The Rand Corporation published a preview of the war in the strategic waters of the western Pacific between the Chinese Navy and the US and Japanese navies. Interesting, in that it isn’t clear that the Americans will fight, but the Japanese will either fight or become a vassal of China, dependent on China for its imports of oil and rice and iron ore. America will not fight if Obama is still in office, but if China delays until after Obama leaves, then America will fight, and that makes it a different fight altogether. A mid-1980s book called Generations argued that US generations differed from each other in a cyclical way, moving clockwise from Aggressive to Aggressive-Passive to Passive to Passive-Aggressive and back to Aggressive, with Aggressive being defined as a generation willing to fight if necessary. The authors noted that every major American war was waged with an Aggressive generation culturally dominant, the theory being that that it takes two to tangle. Way back in the 1980s I counted ahead and calculated that an Aggressive generation would be culturally dominant in the US beginning in the year 2014, and that a major war would occur if our interests or security were seriously challenged. But I will stand on my conviction that the Chinese can build a blue water navy, but a navy is more than ships, it is tradition and leadership. The Chinese navy has zero tradition, and should it sail into blue water with hostile intent it would soon rest on the bottom of the South China Sea.

Nelson and Halsey and Cochrane, Pellew
Decatur and Stewart and Perry and Hood
Old Ironsides and Vincennes, the Vinny Maru
Iron men with steel ships and iron ships built of wood
They conquered the sea and defended their nations
They braved fierce run gales and the guns of the foe
At Savo they took it but stayed on their stations
As ships littered Ironbottom Sound far below
The Chinese may bravely sail into blue water
To find attack submarines lying in wait
The sound of the ships meeting old Neptune’s daughter
Will carry to China across Sunda Strait