Where's your messiah now...

Make no mistake, I admire and respect our new Commander-in-Chief. I disagree with many of his social policies and am shocked at his inability to rein in a wanton Congress. But he clearly has a grasp of international necessities. So far, his actions seem to be aligned with the continuing ideology of the United States as the sole super power with a moral obligation to act decisively in support of international freedoms and rights.

Most recently, President Obama dispatched United States Navy warships to the South China Sea to escort the unarmed USNS IMPECCABLE. That ship is being harassed while conducting legitimate surveillance near the main Chinese ballistic missile submarine base. The United States has always been a staunch supported of the law of the sea and spends a great deal of time and energy protecting its use an avenue for commerce and trade.

The latest moves by China are classic cold war brinksmanship. This national bravado, much like the launch of the “peaceful” satellite by North Korea, is par for the course for opponents to US policy. Anyone who fails to see the North Korean effort for what it is, a test launch of an ICBM, is likely living in a vegan commune in Oregon. This is now, ironically, in range of North Korean weapons systems.

President Obama has found that the harsh realities of the post Cold War world are complex, extremely volatile and can not be handled with verbal diplomacy alone. Iranian drones have been shot down by US aircraft over Iraq. Detainees released from Guantanamo have shown up in Afghan battlefields, Russian forces are illegally consolidating their holdings in South Ossetia and Haiti continues to be fertile ground for backyard instability. And this is simply the open source list of possible threats to global and US security.

This picture paints a precarious one for the United States and the world. As the present economic uncertainty continues, the globe is more vulnerable to shocks from natural and manmade calamities. A capable organization or nation which seeks to further destabilize the world would have any number of choice options to act. It is imperative that free world forces are deployed to counter these threats and that the United States takes the lead in action against individuals, groups and nations that seek to undermine law and order.

President Obama has continued the necessary work. I am optimistic that my new boss will maintain a healthy pragmatism when deciding on national security issues. He certainly has abandoned that in the financial realm.