A Little Struggle Does the Body Good

A recent article form the Diplomat touches on an important development in U.S. – Chinese relations and U.S. foreign policy in general.  The article’s intro sums it up nicely:

In its first year, the Obama administration envisaged a two-pronged foreign policy. The first prong—cooperative strategic engagement—sought to build and sustain cooperative partnerships with states and non-state actors who operated within (or hoped to join) the international order.

The article goes on to describe how quite the opposite happened.  China is becoming increasingly resilient to any overtures by the U.S. to join “liberal international order,” and has instead taken advantage of an over-committed, relatively weaker U.S.  Attempts made by the Obama administration to ease pressure on China and lay a foundation for a “multi-partner” world have been meet with either ambivalence or blatant defiance.  China is using its nascent super power status to challenge the status quo in east and southeast Asia, regardless of what the U.S. thinks.   The author of the Diplomat article calls this a “backfire” to the original idea of Chinese inclusion in the U.S. lead world order.  However,  if the U.S. is able to shake itself free of the futile and counterproductive ideas that lead it into two foolish state-building operations and a loss of a considerable amount of global power and influence, the rise of China as a direct challenge to U.S. global primacy could end up being a very positive thing for America.  Two things come to mind:

1.  Liberal internationalism and its radical cousin Neoconservativsm cannot be the foundation upon which the U.S. maintains its current global role.  (Neo)Realism, given all its shortcomings and inadequacies, is probably still the best theory for statesmen to follow – at least when it comes to great power competition.  Realizing this will help silence those who are still clinging the chimera of a prefect liberal order based maintained and insured by U.S. dominance.  Given the U.S.’s relative decline in power, its fruitless overseas commitments, and its uncertain economic condition, returning to a more rational policy of strategic-only commitments and a focus on domestic nation building can put America back on solid ground.

2.  Competition with China is probably the one thing that will (or at least could) push more rational ideas about foreign policy and statecraft to the forefront.  Mearsheimer warned at the end of the Cold War that we would soon “miss” it.  He wasn’t implying a nostalgia for being on the brink of nuclear holocaust but merely that a bi-polar world is more secure and better directed.   A bi-polar – or more bi-polar world – will force the United States to focus on rebuilding and re-strengthening America and to forgo silly expeditions in alien lands.  Either policy makers will readjust or the U.S. won’t realize its mistakes thus hastening its decline towards the great powers cemetery.  U.S. History suggests otherwise, but I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t worship the concept of the “free-market,” but I do agree with the notion that competition makes for better quality, cheaper, and more efficient products.  Products here being wiser U.S. policies.  Such concepts imply an evolutionary take on progress.  Like a discarded projection television, those who fail to adapt to a changing environment are left behind.  The international environment is changing, and the U.S. is not.  Conventional wisdom suggests stagnation inevitably precipitates decline.

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