Is President Obama prepared for what might come next in the South China Sea?

The Navy’s recent deployment of the destroyer USS Lassen on a “freedom of navigation” exercise in the South China Sea demonstrated that America does not accept Chinese territorial claims in those waters. Long overdue, but better late than never, the Lassen’s voyage hopefully augurs more to come to safeguard the international waters and rights of “innocent passage” through which nearly one-half of the world’s ocean commerce flows.

Nonetheless, this single mission does not yet evidence either a well-conceived U.S. strategy or the resolve necessary for a sustained effort to prevent Beijing from effectively annexing this vital, sharply contested region. China is not creating “facts on the ground,” as diplomats like to say, but is literally creating the ground itself, using small surfaces above the water to build new islands, essentially to serve as naval and air bases for Beijing’s military.   Read more