Even as the United States prepares for a new administration under a vastly different President, the bureaucracy is engaged in putting out important policy papers on China and other threats. The State Department’s Elements of the China Challenge is one such, forthrightly noting that it is meant to be a long term policy formulation, immune to the short term politics of elections and bureaucratic turf wars. That may or may not happen. But it’s a laudable intention, and a fascinating attempt to clearly understand the threat that emanates from China, together with some solid recommendations.
Since the report is public, reluctant bureaucracies can hardly pretend it doesn’t exist, and brush it under the carpet. There’s much to learn here for India.
The question however is the willingness to absorb the underlying precept of the paper: that if you don’t understand your enemy, you’re destined to fail even before you start.