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People typically point to trade, tech, human rights, or the South China Sea to explain the rapid bipartisan realignment behind civilizational conflict with China. But it also reflects the political and foreign policy establishment's effort to make sense of America in the world 1/
The Cold War, as Aziz Rana/Aslı Bâli write, was a foreign policy container for near-entirety of domestic politics: it consolidated domestic order in part through a monomaniacal focus on the Soviet threat abroad, particularly in the decolonizing world. FP helped make hegemony. 2/
The neocon fantasy behind the War on Terror was in part an attempt to reanimate a sense of world-historic purpose robbed from the United States by the Cold War's end. Thomas Friedman's end-of-history global shopping mall still left people empty. Empire needs military conflict. 3/
The War on Terror, however, almost immediately became a spectacular failure, spreading violence and disorder. But perversely, every failure deepened, multiplied, and entangled imperial warfare. The monstrosity of a failed but permanent war helped make Trump president. 4/
Many Trump detractors hope to find new American purpose in the certainty of civilizational conflict w China. Instead of acknowledging the geopolitical requirements for addressing climate change or exploring multilateral antimilitarism, we get normalization of conflict w China. 5/
