The United States was determined to keep out of World War I. It turned out to be impossible because of continued German attacks on American shipping vessels heading to Europe. The Germans had made it clear that they did not respect international sea travel when they attacked and sunk the Lusitania in 1915 – a British ship which had approximately 2000 passengers, of whom about 1200 were drowned, including over 100 Americans. While the United States, with a strong pacifist policy (you could even say “America First”, although I don’t think that term had yet been invented), did not let the sinking of the Lusitania draw it into the war, the fact that this was not an isolated attack, but one of a continuing and growing series of attacks, did do the trick.

This brings us to the Houtis, and their attacks on ships in the Red Sea, disrupting all commercial travel to and through the Suez Canal under the guise of disrupting traffic to Israel (only a small part of Red Sea cargo goes to Israel), forcing ships to travel much greater distances around the southern coast of Africa, and raising both insurance rates and prices. The Houtis, a Shia group backed by Iran which has been engaged with its Sunni rivals in a highly destructive war in Yemen (a war which in fact has been like Gaza on steroids, but ignored by the international protesters), have a lot of nerve attacking worldwide commercial shipping, don’t they? After all, they are not the Kaiser’s Germany. But they are firing Iranian weapons and are totally backed by Iran, just like Hamas and Hezbollah. One can easily make the claim that Iran = Hamas = Hezbollah = the Houtis, so that while Iran (in the guise of Hamas) attacked Israel, Iran (in the guise of the Houtis) has now attacked each of the countries engaged in shipping through the Suez Canal.

This cannot be ignored. And, recently, the United States and the United Kingdom, with several other allied nations, have been attacking rocket sites in Yemen used by the Houtis in their attacks. We don’t know what will come of this on the international front. Maybe nothing. Maybe a wider and long lasting war, involving the U.S. Can’t say.

But….one thing we know domestically. Like every thing else, it will help Trump and hurt Biden. You can hear it now – he opened the border and he got us into war. How can you win with that being the Trump line?

If Trump is our next president, what then? Does Trump continue this war? He wants to save Israel – but at what cost? We know that Trump will do some drastic things at the southern border. We know that Trump will throw Ukraine under the rug, and probably Taiwan, too. Trump’s American First policy will be a return to the 20th century American isolation policies. But they didn’t work in the 20th century; they just postponed the inevitable and made victories much harder. And in a 21st century world, my guess is that they will do the same, only more so. But we will (sadly) probably see.

By the way, I just watched Michael Smerconish’s show – he had as a guest someone who is “expert” in migration issues, and who said two things of importance: (1) that fleeing poverty or climate change does not make on eligible for asylum under American law (I think we all know that), and (2) that Trump’s border policies were really not very effective, that the Biden policies are not that different from the Trump policies, in part because various court decisions have limited the flexibility of border policies, but that the Republicans will milk this for all its worth and bamboozle the American public one more time . (Of course, that was a loosey-goosey paraphrase, but that’s what I heard between the lines.)

Let’s finish with this: I have figured out a way, I think, to talk about books I am reading without any Spoiler Alerts. You do it by writing about the book, when you are only part way through it, and you can’t give away the conclusion, because you have no idea what the conclusion will bring. I am reading The Island of Crimea by Vassily Aksyonov. Remember him? (My guess is that your answer is “no”) Soviet writer who was able to come to the United States in 1980 and live here the rest of his life. And when I saw “here”, I mean “here”. He lived and taught in the Baltimore Washington area for almost 30 years.

This is the first of his books I have read. It was published in 1983. I am not mentioning the book because of its story line, but because of its setting. The book presupposes that in 1917, when the Bolsheviks took over Russia and created the USSR, Crimea (which the book posits as an island, not as a peninsula) remained independent, under the control of the Russian White Army and eventually a prosperous, democratic, western oriented country. During the first 30 or 40 years of the USSR, there was virtually no contact between Russia and Crimea, but liberalization of USSR policies (probably in the 1960s) allowed for communication, commerce and travel between the two. Now, in the 1970s (I think), when the book is situated, there have grown up in Crimea, whose population is virtually all ethnically Russian, a group of intellectuals and politicians who are looking for a stronger tie between the two, a joint future, perhaps one country with two different governmental or economic systems. 

In effect, we are reading the story of Taiwan (or Hong Kong) and mainland China – 40 years before their possible combination might take place. Aksyonov was obviously prescient in writing this book. I will see how it turns out. Then, I can stop worrying about what will happen to Taiwan. I will know.