Patriotic or nationalistic voices are strong in China following the tension with Japan over Japan's illegal detention of a Chinese trawler captain as well as the US military drills in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea.

These people might think China will:

Increase its military spending so that the budget exceeds the combined defense budgets of Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, Germany, France and Britain.

Create a constellation of forward-deployed People's Liberation Army (PLA) garrisons in strategically sensitive areas around the world to express the global range of Chinese interests.

Partition the Earth under sprawling territorial commands, with one four-star Chinese general being responsible for the Asia Pacific, another general for Africa and a third for the Middle East and North America.

Institute a vigorous program of war games and exercises in countries worldwide.

Form a PLA Long-Range Strike Force, capable on very short notice of conducting intercontinental attacks, employing conventional or nuclear weapons or operating in cyberspace.

In fact, the US has been doing these across the world for the past half a century - on a much larger scale.

In his book Washington Rules: America's path to permanent war, Boston University professor of history and international relations Andrew Bacevich challenges the US government and public consensus over national security, from the time of Harry Truman to Barack Obama.

Bacevich, a graduate of West Point who served 23 years in the US Army including the war in Vietnam, argues that the basic edifice of Washington's rules has remained the same for the past 50 years: A worldwide military presence; armed forces configured not for defense but for global power projection; and a penchant for interventionism, whether overt or covert, anywhere at any time.

The Washington rules, forged at a moment when US influence and power were approaching their peak after 1945, have led the US into a condition of war without end.