The March of Folly Repeats Itself

When the U.S. suffers from its usual combination of triumphalism and paranoia, as it does now, it is very difficult to keep our government’s worst instincts in check.

Jon Bateman makes a sensible case for keeping anti-China hawkishness in check:

With each new restrictive measure, the risks of interdependence diminish and the odds of overkill grow. Yet U.S. restrictions are speeding up, not slowing down, and calls for caution have gotten quieter, not louder. This is dangerous. If Washington doesn’t take a breath and steady itself, it might tumble over the edge.

The broad hawkish consensus in China is a good example of why the U.S. desperately needs more advocates of restraint in its foreign policy debates. It is when there is overwhelming bipartisan agreement that the U.S. must pursue a more aggressive course in the world that we need more people to fight back against the combative and reckless approach that has been unfolding in front of us. When the U.S. suffers from its usual combination of triumphalism and paranoia, as it does now, it is very difficult to keep our government’s worst instincts in check. The U.S. is most dangerous to itself and to others when its leaders have convinced themselves that they are engaged in a righteous struggle with existential stakes, and this is how far too many of our politicians and policymakers choose to view the “competition” with China. This is what makes them heedless of negative and unintended consequences, and it is what makes them overconfident in the efficacy of American power, and so they plunge ahead with a confrontational policy that blows up in their faces.