foreign policy reagan style

with the government and the country transfixed by the economic meltdown, the world is taking advantage of the very real weakness of our country to do things that would have been unheard of us during our more robust times. i am far from a reagan-phile, but you have to give the guy credit for taking down the soviets. here's how i think the gipper would have reacted to the following issues facing our country.

1. north korea is about to launch a missile - reagan decision: attempt to shoot down missile with SDI. if that didn't work, don't tell anyone.

2. russia about to plant its bombers in venezuela and cuba - reagan decision: blockade those countries. get the UN and NATO behind us on this. there is no way russia should have bombers in this hemisphere. even the lefty kennedy knew enough to do this.

3. mexico losing drug war - reagan decision: nancy reagan would have helped ronnie on this one. if we weren't stuck in iraq, it would have already been done. he would have put troops on the mexican border to stop the flow of drugs from mexico. i realize the drugs will come in from elsewhere but it will at least stop the border violence and may be even settle down mexico as a whole.

4. somali pirates running rampant - reagan decision: keeping the oceans safe off somalia is something the navy could easily do and give us pretext to keep more warships near the middle east. and it's something the whole world would appreciate(even russia would be happy with us).

5. darfur ravaged as president al-Bashir thugs around - reagan decision: send in lots of humanitarian aid. we say we are the last superpower but we do nothing for these people. it is really disgusting how little our country has done. we did more for the starving ethiopians under reagan. what's happening in darfur is even worse than the famines.

6. china is expanding its military capabilities - reagan decision: unfortunately, i think reagan would have turned this into another cold war. he would have done a show of force (see #1) and expanded our military budget. our economic dependency on china makes this thornier, but reagan showed us how to defeat the communists - bankrupt them into spending too much on their military.

there are many other foreign policy issues facing our country but these are some of the top. unfortunately, i think this is what our current administration will do on all them obama decision: rhetoric.

china can do whatever it wants

china can pretty much do as they please in the world and no one can stop them. they are super conservative these days and haven't made many waves internationally lately but if there was a change in top leadership or a major local uprising, china would likely do something.

what sorts of things?

well, for one, they could invade Taiwan and the US would be able to do nothing.

the reality is that china is the largest holder of US treasuries (surpassing Japan this past September). if China wanted the dollar to collapse and send this country into an economic fiasco, all they would have to do is start selling these treasuries. if China simply stopped buying US treasuries, we wouldn't be able to finance all these giant spending plans.

right now, it is in China's best interest to keep the US economy chugging along since we are the biggest buyers of their products. i'm glad they're on our side. there's even speculation that China is dumping European bonds in an effort to strengthen the US dollar. we are in a situation where we need China and for now China needs us. but with mutually assured economic destruction, the country that flinches first will lose. and China's politics allow it to flinch last.

so while we may talk tough to china, the reality is that China is truly the only super power still standing. China can do what it wants. if china wants to take Taiwan, they will. the US will sit idly by.