Choosing Victory

Ten days ago, I started this newsletter with the modest hope that a handful of China watchers might find value in my occasional dispatches from the trenches of strategic competition. Today, 200 of you have signed up — including four sitting Ambassadors who apparently think there's something in here worth reading.

Your enthusiasm has convinced me it's time to give this project a name that reflects its broader ambition:

Choosing Victory.

It turns out there are only so many names that evoke choice amid competition… “Decision Points” and “Hard Choices” were already taken.

In Choosing Victory, Beltway natives will see an obvious link to the American Enterprise Institute's 2007 Iraq Study. That report, written as sectarian violence consumed Baghdad, argued that the United States could not afford to accept defeat in a war it had chosen to fight.

But this is not 2007, and China is not Iraq. The stakes today are higher, the timeline longer, and the consequences of miscalculation even greater. Where the Iraq Study addressed a war of choice that had already gone sideways, the United States today faces a competition that will define the next half-century of global order — with profound consequences for generations of Americans.

In 2025, Choosing Victory is not about fixing yesterday's mistakes; it is about making tomorrow's right decisions for the right reasons. Choosing victory demands articulating a sensible vision of American leadership in the world — one that each of us is able to take pride in after decades trapped in the vocabulary of managed decline.

This newsletter will be a space dedicated to thinking seriously about the stakes of U.S.-China competition, defining a coherent theory of victory, and exploring the difficult choices that will contribute to our success or failure.

Every week, you can expect deep-dives on the decision points shaping U.S.-China rivalry: the technology controls that will sculpt the future of the global economy, the alliance structures that will anchor global stability, and the military capabilities that will preserve peace in the Pacific. Occasionally, I'll venture beyond the bilateral relationship to examine the nature of diplomacy, strategy, and the architecture of global power.

Thanks for joining me on this journey. The task is enormous, but the stakes demand nothing less than our best effort.

— Ryan