“Each American embassy comes with two permanent features – a giant anti-American demonstration and a giant line for American visas. Most demonstrators spend half their time burning Old Glory and the other half waiting for green cards.”

— P.J. O'Rourke

Jennifer McCoy, a political scientist at Georgia State University who co-wrote a recent report on how polarized countries have depolarized in the past, said partisan divisions have kept the United States stuck in place, but so has myopia: Americans rarely look abroad for ideas.

“We have such a myth around our Constitution and American exceptionalism,” she said. “First it makes people very complacent, and second, it takes leaders a very long time to recognize the risk we’re facing. It means it’s very hard to adapt.”

In case you haven’t noticed, let me alert you to a bracing turn of events: The U.S. is now in conflict with Russia and China at the same time. Grandma always said, “Never fight Russia and China at the same time.” So did Henry Kissinger. Doing so may be necessary to secure our national interests. But have no doubt: We are in uncharted waters. I just hope that these are not our new “forever wars.”

The struggle with Russia is indirect, but obvious, escalating and violent. We are arming the Ukrainians with smart missiles and intelligence to force the Russians to withdraw from Ukraine. While taking nothing away from the bravery of the Ukrainians, the U.S. and NATO’s support has played a huge role in Ukraine’s battlefield successes. Just ask the Russians. But how does this war end? No one can tell you.

Today, though, I want to focus on the struggle with China, which is less visible and involves no shooting, because it is being fought mostly with transistors that toggle between digital 1s and 0s. But it will have as big, if not bigger, an impact on the global balance of power as the outcome of the combat between Russia and Ukraine. And it has little to do with Taiwan. (...)