Man. A while back I wanted to write an awesome takedown article on China hawks. But I could never come up with a really good news peg. And, what's worse, I became obsessed with trying to devise a counter-term for "panda hugger" which is what they call people who don't want to start a war with China. Well, via Kevin Drum, Soyoung Ho at The Washington Monthly has done the job masterfully with a hit piece on "Panda Slugger" Michael Pillsbury. Give it a read and I'll say no more about China policy. I will say, however, that looking at this situation sheds some light on the "big ideas" question.

I think it's pretty clearly true that if you want to accomplish something big, policywise, in American politics you need to have a big idea to back it up. Something small like just getting really lazy about enforcing EPA rules you can do under the table. But big policies, like maintaining Coldwar defense spending priorities over a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, requires a large, justificatory idea. Much the same could be said about gigantic tax cuts.

If you look into it, though, you'll see that the idea doesn't need to have any merit to it. It just needs to be there. You need some kind of "idea." You need a few people with seemingly relevant credentials to espouse it. Then various columnists, radio show hosts, and congressmen can site those guys. It helps to get a think tank or two on board. But the idea can be foolishly wrong, and feature elementary errors of fact and logic. The people associated with it can be frauds and hucksters. What actually matters about the idea is that it (a) exists, and (b) is conducive to an agenda that powerful actors approve of.

So, for example, really, really rich people are excited about the idea of dramatic tax cuts. And defense contractors are excited about the idea of the Chinese military threat. And, in both instances, GOP political strategists think that tax cuts and increases in defense spending are good electoral politics.

Ideas, in other words, matter -- but then again they sort of don't. I don't think this is the dynamic underlying every issue but it underlies a lot of them. This is especially the case when, as on the China front, there's no lobby on the other side. Not only is there no counterlobby to defense contractors, but labor unions, while not part of the China hawk brigades per se, have a whole different set of China policy concerns that lead them to more-or-less favor a general atmosphere of fear and paranoia about China.