The Geopolitics of China
Fascinating insight on China's geopolitics, indirectly from the smarties at Stratfor.
I would totally subscribe to the service if it wasn't so expensive ($349/year), and if I thought I could keep up with the reading. The Economist is pretty good, but Stratfor outsmarts them. They're based in Austin... maybe I could get a job. All I need is a Master's or Ph.D in fields I know almost nothing about. Ah well.
Update: I have a minor quibble:
The US Army of the Korean War was a far cry from the efficient killing machine that won World War II just 5 years earlier, as described by (among others), David Halberstam in The Coldest Winter. Certainly they were better than the pathetic North Korean forces, but the Communist Chinese had been fighting the Japanese for 8 years and then the Nationalists for another 4 years, only achieving victory over the mainland in 1949; the American troops sent to Korea had a lot of fast and bloody learning to do to be able to match the battle-tested Chinese. This is hardly a significant issue, but it's Stratfor... they're supposed to be perfect.
I would totally subscribe to the service if it wasn't so expensive ($349/year), and if I thought I could keep up with the reading. The Economist is pretty good, but Stratfor outsmarts them. They're based in Austin... maybe I could get a job. All I need is a Master's or Ph.D in fields I know almost nothing about. Ah well.
Update: I have a minor quibble:
The United States intervened, defeated the North Korean Army and drove to the Yalu, the river border with China. The Chinese, seeing the well-armed and well-trained American force surge to its borders, decided that it had to block its advance and attacked south.
The US Army of the Korean War was a far cry from the efficient killing machine that won World War II just 5 years earlier, as described by (among others), David Halberstam in The Coldest Winter. Certainly they were better than the pathetic North Korean forces, but the Communist Chinese had been fighting the Japanese for 8 years and then the Nationalists for another 4 years, only achieving victory over the mainland in 1949; the American troops sent to Korea had a lot of fast and bloody learning to do to be able to match the battle-tested Chinese. This is hardly a significant issue, but it's Stratfor... they're supposed to be perfect.
Labels: geography
posted by Ketan at
2:49 PM
2 Comments:
I think you put Stratfor on too high a pedestal. I subscribed to Stratfor for a few years (when it was $49/yr), so I read a lot of their analyses. While George Friedman has a spectacular grasp of history and geopolitical forces, he has surface view of economics, and just when it's obviously important. The Economist does much better with those issues.
That's good information to know. I wonder if they've hired people with the expertise to backstop that lack in the intervening period.
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