Several years ago, I met with the Deputy Director of the Policy Planning staff of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I asked him what he was working on -- and what China's grand strategy was.
His reply: "We are trying to figure out how to keep you Americans distracted in small Middle Eastern countries."
It's pretty memorable when one can joke and be truthful at the same time. China has had opportunities throughout the world open up to it easily -- mostly because of systemic American inattention to much else beyond its war slogs. The Obama administration, which in its first year in office, has managed high level presidential and cabinet level face time with leaders around Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East has done a lot to correct the impression from the G.W. Bush years that America has completely checked out from the rest of the world -- but there still is a sense that American pretensions in the world are more veneer than real.
Now read in full a short, brilliantly written report titled "Strategic Contraction Replaces Arrogance: Chinese Analysis of the Quadrennial Defense Review" by Li Shuisheng at China's Academy of Military Science on the Pentagon's recently released Quadrennial Defense Review.
This is a very sobering "offshore perspective" on American power.
The introduction starts with a quick tip of the hat to the Obama administration for greater pragmatism and less arrogance than the George W. Bush years - but also says that Obama's course is leading to the strategic contraction of the U.S.:
After the United States was bogged down in the Afghanistan War for more than eight years and in the Iraq War for more than seven years, in early February, the Obama administration published its first "Quadrennial Defense Review" (QDR). This was a report submitted to US Congress by the US Department of Defense every four years as required by law, and was also a framework document for the future building of the US military.
Against the background of being deeply mired in "one crisis and two wars", this year's report somewhat restrained the usual "arrogant style" appearing in the previous QDR reports, epitomized the more pragmatic defense policy pursued by the Obama administration, manifested the trend of the United States' strategic contraction to a certain extent. The report also revealed some noteworthy new changes in the US military building.
The author also sees what this writer has argued: that American obsession with Afghanistan and an ever-expanding quest to stamp out Islamic insurgencies will "further chip away at the United States' strength, aggravate its strategic adversity, and increasingly narrow the room for maneuvers on other issues." The author writes:
Continued>>>
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/13/several_years_ago_i_met/?ref=mp
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