Mark Helprin on Why China Can Overtake U.S. Naval Power

I am the co-author with my husband Mitchell R. Miller, a member of the U.S. Naval Institute, of the Navy thriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS.

We wrote this Navy thriller in part to demonstrate:

• the need of the Coast Guard for more resources to protect the U.S. coastlines
• the challenge from China in the South China Sea

Here is what author Mark Helprin says in the October 29th Wall Street Journal opinion piece “Mark Helprin: America’s Capsizing Naval Policy”:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s diplomacy in the South China Sea is doomed to impotence because it consists entirely of declarations without the backing of sufficient naval potential, even now when China’s navy is not half of what it will be in a decade.

He goes on to say:

Not until recently would China have been so aggressive in the South China Sea, but it has a plan, which is to grow; we have a plan, which is to shrink; and you get what you pay for.

Helprin concludes his opinion piece of what it will take to keep the U.S. a major naval power in the future with these “fighting” words:

This will demand a president who, like Reagan, will damn the political torpedoes and back a secretary of the Navy who, like John Lehman, will unashamedly and with every power of rhetoric and persistence rebuild the fleets. The military balance, the poise of the international system, and the peace of the world require no less. Nor does America deserve less.

And at the same time that Americans have to worry about the size of the U.S. Navy, we must worry about the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration’s shameful “services” for returning veterans entering the job market.

If you have not yet seen this video of Jon Stewart using humor to demonstrate the economic gap for returning veterans, click here now.

Perhaps you will be the person who can get the DD 214 once again provided to veterans as part of their discharge packet.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is a former military spouse as well as the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including the military fiction MRS. LIEUTENANT: A Sharon Gold Novel.

Click here to visit her Amazon author page at amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com