Mark Helprin reminds us not to be so pleased about supposed "progress" with North Korea that we take our eye off the longterm risk of an ascendant China. In light of China's recent satellite-killing success, he discusses one threat: a high-atmosphere EMP attack against our vulnerable electronic infrastructure.
The Asian nuclear power of which we must take account is not North Korea but China.The forerunners of China's government were able to defeat Chiang Kai-shek, fight the United States to a draw in Korea and, merely by means of their country's looming potential, help defeat America in Vietnam. This they did in chaos, poverty and without modern arms, but with strategy bred in the bone. Since 1978, using their extraordinary and sustained economic and technical growth to build military capacity, the Chinese have deliberately modeled themselves on the Meiji (who rapidly transformed feudal Japan into an industrial state able to vanquish the Russian fleet at Tsushima).
In altering their position relative to that of the United States, the Chinese have received generous assistance from the past two American presidents, who have accomplished first a carefree diminution of our orders of battle and then the incompetent deployment of what was left, in a campaign analogous to losing a protracted struggle with Portugal. China advances and we decline because, among other things, its vision is disciplined and clear, while ours is burdened by fear, decadence and officials who understand neither Chinese grand strategy nor its nuclear component.
Related news:
China announced Sunday it will increase military spending at a sharply higher rate this year, budgeting a rise of nearly 18 percent, and a senior U.S. official immediately called for more clarity on what the expenditures are for.Posted by Alan at March 4, 2007 09:40 AMThe official, Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, told a news conference at the end of a maiden visit to Beijing in his new post that the Bush administration is dissatisfied with China's unwillingness to share such information.