"Tipping point:" guns or doctors? China watches

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No, folks, it's hardly rocket science.

True, it is not yet "closing time."

But the "tipping point" may be near.

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China, like the rest of us, must ask if the American superpower has approached, is approaching, or will approach what the Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz called the "tipping point."

When a nation on the military offense reaches the point in its aggressive operations where it is ever more costly to defend its acquisitions.

Where garrisoning troops, supplying them, defending them drains a nation's power and eventually requires retreat.

As did Napoleon after he sent his forces in to occupy Russia in 1812.

As did Hitler after he attempted to do the same thing in 1941.

As the U.S. did after it attempted to occupy and and shape Vietnam.

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Now is a magical moment.....

Let's put together President Obama, Carl von Clausewitz, Afghanistan, Iraq, the American Medical Association, healthcare reform...

Let's add to that shrinking credit cards, shrinking credit, unending exploding deficits -- and the prospect of spending one million a year for every additional American soldier sent to Afghanistan.

Remember "Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

A slogan by Americans who resisted the Vietnam war....

Back when President Lyndon Baines Johnson thought he could have "both guns and butter."

The choice is different today.

"Can we have both guns and doctors?"

As Obama has ramped up his decision on more troops to Afghanistan, scarcely anyone has asked the question:

"What can the United States afford?"

It has been an easy assumption that anything is possible.

That "no bridge is too far."

But Obama is clearly asking the question -- and so are China's leaders.

The New York Times reported November 15 that the Obama Adminstration is costing out its Afghanistan choices.

That it is increasingly sensitive to the prospect that going whole hog for an extended occupation of Afghanistan may clash with the enormous long term fiscal liabilities of health care reform.

On the eve of Obama's visit to China The New York Times also reports that Beijing is concerned that the American budget deficits escalated by health care reform may make America a poor investment.

China wants assurances the U.S. will remain solvent, that it can pay back its debts to the "Middle Kingdom."

It is no one's "dirty little secret" that it is China that will indirectly finance both Afghanistan and health care reform.

If America's piggy bank breaks, China's path forward will be hampered.

So President Obama is expected to downplay any lecturing of China over how to handle human rights.

It is not wise to hector the bank that feeds you.

Instead he must do some reassuring that he heads a country that is not a foolish spendthrift.

Now it is America that appears to be the Prodigal Son.

Can this all be reversed? Or is my analysis on target -- more than the musing of a grimly seasoned man?

Maybe yes, maybe no....

The United States is fortunate to have as President one who understands the challenge.

But to reverse all this requires more than one man.

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