Looking back to the Cold War, most analyses, including American intelligence estimates, underappreciated the systemic weakness of the Soviet Union before the precipitous fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Currently, many over-appreciate systemic weaknesses in China linked to demographic decline, debt, and large migrant populations, among other issues, as signs of distress. Today, strategic analyses miss a possible leadership transition in China or gloss over the domestic fissures in American society. Therefore, it is critically important, now more than ever, to question conventional strategic assumptions and logic. Otherwise, the U.S. will be caught by surprise and face utter disappointment with its China policy once again in the not-too-distant future.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
