Xi jinping

Analogies in international politics are tricky and easily abused, yet they remain irresistible because they can illuminate patterns that are otherwise hard to see. Consider the present moment.  Just as Ukraine has become a growing burden for Washington and its Western allies, Iran is now a strategic burden for Moscow and Beijing. The US, particularly under the Trump administration, appears to be placing less emphasis on supporting Ukraine. Something similar may be happening in reverse with Iran.  Moscow continues to provide Tehran with assistance – most notably intelligence on US military targets – but the broader pattern suggests caution rather than deep commitment.

The United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and Xi Jinping’s decade-long project to build an alternative to the American-led order died with him. For years, Beijing quietly assembled a network of dictatorships and client states designed to blunt American power. Iran supplied China with cheap oil and kept Washington bogged down in the Middle East. Russia waged war on Ukraine with Chinese materiel support, a gamble that was supposed to cement a powerful anti-western axis but has instead bled Moscow into dependence on Beijing. Regional proxies from Lebanon to Gaza added just enough chaos to stop Washington focusing on China. The Chinese Communist party (CCP) propped up Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela, too, as it funneled narcotics and other ills into America.

As American eyes remain fixed on the Middle East — understandably so — China has been rolling out the red carpet for Latin America, and we have barely noticed. While Xi Jinping welcomes Colombia, one of Washington’s historically reliable allies, into the controversial Belt and Road Initiative, he’s also introducing visa-free entry for South America’s largest economies and greeting regional leaders in Beijing with billion-dollar credit lines and lavish, all-expenses-paid political junkets. Washington, meanwhile, was… busy. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. The US has been snoozing through Latin America’s strategic realignment for years, occasionally waking up to mutter something about narcos or illegal migration, then hitting the snooze button.

Money is often a substitute for strategy in US foreign policy. We spent $2 trillion in Afghanistan, only to lose the country the minute our troops began to pull out. How much will it realistically cost, then, to beat Russia in Ukraine? Will the next $100 or $200 billion do the trick? This is not a question that supporters of war-spending ask themselves. As in Afghanistan, spending is a way to defer thinking about actually winning — or facing the serious possibility of losing. Our aid buys delay, not results. Ironically, while the specter of World War Two is invoked every time there’s a conflict, our experience then teaches the same lesson as recent attempts to purchase victory.

Just 38 percent of Americans “support deploying US troops to defend Taiwan from a military attack by China” according to a Reuters/Ipsos released this week, with 42 percent opposing and 20 percent unsure. Vivek Ramaswamy, among the top contenders for the 2024 GOP nomination, also recently said that the US should only defend Taiwan until “we have semiconductor independence.” Add to this the Biden administration’s unwillingness to spend what is needed to build up the Taiwanese military and its failure to adequately support Ukraine — and anyone who values a safe, free, prosperous and stable world should be concerned. Because defending Taiwan from a revanchist, imperialist and brutal Chinese Communist Party is at the heart of America’s national interest.