On December 18, Foreign Policy published a biweekly column featuring Scowcroft Center deputy director Matthew Kroenig and New American Engagement Initiative senior fellow Emma Ashford discussing the latest news in international affairs.
In this column, they discuss the cyberattack on the US government, top global trends and events in 2020, and the US-China rivalry.
Interestingly, though, it really does look like the biggest long-term foreign-policy implications of COVID-19 will be the increased U.S.-China rivalry. As I recently wrote, U.S. structural power seems fairly unaffected, other than perhaps an increased deficit. U.S. military readiness is also mostly unaffected.
I do think the more important long-term trend, however, may be the deterioration in U.S.-China relations and the return of great-power rivalry. With any luck, vaccinations will be successful and COVID-19 will soon be behind us. But I fear that competition with China will be with us for a generation or more
