The Foreign Service Journal, June 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2021 41 advantages and allow us to prevail in strategic competition with China and any other nation.” GPC as Artifact, Frame and Spur to Action Whatever the historical context, “great power competition” is an artifact of human political imagination, not a manifesta- tion of political geology or nature. It is anchored in an assess- ment about what matters most to the survival, well-being and interests of a state, or what ought to. This assessment and the decisions that flow from it are intended to shape and inform national strategy—to ensure that national efforts, resources and instruments of power are orchestrated and directed to core priorities based on a clear calculation of national interests. It is important to emphasize here that great power competi- tion does not necessarily mean great power confrontation or conflict. That, too, is a political choice, not a historical inevita- bility. Moreover, competition itself is a great engine of human motivation, effort and accomplishment. The United States has enthusiastically embraced competition as a core value and ideal across nearly all spheres of human activity. Competition com- pels us to work harder and smarter, with a keener focus and a which great powers throughout history have maneuvered to gain more security and prosperity at the expense of other great powers. GPC also works as clarifying shorthand for American compatriots who have little time for foreign affairs and who may be more easily galvanized to support international competition against the PRC. GPC is a simple slogan for understanding international rela- tions, but it confuses more than it clarifies. On the “forever” front in which our State Department lives—that international horizon that exists whether Americans are paying attention or not, that perpetual-motion machine of sovereign states, international organizations and nonstate actors—the world is much more complex. clearer objective in mind, enabling us to achieve greater things than we might have done in the absence of worthy competitors. Would we have marshalled the kind of concerted collective effort needed to “land a man on the Moon and bring him safely back to earth” were it not for the Sputnik challenge in the con- text of Cold War competition with the Soviet Union? Might we expect similar positive results from the great power competition with China unfolding today? If not, why not? While it is wise to avoid Pollyannaish thinking, it is equally unwise to bet against the United States of America. Whatever the vulnerabilities of our more open democratic system and the advantages of our competitors’ centrally controlled autocratic alternatives, this is a time to double down on our strengths: more open, free-wheeling and democratic, more resilient and resourceful, more innovative, nimble and able to adapt to new threats and opportunities. This is a time to become—as journal- ist James Fallows argued in a related context just over a genera- tion ago—“more like us.” GPC is a useful frame to engage the world collectively for constructive benefit, repelling threats and seizing opportunities. But if there’s a more useful one, we should welcome it. A t least since President Donald Trump issued his National Security Strategy in December 2017, the national security community has been obsessing about great power competition (already shortened to GPC). GPC is framed as a great-power struggle mostly with the People’s Republic of China, with Vladimir Putin’s Russia participating as a spoiler. GPC is a comfortable frame for the baby boomer leaders across our interagency community who began their careers dur- ing the Cold War. It is an elegant frame for the grand strategists who want a unified theory of everything. It is a favorite of our academic and practitioner colleagues whose principal foreign affairs lens is realpolitik, the balance-of-power geopolitics in TAKE TWO “Great Power Competition”: APhrase that Simplifies and Confuses BY KELLY KEIDERLING