{"id":31453,"date":"2018-02-22T09:40:29","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T14:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31453"},"modified":"2018-02-22T09:40:45","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T14:40:45","slug":"the-u-s-returns-to-great-power-competition-with-a-dangerous-new-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31453","title":{"rendered":"The U.S. Returns to \u2018Great Power Competition,\u2019 With a Dangerous New Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The U.S. Returns to \u2018Great Power Competition,\u2019 With a Dangerous New Edge<\/a><\/h3>\n

The U.S. has taken aim at China and Russia for at least the last four administrations. Now, higher ups on all sides are warning of heightened tensions and war.<\/p>\n

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A U.S. aircraft carrier pulls into port at Guam. (Photo: U.S. Navy \/ Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s new National Defense Strategy is being touted as a sea change in U.S. foreign policy \u2014 a shift from the \u201cwar on terrorism\u201d to \u201cgreat power competition,\u201d a line that would not be out of place in the years leading up to World War I.<\/p>\n

But is the shift really a major course change, or a re-statement of policies followed by the last four administrations?<\/p>\n

The U.S. has never taken its eyes off its big competitors.<\/p>\n

It was President Bill Clinton who moved NATO eastwards, abrogating a 1991 agreement with the Russians not to recruit former members of the Warsaw Pact that is at the root of current tensions with Moscow. And, while the U.S. and NATO point to Russia\u2019s annexation of the Crimea as a sign of a \u201crevanchist\u201d Moscow, it was NATO that set the precedent of altering borders when it dismembered Serbia to create Kosovo after the 1999 Yugoslav war.<\/p>\n

It was President George W. Bush who designated China a \u201cstrategic competitor,\u201d and who tried to lure India into an anti-Chinese alliance by allowing New Delhi to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Letting India purchase uranium on the international market \u2014 it was barred from doing so by refusing to sign the NPT \u2014 helped ignite the dangerous nuclear arms race with Pakistan in South Asia.<\/p>\n

And it was President Barack Obama who further chilled relations with the Russians by tacitly backing the 2014 coup in the Ukraine, and whose \u201cAsia pivot\u201d has led to tensions between Washington and Beijing.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Returns to \u2018Great Power Competition,\u2019 With a Dangerous New Edge The U.S. has taken aim at China and Russia for at least the last four administrations. Now, higher ups on all sides are warning of heightened tensions and war. A U.S. aircraft carrier pulls into port at Guam. (Photo: U.S. Navy \/ Flickr) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2045,130,15778,10346,542,553,694,827,862,865],"class_list":["post-31453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-conn-hallinan","tag-foreign-policy-in-focus","tag-moscow","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31455,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31453\/revisions\/31455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}