Balancing China With the World: A Juggler’s Challenge for U.S. Strategy

Mark Hertling argues that while China deserves the top spot in U.S. defense thinking, strategy must balance multiple, interconnected threats—Iran, Russia, Cuba, migration, the Arctic, and Taiwan—rather than treating China as the sole focal point. He notes that Taiwan’s role is conspicuously missing from major policy statements, and a true national-security approach requires coordinating diplomacy, economics, and military power across theaters to prevent any crisis from slipping while others are prioritized.