I mean, what would you have done that wouldn't have ended in a phyrric victory, with the crew dead or put on a show trial, the plane in Chinese hands for years to come, perhaps as a monument like the US Pueblo is in another country over that way?
The PRC was POed and was put in their place - they now have an American air base on their flank in Afghanistan, and the US is firmly set in central Asia, having taken Pakistan out of the Chinese camp, even if it came kicking and screaming. China had gone through a lot of work with the Pakis, trying to work their way into the Indian ocean through that country. Now it's blown all to heck... and some of their best buyers are running into problems with the US, like Iran and Iran, and others. Those nearby US 'zones of influence' in Central Asia are going to have an effect on the Chinese government and they are not going to like it. Nor are they gpoing to like it if we can engineer a little help for the folks in Venezuela now worried about their pink PRC and Cuba lovin' leader Chavez.
So they got a bogus letter of sympathy from the Pres that they had to 'edit' during translation because it didn't say what they wished it had said, and couldn't leave it as-is for the Chinese public to read. Oh, and they got not the money they had requested, but only the amount the US usually offers when ANY US aircraft uses ANY foreign field. It was like giving a penny to a bad waitress- much more insulting than not tipping at all.
The idea was to let the chinese gov save face and back down rather than force them to choose between say, apologizing to us for wrecking our plane and endangering our crew... or doing something REALLY stupid. Why? Because foreigners, by and large, ALWAYS choose to do something really stupid and while it costs them more dearly when foreigners overreact and decide to fight us, it also costs us some lives, and considerable sums of money, and a lot of trouble we don't need.
We didn't need to fan the flames then with the Pentagon the mess it was, just for the sake of pride. We didn't need to lose our aircraft crew just for the sake of 'looking tough' and for some technology that was already obsolete before it went through the bidding process, construction, and delivery to the navy.
Now, personally, I would probably have bombed the plane, and let the Chinese go apesh*&^ over us bombing their airstrip. But that wouldn't have helped too much since he crew would still be in Chinese hands, and we would then have to look forward to a very long show trial and all the problems that would bring, and the economy would be in a shambles over the threat of war that would make our current woes look small by comparison. And al Qaeda would still have attacked us, and Iraq too would still be there. Playing John Wayne would feel good, but it would be a royal mess and we would still be dealing with it today.
Strictly out of curiousity, what would you have done about the EP-3 incident?
Destroying the EP-3 would have been the first order of business. Yes, everything was probably destroyed by the crew, but it sends a message to the next tyrant that you don't mess with the US Navy.
A much more forceful demand to return our crew would have been nice. Perhaps MFN could have been offered to the chopping block? Perhaps having a bunch of EastPac naval assets bearing down on the island would have sent a signal. USAF bombers running 24/7 off the coast of China would have sent a better message than a garbled "apology."
When someone takes your military assets you have to respond in a manner which will make them give them back and never do it again. We showed the world that if you have two dozen US military, we will drop everything and listen to your pathetic cause. One of the guys was once on my crew. I would have hated to lose him, but the greater cause of the next crew has to be at the front of our mind.
We emboldened a tyrant that day. China does not have the strength to challenge us. Yes, they have weapons that could destroy that festering sore in Southern California. If they did, there would be about a billion fewer people today than there was on 4/1/01. They would never have done it.
The reason we fumble**cked the situation was that we are dependant on their slave labor. GWB knows this. All those "Made in China" goodies would be more expensive if they said "Made in USA."