Keep An Eye On That Other Little Thing Festering In

 The Background — The Start Of World War III.

 

This is the continuation of a story begun on our February 2018 Home Page. To go to an archived version of that page, click here: February 2018 Home Page Archive. To return to this month's actual Home Page, click on the Signal Corps orange Home Page menu item in the upper left corner of this page.

 

 

Where for centuries people have worked to keep the tenuous relationship between the Sunnis and Shiites on an even keel, in a few short months Bush’s people managed to turn them against each other. Bush’s people’s leadership fragmented Kurdish and Shiite political parties into rival factions, creating paramilitary forces dependent on regional backers, each intent on gaining control over Iraq’s resources and power, and using it to their own advantage.

As we all know, America’s continued involvement has lately helped to refocus the Iraqi people’s attention on defeating the Islamic State, rather than each other… but what will happen once the war with North Korea begins? Will America stay the course and continue to help this battered friend, or will our military be needed elsewhere? And if so, what of Iran? Surely one does not expect it to sit idly by as America once again packs its bags and leaves? Nature abhors a vacuum. If America leaves Iraq, Iran will fill the resulting vacuum faster than you can say ما برنده . (Iranian Farsi: we win!)

Yemen

As though the hot spots listed above aren’t enough, there are more places in the middle east that threaten to descend into further chaos when America goes to war with North Korea. Yemen is one of them.

While small, this little country sits atop one of the world’s most important navigable waterways: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

This simple waterway provides a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. Without it being kept open by western interests [read: the U.S.], the world’s flow of oil—and much else—will come to a halt.

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have led to a proxy war being fought in Yemen. These days Iran seems to have the upper hand, with short range missiles being smuggled into Yemen, and then fired into Saudi Arabia. An already miserably poor country, Yemen presents the world with not just another humanitarian crisis to handle, but also a situation where millions of Arab people are now on the brink of both famine and all out war.

Air bombardments from Saudi Arabia, economic blockades, rocket attacks, blockaded food shipments leading to starvation, displaced masses, the problem gets worse each month, and there appears no end in sight. Everywhere one turns, one sees war crimes being committed… by both sides in this proxy war.

With America more likely abandoning this hot spot too in favor of its new duties in reducing North Korea to rubble, one can only wonder how long it will be before a direct war breaks out between Saudi Arabia and Iran. For the moment, all one can hope for is for a stalemate to ensue, until America can once again return to the region to try and settle these two country’s differences. If that fails, expect Russia to weigh in on Iran’s side… likely prompting Saudi Arabia to strike Iran directly, rather than continue to play around in Yemen.

South Soudan

The world’s hot spots are not contained to eastern Europe and the middle east alone, Africa as a whole also begs for attention… the kind of attention that will drift away when America goes to war with North Korea.

As Jean-Marie Guéhenno, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group says, “Overlapping conflicts across the Greater Sahel and Lake Chad Basin have contributed to massive human suffering, including the uprooting of some 4.2 million people from their homes. Jihadis, armed groups, and criminal networks jockey for power across this impoverished region, where borders are porous and governments have limited reach.”

And it continues...

Niger, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivore have all suffered from Islamic State attacks. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al-Mourabitoun too remain active, intent on attacking civilian targets as well as national and international forces. In this regard, Mali, a normally placid place, is proving to be the U.N.’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission, with 70 personnel having been killed by “malicious acts” since 2013.

Will these places stabilize if America turns its back on them as it goes to war with North Korea? Likely not. Instead one can expect a further decline into a WWIII kind of chaos.

South Soudan provides an example of what one can expect. Jean-Marie Guéhenno again states, “After three years of civil war, the world’s youngest country is still bedeviled by multiple conflicts. Grievances with the central government and cycles of ethnic violence fuel fighting that has internally displaced 1.8 million people and forced around 1.2 million more to flee the country. There has been mounting international concern over reports of mass atrocities and the lack of progress toward implementing [a] 2015 peace agreement.”

Afghanistan

Then there’s Afghanistan. Will that war ever end? Will it end if America goes to war against North Korea, or will it fester and get worse?

For more than 15 years now, war in Afghanistan, and especially political instability, has posed a serious threat to international peace and security. The simple fact is that the Taliban are again gaining ground. While the Haqqani network is claiming responsibility for the attacks taking place in the major cities of Afghanistan, the Islamic State is coming to the fore again too. In their case, they are claiming credit for the attacks taking place against Shiite Muslim groups… in an effort to stoke sectarian violence, which everyone knows is their calling card.

Despite America’s so far undying commitment to win this war, the number of armed clashes last year reached the highest level since the U.N. started recording incidents, in 2007. If America reduces its footprint in Afghanistan as it engages in North Korea, this will further weaken the Afghan security forces, which in turn will risk leaving large ungoverned areas of the country ripe for the entry of both regional and transnational militant groups.

