Tag: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Hawks Are Standing in the Way of a New Republican Party

Chin@Strategy

Many of today’s Republicans thus came of age at a time when hawkishness on behalf of liberal values was understood as conservative. Yet the values lying at the foundation of that worldview and shaping our institutions are antithetical to everything conservatives claim to cherish: a ruthless market ideology that puts short-term shareholder gains and the whims of big finance above the demands of the national community; a virulent cultural libertinism that dissolves bonds of family and tradition. What conservatives revile as “woke capital” is just this acidic combination of a…

What AUKUS Means for U.S.-China Great Power Competition

Chin@Strategy

This is a hallmark of great power competition: Competitive initiatives like AUKUS provide visible ways to counter or balance or complicate China’s military activities but don’t necessarily help allies meet defined objectives. More often, competition becomes an end in itself — an open-ended imperative that assumes everything an opponent dislikes must be good policy. Another common feature of competitive policies is that officials tend to overlook their costs. For one thing, AUKUS carries significant diplomatic costs at a time when the United States is in desperate need of credibility with…

The Sharp U.S. Pivot to Asia Is Throwing Europe Off Balance

Chin@Strategy

There are deeper questions about America’s future reliability as a security partner, especially if the conflict with China turns kinetic, which is part of Mr. Macron’s argument, Mr. Lesser acknowledged. “For all the U.S. commitment to Europe, if things go wrong in the Indo-Pacific, that would change the force structure in Europe pretty fast.” In Poland, a strong American ally in the European Union and NATO, the reaction to the new alliance was more positive, focusing not on a pivot away from Europe “but on the U.S., with the British…

The U.S. Has Left Afghanistan. Will China Move In?

Chin@Strategy

This article will also appear in the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning. The stunning seizure of Afghanistan by the Taliban poses many significant geopolitical questions — chief among them who will fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of the United States and its NATO allies from the country after 20 years. The Taliban are on a P.R. offensive to try to show that they are a legitimate representative governing power that wants to have good relations with…