American Conservative on China

With all the talk of warring against China from the hawks in the class, one might wonder how that would turn out. The answer comes to us from the American Conservative. No, I don't mean that one guy in class who is always blathering about this or that from the right-wing of the class. I mean the magazine.

Here are a few excerpts to entice you to go read this dozen-page treatise:

The history of the United States is the history of confrontation, even conflict, with the other great powers of the earth. At the dawn of the 19th century, the young Republic found itself confronted with the two great powers of that world, Britain and France... [In] the 20th century... the U.S. soon found itself in wars hot and cold, against Germany, then Japan, then Russia. Now, in the 21st century, the looming great powers are China and India.

If that wasn't inspiringly bold enough for you, try this one on for size:

In the years since, the neocons have gotten themselves right where they want to be: tangled up in the Middle East. Yet some seem eager to open up a “second front”; the ever-belligerent Max Boot, for example, agitated in the pages of—where else?—The Weekly Standard for a policy of “internal subversion” against China. The goal, he crowed, waving the reddest possible flag, was to “Taiwanize” the People’s Republic. Some might be tempted to minimize the political weight of a mere scribbler, but after Operation Iraqi Freedom, is there any doubt that noisy neocons have the capacity to translate their warlike op-eds into war itself?

By the way, ignore the Toms--Friedman and Barnett--telling us that a war with China won't happen because of doux commerce (sweet commerce), the article explains the fallacies of their argument.

I better hurry, if I'm posting on the inevitabilty of great power conflict, I'd better get it posted before December 7 is over.