+ Military Blog linked Managing China's Ascent. + So did Outside the Beltway. + So did Pajamas Media. + So did Heritage Tidbits. + tdaxp linked Half a loaf is better than none. + And linked More on Collier's "bottom......

And where thermonuclear devices are concerned one might as well ask, what Russian thermonuclear devices? We have no real idea of just how reliable Russian nukes are. Or how reliable the communications net is that connects everything together, the personnel in charge of the devices, or if the missiles and planes are even capable of performing. Considering how Russia as a whole has degraded over the years generally, I'd be rather surpired if Russia's nuclear capability hasn't degraded as well.

That's what the billions going to the intelligence community are for. Rest assured there are still people being paid handsomely to answer those questions.

Russia can't even maintain basic infrastructure outside major cities and narrow corridors between them.

Never has been able to, at least in far eastern Siberia. There's a great but little-known story about how a group of Czech POW's seized the Trans Siberian Railway in 1918 and completely tied up commerce between European and Asian Russia.

What about Chinese militarism re the Russian Far East? Russia can't even maintain basic infrastructure outside major cities and narrow corridors between them. Entire cities in Siberia are cut off completely during the winter, and if it weren't for air travel a fair number would be closed off year round.

And where thermonuclear devices are concerned one might as well ask, what Russian thermonuclear devices? We have no real idea of just how reliable Russian nukes are. Or how reliable the communications net is that connects everything together, the personnel in charge of the devices, or if the missiles and planes are even capable of performing. Considering how Russia as a whole has degraded over the years generally, I'd be rather surpired if Russia's nuclear capability hasn't degraded as well.

From all I've heard, Russia is a paper tiger, and the paper has dry rot.

Yep, here is the article.

James Joyner of Outside the Beltway discusses that both the USA and China "have a shared interest in spreading the norms of globalism, if nothing else because we have so many comparative advantages". However, Joyner is not as optimistic as......

Actually, the UK had those elements in common with both sides of the war of northern aggression. Further, the UK had a strong economic tie to the south in the form of cotton (the south growing and the UK spinning). Egyptian cotton went a long way towards limiting that tie.

Now when you say the UK backed the south, I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly they did not challenge the US navy to break the blockade, they didn't send troops (though they did send observers to both sides), and they sold weapons to both sides though the south needed them more and had less access because of the blockade. I'm not sure how you get to the idea that the UK backed the south over the north.

19th century US-UK had language, legal system (in essence if not particulars), political system (again in essence if not particulars) and common heritage.

You mean the UK had those in common with the Confederate States of America? Is that why they backed the losing side fof the Civil War?

Use China and be used by China, but lets not pretend that we just naturally sing off the same song sheet.

I don't believe that we should take a truculent attitude with respect to China nor that China is a threat to the United States in any significant sense. I just think that we shouldn't romanticize what's going on in China or what it's likely to do in the future. I don't believe that we can have a significant impact on what China does or does not do but we might be able to have some impact on what we do.

Getting to the article, is Barnett deliberately ignoring what China is doing in Africa? The graf James quoted is utterly bizarre. There's very little chance to link an Euro-American "good government" agenda in Africa with Chinese neo-colonial realpolitik. I mean, we have the West promising economic ties in exchange for improved freedom and stability, or China promising cold hard FDI to any African regime that wants it, with few strings attached other than freedom of access for Chinese companies. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see whose offer has more appeal to African kleptocrats or why these two policies have little in common. Moreover, there's little chance that Chinese citizens at present would feel squeamish about exploitation of African peoples the way Westerners do. They're still stuck in the 19th century mode, and Chinese newspapers are filled with "ooga booga" accounts of African life, and even educated Chinese have a Kiplingesque interpretation of China's role in Africa.

P.S. On a somewhat related note, tonight I went into a bathroom in a Chinese shopping mall and a joke on the wall, which was posted by the mall itself, read, "Question: What's the traditional cuisine of Africans? Answer: People." This in a cosmopolitan city with a large African student population, too.

China can't become wealthy without developing an internal market. That's the long and short of it. The numbers just aren't there. It can become wealthier continuing its current “beggar thy neighbor” policies but it can't become wealthy.

If China becomes what Barnett dreams of for it, it will be for a Chinese reason in pursuit of a Chinese agenda. Our ability to influence what happens is nearly non-existent. I believe that the odds are against it—civil war and fraction is far more likely.

19th century America was mostly landowning farmers. It was arguably freer than it is now. It became wealthy by cultivating an internal market, protected from outside competition. Not really very much like China at all.

However, Barnett is right in detail. We should encourage China's engagement with the rest of the world. In doing so we should also observe its actions closely and not sugarcoat them.