Triangulating an Asian conflict

One of the more predictable turns during any US presidential election year is the sheer speed with which issues of longer-term strategic importance are quietly subsumed by a global media fed a steady diet of soap-operatic drama on the candidates, their spouses, born and unborn children and so on. By no means am I throwing stones while sitting in a glass house though; this is more of an introspective comment on the realities of the supply and demand for newsworthy discussions.

In 2000, it was all about the drama about the election battle between George W Bush and Al Gore, not to mention the post-election vote-capturing behavior of the US Supreme Court. Never mind that the US economy had slipped into a recession following the bursting of the dot.com bubble or that al-Qaeda was quietly.

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