China’s driving away of two Philippine boats last week is another indication that our territorial dispute with Asia’s emerging superpower will dog us not just for decades, but even, I would think, in the lifetimes of the next generation.

We delude ourselves if we think that the US will use its super-power might to assert our territorial claim. I don’t think the US ever defended a weaker nation’s sovereignty against a more powerful one, except—and that’s a big except—when it is a part of a larger conflict, such as the Korean and Vietnam wars (a proxy war between the US and China), and more recently the Bosnian War, which tested the NATO’s integrity as a force in Europe.

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