'Strategic Stability' Is a Comforting Foreign-Policy Fantasy

“The theme of the U.S.-China summit last week was "strategic stability." Yet this "stability" is at best an aspiration and, more likely, happy talk obscuring an actively deteriorating relationship. Global stability is a noble goal, but pursuing it can lead policymakers into dangerous missteps.

 

The quest for a stable global order has long beguiled idealists and realists alike. Conflict is inevitable, and the U.S. faces a future that is likely more violent and destructive than many are prepared to face. If America is to survive another 250 years, it'll have to come to terms with this harsh reality.

 

There is widespread agreement among foreign policy experts that the post-Cold War period of general peace and stability is giving way to a new era. What it will look like is a topic of intense debate, but most visionaries share the goal to return to the relative geopolitical stability of the 1990s by fixing what they think broke in the post-Cold War period.

 

Some say the problem was U.S. hegemony as such, pointing to the supposed instability of a unipolar order.

 

Others point to America's desire to use its power to remake the world by bringing down tyrants and spreading democracy.

 

Or perhaps the problem was American indifference to other countries' desire for a more effective rules-based international order.

 

The proposed solutions are as divergent as the diagnoses. The U.S. should accept that its relative power is declining, one argument goes. Then perhaps we can cut a deal among the rising powers of a multipolar world in a grand bargain in the style of the 1815 Concert of Europe. Or maybe we should redouble our efforts to improve global governance through existing international institutions. Or seek our fortune by banding together with like-minded democratic states. Or have the biggest powers divide the world into spheres of influence and reign as regional hegemons.

 

None of these proposals grapple with the full weight of how different our new era will be from the relatively placid one it is superseding. The Concert of Europe created temporary stability and calm in Europe after centuries of strife that culminated in the Napoleonic Wars. It worked well enough for decades but gradually broke down, insufficient to prevent the devastation of World War I.

 

What most diagnosticians miss these days is that we just had our concert, and it is over. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the U.S. was the conductor, and emerging challengers kept a low profile by pretending to play along. China was growing into an economic power in part so it could become a military one. Vladimir Putin was incubating his plans for Russia, and his foreign intelligence services never abandoned the Cold War fight.

 

The U.S. alliance system was never a gathering of equals. It created a dependency structure in which allies accepted their subordinate place in exchange for U.S. security commitments and respect. Meanwhile, the relative golden age of the United Nations Security Council has come and gone, book-ended by the 1990 resolution authorizing force to reverse Saddam Hussein's conquest of Kuwait and the 2011 resolution providing the same authority to protect the Libyan opposition from mass slaughter by Moammar Gadhafi's advancing forces.

 

What makes periods like the Concert of Europe and our post-Cold War era remarkable is that they are at such variance with the normal state of international affairs -- violence, conflict and disorder. The world to come will be far closer in spirit to the periods of brutal conflict that engulfed Europe before and after the concert's brief respite. How similar in practice depends on the deterrent power of U.S. capabilities across the full spectrum of military, economic, diplomatic and informational endeavors.

 

The first task is to reorient the underlying assumptions informing American foreign policy to comport with reality.

 

U.S. policymakers and voters need to grapple with the realization that we face not merely competitors, challengers or even adversaries, but enemies.

 

 America needs to be clear about our enemies' ambitions and the threat they pose, even -- or perhaps especially -- as we pursue diplomatic initiatives to ameliorate the danger. It's vital that the U.S. learn to understand conflict the same way our enemies do. Debates or spheres we view as mere competition -- like trade disputes with China or anti-American content on TikTok -- our enemies understand as economic or informational warfare.

 

The U.S. doesn't seek out enemies. In many cases, such as Iran, our enemies have declared themselves as such for decades. Others like China have been subtler, but their intention to play an active part in the erosion of American power and influence is obvious.

 

A realistic foreign policy should also recognize that fundamental principles still matter. We protect our country not only because we live here. We do so because the organizing principle of the U.S. is individual freedom. It shapes how we define, rank and pursue our interests and stands in sharp contrast to the organizing political principles of our enemies. That freedom is under attack. It will need defending time and time again.

 

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Mr. Lindberg is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Teague is senior policy director and deputy to the executive director at the Vandenberg Coalition.” [1]

 

1. 'Strategic Stability' Is a Comforting Foreign-Policy Fantasy. Lindberg, Tod; Teague, Corban.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 30 Sep 2026: A17.