CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, April 29, 2019

America as Gulliver: Assessing the threat

For some readers, the most memorable passage in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 satire Gulliver’s Travels is when the shipwrecked and exhausted Lemuel Gulliver wakes face-up on the island of Lilliput and finds that he is staked to the ground and cannot move. Why? Because over 40, six-inch-tall people, who call themselves Lilliputians, have staked poor Gulliver in place using dozens of ropes, and threads.

Fast forward to 2019 and imagine the United States as Gulliver, staked in place by a growing Red China, a confrontational Russia, a terrorism sponsoring Iran, the remnants of al Qaeda and ISIS, a whacko-led nuclear North Korea, and millions of people from third-world countries walking over Gulliver’s body, pausing only to pick his pockets.

Of course, the Red Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, and the North Koreans are not six-inch-tall Lilliputians. But neither are they 12-foot-tall. They are full-grown nation-states that can be dealt with by diplomatic or, if necessary, military means.

But millions of migrants flowing over a border that is only protected from invasion in a few places are a different order of magnitude. Why? Because diplomatic efforts with Mexico, with the Central American nations and others have failed to check the invasion. And, because we are dealing with the lives of human beings, using aggressive military means are out of the question.

Fortunately, the steps to arrest this invasion and to create a rational immigration system for the United States are well known. Unfortunately, a divided, highly partisan government is not likely to act rationally and solve America’s immigration problems.

Meanwhile, the threat posed by Red China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) grows worse. A month ago, in "Need a new worry? Try Chicom’s BRI," we explained how the Chicom’s BRI makes infrastructure loans to developing nations, gets hired to build the infrastructure projects, and should the debtor nation default on the loan, the Chicom’s seize the pledged collateral, be it a port facility, an airport, or a railway system.

The threat has grown since our earlier report about the Chicom’s operational control of the Panama Canal, the Chicom’s port facilities at each end of the Canal, and the Chicom’s major port on Grand Bahama Island. As of this writing, the Chicom’s have made BRI loans to: Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Dominica, Antigua, Barbuda, and the Dominican Republic. Recall, the purpose of the BRI is to make Red China the world’s dominant economic power.

Recently, CIA Director, Gina Haspel, announced that the CIA is reducing its post-9/11 focus on al Qaeda and ISIS and beginning to apply more resources to Russia and Iran. Interestingly, Director Haspel made no mention of Red China, an omission that might be due to the current and delicate trade talks with Red China.

As any Delta Force operator knows, you deal with the most immediate existential threat first and then deal with the others. So, what does our Gulliver do? Are nation-states such as Russia, Red China, Iran or North Korea the biggest threats to the continued existence of the United States as we know it? Or, is our most immediate danger the flood of "Lilliputians" flowing virtually unimpeded across our southern border? We report. You decide.

©2019. William Hamilton.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame. Dr. Hamilton is the author of The Wit and Wisdom of William Hamilton: the Sage of Sheepdog Hill, Pegasus Imprimis Press (2017). "Central View," can also be seen at: www.central-view.com.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com