While Europe shrinks from carrying its burden to defend the West in order to maintain their extended August holiday from reality, in Asia we gain important friends. Ties with Vietnam improve, Australia and Japan step up, and other allies such as Indonesia and Thailand face Islamist threats within. And a big piece on the board has joined us. India and America have effectively allied as Michael Barone notes in the flagship article. And the result is an alliance:
There is not likely to be a formal NATO-like alliance among Japan, Australia, India, and the United States. But increasingly there is the functional equivalent of one. There is fierce debate in many quarters whether China will emerge as a military threat. Some, like strategist Thomas Barnett, argue that China is too well integrated into the international economy to allow its gains to be lost by military aggression. Others argue that the Chinese are seeking to project their military strength outward and cannot be counted on to refrain from aggression in Taiwan. Whichever view you take, our emerging alliance with India is good news. Despite official denials, it provides something of a counterweight to China. And it increases the clout of a nation that is showing what representative democracy, the rule of law, and the free marketplace can do.
Winds of Change has the rest of the good details on an alliance that helps us both:
It doesn't get much stronger than being a geopolitical strategic partner of the United States. China doesn't have to be challenged directly or even mentioned to have its options hemmed, and that's what just happened.
Not bad for cowboy diplomacy. Maybe it isn't us after all. Maybe it's Europe's problem. And the problem of the European-at-heart here at home.
As we fight Islamist terrorism, we are not ignoring the rising potential Chinese threat.
