OPINION:
Barack Obama seems to have not one, but two foreign policies, just when everyone thought he had none. He runs one out of the White House, and the other out of the Pentagon. Or maybe there’s a third foreign policy from Foggy Bottom.
It’s no secret that the Chinese are building military bases a thousand miles south of the mainland, athwart one of the most important sea lanes of the world. More than $5 trillion worth of manufacturing and raw materials traverse this lane across the South China Sea, trade from not only China but Japan and South Korea, and oil from the Middle East. They’re dredging coral for runways that lie barely above water.
Freedom of navigation, freedom of the seas, and freedom of international waters has been an American guarantee since before the colonies won their independence from Britain. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams tried for years, unsuccessfully, to persuade the European powers to help halt piracy in the Mediterranean.
Jefferson, much against his prejudices against a standing military force and interventions abroad, sent the first American troops abroad, to North Africa and the Barbary Coast to halt the boarding, kidnapping and ransoming of American ships and the men who worked them. “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli” was no idle barracks ditty.
When the Pentagon dispatched B-52 bombers, oldies but goodies, flying across the Chinese coral, the world could breathe a little relief, know that the Americans were awake and lifting the Chinese shadow across the sea lanes. But Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright says the B-52 mission was not to support “freedom of navigation,” and there was “no intention of flying within 12 nautical miles of any feature,” hinting that the planes may have strayed off course.
“The United States routinely conducts B-52 training missions throughout the region, including over the South China Sea,” the spokesman says. “These missions are designed to maintain readiness and demonstrate our commitment to fly, sail and operate anywhere allowed under international law.”
The statement reassures nobody, and leaves everyone in a quandary. How can a B-52, sometimes armed with nuclear weapons, stray off course when guided by a super Global Positioning System? Everyone assumed the “straying” B-52s were there to tell the Chinese in no uncertain terms that the United States would not allow a challenge to the right of freedom of the seas to go unanswered. Instead it was a mistake.
China, sensing reluctance and ambiguity in Washington, was ready with a protest and new threats. The appropriate answer to that should be a public statement, given with neither fear nor apology, that the right to fly through the region and over the coral reefs is not negotiable because they’re in international waters, not Chinese territory. Who’s running the show in Washington, anyway? The helmsman is missing from the bridge again.
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