Obama let 40-year-old oil supply guarantee to Israel expire in November 2014

(Image: Wikimedia Commons, John Hill)

New post up at Liberty Unyielding.  Enjoy!

Chinese warship arrives off Syria

 

Chinese frigate Yancheng, thrilling the ladies in Cyprus. (Reuters photo.)

How many warships does it take to remove chemical weapons from Syria?  One more this week than it took last week, apparently.  If you’re a big, important country with a big, important navy, you want to be involved in the good-citizenship exercise in Syria.

A 31 December deadline for getting some of the chemical stockpile to waiting ships in Latakia was missed, as readers will remember.  But it looks like

Syria: Update on maritime matters

In a destabilizing region, the hits will come from all sides.  Egyptian authorities are confirming reports that terrorists with RPGs attacked a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship (Chinese-chartered) in the Suez Canal on 31 August (video here).  Not unnaturally, the insurance market is reacting sharply.

This is as good a time as any to deal with two reports floating in the infosphere.  One is that China has moved warships off the coast of Syria, an allegation sourced to a Russian website, Telegrafist.org.

Chinese warships?

Israel under fire: The new paradigm

Attacks from Gaza on Israel have ramped up significantly in the last several days.  An Israeli patrol was hit by what was thought to be a roadside bomb on Tuesday (three were wounded), near the border fence with Gaza.  On Saturday, terrorists in Gaza fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli jeep with four infantrymen in it, as the patrol operated in the area of the roadside bomb attack.  The four soldiers were wounded, one severely.  More than 80 rockets have been launched from Gaza into Israel since the attack on the jeep on Saturday, 10 November.  At least three Israeli civilians were injured in the rocket attacks.

Geography is beginning to rear its head again,

Peace in our time: Militaries, state visits flood the Great Crossroads

The Pax Americana now being defunct, regional initiatives are coming alive in and around the Red Sea and Levant.  I refer to the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa as the “Great Crossroads,” where sooner or later everyone will make a transit or have an interest.  No one’s national security is untouched by what’s going on there.  America’s trade and alliances depend heavily on whether the maritime precincts of the Great Crossroads are a quiescent “free space,” through which everyone can pass without let or hindrance by a regional power – or if they become a space over which a regional power holds a veto.  Every new development there has implications for US security.

Egypt-Turkey exercise

And the new developments just keep on coming.  Between 7 and 14 October,