The best thing the Obama Administration did for Asia did not happen in Asia. Sure it was important that the president announced the movement of troops to Australia.  Equally so was the announcement of the Trans Pacific Partnership which could lead to greater trade liberalization and is a powerful way to tie allies together. Finally the formalization of a trilateral relationship among Japan, India and the United States is a strategically significant move. The problem with these diplomatic strokes is what it always was:  how committed is President Obama to doing the hard work of properly resourcing the military requirements of this strategy and taking on his party to pass more free trade agreements?

These policies in Asia are important. But the Obama policies that will have the most significance for Asia happened in the Middle East. However clumsy and half-hearted President Obama either actively contributed to or supported the removal of Middle East dictators. During the Bush years commentators here and in Europe found it convenient to pretend that President Bush's freedom agenda was a radical departure from American foreign policy led by a radical ideologue. Now President Obama, supposedly the anti-Bush, put a stamp on his own freedom agenda. The message to China received by both its dictators and its reformers is that, after exhausting all other options, America stands for freedom.  

This a particularly important message from an administration that went out of its way to downplay concern over human rights abuses with China. To my knowledge, while president, Obama has not met with a single Chinese dissident active in China. But with the Arab Spring, despite its convulsions, and the toppling of Muammar al-Qaddafi, with all its uncertainties, Obama has retained the mantle of leader of a liberal world order.

Eventually the peaceful resolution of the Sino-American competition depends on political change in China. While America has limited means to push China toward liberalization, it certainly is not lost on Chinese leaders and citizens, who badly seek the respect of other great nations, that China remains one of the last dictatorships. Perhaps that will be the catalyst for change in China.

Of course President Obama does not want any more nuclear powers in Asia. But his policies are hastening that reality. Why? First "global zero" and deep cuts in conventional forces are both tempting Beijing to up its nuclear arsenal and giving allies pause about our "extended deterrent." Second, Obama has continued the Bush and Clinton policies that have allowed North Korea to become a nuclear power.

Let's turn to "New Start" and global zero. Without regard to China's modernizing strategic arsenal, Obama signed an agreement with Russia to reduce the number of deployed U.S. nuclear warheads from 2,200 to between 1,500 and 1,675. Both countries are also reducing their strategic delivery systems.

China, however, is not part of any meaningful nuclear reduction treaties. In addition, it has no incentive to reduce its ballistic missile arsenal. As I previously wrote with Mark Stokes, Beijing is not bound by the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement and therefore can build conventional and nuclear tipped ballistic missiles of all ranges with reckless abandon. Contrast that with the coming stark reduction in U.S. conventional forces in East Asia.

The Obama defense cuts -- and make no mistake, there will much less conventional striking power in Asia by the time he leaves office -- are all the more problematic given that the president justified his nuclear reductions by claiming that U.S. supremacy in precision-guided conventional weapons changes the calculus of deterrence. The logic was the U.S. can rely on conventional weaponry to have the same effects of nuclear weapons. 

But all of our credible delivery systems (for conventional and unconventional weaponry) are threatened by the budget knife (nuclear submarine fleet, stealthy aircraft, next generation bomber.) And, the administration's plans for prompt global strike -- the ability to hit any target in the world rapidly -- are also of concern. First, Obama does not plan on employing very many of these systems, which undermines the stated objective of conventional supremacy. Second, if an administration decided to increase the number of missiles in the prompt global strike arsenal, those missiles would count against the New Start limits (which include conventional ICBMs against the total limit of delivery systems).

As a consequence we are getting close to a worst-case scenario in Asia. We are tempting Beijing to increase its strategic arsenal. As mentioned, China has no treaty limits on nuclear weapons or their delivery systems. At the same time, with our AirSea battle concept, we talk more openly about conventional strikes on the mainland to shut down a Chinese attack. Even if we had the conventional capability to hit targets in China that would have a strategic effects, this approach could lead toward more nuclear weapons in China. If I were a Chinese strategist, I would look at every option to negate the consequences of a massive conventional strike on my homeland - I would build a more robust nuclear arsenal. And apparently that is what China is doing.

