World View: U.S. B-52 Warplanes Challenge China's 'Sea Air Identification Zone'

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• U.S. B-52 warplanes challenge China’s ‘Sea Air Identification Zone’
• France to send troops to Central African Republic in ‘chaos’

U.S. B-52 warplanes challenge China’s ‘Sea Air Identification Zone’

B-52 Bomber

America has flown two unarmed B-52 bombers on a training mission indefiance of the “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone” thatChina announced over the weekend. (See “24-Nov-13 World View — In new escalation, China demands to control air space over Japan’s Senkaku islands”.)

China announced that all aircraft flying into the region would berequired to identify themselves to China’s military, and to provideflight plans and other information to China. China threatenedmilitary action against any aircraft that didn’t comply.

According to the air force, the B-52s remained in the region for anhour. They did not identify themselves, and there was noconfrontation of any kind.

China’s announced identification zone stretches far enough into theEast China Sea to include the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, one of the manyregions that have historically belonged to China’s neighbors, but overwhich China is demanding full sovereignty anyway. The U.S. Dept. ofDefense has reaffirmed that it will defend Japan’s ownership of theSenkaku Islands:

“We remain steadfast in our commitments to our alliesand partners. The United States reaffirms its longstanding policythat Article V of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty applies tothe Senkaku Islands.”

The treaty was signed in 1960. CNN andU.S. Dept. of Defense

France to send troops to Central African Republic in ‘chaos’

France announced that it will send 1,000 troops to the Central AfricanRepublic (CAR), where the United Nations is reporting “humanitarianchaos,” with torture, massacres, rapes, summary executions andrecruitment of child soldiers in violence between Christian militiasand Seleka rebels who are mostly Muslim. French troops will workalongside a 2,500 strong African Union peacekeeping force that’salready there, in an effort to prevent the violence from spreading toneighboring countries. France expects the intervention to last sixmonths.

This would be France’s second major military operation in Africa thisyear. It was in January of this year that France launched a massivemilitary operation to drive al-Qaeda linked Ansar al-Dine terroristsfrom towns in northern Mali. ( “18-Jan-13 World View — Did France kick a hornet’s nest with military intervention in Mali?”) That operation was onlysupposed to last a couple of months, but there are still active Ansaral-Dine cells, and the French are still there, with withdrawal nowscheduled for February of next year. Euro News and France 24 and Reuters

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