This article wondering how we will cope if China and Russia fail to rise is interesting (tip to Instapundit):
“The Coming Collapse: Authoritarians in China and Russia Face Endgame”, reads the headline of a 2012 Washington Post column by Jackson Diehl. Many treated the prediction embodied in this title as the musing of an idealist. However, recent events have unfolded so quickly that the “endgame” indeed appears close at hand. Those who recently worried about the rise of the authoritarian “duo” should start to worry about the consequences of its decline.
The author even speculates that the two states might, in mutual decline, fall on each other in conflict. It is unlikely, but not impossible. More likely than that scenario is that China might seek to prevent reverse their own decline by picking over the remnants of the Russian empire in the Far East.
Oh, Russia is a nuclear power so China would never risk that, you say. But there are limits to relying on nuclear weapons for territorial defense. Would Russia really unleash nukes if China picks off some of Russia's Far East and risk China firing off their nukes at European Russian targets?
Certainly, I'm not in the camp that assumes China and Russia must continue to rise. Past performance is no guarantee of future earnings, and all that.
Unmentioned is the possibility that Russia and China would actually unite to cope with their mutual decline and each convinced America is engineering their fall, with Russia accepting their role as junior partner to China.
I'll never say it isn't understandable that we seek to preserve the status quo since so many changes from the status quo can have dangerous consequences. I'm just saying that it is beyond our power to maintain the status quo of Russia's and China's apparent economic trajectories upward. We should ponder the possibilities that Chinese and Russian failure to rise pose threats to our security and well being.
I don't mention India. While I have more confidence in India's ability to rise in the long run compared to China, in the short and medium runs they aren't a potential top dog. And if they do pass us by, we are on much friendlier terms, no? China has the economic power to reach the top slot. And Russia has the geography to have effective top power in the crucial European and Middle Eastern regions even if their economic power won't match ours (any more than it did during the Cold War).
I hope we are a lucky nation. I have little confidence in the foreign policy and defense team that the president is attempting to build.