If our strategy is to respond to a Chinese attack on an ally with massive conventional strikes on the mainland, we better have the nuclear arsenal we need to deter a nuclear response.

In short, China has every incentive to add to its arsenal. And, without a nuclear, conventional, or missile defense answer, our allies must be growing nervous. According to a State Department report cited by my colleagues Tom Donnelly and David Trachtenburg, "[t]here is clear evidence in diplomatic channels that U.S. assurances to include the nuclear umbrella have been, and continue to be, the single most important reason many allies have foresworn nuclear weapons."

The bipartisan success of this decade's long strategic policy is undeniable. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia are all quite capable of acquiring nuclear weapons but chose (sometimes with U.S. prodding) not to do so. Now South Korea and Japan have at least two reasons to reconsider-North Korea is a nuclear weapons state and China may be a growing one. Taiwan is less confident that it will get the conventional arms it needs from the U.S., and we would do well to remember that it sought nuclear weapons when it was previously abandoned by the U.S.  

And Australia? While the administration's decision to place Marines in Darwin is a move in the right direction, it stands to be undercut by the problems described above. With the fraying credibility of a U.S. nuclear or overbearing conventional capability, an Australia hosting Marines may come to look like a juicier target for Chinese defense planners. In terms of deterrence, the question may cease to be whether we will trade Taipei for Los Angeles. Instead allies may ask, why host U.S. troops if Washington does not have a credible extended deterrent? The next question will be, if North Korea and China have nuclear weapons, why not us?

Global Zero may quickly turn to Global Many.

There has been much ado in the media and from the Obama administration about a great strategic shift from the Middle East and South Asia to East Asia. Obama and senior administration officials are making the case for this shift by claiming that we have accomplished our Iraq and Afghanistan goals, and that the time has come to focus on the "real problem": China. This week, the president announced the basing of 2,500 marines in Australia and a pushed for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional free trade agreement that excludes China. The U.S. military has also released some details on its new AirSea battle concept -- an answer to the dense network of submarines, mines, anti-aircraft capabilities, and missiles that China has created to keep the United States out of China's periphery. All of these moves are to be commended. However, they do not and should not add up to a new "pivot." Here are some reasons why:

1) There is no way for the U.S. to project the necessary influence into East Asia if Aghanistan and Pakistan are on fire. One major reason is that if India is tied down in a competition with Pakistan, China, and Iran in Afghanistan, it cannot become the kind of East Asian power we wish it to be. The Bush administration's India strategy was designed to help India break out of its squabbles in South Asia and exert influence in East Asia. A hasty pull-out of Aghanistan will reverse that sensible strategy.

2) China is exercising more influence in the Middle East in ways harmful to our larger goals (e.g., support of Iran). To compete with China in East Asia, we must retain our influence in the Middle East and South Asia and check destabilizing Chinese diplomacy.

3) The deployment of U.S. Marines to Australia and the highlighting of a military concept to respond to China's military build-up are necessary but insufficient first steps. These developments cannot make up for the fact that our military has faced deep cuts in its budget and will face more. No matter what administration officials say, these cuts will affect our posture in Asia profoundly. We need more ships, more aircraft, more missile defense. To be a bit flippant, we are putting Marines in Australia without sufficient equipment to get out of Australia. Our allies and China need to see and feel our presence. That can only be accomplished with more sea patrols, surges in exercises that promote freedom of navigation, and so on.

4) The AirSea battle concept is a serious effort to meet the China challenge. But based on information released about it, the concept suffers from two flaws. First, the resource question -- how would we shut down Chinese military operations without sufficient platforms and munitions? Second, AirSea battle fails to take into account China's nuclear ambitions. China is already a nuclear-armed country with every incentive to continue its build-up of nuclear forces. That is because we have agreed on a bilateral (with Russia) rather than multilateral basis to cap our nuclear forces. Since China is bound by no important arms control treaties, and because we are openly talking about major conventional strikes on the Mainland, China has every reason to seek nuclear parity with us over time.

