Saturday, December 26, 2015

3 Ways an Asian War Could Erupt

Most revealing, though, was hearing about the knife’s edge on which northeast Asia rests today. Indeed, in talks with prominent thinkers and practitioners, the issue that came up more than once was that the relatively stable regional situation could change—and change quickly—if a few scenarios go the wrong way. Part of the U.S. strategy for the rebalance should be first to understand these flashpoints and then to prevent any rising tensions in northeast Asia from leading to war. So, what might cause Asia to fall off the knife’s edge?

1 comment:

Chiu ChunLing said...

Another article, "The Ugly Truth About Avoiding War With China", features John Mearsheimer's warning that “China cannot rise peacefully.” This is not entirely true, China could easily rise peacefully, and much faster than it is currently doing...but that would require that the CCP give up their stranglehold on power. It would thus be more accurate to say that "the CCP does not want China to rise peacefully."

Speaking of a classic Thucydides Trap ignores the real constraints on the situation. The CCP does not want to strengthen freedom domestically, locally, or globally. On the other hand, America has become an imperial power, one that cannot survive global increases in freedom. We have bet our future on being able to use military supremacy to bully the world into accepting our profligate and wasteful spending (in both public and private sectors), and cannot survive as an intact nation should the rest of the world ask for their money back...which they will inevitably do if we are not seen as militarily supreme.

Of course, this profligacy isn't an accident, it is engineered by the American version of the CCP, which operates under several different formal organizational umbrellas and is perhaps most accurately termed simply "the Establishment". It wasn't always so, this new ruling class in America may have roots going back to the slave-owning class in the antebellum South, but it was in eclipse for the better part of a century after the war and it has not really been in full control of all the dominant institutional structures in America until quite recently. They won't relinquish power willingly anymore than the CCP will, and we have run out of meaningful ways to oppose them short of another civil war (one which, true to form, they will start just like they started the last one).

The CCP wants America's troublesome 'beacon of freedom' out of the way. And so does the Establishment currently running our national (and most of our state and local) government.