Sisyphus rocks

And other challenges of foreign policy

Physical systems tend toward configurations with the least potential energy. A ball at the top of a hill, if not restrained, will roll down the hill and come to rest at the bottom, where it has less potential energy. An airplane can be kept in the air but only by the constant input of energy. If the plane runs out of fuel, down it comes. A building constructed of wood has to be protected against fire, for the carbon in the wood can reduce its potential energy by combining with oxygen in the air. A building made of stone doesn’t have the same problem.

Political systems exhibit a similar tendency. Other things being equal, two adjacent states occupying a region require more energy to maintain than one. Governmental structures are duplicated. Longer borders must be defended, including the border separating the two states. Over time, the two states are likely to become one: through conquest or less forceful amalgamation.

It’s important to note that these are simply tendencies, not inevitabilities. The ball can be restrained at the top of the hill. Airplanes do fly and most don’t crash. Wooden buildings sometimes last for centuries.

Likewise in politics. Countervailing forces can keep adjacent states separate. They may be occupied by people with no love for each other. They may be under the protection of opposing empires.

Yet tendencies matter. At least since the Enlightenment it has been the dream of liberal thinkers that states can live in peace, each with the others. Americans have often imagined that if other countries followed the American lead and embraced democracy, their expansive and acquisitive tendencies would dissipate. Most Americans who adopted this view didn’t closely examine their country’s history, for the high tide of American expansion coincided with America’s own embrace of democracy in the nineteenth century.

There was some evidence of the pacifying effect of democracy. Democratic Germany after World War II was less aggressive than fascist Germany had been. Likewise for Japan. But the evidence wasn’t unambiguous. Large numbers of U.S. troops occupied postwar Germany and Japan, leaving those countries no alternative to peaceful behavior.

Moreover, democracy didn’t transplant easily. South Vietnam never became democratic. Its government was assailed by insurgents as much as by invaders from North Vietnam. Americans eventually tired of the effort and expense required to keep the two states apart, and the North conquered the South. Americans sought to establish democracy in Iraq. When that effort stalled, Washington acquiesced in Iraq’s falling under the influence of Iran.

Americans briefly had hopes for democracy in Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the successor regime in Moscow held elections and donned other trappings of democracy. Yet even as Washington hoped for the best, it prepared for the worst. It took East Germany, Poland, Hungary and several other countries of the old Soviet bloc into NATO. American leaders presented membership as an innocuous matter of diplomacy, but both the new members and Russia read it as an insurance policy against a revival of Russian assertiveness.

American support for Ukraine came later. Washington condemned the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014. After the Russian invasion of central Ukraine in 2022, the United States sent military aid to Ukraine. It continues to do so.

The American aid has allowed Ukraine to keep fighting. More aid presumably would extend Ukrainian resistance, perhaps indefinitely. But it appears increasingly unlikely that American aid will suffice to allow Ukraine to win decisively.

For Americans, the question is: How long will we keep that rock from rolling down the hill? The implicit answer American voters gave in November is: Not much longer. Donald Trump spoke repeatedly about ending the Ukraine war. And he won.

A comparable question applies to Taiwan. In no foreseeable future is Taiwan likely to be able to defend itself, by itself, against a China determined to reclaim it. Nor is China likely to renounce claims to Taiwan. American support for Taiwan can complicate China’s calculations regarding Taiwan. It’s not impossible that American arms could defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

But the effect would be temporary. China will remain much larger and more powerful than Taiwan. If America decides that an independent Taiwan is necessary to American security, it must prepare to fight China again and again.

This isn’t impossible. Sisyphus pushed his rock up the hill forever.

But he didn’t have a choice. The gods made him do it.

American voters will have a choice.