The two greatest challenges for American statecraft in the 21st century are becoming more severe — and seemingly pulling the United States in opposing directions.
Relations with China are deteriorating by the day, presaging a prolonged competition over the shape of global order. Meanwhile, the worsening effects of climate change — demonstrated by the shocking melting of ice in Greenland this summer — are invoking the specter of ecological catastrophe. And while dealing with the changing climate will undoubtedly require cooperation between Beijing and Washington — the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases — winning the geopolitical struggle with China will require the U.S. to take a harder-edged, more competitive approach.
Statecraft is the art of reconciling the apparently irreconcilable, and the U.S. need not abandon either its environmental or its geopolitical objectives. But Washington must navigate between two bad strategies to execute the right one.