Americans Aren’t Ready for Cold War II To prevail against China, the U.S. must better understand its rival—and itself. By Walter Russell Mead
https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-arent-ready-for-cold-war-ii-11560207604
A series of conversations with Trump administration officials at every level as well as leading Democrats points to two clear and disturbing conclusions. First, the U.S. is increasingly committed to a historic turn in its relations with China as opinion hardens on both sides of the aisle. Second, we aren’t ready for what is coming.
In some ways the situation is comparable to the mid-1940s, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union moved quickly from wartime alliance to Cold War. President Truman and a handful of State Department and War Department officials saw the clash coming early, but public opinion was slower to move. Winston Churchill’s now-famous “Iron Curtain” speech in March 1946 was widely criticized as too hawkish; Truman, who sat through the speech and applauded it, had to distance himself from Churchill’s hard line. It took the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, the start of the Berlin Airlift in June, and the reinstitution of the draft in July to bring the reality of the Cold War home to the American public.
Today both Washington and Beijing are maneuvering themselves for some kind of long-term competition—but just as few observers in 1946 could imagine a four-decade global standoff, neither we nor the Chinese can predict the scale, scope or consequences of the emerging rivalry. It is likely both to echo the Cold War in some ways and to diverge radically from it in others.
Among the unanswered questions: How will ideology—the contrast between China’s authoritarianism and the pluralist American system—shape the next era of world politics? Will the contest take center stage at U.N. meetings and in capitals of faraway states as the U.S.-Soviet competition did? Where will the contest be most intense: in East or South Asia? Africa? Latin America? Europe? Space?
How will the competition affect Americans in their daily lives—through economic protectionism, surveillance or military mobilization? How will it change the technology and higher-education sectors? What impact will cyber technology and other forms of asymmetrical warfare have on the balance of power? Will the deep economic ties between the countries soften diplomatic and military competition—or sharpen it?
It’s difficult to prepare for a contest with so many uncertainties, but the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu offered advice that is still sound: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
At the start of the Cold War, U.S. diplomat George Kennan helped Americans understand both their Soviet opponents and themselves. His famous Long Telegram laid out the complex relationship between Soviet ideology, Russian culture and Stalinist policy and helped guide two generations of American policy makers. One key argument: Marxism flourished in the Soviet Union in part because its predictions of inveterate hostility between capitalist and communist countries helped justify the internal controls Stalin’s regime required to hold power. Kennan also counseled that remaining true to America’s strengths offered a path to success.
Kennan’s method, which is also Sun Tzu’s, applies today. Americans should start by deepening our understanding of how Beijing’s policy makers see themselves and the world. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, most American policy makers have seen the Chinese Communist Party’s continuing embrace of Marxism as purely pro forma. But it’s not that simple. Chinese political thought has evolved still since the fall of the Soviet Union. It now offers an analysis of Chinese development and perceived American decline that profoundly influences both elite and mass Chinese opinion. One question is whether Beijing needs an external enemy today to justify its crackdowns on a restive middle class. Marxist dogmas about the struggle between capitalist and socialist regimes may serve Beijing’s purposes today as much as they helped Stalin justify his rule 70 years ago.
Kennan and Sun Tzu would counsel Americans to study themselves. Red America, blue America and establishment America don’t understand one another very well; the resulting division makes stable, long-term foreign policy hard to sustain. The new consensus over China offers an unexpected but valuable opportunity for patriots in both parties to work together in new ways. One of Washington’s highest priorities should be creating an approach to China policy that can endure from one administration to the next.
It’s impossible to know how the marked shift in U.S.-China relations will develop. The clouds now assembling on the horizon could dissipate or build into a storm of historic proportions. Either way, it is past time for Americans to heed Sun Tzu’s advice. We do not know either China or ourselves as well as we should.
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