The heat goes on

"The stage is set; the fuse is ready to be lit. Sometimes I have to shake my head in wonder - like, how did we get here? How did we go from the end of the Cold War to on the doorstop of World War III in such short order?"

Some parts of the country are baking like bread in the oven. Other parts have had an entire season of rain so far - and then some. But this is not about weather, or the "existential threat" of climate change. This is about the real heat in the world right now. Not just the heat, but the odor. The heat and the odor of conflict, just waiting around the corner. More and more people, far smarter than I, believe the next big conflict is coming - and coming soon.

Right now, we have played our best hand in the Western Pacific. China has been beating the war drums loudly as of late - so loud, the innocent folks in Taiwan would be sure to hear them. The wizards of smart (our war planners), feel strongly right now that China is going to make a play for Taiwan sooner rather than later. It could be tomorrow, but for sure will be sometime this decade. 

We know for a fact any conflict over Taiwan which would involve us, Japan and the PI, would be decided by air more so than sea. In other words - air dominance. We know, and China knows, the country in the world which is leading in air dominance right now is us. And most of our air dominance comes from our F-35s which live on our carriers. So, what then, is our best play?

Since carriers can house up to 50 F-35s when deployed, our war planners felt we needed to have five of our carriers in the neighborhood just in case push came to shove over Taiwan. That would give us a force of 250 F-35s just from our carriers alone. We also would have assets in Guam, the PI, Japan, Australia and South Korea. It is hoped all this fire power from our F-35s could act as a deterrence. Not a provocation, but a deterrence.

For many years now, our military has been built on a "two front" concept. In other words, we could fight and win a war in Europe, and also a war in the Pacific. Kind of like World War II. With Putin also rattling his saber right now with NATO, that is exactly the threat we are looking at. A possible Russia/NATO conflict in Europe with a simultaneous United States/China war over Taiwan.

The stage is set, the fuse is ready to be lit. Sometimes I have to shake my head in wonder - like, how did we get here? How did we go from the end of the Cold War to on the doorstop of World War III in such short order?

The heat is coming. Some say the heat is already here. War could start in an instant, over something foolish or a mistake. Once it starts, thing could escalate quickly. Pray for peace folks. Pray that cooler heads will prevail. Yes, things are that serious right now.