I wrote (after the first McCain-Obama debate, silent on the subject) about the growth of China’s military might that can be described even on the basis of China’s Statistical Yearbook, available at the New York Public Library. Michael Skok wrote in his e-mail of Oct. 3, 2008:

Your article is frightening. What can we do about this? Even Fox News which claims to be the most fair and balanced news organization, won’t say anything adverse about China.

The same problem: What can we do? What do I think of the “candidates for President and Vice President,” of “their qualifications for the job”?

Well, in their three debates, they have not even mentioned China as a military threat. The impression was that only Iraq or Iran is a military threat because allegedly Iraq was and Iran is going to produce an atom bomb—about half a century after China tested its first atom bomb.

My list is becoming monotonous: My readers agree with my articles, no matter how frightening, but what can we do? Before answering, let me add three more names.

Howard Phillips publishes “Issues & Strategic Bulletin,” and on Sept. 22 (Constitution Day), 2007, his organization presented me with that year’s “Champion of Liberty” award. The results, apart from my pleasure? Not that I see any.

On Sept. 18, 2008, I received an e-mail from Michael Pillsbury. Yahoo! has 1,480,000 entries about him. He is the most competent Western sinologist, and he has been “well-connected” with the Pentagon and other sectors of the U.S. government.

But have you seen Pillsbury on that same Fox News? No! He is unknown to the majority of the electorate who is supposed to elect the most enlightened president and members of the Congress. This is what his e-mail of Sept.18, 2008, to me said:

I have enjoyed reading several of your excellent recent articles on China including today’s. My book “Chinese Views of Future Warfare” contains a long article about a future of nanoweapons by a Chinese major general published in 1996. If you are interested, I will send you a copy and some other materials, including a long article that the Wall St. Journal did about my views of China’s future.

Michael Pillsbury

My response: That remarkable 421-page book “Chinese Views of Future Warfare” has been on my shelves since it was printed about 10 years ago. As “for some other materials,” I would appreciate them for their content as well as a gift from you. For the time being, let me quote the last page of that remarkable book that I have had since it was published about ten years ago:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Pillsbury is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States, where he is sponsored by the Office of Net Assessment, Department of Defense. During the Reagan administration Dr. Pillsbury was the Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning; under President Bush he was Special Assistant for Asian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, reporting to Andrew W. Marshall, Director of Net Assessment. Previously he served as a defense analyst for the Rand . . .

Now, what we should and can do. We should use freedom to defend freedom. In 1978 I organized the nonprofit Center for the Survival of Western Democracies, Inc., with a bank account, accepting tax-deductible donations. The Center has an Advisory Board including a dozen or so world-known members. What has been necessary is a fund-raiser, since I have had neither time nor skill to be such.

Our enlightenment of the free West should take two directions. In the USA “all people” elect the US president, the vice president, and members of the Congress. The best way to enlighten “all people” is a film, combining a documentary and a movie and showing what would happen if the defense of the free West remains a non sequitur it has been in the last decade.

The best way to enlighten sophisticates is sophisticated television on this life-or-death subject.

We are looking forward to capable and dedicated participants of this campaign of vital enlightenment, and first of all, fundraisers.

This is my answer to what we should and can do. About ten years have passed since the publication of “Chinese Views of Future Warfare.” Time to do what we should and can do.