Jim Patterson and President Obama on China

December 22, 2014

Dear James: Thank you for writing.  I have heard from many Americans about United States-China relations, and I appreciate your perspective. I believe there is much to be gained from a closer working relationship with China.  Indeed there are very few global challenges, if any, we can address effectively without China’s active cooperation.  They are a global economic power, and engagement with China’s government is an important step in stemming the financial crisis that has devastated economies around the world.  Both of our nations seek to lay a foundation for sustainable growth and lasting prosperity.   My Administration is also working with China on a number of security issues, including stopping North Korea’s nuclear program, rolling back the advance of extremists in Pakistan, and ending the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.  The United States and China share common interests on a host of issues—including energy security and climate change, food safety and public health, and nuclear non-proliferation and counter-terrorism.  We want to work with them to address these issues in the years ahead. Improved relations with China will require candor and open discussion about those issues on which we may disagree.  We must address human rights, democracy, and free speech.  We must also work to ensure that our nations play by the rules in open and transparent economic competition.  These important matters will be essential elements of our ongoing dialogue with China.  Thank you, again, for writing.  For more information on my foreign policy agenda, I encourage you to visit www.WhiteHouse.gov/Issues/Foreign-Policy. Sincerely, Barack Obama

What's wrong with the President's letter? 

Third paragraph: "stopping North Korea's  nuclear and cyber programs"

No mention whatsoever of China's cyber attacks on US government and private sectors. Obama just does not know how to effectively bring this issue to the Chinese. 

President Obama does not understand China's cyber capabilities and attacks are a national security threat. Corporate executives tell me they  are spending millions to defend against cyber attacks (Iran, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Russia and others). These attacks are hourly and daily. They are non-stop. All corporations including communications, finance, retail, utilities, and transportation. I talked with a man in Tennessee who said the town's farmers market was hit by cyber attack, 

The US is so vulnerable and no one is doing anything policy-wise or diplomatically to bring this under control. This is a serious problem and Obama is vacationing and trying to solve racial issues. It's not that he doesn't need a rest  and it's not that the US doesn't have race problems, but in my view they pale in comparison to the never ending cyber war against the US.

This North Korean cyber attack on Sony over a movie mocking leader Kim was serious. Sony backed down but they are now releasing the damn movie. 

President Obama compared this cyber attack as cyber vandalism. This reminds me when Senator John F. Kerry was running against President George W. Bush and the Massachusetts Senator called 9/11 "a nuisance" in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

I'll try again to get a letter from Obama explaining our national cyber policy and how corporations are being secured against attack in such ways that prices don't increase and dividends aren't affected. Wish me luck! 

Jim Patterson, Diplomat

Diplomat Jim Patterson: What is US Cuba Policy?

In June 1963, the New York Daily News ran an editorial "What is our Cuba Policy?" In view of recent Obama administration announcements on Cuba, I summarize the editorial here.

Some five weeks ago at New York University's  conference center in Ardsley-on-Hudson, Freedom House assembled 25 serious thinkers on Latin America, cold war problems, etc., and asked them to discuss Western Russia - meaning Khrushchev-Castro Cuba.

Among those present were Leo Cherne, Roscoe Drummond, Christopher Emmet, Brig Gen. S.L.A. Marshall (Ret.), Edgar Ansel Mowyer, and Vice Adm,. Charles Wellborn Jr. (Ret.). The report of the three-day discussions is released today, and is very interesting.

The distinguished guests--most of them generally friendly to the Kennedy Administration--could not figure out just what U.S. policy toward Western Russia is.

But they agreed that it should be (1) to boot Soviet military and political power out of Cuba, (2) to stop Red subversion and troublemaking all over Latin America, and (3) to free the Cuban-people from Castro's brutal police state.

The panel was unimpressed by the fears of various Kennedy advisers that strong measures short of war would "escalate" (current fashionable term) into general nuclear war. Foolish risks, they felt, should not be run; but neither should foolish fears be given too much weight.

These panelists are solid citizens and patriots. They are not hysterical, not war hawks. Their report merits respect and serious consideration--both of which we earnestly hope it may get in the White House.

In this general connection --

Paul Nitze

--a highly touted Assistant Defense Secretary, warns that Soviet Russia is probably about to get tough again toward the free world, as a concession to the tough talking Chinese Reds.

What does the White House do in that case? Does it stand up to the Red Hitler and tell him to go to hell (the only language he understands); or does it wobble and weasel, as it has long done toward Cuba, and thereby contribute some more aid to the Communist plan for enslaving the human race?

We'll see what we'll see.


