So, here’s a change-up, thrown in the spirit of trying some new tricks when the old regime changes: I played a little song adapted from the classic rocker “Rocket Man” (by Sir Elton John and the uneditable Bernie Taupin).

My hope? To sublimate this moment of absurdity into art; to condemn the irresponsibility of the United States government using something creative and critical and, perhaps, with some (emotional) impact?

Anyhow, hope you’ll take four minutes of your time for the sake of a patriotically wonky song about the Tariff Man sleeping in the White House.

Tune in on YouTube for some of the most mannish commentary this side of the Man-o-Sphere. In this video, I join forces with the indomitable Sasha Gabuev in conversation about Washington’s scary new vibes in the western hemisphere.

I brought my globe because the White House must have lost theirs.

Now, none of us is old enough to remember the last time a US president tried to conquer the Americas. Towering figures like Mt. McKinley ran roughshod over the hemisphere, from Alaska to Argentina.

Now that Trump is fixing to be the next Hero of San Juan Hill, he should probably check the tapes. Seems he yammered his way through all of his TV intel briefings: the 19th century is over. And anyhow, WE ALREADY HAVE ALL OF THE BENEFITS OF REGIONAL HEGEMONY without the costs of military conquest.

But Trump can (and will?) squander America’s hard-won advantages with his new “punch down and steal candy from babies” policy. We have the technology. We have the ideology. We now have a policy process so pointless that you may as well just throw pet rocks into the oval from the Rose Garden to land an idea. [Aside: if I only had millions of dollars to pay Trump’s vig, I’m sure he’d listen to me and stop squandering America’s power and prestige on his vanity projects.]

Delta Force commandos’ bravura kidnapping performance in Venezuela really doesn’t impress China — nor does the juvenile menacing of Greenland, Canada, or Iran for that matter.

Let’s just say it straight up: China does not intend to challenge the USA militarily in the West Hemisphere — not now and maybe not ever!

America’s unhinged new groove is all upside to the PRC, whose primary power tools remains economic. Their strategic goals are not affected by Washington’s regional bullying, and are likely advanced because they come off as comparatively nice.

That monstrous sucking sound emanating from the Chinese mainland? That’s PRC firms extracting all of Latin America’s natural resource wealth via infrastructure and ships and mines and refineries that they own and operate.

A policy to deny PRC military access to the western hemi is a strategic category error. That’s just not the issue. You’re out of your element, Donny. China isn’t here for the territory, they want the resources — and now they just get sit back and watch us shoot ourselves in the face.

More thoughts in the video above and here in the FT, for the full hi-lo effect:

https://www.ft.com/content/e5e9c46e-ed7e-46dd-9b3b-691ec3137390

War-gorged cognoscenti world-wide are pouring good money after bad omens, betting billions on whether the next hit will be Iran, Greenland, Canada, Panama, Cuba…or maybe some deep-cut country we haven’t even thought of yet!?!? Been a while since we ravaged Tunisia, I note with dismay…

Wiser heads will nod and say, sagely: “This too shall pass. Why all this wretched gambling and smoking and fretting about another splendid little war or four? We’ll just go-get-em in the next election, by golly!”1

And yet, we are all2 simply dying to know where and when the next unplanned 🇺🇸⚡FREEDOM BLITZ⚡🇺🇸 will occur against another hapless adversary or ally?

Some of the administration’s latest thinking, synthesized in limerick form for maximal strategic effect:

So, after some quick computations of these limericks + Trump’s particular predilections for spontaneous violence, my prescribed prediction market odds presently3 stand at:

🇮🇷❌ IRAN 1:1

+

🇬🇱❌ GREENLAND 3:1

+

🇵🇦❌ PANAMA 8:1

+

🇨🇺❌ CUBA 8:1

+

🇨🇦❌ CANADA 10:1

=

+ stay tuned for more coverage on what could be COMPLETE WILD-CARD INVASIONS. These trades are picking up in volume, and include COLOMBIA at 15:1 and TAIWAN at 100:1 (never say never)!!

Sign up & go all-in for no reason whatsoever today!

Beware! Experimental Features Below:1

CAD-CHAB: “A Chart a Day (Chaos Held At Bay)”

This one shows you “China’s values-free security diplomacy” (as Alice Su of the Economist put it, pointedly) in action. The wide rates of adoption across the democratic spectrum should disabuse all those who think that most countries won’t work robot-hand-in-glove with Chinese security forces (firms and agencies) in order to emulate at least some part of China’s vaunted security state model.

Whatever norms and practices and standards are transmitted, it may help to think about it as a bundle of security goods & services that China provides to countries that share its “outlook” on national security (i.e., that regime security is priority #1). Export may imply a higher level of direct applicability in foreign countries, though…I told Bill on the podcast that “externalize” is the more academic but accurate way to think about how China’s security activities affect the international security system (or the national security systems of its partner states).

