Fifth July Two Thousand Eleven

1. "Should China be Contained" by Joseph Nye

- Pentagon’s East Asia Strategy Review in 1994, we rejected the idea of containment of China for two reasons. If we treated China as an enemy, we were guaranteeing an enemy in the future. If we treated China as a friend, we could not guarantee friendship, but we could at least keep open the possibility of more benign outcomes.
- Instead of containment, the strategy that the Clinton administration devised could be termed “integrate but hedge” – something like Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify” approach to strategic agreements with the Soviets.
- In 1800, Asia represented half the world’s population and half the world’s economy. By 1900, the industrial revolution in Europe and North America drove down Asia’s share of global output to 20%. By the middle of this century, Asia should again represent half the world’s population and GDP


2. US Foreign Policy: In Praise of Nation-Building
- The most isolationist decade in the country's history — the 1930s — was followed by World War II. The "Come Home, America" isolationism of the 1970s was followed by the fall of South Vietnam, the genocide in Cambodia, the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the 1990s, the post-Cold War desire to spend the "peace dividend" led the U.S. to turn a blind eye to the rising threat from Al Qaeda.
- Iran is going nuclear, Pakistan is turning against the West, North Korea is trying to export its destructive technology, turmoil is spreading across the Middle East, Al Qaeda is far from defeated and China's power is growing