The South China Sea Is the Next Test of US Resolve

By Andreas Kluth – Bloomberg

Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine with a tale as spurious as China’s nine-dash line: a mystical narrative that Ukrainians are really Russians and therefore belong to the Kremlin. Russia is now trampling on the sovereignty and integrity of a fellow member state of the UN. If Putin isn’t stopped, he will go on — to Moldova and elsewhere. Likewise, if Beijing got away with seizing a Vietnamese or Philippine island, it would grab more. The UN Charter and international law would become as irrelevant as the League of Nations did when it failed to stop Mussolini and Hitler.