Source: Foreign Policy
by Stephen M Walt
“In a world where great-power competition is intensifying, a revealing test of foreign-policy acumen is a country’s ability to avoid costly conflicts or other endeavors that waste resources, divert attention, and ultimately leave them weaker rather than stronger. In other words: staying out of quagmires. Great powers are often happy to see their rivals stumble into strategic quicksand and may even try to encourage such developments, but wise leaders try to stay out of this kind of trouble. In recent decades, China has done a far better job of avoiding quagmires than either the United States or Russia.” (09/10/26)