THE BLESSINGS OF GEOGRAPHY

I had a married classmate in college. Her husband was a Navy vet who spent his stint in the NSA. Yeah, the infamous NSA. Part of what I learned about Russia I got from Ed. He basically said forget the politics. That two concerns drive that country now matter who is running it. Secure borders and access to warm water ports. He majored in polisci. Apparently the class in world government included several other vets. They formed their own study group and when the class ran a simulation? As he put it, “we played the game the way it’s really played and took over the world. " 

Before I do some entries exploring what it might be like to have a navy that’s based either several hundred miles from open ocean or so far north that it might as well be let’s take a look at the continental U.S.  Maps courtesy of Britannica. 

Most of our major bases are on the east coast. Then there’s Bremerton and Everertt in Washington and San Diego in California. When the Nimitz and her support vessels leave port from Everett, there’s about a sixty mile run before they hit deep water and they do have to go by Vancouver Island. But hey, the Canadians are friendly. San Diego, except for a few offshore islands that belong to us, well it’s a straight run into open ocean.  

East coast, once they get out of say Chesapeake Bay or the base harbors it’s a straight run into deep water. And it’s not like the planes flying out of the Naval air stations on either coast or the Gulf states have to over fly other countries to even get in the air.

Oceans on the east and west. A friendly, or at least fairly friendly, nations to the north and south. Mexico has a navy, by the way. The capital ships consist of two destroyers and four frigates. Somehow I don’t think they’re going to be bothering us anytime soon.

The last time this country was successfully invaded was two centuries ago. We haven’t spent the better part of a thousand years wondering where the next “hit” was coming from. And we're not paying "rent" to another country to use naval base facilities that we built in the first place but, through and accident of history now belong to another country. Just how long do you think the "warhawks" in this country would tolerate a situation like that?