At the risk of taking us slightly off track, I wanted to bring up the subject of whack jobs. Among us participants, the disagreements have so far struck me as minor, about as bloody as a knife fight between Joe Biden and Dick Lugar. I suggest it's because we’re sane. But where's the fun in that? After all, in Washington over the past decade or so, many right-wing Congressman and think tankers have gone entirely batty over China, sensationalizing every threat and even making up one or two extra for good measure. Their suggested remedies, unsurprisingly, tend to involve a great deal of military hardware.

And this is where Charm Offensive comes in with a clever twist.

Yes, Josh's book says, China really is a threat—but that's thanks to its soft power. And the only way for the United States to beat China at the soft-power game is to become better at, well, soft power.

So where does that leave a nutty hawk? Rejecting Josh’s claim that China's soft power is a threat is one way to go. But it’s not very hawkish to dismiss a threat. Accepting Josh's claim is another way to go. But that suggests that the U.S., if it wants to catch up, should put on a gentler face for a while and go easy on the hard power. And a hawk forced to go without hard power is like an aardvark forced to go without ants. It’s enough to make Dick Cheney scream. So let me ask: Is Josh’s book hell for the hawks?