America's Great-Power Opportunity. Ali Wyne
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around this construct: the notion needs to undergo significant analytical refinement before it can evolve from a partial descriptor of contemporary geopolitics into a prudent basis for US foreign policy. For the United States to have the confidence to compete with China and Russia on a considered, selective basis rather than on a reflexive, reciprocal one, it must take their respective measures with temperance, making sure that it neither discounts nor aggrandizes them.
The 2017 NSS and the 2018 NDS often juxtaposed those two countries, and many discussions in Washington continue to lump Beijing and Moscow together when aiming to articulate the great-power challenge as a whole. But, given the differences between the two countries’ material capacities, strategic objectives, and foreign policies, it is important to consider them separately. Chapter 4 begins that deconstruction, exploring how the United States should assess China’s competitive strengths and weaknesses. That it is the longest chapter in the book testifies to the central place that Beijing’s resurgence now occupies in US foreign policy discussions. While China is undeniably a formidable and multifaceted competitor, it is actively undercutting its own strategic potential by doubling down on both authoritarian rule and coercive foreign policy—and, in the process, alienating major powers within and outside the Asia-Pacific. Indeed, COVID-19 has illuminated a paradox of its trajectory that had been growing more apparent for some time: while increasingly embedded economically and technologically, Beijing is also increasingly isolated militarily and diplomatically, at least among the advanced industrial democracies that still anchor the postwar order.
Chapter 5 continues the disaggregation. It considers how the United States should weigh both Russia’s competitive challenge and a deepening relationship between Beijing and Moscow. While Russia possesses a range of assets that make dismissals of its relevance unwise, the problem it poses is more of a disruptive than systemic nature. Similarly, while its relationship with China continues to grow in scope and intensity, the ideological allure and geopolitical potential of their entente will be constrained so long as it defines itself more on the basis of what it opposes—US influence—than on the basis of what it espouses. Rather than considering misguided efforts to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow, Washington should concentrate on renewing the power of its democratic example and demonstrating that it can mobilize allies and partners around the urgent task of constructing a more resilient post-pandemic order.
I had originally intended to make this fifth chapter the last one in the book. Soon after I began putting pen to paper, however, I concluded that it would be irresponsible to do so. After all, the more strenuously one objects to a prevailing construct, the more conscientiously one must strive to offer an alternative—or, less satisfactorily, admit that one cannot think of an alternative. With that perspective in mind, the sixth and final chapter outlines eight principles designed to inform a more affirmative vision of US foreign policy, one in which a circumscribed competition with China and Russia influences but does not determine America’s role in the world.
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I should note upfront that, for two reasons, I do not attempt to propose US responses to each specific competitive challenge raised by a resurgent Beijing, a disruptive Moscow, and a deepening entente between them. First, it would be impossible to do justice to that task in a book of this length. Second, my goal is not so much to offer a comprehensive playbook for dealing with those challenges as it is to articulate a broader framework in which to examine them. That framework is grounded in the judgment that China and Russia, while significant competitors, are not overwhelming ones, either individually or in concert. If the United States accepts that judgment, it will have the confidence to believe that it will be able to address whatever challenges they end up presenting. It will also have the composure to conduct a foreign policy in which the management of great-power tensions does not overwhelm the pursuit of other imperatives.
While Washington can play a significant role in shaping the external environment Beijing and Moscow confront, particularly if it exercises greater discipline in making common cause with allies and partners, it can fully control only its own choices. That judgment is no cause for despair. On the contrary, if the United States focuses on investing anew in its unique competitive advantages, it will be well positioned to endure as a pillar of geopolitics, even with a reduced margin of preeminence. Hence it has a great-power opportunity to renew itself without having to invoke China or Russia, let alone base its course upon their calculations. If it can formulate a foreign policy that is largely justified on its own merits, one whose prudence endures no matter what steps its competitors may take, it will have gone a long way toward seizing that opportunity.
Notes
1 1. Though “Indo-Pacific” has largely displaced “Asia-Pacific” in US foreign policy discourse, there are analytical—and, it follows, prescriptive—risks to adopting this more capacious construct. See Van Jackson, “America’s Indo-Pacific Folly: Adding New Commitments in Asia Will Only Invite Disaster,” Foreign Affairs (March 12, 2021).
2 2. Danielle Pletka et al., “What Went Wrong in Afghanistan?” Wall Street Journal (August 20, 2021).
3 3. Jessica T. Mathews, “American Power after Afghanistan: How to Rightsize the Country’s Global Role,” Foreign Affairs (September 17, 2021).
4 4. “Come Home, America?” Foreign Affairs, 99.2 (March–April 2020).
5 5. For a fresh, wide-ranging reconceptualization of the factors that have historically shaped US grand strategy, see Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston (eds.), Rethinking American Grand Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).
6 6. Daniel W. Drezner, Ronald R. Krebs, and Randall Schweller, “The End of Grand Strategy: America Must Think Small,” Foreign Affairs, 99.3 (May–June 2020), p. 108.
7 7. Francis J. Gavin and James B. Steinberg, “The Vision Thing: Is Grand Strategy Dead?” Foreign Affairs, 99.4 (July–August 2020), pp. 187–91.
8 8. Rebecca Friedman Lissner, “What Is Grand Strategy? Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield,” Texas National Security Review, 2.1 (November 2018), p. 57.
9 9. Van Jackson, “Wagering on a Progressive versus Liberal Theory of National Security,” Texas National Security Review, 2.1 (November 2018), p. 179.
10 10. Colin Dueck, “The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy,” Texas National Security Review, 2.1 (November 2018), p. 171.
11 11. Alex Pascal, “Against Washington’s ‘Great Power’ Obsession,” Atlantic (September 23, 2019).
12 12. James Kitfield, “New Arms Race Taking Shape amid a Pandemic and Economic Crisis: What Could Go Wrong?” Yahoo! News. June 6, 2020.
13 13. President George H. W. Bush, “Address before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Deficit,” Washington, DC. September 11, 1990. Transcript. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-congress-the-persian-gulf-crisis-and-the-federal-budget.
14 14. President George H. W. Bush, National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: White House, 1991), p. v.
15 15. President George H. W. Bush, State of the Union address, Washington, DC. January 28, 1992. Transcript. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/january-28-1992-state-union-address.
16 16. John E. Ullmann, “Who Won Cold War? Japanese and Germans,” New York Times (July 3, 1990).
17 17. John J. Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,” Atlantic, 266.2 (August 1990), p. 36.
18 18. Douglas Jehl, “CIA Nominee Wary of Budget Cuts,” New York Times (February 3, 1993).
19 19. Robert