JRL NEWSWATCH: “The United States Should Not Align With Russia Against China; Authoritarians make bad allies-and Washington already has the stable and democratic friends it needs” – Foreign Policy/ Matthew Kroenig

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“… The growing Russian and Chinese strategic relationship is worrying. The two autocratic powers have cooperated on major energy deals, including a blockbuster $55 billion arrangement to pipe Siberian natural gas into China. … and Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping … [having] high-level summits … Xi … declared Putin ‘his best friend and colleague.’ Perhaps most troubling … have [been] … joint military exercises in both Europe and Asia. … But Russia and China will not form an effective alliance against the United States anytime soon.  … The ease with which unconstrained dictators rapidly shift … policies, backtrack on commitments, and dissemble … [is not] conducive to … international partnerships. … [H]istory shows … autocratic allies tend to fight each other more than the enemy. In spite of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Adolf Hitler turned on and invaded the Soviet Union, betraying his partner Joseph Stalin. The major military action of the Warsaw Pact … was attacking its own members, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The last time China and Russia were aligned, they nearly fought a nuclear war with each other in the 1969 … border conflict. … Putin invaded Ukraine and Georgia … when these countries were involved in the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States. …”

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