Beijing isn't ready, in large part, because we haven't prepared them well to emerge as a trusted great power ally. This administration keeps hedging its bets, sort of treating China like a military enemy, sort of treating it like a diplomatic ally, sometimes demonizing it and sometimes indulging it. Our "separate lanes" policy of trying to compartmentalize our relationship with China has been a disaster in my opinion, keeping us trapped in an immature strategic relationship with Beijing that makes it harder for us to deal with rogues like Iran and North Korea.
That's been the worst strategic failure of the Bush team: as they wade deeper into this Long War, they keep adding enemies without divesting themselves of old ones that should be left behind--in the Cold War. The upshot is that we're undergunned, not outgunned. We don't face bigger threats (on the contrary, they get smaller in aggregate each year), we just suffer from having too small a team on our side.
We tolerate Russia and India and China instead of embracing them as key allies, and we indulge the Japanese and Europeans, when neither has shown much inclination to grow up strategically any time soon (although I have my hopes for Abe as the next iteration in Tokyo). Bush and Co. define the new era all right. They just don't seem to recognize that a lot of players have changed sides in the meantime.
My learned response, after many years of college, can be summed up as "huh?"
I surely don't have as many credit hours as Barnett so perhaps I have a real "gap" in knowledge.
But this just seems to be another in a long line of thinking that assumes America is the only actor on the globe and the failure of another power to do something good (or their choice to do something bad) is because the nation in question is reacting to us in some way we failed to shape by our actions. No other state is a grown up and responsible for their actions. We are always at fault.
China has a neighboring ally, North Korea, who threatens our allies and could prompt a series of nuclear breakouts by non-nuclear countries? And Barnett lays the blame squarely on America because we didn't "prepare" China to be a great power ally! The Middle Kingdom of several thousand years experience needs us to teach them about geo-politics! As if China shouldn't be able to see the problem on their own--those poor wogs just can't think straight without us, it seems. And as if we haven't been relying on them the last few years to deal with their little spawn!
We have hedged our bets he says, failing to fully embrace China as an ally? Well here's a clue pill, we sometimes treat them like a potential military enemy and sometimes as a potential diplomatic ally because the friggin' Chinese seem of two minds about us! How can we settle on one approach when they can't decide whether they want to sell to us or destroy us? We aren't the only country involved here.
But for some, foreign policy is never a two-way street, it is all about getting the right big-brained and nuanced American policy to coax the proper response out of another country. What absolute rot.
And as for us just adding enemies and failing to get rid of Cold War enemies, Barnett is conveniently forgetting that China was in fact a late Cold War ally who we helped in order to balance the Soviet Union. That little unpleasantness in Tiananmen Square in 1989 might ring a bell. And threats to destroy Taiwan. And aiding every tinpot dictator from Venezuela to Sudan to Iran to North Korea. Oh, and the EP-3 incident. And we didn't embrace them! But oh no, rather than looking at how China has acted to forfeit our de facto alliance, we're at fault for not being a big buddy to Peking the last several years. Please.
If you want to discuss embracing a former enemy, I guess Bush looking into Putin's soul and embracing him as our friend for years even as the old KGB hand cracked down on freedom hasn't stopped Putin from playing old Cold War nostalgia games. Why didn't Russia emerge as a full partner?
And what is that failing to get new allies line about? How can Barnett fail to see that we have indeed brought Japan and India more fully into our alliance picture? Japan sent troops to Iraq; stated Taiwan is a strategic concern; and updated our alliance. And all this was done pre-Abe. Plus we've exercised with India's military, discuss arms sales, and penned a friggin' nuclear agreement with India! How can he talk of Japan not stepping up or of our just "tolerating" India?
What of new allies in Eastern Europe? What of Australia? Even Germany is recovering from its anti-Americanism that began pre-Iraq War as an electoral ploy of the Social Democrats. And don't dare say we've lost France when we've never had them to begin with. This adding enemies and losing friends talk is pure drivel.
I'm not really sure what he intends for Europe if he thinks we "indulge" them. I thought we were too cowboyish. Now I find we indulge them too much. Go figure. But even though I worry about the Europeans, we have convinced NATO to fight in Afghanistan. Quite the stretch for this alliance. But getting old allies to do something new doesn't count, I guess.
What a hash of an analysis. God help us if Barnett is considered our age's big strategic thinker with all his core and gap droning.
But on a number of occasions I freely admit I lack nuance, so what do I know?
