On Wednesday, President Biden told a graduating class at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, that the military service will play a significant role in Washington’s global competition with Russia and China.
Biden accused Moscow and Beijing of violating international maritime rules and norms, a common talking point coming out of his administration. “As you know, increasingly, we’re seeing those rules challenged, both by the rapid advance of technology and the disruptive actions of nations like China and Russia,” he said.
Biden has framed the US relationship with China as an ideological battle between “democracy” and “autocracy,” something he echoed in Wednesday’s speech. He said the US should “set the norms of conduct, to shape them around democratic values, not those of autocrats.”
The US Coast Guard has been deployed to the western Pacific to challenge Beijing and recently signed a deal to boost cooperation with Taiwan’s Coast Guard. “Our new agreement for the Coast Guard to partner with Taiwan will help ensure that we’re positioned to better respond to shared threats in the region,” Biden said.
Biden told the class that the Coast Guard will challenge countries all over the globe whether it’s in “the South China Sea, the Arabian Gulf, and, increasingly, the Arctic.” The US Coast Guard is currently expanding its base in Seattle where it plans to house three new icebreakers to increase its Arctic capabilities.
The Coast Guard was recently involved in provocations near Iran’s coast. Last week, the Pentagon said a Coast Guard cutter fired warning shots at Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Coast Guard has also been deployed to stoke tensions with Russia. At the height of recent tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the US deployed a Coast Guard cutter to the Black Sea.
President Biden’s speech is just another example to show that US foreign policy is shifting gears to focus on so-called “great power competition” with Russia and China. In his first address to Congress last month, Biden said the US was in competition with Beijing to “win the 21st century.”
Terms like “defend our homeland,” “for the war on terror,” or “for our freedom” are no longer needed to send our young people to death. We can just send them to their death to “win the 21st century.”
As long as they can get dumb and stupid 17 to 24 year olds to join their murder squads commonly know as armies the wars will continue , you never see in military adverts information such as you are expected to kill people you have never meet , no nothing about and have done you no harm and you may be killed yourself .
True words. They also use the high cost of education to give poor young people a deal they cannot refuse. It is sad.
There is a signing bonus.
We know a young man that re-upped to get the cash so he could by a fancy sports car, that a friend wrecked when he was overseas, from which he came back messed up by an IED, and now battles PTSD, along with the results of his injuries.
Perfect, eh?
So, somehow Russsia and China are violating maritime rules, but it is OK for the US to send coastguard vessels 7,500 miles away to lurk off the Russian coast?
Are they puitting something in the water in the US, or maybe all the nuclear testing near Las Vegas did something to people’s brains.