Vietnam vs. China

Georgie Anne Geyer has been traveling the world - thinking and writing about America's place in it - for four decades. Like Tom Friedman, her domestic politics are tiresomely liberal but that doesn't often bleed over into her international commentary.

Her recent Uexpress article for Yahoo News does a good job of echoing U.S. history in Vietnam and raising questions about our policy with respect to Asia. After documenting our wars in places from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan, she has become convinced of their long-term futility. She concludes:

China historically has not been an expansionist nation or society. (snip) Now China is rich and increasing her military. Will she not try to get the oil in the South China Sea?

Will it not come down to a fight if Japan, as seems likely, is going to try to get the Senkaku Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea from China? There are dozens of reasons for war in those waters.

It would seem to me, as we dance our destroyers and drones around the world, that we need to examine why we are in these places and what we intend to do. 

Geyer doesn't even mention the interests of the Philippines in these same waters, interests the Filipinos expect the U.S. to protect.