Fighting one Cold War was bad enough. Waging two at once would be impossible.
Two years into Joe Biden’s presidency, the United States now faces simultaneous diplomatic and national security crises with its 20th century superpower rival Moscow and its top 21st century adversary China.
The war in Ukraine, about to reach a blood-soaked first anniversary, and a spy balloon drama that has provided a first tangible symbol for many Americans of an emerging challenge from Beijing, are creating a tense moment in global geopolitics.
This revived era of great power rivalry – that would have seemed a distant prospect in the previous two decades consumed by the war on terror and Middle East wars – underscore the great burdens and responsibilities resting on a president whose worldview was framed after he came to Washington in the 1970s amid the US-Soviet chill
This dangerous period will be crystalized this weekend when Western foreign policy officials and experts gather for the annual Munich Security Conference, which is set to be dominated by the deepening war in Ukraine. But the event will also become a stage for the rivalry between the United States and China with both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi in town. The State Department says no meetings are planned as details emerge about China’s global balloon spying program and accusations fly back and forth across the Pacific.
The double diplomatic crisis has also exposed the way that Washington’s bitterly polarized politics could influence US policy overseas and the political capital every administration needs to pursue its aims. Fervent Republican criticism of Biden’s failure to shoot down a Chinese surveillance balloon before it traversed the continent followed by claims that he’s trigger happy in downing subsequent unknown aerial objects, show that for many in the GOP…
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