Tobin Harshaw, Columnist

How the U.S. Can Navigate an Ever-Scarier World

A Q&A with former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig on China, “soft power” and endless war.

Brothers in arms.

Photographer: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

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Anybody who pays attention to the global security scene knows we are in a whole new world — one variously called the “post-post Cold War era,” the “return of great-power conflict” and the “struggle between liberalism and authoritarianism.”

But what does any of this really mean? The end of the U.S.-led global order? A hegemonic China? The rise of so-called illiberal democracy? That we can no longer rely on McDonald’s to bring world peace? (Actually, that one didn’t work out so well.)