In the early 1950s, US politics was convulsed by the question, “who lost China?” Today the question is who lost America? The days when US politics stopped at the water’s edge have gone into reverse. America’s two chief rivals, Russia and China, are gnawing at the soul of American politics.
Each country is reviled by one party — China by Donald Trump’s Republicans; Russia by the Democrats. Both parties are driven by domestic one-upmanship. The Democrats believe Mr Trump colluded with Russia to win the presidency. Mr Trump claims China tried to hack the 2016 election in Hillary Clinton’s favour. Washington is consumed by a zero sum blame game. The upshot is that the US is losing its grip on the national interest.
This poses a deep problem for America’s allies — and a windfall for its rivals. For most of the cold war, the two parties stuck to a broad consensus on Soviet containment. Their differences were mostly confined to tactics.