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Monday, August 26th, 2024

The West’s Next Challenge Is the Rising Axis of Autocracies

Author:     Yaroslav Trofimov
Source:     The Wall Street Journal
Publication Date:     Aug. 24, 2024 | 12:01 am ET
 Link: The West’s Next Challenge Is the Rising Axis of Autocracies
Stephan:  

We are going into a new Cold War. I don’t agree with everything in this article, in the conservative Wall Street Journal, but I am using it in SR to make the fundamental point. The democracies and the autocracies of the world are facing off against one another. But this isn’t going to be like the last Cold War. Russia was never the super power most Americans once believed it to be, and now it is basically a vassal of China. The big difference, in my opinion, is that China is not looking for a war. They are looking to become the leading nation in the world, and are, and have been, watching the United States decline. They have a long view and are building roads, ports, and towns throughout the world to make themselves the most powerful economy in the world. Frankly, I don’t think either U.S. political party or the Congress really comprehends what is happening.

The coalescing partnership of autocracies led by China and Russia will impose strategic choices on Western democracies, no matter who wins the U.S. presidential election.

Can the U.S. and its allies deter all these rivals—including Iran and North Korea—at the same time, given the decay in the West’s military-industrial base and the unwillingness of voters to spend dramatically more on defense?

And if not, should, and could, an accommodation be sought with one of the rival great powers? If so, which one—and at what cost?

The current moment is uniquely complicated, with multiple crises around the world increasingly interconnected. Bloody wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are showing no signs of abating, Iran is contemplating a military response against Israel, China is engaging in low-level sea clashes with the Philippines and intimidating Taiwan, and North Korea is ramping up provocations against South Korea.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served in senior national-security roles in the Trump White House, compared the state of the world to a game of whack-a-mole—with all the moles now up. “Because the crises erupt at the same time, […]

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