Emma Ashford: Hey, Matt! It’s almost the best time of the year in Washington: spring! The weather is warming up, the cherry blossoms are flowering, there are tourists everywhere clogging up traffic, and my allergies are going haywire.
Matt Kroenig: Hi Emma! I am also looking forward to the warmer weather. And the cherry trees are not the only thing blossoming.
What do you make of the Xi-Putin lovefest in Moscow this week?
EA: Aside from the comically oversized flags, you mean?
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow has been pretty hotly anticipated, and it was a chance for Russian President Vladimir Putin—presumably still reeling from his indictment on war crimes by the International Criminal Court—to demonstrate to the world that he still has powerful friends in high places. But I don’t feel like there have been any surprises out of the summit so far, just more of the same: trade promises, talks about energy, and reiterating that the two countries share a strong partnership.
What about you?
MK: Well, the videos of dozens of bags of Kentucky Fried Chicken delivered to Xi’s hotel demonstrated the irresistible soft power of the United States—even to the world’s fiercest anti-American dictators! Little do they know it is all part of Washington’s secret plan for Col. Sanders to kill them quietly through their arteries.
EA: I will never understand the Asian obsession with KFC. At times it seems like there are more KFC restaurants per square mile in Beijing than there are Peking Duck joints.
MK: Apart from that, Putin’s motivation for the meeting is easy to explain. He is now an international pariah, but this was an opportunity for him to show that he is still accepted by the leader of the world’s second most powerful country—even if it is increasingly as a vassal state.
Xi’s motivation is more puzzling. His embrace of Putin and deepening of ties with Russia will further damage China’s image in Europe and the free world. In an interesting juxtaposition, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was in Kyiv at the same time. The paired visits were a poignant symbolic and substantive reminder of how Beijing and Tokyo’s current alignment choices are roughly the reverse of their World War II positions.
Some have speculated that Xi’s visit is part of a new strategy of writing off the United States and its democratic allies—which Xi sees as implacably opposed to China’s rise—and a move to deepen ties with Russia and become a leader of the developing world, all with the goal of creating a more multipolar distribution of power.
It adds up, I guess, but it seems to be a continuation of Xi’s poor decision-making. The move will only further undermine China’s economic performance and worldwide diplomatic standing. Moreover, Beijing is now stuck paying the bills for a stumbling Russia and will likely see a poor return on that investment.
It reminds me of the old joke that the only country that can contain China is China.
EA: I don’t know about that. You’re right that China increasingly appears to have written off the United States, which is not a surprise given that America has pivoted pretty sharply towards a policy of overt containment of China in the last five years or so. But I don’t think Beijing has written off Europe yet, and it certainly is trying to walk a fine line on the war in Ukraine, supporting Moscow economically but presenting a “peace plan” that would suggest to other countries it is looking for mediation opportunities.
And China got at least one big win out of the summit: The Russians announced that they’re increasing the use of the yuan as a reserve currency, and conducting more trade in it. Yuan now makes up a much higher proportion of Russian public and private reserves than before, with banks inside Russia facing penalties for holdings in dollars and euros. The Russians have even signaled they’d like to do more trade with Latin America and Asia in yuan, though that remains dependent on whether other states are willing to do so. But either way, this all highlights how far Russia’s economic prospects have fallen, and bolsters the relevance of China’s currency.
MK: Bolsters, yes, but from a low starting point. There are too many Chinese Communist Party (CCP) restrictions on the use of the yuan—such as closed capital accounts and a lack of currency convertibility—to make it a competitive reserve currency.
EA: For now, yes. But it’s a notable step that makes the yuan more important to another major global economy. It also brings the currency closer to the international oil trade, which has historically been the sole preserve of the dollar. It’s a baby step, but one that could yield bigger changes down the road. Not good changes!
MK: I am still skeptical. A successful reserve currency is based on trust, and most market actors won’t trust their wealth to a fickle dictator.
And you are right that Xi tried to present himself as a peacemaker, but it was clumsy. American and European leaders dismissed his peace proposal (that would essentially reward Putin for his aggression) out of hand. The contradictory plan calls for “respecting the sovereignty of all countries” and “territorial integrity,” but conveniently fails to mention Russia’s illegal occupation.
I also think all this focus on whether China will provide lethal aid is misplaced. China is already essentially providing lethal aid to Moscow. By providing Russia with an economic lifeline, it is enabling Russia to fund its war machine. Money is fungible. Beijing is also not using its power to stop North Korean weapons transfers. The CCP is basically already a co-belligerent on Putin’s side.
EA: China is also benefiting massively in purely economic terms from all this increased trade. And perhaps the most notable absent announcement from the summit was any news on pipelines for delivering gas from Russia to China. There was nothing on the proposed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, for example. As Sergey Radchenko of Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies noted on Twitter, that’s probably because the Chinese are holding out for a better price, and the Russians have thrown away their negotiating leverage by effectively ending their gas trade with Europe for the foreseeable future.
Or to put it another way: Chinese support for Russia also looks a lot like China has Russia over a barrel. There are more summits coming in the next year—Putin will go to Beijing, Xi will return to Moscow—but the outcome is likely to look the same. Russia is frantically seeking to look like it has friends, and China is taking economic advantage. I’m not too worried about Chinese support for Russia. If this is the best that Russia can muster in support of its war in Ukraine, then it isn’t much.
MK: I am sure we will be coming back to this story. The Xi-Putin relationship is not going away any time soon.
