Is Tillerson talking too much? He does seem to be using more ‘humanitarian imperative’ kind of language re Syria than I’m comfortable with - once you start adding to WMD use things that might bring a military response to me you’re opening the door for Putin and Iran to box you into a corner with some non-WMD barbarity - which means if you haven’t mapped out your moves should that happen you’re opening yourself up to either looking weak and confused if you don't respond or dangerously escalating things if you do. Now, I have a lot of faith in Mattis and McMaster and it looks like Trump does too, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that the moves being made and the language being used are all part of a considered plan - still, feeling a little on edge here.
I mean, let’s look at the carrier group diverted from a trip to Australia now headed to Korea - what that tells me is that along with the speed with which the strike in Syria was carried out and the fact that they were tracking the Syrian plane that dropped the bomb that it sure looks to me like Mattis et al had already put a plan in place before Assad acted - in other words, everything currently in motion was seen as being inevitable given Assad’s previous behavior and the broad outlines of a response had already been developed - which means, I hope, that Mattis et al know exactly what the purpose of the Carl Vinson strike group heading to Korea is - but what if that’s not true? What if this has all been assembled during the very short window between Assad’s action and Trump’s response? And what if diverting the Vinson was sort of an ad hoc move designed to take advantage of an opportunity to exert pressure on China to do something about the growing nuclear menace of North Korea? I have a very hard time believing that's the case - but if it is and China won’t or simply cannot do anything about the insanity coming to a head in North Korea, well, what the fuck then? Just turning the Vinson around and going back home would decidedly not be a good outcome.
China really has created significant problems for itself by allowing the North Korean nuke program to get so far along - assuming of course they’ve always had the ability to stop it but didn’t for whatever reasons. All their choices now are bad - America takes military action to topple or destabilize the Kim regime - America doesn’t take military action which necessitates an extreme enhancing of ABM assets in South Korea and Japan and possibly one of those countries deciding to go nuclear - China itself must take military action to topple the Kim regime. Given those bad choices, I would assume if China indeed does have the ability to stop North Korea’s nuke program, now would be the time to get off your ass and do it. And maybe that is the precise point of sending the Carl Vinson to Korea - a calculation that given its options China really has no choice but to do something about Lil’ Kim.
[there could be another reason for the Vinson heading to Korea as has been pointed out to me - it would involve what I’ve considered for a long time to be something the US should seriously think about doing - either shooting down North Korea’s test missiles in the boost stage or possibly even destroying the missiles as they sit on launch pads fueling up. As said before, if they can’t test the missiles they can’t perfect the technology, which wouldn’t necessarily end their nuke program but would put significant hurdles in the way of it. Now of course even this limited military action could escalate in a very worrisome way - but if the point is to force China into coming up with a solution of its own, this may be the kind of risk you have to take. Afterall, North Korea is a problem China created and maintained - the deranged regime is their rabid cur which they’ve kept around to keep intruders out of a junkyard - and now that sick animal is about to mutate into a monstrosity that the junkyard fence cannot contain - it’s wholly China’s responsibility to put the creature down and if they’re not going to do it they completely lose the right to complain about the consequences of that]
