Not only is this of limited utility and provocative, it’s being pushed because it’s provocative.

Lynn Cheney was trying to start a war with China in the early 1990s, and Francis Fukuyama said that during the 90s, “There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn’t do as well”.

This is a calculated attempt to put a new enemy in the pipe line for Republican partisan advantage.

Senate threatens Bush missile plan
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Friday July 6, 2007

Guardian
President George Bush’s controversial plan to establish a missile defence system in eastern Europe could be scuppered next week if Congress votes to block funding.

The Senate appears ready to join the House in cutting from the defence budget the millions Mr Bush requested to fund US missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. The president would have to use his veto to go ahead but that would put the whole defence budget in peril.

The Senate move would add to the lengthy list of obstacles that have built up to Mr Bush’s plan. A consequence would be to end the stand-off with Moscow, which views the missile system as a threat. Speaking on Monday at the Bush family retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, reiterated his opposition to placing the missile system so close to Russia. There is also opposition within Poland and the Czech Republic.

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