Reddit reviews War in the Modern Great Power System: 1495–1975

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By Steven WardMay 4 at 7:00 AM

On Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported the State Department’s policy planning staff, led by Director Kiron Skinner, is “preparing for a clash of civilizations” with China. Skinner’s office is composing what it calls “Letter X” — styled after George Kennan’s “X Article” that laid out an argument for containing the Soviet Union during the first years of the Cold War.

The Examiner’s description of the State Department’s thinking contains remarkable details. Skinner describes great power competition with China as “a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology, and the United States hasn’t had that before.” China “poses a unique challenge … because the regime in Beijing isn’t a child of Western philosophy and history.” The Cold War constituted “a fight within the Western family,” while the coming conflict with China is “the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian.”

[No, China and the U.S. aren’t locked in an ideological battle. Not even close.]

Skinner is right that “you can’t have a policy without an argument underneath it.” But the argument that seems to be informing U.S. China policy is deeply flawed and dangerous.

Has the United States never competed with a great power whose ideology or civilization was dramatically different from ours?

Skinner’s claim that China is the United States’ first ideologically distinct great power competitor is wrong. For one thing, it is not at all clear that such an ideology is central to Sino-American competition. For another, this mangles history. Nazi Germany is an obvious counterexample. The Soviet Union is a second. Skinner has written extensively on President Ronald Reagan, who would be surprised to learn that American competition with the U.S.S.R. — the “evil empire” — did not involve ideological differences.

To Skinner, the Cold War did not constitute a conflict of civilization because it took place within the “Western family.” She takes her cue from Samuel Huntington’s ideas about the “clash of civilizations.” But those ideas do not stand up to scrutiny. The concept of “civilization” lacks empirical support. Also, the enterprise of classifying countries according to dominant civilizations ignores the variety and contingency of identities, treating some as fixed or natural while erasing others. Nor is it clear that Russia was ever understood (or understood itself) as a fully Western or European nation.

Fortunately, Skinner offers a further clue about what she means. China, she notes, is the first great power competitor that the United States has faced that is “not Caucasian.” In the end, the argument is not about ideology or civilization. It is about race. China — unlike Russia — is not predominantly white, and thus must be dealt with differently.

Before World War II, Japan came to believe it wouldn’t be treated equally in world politics because of Western racial attitudes.

But the claim that the United States has never faced a non-Caucasian great power competitor is also wrong. Japan before World War II was a great power rival and was understood as racially different.