we will need to relearn a lesson of history that we largely forgot during our three decades of uncontested dominance: that great powers are capable of limiting one another’s ambitions and rendering many of each other’s goals impractical or unachievable, regardless of how desirable those goals may be for one side or the other. Great powers force each other to define their core interests, the things each is truly willing to fight over, and then make compromises and accommodations as necessary over the rest, lest competition descend into conflict. This is the messy, unsatisfying, and
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