Links

In introduction of my new link to Asia's Security Perils (see links to right), I also want to allude to an article in the June 2005 volume of Atlantic Monthly that one blogger has called "The most important article written in the last five years". There wouldn't be too much hyperbole in that description. See http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/theoryb/node/324 An excerpt:

"For some time now no navy or air force has posed a threat to the United States. Our only competition has been armies, whether conventional forces or guerrilla insurgencies. This will soon change. The Chinese navy is poised to push out into the Pacific—and when it does, it will very quickly encounter a U.S. Navy and Air Force unwilling to budge from the coastal shelf of the Asian mainland. It's not hard to imagine the result: a replay of the decades-long Cold War, with a center of gravity not in the heart of Europe but, rather, among Pacific atolls that were last in the news when the Marines stormed them in World War II. In the coming decades China will play an asymmetric back-and-forth game with us in the Pacific...."

And to note an Australian viewpoint: "Australia, by its support for China's growing regional influence, is promoting a profound transformation in the strategic architecture of Asia, with immense implications for
Australia's security, including our alliance with the US. Australia needs to consider what the outcomes of that process might be, and which of those outcomes would be best for us." http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/things-to-chew-over-for-the-meat-in-the-sandwich/2005/08/17/1123958125237.html