The Communist threat still exists

In case you thought China was a friend and ally to the US, here's a wake up call to remind you they are not, and never have been. This column from the LA Times is excellent (despite being from the LA Times). (HT: Instapundit)

Here's an excerpt:

In 1998, an official People's Liberation Army publishing house brought out a treatise called "Unrestricted Warfare," written by two senior army colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. This book, which is available in English translation, is well known to the U.S. national security establishment but remains practically unheard of among the general public.

"Unrestricted Warfare" recognizes that it is practically impossible to challenge the U.S. on its own terms. No one else can afford to build mega-expensive weapons systems like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will cost more than $200 billion to develop. "The way to extricate oneself from this predicament," the authors write, "is to develop a different approach."

Their different approaches include financial warfare (subverting banking systems and stock markets), drug warfare (attacking the fabric of society by flooding it with illicit drugs), psychological and media warfare (manipulating perceptions to break down enemy will), international law warfare (blocking enemy actions using multinational organizations), resource warfare (seizing control of vital natural resources), even ecological warfare (creating man-made earthquakes or other natural disasters).

The Cold War didn't actually end, the adversary just changed. But this time around, the coverage has not been front and center because of the economic ties that have developed as China tries to feed off of the US economy.

But all of this planing is probably too litte and too late for China; even if they did find a way to match or best the US militarily, they cannot compare to the food and fresh water resources available to the US. While China has much fertile land, they have not develope their agiculture to the advanced level of the US, and do not have nearly the amount of fresh water.

In the end, it will come down to the balance between guns and butter. Right now, the US has China easily beaten in both.

- the Progressive Conservative