This is a hallmark of great power competition: Competitive initiatives like AUKUS provide visible ways to counter or balance or complicate China’s military activities but don’t necessarily help allies meet defined objectives. More often, competition becomes an end in itself — an open-ended imperative that assumes everything an opponent dislikes must be good policy.Another common feature of competitive policies is that officials tend to overlook their costs.For one thing, AUKUS carries significant diplomatic costs at a time when the United States is in desperate need of credibility with its allies. France views AUKUS as “a knife in …
