How America Can Regain Its Edge in Great-Power Competition

From the start of his term as U.S. president, Donald Trump rang the alarm about the return of great-power competition. His administration’s first National Security Strategy emphasized that adversaries of the United States were seeking to erode its position in the international order. This outlook was relatively novel at the time, but today, much of the broader U.S. foreign policy community shares Trump’s basic assessment. The competition has only intensified in the years since. The United States’ rivals and enemies—particularly China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—are increasingly cooperating with one another and acting more aggressively. From Europe to the Middle East, they are creating policy dilemmas and raising risks for Washington.

If Trump returns to the White House, he will step into a more hazardous geopolitical arena than the one he left four years earlier. Simply resuming the foreign policy of his first term will not be sufficient to navigate a complex environment in which U.S. rivals are arming at a rapid pace and, in the case of Russia and Iran, are engaged in regional wars. This is no longer just a competition; today’s conflicts could be a prelude to a wider war.

A second Trump administration would need to adjust its mindset to ensure that the United States can protect itself and restore deterrence in an increasingly dangerous world. It would need to adopt a strategy of overmatch, a military concept that refers to combining capabilities in sufficient scale to ensure lopsided victories over the enemy in combat. To achieve overmatch, U.S. forces must be able to seize the initiative, maintain their freedom of action, and find ways to limit the country’s adversaries to reactive measures. Applying this approach more broadly, the United States must now seek to retain or develop sizable advantages in military power, political influence, and economic strength over its adversaries.

Realistically, the United States will struggle to achieve such overwhelming capabilities in every theater of today’s geopolitical competition. Bureaucratic sclerosis, for one thing, will be a persistent drag on any sweeping strategy. But Trump, with his competitive instincts, inclination to disrupt the status quo, and sense of urgency, could be the kind of leader to push the United States much closer to where it needs to be. As president, he would need to build up the country’s military capabilities, fortify the domestic industrial base and reduce foreign economic dependencies, and consolidate key political alliances, all in service of strengthening the United States’ hand in the face of mounting geopolitical risks. Trump helped to reset the U.S. strategic mindset once. If he wins another term, new circumstances demand that he do so again.

THE DEFENSE DIMENSION

Great-power competition goes beyond a military contest. It is unfolding across geographies, as seen in China’s increasing involvement in Latin America to advance its interests close to the American homeland. It includes proxy warfare, as Iran, for example, uses its patronage of groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to fuel violence in the Middle East and threaten vital commercial sea-lanes as part of Tehran’s quest for regional dominance. Competition is also heating up in space, where Russia and North Korea are cooperating on the development, deployment, and use of advanced satellites to conduct space warfare.

The United States’ response to such developments has been lethargic. Outdated policy frameworks persist, such as Cold War–era export-control regimes that slow arms sales and impede cooperation with allies. U.S. administrations have recognized the country’s perilous dependence on external supplies of critical minerals for the past four decades, but that recognition has not translated into serious action to address the vulnerability. The most recent defense authorization bill points out that the Pentagon continues to underutilize its authority to buy critical materials from domestic sources. Meanwhile, reforms to expedite permits for the opening of mines in the United States remain stalled.

A second Trump administration would need to adjust to an increasingly dangerous world.

Strengthening the United States’ military position is key to an overmatch strategy, since military power is what undergirds and secures the country’s economic and political advantages. The country’s future prosperity would be undercut if its adversaries achieved primacy or if a global conflict were to break out. Today, U.S. military power has declined relative to other powers; a recent bipartisan report notes that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is on a path to becoming “a peer, if not superior, military competitor of the United States.” To reverse this trend, Washington needs to develop sufficient capabilities to deter acts of aggression that threaten its other interests. This means that the United States must have the ability—and credibly signal its willingness if need be—to wage sustained military campaigns in multiple theaters.

