The U.S. Should Avoid an 'Epic Clash Over Eurasia'

Hawks helped to create the monster that they now insist that the U.S. has to go abroad to destroy.

Hal Brands bangs the drum for confrontation all across Asia:

This isn’t, yet, a full-blown alliance of autocracies. It is, however, a bloc of adversaries more cohesive and dangerous than anything the United States has faced in decades.

All the great conflicts of the modern era have been contests over Eurasia, where dueling coalitions have clashed for dominance of that supercontinent and its surrounding oceans. Indeed, the American Century has been the Eurasian Century: Washington’s vital task as a superpower has been keeping the world in balance by keeping Eurasia divided. Now the United States is again leading a coalition of democratic allies on Eurasia’s margins against a group of centrally located rivals—while crucial swing states maneuver for advantage.

If Washington’s “vital task as a superpower” has been to keep Eurasia divided, that suggests that the formation of the bloc that Brands is talking about represents a major failure of U.S. foreign policy over the last twenty-five years. Hawks have been talking about the possibility of some kind of authoritarian axis for decades, and they have also done everything they could to drive its would-be members together. In other words, they helped to create the monster that they now insist that the U.S. has to go abroad to destroy.