Robert Kaplan Sees the South China Sea as the "Future of Conflict"

A must read from Robert Kaplan.  Here's a key part: 

"As China's navy becomes stronger and as China's claim on the South China Sea contradicts those of other littoral states, these other states will be forced to further develop their naval capacities. They will also balance against China by relying increasingly on the U.S. Navy, whose strength has probably peaked in relative terms, even as it must divert considerable resources to the Middle East. Worldwide multipolarity is already a feature of diplomacy and economics, but the South China Sea could show us what multipolarity in a military sense actually looks like."

Someone is going to have to explain to me how what Kaplan rightly describes as the future we're headed toward--is more stable than the one we're in now.

Sounds like we ought to gin up one of those "strategy" things, huh?  Maybe, just maybe, the world's (still) most powerful economy can re-deploy its resources in a more intelligent manner to ensure that the Navy hasn't "peaked" in Asia. 

Bryan McGrath