The United States is the peacemaker in this case. They are trying their darnest and pulling every trick out of the book to pacify China while still showing unflinching support for a close ally. Generally this is counterproductive if not quite impossible which is why this situation requires top notch political maneuvering.
Sending in the slow lumbering unarmed B-52s with about as big an RCS is a very good move. To the layman (Japanese and some Americans) this may seem like a 'big screw' you to China however most do not realized that this move was actually like an out for Japan. US HAD to act first because JMSDF didn't know what to do and very likely have done something to really provoke China and open a can of worms that CAN'T be easily closed afterward.
If the US really wanted to do that they would not have send unarmed B-52s on 'regular flight path' from Guam and skirted the ADIZ. They would've send fully armed B-2s from my home state with Raptor escorts and loiter in the ADIZ before buggin out if or when spotted. That would obviously be a very provocative and assinine move and would achieve nothing positive at all.
Now the US is advising civilian airlines from the US to adhere to the ADIZ rules of notification to further calm things down in the hopes that Japan will follow suit since JAL etc has been advised NOT to do so a few days ago.
The Obama admin has a LOT of things going on right now and they LAST thing he and his admin wants is to have to deal with a curveball like this that can potentially escalate into something very very major and significant if not properly handled. He has way too much going on in the domestic front and neither he nor anyone else for that matter wants to be the POTUS either directly or indirectly responsible for Japan and China going to war by making a mistake or poorly calculated political move.
US is
not the peace maker in this case.
if it were really a peacemaker, first it would gone back and public and say that it made a mistake in transferring the administration of rocks back to Japan. Second. would not encourage japan by saying US-Japan Alliance covers a territory Japan has clearly has a dispute on, while at same time saying that it is neutral in this dispute. If you lend your buddy the a gun and promise to come to his aid if he is in trouble, while same time saying you are not in his argument with his neighbor, is, by all stretch of common sense,
a bald face lie. And it should called so, and subsequently lose all of its moral high ground in this case.
A peace maker does not intimidate one side while
give the other side a blank check grantee. a good peacemaker would absolve itself of all interest in the dispute (in which clearly US in this case is not the case because preserving a strong japan vs a weak china is clearly in US short term interest, hence all the bullshchit about
Preserving the Status Quo, which a code word for the current
absolute and supreme dominance of Western Pacfic air and sea space by the US-Japan Military Alliance ), a TRUE peace maker would go back to the merit of the issue, and judge and act base on the merit and merit alone not politics. Clearly US is not in the condition to do so. Simply the echos of NSC-68 and Dean G. Acheson's famous speech at the National Press Club on 12 January 1950, which was seen as putting Taiwan and South Korea outside of US defensive parameter, would prohibited US from even a slightest waiver in its position less it is seen as analogous to the historic "Appeasement"... So sadly, Chinese aspirations would suffer instead, and merely a delaying of inevitable would ensure. simply put it, US-Japan is writing checks its grandkids would not be able to cash...
The Core of the problem is that, it is trying to preserve its own disproportionate interest vis-a-via a power in Asia by preserving its alliance with a country governed by the most notorious nationalistic government since 1945. by doing so I found it very hard to convince history that It is doing the right thing. It has let go of all but thinnest veils of universal values covering a grotesque body of naked national interest and may be even racial hatred.
P.S.
I would find it surprising that all the media lynching of china on this issue lately is not with out an active spin by the US government or interest groups in and around it.
