From the brilliant planners of the war in Iraq…..

This is a scary article about how high level Department of Defense officials were lobbying Taiwan to declare independence. It sounds frighteningly plausible.

http://www.taiwansecurity.org/TT/2007/TT-040607.htm

http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002523531.html 

I probably won’t read the original article for a while, since it would be too stressful to think about it. On the other hand, it is interesting that it is coming out a week after the DOD issued its “China plans to take over the world” report.

One of the few good things about the war in Iraq is that it has took up the energy and then totally discredited the people that had in mind a much larger and scarier war.

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From a post I made in Tom Barnett’s blog

What is interesting is that China has had several thousand years of experience doing grand strategy, and every Chinese political and economic thinker since the Warring States period has emphasized the importance of 1) a strong economy 2) learning from your mistakes and 3) learning from your enemies.

The thing that I find both sad and distressing about the United States is how many people in the political leadership are just playing the wrong game. I’m just amazed that the DOD would issue a report that says that China’s military strategy is “non-transparent” and it’s “motives are unclear.” This says some really sad things about the people that wrote the report. China’s motives are clear as day (become a rich and powerful great power) and has been the same for the last 150 years. It’s strategy is transparent as day (make people rich). If DOD can’t figure out what China’s goals and strategy is (and they aren’t being secret about it), then we are really hosed against al-Qaeda.