Muscle-Flexing in the West Pacific

The proposed build up of US naval strength in the West Pacific, to as many as five aircraft carriers, most of the US fleet in fact, is widely interpreted as a show of strength to China, and possibly as a bluff -which is how this is currently being discussed in China’s Global Times, and must by definition be intended to convey a message.

The Chinese commentaries tend to think that the message is to camouflage the actual weakness of US armed forces - inability to sustain recruitment, inability to win its proxy war with Russia over Ukraine, inability to build sufficient ships, the dwindling of its immediate weapons stocks and the slowness of its weapons production capability, the economic slippage of those who were formerly its most loyal subjects in Europe, including Germany and the UK (both now in recession) and their weakening loyalty (amidst signs that even European Macho foreign policy experts cannot stomach the horror of Israel’s genocide in Gaza), the plummeting esteem of the US as a moral, military, political or cultural force in the world (amidst its long tail of domestic mass shootings, border chaos, and doddery yet antagonistic plutocratic Presidents).

Apart from showing off its now rather flabby muscles is the US sending out any message that is to be taken seriously? Watch this space.

As you know, I see the collective West failing in its counter revolution against the post globalization Global South and failing in what are its current main points of combat: Ukraine, building up of Israel against Iran, and China over Taiwan.