Bob, Bob and Peter: The president’s venture into Mongolia isn’t significant, either for an attempt to stay out of Washington or for the gesture to Mongolia itself. But it is significant in the context of what we’re doing in the region, as Peter implies.

We have, in just the last year, changed our approach to the whole China question. We are now looking to blunt China’s effort to establish hegemony among what Beijing calls the “peripheral nations.” We are doing a lot, in many places, to make it much harder for Beijing to turn its neighbors into satellites. Consider this: we’re about to do some military-to-military exchanges with Vietnam. For more, gents, you gotta wait for my next book coming from Regnery next year.