In 1999, the Clinton administration and NATO spent three months bombing Serbia. In 2003, the Bush administration invaded Iraq. In 2011, the Obama administration overthrew the government of Libya, and began arming the opposition to the Syrian government in Damascus. In 2014, neoconservative diplomats such as Victoria Nuland openly supported the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine and sought to expand NATO to the borders of Russia.
Even the Trump administration has come close to being hijacked by the neoconservatives in order to start a war with Iran. None of these countries ever came close to doing what China has done which is to take away our freedom. This is not to say that China did this intentionally (they did not) but the negligence of Beijing and the apathy to the spread of the coronavirus can only be construed as a profoundly hostile and unfriendly act (to say the least).
The weapon of mass destruction that has done so much damage to the world did not come from Iraq, but from a bat in China. China is a huge and powerful country so there is not much the United States or anyone else can do. The plague has exposed the wars of the past twenty years as being completely futile in terms of national security.
The United States must forget about Russia and Iran. It must focus politically and diplomatically on China. It appears that life here may never be the same for quite some time. As long as that is the case, Washington must make clear to Beijing that relations with China will never be the same either.
The Trump administration appears to have done the right thing in defunding the World Health Organization, an institution clearly under the influence of Beijing. Warnings about the spread of the virus to Taiwan were completely ignored by WHO and its Director General in January even denied the virus could be spread from person to person. Taiwan took immediate action to stop the spread among its own population and has been quite successful.
The contrast between the responsible behavior of Taiwan and China’s complete indifference toward the rest of the world are in huge contrast. Washington must reevaluate relations with China and make clear that as long as the Communist Party remains in power there will be no return to the friendly relations that once existed.
The wars of the past twenty years from Serbia to Syria will now haunt Washington which now finds itself at the mercy of a much more powerful country that it cannot confront in the same manner as it did these much smaller countries that never had the ability to do what China has done (and done only by negligence).