China's rise triggers natural military cooperation among those made nervous

Great WAPO piece by the always good John Pomfret that highlights a recent theme of mine: no great need to "encircle" China, because the more the neighbors worry over its economic rise and foolish threats about the South China Sea, they will simply come to us--for arms and alliance.

Thus, no great effort required.

Weapons acquisitions in the region almost doubled from 2005 to 2009 compared with the five preceding years, according to data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute this year.

"There is a threat perception among some of the countries in Southeast Asia," said Siemon Wezeman, senior fellow at the institute. "China is an issue there."

The buying spree is set to continue . . .

We have this tendency in the West to suppose our "decline" is absolute and China's "rise" will unfold with no feedback from the system.  Neither, of course, is true, especially the latter.  

China will learn that there is a reason why the U.S. has long had the world's largest gun with no one trying to build one similar: the simple truth is that we're trusted in that role and with that capability.  And a big reason why is that we're a democracy.

China cannot rise as a single-party state and get the same pass. It's rise will naturally trigger all manner of localized and regionalized and globalized balancing by all sorts of players. It will not need to be organized; it will simply happen as a matter of course.

Whatever we do inside the US military to prepare for the China threat (AirSea Battle comes to mind) is marginal compared to this self-selected balancing by so many states, in large part because it will ultimately reflect smaller states pursuing across-the-board hedging strategies vis-a-vis China.

Remember these words:  in the pre-American-styled-globalization, trade followed the flag; today it's the flag that follows trade--as China will soon learn on its own in so many places in the world to its great discomfort.