5) The TPP is a great idea. In particular, securing Japanese agreement to an FTA would be a great success . The question is, are we serious? It took the better part of Obama's term to ratify the FTA with South Korea. Are we really to believe that he will take on his base and sign more major FTAs?

There is no dispute that we need to take serious steps to balance China's power. But we cannot do so by "pivoting" away from two critical areas of the world. We need India to have peaceful borders in order to compete with China, and we need to diminish China's influence in the Middle East. And finally, the Obama Administration needs to resource its stated Asia strategy, which it so far shows little sign of doing. 

With a nod to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, when it comes to China the central neoconservative truth is that the regime matters most. The central realist truth is that we have limited capacity to change the regime.

The Sino-American competition is not about whether "state capitalism" (whatever that means) will beat out "democratic capitalism." China does not have an exportable economic and political model. No one is rushing to the streets in the Arab world or elsewhere to push their governments to adopt the "Beijing Consensus." Arabs (and others) want representative government, not tyranny. The Chinese people themselves are not fond of the Chinese model. The uptick in daily protests in China against corruption and injustice speaks for itself.

The Sino-American competition is also not really about the "structure of the international system." Yes, there is historical evidence that rising powers tend to challenge the reigning power for hegemony. But sometimes they do not (see India, the European Union, and Japan circa 1990). The current international system made and maintained by the United States has plenty of room for China to succeed.

Instead, we are in a security competition because the Chinese Communist Party has made it so. The CCP is trying to make the world safe for its continued rule. This desiderata is very difficult in a liberal international order dominated by the United States. The CCP has to beat back attempts by its people to push for democracy. And, because the CCP has made the restoration of a Sinosphere in Asia synonymous with its own legitimacy, the Party must "reunify Taiwan," pacify Xinjiang and Tibet, keep Japan down, and make sure any other pretenders to the throne in Asia (India, Vietnam) are put in their place. Washington cannot be trusted to simply go along with any of these projects. So China must extend its military ambitions. If Washington seeks to undermine China's plans, than it is also imprudent for Beijing to rely on the U.S. Navy to secure its energy supply lines. So Beijing has decided it needs a military that can coerce Taiwan, push around its neighbors, and thwart American attempts to help its allies and protect its long sea lanes. That is why we are in a security competition with China. Beijing has decided upon a set of goals that are rather uncongenial to our own vision of peace and security.

If China was ruled by a regime whose legitimacy rested on the consent of the governed, perhaps it would not see the need to build a big military to: 1) protect itself from its own people; 2) beat back American "containment; or 3) to embark on revanchist projects. If China had a different sort of regime, I submit, we would not be in a security competition with China.

But, there is little the United States can do to affect democratic change in China. We can do more at the margins (e.g. try harder to speak directly to the many reformers in China -- the entrepreneurs, the Christian leaders, the social activists). But in the end this is only moral support. Whether or not as a policy matter our moral support matters for change in China, we have and always should stand with the Chinese people.

Until China changes we are left with the fundamentally realist project of protecting ourselves and our interests by maintaining a strong military presence in Asia and building up our alliances. For now, the central realist truth carries the day. We must engage with China when it is in our interests to do so. But our most urgent task is to successfully play balance of power politics in Asia until a new regime emerges in China that is more accepting of the international order and less afraid of its own people.

A unicorn is a beautiful, make believe creature. But despite overwhelming evidence of its fantastical nature, many people still believe in them. Much of China policy is also underpinned by belief in the fantastical: in this case, soothing but logically inconsistent ideas. But unlike unicorns, our China policy excursions into the realm of make believe could be dangerous. Crafting a better China policy requires us to identify what is imaginary in our thinking about China. Author James Mann captures some in his book.

