make a forward base out of Kiribati in the Pacific, with the initial outfitting to support an air base.)

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Boko Haram and the West’s Darwin Award moment #BringBackOurBrains

New post up at Liberty Unyielding.  Enjoy!

Asian mysteries: MH370 and the Iranian naval flotilla

 

Conundrum.

We appear to have ourselves a bona fide mystery.  If anyone in authority knows what happened to the Malaysian Air 777 that took off on 8 March headed for China, he’s not talking.  The most recent revelations, as readers no doubt know, suggest that the plane continued flying for about 7 hours after the last official contact from the cockpit.

The UK Mirror produced a graphic depicting the 634 airfields where

Defense cuts and the fragile, undefended bubble we now live in

What is there to say that most readers even need to hear?  As he did so often, Reagan summed it up nicely in a brief, well-known phrase:

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

An especially important point here is that the converse is true.  The conditions for major war develop much more easily when the U.S. is too weak. They are developing as we speak.

Iran: Funniest threats ever?

In Iran’s crosshairs. Sort of.

To begin with, let’s agree that it is not funny that Iran’s making threats.  It’s the way Iran is making threats.  Which – I’m sorry – has me in stitches.

No, really.  It isn’t funny.  It’s just hard not to laugh.

To read a full-length treatment of the latest Iranian trash talk, see this excellent summary from Times of Israel.  I’ll address the two major rhetorical jabs in turn.