american government is an insurance conglomerate protected by a large standing army. and soon that might well be true. american retreat will not produce a better world. it will be messier and uglier. at a time when these forces of entropy intensify, when america does face real constraints on what it can do internationally, the wisest strategy would be to bolster the international institutions and norms that washington built after world war ii. both to maintain some degree of stability and order, but also to preserve and extend american interests and values. the smartest path to constraining china comes not from a head-on policy of containment, but rather from a subtle one that forces beijing to remain enmeshed and interdependent with other countries. china recognizes this and tries hard to free itself of multilateral groups preferring to deal one-on-one with countries where its power will always overshadow the negotiating partner. and yet nothing animates the