From John Garnaut, China correspondent of The Age (late May 2013 sometime):

This week a new Pentagon paper reported China’s relentless progress to project military power far beyond its shores.

China is obsessed with military psychology and political warfare but neglects actual capability. The blind spot might explain why it has spent most of the past millennium under varying forms of foreign subjugation.

America has chronically over-estimated the military capabilities of its adversaries, from the beginning of the Cold War arms race to the second Iraq War. But its neglect of enemy psychology and politics has led to a litany of military disasters in that time. And both powers have routinely been blinded to how coercion breeds resistance and contempt.

Whose strategic blind spots are the greatest? Some eyes are turning to the strategic battleground of Australia to find out.