Eurasian Containment

Are we witnessing a new realignment of world power? Bryan Preston on TCS outlines a believable scenario in Asia. Basically it involves Japan abandoning its military restraint in a step-wise fashion, ratcheting up the pressure on China. I like his thinking and at the end he talks about an encircled China.

However, he doesn’t go far enough. I think I see a larger strategy emerging.

If you look at a map it looks like we mean to encircle the entirety of Eurasia. The US alliance consists of recently freed countries, the bits that stick out and islands. With Japan, Britain, Australia, Taiwan, Italy (nominally), South Korea, Denmark, Afghanistan, Iraq (maybe) and hopefully Ukraine (if the new government keeps troops in Iraq) forming the bulk of this alliance. Some of the eastern European nations would have been included earlier but they seem to be drifting towards the EU (I’m talking to you Poland.) Britain could come off the list too as Blair seems keen on selling the Chinese arms. I find it hard to believe that Britain will betray us, but if the EU and Britain join Russia selling arms to China the US will cut off technology transfers and will strain diplomatic relations severely. The recent move by Japan to defend Taiwan should show them how serious we are about containing China.

With the EU courting China what should we do?

We should tighten the noose. India is the new diplomatic battleground. Soon to be the most populous nation, already a functioning democracy, India’s market economy is growing quickly and looks ready for the big stage. We should offer India generous trade concessions, military assistance including weapons and diplomatic support. Pakistan makes it a bit sensitive but we are less reliant on Pakistan now that we are camped in Afghanistan. I would rather have India than Pakistan, and Musharraf made permanent enemies of the Islamists so I wouldn’t be any more concerned about the nuke issue. The EU dropping sanctions on selling arms to China would be a perfect opening for closer Indian relations, filling the circle.

I don’t know if this is strategy was intelligently driven by the US, China or the EU, or if it just coalesced out of the muck of international relations, but it looks like it is happening. Is it an illusion? Perhaps, but we should start thinking about it.