"Dealing with" and "containing" as a strategy for "dealing with" are two very different things. Certainly we were thinking about how to deal with a rising Japan then, and certainly we need to think about how to deal with a rising China in a post Cold War World now. No arguments.

My point is simply that your assessemnt of the history of Cold War containment runs counter to every serious coverage of the topic that I have ever read (and I have read several); and that our current efforts for the "pivot" build upon a family of plans, programs, postures and policies that were originally put in place to contain the "Sino" aspect of the Soviet-Sino pact. I think we should start fresh with a concept designed for the world we live in today, rather than building upon the remains of one that is long past.