“Why is the United States always the supplicant?”
But an interesting question to ask about the policy is: Why is the United States always the supplicant? We have enormous military and economic power. Yet no countries are begging for talks with us.
Part of the answer, no doubt, is our uninhibited displays of eagerness. Why should an adversary bother to knock on our door and beg for entrance when we are going to come knocking and begging ourselves?
Another part is that a deep strand of American liberalism places irrational faith in rationality. We tend to overlook that deep antagonisms among states are rooted in geography, history, and ideology that jaw-jaw can often do little to resolve. Our adversaries come from very different political traditions and do not share our illusions.
Whatever the explanation for our peculiar behavior, one of its unhappy effects is that it squanders our enormous military and economic leverage. We are capable of projecting enormous power, yet we wind up projecting weakness.
Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.