Nov. 4, 2020
13. Competing Visions and Actions by China, Russia, and the United States in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic
This chapter reviews the contours of Great Power competition across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic; it traces the motivation and scale as well as receptivity to, and potential repercussions of, Chinese and Russian activities across these regions. It finds the challenge of these two competitors to be distinct, the risks to U.S. interests to be uneven across and within each region, and, ultimately, regional states’ cooperation with China and Russia to rarely be grounded in an ideological commitment to Beijing’s global vision or Moscow’s cynicism. This points to the need for parallel strategies that appreciate the diverse challenges China and Russia pose, a broader recalibration of U.S. regional interests that moves beyond the post-9/11 focus on counterterrorism, and a discerning strategic approach that avoids pulling U.S. regional partners into an unrestricted, zero-sum competition.