Here are my own top ten China policy unicorns:

1) The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. This is the argument that has the most purchase over our China policy. Treat China like an enemy, the belief goes, and it will become an enemy. Conversely, treat China like a friend and it will become a friend. But three decades of U.S.-China relations should at least cast doubt on this belief. Since the normalization of relations with China the aim of U.S. policy has been to bring China "into the family of nations." Other than China itself, no nation has done more than the United States to improve the lot of the Chinese people and to welcome China's rise peacefully. And, rather than increase its deterrence of China -- a natural move given the uncertainty attendant to the rise of any great power -- the United States has let its Pacific forces erode and will do so further. We may soon go through our third round of defense cuts in as many years. Here is just one example of how unserious we are about China: As China continues to build up its strategic forces, the United States has signed a deal with Russia to cap its strategic forces without so much as mentioning China. Unless Beijing was insulted by this neglect, surely it could take great comfort in an anachronistic U.S. focus on arms control with Russia. But despite our demonstrations of benevolence, China still views the United States as its enemy or, on better days, its rival. Its military programs are designed to fight the United States. The self-fulfilling prophesy is far and away the most fantastical claim about China policy and thus the number one unicorn.

2) Abandoning Taiwan will remove the biggest obstacle to Sino-American relations. Since 2003, when President Bush publicly chided then-Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on the White House lawn with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at his side, the United States has been gradually severing its close links with Taiwan. President Obama's Taiwan policy has been the logical dénouement. Arms sales have been stalled, no Cabinet members have visited Taiwan since the Clinton years, and trade talks are nonexistent: there is essentially nothing on the U.S.-Taiwan policy agenda. The reaction from China? Indeed, it has moved on. But rather than bask in the recent warming of its relationship with Taiwan, China has picked fights with Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and India. It does not matter what "obstacles" the United States removes, China's foreign policy has its own internal logic that is hard for the United States to "shape." Abandoning Taiwan for the sake of better relations is yet another dangerous fantasy.

3) China will inevitably overtake the U.S. and we must manage our decline elegantly. This is a new China policy unicorn. Until a few years ago, most analysts were certain there was no need to worry about China. The new intellectual fad tells us there is nothing we can do about China. Its rise and our decline are inevitable. But inevitability in international affairs should remain the preserve of rigid ideological theorists who still cannot explain why a unified Europe has not posed a problem for the United States, why post-war Japan never really challenged U.S. primacy, or why the rising United States and the declining Britain have not gone to war since 1812. The fact is China has tremendous, seemingly insurmountable problems. It has badly misallocated its capital thanks to a distorted financial system characterized by capital controls and a non-market based currency. It may have a debt to GDP ratio as high as 80 percent thanks again to a badly distorted economy. And it has created a demographic nightmare with a shrinking productive population, senior tsunami, and millions of males who will be unmarriageable (see the pioneering work of my colleague Nick Eberstadt).

The United States also has big problems. But we are debating them vigorously, know what they are and are now looking to elect the leaders to fix them. China's political structure does not yet allow for fixing big problems.

4) (Related to 3). China is our banker. We cannot anger our banker. In fact, China is more like a depositor. It deposits money in U.S. treasuries because its economy does not allow investors to put it elsewhere. There is nothing else it can do with its surpluses unless it changes its financial system radically (see above). It makes a pittance on its deposits. If the U.S. starts to bring down its debts and deficits China will have even fewer options. China is desperate for U.S. investment, U.S. treasuries, and the U.S. market. The balance of leverage leans towards the United States.

