Thomas Barnett shows his Pentagon's New Map is not the only trick he has up his sleeve. He's on his media tour and in blogging about current events notes the following:
Japan and China hold almost $1Trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds. Increasingly, their view of the world will merge, with China’s moving closer to pragmatic Japan’s. The U.S. is looking at a dual strategic partner in this pair. We better get used to it, plan for it, and exploit it whenever possible. Those two countries bought the bulk of the sovereign debt we floated to pay for the Iraq war. We better make sure they get the outcome they thought they were buying when they purchased all that debt. Otherwise, next time they may not finance the war.
It's a truism that whoever pays the piper calls the tune. The PRC and Japan are paying the piper. What's the tune they're really calling? Asia is in deep trouble over energy supplies with Middle East oil being full dollars more expensive when shipped to Asia. This "Asian Premium" holds the region back by making everything more expensive than if they paid the same energy costs everybody else was paying.
If the PRC and Japan are both betting that US security efforts in the Middle East are something that they are willing to fund, the price for feckless withdrawal in Iraq would not just be in increased terrorist strikes against us. More significantly, there would be no reason for them to continue to float huge loans in order to rid themselves of their $3/barrel millstone around their necks.
Posted by TMLutas at April 30, 2004 09:20 AM