Whoever claims the presidency after this Tuesday's election
will have to confront the growing potential for conflict in the Far East.
While war in Syria and threats of war with Iran will keep
the Middle East in the headlines for the foreseeable future, in the Pacific a toxic mixture of territorial
disputes between China and it's neighbours as well as left over resentment
against Japan's World War 2 aggression (which the leaders of countries such as
China and South Korea stir up whenever domestically convenient) has created a
potential for a conflict that would dwarf anything we've seen in recent memory.
Under the Obama Administration the United States has quietly
begun shifting it's strategic focus more and more on the Pacific Rim, even
symbolically stationing a small contingent of U.S. Marines in Australia for the
first time since the Second World War. There is no reason to believe a Romney
Government would do anything different.
Finally, the saddest irony of all; Japan having woken up to
the new reality of it's neigbourhood has begun to feel compelled to move from away
it's post war pacifist orientation. From briefly sending troops to Iraq, to
participation in the US Ballistic Missile Shield (something Canada will eventually
do regardless of current party policies). Now in some quarters the only nation
on whom atomic weapons were actually used is considering acquiring nuclear
weapons of it's own. If only just to ensure it has a counter point to the
periodic threats of national extermination it receives from China and North
Korea.
As BC singer Sue Medley once sang "We are
living in dangerous times".
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