5) We are engaging China. This is a surprising policy unicorn. After all, we do have an engagement policy with China. But we are only engaging a small slice of China: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The party may be large -- the largest in the world (it could have some 70 million members). We do need to engage party leaders on matters of high politics and high finance, but China has at least one billion other people. Many are decidedly not part of the CCP. They are lawyers, activists, religious leaders, artists, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs. Most would rather the CCP go quietly into the night. We do not engage them. Our presidents tend to avoid making their Chinese counterparts uncomfortable by insisting on speaking to a real cross section of Chinese society. Engagement seen through the prism of government-to-government relations keeps us from engaging with the broader Chinese public. Chinese officials come to the United States and meet with whomever they want (usually in carefully controlled settings, and often with groups who are critical of the U.S. government and very friendly to the Chinese government). U.S. leaders are far more cautious in choosing with whom to meet in China. We do not demand reciprocity in meeting with real civil society -- underground church leaders, political reformers and so on. China has a successful engagement policy. We do not.

6) Our greatest challenge is managing China's rise. Actually, our greatest challenge will probably be managing China's long decline. Unless it enacts substantial reforms, China's growth model may sputter out soon. There is little if nothing it can do about its demographic disaster (will it enact pro-immigration policy?). And its political system is too risk averse and calcified to make any real reforms.

7) China's decline will make our lives easier. China's decline may make the challenge for the United States more difficult for at least a generation. It could play out for a long time even as China grows more aggressive with more lethal weaponry (e.g., what to do with surplus males?). Arguably both Germany and Imperial Japan declined beginning after World War I and continuing through the disaster of World War II. Russia is in decline by all useful metrics. Even so, it invaded a neighbor not too long ago. A declining, nuclear-armed nation with a powerful military can be more problematic than a rising, confident nation.

8) We need to extricate ourselves from the "distractions" of the Middle East and South Asia to focus on China. This is a very popular unicorn among the cognoscenti. But how would this work? As Middle Easterners go through a historic revolution that could lead to the flowering of democracy or the turmoil of more extremism, how do we turn our attention elsewhere? Are we supposed to leave Afghanistan to the not-so-tender mercies of the Taliban and Pakistani intelligence? This view is particularly ironic given China's increased interests in the Middle East and our need for a partnership with India to deal with China. There is no way to create the kind of order we wish to see in Asia without exerting a great amount of influence over the oil producing states in the Middle East and by allowing India to become tied down in a struggle in South Asia. We are the sole superpower, our foreign policy is interconnected. "Getting Asia right" means "getting the Middle East and South Asia right."

9) We need China's help to solve global problems. This is further down on my list because it is not really a fantastical unicorn. It is true. What is a fantasy is that China will be helpful. We do need China to disarm North Korea. They do not want to, and North Korea is now a nuclear power. The same may soon be true with Iran. The best we can get in our diplomacy with China is to stop Beijing from being less helpful. It is a fact that the global problems would be easier to manage with Chinese help. However, China actually contributing to global order is a unicorn.

10) Conflict with China is inevitable. A fair reading of the nine "unicorns" above may lead to the conclusion that we are destined to go to war with China. It may be a fair reading, but it is also an inaccurate one. Sino-American relations will be determined by two main drivers; one we can control, the other we cannot. The first is our ability to deter aggressive Chinese behavior. The second is how politics develop in China. The strategic prize for Washington is democratic reform in China. Democracy will not solve all Sino-American problems. China may be very prickly about sovereignty and very nationalistic. But a true liberal democracy in China in which people are fairly represented is our best hope for peace. The disenfranchised could force their government to focus resources on their manifold problems (corruption, misallocated resources, lack of social safety net). The United States and the rest of Asia will certainly trust an open and transparent China more, and ties would blossom at the level of civil society. Historically, the United States has almost always been on China's side. It is waiting patiently to do so again.

I know the U.S. is still recovering from the financial crisis.…Under such circumstances, it is still spending a lot of money on its military. Isn't that placing too much pressure on the taxpayers? If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a little and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people and doing more good things for the world -- wouldn't that be a better scenario?"

