Internal challenges within the US and the PRC seem more likely than external events to determine the overall outcome of their strategic competition, but the broader Pacific context now seems to be nudging incrementally in favor of the US/Western position.
And what does that mean for the next era of strategic alliances? A new NATO? A new period of diminished cooperation between the US and Mexico, the US and European NATO, and so on?
Perhaps the “experiment” in universal, forced literacy, has been a failure, an historical blip. Literacy is in retreat because of technology and because inquiring minds challenge leadership patterns. Yet intellectual capacity— signified by literacy— determines strategic success. What is to be done?
