By Stephen Smoot
Those who play chess will recognize the gambit. Over about the past 15 years, China and Russia have made a series of moves to encircle and neutralize the United States on a global scale.
They have worked to create international structures to attack the strength and stability of United States currency, relied on across the world as the benchmark.
They created a secondary alliance system with Venezuela and Iran, oil producing powers whose governments were despised by their people, but were strong enough to demand obedience. Cuba fits in this picture to a lesser extent.
They have worked to leverage countries to support them through construction of infrastructure and other deals that benefit China and Russia more than them.
Meanwhile, the friendships and alliances of the United States have changed to America’s detriment. Only a generation ago, the US could rely on Europe as a military partner. Today, all of NATO could only muster the equivalent of a naval task force. Even then, the ships barely function.
Britain, for the first time in its history as Britain, has zero naval ships in current global service. Several decades ago, that Kingdom’s Home and Mediterranean fleets were among the world’s strongest. Naval traditions began under Elizabeth I, Queen of England.
And no one has any doubt that China has systematically bombarded the American public with smuggled fentanyl and other powerfully addictive drugs and also socially destructive algorithms used in their online platforms. In essence, China is loosely using many of the same strategies against the United States that Europe (not the United States) used against China in the colonial period.
The United States during the same period was the most vocal, and almost sole, supporter of Chinese independence and sovereignty.
China also has actively sent agents into the United States with substances that have the potential to wipe out American wheat and other crops. The FBI has caught and prosecuted multiple Chinese nationals sneaking these substances into the country.
The process started in earnest during the presidency of Barack Obama and continued rapidly under the dithering Biden presidency. One could not call his tenure a proper administration in the dictionary sense of the term.
Their strategy was simple. Follow what Joseph Stalin called “salami tactics.” Slice off a little bit at a time, rather than take the whole thing because the opposition won’t notice. If they do notice, one can say “it’s only a minor move.” Their moves considered separately appeared non threatening, but taken together, they reveal an attempt to set the stage to choke the United States into submission.
China is a power that takes the long view, setting events in motion slowly, aiming to achieve their goals in a century and not a year. Their allies, however, felt ready to achieve their goals now.
An emboldened Russia launched its “special operation” in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not the “steamroller” of Europe that inspired the creation of NATO. With a declining population lower than Pakistan, crumbling infrastructure, and an economy overreliant on a few sectors, Russia tried to address at least some of those issues by invading Ukraine. Their purpose lay in clawing back rich farmland and Russian ethnic population lost to Moscow when the Soviet Union broke down.
Iran’s greed lay in the October 7 invasion of Israel by Iran’s terrorist clients in Gaza. They saw a chance to humble and weaken the State of Israel, using them as an example to Sunni Muslim nations of Iran’s power and reach.
In short, a rogues gallery of revisionist regimes led by, at best grasping, at worst evil, leadership had a plan underway to knock the United States from its pedestal as global power, awe Europe into submission, and then absorb into their growing spheres of influence Ukraine, Taiwan, and then, who knows what? Their fear factor was reflected by the drift of Vietnam from US cooperation to Chinese. Vietnam hates and fears China, who once had a brutal colonial regime there. Despite the Vietnam War, Vietnam knows that America has no interest in coming back there except as a partner.
China does not partner. China sends orders. If their plan had succeeded, Russia would have seen the truth of part of Sun Tzu’s philosophy. He stated that when a lesser power joins a greater to destroy a common enemy, the lesser power becomes the pawn of the greater.
Beijing and Moscow seemed to either not reckon on the return of President Trump or felt their plans would be too far along to halt if he got another term. They also banked on the US population seeing none of this as it developed.
Trump’s strategy has been to use the linkage of every tool at his disposal to break up the encirclement. Tariffs have pushed nations to abandon the China and Russia consortium and move back into cooperation with the United States on a number of issues. Closing the border has drastically reduced the flood of deadly drugs into the United States. Immigration enforcement has broken up and degraded the foreign criminal gangs establishing turf in America to sell said drugs.
Taking down the Venezuelan and Iranian governments has the effect of removing China and Russia’s direct supplies of oil. While Russia itself has oil, it does not produce it efficiently. Putin’s war machine’s will have a tougher time keeping itself refueled. Until last week, Iran manufactured the drone weapons used by Russia against Ukraine.
But the effect of how the United States has worked in Iran and Venezuela has shown the world, and also doubting Americans, that its military prowess is well-beyond that of Russia and China. Iran had, operative word “had”, China and Russia’s most sophisticated air defense technology. The United States smashed that in a few days. The F 35 can shoot down targets before even entering said target’s radar ranger. It’s still unclear the weaponry used to land and capture Venezuela’s narco-president and bring him to American justice.
Trump’s communication style sounds haphazard, ad hoc, and not well-thought out, but his second term has shown that the thinking and planning behind these moves is precise, intentional, and has the aim of eliminating threats first to the United States, then the world at large. That is, in fact, America First.
Power was their goal and the US stood in their way. Now they are reeling and Putin himself is even reaching out to Trump.
Trump may very well reach his end goal of smashing the China Russia axis, but that is not the only alliance in jeopardy.
Events have shown that NATO is now a relic of a past age. It was formed to help the United States face off against a Soviet juggernaut of millions of soldiers, thousands of tanks, and a relentless drive westward. Russia is a shadow of the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Europe is a shadow of what it was only 30 years ago, having embraced economic decline by focusing on inefficient green energy and unsustainable social welfare systems.
The United States, however, is on the verge of creating a new system. Iran’s bizarre attacks against Sunni Muslim nations have forged the bonds between the US, Israel, and powers such as Saudi Arabia. Iran’s defeat could open an era of relative peace there because its terrorist proxies are also on their way out.
In the Far East, Japan remains a stalwart friend and ally. Other nations, such as the Philippines, count on US protection from Chinese attempts to take their territory and ocean space.
