These are the three social evils Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned would destroy America from within: Militarism, materialism, and racism. Decades later, they help explain the divisions in our country that led to the January 6 attack by protesters on the U.S. Capitol. Of the three, however, the role our recent wars have played in exacerbating these conditions is often the most overlooked.
Video produced by Khody Akhavi.
Vice President JD Vance’s regional tour to Armenia and Azerbaijan this week — the highest level visit by an American official to the South Caucasus since Vice President Joe Biden went to Georgia in 2009 — demonstrates that Washington is not ignoring Yerevan and Baku and is taking an active role in their normalization process.
Vance’s stop in Armenia included an announcement that Yerevan has procured $11 million in U.S. defense systems — a first — in particular Shield AI’s V-BAT, an ISR unmanned aircraft system. It was also announced that the second stage of a groundbreaking AI supercomputer project led by Firebird, a U.S.-based AI cloud and infrastructure company, would commence after having secured American licensing for the sale and delivery of an additional 41,000 NVIDIA GB300 graphics processing units.
In addition, the Vice President and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on the completion of negotiations on a 123 Agreement, which establishes a legally binding framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and partner countries. The U.S. has emerged as a leading contender to replace Armenia’s aging Soviet-era nuclear power plant with small modular reactors, and this agreement helps pave the way to a decision in Washington’s favor. According to Vance, potential deals may include “up to $5 billion” in an initial agreement “plus an additional $4 billion in long-term support through fuel and maintenance contracts.”
While in Azerbaijan, Vance and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a Strategic Partnership Charter between the U.S. and Azerbaijan that covers regional connectivity, economic investment, and security and defense issues. In his public remarks, the Vice President noted that the U.S. is planning to “ship some new boats to Azerbaijan” to help with the protection of territorial waters.
Vance’s visit comes some six months after President Donald Trump hosted Pashinyan and Aliyev at the White House for a historic summit last August. The results of that gathering included American MOUs (Memorandum of Understanding) with each visiting delegation and the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers initialing the already agreed text of their peace and normalization agreement.
In Washington last month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan released a joint statement on the TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) Implementation Framework, which begins to lay out the technical and regulatory components of the trade corridor which would connect Azerbaijan to Turkey through southern Armenia.
The Framework outlines a 49-year initial term for the joint development company, which will construct the transit, trade, energy and communications infrastructure for the new corridor. The U.S. will retain a 74% controlling stake and Armenia will hold the remaining 26%. A recent visit to Armenia by AECOM, an American engineering consulting firm, focused on beginning a feasibility study of the TRIPP project “to support Armenia’s long-term economic growth, connectivity, and regional integration,” according to the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan.
Since its announcement last August, the project has reinvigorated Washington’s engagements with and interests in the region. Those conversations continued during Vance’s visit to the region this week.
From Washington’s perspective, TRIPP fits into a broader strategic vision of an interconnected South Caucasus that can act as an American sponsored strategic artery linking Central Asia to Turkey and Europe—which is likely to prove an important corridor for critical trade and energy flows across Eurasia while avoiding Russian and Iranian territory.
The agreements have already brought some dividends to the region. Since last August’s meeting delivered Trump’s personal imprint onto the peace process, the likelihood of renewed war, or even violent flare ups, between Armenia and Azerbaijan has declined. Both Yerevan and Baku recognize that their countries are likely to reap significant economic and political benefit from the TRIPP project—not to mention that upsetting Washington would prove strategically unwise.
Recent shipments from Azerbaijan to Armenia via Georgia, while mostly symbolic, represents a modest breakthrough that may lead to greater dividends down the road if direct and reciprocal access to each other’s infrastructure networks is allowed. The re-opening of Armenia’s border with Turkey, closed since 1993, would also represent an important step in the direction of expanding regional interconnectedness.
For over 30 years the South Caucasus has largely been a region in name only, lacking the type of integration that could drive prosperity and help mitigate insecurity. Reincorporating Georgia, once the standard bearer of American engagement in the South Caucasus, into the budding regional economic architecture will be crucial to its long-term success. The recent Georgian delegation visit to Washington offers an encouraging signal that Tbilisi and Washington may reestablish pragmatic working relations. Last year’s trilateral meeting in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi between Deputy Foreign Ministers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia was a positive development—and one that ought to be continued at the level of Foreign Ministers.