Comment:

Does Obama's plan expand freedom into Cuba? Dictator Raul Castro says the country will stay socialist. Will the Castro brothers visit the White House and State Department?

This quick action on Cuba by the administration, while Ukraine, Israel, Hong Kong and other nations are in crisis states and the US reels from cyber threats from a dozen nations, threaten freedom in the US and the world, seems intended to make Obama look like a leader on the foreign front. Meantime the US could be on the verge of a race war in major cities, New York, St, Louis, and anywhere in California, and more Americans could be beheaded abroad.

Obama's legacy will not be possible success in Cuba. It will be global as well as domestic tensions.

Jim Patterson, Diplomat and Editor

Diplomat Jim Patterson and the Duchy of Grand Fenwick

The New Year brings the 60th anniversary of one of my favorite books, a Cold War satire. The Mouse that Roared (Four Walls Eight Windows, 152 pages, $10) by Irishman Leonard Wibberley was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post December 1954 and January 1955.

The book, which I read at 10, was my introduction to satire, geopolitics and diplomacy. It was great preparation for the Foreign Service.

Wibberley treats us to the imaginary European Duchy of Grand Fenwick, "five miles long and three miles wide," that is desperately in need to money. Since 1370 the Duchy has had a roaring economy due to sales of an internationally prized wine, Pinot Grand Fenwick. When the grape crop fails, disaster must be averted.

Grand Fenwick's population has grown to 6,000 and Duchess Gloriana must act to quickly to finance the Duchy and keep people content. What to do?

The Duchy's two political parties, the Dilutionists and the Anti-Dilutionists, named for their position on watering down the prized wine to increase sales, suggest asking the U.S. for aid to save the Duchy from Communism.  One problem: Russia does not know the Duchy exists.

Gloriana, a beautiful 22 year old, has a better plan. The Duchess rides her bicycle to a meeting with forest ranger Tully Bascomb, something of a country wise-man. He tells her there is only one honorable way to get money from the U.S. "We could declare war."

Gloriana sees the wisdom of this even though Grand Fenwick has only a small army of longbow men who wear traditional 14th century suits of armor. She concludes, "There are few more profitable undertakings for a country in need of money than to declare war on the United States."

The plan is simple: "We declare war on Monday, are vanquished Tuesday and rehabilitated beyond our wildest dreams by Friday night." In 1950s lingo, "rehabilitation" meant unlimited billions in foreign aid money.

How to start the war? Gloriana proves a California winery is pirating Pinot Grand Fenwick. An angry Grand Fenwick sends a Declaration of War to the U.S. Department of State. A Foreign Service Officer looks at it and considers it a joke and uses it to absorb water under the potted plant in his office.

After weeks of U.S. silence, Grand Fenwick pulls together an expeditionary force to land in New York, declare war to someone and immediately surrender before anyone could get hurt. Tully Bascomb and 22 other armored soldiers take a bus to Marseilles and a brig, called Endeavor, to New York.

Unknown to the Fenwickians, an eccentric New York City scientist has developed a Q bomb for Washington.  The powerful bomb will "incinerate two million square miles" when detonated. News of the bomb panics New York City and everyone takes safety in underground fallout shelters.

When Bascomb and troops arrive in New York they find city streets deserted. They find no one to surrender to.

The Fenwickians eventually come upon scientists wearing protective suits to guard them from any Q bomb fallout. The troops panic and shoot arrows at them. The scientists rip off their suits and alert their superiors New York has been invaded by men from Mars.

Bascomb finds a newspaper in the street and learns of the Q bomb. With his troops, they march to the scientist's lab, address conveniently printed in the paper, and capture the scientist and the bomb. They return to Grand Fenwick victorious over the United States!

Instead of declaring defeat to the most powerful nation in the world, they declare victory. The tiniest country in the world has become the most powerful country in the world.

With the news out, Russia rushes to "protect" Grand Fenwick. U.S. officials are in a state of shock at having lost an unknown "war" to the Duchy.

The U.S. president and European Heads of State travel to Grand Fenwick pleading for world peace. But the Fenwickians have their own ideas about peace and "weapons of mass destruction,"  like the Q bomb.

Irishman Wibberley (1915-1983) was a prolific author and journalist who lived most of his life in California. He dedicated The Mouse That Roared, his most famous work, "To all the little nations who over the centuries have done what they could to attain and preserve their freedom. It is from one of them I am spring."

Wibberley's masterful comic construction works beautifully from start to finish. The Mouse That Roared is a classic fable of mice and men and war and peace. Its message is as sharp today as when it came upon the American scene 60 years ago.

Jim Patterson, Diplomat