Now Donald Trump is dismantling the order that Putin had so long abhorred, and a new multipolar world is emerging in its place. Putin had thought he could rise to the top of such a system, in which raw economic and military might outweigh diplomacy and alliances. But he was mistaken: The norms and institutions of the postwar order actually masked Russia's vulnerabilities.
The negotiations offer an occasion to stop to consider how China went from technological backwater to superpower in less than half a lifetime, and an opportunity for the United States to learn from that success. U.S. companies can work to regain hardware-manufacturing expertise, absorb knowledge and talent from some of China's best companies, and shift their approach toward AI, encouraging more practical applications and open-source innovation. The United States must accept that we can be better while not relinquishing our strengths.