In other news, this week marked the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War. There is now an overwhelming consensus that it was a mistake—and given that we now know that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein didn’t possess weapons of mass destruction, I agree with that. (For the record, I am not recanting. I was early in my graduate education when the war began and did not have a clear or informed opinion on the matter at the time.)
I do think the simple dismissal of the war as a big, dumb mistake, however, risks oversimplifying the lessons we learn from the episode. There were no good options for dealing with Iraq in March 2003. We do not know what the world would have looked like if Saddam had remained in power, but we know it would have been dangerous.
And I think among the biggest mistakes of the Iraq War was what happened after the invasion. There was never a clear strategy. A plan to schwack Saddam and get out quickly might have worked. A strategy to make Iraq the next Germany or Japan—send in a large force and stay forever—might have worked. But the half-in half-out, inconsistent approach after the invasion guaranteed failure.
Or was it just a big, dumb mistake?
EA: I don’t think “schwack” is a real word, Matt, though I appreciate you reminding us of George W. Bush and his propensity to invent new phrases.
And I can’t see how anyone could argue the Iraq War was anything other than a big, dumb mistake, although judging by the op-ed pages of America’s newspapers over the last week or two, there are a lot of folks out there still trying to retroactively justify their poor decisions about the war.
We don’t know what could have happened if other choices were made, it’s true. But scholars’ research shows that regime change only works in rare cases, under certain circumstances. And the factors that might allow regime change to produce democracy—things such as ethnic homogeneity or strong existing state institutions—were entirely lacking in Iraq. I have a hard time seeing any scenario in which the U.S. invasion of Iraq would have resulted in a more peaceful and well-governed Middle East.
And here’s the reality we do have: The invasion created a corrupt petrostate government in Iraq, empowered Iran, spread weapons all over the Middle East, and contributed to instability throughout the region.
It’s amazing to me the lengths that some will go to in order to avoid admitting that.
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MK: Well, even George W. Bush’s brother Jeb declared the war a mistake in the 2016 Republican presidential nominating contest. Those who have not come to that conclusion, however, are entitled to their opinion. This is geopolitics, not math. Different people weigh costs and benefits differently, and there were benefits to removing Saddam from power.
Speaking of GOP presidential elections, the 2024 campaign shows signs of heating up, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis hitting former President Donald Trump for hush money payments to a porn star and Trump insinuating that DeSantis might be a pedophile.
EA: I think my favorite thing about electoral politics is how cerebral and dignified it is. Don’t forget! We’re also waiting to find out if the former president is going to be arrested and indicted.
MK: But there are more elevated debates going on in our area of expertise. What do you make of the brouhaha over DeSantis’s statement that the war in Ukraine is a “territorial dispute” and not in the “vital interests” of the United States?
EA: This is a really interesting dispute, which says a lot about the state of turmoil in the Republican Party on foreign policy. DeSantis’s remarks were inelegant for sure, particularly the territorial dispute bit, which really misrepresents the nature of the war in Ukraine. But his remarks were pretty sound otherwise, and solidly in line with where polling suggests the Republican base is on questions of foreign policy: skeptical on how much aid to give to Ukraine going forward, concerned about China, and angry about the lack of burden-sharing by European allies. Electorally, he’s saying the right things.
Despite this, and despite the fact DeSantis is probably the most obvious competitor to Trump, Republican—or former Republican—foreign policy hands lined up to criticize him. Many of these are the same people who believe that Trump is a potential autocrat and major threat to the United States, and yet they’re attacking DeSantis because he’s insufficiently hawkish?
MK: Well, the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress, such as Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, and other top Republican presidential candidates, such as former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, have been criticizing the Biden administration for being too weak in Ukraine. I agree with them.
There has also been a lot of hope that DeSantis can reunite the various factions and lead the party back to victory next year. So, I fully understand why the Reaganite wing of the party was disappointed by DeSantis’s remarks.
At the same time, let’s not forget the politics. Think tank experts do not need to win elections. DeSantis does. His biggest competitor for the nomination is not Haley or Pence but Trump. By taking positions near Trump, he takes away potential lines of attack and cuts into Trump’s support. Moreover, his statement was only a few lines long. It still leaves him a lot of wiggle room once he is elected. In fact, he already clarified his Ukraine position in a more hawkish direction.
This is electoral politics, not grand strategy. Let’s cut the guy some slack.
EA: Yeah, Pence and Haley are both polling in the single digits right now, and some of the focus-group commentary on Pence is downright mean. They’re not real contenders.
I’m just surprised we agree on this. But I suspect we won’t agree on the broader issue. This controversy is clearly emblematic of a foreign policy shift among Republicans voters, which has not been embraced by some GOP elites. It won’t be a good debate if both sides fall back on cries of “isolationism” or “warmonger,” and it certainly won’t be a good debate if neoconservatives undermine other viable candidates and land Trump back in power.
My friend Dan Caldwell of the Center for Renewing America has an essay on the future of Republican foreign policy out this week, and I honestly can’t put it better than he does: “A debate about Republican foreign policy could be healthy for the party …. But such a debate would be fruitless if conservative candidates used it as an excuse to pine for a return to caricatures of the foreign policies of former U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Trump.”
MK: It is not 1980 or 2016. Neither Reagan’s vision nor Trump’s works for 2025. I think what the party needs is some kind of Trump-Reagan.
EA: Or—and here’s a novel idea—why don’t we construct a foreign policy that’s suited for the 21st century, instead of relying on the ideas of folks who should have left the political scene long ago?