The leaders of the United States and the CCP recently met on American soil to discuss their interests and differences.

The optics did not get things off to a good start. The unintended but necessary consequences of progressive American domestic policy were washed, scrubbed, and removed for a guest, Chinese president Xi Jinping, whose country is intentionally flooding the United States with the very drug causing the problem that requires the cleanup. To summon Solzhenitsyn and his judgment from heaven: “Buddha smiled.”

It’s as if the Chinese had scrubbed Hong Kong for a state visit by Queen Victoria during the Opium Wars – and then celebrated, as a victory for their statecraft, her non-binding assurances to do something to curtail the opium trade.

Our present “progressive” foreign policy is just as destructive as our progressive domestic policy, and it comes with consequences to blood, treasure, and status. Our decline on the world stage started with President Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Vladimir Putin, China, and Iran drew conclusions about the status of American power, the consequences of which are unfolding and adding up to our undoing.

Putin was the first to test American resolve. The Russian president had made it clear that Ukraine was not under any circumstances to enter NATO. This was a non-negotiable red line. In 2014, when Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president, Putin invaded Crimea to secure Russia’s continued access and dominance in the Black Sea. Our response to Russian aggression: nothing. And our doing nothing shaped Putin’s expectations going forward. On August 22, 2021, Vlad took the time—around three hours—to lay out his red-line-mindset at the Valdai Club, a Russian think tank. On February 24, 2022, he made good on it and invaded Ukraine.

Then came October 7, 2023: a reordering of the geopolitical chess board that favored Putin and Iran directly, and China indirectly.

To Putin’s surprise, the United States and Europe did not fold. We militarily supported Ukraine, possibly blew up a Russian gas pipeline, and used the global banking system to put the screws to the Russia economy. The unintended consequence of doing the latter was to create the conditions to challenge America’s economic hegemony. If the U.S. was going to use the global banking system and the dollar as a means of pursuing its military objectives, China, India, Russia, Iran, and Brazil saw the need for another choice and rival. We don’t hear much about this on cable news. But this is a dark cloud out of which a future economic tempest may erupt.

It’s been a long and expensive war that appears to be fighting to a draw. Both Russia and Ukraine are weakened. Putin was pushed back but not expelled. He has shown no signs of calling it quits. And neither has the United States, in its support of Ukraine.

Then came October 7, 2023. Iran, working through its Hezbollah cutouts, gave Vlad a birthday present: a reordering of the geopolitical chess board that favored Putin and Iran directly, and China indirectly. By October 18, the global version of the Arab Street—in Paris, London, and New York—was on fire, and with it any hope for Arab/ Israeli rapprochement went up in flames.

Biden’s European coalition is showing signs of strain because the president has been unwilling to put Israel on a leash. The same divisions are growing at home. October 7 put the screws to Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s oligarchs: Just look at your homegrown resistance to Israel, Putin might say. This is what your gift to Harvard and DNC is getting you. Why should the Democratic Party’s oligarchs fund the rope intended to hang them? These questions are being answered on terms that will upset party cohesion in the runup to the 2024 presidential election.

All good news for Putin. His short-, mid- and long-term conditions and odds have greatly improved since October 7.

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Good news for Iran, too. Tehran’s brazen use of terrorist cutouts in Syria and Iran to bomb American assets in the region is an open dare to the United States to join the larger regional conflict and fight a two-front war. These are the best conceivable conditions for Iran’s River to the Sea, Death to America, Muslim millenarianism to flourish.

And whatever drains the United States’ might—and undermines its claim to moral rectitude on the world stage—is good news for China. A two-front war decreases the risk, and therefore increases the likelihood, of a military option with Taiwan. China’s odds against American forces in Taiwan tangibly improve in a three-front-war scenario.

In summary, the conditions for American supremacy are not good. We remain the world’s superpower in name, but the reality is being undermined internally and externally. Second place, for Americans, should be an unacceptable designation. But the United States is on the ropes.

If I were Joe Biden’s cornerman, here is what I’d tell him. Mr. President, we need you to win. Continuing our way of life requires success. When you hit the mat, we hit the mat. We rise and fall together. We don’t know that it is like to be Number Two, and we don’t want to find out. 

separate China’s claim on Taiwan’s geography from its people and its economy. 

We need to turn our strategy on its head. That starts with China.

China and the man who leads it are an adversary to be respected. Let’s not lie to ourselves. By all Machiavellian indices, China is winning in the short-, mid- and long-term fight. If we continue doing what we are doing, China will eclipse the United States without firing a shot.

 Alright. So, what’s the new play with China? Make a deal.

Let’s offer them a deal they want without the firing of shot and without any global community and economic backlash: separate China’s claim on Taiwan’s geography from its people and its economy. It’s a given that China would like to absorb the 20th-largest economy and its stellar human capital through reunification. Fortunately, it’s a hard case for even the CCP to make publicly.

Many will stay by choice. Many will leave by choice. This is as it should be.

Instead of threatening war, let the United States lead a global coalition of countries, offering the Taiwanese a choice to vote with their feet against reunification on a reasonable timeline and agreed-upon terms.

Not everyone or every business in Taiwan will take the offer. All will look to the Hong Kong example and draw their own conclusions as to where their individual and corporate interests reside. Also, China will certainly seek to provide assurances about the upside of reunification in order to stem the outgoing flow of talent and capital. Many will stay by choice. Many will leave by choice. This is as it should be.

For the United States, this is an industrial-policy opportunity that would do much to make America great again, and quickly. And it has the added benefit of avoiding a war that the United States should not want to fight – but that China is preparing to fight.

This a deal much better than war, and it offers upsides for China, the Taiwanese, the United States, and those wise enough to follow our enlightened example. This is red-line diplomacy done right.

Next priority on our list is Russia, and the one Russian who matters most, Putin. Let’s make him an honorable offer, too: Russia retreats to its 2014 annexation borders. The price of Ukraine not entering NATO is that Russia is on the hook for a Marshall Plan-level of reconstruction funding. Larry Summers and Tribe have come up with a rationalization to confiscate Russia frozen assets already, so let’s make it a down payment on a deal. The Ukrainians have proven more than capable of defending themselves. They will remain outside of NATO but well-armed. Let’s put this matter behind us.

What about Iran? This is an enemy of a different class. The Iranian regime and the modern world are at odds. Prior to October 7, the Arab world was making its peace with Israel. America needs to act against this declared “Death to America” foe in a manner that revives the post Abraham Accords promise of peace for the Middle East. 

It’s time for the United States to think differently about its kinetic arsenal. It’s time to put Colin Powell’s “if you break it, you own it” mindset behind us. Let’s decapitate the Iranian regime—its leadership, its army, its revolutionary guard, its bankers, enablers, and all vestiges of its nuclear program. Let’s give them a shock-and-awe reboot of the Iranian regime and set the conditions for a purple revolution.

 Our goal ought to be to destroy Iran’s bellicose capacity—and leave its postwar reconstruction to Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab states. We should make it publicly clear that we have no interest in occupying Iran, and that after laying the required preconditions for peace, the United States will draw down its forces and presence in the region. We’re going home.

During this time, any nation that supports Iran or gives safe harbor to its proxies will be held responsible and pay an immediate price. Lebanon—I’m looking at you. You need to find and secure all those Iranian missiles. You know the who and the where. If you don’t, we’re coming for you. This “River to the Sea” redline is going to be erased. Israel’s existence is assured.

This is what redline diplomacy, American-style, looks like. It’s a recipe for peace—and for staying Number One.