europe, despite the expectations of vladimir putin, hasn t split on the ukraine war europe is still solidly behind the united states. in asia, we have new, stronger partnerships with japan, with australia, increasingly with the philippines. these are positive developments. what i said in the column, and i feel strongly, is that president biden, above all, has to communicate more clearly and emphatically to the country what he is trying to do specifically, what s the end game on ukraine? we can t simply leave this in the hands of the ukrainians forever. how do we envision this ending up if, as i said earlier, the president wants to avoid a cold war with china and wants to build a floor, he needs to say that directly. so the chinese understand it the american public understands it that s a reason for the sense of drift, is people don t quite understand where these policies, with many good aspects, are
charm offensive. trying to talk to businesspeople from europe and the united states we want your business. why can t things be friendly again? at the same time, there is a strident set of diplomatic aims. america doesn t seem interested in good relations. they re all committed to confrontation. what do we do? david, can i ask you this question not to interrupt, but can i ask you this one question that we ve been asking? if we were in china s position and i m certainly not defending china. i support everything biden has done here. but if we were in china s position and we saw americans with positions reinforced in guam, expanded expeipetensivelyn the philippines, sub deal, encourage japan to jack up its defense budget in a way it hasn t since world war ii and we could go on and on we
chinese. i think we re going to be heading toward a biden-chinese summit meeting later in the year is it going to solve the problems we re seeing? no, it isn t this is going to be a period of significant competition. but the desire, by the biden administration s phrase, to build a floor under this increasingly volatile relationship i think is going to happen, despite all the things you re hearing. it is a rivalry it s a significant rivalry, mika as we ve said for quite some time, as your father always said, we re going to share the global stage together the next 50 years the chinese over the past four, five years obviously, you ve taken a turn for the worse on many fronts, especially domestically. at the same time, we have got to figure out a way, as david said, to have a floor to stop the next cold war, to stop a coming world war. david, your latest column for the washington post is
would feel hemmed in, would we not? well, would feel that the united states and its friends were responding to what has been an extraordinary buildup of chinese forces chinese diplomacy and military action in the region the last decade has been stunning people i talk to in our government say, you know, if you read the classified account of what s going on with china, it would make your hair curl. while trying to see the world through chinese eyes is always valuable, people should bear in mind, this is an unprecedented buildup. the united states is trying to respond to it. i think president biden is determined that he does not want to be the american president who prelive presided over a new cold war with china in the coming weeks, you ll see a strenuous effort by the white house to reach out to the
entitled why does this good moment for america feel so bad? you write, in part, quote, at a time when the global landscape looks pretty good for the united states, why does it feel so bad? that s a riddle the biden administration needs to solve. u.s. national security policy seems to be less than the sum of it parts because the biden administration hasn t communicated a cohesive strategic vision where have i heard that phrase there is no nice way to put this: all the top administration officials need to be better and more forceful communicators. that includes the president and vice president and secretaries of state, defense and treasury biden is looking for the sweet spot, stopping russian aggression without triggering a catastrophe, curbing china without sliding toward war he needs to articulate those goals more clearly and use america s immense power to achieve them david ignatius, the new york