On the whole, while favorable conditions had been set before returning to office in January 2025, the Trump Administration ultimately succeeded where previous administrations had failed. Transforming those earlier successes into a long-term and stable U.S. policy in the South Caucasus will be equally as important. No less crucial will be ensuring that America’s involvement in this sensitive region does not lead to further destabilization.
There will undoubtedly be numerous external pitfalls along the way that must be delicately managed, most notably Russian and Iranian interests in the South Caucasus and concerns with the TRIPP project in particular.
In contrast to some fears that Washington is preparing to “grant” Russia a sphere of influence across the former Soviet Union, the U.S. appears instead to be demonstrating that it will respect the security red lines of the other great powers without abandoning America’s economic and political interests. Indeed, as one Russian columnist wrote “There is disappointment, annoyance, and a feeling of helplessness [in Moscow]. Because it is precisely in this region…that Russia’s position has noticeably sunk in recent years.”
For the U.S., this is indeed a fine line to walk, and its success will depend on prudent statesmanship that has been largely unfamiliar to the post-Cold War generation of America’s political elites. Vance’s trip to Armenia and Azerbaijan sends a strong signal that the U.S. attaches a newfound importance to the South Caucasus and the wider region, one that may endure for years to come.
In a Davos speech widely praised for its intellectual rigor and willingness to confront established truths, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney finally laid the fiction of the “rules-based international order” to rest.
The “rules-based order” — or RBIO — was never a neutral description of the post-World War II system of international law and multilateral institutions. Rather, it was a discourse born out of insecurity over the West’s decline and unwillingness to share power. Aimed at preserving the power structures of the past by shaping the norms and standards of the future, the RBIO was invariably something that needed to be “defended” against those who were accused of opposing it, rather than an inclusive system that governed relations between all states.
Burying the false RBIO narrative is an important first step. It can temper the trend toward bloc formation and de-emphasize the counterproductive “democracies vs. autocracies” discourse of recent years — something that was never an accurate description of the emerging global political landscape to begin with. But this only provides a short-term fix. Discarding the RBIO should not be used as an excuse for gradually moving away from the law-centered multilateral system for which there is no comprehensive replacement.
As great power rivalry has deepened over the past decade, international law and global cooperation have suffered. If Carney’s speech serves to build momentum for a middle-power coalition dedicated to renewing and reforming multilateralism, then this would be extremely welcome. But if the purpose of this coalition is merely to pool resources to better survive an uncertain world, then we will not have fundamentally deviated from the current path toward the law of the jungle.
Carney’s remarks provide some cause for optimism. He called for Western states to act consistently by applying “the same standards to allies and rivals.” This may signal a renewed commitment to upholding international law, assuaging fears that retiring the RBIO discourse will not serve as an excuse to pursue cynical pragmatism. Carney also argued against building a “world of fortresses” and committed to pursuing forms of international cooperation that include “the vast majority of nations.”
The “fundamental values” that Carney outlined are relatively minimalistic: respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the basic principles concerning the use of force found in the UN Charter. That said, he also gave a nod to human rights and sustainable development, suggesting that the “variable geometry” — or “different coalitions for different issues” — that he called for will not be an excuse to pursue an international order based on mere coexistence rather than shared goals.
Given how often norms surrounding the use of force have been violated since the end of the Cold War, recommitting to respecting them in word and in deed is no small matter. Moreover, after many decades in which Western countries reserved for themselves the right to set the terms of international engagement and even the very standard of civilization, variable geometry can serve as a stabilizing force. In place of lecturing others through megaphone diplomacy, forging ad hoc partnerships with not always likeminded states is the new name of the game.
However, one issue that did not feature in Carney’s remarks was multilateral reform. The prime minister asserted that his vision was not “naive multilateralism” and would not rely on “diminished institutions.” But while multilateralism may have been associated with utopia building in the post-Cold War era, for many states today it is a form of realpolitik, providing the platform and protection necessary for them to secure their sovereignty and develop their societies.
Carney’s prescriptions rest on his assertion that “we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” But this is only true if we believe that Western hegemony was synonymous with the postwar international order, which it never fully was.
