the three main power assets the United States needs to counter China—a free world economic bloc, security community, and democracy protection regime—would be crippled by a breakdown of order in Europe that consumes and divides America’s allies there. China projects its influence across multiple regions and aims to achieve global primacy. Competing with Beijing requires rallying an international alliance of leading democracies, and many of the world’s most powerful liberal states are European. That alliance will not stand if Europe falls into chaos.
