Scholars debate the origins of today’s great-power competition, weighing causes such as shifting military balances and the personalities of world leaders. But the best explanation for the struggle among Washington, Beijing, and Moscow is that it stems from an age-old battle over “two antithetical global outlooks: one continental and the other maritime,” argues S. C. M. Paine in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
Continental powers, such as China and Russia, conquer surrounding countries because they believe that “the currency of power is land,” Paine writes. “By contrast, states with an oceanic moat,” including the United States, “have relative security from invasion” and can “focus on compounding wealth rather than on fighting neighbors.” It is in the interest of maritime powers to maintain a rules-based international order, but Washington is now abandoning that strategy in favor of “erecting barriers, threatening neighbors, and undermining global institutions.” By embracing this “continental paradigm,” Paine warns, Americans are “frittering away their many geographic and historical advantages.”
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