Half Right on China

Max Boot is half right on China--he argues that the test of their stealth plane as Gates was visiting demonstrates perhaps that China's leadership does not have full command over its military.  That is, indeed, troubling.  However, he continues to beat the drum for more and more military spending.  Again, to win an arms race with China is not about more and more, but smarter and perhaps even cheaper.   Finding weapons systems that get at China's vulnerabilities rather than investing in our own stuff that is vulnerable is the way to go. 

And speaking of such, since the US has had stealth planes for more than twenty years, perhaps we might be good at defeating the Chinese first generation of stealth planes?  We might not be broadcasting that because we want them to waste money on such stuff?  Just a guess or two here.  It is highly unlikely that the first generation of Chinese stealth aircraft will be something we haven't, ahem, seen.

As Gates has put it, the US no longer just buy and buy without restraint (actually it should not have been doing so anyway).  It needs to be smart about it, and over-reacting is not smart.