Is it any surprise Li and his officers were distressed by the sight of Trump supporters driving lawmakers from Congress. That kind usurpation of government, even if for only a matter of hours, has never happened in the United States before and is inconceivable in totalitarian regimes such as Beijing.

How could the Chinese not worry what a desperate Trump might do next?…

Many say it would have been better, rather than make phone calls to Li or discuss nuclear codes, if Milley had resigned and alerted the public about how unstable and dangerous he believed Trump was. That would have certainly been a profound move.

But it would have stripped Milley of the ability as the nation’s top military officer to intervene and diffuse a potentially lethal miscalculation in the South China Sea.