In almost every crisis that Taiwan has had with mainland China, the United States - mindful of its treaty obligations to Taiwan - has at times resorted to 'hardball diplomacy'.

In attempts to defuse tensions, the US may re-task elements of its Pacific fleet towards Taiwan. That act, together with some slick diplomatic gamesmanship by the White House, sends very strong signals to Beijing.

Time and again this has defused tensions to a more tolerable level.

But never o­n any occasion has an American carrier group actually entered the Straits of Taiwan.

This is very, very, very significant.

(The 'state-to-state' flap: tentative conclusions about risk and restraint in diplomacy across the Taiwan straits)

(Undiscussed linkages: implications of Taiwan straits security activity o­n global arms control and non-proliferation

(Northeast Asia peace and security network)

When the shooting starts in Iraq, probably around Feb 25, the USS Carl Vinson will be parked off the Korean Peninsula with an entourage of destroyers, frigates, nuclear submarines and other support vessels.

( On Feb 25, 1991 an Iraqi scud missile hit a US barracks in Saudi Arabia killing 27 during Operation Desert Storm )

The North Korean regime has prepared for war over the past 40 years and has an unfettered hatred for the US. Its entire doctrine has been based o­n reunifying the Korean peninsula and expelling the 'white devils' (US) from the Korean 'motherland'.

The US, in its obsession with Saddam Hussein, may be misreading the signals emanating from Pyongyang.

As they currently stand relations are at best a hair-trigger's length away. The launching of a preemptive strike by North Korea as an "act of self-defense" should not be discounted.

It is a pity Bush has opted for the 'John Wayne-Captain America-Tom Clancy' approach.

Someone should have read to him John Le Carre or Frederick Forsythe novels. Where stealth and finesse are required, Bush is opting for a 'sledge hammer' approach.

(Shock and awe: is Baghdad the next Hiroshima?)

(Shock and awe - strategic, policy, and operational application)

Bush should have taken a page out of the Israeli experience in the 1970s. Israel executed retribution with its 'Black Operations' by using its own special forces, Mossad (Israeli intelligence) and sometimes working with foreign intelligence belonging to friendly countries.

(The Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks)

Israel back then resorted to kidnappings and assassinations as reprisals for the 1972 Lod Airport attack by the Japanese Red Army, the Munich Olympics hostage massacre by Black September guerillas (also in 1972), and numerous hijackings where its citizens where threatened with harm by renegade militant factions of that era.

Most of the operations were conducted o­n foreign soil. By far the most spectacular operation being 'Operation Thunder' in June 1975, later renamed 'Operation Jonathan' after the ground commander who led the assault, elder brother to Benjamin Netanyahu.

This spectacular rescue of hostages of a hijacked Air France aircraft being held by Idi Amin in Kampala, Uganda is the stuff of legends for its sheer audacity and chutzpah (

Yiddish for 'gall').

(Yoni, Jonathan Netanyahu official website )

General (Rtd) Colin Powell, the o­nly sane voice in the US administration has been silenced. Tony Blair and John Howard have both committed political suicide.

And the juggernaut rolls o­n...