Joe Biden’s global vision is too timid and pessimistic

In the 1940s and early 1950s America built a new world order out of the chaos of war. For all its shortcomings, it kept the peace between superpowers and underpinned decades of growth that lifted billions out of poverty. Today that order, based on global rules, free markets and an American promise to uphold both, is fraying. Toxic partisanship at home has corroded confidence in America’s government. The financial crisis of 2007-09 dented faith in markets. America’s failures in Iraq and Afghanistan undermined its claim to spread democracy. Today most countries refuse to heed its call to enforce sanctions on Russia. And China’s rise has spurred American politicians to take a more selfish, zero-sum approach to geopolitics.

China’s rise has also increased the threat of war. In a conversation with The Economist, Henry Kissinger, who will be 100 this month, warns that China and America are “on the path” to confrontation. “Both sides have convinced themselves that the other represents a strategic danger,” he says. The stakes could not be higher: both are nuclear-armed. Both are also dabbling with unpredictable artificial intelligence (ai). The elder statesmen’s eldest statesman worries that, just as before the first world war, the superpowers will stumble into catastrophe.