++PLUS (for a limited time only)++

Some of the maps and charts from the article are worth a second look:

MAD-MANG: “A Map a Day (Makes a Navy Gray)”

Seems like almost everyone outside North America and Western Europe is in the market for Chinese police training of some form.2 This MAP helps further visualize the intuition from the CHART above, and the Economist serves up a particularly fine pairing. Watch this space for more exquisitely tasteful visualizations TK!

While this recent podcast performance may seem like a perfectly normal professional engagement, please allow me to reassure you that it is not (entirely) serious.

“I think that every single coastal state’s claims to islands in the South China Sea are shitty. They are all kind of bullshit, they are all kind of made up.”

That’s because, as the wheels fly off the global maritime order that is the subject of my book, “China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order” (Yale 2023), I am taking stock of questions like: “what’s the point?” and “what the fuck?” in subtle ways that had never before occurred to me.

So, when I recently and unironically took the genuine privilege to join two very fine and statesmanlike experts on the Indo-Pacific to discuss it live, I tried to take on board, emotionally as well as analytically, what I understand to be the core problématique of the eponymous pod.

After all, “why should we care about” anything at this point?!

Anyhow. I took Ray’s gracious invitation to be an additional invitation to reflect on why we should care about what China does at all — whether in the South China Sea, in the Taiwan Strait, on TikTok, in our drones, and so on.

Some of the wonkier, wilder points you’ll catch if you jump in at the point queued in the video above; and then please do listen to the rest at >1.5x if you find yourself mildly interested in what imho is some fairly sexy geopolitical subject-matter:

1. Contrary to popular belief, China is not at all outside the system of international law, and especially not the law of the sea. But pushing hard at the edges of that system, China’s practices make it impossible for other states to realize any of their legitimate, lawful claims (*sovereign rights to EEZ resources, especially*).

   1. Wait that one was kind of boring. Sorry, try the next one:

2. China’s claims, especially the 9-dashed line, are extravagant. But you know who also has extravagant claims in the SCS? Everybody else!

   1. Then I ask whether this is a PG-13 show. (It’s not.)

   2. “I think that every single coastal state’s claims to islands in the SCS are shitty. They are all kind of bullshit, they are all kind of made up.”

3. Why 有效控制 (effective control) is 9/10ths of the law, as far as Beijing is concerned. That’s why they can declare a 30 nautical mile cordon around Scarborough Shoal and call it an aquarium!

4. And most importantly, I raise the question that’s been gnawing at you since you started reading this missive: why? And what does cricket tell us about geopolitical conflict that we don’t already know?

   1. Or more specifically, why has the Anglo-American maritime world order that has prevailed, more or less, for the last 200 years, ceased to play cricket together?

   2. Is it because China is not a cricket-playing nation and doesn’t care to play by our rules?

   3. Is it because rules just don’t matter? Maybe we really have been deluding ourselves ever since Woodrow Wilson deluded himself into thinking that America could or would protect international law and freedom of navigation and human rights and so on for very long.

And, as ever — dress British; think Yiddish; buy kosher direct from academic presses:

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300256475/chinas-law-of-the-sea/

At first, it was kind of funny. Here I was testifying before Congress about China and the Panama Canal after President Trump turned the subject into catfood on TV during his second weird-shit inaugural! Right there on that very same Hill, only a few long weeks before my hearing?! Good luck, little Marco!

But in my modest case? Training and tradition made me mindlessly marshal facts and figures for the submitted testimony. I offered cautious analysis to make a fine but, I thought, useful point: Panama controls the Panama Canal (at least for now).

And it was fine enough — but it was also obviously useless under the circumstances (noted above, with words from Washington stirring the pot before any ingredients are in it). For the first time, this February, farce felt like the right fit.

To adapt to this disorienting political and intellectual moment, I’m planning to write more on this platform as a creative canvas and sounding board. Aiming to stay mostly over the target (maritime China) — but also welcoming trade winds and new ideas.

Anyhow, that was then and this is now. Stay tuned for more, and be forewarned of more probably professionally inadvisable content. Whatever!

Please tell your friend(s)!

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China Maritime Report No. 26: Beyond the First Battle: Overcoming a Protracted Blockade of Taiwan - Lonnie D. Henley

China Maritime Report No. 28: Bitterness Ends, Sweetness Begins: Organizational Changes to the PLAN Submarine Force Since 2015 - J. Michael Dahm and Alison Zhao

Guests:

Mike Dahm is a retired Naval Intelligence Officer who has focused on China since 2006 when he served as Chief of Intelligence Plans for China at U.S Indo-Pacific Command and stood up the commander’s China Strategic Focus Group. He went on to serve as the Assistant Naval Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China before retiring from the Office of Naval Intelligence as the Senior Naval Intelligence Officer for China.

