(Brian T. Kennedy, President of the Claremont Institute, and who has also written for such as the National Review, Wall Street Journal, and Investor's Business Daily. This article was published in the Newsletter, IMPRIMIS. by Hillsdale College. Let's get to it. You've read the Koran Suras to set up your base for understanding one of America's BIGGEST PROBLEM ahead.)


Hi people, hope all your weekends were Heaven compared to what happened in Japan. Personally I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to live through such a horrot. Of course it does no good to dwell on that aspect, but it does give us all an opportunity to be supportive there wherever we might be badly needed. WE who are proudly of the GREAT HEARTS!!!!

Anyway, to continue with the last episode to those of us who are anything but Stupid, right?    To Go On......


      China has for some time carried out a policy that has been termed "peaceful rise".    But in recent years we have seen the coming to power of what scholars like Tang Ben called the "Red Guard generation" -- generals who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, who are no longer interested in China remaining a secondary power,  and who appear eager to take back Taiwan, avenge past wrongs by Japan and replace the U.S. as the preeminent military power in the region and ultimately the world.

       However far-fetched this idea may seem to American policymakers, it is widely held in China that America is on the decline, with economic problems that will limit its ability to modernize its military and maintain its alliances.    And indeed, as things stand,  the U.S. would have to resort to full-scale nuclear war to defenc its Asian allies from an attack by China.

       This is the prospect that caused Mao Tse Tsung to call the U.S. a "Paper Tiger".   Retired Chinese General Xiong Guong Kai expressed much the same idea in 1995, when he said that the U.S. would not trade Los Angeles for Taipei -- that is, that we would have to stand by if China attacks Taiwan, since China has the ability to annihilate Los Angeles with a nuclear missile.    In any case, current Chinese aggression against Japan in the Senkaku Islands and their open assistance of the Iranian nuclear program, not to mention their sale of arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, would suggest that China is openly playing the role that the Soviet Union once played as chief sponsor of global conflict with the West.

      Which brings us to Russia and to the degradation of American strategic thinking during and after the Cold War.   This thinking used to be guided bg the idea that we must above all prevent a direct attack upon the U.S. homeland.    But over the past 50 years we have been taught something different:  that we must accept a balance of power between nations, especially those possessing nuclear ballistic missiles;   and that we cannot seek military superiority -- including defensive superiority, as with missile defense -- lest we create strategic instability.  

       This is now the common liberal view taught at universities, think tanks and schools of foreigh service.    Meanwhile, for their part, conservatives have been basking in the glow of  "winning the Cold War".    But in what sense was it won, it might be asked, given that we neither disarmed Russia of its nuclear arsenal nor put a stop to its active measures to undermine us.   The transformation of some of the former captive ntions into liberal democracies is certainly  worth celebrating, but given Russion government's brutally repressive domestic policies and strengthened alliances with America's enemies abroad over the past 20 years, conservatives have overdone it. 

Closing now for this monday and of course a new week to work  on more history.  Oh did you notice that with all the turmoil in the middles east and Japan, Obama wa faulted for not answering questions on four big topics, yet he is playing golf today, and planning a trip to South America shortly.  Isn't it good to feel that we have a President who is concerned and interested in Ameria's place in this world as a TRUE LEADERs and on top of everything that is happening?   Hmmmmmmm?????    Cheers      CJ