Dayuhan:

I would very much expect the US military to "rescue" and American owned drilling ship especially if it had a number of Americans in the crew and the company was clever enough flag it American. So would the rest of the country. That is one of the reasons we pay for a Navy. They have to earn their keep occasionally.

Well you sum up your case for appeasement quite nicely. The nut of your argument is that there is nothing we can do and even if there were something we could do we wouldn't do it. Ok. That is what you think. I don't. You think the best we can do is pray the CCP is nice to us and we might be able to help that if we kowtow to them. If we don't they might be angered and smite us a mighty blow. I don't think that. If you think that we are weak and got nothing, and they are strong and got it all, your argument makes perfect sense. I don't think that cowering in the face of aggression by maybe the most murderous regime in the history of the world is a good idea. You do.

Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
Do you really think Hitler would have backed down if the UK had threatened him? I don't buy it. He was planning to fight them from the start.
Yes actually. Herr Hitler was interested in winning mostly, fighting was secondary. He got awful far by bluffing. If the French had moved against the German troops that moved into the Rhineland they would have skedaddled lickety split and who knows what effect that would have had on Hitler's grasp on power. If the British and French and stood against Hitler in Munich, well who knows what would have happened. Some German generals were planning to act against Hitler if it came to war, the Soviets had a mutual defence treaty with Czechoslovakia and the Czech Army would have been intact, so WWII might not have happened at all or would have had a very different look to it.

So if the British and French had shown some backbone, there is a very good possibility that many many people who died, wouldn't have died so soon.

You have spent 30 years looking at the disagreements in the South China Sea. My point addressed the American and before that British commitment to freedom of navigation on the high seas. Your 30 years of looking just to the west might not really be of much help when addressing my point.