It is High Time to Outmaneuver Beijing in the South China Sea

The maneuver with the greatest potential for thwarting China's aggressive moves in the South China Sea would be to shift the strategic focus to their western border with Russia. That has long been a point of contention between Russia and China. China is desperate for natural resources which are plentiful in Siberia which Russia claims but has only sparsely populated. If the US were to get over its obsession with Russia's Soviet past, we might help them develop those natural resources to our mutual benefit. This would shift China's focus and the fortress that it is building around the South China Sea would become far less relevant. The more I think about it, this may be what Patton meant when he said that "fortified positions are monuments to men's stupidity"