both appear to have suspended efforts to give coexistence an operational expression and are turning instead toward sharpening rivalry. Will the world slide toward conflict as in the run-up to the First World War, when Europe inadvertently constructed a diplomatic doomsday machine that made each succeeding crisis progressively more difficult to solve until, finally, it blew up – destroying civilization as it was then perceived? Or will the two behemoths rediscover a definition of coexistence that is meaningful in terms of each side’s conception of its greatness and of its core interests?
