Filling the vacuum in a post-American world - today's edition

The Great Leveling Project of our overlords takes two different forms, one domestically and one on the world stage, and they seem to be at odds with each other at first glance. At home, the Most Equal Comrade and his nomenklatura want to amass and exercise the kind of totalitarian power that makes possible such exercises in tyranny as EPA regulations, the encroachment on personal liberty that the "Affordable" Care Act brings on, the imposition of such cultural insanity as making the feelings of transgendered people a priority for our military, intelligence and diplomacy functions. The idea is to bring us all low, eliminate any distinctions, impose utter uniformity on the cattle-masses. Internationally, the aim is to make our nation's position as weak as possible.

This really isn't contradictory. As is the vision for the individual, the vision for our country likewise seeks to remove any notions about our leadership or any necessity for us to be the guarantor of a just and stable world order. Can't have one country standing out like that.

There are consequences on both levels.

The consequences on the global level grow ever more dire.

Consider the context in which China installed those HQ-9 missiles on Woody Island:

How bad was it? The missiles were deployed just two weeks after Wang explicitly promised Secretary of State John Kerry there would be no militarization of the South China Sea at a meeting in Beijing, showing contempt for the U.S. China neither fears U.S. power nor a U.S. response under this White House if it can make such toilet-paper promises to a visiting American asking for its cooperation on keeping the seas free.

Kerry’s response Wednesday showed why. “We have said repeatedly with respect to China that the standard that should be applied to all countries with respect to the South China Sea is no militarization,” he babbled. He called Beijing’s missile battery “of serious concern,” and declared he would have a “further very serious conversation” with the Chinese about it.

Sound scary?

The deployment was deliberately timed to come just as the two-day U.S. and Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, held in Rancho Mirage, California, was ending. The talkfest closed with platitudes about keeping the the area non-militarized and lots of pretty words about peaceful development. In the closing statement, there was no mention of the only militarizer out there: China. The missile deployment was China’s way of telling the summiteers their sponsor was a toothless tiger.

It’s also consistent with China’s pattern of undercutting the U.S. with its own military displays of might as the world watches. Last September, China sent five warships to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands right as President Obama was visiting the state to preach about the national security importance of global warming. The ships no doubt crossed Japanese or Taiwanese waters, intimidating U.S. allies, and then demonstrating their increasing offensive capacities.

And the U.S. response? Nothing, just assurances from the U.S. that the Chinese meant no harm.

Now there’s the missiles on the Paracels, and the Chinese rightly expect the U.S. to do nothing.

Or consider the danger posed by the current juncture in Syria:

  . . . as intelligence expert John Schindler writes in the Observer, we seem to be slouching toward World War III now.
Schindler writes that the Russo-Turkish conflict in Syria looks poised to expand:
"As rebel forces defend Aleppo in Stalingrad fashion, the Syrian military, with Russian help, commences a protracted siege of the city, employing massive firepower, which becomes a humanitarian nightmare of a kind not seen in decades, a tragedy that would dwarf the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo. However, any Turkish move to lift that siege, even with international imprimatur, would quickly devolve into all-out war. ...
"Many Western insiders think along similar lines. By letting Mr. Putin get away with whatever he likes in Syria, Obama has created a deeply dangerous situation in the region. By abandoning his infamous Syria “redline” in September 2013, the White House in effect outsourced American policy there to Putin, as I warned at the time, and which the Obama administration, powerless to influence terrible events in Syria, is slowly realizing."

Let us also not forget the Iranian and North Korean missile launches of recent months - as well as the latter's recent nuclear-device test.

Our immediate concern, of course, is squeaking through the rest of this year. The front-and-center question before us, assuming we do squeak through, is what kind of post-MEC president possess the requisite seriousness to deal with this array of situations.

There are a few contenders who do possess it. Squirrel-Hair, Hillionaire and Bernie are not among them.