1/ If you are having trouble sleeping at night, see attached three podcasts from the past month in which I offer my current best answers to a range of questions on US-China relations, Trump’s second term, and the international security order.
2/ The hosts of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast asked a number of uncomfortable questions:
- Whether the current discombobulation between the US and China comes down to the Thucydidean dynamics of a rapidly rising power seriously challenging a major ruling power? (My central proposition: Yes, much of the tension does arise from Thucydidean dynamics. Thus, if history is our best guide, war is likely—but not inevitable).
- What have I learned in 2025? (My answer: that the world is even more uncertain than I recognized this time last year. But in relations between the US and China, if we’re stretching for silver linings, mine include that Trump is decidedly not a China hawk and that he is serious about being remembered as a great peacemaker, including with China and Xi Jinping).
bloomberg.com/news/audio/202…
- Whether the current discombobulation between the US and China comes down to the Thucydidean dynamics of a rapidly rising power seriously challenging a major ruling power? (My central proposition: Yes, much of the tension does arise from Thucydidean dynamics. Thus, if history is our best guide, war is likely—but not inevitable).
- What have I learned in 2025? (My answer: that the world is even more uncertain than I recognized this time last year. But in relations between the US and China, if we’re stretching for silver linings, mine include that Trump is decidedly not a China hawk and that he is serious about being remembered as a great peacemaker, including with China and Xi Jinping).
bloomberg.com/news/audio/202…
3/ With The Straits Times's (@straits_times) Asian Insider podcast, I responded to a similar set of questions, including:
- What do Trump and Xi want from each other? (A clue: A mutually beneficial economic relationship, which is what Trump’s advisors proposed in his National Security Strategy.
- Will China be the world’s sole superpower? (My bottom line: No. But I expect it to keep rising and thus that as Lee Kuan Yew advised, the US and China will have to find ways to coexist and share the Pacific in the 21st century).
youtube.com/watch?v=ZOb3Pn…
- What do Trump and Xi want from each other? (A clue: A mutually beneficial economic relationship, which is what Trump’s advisors proposed in his National Security Strategy.
- Will China be the world’s sole superpower? (My bottom line: No. But I expect it to keep rising and thus that as Lee Kuan Yew advised, the US and China will have to find ways to coexist and share the Pacific in the 21st century).
youtube.com/watch?v=ZOb3Pn…
4/ With the @HawthornGroup's John Ashford for his Across the Aisle podcast, I offered thoughts about the state of American politics, the diminished role of Congress in foreign policy, the prospects of war in Venezuela, and the challenges to an enduring peace in Gaza.
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