The United States Can’t Stay a Great Power Without Beating Threats at Home
Before taking on challengers like China, Washington must put its own house in order.
Today, the gravest threats to U.S. national security come not from foreign adversaries and strategic competitors but from extremists and domestic terrorists who are attempting to subvert American democracy in support of President Donald Trump. The United States, once regarded—if sometimes chiefly in its own eyes—as the global champion of democracy, has grossly failed to achieve a peaceful transfer of power.
Today, the gravest threats to U.S. national security come not from foreign adversaries and strategic competitors but from extremists and domestic terrorists who are attempting to subvert American democracy in support of President Donald Trump. The United States, once regarded—if sometimes chiefly in its own eyes—as the global champion of democracy, has grossly failed to achieve a peaceful transfer of power.
The invitation and encouragement of such mobs by Trump and his enablers in Congress has provoked violence and sedition in the Capitol in which only America’s adversaries can rejoice. Even in urging violent rioters to “go home in peace,” Trump continued to claim falsely the election had been “stolen” and was “fraudulent.”
The future of American democracy appears disturbingly precarious, and the damage of the past four years may take decades to repair. Not since the Civil War has white supremacy so threatened the American republic. At the height of the crisis on Jan. 6, the phrase “civil war” was trending on Twitter as violent insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, interrupting the certification of the results of the Electoral College.
Yet even in the face of such urgent dangers to the security and integrity of U.S. national security, certain American politicians and policymakers continue to assert that the primary dangers to the United States and its national security come from China. To be sure, China’s rise presents significant challenges to the United States and to American leadership, yet to point to a foreign adversary or competitor as the chief threat when there is such shameful sedition at home is at best terribly discordant. As during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the civil rights challenge at home undercuts any moral claims abroad—something that once helped spur activists in the United States to make their country better.
Over the past four years, American strategy has concentrated on “great-power competition” as a priority. But from today we should be more concerned about great-power self-destruction, as the failures of leadership during the Trump administration and attempted sabotage of our democracy by right-wing extremists continues, in ways that can also benefit Beijing.
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Elsa B. Kania is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University. Her research primarily concentrates on U.S.-China relations, Chinese military modernization, and emerging technologies. Her views are her own. Twitter: @EBKania
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