How Not to Handle China

SINCE the end of the Cold War, many Americans have been suffering from an enemy-deprivation syndrome. This is not surprising. After all, for fifty years they had experienced a clearly identified, formidable, and generally agreed upon enemy. That enemy provided a simply grasped organizing principle for thinking about foreign policy, and its sudden disappearance threatened disorientation and discord. It imbued foreign policy with a sense of heroic moral purpose, and without it things seemed likely to become mundane and boring.

Whatever the mixture of motives, as soon as the initial euphoria over the Soviet Union’s collapse had passed, most of the American foreign-policy cognoscenti-and especially a large section of its conservative component-began to search for a substitute enemy. For a short while, Japan was favored. Scores of authoritative books and hundreds of closely argued articles were written about the impending “clash” between it and the United States. But then a Japan that had been presented as an irresistible juggernaut suddenly faltered. Its economy lost momentum, its politics became a shambles, and it was no longer a credible enemy.

OH

About the Author

Owen Harries

Featured Tags

SINCE the end of the Cold War, many Americans have been suffering from an enemy-deprivation syndrome. This is not surprising. After all, for fifty years they had experienced a clearly identified, formidable, and generally agreed upon enemy. That enemy provided a simply grasped organizing principle for thinking about foreign policy, and its sudden disappearance threatened disorientation and discord. It imbued foreign policy with a sense of heroic moral purpose, and without it things seemed likely to become mundane and boring.

Whatever the mixture of motives, as soon as the initial euphoria over the Soviet Union’s collapse had passed, most of the American foreign-policy cognoscenti-and especially a large section of its conservative component-began to search for a substitute enemy. For a short while, Japan was favored. Scores of authoritative books and hundreds of closely argued articles were written about the impending “clash” between it and the United States. But then a Japan that had been presented as an irresistible juggernaut suddenly faltered. Its economy lost momentum, its politics became a shambles, and it was no longer a credible enemy.