[marron]

You have to make a decision. Are the Spratleys the limit of China’s ambitions? If yes, you have to decide if you really want to go to war over something like this. Probably not.

If you decide that China sees her Pacific boundaries as including Guam, then you have a hard decision to make; oppose her now while you maybe have allies, or wait until you have none.

Its hard to find a spine in Washington where the Chinese are concerned when anyone who is anyone is probably already compromised by them. War with China will be fought with bags of money under the table, I believe.

[nathanbedford]

Good post.

It seems to me we ought to start out by asking some fundamental questions: what are the essential national interests of the United States respecting China? What motivates China? How can China be influenced to respect our national interests?

As I noted in another thread, we have no coherent policy respecting China just as we have no coherent policy respecting militant Islam. This is a direct result of electing a president who is not motivated by America's national interests but who is instead motivated by his ideology.

The result of this incoherence is danger. We are in danger of blundering into a war with China and, contrary to conservative assumptions about the pacific nature of limp wristed leftists, we are in danger of being put into a war in furtherance of Marxist ideology. We should understand that committed leftists like Obama have historically demonstrated a cold indifference to human cost of waging war on behalf of their ideology. Obama was not opposed to the war in Iraq because he feared American casualties, he opposed it on left-wing ideological grounds just as the left opposed the war in Vietnam, the war in Korea and the Cold War. Obama's commitment to his ideology is far more extensive than the commitment of rank-and-file Democrats during Korea, Vietnam and the cold war. He is far worse. He might even entertain Muslims sympathies.

Your point about a war with China being waged with bags of money as well taken. The irony, of course, is that we will be bribed with our own money as we hollow out the American economy and ship it in containers to China. Now we are hollowing out the American economy and shipping it via the Internet to China as they appropriate much of the American economy beyond manufacturing.

We have not even begun to approach a debate about the nature of our fundamental national interests concerning China. That they must start with an analysis of our economic relationship with China and only then can we proceed to an analysis of diplomatic and military postures.

[lentulusgracchus]

War with China will be fought with bags of money under the table, I believe.

Ugly thought. Realistic, though. But blood-soaked money isn't fungible and is of no good to the recipient, at least in an open society ...... oh, wait, I forgot. LSM. Right you are.

Maybe if we could somehow get them to the mat, all those piles of U.S. stash under their mattress would turn to trash. Maybe?

Maybe put the Fed out of business, too.

[Usagi_yo]

“If you decide that China sees her Pacific boundaries as including Guam, then you have a hard decision to make; oppose her now while you maybe have allies, or wait until you have none”

Ultimately our closest allies are our best Nuclear weapons. China would do well to consider that any full out war with China would end in Nuclear conflagration.

A “Chinese” type of response to the Chinese veiled threat would be to remind them of that, or remind them that under their standards, any ship transiting the canal being built in South America would be either starting or ending her transit into American waters.

Think of it as a game of Weiqi (”way-chee”), otherwise known as the game of Go.