NATO may ask China to help with Afghanistan war effort: report

Source: CBC News

China may be called on to help with the Afghanistan war effort by possibly opening a new supply route for alliance forces, a senior U.S. official said Monday.

The remark was made ahead of a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers — including Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — that started Monday in Brussels.

No firm decision has yet been made to approach the Chinese government, the official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of the topic.

"Canada is strongly committed to NATO and views this 26-country alliance as the primary forum for security consultation between Europe and North America."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/03/02/china.html

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Last Updated: Monday, March 2, 2009 | 4:54 PM ET

Guess they want China to buy a bit more of North America.

The Afghan mission is being held as collateral.

Neither country wants a failed state in its backyard. Russia almost invaded Afghanistan in late 2000. Luckily for them, 9/11 compelled us to do their dirty work for them. Now that Putin has, quite deftly, removed American presence from the former Soviet republics in the region, there is no reason for either power to refrain from helping us. If Obama is smart about it, he can turn Afghanistan into a UN mandate, like Cambodia. Of course, that's not the only option.

As to China "holding the deed" on America... Our financial crisis endangers their savings, as well as the very basis for their industrial economy. In fact, the American consumer has been the engine of the world economy for over a decade now. In other words, if we get a cold, the rest of the world gets pneumonia. One likely effect of the current crisis is that the rest of the world will start seeking alternatives to a unipolar economic world centered on America.

The bottom line: the quicker Obama's plan puts America back online, the better it is for the preservation of American global power. We may not be a perfect hegemon, but we are the only democracy, however imperfect, capable of filling that void. We need to hope that Obama succeeds or we will not like the long-term consequences.