Jonathan Goodish wrote:
In article ,
"W P Dixon" wrote:
I will have to agree with you it sure does look gloomy, Iran
would be no
problem if we were not already stretched in Iraq. But I really
worry about
North Korea, their Chinese buddies liked helping them out during
the first
go around. And strategically it would behove the Chinese to help
the North
Koreans again. That IMHO, could get mighty ugly.


The Chinese are playing both sides here. Crazy Kim serves their
purposes but they have to make sure not to give him too much leash. The
elephant in the room is Japan. Their air force and navy are first-class
and very modern. They reprocess plutonium for power plants and they
already build satellite-launching rockets that could deliver a nuke
quite nicely. Technologically they are far ahead of anyone except us,
and that's only because they've refrained from investing in defense the
way we do. It would take them 5 years at best to become a regional
military superpower, and the Chinese don't want that to happen. The
last thing they want is the Japan Self-Defense Forces standing between
them and Taiwan. So long as the Japanese aren't too scared they stay
largely pacifist, but this is changing as the WWII generation dies out.

-cwk.