Not to pick on @ProfPaulPoast specifically, but analysis of policy taglines w external definitions, common understandings, theories is likely to be wrong -- policymakers frequently mean other things entirely than what the words 'really' mean 1/
https://twitter.com/ProfPaulPoast/status/1446798748185673728
To extent "strategic competition" means something other than "same stuff but not Trump", I think @kjmcinnis1 is right Biden is using it mostly as cover for to help justify "domestic renewal" that has at least vague indirect national security consequences 2/
It's not at all clear that you would call that set of policies "strategic competition", but, "strategic competition" sounds good while being totally vague, and lets you wrap a national security justification around what are basically domestic priorities 3/
In pure foreign policy terms I think -- think -- it's being used mostly to imply a wider range of policies than Trump pursued, but really that's unclear. You seem some sources saying it means *more* focus on China hard power competition, others clearly *less* 4/
That minor word changes often signal major bureaucratic fights is true as @kjmcinnis1 notes, though the phrase is being used with enough vaguenessx and inconsistently I suspect partly it signifies is that nobody won the fight, or all agreed to paper over with a platitude 5/
But again, external evidence is of limited value in trying to figure out what a word like "strategic" signals when it is the output of a political / policy process. 6/6
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