South Korea is the world's great exporter today of Christian missionaries and God bless 'em for their passion and willingness to work so hard.

But you take that step and you necessarily spend some time walking through various valleys of death inside the Gap, where religion is life or death because it's a survival code.

For now, China hides behind its "charm offensive" and it's Joe Friday-like approach on raw materials ("Just the reserves, Ma'am."), but that inevitably exposes them to all sorts of competing survival codes inside the Gap, and even when they deftly navigate them, what remains is the opprobrium of the Core regarding its nasty associations (so damned if you do, and damned if you don't).

My point: China better get used to what it feels like having their workers killed or taken hostage, because when it happens, everyone turns to the local cops they can trust, and throughout most of the Gap, that remains the U.S. military--like it or not.