Tom got this email from Victor Algaze of Manhattan Beach, CA:

Mr. Barnett-

Many times, I have heard you mention the idea that an Asian NATO (or rough equivalent) could be cemented "over Kim Jong-Il grave" if some provocative action from DPRK unified disparate groups.

With that in mind, I have a question:

I cannot imagine the frustration you must feel when "Monday-morning quarterbackin'" "armchair sitting" geo-strategic thinkers look at a map with a circular overlay of the useful range of that North Korean missile and see an opening, but humor me: what do you think? Can this "crisis", like the Chinese character, represent also an opportunity for a new security partnership?

PS. Last chapter of BFA is EXACTLY what we youngsters are hungry to read- if you can-please do more of that.

Third book will be all that.

On DPRK question is one posed by Sanger in NYT today: does Bush want to work Kim more than Iran in the time remaining?

To me the choice is obvious because Kim is excuse to upgrade relations with China. The Bush problem is that this administration wants to simultaneously constrain China with countries like India, Vietnam and Japan, and China will clearly come away from a reunification process as the dominant regional kingpin (why does the U.S. keep ground troops in East Asia then with such stretching demands in the Middle East and with African demands looming in places like Sudan and Somalia and maybe even Egypt soon enough?).

Strategists keep saying China is not ready to liquidate the DPRK and that the South fears the costs involved. But honestly I think the U.S. defense community is more nervous and least prepared to see that scenario go away because then both our national missile defense rationale and our East Asia rationales are weakened. At that point we must fish or cut bait on the China threat plus explain why we still starve the Army and Marines and the Long War on assets.

That is why I consider North Korea such a positive floodgate of strategic change and opportunity. Done well we can shift a ton of resources from Core to Gap and close off the possibility of great power war in Asia while shifting resources to the SysAdmin force and function and finally accepting the strategic requirements of the Long War.

In my mind Kim is doing Bush a big favor. Big question now is whether or not Chris Hill is empowered to negotiate anything other than useless sanctions when he lands in Beijing.