Thomas Barnett on the U.S. and China--Again

This was too good to pass up. Let me provide my executive summary of his key points (i.e., points that I find persuasive):

1. We act in a passive-aggressive manner toward China and many nations. Get over it.
2. We have overlapping interests with the Chinese, and, Oh, yeah!, the rest of the world. We have to work on these relationships. As someone who deals with negotiations and conflicting interests regularly, the need to negotiate relationships is fundamental. The sticking point is the audience (client, voters) whom you have to please, your clients, so to speak. But you have to cut a deal (if you can) even if its with potential (or actual) rivals. It's called leadership.
3. We must accept some "satisficing" (Herbert Simon). This is, we have to expect less-than-perfect outcomes. That's life as we know it. The enemy of the good is the best (or something like that).
4. The idea of a nuke-free world, as attractive as it is, overreaches, at least at present. We need to move to a nuclear-limited world. (See my prior entry for some sanity on that topic.)
5. Real politics involves "consensus building", but also deal-making. Sometimes you have to make deals with the devil (e.g., FDR & Churchill dealt with Stalin to defeat Hitler; Clinton cut deals with Newt Gingrich).
6. Strategic thinking involves a lot more than thinking about war. I suggest that it's all about energy. Not just oil, but money (fungible energy) and attention (human energy), but that's a whole different post.

 Barnett makes some important points here.