Someone must be top dog, so worry if it's not the US The Left is getting the relatively weaker and more timid US military power many wanted, but I doubt this will bring the blessings they vaguely assumed: Three years after the Pentagon said it was de-emphasizing Europe in favor of the Asia-Pacific region, Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III said this week that U.S. dominance has weakened in the shadow of a more aggressive China. "Our historic dominance that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question," Adm. Locklear, chief of U.S. Pacific Command, said Wednesday at a naval conference in Virginia. Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation defines the problem: The... assumption is that we can somehow mold China into being ourselves â that China will see its interests as somehow congruent and coincident with those of the United States, and therefore China will assume the mantle of regional provider of public goods. But this is a remarkable assumption, especially in light of recent Chinese behavior. China is not interested in providing security for everyone and, frankly, not even for anyone other than itself.