TRANSPORTS IN THE FOG, PACIFIC AND ATLANTIC: Amid C-130s, airmen in the 374th Maintenance Group conduct a Foreign Object Debris walk on the foggy flightline at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Dec. 18, 2019. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, 911th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron flying crew chiefs inspect the engine of a C-17 Globemaster III after landing at Naval Air Station Rota, Spain. The 911th Airlift is converting from the C-130 Hercules to the C-17 Globemaster III. Photo taken Dec. 15, 2019.

CHINA: Balance of Terror.

The trade war with the Americans has prompted China to accelerate its plan to eliminate dependence on American technology. This includes abandoning the U.S. dominated SWIFT bank transfer system, computer operating systems and the Internet. China is also hustling to replace all the American computer hardware (mainly key components) and software. This won’t happen quickly and may cost the economy more than expected.

More:

Ignoring the official optimism of the Chinese government, a growing number of Chinese government and business leaders believe China is headed for the same fate as Japan in the 1990s, when a real estate bubble triggered a violent and continuing halt in economic growth. The Japanese had allowed a huge real estate bubble to develop and, when economic growth stalled for a bit, a lot of the real estate loans became bad debt and that created an economic crisis Japan is still dealing with. Japanese were angry and being a democracy they elected new politicians. China is not a democracy and a banking crisis like the Japanese went through in the 1990s will create a lot of angry Chinese who cannot, as the saying goes, “vote the rascals out (of office)”.

Inquiring minds will read the entire post.

ROK SUB VISITS GUAM: South Korean sailors aboard the ROKS Yun Bonggil prepare to conduct line handling duties as the submarine arrives at Naval Base Guam. Photo taken June 5, 2019.

STRATEGYTALK: Freedom not dead yet in Hong Kong.

NORTH AMERICA’S ENERGY DIPLOMACY: Fracking pays off.

Iran, Russia and Venezuela provide current cases where the North American energy edge damages the dictators.

Read the entire column. And tell that scold Greta Thunberg she’s a totalitarian tool.

NIGHTHAWKS: Three USN F/A-18Es fly in formation over the Pacific Ocean.

NORTH AMERICA’S INFLUENTIAL ENERGY DIPLOMACY

OPERATION CHRISTMAS DROP 2019: A USAF C-130J Super Hercules based at Yokota Air Base, Japan, drops five Low-Cost, Low-Altitude humanitarian aid bundles on to the island of Woleai, Federated States of Micronesia. Photo taken December 10.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN UKRAINE: A Ukrainian T-64 tank participates in a combat training exercise at Yavoriv, Ukraine. In November 130 U.S. soldiers deployed to Ukraine as advisers at the joint multi-national training center in Yavoriv. This is not hearsay, this is fact.

SINKING A HAZARD TO NAVIGATION: Is one of China’s fake islets in the South China Sea going down? Well, not yet. The USS Detroit sinks a vessel that has been declared a hazard to navigation in the Atlantic Ocean. Photo taken Nov. 23, 2019.

AYATOLLAH IRAN’S BLOODY DECEMBER

TRUMP’S EMERGING DIPLOMATIC RECORD:

Three years ago, Donald Trump began a rhetorical offensive targeting the governments of NATO nations that chronically failed to meet their allied defense financial commitments. With bombastic huff, Trump intimated that allies pay their share or America might walk.

It’s 2019. Few NATO members currently meet the 2% GDP defense commitment. However, several once-laggard NATO nations have increased military spending, and the alliance is stronger for it. The era of blithe freeloading has ended. Cheapskates like Germany pay a price in lost prestige. America not only hasn’t walked; it is modernizing its forces.

And there’s more. It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column (bumped).

BELOW AND BEHIND A BUFF: The B-52 is on a long-range strike exercise.

TRUMP’S CANNY DIPLOMATIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FEINTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE: Read the entire column.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): You really should. What Trump has been doing has seemed fairly obvious to me, but it’s even more obvious that it hasn’t been obvious to most people.

SURFING CAMP PENDLETON: Did the The Beach Boys cover this in Surfin’ USA? Not perzackly. But this is a case of surfing southern California for the USA. Marines are kinda sorta heavily armed beach boys. In the photo a U.S. Navy LCAC transports 11th MEU personnel and equipment to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California.

TRUMP’S CANNY DIPLOMATIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FEINTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

NASA’S SUPER GUPPY LIFTING ORION: NASA’s Super Guppy air transport arrives at the 179th Airlift Wing, Mansfield, Ohio. The 179th Airlift Wing is assisting the NASA Super Guppy in transporting parts of the Orion Space Project to Mansfield, where the parts can be transported by truck to the Glenn Research Center in Sandusky, Ohio. The Air National Guard photo was taken Nov. 24, 2019.

TROJAN SMOKE OVER NELLIS: A USMC T-28 Trojan aircraft pops smoke over Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, during a parachute demonstration with U.S. Special Operations Command Para-Commandos. Photo taken Nov. 15, 2019.

BANGALORE TORPEDO PRACTICE: Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, detonate obstacle-breaching Bangalore torpedoes during a live-fire and maneuver exercise at the company assault course, Twentynine Palms, Calif.,

3,000 HOURS IN AN A-10 WARTHOG: I’ll quote the photo caption whole hog, so to speak.

Lt. Col. Bartley Ward, a 107th Fighter Squadron pilot, flies an A-10 Thunderbolt II during a training mission at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., Nov. 7, 2019. During the mission, Ward surpassed his 3,000th flight hour in the A-10.

American ground pounders give thanks every day for the A-10 and pilots like LTC Ward.

AMERICAN TROOPS EARN THEIR BREVET PARACHUTISTE MILITAIRE: U.S. troops serving with Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa and French paratroopers conduct static line jump operations from a French Air Force Transall C-160, June 10, 2019, near Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.

HONG KONG’S BALLOTS CHALLENGE CHAIRMAN MAO’S GUN BARRELS:

The Hong Kong pro-democracy movement’s overwhelming Nov. 24 election victory demonstrates that the city’s brave citizens disdain Mao Zedong’s political ditties almost as much as they scorn the crooked Chinese Communist Party tyranny the mass-murdering former chairman created.

Mao, who fancied himself a poet and philosopher, declared that political power grows from the barrel of a gun. From the Soviet Kremlin to the University of California, Berkeley to Jane Fonda, the global left waved Mao’s Little Red Book, applauded his so-called “thoughts” and proclaimed radical Marxism to be humanity’s future.

Hong Kong’s 2019 protests and the recent district election results are actions –deeds, not words — that directly challenge Mao’s gun barrel maxim and lay claim to a future where political power expresses the will of free people.

My latest Creators Syndicate column. My latest book, Cocktails from Hell, explores Communists China’s numerous gambits, delusions and weaknesses.

ABOUT TIME: President Trump to designate Mexican criminal cartels as terrorist organizations. Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their yes-men/womyn/transient-media were not available for comment.