Russia and China are both revisionist powers, intent on transforming the world order to better serve their own parochial interests. Both countries are hostile to an order that intrinsically favors the spread of economic and political liberalism, and both have taken steps to overturn it. Yet the Obama administration is failing to effectively defend the liberal international order that prodigious American sacrifice made possible.

In Asia, China is working to undermine the decades-old U.S. alliance system and assert itself as the region’s dominant power. China’s ongoing military buildup opposite Taiwan (during the friendliest period of Beijing-Taipei ties in years) continues to upset the cross-Strait military balance, which has long contributed to stability in Asia. Beijing’s strategic forces modernization, meanwhile, puts at risk the U.S. nuclear umbrella under whose protection South Korea, Japan, and others have forgone developing their own nuclear weapons.

The full text of the article is available on the CNN Global Public Square website.