horse of george

This a bauble, a mere curiosity - but Kissenger has a new article in Foreign Affairs along lines he's drawn before, namely, the US and China can choose to avoid confrontation, that reasonable decision making can lead to reasonable outcomes as aspirations and intentions of each jostle the other through this realignment of global power. As always when it comes to China, Kissenger's significant interests there, both historical and current, cause one to maybe just a bit question his objectivity - but let's give him the benefit of a doubt and simply ask a simple question: how true is his central premise? Not to preach a deterministic view of human behavior, but when these dynamics are in play, how much control do we really have over them? Of course we want rational action to beget the pleasantness of mutual benefit - but seems to me history is instead full of examples where conflicts happened regardless of an assumed logic, possibly imagined after the fact, that seemed to suggest these conflicts didn't have to happen. Often it appears to me that history is nothing more than a harsh and cruel lesson in humility - after all, Kissenger and Nixon were at the forefront of a fond hope that certain reasonable efforts would eventually lead to a democratic China - but who reasonably expects to see a democratic China in the foreseeable future? Or rather, put it this way: if we do ever see a democratic China [and of course I'm talking about a real democracy, not an 'Arab Spring' farce democracy] it will I suspect not come at the warm and gentle end of a peaceful rise - much more likely I reckon it will be preceded by upheaval, violence, discontent, intrigue and wars of various types and sizes, both exogenous and endogenous. I find it very hard to believe that some, most or all of these entanglements will not, more or less, threaten or otherwise negatively impact our national interests - and once you're there, what one would like to see happen is often not among the choices given.