A combination of grotesque inequality and feckless profligacy goes a long way toward explaining why such an immense and richly endowed country finds itself unable to contend with dysfunction at home and crises abroad. Military might cannot compensate for an absence of internal cohesion and governmental self-discipline. Unless the United States gets its house in order, it has little hope of exercising global leadershipâmuch less prevailing in a mostly imaginary competition pitting democracy against autocracy. (...)
In 1947, in perhaps the most famous essay ever to appear in Foreign Affairs, Kennan, using the byline âX,â wrote that âto avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.â Today, those traditions may be in tatters, but Kennanâs counsel has lost none of its salience. The chimera of another righteous military triumph cannot fix what ails the United States.
The Chinese people are one thing, but their rulers are a whole different thing and they truly want to rule the world. Slavery and genocide are alive and well in China.
Another notch in your belt of media-induced phobias.
R_P wrote: Yeah, your favorite reference regarding fear mongering about the Chinese. That being The Yellow Peril. They are our friends, nothing or no one to be afraid of.
The Chinese people are one thing, but their rulers are a whole different thing and they truly want to rule the world. Slavery and genocide are alive and well in China.
But please do continue to shill for them and promote them as harmless to the rest of the world. Our friend, Comrade Red Dragon, surely agrees with you on this topic.
Perhaps but I hope we get to detente rather than ceding the turf to one side. It is in everyone's interest - especially the people living in the region.
I'm so sick of nationalism and all that comes with it.
Perhaps but I hope we get to detente rather than ceding the turf to one side. It is in everyone's interest - especially the people living in the region.
Speaking as someone living in the region who has a friend living in Taiwan, this is an unfortunate but necessary thing. Australia went overboard in pandering to Trump during Scott Morrison's time as Prime Minister and could have been far more clever about playing them off against each other. China's expansionism in the South Pacific is very troubling so balance of power is about as good as we can hope for.
By Andrew J. Bacevich
March/April 2023
Published on February 28, 2023
Good op-ed. Possibly gated.
About the author:
ANDREW J. BACEVICH is Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at
Boston University and Chair of the Board of the Quincy Institute for Responsible
Statecraft, which he co-founded.
So far, U.S. policy on Ukraine has been pragmatic and arguably restrained. But President Joe Biden and his team routinely talk about the war in ways that suggest an outmoded, moralistic, and recklessly grandiose vision of American power. Aligning his administrationâs rhetorical posture with a sober assessment of the true stakes involved in Ukraine might allow Biden to wean the establishment from its obsession with hegemony. Demonstrating that Americans do not need their countryâs role in the world explained to them in the style of a childrenâs bedtime story would be a bonus.
The victory in World War II bestowed a new sense of purpose on U.S. policy, which was subsequently codified in NSC-68. But it also imposed a straitjacket. As the scholar David Bromwich has recently written, âThe Second World War is the picture that has held us captive.â In important respects, the story of U.S. national security policy over the past seven
decades centers on an effort to preserve and update that picture. The overarching aim has been to engineer another such victory, thereby delivering security, prosperity, deference, and privilegeâor, more broadly, a world run on American terms, a dominance justified by a self-assigned mission to spread freedom and democracy.
By Andrew J. Bacevich
March/April 2023
Published on February 28, 2023
Good op-ed. Possibly gated.
About the author:
ANDREW J. BACEVICH is Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at
Boston University and Chair of the Board of the Quincy Institute for Responsible
Statecraft, which he co-founded.
