November 18, 2022
Taking on China and Russia
Meeting at the Madrid summit in June, NATO leaders issued their first new “strategic concept” in a decade. As expected, Russia took center stage in the document, and the heads of state declared Moscow a manifest threat to the transatlantic alliance. In a joint statement, they pledged their commitment to Ukraine “for as long as it takes” and committed to spend more on defense.
If it wants to succeed, the United States is going to have to pick its battles carefully.
Russia, however, was not the only major threat identified in the new strategy. For the first time, the allies said China posed “systemic challenges’’ to “Euro-Atlantic security,” and that its ambitions and policies challenge the alliance’s “interests, security and values.” To drive the point home, leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea were on hand to demonstrate unity and resolve.
NATO’s new focus is just one of many indications that a new strategic era has begun. The Biden administration’s national security strategy, for instance, states that “the most pressing strategic challenge” is from “powers that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy.” The new U.S. strategy, which was released in October, labels Russia “an immediate threat to the free and open international system” and China as the only competitor with the intent and power to reshape that system. Today Washington has chosen, perhaps by default, to compete with—and if necessary, confront—both Russia and China simultaneously and indefinitely.
Read the full story from Foreign Affairs.
More from CNAS
-
China’s Role in the Axis of Autocracy
Congressional Testimony
As defense cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea grows, it will enable these countries to offset vulnerabilities relative to the United States....
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor
-
What Have U.S. Sanctions on Russia Achieved Since the War in Ukraine Began?
Podcast
Three years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, what have U.S. sanctions achieved? NPR talks to Edward Fishman, author of "Chokepoints: American Power in the ...
By Edward Fishman
-
Russia and U.S. Agree to Work Toward Improving Ties and Ending the Ukraine War
Podcast
U.S. and Russian officials held more than four hours of talks in Riyadh on Tuesday, their first on ending the war in Ukraine, as Kyiv and its European allies watched anxiously...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor
-
The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World with Hal Brands
Podcast
For more than 100 years, the continent of Eurasia has played a central role in global geopolitics. In the 20th century, numerous authoritarian powers from Germany under Kaiser...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Jim Townsend & Hal Brands
