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Sorry if I got wrapped up in a train of thought your post inspired and failed to ,make that clear. Yes, I absolutely agree with your post, was just expanding the same concept to other nations at risk.

The old America as nuclear umbrella, so ya'll don't really need your own, that is unravelling past the point of credibility. If I am Taiwan, or Japan, or South Korea and my Chinese (or North Korean) neighbor starts making rude noises, I am not going to sleep nights all safe and cuddly, secure in the concept that "of course we need not worry, our American frinds will cheerfully put one or more of their West Coast ciies at risk of nuclear annihilation on our behalf."

Actually, that is rather an absurdly large favor for any nation to seriously expect and such agreements were more easily made when there was little chance of anyone actually calling our bluff.

Kim Jong is too screwy to read, I don't know if even the Chinese know exactly what he wants long range. I seriously doubt that the fruitloop himself is sure of that from one day to the next. China is another critter. Their aim is to control their sphere of influece utterly in a hegemonic empire. Other than symbolically, Mao no longer counts, Communism itself is just the convenient dressing to put on whatever form of top-down central control works. I remember during the Clinton years, I heard Chinese minister Jiang speaking to the press at the opening of the most substantial trade talks the two nations had had in a long time. I cannot quote it right now, but I recall thinking, "God help us, the Chinese Prime Minister understands capitalism better than Robert Reich ever did." I believe that in retrospect, that observation has been borne out, they took us to the cleaners in that deal and still take every marginal advantage of our distraction elsewhere.

By the way, love the handle. I reread Bester about a year ago, first since high school, and he is still first rank.