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some two-thirds o the population have known nothing but peace and
progress. The country’s last foreign military intervention, in Vietnam,
ended 30 years ago, and its last major conÇict, the Korean War, ended
almost 70 years ago. On the one hand, the past few decades o success
have demonstrated the value o peace, making people wary o risking it
all in war. On the other hand, the lack o near-term memories o war has
led to a lot o loose talk about war among
people who have never experienced it.
These days, it is increasingly common to
hear Chinese, especially the young, espous-
ing the idea that their country may have
to ¿ght a war in order to avoid getting
hemmed in by the United States. Xi and
his group are not natural risk-takers. But in
a crisis, the Chinese are more likely to resemble the Germans in 1914 than
the Russians after World War II—excitable, rather than exhausted.
The global balance o power has also changed since Kennan’s time.
Today, the world is becoming not more bipolar but more multipolar. This
process is gradual, but there is little doubt that the trend is real. Unlike in
the Cold War, greater conÇict between the two biggest powers today will
not lead to bipolarity; rather, it will make it easier for others to catch up,
since there are no ideological compulsions, and economic advantage
counts for so much more. The more the United States and China beat
each other up, the more room for maneuver other powers will have. The
result may be a world o regional hegemons, and sooner rather than later.
The U.S. domestic situation also looks very dierent from the way
it did at the beginning o the Cold War. There were divisions among
voters and conÇicts between parts o the government back then, but
there was nothing compared to the polarization and gridlock that
characterize American politics today. Now, the United States seems
to have lost its way at home and abroad. Under the Trump adminis-
tration, the country’s overall standing in the world has never been
lower, and even close allies no longer view Washington as a reliable
partner. Since well before the presidency o Donald Trump, U.S.
foreign policy elites have been lamenting the decline o any consensus
on foreign aairs, but they have proved incapable o restoring it.
Now, the rest o the world questions the United States’ potential for
leadership on issues great and small, issues on which American guid-
ance would have been considered indispensable in the past.Chinese society is more
similar to American
society than Soviet society
ever was.