The Soviet Union and China were among the founding powers of the United Nations. Efforts from Third World countries were responsible for the codification of norms such as human rights and self-determination. Yes, the postwar order has gone through several phases — from confrontation to détente to globalization. But the core institutional architecture of the order, centered on the United Nations, has remained in place, even if powerful actors have sometimes preferred to work around it.
As the “Alliance for Multilateralism” during Donald Trump’s first term demonstrated, rhetorical support for global cooperation cannot, on its own, arrest the trend toward international disorder. If multilateral bodies are not reformed to become more inclusive and effective — if they do not come to resemble the world of the future rather than the world of 1945 — then their legitimacy will decline and their relevance will fade away. And contrary to conventional wisdom, with sufficient creativity and political will, rendering the UN fit for the purpose of ensuring peace and security is in fact possible.
States often shy away from the topic of multilateral reform given the difficult political compromises that are inevitably involved. Reforming critical fora such as the UN Security Council — the premier body tasked with upholding international peace and security — is often viewed as a fool’s errand given the veto power that the P5 countries can exercise over any changes to the UN Charter.
But great power rivalry may actually make multilateral reform more rather than less likely, granted that middle powers form a coalition along the lines called for by Carney. In competition with one another for influence in the Global South, the United States, Russia and China may not wish to be seen as the obstacle to a more inclusive order. And if the influence of the Security Council is allowed to decline, the biggest losers will be the P5 countries that occupy a privileged position on the Council.
Rather than P5 obstructionism, one of the main obstacles to reform has been disagreement among all UN members over whether and how to expand the permanent membership of the Council. Some are wary of a scenario in which the Council becomes even more paralyzed than it is today, or where a regional rival comes to occupy a permanent seat. This could be addressed by creating a pool of countries with longer and recurring terms, aimed at compensating those states that fail to obtain a permanent seat and rendering it easier for smaller countries to get elected to non-permanent ones.
To ensure international stability, great powers will need to establish guardrails in their relations amongst themselves. But middle powers will need to make a substantive contribution of their own. They need to secure global support for a compelling vision of multilateral reform that illustrates how a reinvigorated multilateralism can work — and then rally that coalition together to place strong collective pressure on the great powers to embrace reform.
With so much uncertainty about the future, multi-alignment or “variable geometry” may be prudent statecraft. But successfully hedging your bets also requires saving the law-centered multilateral system rather than allowing it to collapse. Taking down the sign of the “rules-based order,” as Carney described it, is one thing. But little will have been achieved unless it is replaced with a better sign.
In the year since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, China hawks have started to panic. Leading lights on U.S. policy toward Beijing now warn that Trump is “barreling toward a bad bargain” with the Chinese Communist Party. Matthew Pottinger, a key architect of Trump’s China policy in his first term, argues that the president has put Beijing in a “sweet spot” through his “baffling” policy decisions.
Even some congressional Republicans have criticized Trump’s approach, particularly following his decision in December to allow the sale of powerful Nvidia AI chips to China. “The CCP will use these highly advanced chips to strengthen its military capabilities and totalitarian surveillance,” argued Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), who chairs the influential Select Committee on Competition with China.
From this wave of criticism, a mainstream narrative has started to emerge: By pursuing deals with Beijing, Trump is abandoning the bipartisan consensus on China that he ushered in during his first term. The president, in other words, has gone soft on China.
But the reality is more complex than this narrative claims. A close examination of Trump’s second-term policies toward China suggests that the president is pursuing a realist, if disorganized, approach to Beijing, according to realist foreign policy analysts who spoke with RS. This may include some uncomfortable concessions, like reducing restrictions on AI chip sales and softening rhetoric about protecting Taiwan. But it doesn’t mean that Trump is poised to surrender Asia to Beijing’s sphere of influence, as some hawks now fear.
The reasons for this apparent shift are varied. Part of it comes down to Trump’s long-standing preference for making deals, as well as his seeming respect for China’s economic dynamism. But another factor is a genuine change in geopolitical reality. China has amassed significant leverage over the U.S., and the Trump administration has chosen to accept that fact.
By recognizing this reality, Trump has created an opportunity to pursue useful compromises with Beijing — and reduce the chances of a catastrophic conflict. “We're talking about two nuclear superpowers,” said Lyle Goldstein, the director of the Asia Program at Defense Priorities. “We want more interdependence, not less.”
