What comes after the 9/11 era?

Meanwhile, a very different group of post-9/11-era thinkers regards China hawkishness as a dangerously self-fulfilling prophecy — a way to blunder, like the Bush-era neoconservatives Colby once critiqued, into an unnecessary and disastrous war. Rather than the old establishment’s maximalism, they prefer minimalism, an end even to the light-footprint forms of warcraft attacked by Samuel Moyn of Yale in his new book “Humane” — an interesting accompaniment and counterpoint to Colby’s — and a deliberate retreat from empire. (The idea that climate change requires conciliation with China also looms large for some in this group.)

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The minimalist group has the least influence in Washington, but its skepticism about warmaking has a lot of popular support — including skepticism about war with China. Even with Beijing’s increased belligerence and its Covid cover-ups, a survey in the summer of 2020 found that only 41 percent of American favored fighting for Taiwan, a lack of enthusiasm confirmed in informal surveys of almost everyone I know.

But Beijing’s own choices will also shape our strategy. A China that retreats somewhat, post-Covid, from bellicosity and border skirmishes would defang the China-hawk argument quite a bit.

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