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Originally Posted by smallpox
During that time period, did China achieve economic growth through privatization of most sectors? Did it open it's border to private firms world wide? Did it gradually accept neo-liberal policies regarding its economics? Is India not close second or third in terms of economic growth? Why wouldn't it be liberalism? Because China due to liberal economic policies grows faster than India with its democratic political system? That doesn't make any sense at all.
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The rise of China I'm referring to isn't just economic. Though of course that plays a major part of it, they also have ways of threatening the US even beyond proportionately to their economic prowess.
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Now, did China achieve economic growth through military force? Did it become richer by waging war on its neighbors?
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Not waging war, but certainly forging alliances. When Afghanistan harbors OBL, it is taken as an act of war against the US. So when China allies itself with Afghanistan and other states that harbor terrorists, it is an agressive move.
Nowadays of course one doesn't need to wage war on one's enemies directly - 9/11 proved that non-state proxies can do the job perfectly well.
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Do businesses flock to China because of it's state's hard power?
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Yes, partly. Their political stability is something that is lacking in someplace like India. With China, several decades of gradually relaxing economic policies give investors some degree of confidence that things will continue that way in the future. India, on the other hand, has opened up what in the last few years? Nobody really has that much confidence that things will continue this way very far into the future.
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Realism is a very well defined political platform. You can have Neo-realism in the field of international security, but then again, not only does it not differ that much, it's not very related to what we were talking about.
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Fine, but Sun Zi does not belong to this well-defined platform, having lived thousands of years before it was developed.
When there isn't even the political will to end domestic subsidies for oil consumption?
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Ideal of political stability in the region?
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A region where politics is heavily intertwined with religion...
As true as that is, we live in a democracy, and Bush isn't the one in charge. Any president would have had to take a similar course given the political demands of the time.
Exactly. People were looking for blood...Muslim blood.
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Those had nothing to do with it, the US looked at all the "Islamic" countries in the world, by-passed Indonesia (eventhough it is the biggest "Islamic" country), decided to overthrow a secular regime in Iraq and established a Shi'ite based religious government.  That does not make any sense either.
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Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world in terms of size, but not fundamentalism - or at least the extent to which they mix their religion with their government.
I agree though, it doesn't make any sense. I think it goes into the general category of not having the will to finish the job completely - and also having been manipulated into going there in the first place.