U.S. President Joe Biden has framed America’s confrontation with China and Russia as an open-ended contest between democracy and autocracy.
If that is true, an American victory will depend not only on the country’s ability to outcompete its adversaries, but also on its success at safeguarding democracy at home.
On the former imperative, the United States is well-positioned to succeed, thanks to a series of diplomatic masterstrokes. For starters, at the recent Group of Seven and NATO summits, Biden cemented a broad alliance spanning Europe and Asia against Russia and China. This follows the quick mobilization of Western governments to support Ukraine and punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for the war he launched there in February.