Lonnie Henley retired from federal service in 2019 after more than 40 years as an intelligence officer and East Asia expert. He served 22 years as a U.S. Army China foreign area officer and military intelligence officer in Korea, at Defense Intelligence Agency, on Army Staff, and in the History Department at West Point. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2000 and joined the senior civil service, first as Defense Intelligence Officer for East Asia and later as Senior Intelligence Expert for Strategic Warning at DIA. He worked two years as a senior analyst with CENTRA Technology, Inc. before returning to government service as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia. He rejoined DIA in 2008, serving for six years as the agency’s senior China analyst, then National Intelligence Collection Officer for East Asia, and culminating with a second term as DIO for East Asia. Mr. Henley holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering and Chinese from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and master’s degrees in Chinese language from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar; in Chinese history from Columbia University; and in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College (now National Intelligence University).

Guests:

Admiral Nirmal Verma (Indian Navy, ret.) is a CNO Distinguished International Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College. He previously served as Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy, and later as India’s High Commissioner to Canada.

Captain Tom Mangold (USN, ret.) was educated at Harvard University (BA, MPA), and commissioned through Officer Candidate School. Most of his thirty-year naval career was spent at sea as a Surface Warfare Officer, serving onboard various small combatants, ultimately commanding USS RODNEY M. DAVIS (FFG-60). Ashore, he worked in a wide variety of staff billets in the Pentagon, and served as Naval Attaché to the People’s Republic of China.

Guest:

Peter A. Dutton, PhD, JD is Professor at the US Naval War College, Stockton Center for International Law. He was formerly interim dean, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, and director of the China Maritime Studies Institute, professor of strategic research and professor of law. His research focuses on China’s maritime expansion, Chinese views of sovereignty and international law and factors shaping China’s rise. A retired Navy judge advocate and former naval flight officer, he holds a Ph.D. from King’s College London, a J.D. from the College of William & Mary and an M.A. from NWC. He is an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, a faculty advisor to NYU’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute and an associate in research at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Guest:

Ayumi Teraoka, PhD, is an America in the World Consortium postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on international security, alliance politics, and Japanese foreign policy. She earned her doctorate from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Guests:

Dr. CAPT Kamal-Deen Ali (Ghana Navy, ret.)

Bio: Kamal-Deen Ali, PhD is founding member and Executive Director/Team Lead of the Centre for Maritime Law and Security and a senior lecturer at the University of Professional Studdies – Accrah. He was formerly the Director of Research at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College. He served in the Ghana Navy for twenty years as a military legal and operations officer.

Dr. Naunihal Singh

Bio: Naunihal Singh, PhD, is associate professor in the National Security Affairs Department at NWC. He is a scholar of African politics, civil-military relations, and author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups (Johns Hopkins Press, 2014), a book on the dynamics and outcomes of military coups.

Guests:

Rachel Tecott, PhD, is assistant professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department at NWC. Her research focuses on U.S. military strategy and operations, alliance and partnership dynamics, and civil-military relations.

Jacquelyn Schneider, PhD, is Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution and an affiliate with Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, autonomous technologies, wargames, and Northeast Asia. She is a non-resident fellow at the Naval War College's Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute and was previously a senior policy advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

Guests:

Jessica Blankshain, PhD, is associate professor in the National Security Affairs Department at NWC. She specializes in civil-military relations, bureaucratic politics, and organizational economics. She is the Chair of the Faculty Advisory Council at NWC.

Lindsay Cohn, PhD, is associate professor in the National Security Affairs Department at NWC. Her research and publications focus on military organizations, civil-military relations, international law of war, and foreign policy/public opinion.

Hosted by Isaac Kardon

Guest: 

John Maurer, PhD, serves as the Alfred Thayer Mahan Distinguished University Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. As Chair of the Strategy and Policy Department, he led a major reform of the College’s curriculum on strategy.

Hosted by Isaac Kardon

Guest:

Emily Holland, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Russia Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. Previously, she was an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, a postdoctoral fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University and a visiting fellow at the German Institute for Economic Research (Berlin) and the European Council on Foreign Relations (Berlin).

Hosted by Isaac Kardon

Guest:

Admiral James G. Foggo III, USN (Ret.), is dean of the Navy League of the United States Center for Maritime Strategy. A submarine officer, he is a former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa and Allied Joint Force Command, Naples. He commanded BALTOPS in 2015 and 2016 and Exercise TRIDENT JUNCTURE in 2018.

Co-Host: 

Michael B. Petersen, PhD, is the director of the Russia Maritime Studies Institute and professor at the U.S. Naval War College, Center for Naval Warfare Studies. Prior to his appointment at NWC, he served at the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council.