When Trump started his second term, he seemed ready to double down on a hawkish approach to China. Days after taking office, the president imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods, which by April had ballooned to 145%.
But then, something remarkable happened: China called Trump’s bluff. Chinese officials announced that they would restrict the export to the U.S. of rare earth minerals, which are crucial for making most modern technology. Soon, American executives started to call Trump in a panic, warning that the new Chinese restrictions would force them to shut down factories, as Ford and Suzuki soon did.
“That might have been a very powerful lesson for the president,” Goldstein said. Trump seemed to be relying on advisers who believed the U.S. had “all the leverage” in the relationship with China, and that Beijing would fold under pressure. “I have to believe that the president started to have some doubts about the China advice he was getting,” Goldstein told RS.
Soon after, the president began to reshape his foreign policy team. Trump sidelined hawks like former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong. And, as part of his overall restructuring of the national security bureaucracy, he fired career China hands on the National Security Council and at the State Department.
This recalibration appears to have empowered realist thinkers in Trump’s orbit. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby survived the culling and now argues that the U.S. must avoid “needless confrontation” and pursue a “stable, peaceful relationship” with China. Andy Baker, who is considered an ideological ally of Colby’s, took Wong’s place on the National Security Council. Andrew Byers, who wrote in 2024 that the U.S. should pursue a carefully calibrated “cold peace” with China, has maintained an influential role as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia.
With this restructured team in place, Trump has pursued a less confrontational approach. He announced that he would allow Nvidia to sell high-quality (albeit not top-of-the-line) AI chips to Chinese companies, so long as the U.S. government got a cut of the profits. The White House also slowrolled a forced sale of TikTok and walked back its threat to cancel visas for Chinese students studying at American universities, which many hawks consider a national security threat. And Trump started hyping the possibility of a “big deal” with Beijing.
China hardliners have interpreted these moves as a willingness to sell out key U.S. interests in East Asia. But their fears are overstated, according to John Mearsheimer, a prominent realist scholar at the University of Chicago. Trump “is bent on containing China,” he told RS. “That means he does not want China to dominate East Asia.”
As evidence of this commitment, Mearsheimer pointed to Trump’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, both of which highlight the administration’s desire to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, even if they focus first on U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. Trump is using “less confrontational rhetoric, which I believe is all for the good,” Mearsheimer added. “But if you look at the actual policy, nothing of any significance has changed.” (As Goldstein noted, Trump has not made any significant changes to America’s military posture in East Asia, which is largely designed to contain Chinese ambitions in the region.)
Still, there is little doubt that Republican hawks are struggling to gain sway with Trump in the early days of his second term, said Paul Heer, the former lead U.S. intelligence officer for East Asia. As Heer put it, hardliners “have no idea yet, one year in, how strong their voice is within this administration.”
China hawks have framed Trump’s willingness to deal with Beijing as evidence that he is pursuing a sort of grand bargain. In the worst case, they fear that the administration will abandon Taiwan in order to facilitate a broader detente with China. These concerns have only increased in the lead-up to Trump’s expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April.
But there is scant evidence that such a deal is in the offing. As Heer pointed out, a grand bargain would require extraordinary levels of patience and persistence — two qualities that few would ascribe to Trump.
There is also a genuine divergence in American and Chinese interests in East Asia, which makes any sort of lasting detente unlikely, according to Mearsheimer. “If I were the national security adviser in Beijing, I would urge Xi Jinping to do everything he can to dominate East Asia,” he said.
“Any sort of cooperative agreements that are worked out between Xi and Trump are certainly all for the good,” Mearsheimer continued. “But you always want to remember that any cooperative agreement takes place in the shadow of an intense security competition between these two states.”
Even these limited deals can deliver concrete wins for U.S. interests. Following the Trump-Xi meeting in October of last year, for example, China agreed to crack down on the export of precursor chemicals that Mexican cartels use to make fentanyl. A continued cooling of tensions could open a path to deals that increase trade opportunities for American companies and expand channels for communication during potential crises.
In order to facilitate this cold peace, Goldstein recommended that Trump and Xi should establish a regular series of meetings in which they can discuss key issues. “This summit that's occurring in April is long overdue,” he said. “We should institutionalize a bilateral summit. This should be a very normal thing.”
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