The End of Engagement

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"Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 proved to many commentators on U.S. foreign policy that world politics had entered a new era. Think tanker Emma Ashford summed up the feeling: "the post-Cold War Era is over." Fallout from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a shift in global power away from America, had long portended the end of the post-1989 "unipolar moment." For Robert Kagan, the geopolitical "jungle" has grown back. For Fareed Zakaria, the world is increasingly post-American. The 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) made it official, stating "the post-Cold War era is definitively over." Most striking about such pronouncements is their target: Moscow. For most of the five years prior to the 2022 NSS, Russia was not Washington's focus, China was. During its tenure (January 2017-January 2021), the Trump administration oversaw a transformation in America's approach to the People's Republic. Out went Engagement, which sought to incorporate a growing China into the U.S.-led international order, and in came Strategic Competition, which seeks to confront a Beijing that hopes "to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and"--