Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
Perhaps, but as you point out, geopolitical culture and history matter. What does China want? They want to be respected in their own back yard. They do not want to colonize the eastern Pacific. They are an economic powerhouse with a proud history. They just want to be respected and they see westerners as respecting military power. I don't see them using it unless forced to. The barrier islands and arguments with their regional nemesis Japan is probably the biggest threat to China, largely because it is an attack on their pride to have to give in to the same country that invaded them.

We probably will cause more harm with our Pacific Shift than good. We keep analyzing problem by putting ourselves in the place of our potential enemy. We need to think like they think.
This seems in line with popular liberal rhetoric, but it doesn't nest with current reality. Today's China was born in 1947, so it isn't that old. It hard to make a claim they're a proud nation based upon their history from their internal conflicts, to the opium war, to the Japanese occupation, to Mao's mass slaughter of his people. One can even make an argument that they're a state that survives through criminal activity, much of their economic success is based upon intellectual property theft, and now they're using the threat of force in an attempt to secure territory in the South and East China seas using some illegitimate 9 line concept as justification. China's internal security/stability problems are well known, and drumming up a little nationalism as a means to hold the state together is not an unknown tactic throughout history. Unfortunately China's aggression is resulting in other states in the region becoming more nationalized, and nationalization can result in much more radical behavior than Islamist beliefs. Not unlike the past the U.S. continues to live in an era of uncertainty and our critical interests are probably best addressed by having a credible combat force (low end to high end). Stability operations and FID will continue to be military missions, but success in these endeavors which are not war will rarely be determined by the U.S. military but by the politicians. The military can only buy space.

I to worry about concepts like the air-sea battle, not that isn't worth exploring, but that is a narrow comfort zone with limited utility. On the other hand I think our greatest effort must be maintaining our combat skills. No one else will fight the nation's battles other than the military. A lot of other organizations can provide aid, intelligence, conduct CT, etc.