President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the sidelines of the BRICS summit, Vladimir Putin met with President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping. Source: Kremlin, Russia.
At the Cato Institute, Doug Bandow explains how the inept actions of past and present American administrations have led to closer ties between Moscow and Beijing at the expense of Western security.
The United States is the most secure great power ever. Yet Washington policymakers have made the world unnecessarily dangerous for America. They have created enemies of the U.S. around the globe.
Commonly cited as threats are Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, which are increasingly cooperating and targeting U.S. interests and forces. Scores of other governments see Washington as a bully and resist its dictates. Terrorists actively seek to capture and kill Americans. As a result, U.S. citizens are at global risk.
The former president Donald Trump recognized the problem when he recently complained that Democrats “allowed China and Russia to do the impossible: combine. They’re natural enemies. They always have been because China needs more land and Russia has it.” He went on to blame “Obama—it started with him and then Biden because he didn’t know what the hell he was doing—they’ve now become one force.”
Trump is right about Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Nevertheless, he also is at fault, perhaps even more than them. So is George W. Bush, the worst president in the last half century, who is responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and elsewhere. That said, Bill Clinton began the process of turning Moscow hostile and encouraging it to ally with Beijing against America. At least Trump may have learned something, given his apparently newfound concern about turning the People’s Republic of China and Russian Federation into “one force.”
He later concludes:
Today America should consider switching great power dance partners. Moscow seems more likely to shift and lean toward if not join the western coalition. Russia makes no pretense of being communist, cannot challenge the U.S. for global leadership, will forever be China’s junior partner, historically and culturally leans West, faces greater long-term challenges from the PRC than Europe, and retains substantial infrastructure-supporting investment by and trade with the latter. Possible, though not easy, would be a gradual warming with Moscow and reconstruction of its economic and political ties with Europe. In any case, Washington should stop pushing China and Russia together, and act sooner rather than later.
Trump is right. Democratic politicians foolishly pushed Beijing and Moscow together. But so did Republican politicians. And all manner of think-tankers, journalists, political activists, and government officials. The Washington Blob, as it is known, has been at its arrogant worst in creating adversaries for America. Reversing course should be a priority for whoever wins in November.
Read more here.
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