Two recent episodes offer an insight into a world in which the United States deliberately adopts a policy of pursuing international peace despite weakness, rather than practice what Ronald Reagan called “peace through strength.”

By Frank Gaffney, Jr. at Center for Security Policy

EXCERPTS:

First, prior to and during Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ present trip to Communist China, his hosts lifted the veil of secrecy on a brand new, “fifth-generation” stealth fighter aircraft.  This “J-20” is clearly intended to compete with, and perhaps defeat, America’s inventory of such planes – the F-22, whose production Mr. Gates insisted on terminating prematurely, and the F-35, whose production he is now slowing.

U.S. intelligence evidently was taken by surprise that the Chinese have made such progress in so sophisticated an area of military design and manufacturing.

Second, the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz revealed last week that the chief of the Russian armed forces staff had just made a no-less-portentous announcement: General Nikolai Makarov declared that his country would have by 2020 an “impenetrable” defense against missile attack: “The state will have an umbrella over it which will defend it against ballistic missile attacks, against medium-range missiles, air-based cruise missiles, sea-based cruise missiles, and ground-based cruise missiles, including missiles flying at extremely low altitudes, at any time and in any situation.”

Presumably, U.S. intelligence and Mr. Gates were surprised by this revelation, too.  After all, no mention was made of the Russians’ commitment to provide comprehensive protection against all missiles a month ago, when the U.S. Senate was being coerced into hastily approving the New START Treaty.  One wonders whether senators would have voted differently had they known what is now clear:  They approved an accord that the other party insists will effectively preclude us from making “any qualitative or quantitative improvements” to our missile defenses.  This despite the fact that our present anti-missile systems are: a) only designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, not cruise missiles that fly aerodynamically, and b) too limited to prevent any attack, including ones from Russia or China – just the relatively small threat of a couple of missiles launched by “rogue states.”  These would include Iran and North Korea (which curiously happen to be Moscow and Beijing’s allies/clients/proxies).

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