Russia and US warplanes are flying way too close to one another over Syria and may soon, in Iraq. Drones are all over the place. An accident is inevitable. Civilian airliners are increasingly at risk over the Mideast. US ground troops may enter Syria. This week the missile destroyer, USS Lassen, openly challenged the maritime exclusion zone drawn by China around its latest militarized atoll, Subi reef, in the South China Sea – a sort of poor man’s aircraft carrier that hugely annoys Washington and its Asian allies.
China is building other man-made islands by dredging submerged atolls. Japan and China are at dagger’s drawn over the disputed Senkaku (Daiyou in Chinese) Islands. The Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan all have overlapping claims in the region. China rejects all other nation’s claims.
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