The more one expects the West to come to terms with the Eastward shifting of global power and reorient its policies accordingly, especially with the liberal-democratic world order coming under stress from authoritarian China, the more one is startled at the American propensity to not just refuse to make the necessary amends but also repeat the same, old mistakes way too often. The Ukraine war quite perfectly sums up the US foreign policy faux pas, wherein the Americans have managed to create an enemy out of a potential ally in Vladimir Putin against Xi Jinping’s obnoxiously hegemonistic empire. But if...