In Fox News analyst Doug Schoen's new book, Return to Winter: Russia, China, and the New Cold War Against America, he tells us the U.S. is a nation in crisis. While Washington has been rendered nearly impotent by ongoing partisan warfare, we face an array of national security threats that America seems increasingly unprepared, and perhaps unwilling, to handle. Among these, none is more formidable than the unprecedented partnership developing between Russia and China, two former foes drawn increasingly close together because of a confluence of geostrategic, political, and economic interests - all of which have a common theme of diminishing, subverting, or displacing American power.
- * Russia working assiduously to build more nuclear
facilities for Iran and ensuring Iran maintains "breakout
potential" for a nuclear weapon - even as the West formalized its
nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.
- * Enabling the Syrian regime: making it possible for
Assad to deploy chemical weapons against his own people, preventing U.S.
interventions in Syria, forcing Obama to walk back his "red
line," and, finally, deploying Russian forces to protect the Assad
regime.
- * Keeping the deranged North Korean regime afloat for
years and enabling Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities - which have grown to
be far greater than previous American estimates.
- * Russia's plans to destabilize and annex territories
in Europe - from Eastern Ukraine to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania.
- * China's expansionism in the East China Sea and the
South China Sea, where they are flouting international law and making
claims that would put one of the world's primary shipping lanes almost
entirely under Chinese direction.