Competitive Strategy in Divided Times

As we approach the end of 2020, the United States finds itself at a critical juncture, confronting great-power geopolitical threats – from a dangerously “risen” People’s Republic of China (PRC) and a brazenly aggressive Russia – of a magnitude unprecedented at least since the end of the Cold War, and in some key respects quite different from anything our nation has previously faced. These threats have arisen, moreover, at a time in which our country finds itself internally divided into bitterly oppositional political tribes in ways perhaps not seen since the 19th Century.

Some might despair at this. In a polarized and divided Washington, what chance could our foreign policy and national security community have to implement consistent and effective approaches to the new environment of great power competition into which we have been thrust by decades of revisionist strategy in Beijing and Moscow?