Longtime readers will remember the series on America's 21st Century Foreign Policy. Well, Colin May has written an article on America's response to the Tsunami that bears on it:

This leads us to the second event. While American diplomats derided Egeland’s slip of the tongue, the US engaged in an activity that said far more than any words could regarding the new international order. Without any concern for the UN, the US proceeded to set up a core group of nations to deal with the disaster. Partners in the group were Australia, Japan and India. It is this alliance that will matter most to the US in the future. The four big Pacific democracies, three with strong Anglo-Saxon histories, will most likely develop into the central alliance of the twenty-first century.

Beyond these considerations there are the political ones. China remains a dictatorship with a highly centralized authority. Now, this fact isn’t simply a function of the continuing communist regime. China has tended to strong central authority on the imperial model for centuries. This is unlikely to change, and though it can be drawn upon to fuel impressive economic growth, it can also hinder entrepreneurial innovation.

For its part, the US isn’t simply waiting for China to dominate the Asian region either. In fact, the big four alliance of Japan, India, Australia and the US is precisely contrived to surround and hem in China, and here special light has to be thrown on the Indian case. During the Cold War, India was a key player in the non-aligned movement. Today, the world’s largest democracy is a key American ally, both politically and economically.

There is, of course, another key factor to consider here – the Anglo-Saxon angle. The United States, Australia and India are all countries with a strong Anglo-Saxon heritage, further adding to their status as natural allies. Along with Britain, Australia was the Americans’ staunchest ally in the Iraq war, and, unlike Spain, we see that this alliance did nothing to harm the electoral success of Australia’s ruling pro-American government. From time to time, the notion of the Anglo-Saxon bond has been floated as a basis for a global alliance, and of course this alliance did figure prominently in World War II which, along with Russia, was largely fought by Americans and members of the British Commonwealth.

That this alliance seems to be coming to the fore is not lost on its most vehement critic: the French. France has long derided the dominance of les Anglo-Saxons in the world, though this dominance largely came about through deft interventions on the part of the British during attempts by France to dominate its continental neighbors. In response to the Anglo-Saxon alliance, France has once again attempted to dominate Europe through the EU while interfering with American foreign policy goals when strategically possible. Chief among such actions is the effort by the French to curry favor with the Chinese dictatorship, as well as with left-leaning Latin American nations, most notably Brazil. The problem with this traditional French strategy is that it leaves the pays des droits de l’homme in league with the world’s most reprehensible regimes.

Check out this piece by Arnold Kling, which I'm just getting to. It has some observations on the Power Law and Weblogs thing from awhile back, that I still think is interesting. The Kling piece shows why even small sites are important.

I've been coming to agree with this:

We have yet to find a serviceable framework for the application of our military power in the war on terrorism; in view of potential catastrophes of which we have a great deal of forewarning, we have yet to provide adequately for what used to be called civil defense; and we have no policy in regard to China's steady cultivation of power that soon will vie with our own. Though any one of these things is capable of dominating the coming century, not one has been properly addressed.

Johnny Carson has died of Emphysema. I remember when he hosted the Tonight Show, he was always a class act.