Japanese defense – The Optimistic Conservative

The Washington Free Beacon reports that the Russian Tu-95 “Bear” bomber aircraft operated near Guam on 12 February, a few hours before President Obama’s SOTU address.

A few things about this.

1. It’s not the first time the Russians have timed bomber flights to coincide with Obama events. As early as February 2009, Russian bombers buzzed Canada hours before Obama’s first visit there to confer with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Later that year, in July, Russia conducted three close approaches to Alaska with Tu-95 Bear bombers during Obama’s state visit to Moscow. Air Force Lt. Gen. Dana Atkins had this to say at the time: Continue reading “Russian bombers do Guam”

You’d think they could wait until America has decided if we really intend to be post-American. I mean, what’s President Obama going to do about Iran and Syria – get Qatar to bomb them? Does that really require a regional-war-scale response from Russia? And what about the South China Sea? It’s not like our new Marine contingent in Australia can do anything about China’s strong-arming of the other nations there. Nor does there seem to be much likelihood that we will react to Russia’s chest-thumping in the disputed Kuril Islands north of Japan. And when I say “react,” I mean “react at all.” For all the president’s new focus on the Pacific, we don’t seem to have any positions we intend to actually enunciate there, much less defend.

The Tumultus Post-Americanus is now well underway. The US and NATO, and our Pacific allies Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines, Continue reading “Tumultus Post-Americanus”