When one considers that America’s longest war barely registered as a policy issue during the Trumpster’s election campaign, one can only surmise that the President has no clear intentions with regard to this nation and its numbing war. If that is the case, what will happen when the guns start going off in North Korea? Will the U.S. abandon this mess to the devices of China, Russia and Pakistan, who have formed a working group with the stated aim of creating a “regional anti-terrorism structure” in the country, or will it stay the course? Considering that Kabul has so far been left out of the China–Russia–Pakistan trilateral discussions, one can only wonder. Either way, here again the world looks poised to muscle America out of the way, using its preoccupation with North Korea as a reason to replace America wherever possible. Afghanistan is a dangerously weak state, without America’s continued involvement it is sure to fail, only to be replaced with whatever it is that China–Russia–Pakistan want to see in its place.

Myanmar

Not so long ago we held out hope for Myanmar. When Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi took power, the world rushed to her side to laud her, and her promised peace and national reconciliation efforts. Unfortunately, none of her efforts came to fruition.

As it is turning out, either she is proving to be a weak, unskilled leader unable to control her own government, or she is as racist and biased against the country’s minorities as is her military. Either way, her country has today become one of the world’s newest and most dangerous basket cases on earth. If something isn’t done, millions of people will die simply because of their ethnic makeup. Worse than all of this, this kind of problem is exactly the kind of global socio-geo-political problem made for a country like America to step in and solve… and in the process help bring into the modern world a people and culture able to contribute much to it.

But can America take on this responsibility, as it fights to put North Korea in its place? Can it take on this role, with China trying to elbow it out of the way, so that it can control Myanmar’s destiny instead of the west? For China, getting Myanmar on its side is critical, as it sits in its own back yard. The last thing China wants to see is the U.S. influencing the direction of countries like Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

With little doubt, the world is watching Myanmar. The fate of the Muslim Rohingya minority is drawing global attention. The population has seen its rights progressively eroded in recent years, especially following the anti-Muslim violence that took place in the Rakhine state in 2012. Again, the modus operandi being used by the pursuers centers around the use of extrajudicial executions, rapes and arson as the means for driving the Rohingya out of the country and into hiding. As of mid-December, the U.N. estimated that around 27,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh. The situation is serious, already more than a dozen fellow Nobel laureates have written open letters to Aung San Suu Kyi, criticizing her for her failure to speak out about the abuses being caused by her military, and calling for full and equal citizenship rights for the Rohingya.

This, without doubt, is a place where America can bring its power to bear for the good of humanity, but will President Trump do so? Or is the problem he faces in North Korea sapping all of his energy, ability and military might?

And more…

Need we continue? Should we talk about how China will use America’s involvement in North Korea as a reason to take further control over the South China sea? How China will use an American war with North Korea to mask its efforts to further arm, secure and take final dominant control over the Senkaku islands, not to mention to muscle Taiwan in even closer under its wing… perhaps by blockading the island state until it submits to reunification?

The unfortunate fact is, if America goes to war with North Korea, while Uncle Sam is busy swatting at the Rocket Man the world’s boogey men will be busy launching their own nefarious games, in an effort to secure for their empires the power they seek.

Given the long list of troubled climes we listed here, do we think that war against North Korea is the way to go, in this troubled world?

The unfortunate answer is yes. That is, if the goal is to completely remove the threat of North Korean launched nuclear weapons from hitting our shores, then the only way to do that will be with force. There is no other way, save perhaps for China and/or Russia to decapitate the Rocket Man.

Unless something spectacular happens during the upcoming South Korean Winter Olympics (which is yet to be held as we write this article), look for war to break out between the U.S. and North Korea sometime this late spring or early summer. And when it does, as the U.S. refocuses its energy on the Rocket Man, and leaves the rest of the world to its own devices, watch that world descend into chaos. Watch as WWIII—under the guise of hundreds of little hot spots each exploding with a fury of their own—brings to the light of day the bad guy rulers of the world, those who can’t wait to take for themselves the spoils of what will then be an empty field of global power politics, ripe for the raping.

Sources

The Russian Menace, Todd South, MilitaryTimes.com; Flashpoints, September 13, 2017.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno, The Fog of Peace: A Memoir of Peacekeeping in the 21st Century.

 

 

Like this article? Let us know by helping us with our scholarship fund efforts. A $30.00 donation to our Scholarship Fund will help us get one step closer to helping another deserving High School graduate attend college. Your donation is tax deductible and your kindness will go farther than you think in making it possible for another young American citizen to fulfill their dream of a college education.
Thank You!

This page originally posted 1 February 2018