Because HispanicLatinos already are a great part of the nation’s military and will be a larger part still in the years ahead, they should monitor President Obama’s recent decisions to assert American power in the South China Sea.  From Australia to the Philippines to Thailand, the United States is creating pockets of American strength to make sure China’s growth as a world power does not retrace the erroneous path that Japan took more than 70 years ago.  Left unchecked, a totalitarian Japan swept across the Pacific and only a bloody effort led by the United States pushed them back.

You have to be on top of things to know how cleverly China is going about its business as it senses that the balance of power not only in that region but in the world is moving away from the United States.  Building gigantic commercial ports that also can accommodate the large naval vessels it is constructing at high speed is one of the easier examples.  China is active on all fronts, from Iran to Latin America to outer space.  No one begrudges them their advancement as a world power and their development as a new and important nation.  But let us make sure that the Chinese rise to power is not predicated on thinking that the United States is going to go silently into the night.

In private conversations, the leaders of the nations of that hemisphere convey their darkest fears to American diplomats about China.  For the time being – until America can get its economic and fiscal house in order to maintain its technological lead over China – American power will get a strategic boost from the nations of the world who do not trust the Chinese and who find in America, that can often be fault, a more dependable partner.  The rest of the world knows that America could have built a Pacific Empire after it defeated the Japanese, but we are not a colonial power – certainly not of the caricature type.

In prudently responding to Chinese expansion in small but steadfast ways, President Obama also does not seem to be rushing into the entangling alliances about which his long-ago predecessor Thomas Jefferson warned the nation.  The use of power is a game of chess best played without sound of fury or show.  One does not need to rattle one’s sword if the location and size of the sword is visible enough.  And one does not have to appear to be linking arms with friends to such a degree as to be seen as a gang gathering to inflict harm.

The United States does face the worst of both worlds, having to be on guard for the relentless strain of terrorists the modern age has spawned and having to operate in conventional mode to safeguard the balance of power that while shifting must be gradual and peaceful – and in the end productive for humanity itself.  America cannot sit on its hands.

Having prosecuted the war against Al Qaeda and removed Bin Laden from this world and moving to redo George W. Bush’s grievous mistakes, Obama is calibrating American power in a way that seems judicious and quietly effective.  In the hands of a Mitt Romney or a Newt Gingrich – or a Ron Paul! – American power might not be so well deployed.

The Administration has given China enough time on its currency manipulation and here, too, Obama is aware of the delicate balance in which the United States and China exist today – we need each other.

But we do not need each other to overreach anywhere in the world.

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