A flash of insight...

I watched “Amazing Grace” the other day with Liz, while the kids were all gone. A good (but not great) dramatization of the end of the slave trade as a legal industry in the British Empire at the beginning of the 18th Century. No question, the writers and producers of this movie had their “facts” straight. The events did, in fact, unfold just as they show them to have. It was a good (again, but not great) portrayal of William Wilberforce’s efforts to end the trafficking of human beings through the markets of London seaports.

Do you know what I realized while watching this movie?

William Wilberforce (and his associates in Parliament) caused the War of 1812.

In short, if you haven’t seen the movie, the abolitionists of England couldn’t beat the mercantile interests of the seaport MP’s in open debate… too much money and support to keep the slaves flowing to the plantations in the West Indies. They did defeat them by removing the ability of British-owned slave ships (many of which were owned by the King’s brother, the Duke of Clarence) to hide from French raiders and privateers under the protection of a neutral flag… like Old Glory. Thus, by removing this ability, the American flag was no longer seen as “protection” from attack in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte. Both French AND English raiders could now attack and seize any vessel flying the American flag. This, as I am sure you all know, was a major contributor to the eventual war with America in 1812.

This led me to think on the protection afford ALL shipping and commerce over the years by the British Navy during the Empire period. With almost no interruptions, the Royal Navy controlled the seas (at least the Atlantic and Mediterranean) and could protect or destroy maritime commerce at will for nearly 200 years. It wasn’t until WWI and the introduction of Germany’s interdiction strategy and the U-boats that British naval superiority began to wane.
As that superiority began to wane, there was another navy rapidly growing in capability and technology that was ready to step into the role of “Protector of the Seas”… and that was the US Navy. Since the end of WWII, the US has maintained a nearly singular position as THE global naval power in the world.

The importance of this role in global security and defense cannot be understated. For example, if the Chinese (who only recently showed the surprising naval capability to surface a newly-developed diesel attack submarine well within torpedo range of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier UNDETECTED) decided to stretch their naval hand to the point of increasing and enforcing an exclusion zone out into the Western Pacific, what would that do to US interests in the Pacific? How then would the businessmen and bankers living in Hong Kong or Taiwan and the HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of US dollars remain accessible to domestic contact? Or if a stepped-up Iranian navy were allowed unfettered ability to conduct operations in the Persian Gulf and the Straights of Hormuz, what would that do to global energy resources?

Even assuming that the US can maintain the level of Middle Eastern oil and gas imports into the country to less than 20% of total need (its right at 17% now) for the next 25 years, our interests and support of places like Japan, South Korea, the EU and much of the Pacific Rim would DEMAND US protection of international shipping and defense of the seas.

Does anyone honestly think Obama or Hillary understand this at all?