China, Russia.

The Adversary and the Enemy

An Update: Nothing more directly demonstrates the difference between the U.S.-China relationship and the menace of Vladimir Putin’s Russia than this remarkable interview in which the New York Times’s Edward Wong talks to outgoing National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan about issues that are so much more meaningful than any discourse with Putin -- which is invariably about how far he will go to show how tough he is.

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Across the spectrum of expertise and politics, the consensus is that China is the major challenger to the United States for global supremacy in the twenty-first century. Agreed.

But having reported from the Soviet Union decades ago and edited the books of so many Russian leaders and dissidents, and Western journalists and public figures who have written about Russia and China, I can make a case that in the coming years, China will be the major adversary, and Russia is already the enemy.

China is vast, immensely powerful, and ambitious. It wants Taiwan. It is intent on dominating global science, commerce, and manufacturing.

By most measures (other than land mass), Russia is a much smaller threat, heavily dependent on extraction for its economic stability. But it has nuclear weapons that could destroy the world and in Vladimir Putin a dictator unrestrained by any internal pressures and prepared to murder anyone who crosses him.

He blasted the renegade militia leader Yevgeny Prigozhin out of the sky. He eliminated the opposition hero Alexei Navalny in prison, after failing to poison him to death. He invaded Ukraine, determined to conquer the country, whatever it takes.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, completed the takeover of Hong Kong, a center of international finance and pragmatic values, and did so without force, repressing liberties and undermining but not destroying its economic base. As of August 2024, China holds 9.11 percent of U.S. debt, second only to Japan as a creditor nation.

At price-conscious U.S. retailers, a tariff on goods “Made in China” would make bargain shopping much harder. The notion of a national boycott of Chinese food is, well, remote.

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To fully explore the reasons the U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia relationships in 2025 represent such different threats to peace and security, exceeds the range of this format. But here are some thoughts.

The rise of China since the 197Os has been organic but also relentless. A country so long penurious and divided is unified and has created an economy that enabled its people to live in ways their ancestors could not have imagined.

The Soviet Union imploded in 1991 because of the collapse of what was an economy largely dependent on barter and an empire that was held together by bonds that turned out to be tenuous.

When Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, the breakthrough was celebrated in the United States by, among other phenomena, a storewide display of Chinese culture at Bloomingdale’s in New York and awestruck stories by reporters excited to glimpse the Great Wall. At the same time, the U.S. war in Vietnam, waged in part to forestall a Chinese takeover, persisted.

In the 1970s, during the era of U.S. Soviet détente and arms control negotiations, the only American-based consumer product available in the Soviet Union was Pepsi-Cola. The continuation of Most Favored Nation status was dependent on how many Jews the Soviets allowed to emigrate, a U.S. congressional requirement.

During the Cold War, the “Russia” that Americans generally referred to was actually fifteen separate republics, with hundreds of nationalities. From the Baltics to the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Kremlin ruled an empire like that of the Ottomans or the Romans, destined to fall apart — in what turned out to be less than seventy-five years.

Communist China was a scary place. It sent troops into Korea in the early 1950s, turning the tide of the war there. It was menacing for years after, even as periodic upheavals like the Cultural Revolution overwhelmed its intentions to directly intervene outside its borders. The U.S. warily opened the door to China with Nixon’s trip to Beijing in 1972 and Jimmy Carter’s establishment of full diplomatic relations in 1979. By 1989, when the People’s Liberation Army massacred democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, the U.S soon afterward sent envoys to Beijing to restore ties that were considered essential.

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Vladimir Putin has returned Russia to lawlessness — not at the scale of the Stalin years but recognizable in evil intent. He holds a profound grudge about the humiliations of the post-Soviet era. A country that turned back Napoleon and Hitler sees NATO as a comparable threat and vulnerable to Russian ferocity.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. and the Soviet Union faced off with nuclear buildups. The Soviets stepped back from confrontations in Berlin and Cuba. Today, the endgame in Ukraine remains unknown.

Would Putin really do whatever it takes to restore Russian glory? He has threatened to use nuclear force. Who is in a position to stop him?

For China, Taiwan is the potential flashpoint for a superpower conflict, as Berlin once was. If Xi Jinping chooses a violent takeover of the island, how can the West respond?

For now, when it comes to competition and potential confrontation, China is unquestionably a formidable adversary. But the country does have considerable and distracting economic and social stresses. Xi is a dictator, but he also constrained by a population expecting the continuation of better living standards in addition to accretion of international power.

By contrast, Putin answers to no one. From nearly all accounts the Russia people are accepting of their fate. His enmity towards the West, and the United States in particular, is a toxic brew of rage and contempt. Russia may be weaker than it wants the world to believe, but it is no less dangerous, possibly even more so.

That meets any definition of enemy.

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After months of posting weekly pieces — the eighteen parts of LBJ-McNamara -The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail and in the momentum of the election season, this Substack will return to a bi-weekly schedule. The challenge is to find ways to frame issues, ideas and stories that go beyond opinion (or what I consider, even when I do it, pontification) to add something to what is already known. When circumstances and instinct demand a piece off-schedule, I will do them.

So do read on. Subscriptions are free, which is what most people choose. If you go for the paid option, two NGOs will benefit: The Barth Syndrome Foundation and CIVIC -The Center for Civilians in Conflict.

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