America Not Ready to Handle China & Russia Threats

In Washington, there is a habit of talking about “the liberal world order,” as if this is something we protect. The liberal world order isn’t NATO or the EU. It’s not the WTO, or America’s defense relationships with Japan and South Korea. Those are all real things, with relatively legible meanings. The “liberal world order” is said to include all those things but also much more. It apparently includes the integrity of Ukraine’s national borders, as Comrade Khrushchev redrew them in 1954. It includes the relative independence of Taiwan. And occasionally, its defenders say it includes the Paris climate agreement, too.

Basically, the liberal world order is the geopolitical status quo as a transnational class of political elites would have it. It’s a world where Russia is supposed to stay behind the 700,000 square miles of territory it gave up peacefully after 1991, and it’s supposed to take whatever trading relationships the United States sees fit for it. It’s a world where China is making that international elite much richer than before. Consequently, conflicts with China are minimized by the liberal world order’s institutions, or blamed on foolish “America First” presidents.

About the Author

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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In Washington, there is a habit of talking about “the liberal world order,” as if this is something we protect. The liberal world order isn’t NATO or the EU. It’s not the WTO, or America’s defense relationships with Japan and South Korea. Those are all real things, with relatively legible meanings. The “liberal world order” is said to include all those things but also much more. It apparently includes the integrity of Ukraine’s national borders, as Comrade Khrushchev redrew them in 1954. It includes the relative independence of Taiwan. And occasionally, its defenders say it includes the Paris climate agreement, too.

Basically, the liberal world order is the geopolitical status quo as a transnational class of political elites would have it. It’s a world where Russia is supposed to stay behind the 700,000 square miles of territory it gave up peacefully after 1991, and it’s supposed to take whatever trading relationships the United States sees fit for it. It’s a world where China is making that international elite much richer than before. Consequently, conflicts with China are minimized by the liberal world order’s institutions, or blamed on foolish “America First” presidents.