Opinion

Compete with China? Support a GI Bill for diplomacy.

Kori N. Schake is the deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Brett McGurk is the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University and served in senior national security positions under President Trump and former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

President Trump’s 2017 national security strategy was a wakeup call. The era of unparalleled U.S. influence risks eroding to the advantage of China and Russia, it says. These countries are now working more closely together than at any time in the past 40 years and are determined to expand their global influence at U.S. expense. Ours is now an era of “great power competition,” and we must prepare ourselves and adapt — or we may lose.