Such capacity is necessary first to reestablish deterrence, and then to defeat foreign adversaries should deterrence fail. Reaching this level of military capacity would require a major departure from Washington’s current defense planning, which is essentially based on fighting a single major conflict. The steps to get there are demanding but necessary. A Trump White House would need to explain to the American people why higher defense spending is needed and then work with Congress to secure bipartisan backing to fund a new defense program on a similar scale to the buildup the Reagan administration oversaw in the last decade of the Cold War.

The point is not to match every capability of every adversary, platform by platform. Rather, the United States should develop advanced warfighting capabilities that give it asymmetric advantages over its opponents. In Ukraine, drones have disabled or neutralized Russian tanks and warships, and Russian forces have found it difficult to defend against these incoming strikes. In a potential conflict over Taiwan, long-range antiship missiles and intermediate-range cruise and ballistic missiles could undercut China’s advantages in geography and quantity of weapons. With superior technology and innovative operational concepts, the U.S. military can confound enemy war plans and lower the risk of its forces’ being overwhelmed and induced to capitulate at the start of a conflict.

THE ECONOMIC AGENDA

Better weapons, tactics, and operational concepts are only part of the puzzle. Overmatch in the military domain also requires that the United States can replenish its manpower, materiel, and munitions at a sufficiently high rate to prevail in a sustained conflict. To do so, the United States must cultivate its economic advantages. Washington ought to strive for greater economic sovereignty, including by diminishing U.S. dependence on critical materials imported from unfriendly and unreliable countries.

The biggest step the United States should take in this direction is to incentivize investments in domestic industry, particularly in sectors that will strengthen the manufacturing base and help Washington establish greater control over the supply chains that support military production. Part of the solution is imposing tariffs to protect key sectors, such as advanced batteries. Tariffs can help counter China’s subsidies and dumping practices and to encourage private companies to move their investments out of China and back to the United States or to U.S. partner countries. But tariffs alone are not enough. Making U.S. manufacturing globally competitive will also require lowering the cost of doing business in the United States. A new administration should streamline the process of environmental and other reviews, which add years to the timeline for opening new facilities, and introduce export tax incentives and other programs to make production in the United States a more attractive option for companies.

A commitment to reindustrialization would undercut China’s efforts to weaken the United States. Chinese companies flood U.S. markets with cheap or subsidized products in strategic sectors such as steel and aluminum, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, critical minerals, solar cells, ship-to-shore cranes, and medical products. This crowds out domestic production and causes job losses. The U.S. military also relies too much on Chinese-made goods. For example, China produces over 90 percent of the world’s rare-earth permanent magnets, which are vital components of many U.S. military systems. Building one of the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke–class guided-missile destroyers requires nearly 5,200 pounds of rare-earth material, including the magnets used in the ship’s propulsion system, guidance systems, and weapons. This reliance makes the United States vulnerable; as long as Beijing effectively controls the inputs for manufacturing American weapons and military systems, the United States may not be able to outmatch China in a potential conflict.

The competition paradigm is insufficient in an era of skyrocketing risks.

In addition, the United States must pursue what the first Trump administration often referred to as “energy dominance,” which entailed increasing U.S. production of shale oil and natural gas through a combination of deregulation and technological innovation. Having already overtaken Russia to become the largest producer of natural gas in 2011, the United States became the world’s largest oil producer in 2018, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration has reversed several of Trump’s policies, shifting focus to action on climate change. In a second term, Trump would be determined to take advantage of the United States’ abundant supplies of oil and gas, which could also offer opportunities to support European and other allies. As Trump said in 2017 at a summit with central and eastern European leaders in Poland, “If one of you need energy, just give us a call.” In addition to making use of oil and gas, a new Trump administration’s energy strategy would likely include greenlighting next-generation fission and fusion projects and modernizing energy infrastructure.

