Containing China on the "New Grand Chessboard"

Michael Klare:

Slowly but surely, the grand strategy of the Bush administration is being revealed. It is not aimed primarily at the defeat of global terrorism, the incapacitation of rogue states, or the spread of democracy in the Middle East. These may dominate the rhetorical arena and be the focus of immediate concern, but they do not govern key decisions regarding the allocation of long-term military resources. The truly commanding objective -- the underlying basis for budgets and troop deployments -- is the containment of China. This objective governed White House planning during the administration's first seven months in office, only to be set aside by the perceived obligation to highlight anti-terrorism after 9/11; but now, despite Bush's preoccupation with Iraq and Iran, the White House is also reemphasizing its paramount focus on China, risking a new Asian arms race with potentially catastrophic consequences.

This is a good read.

Extrapolating from Klare's thesis, one can convincingly argue that the US' preoccupation with Iraq is primarily about gaining leverage over energy resources that, under the pre-war status quo, would likely have been funneled disproportionately to a rapidly industrializing China. Now, so the logic goes, China has to go elsewhere...