Excerpt: "With its new economic resources China has embarked upon a military traverse from reliance upon mass to devotion to quality, with stress upon war in space, the oceans, and the ether--three areas of unquestioned American superiority."

Is this more old-Pentagon thinking of near-peer? Or is this a reality that we have to consider along with current terrorism reconfigurations? While some people would like to believe China is not a threat I think it's important to note the Chinese-Iranian connection in recent months. On this topic the author, Mark Helprin, writes: "An example of China's growing power to interfere with crucial U.S. interests is the new Sino-Persian $100 billion trade agreement, the perfect complementarity of which--manufactures and military goods in exchange for oil and Islamic endorsement--is echoed by the fact that, at present, the chief American counter to Iranian nuclear weapons development is the threat of a trade embargo, which China need not observe, through the Security Council, over which China has a veto."

I wonder what Thomas P.M. Barnett will have to say about this article. (Hours later there is http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/001284.html on Barnett's blog. I knew he had to have seen the WSJ article.)

Cheers, -Pk

Unfortunately, it is in our nature neither to foresee nor prepare for what lies beyond the rim.