How Dangerous Is The US-China Rivalry?

Presidents Obama and Xi Jinping. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

US-China Rivalry More Dangerous Than Cold War? -- Zachary Keck, The Diplomat

Mearsheimer says a war between the US and China will be more likely than a US-Soviet one was during the Cold War.

The prominent realist international relations scholar John Mearsheimer says there is a greater possibility of the U.S. and China going to war in the future than there was of a Soviet-NATO general war during the Cold War.

Mearsheimer made the comments at a lunch hosted by the Center for the National Interest in Washington, DC on Monday. The lunch was held to discuss Mearsheimer’s recent article in The National Interest on U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East. However, much of the conversation during the Q&A session focused on U.S. policy towards Asia amid China’s rise, a topic that Mearsheimer addresses in greater length in the updated edition of his classic treatise, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, which is due out this April.

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My Comment: I concur with this analysis. War with the Soviet Union would have been a nuclear conflict (probably on the first day) .... a Chinese - U.S. war will not involve nuclear weapons .... unless China decides to lob nuclear missiles first. Fortunately .... the odds of a U.S. - Chinese military conflict is still low .... for now.