A return to a policy of energy dominance, which acknowledges the central role of fossil fuels until other sources can both meet energy needs and do so at a competitive price, would allow the United States to break out of a harmful cycle with China. As the United States and Europe look to replace oil with alternative energy, they turn to China as the world’s leading provider of solar, wind, and battery products. But it is because these countries are buying up Chinese products that China has been able to drive technological advances, develop its supply chains and manufacturing, and create scale, which in turn entrench Chinese control of the sector. U.S. energy security thus becomes increasingly dependent on China. This is not overmatch. By instead leaning on fossil fuels as the United States’ principal energy source while giving renewable industries time to build up in Western countries, Washington can increase its room for maneuver. It can reduce its vulnerabilities to coercion and reinforce alignments with allies and friends, reclaiming U.S. influence over the geopolitics of energy.

Working with U.S. partners and allies will be essential to an overmatch strategy. In particular, the new administration should negotiate bilateral trade deals with countries endowed with crucial resources. The list includes Australia, which has abundant supplies of critical minerals; Arab countries with abundant capital; India and Israel, with their educated and dynamic workforces; and traditional U.S. allies in Asia and Europe. A realist trade policy should both recognize the potency of economic relationships as geopolitical tools and seek reciprocity for the United States. Rather than setting a global trade agenda through the World Trade Organization, Washington should focus on bilateral or regional arrangements. The United States can more easily hold its partners to the terms of such deals—and this approach is one that already resonates with Trump.

FRIENDS NEEDED

Cultivating the United States’ political relationships can help advance the country’s economic and military objectives. A Trump administration would need to recognize that part of an overmatch strategy is having more and better friends than one’s adversaries. The United States already has an advantage here: it has more to offer potential allies than China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. Washington’s adversaries have proxies, clients, dependents, and vassals rather than actual friends. Leaning into this advantage can yield economic benefits and investment opportunities, helping the United States disentangle from China.

But to achieve overmatch, American allies must be committed to actively restoring deterrence by developing hard military capabilities and prioritizing the integration necessary to ensure that U.S. and allied militaries can fight together. Europe currently produces some 172 different weapons platforms, so achieving this integration will be difficult, but it is an important step toward what the outgoing head of NATO’s Military Committee has described as the alliance’s urgently needed “warfighting transformation.” The United States should also make clear that its partners on the frontlines of potential conflicts must carry the burden of first response, whereas the U.S. role is to provide reinforcement and specialized capabilities.

Some U.S. allies, particularly those in Europe, have been tempted to seek a middle way that balances their ties to the United States with their economic relationships with China and Russia. But Washington should push back against their efforts to avoid taking sides. As the foreign policy expert Wess Mitchell has recently argued, the United States needs to create a unified front against Chinese mercantilism. The Biden administration has taken steps in this direction, but the next president should encourage partner countries to make such cooperation more systematic and comprehensive.

Washington should also consider building political ties beyond its traditional partnerships. To get things done faster, it should emphasize bilateral engagement and small coalitions rather than trying to work through sprawling multilateral processes. The United States should also forge new economic relationships with developing countries. A Trump administration is likely to adopt a more sober attitude toward climate change than its predecessor, based on the recognition that rapid decarbonization has come with unacceptable economic costs for less developed nations. This thinking aligns with the outlook of many developing countries that are determined not to let international pressure to decarbonize get in the way of efforts to boost economic growth and reduce poverty. Trump can leverage this resolve by working with these countries on realistic plans to achieve growth while diversifying energy sources, bringing them into closer alignment with the United States and reducing their reliance on China for economic support.

POLICY RESET

The goal of an overmatch strategy is not to achieve primacy. That era has passed. U.S. relative power has declined as other countries’ military strength and asymmetric advantages have grown. The first Trump administration took an important and necessary step to adjust to new geopolitical realities by framing the world as a competitive place where the contest among great powers drives international politics. These assumptions still guide much of the U.S. government’s policies today. But the competition paradigm has not been enough to keep pace in an era of skyrocketing risks. If Washington is to retain its freedom of action and protect the liberties Americans have long enjoyed, it needs an overmatch strategy to meet the urgency of the times.