POST: What to Expect from Bob Gates, By Blake Hounshell, Carolyn O'Hara
How Gates views China, says strategic planner Thomas P.M. Barnett, is “the most important question one can ask of him.” The job of the secretary of defense is to “translate policy choices into budgets,” notes Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies—and China policy plays a leading role in shaping budget and procurement choices in the United States. Taiwan has been neglecting its own defense recently, says Cordesman, even as China is growing stronger militarily and economically. Gates testified privately last week that China “seeks to integrate Taiwan peacefully if possible.” Nevertheless, he affirmed the Bush administration’s policy of maintaining “capabilities to resist China’s use of force or coercion against Taiwan.” No shift in China policy would mean “no significant shift of resources from the Big War crowd to the much-stressed Army and Marines,” says Barnett.