1. I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I'm not against cos-play or LARPing if it is done in the right spirit, as dorky hobbyists who like to dress up on weekends. What I object to is foreign policy LARPing. 
2. By foreign policy LARPing I mean the concerted attempt to model USA/China relations on the high cold war. There are signs of this everywhere. A new anonymous "Longer Telegram" (not a telegram but, yes, long) modelled after George Kennan (aka Mr. X)'s long telegram
3. In the Washington Post we hear calls for using putative China threat for a new Sputnik moment of financing education & science. Also, absurdly, a repurposing of NATO to contain China.
4. The NATO argument is a tell. "The alliance has been adrift for years. Countering China would give it focus." In other words we have a military system which serves no real purpose, a solution in search of a problem. China is a convenient problem.
5. If you needed to contain China, the first thing you'd do is strengthen alliances in Asia, not bring in fucking NATO! It's the goddamn North Atlantic Treaty Organization! But Asian countries have little appetite for new USA alliance, so we get Cold War cos-play.
6. The larger logic here is that USA elites are nostalgic for the Cold War -- a period of strong bipartisan consensus and a convenient threat that kept population docile & checked demands for change. More thoughts here: thenation.com/article/world/…
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