Luckily, someone who knows our Navy is on the case.
You've pulled a nifty diplomatic hat trick when you convince your main competitor to blame himself for your bad behavior—and to consider canceling his opposition to that misbehavior to mollify you! Yet China might pull off such a feat if it protests so long and loudly against the Obama administration's "pivot" to Asia that Washington desists from supporting its allies there. And acting put-upon is a task at which Chinese officials and pundits excel. Once isolated, weaker Asian nations would find it hard if not impossible to buck China's will—which is precisely the point for Beijing.
Accordingly, incoming Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry, and the rest of the foreign-policy community should resist being taken in by a meme that's making the rounds among China-watchers. Writing in Foreign Affairs last fall, Boston College professor Robert Ross established himself as the leading spokesman for this school of thought. In a nutshell, analysts of Ross's leanings maintain that Washington's pivot is fanning paranoia in Beijing. It has goaded an increasingly fretful, increasingly jingoistic leadership into acting against weaker neighbors emboldened by U.S. diplomatic and military support.
Good grief, people, are pivot is so slow and involves such a small amount of our Navy that it is almost imperceptible to the human eye. We experence a greater increase in naval combat power every day when our sailors wake up in the morning compared to what we are getting with the pivot.
And this comes from a professor writing in Foreign Affairs--the veritable headquarters of the echelon above reality (FUBARCOM?) that at its best aspires to simple banality. So we have a two-fer of bland conventional wisdom frustrating for its determination to blame America and provide footnoted reasons to retreat from potential enemies.
God help us, this administration (even aside from the pending Hagel) will eat this meme up.
China wants it all. And if we fail to stand in their way, we just make sure they get their way. As I've often confessed, I lack a proper appreciation of nuance.
