Is a Serious Washington Foreign Policy Blunder Just Ahead?

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping

Washington does not want to drive Russia and China together. China is nervous about Russia’s aggression in the Crimea. Cato Institute’s Ted Galen Carpenter provides detailed perspective and a warning.

Henry Kissinger once observed that it should be a crucial objective of U.S. foreign policy to make sure that Washington’s relations with Beijing and Moscow are always closer than their relations with each other. U.S. officials are violating that wise approach. It is a dubious strategy to pressure either China or Russia over matters that are not vital to U.S. interests. Both Crimea and the East Asian islands disputes fit that description.

But as unwise as it would be to antagonize either power over such stakes, it would be utter folly to antagonize both of them simultaneously. Yet Washington is now in serious danger of making that blunder. At a minimum, U.S. officials need to carefully think through their priorities and not push China and Russia together into an anti-U.S. alliance.