In the defining geopolitical contest of this century, the U.S. is a superpower without a plan. The last two presidents have declared that our country is engaged in a historic competition with China—one that will shape the world order and the fate of human freedom. But neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden has publicly explained what a more “competitive” policy aims to achieve, nor has either offered more than the barest outlines of a strategy for success. We appear to be embarking on a long, dangerous journey without knowing where we are trying to go or how we will get there.
The challenge is, admittedly, complex because China is so deeply integrated into the very system that its hegemonic ambitions threaten. But Washington has a precedent to draw on, if only it could set aside the endless—and superficial—debate over whether the U.S.-China relationship is a “new Cold War” and instead engage more deeply with the strategic insights developed in the original Cold War.
In the decades after World War II, the U.S. waged and won a multigenerational struggle against an authoritarian rival. It devised, at the outset, an elegant strategy—containment—that guided the actions of successive presidents of both parties. Today’s rivalry with Beijing isn’t an exact replica of the Cold War, of course. China is far more economically dynamic and technologically sophisticated than the Soviet Union was. Xi Jinping isn’t Stalin or Mao, although he admires the former and increasingly emulates the latter. But the best strategies have qualities that transcend particular eras and places. To succeed against a rising China, the U.S. must relearn the lessons of containment.
“Containment yielded an epochal U.S. victory because it was well-suited to long-term rivalry—the very quality that makes it relevant today.”
Containment emerged as a response to a dilemma that today’s policy makers would recognize: A powerful tyranny that the U.S. had tried to mold into a “responsible stakeholder” threatened to destroy the system instead. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt allied with Stalin’s Soviet Union and sought to make it a partner in building a stable peace. By 1946-47, however, fears of a third global war were widespread, as U.S.-Soviet tensions spiked and Moscow’s power loomed menacingly over a shattered world.