This was the Chinese People's Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Gen. Chen Bingde's suggestion to Americans during the visit of his counterpart Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen. Well, we are obliging the Chinese general -- at least in part. We are cutting defense. General Chen would be especially happy to know that in particular we are foregoing investment in the types of systems that help keep us "present" in Asia -- though Admiral Mullen assured Asian audiences that we will be there for the long haul. Whether we are cutting defense in order to improve the livelihood of the American people is a separate, hotly debated question. Color me skeptical.

But on the first part of General Chen's suggestion, here is how we are heeding his advice. We are not properly resourcing: a) the submarines the Navy says it needs, or, for that matter, the number of ships in its own shipbuilding plan; b) stealthy tactical aircraft (by the Air Force's own account, they will face an 800-fighter shortfall later this decade); and c) a long-range bomber, now called "the long-range strike family of systems," particularly by those who think this system is silver bullet for our Asia posture.  We were supposed to be deploying new bombers by 2018. Not a chance. The program is estimated to cost $40-50 billion in total, and respected aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafia predicts that we will not see a new bomber until well into the next decade. Yes, that's right, a new bomber somewhere in the 2020s.

So General Chen, no need to worry about our defense spending -- we will not have enough submarines or tactical aircraft, and there is no new bomber on the horizon. All are supposed to play a role in the much vaunted AirSea Battle strategy that is our answer to China's growing military power.

But Mullen insists, as did Secretary Gates and other top U.S. leaders, we will still be there for our friends and our allies.  Given the numbers, the next time a leading U.S. official insists that we are going to be "present" in Asia, journalists have a duty to ask, "With what?"

Those who believe that the United States is no longer capable of strategic planning should pay a visit to the Pacific Command (PACOM), headed by the impressive Admiral Willard. Besides the almost unimaginable number of tasks associated with running a command of 325,000 personal that covers half of the globe, Admiral Willard has also charged himself and his staff with long-range strategic planning for this most vital of regions. Unfortunately, Washington is of little help. Not only can the bureaucracy (under any administration) no longer respond to anything but a day's events, but political leaders on both sides of the aisle have been asking PACOM to do more and more with less and less for over a decade.

What's more, PACOM has little strategic guidance. As a country, we vaguely know that we want to deter Chinese aggression while encouraging "responsible behavior"; integrate India as a full strategic partner; empower Southeast Asian countries as independent, prosperous, and hopefully democratic partners; encourage Japan to play a "normal" role; and denuclearize North Korea while working for eventual unification of the peninsula under Seoul's governance. But military staffs need to plan -- and no one knows for what exactly we are planning. Will we or won't we come to Taiwan's defense? Will we get into a conflict over disputes in the South China Sea? Will we intervene in a Sino-Japanese conflict? What if China is the main aggressor in a Korea conflagration? All unclear.

The situation is most akin to the years of "Orange" planning at the Naval War College that unfolded over the three decades before the Pacific War. We knew we might one day have to fight Imperial Japan, but we had no idea over what. We possessed the Philippines but we certainly would not go to war over those islands alone. Taiwan today is the closest analogue. It may be the trigger over a fight for, as Aaron Friedberg has put it, "mastery" or "supremacy over half the world."

While Taiwan may seem today to be an idiosyncratic American concern about democratic friends, if attacked the island may look like the place where China has chosen to change the global balance of power. Unfortunately, the years of "Orange" planning ended up in a horrific Pacific War. American ambiguity over red lines played its part in triggering that conflict. Japan attacked China with no response. Tokyo did not know if an invasion of Southeast Asia would be met with similar passivity. Finally, Japan decided that one decisive blow against the U.S. fleet in Hawaii would keep Washington out of the sphere of influence it was building in Asia. It was wrong.

Ambiguity has its place -- it allows for flexibility. In the case of Sino-American relations, ambiguity allows the United States to respond both to an aggressive China and one that does not repeat the mistakes of Imperial Japan. But clarity serves its purposes too. Secretaries Clinton and Gates, for example, proclaimed "core interests," as the Chinese would say, in freedom of navigation through the South China Sea; PACOM is now trying to interpret and operationalize Washington's guidance.

