INT-ER-ES-TING...! Talk Loudly and Carry a Soft Stick

"I think we're seeing some clear evidence of a lack of respect and intimidation and coercion in Europe today with what the Russians have done with Ukraine."
[China is a] great power [but] with this new power comes new and wider responsibilities as to how you use that power, how you employ that military power."
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

He was not, of course, alluding to the invasion of Grenada by American troops thirty years ago, heavens, no. Of course this was still at a time when the United States, under President Gerald Reagan, spoke of the U.S.S.R. as the "evil empire", (a phrase that brought a shiver of juvenile drama to most intelligent people), with its fear of the disastrous spread of Marxism, requiring the blunt hammer of unrelenting police action reminiscent of the glory days of McCarthyism.

U.S. troops guarding suspected members of the People's Revolutionary Army of Grenada during the Urgent Fury invasion of the island after a Marxist coup.

Matthew Naythons/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

This time around it's the fear of Asian giant China sowing unease and fear among its neighbours, claiming territory, airspace and sea ownership and all that lies beneath, as its own. Territorial disputes that are not being calmly discussed with due regard for law, precedent, and heritage, but by threats of force of size, and arms. This is the way that huge countries with ample resources and arms seem to behave, wherever they're located; from Asia to the Middle East, North America to Europe.

But the United States, the sole remaining world power, with the world's largest most technically advanced military will have none of it. Which is why, championing democracy and decency in human relations, it has announced its unwillingness to allow a terrorist country like Iran to develop nuclear weapons, or a civilization-menacing country like Syria to continue butchering its majority Sunni citizens, or North Korea to bully its neighbour South Korea.

And because the U.S. has become a peace-mongering nation, rather than one that no longer sees its interests in allying itself with dictators if it furthered American interests, it saw fit to succumb to Russian blandishments to let matters be, so Iran will achieve its nuclear weapons and the International Criminal Court will try fruitlessly to indict Bashar al-Assad for war crimes, and North Korea will continue to flaunt its disregard for sanctions against its nuclear programs through a ballistic-souled tyrant.

But China, must understand, according to Mr. Hagel, that the United States is not prepared to stand by while its Asia Pacific allies shudder in apprehension of the plans that their great neighbour is revealing as its ambition to gather to itself greater territory and natural resources related to that territory. Mr. Hagel spoke chidingly of how unruly Russia has become flexing its political muscles and utilizing its military to effectively intimidate Ukraine and annex Crimea.

China, without a doubt is fearfully shivering in anticipation of the wrath that the United States will rain down upon them should they nonetheless decide to forge ahead with their inevitable plans, upsetting Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and their mentoring bulwark, the United States of America.