China’s Endgame: The Path Towards Global Leadership

Are you suggesting that your definition of individual leadership should be applied to nation states at the geopolitical level? I don't think that model applies there. :) We should not place other nations before the United States unless it ultimately serves our interests.

China is already acting like a "bully" and using an all-of-nation approach to grab as much influence as it can. They use economic enticements, bribery, blackmail, propaganda, and many other levers large and small to get other "tributary nations" (as they consider them) to submit to Chinese interests.

Lastly, you equate TPP and PCA, by virtue of their consensus, as agreements worth keeping "however detrimental to the U.S." This is flawed thinking. The U.S. should never just adopt policy because its supported by other countries. The primary variable should be how those policies benefit the United States. Case in point, there's a reason China supports the PCA; because it would hobble the United States economically at 0 expense to China.

Yes, individual leadership applies readily to this context. Humans are human in any context. I do think there is valid reasons for acting against international accords contrary to US interests. However, simply designating tit for tat as the only means of guiding geopolitics is flawed. It yields policies similar to American support of Latin American dictators seen throughout the 20th Century.

Affording nations value based only on what they can provide the US is form of parsing only useful to a "bully." Promoting democratic values does not ultimately serve our interest but we still engage with this ideal as it is seen as a morally correct decision. A removal of this and other policies that support humanitarian goals would make us no different than China and their expansionist goals.

But to my initial point, protectionist policies will not continue America's dominance on world politics. Much like the TPP has now evolved to the CPTPP without the United States, the world will continue to march onwards if the US decides to pull up tariffs as if it is the only economic engine other countries need for growth.

Except individual leadership, and specifically the military model you mention, involves a dynamic with close social and professional bonds among the parties. You can't just apply that model to geopolitics where the primary obligation of the nation state is to its own citizens. What would that look like? Our leaders having an "obligation" to sacrifice for the citizens of China just as much as our own? That doesn't make any sense.

And yet this does not mean at all, as you suggest, that this would lead to predatory intervention into other nation's affairs. Just as good neighbors respect one another's property, so can countries acknowledge one another's rights while pursuing the interests of their respective nations.