China and the U.S.: What Matters That's Overlooked
Parsing geopolitics is fun but our attention is better directed to the limits and second-order effects of legacy systems in each of the rival states.
Geopolitics, like any conflict, is dramatic: rivals jostle for hegemony on a 3-D chessboard, war threatens, etc. The focus of this drama is on the leaders' calculations and the pieces being moved around the board in the complex battle for hearts, minds, resources and the high ground.
This is the conventional context of history, and so accounts of the riv…
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