A Long Twilight Struggle

A live-blog of the Sino-American Cold War

Hi, and thanks for your interest in my writing. For this first post I wanted to share a little bit about what I’m doing here and what I hope to accomplish.

I’m starting this project to try and chronicle the economic and political elements of the emerging Sino-American cold conflict. Relations are at their worst point in the modern era and continue to degrade. At the same time, our economies are intertwined. This presents a peculiar challenge. A quick decoupling of economic ties is in neither sides’ interests. It could not be accomplished without ruinous economic consequences at a time when both sides’ economies can ill afford the shock. At the same time, the current situation of dependence on an adversary is unacceptable to either party.

We looking at years of tedious, technical, expensive, and drawn out efforts to disentangle our economies while attempting to avoid escalation and the worst of conflict. Hence, “a long twilight struggle,” a term drawn from President Kennedy’s inaugural address.

Expect to see a heavy focus on economic statecraft and derisking actions, drawing on my interests and expertise as a political risk practitioner. Sanctions, export controls, and other similar measures are the weapons of first resort in this new conflict but the writing on how they are wielded is often limited to a niche community. My hope is to write about these topics in plain language and a broader context. At times, I hope call out areas where “the blob” may have fallen short or highlight things that I think may not be receiving proper attention.

This is a passion project. It’s as much for my own benefit and recollection as anything else and is being kept pseudonymous to allow me to write my mind. I plan to aim for a update recapping events once a week or so on Sunday. This is going to begin over Labor Day weekend 2023, recapping events over the past August. Thanks very much again for reading, please feel free to reach out with any questions.