But an uneven commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act, a law that has helped to keep the cross-Strait peace for decades, only invites more Chinese probing and testing in the place where Beijing is most likely to challenge American staying power.

PACOM is doing its part to, as the military likes to say, "shape" the region in concert with U.S. interests -- through its planning, its robust program of engagement with allies and partners, and its very active and enduring presence. Besides the lack of clarity from Washington -- a function of the absence of effective strategic planning mechanisms -- political leaders are overtaxing the command charged with defense of the world's most vital region. We are slowly and without due deliberation heading toward the famous "Lippmann Gap" -- our declared interests in Asia keep growing, we ask PACOM to do what it can to advance them, but we starve them of resources to do the job. We are coming to a point where either we retrench from our commitments in Asia (a policy with untold consequences) or we decide as a nation to properly fund them.

International Relations theorist Charles Glaser has joined a growing chorus calling for the abandonment of Taiwan. His take on why we should abandon the island is tucked into his "nuanced version of realism" argued on the pages of Foreign Affairs. As do most "abandon Taiwan" arguments, he begins with a "realist" argument for why war between the United States and China is unlikely. Why? Because besides Taiwan, Sino-U.S. interests are compatible.

Parting company with other "pessimistic" realists who believe that "power transitions" -- the historic condition of a rising power challenging the existing hegemon -- more often than not lead to war, Glaser believes that this time it is different. The security dilemma (in pursuing our security we take steps which decrease their security which leads them to take steps which decrease our security, a process that can end in conflict) in the Sino-U.S. case. The task for Beijing and Washington (but mostly Washington) is to trust that each country just wants security, not domination. 

For example, the United States should not fear China's nuclear build-up because of Beijing's limited ability to strike the U.S. homeland. According to this logic, the United States should forego temptations to increase its own nuclear arsenal in response to China's own increases. All China is doing is increasing its security with a second strike capability. In turn, China should not fear U.S. conventional capabilities because most are resident across the Pacific.

But ultimately, the argument goes, it is up to the United States and not China, to make adjustments to its security posture and not exaggerate threats that China poses. The United States is safe because China will never have the means to destroy its deterrent.

Glaser concedes that this theory overlooks the fact that U.S. security alliances could seem threatening to China. Here we get to the nub of his argument. The United States must ask itself how important its security alliances are. Unlike "Neo-isolationists," Glaser, an advocate of "selective engagement," believes that the alliances with South Korea and Japan are important. And the United States could defend those alliances without creating a debilitating arms race if it provides just enough conventional deterrence, plus the threat of nuclear retaliation should those countries come under attack.  

To Glaser, Taiwan is different. China's belief that Taiwan is part of it is non-negotiable, and Beijing and Washington have very different views of what constitutes the status quo across the Strait. The Taiwan dispute has no diplomatic solution and the risks of nuclear war are getting too high, particularly with China's advancing second strike capability. His answer is for the United States to make the necessary "adjustments" and abandon Taiwan.

He acknowledges potential critics who may say appeasement usually whets the appetite of the appeased. But, says Glaser, not all adversaries are Hitler, and China has limited territorial goals. Even if China has more expansive territorial claims, the United States can remediate any military imbalance through a greater conventional presence.

In the end, the real danger is a self-fulfilling prophesy, a failure by the United States to realize that its basic goals are compatible with China's. Glaser fears that this is already happening -- the United States is taking a much more competitive military stance because its ability to operate along China's periphery is in danger. According to Glaser, this dilemma has two solutions. The first is for Washington to realize that U.S. interests are changing -- Taiwan is not really vital. And second, the United States should forego the kind of nuclear superiority that could counter China's second strike capability. Problem solved.

This is a fairly conventional international theory argument about the relative stability of Sino-American relations. Glaser is essentially taking a side in an old debate. His innovation is the abandonment of Taiwan, a necessary step to decrease the security dilemma and reveal China's truly limited aims.

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