• China and Russia have been clear about the world they seek. They want no further NATO enlargement, no color revolutions, no globe-spanning U.S. missile defense system, and no American nuclear weapons deployed abroad. They wish to resist actors “representing but the minority on the international scale”—that is, the United States and its allies—who continue to interfere in other states and “incite contradictions, differences and confrontation.” In the world to come, no one would pressure China or Russia on human rights or interfere in their internal affairs. Democracy itself would be redefined and subject to no universal standard. China and Russia would support reunification with Taiwan and oppose alliances in Asia that China finds threatening. They would together oversee the transition to a world in which great powers dominate their regions and no one attempts to impose or enforce global rules.
• The upshot, as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates puts it, is that a “new American strategy must recognize that we face a global struggle of indeterminate duration against two great powers that share authoritarianism at home and hostility to the United States.” Because of Russian-Chinese collaboration, the war in Ukraine is longer and more brutal than it would otherwise be, the Indo-Pacific military balance of power has shifted away from the United States more quickly, and more countries dissatisfied with the constraints of Western-led world order are increasingly vocal and active in resisting it.
• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 erased any last vestiges of the post–Cold War era and ushered in a new, more dangerous era. Moscow and Beijing had long coordinated and increasingly aligned their efforts, but the war gave rise to a new, more active and more determined alignment. For all the real limits to their partnership, the two are bound by shared opposition to a U.S.-led world that, they believe, affords them too little security, status, and freedom of action.
• The era is daunting but also contains real strains of hope. Ensuring that Europe and Asia remain free of hostile domination is, of course, not a new objective of U.S. foreign policy. In this fresh effort, the United States and its allies have everything they need to succeed. Their combined economies are larger than China’s and Russia’s, and their militaries more powerful. Their values are more attractive and their democratic system more stable.[226] U.S. leaders should add to those advantages a clarity of purpose, resolve, and confidence in their system and in the American future. Some critics will say that all this is just too hard for the United States at such a contentious and divisive period in its history. That conclusion, however, would profoundly test the Churchillian theorem that the United States always wakes up late to far-reaching external dangers, but never too late.
• Ensuring that Europe and Asia remain free of hostile domination is, of course, not a new objective of U.S. foreign policy. In this fresh effort, the United States and its allies have everything they need to succeed.

Read the full article on the Council on Foreign Relations website

Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo by AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko