Obama is making the Americans work for China!

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yes, yes, yes and yes

Meh. True in the short term the USA benefits from these small scale diplomatic disputes. In the long term that's an empty package though, because the other Asian powers will sooner or later realise that unless the USA radically alters its politics it will ultimately have to default on the alliance when a true dispute with its allies and China pops up. If the USA isn't going to risk a long term souring of relations with a non-power such as Argentina over a pair of sheep; why should they feel confident that the USA would risk long term tensions with one of its prime suppliers over the Senkaku islands or the South Chinese Sea?

Some commenter to that article posted a link to another article which contains slightly more substance: http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010...ing-weltmacht/
I kind of liked this comment (its tangential but the mindset it describes is reminiscent of what is espoused in that blog post referred to by furunculus):

Let me see if I get the big picture.
We get to position ABM sites in places like Poland and the Czech Republic and expect Moscow to snooze on down military road despite those little so 20th century problems it had with Germany that resulted in the country getting turned inside out.
Our Navy gets to ply its assets above, on, and below the South China Sea while we expect Beijing to smile despite those little so 20th century problems it had with, well, everybody. Surprise! the result was that the country got turned inside out.
Nice delusion if you can keep it.
P.S. When the Soviets tried to install some of those nasty missile thingies in our back yard, we about jumped through our you know whats.
File this one under ‘you couldn’t make it up except in Washington.’