The article argues that recent executive overreach and politicization have severely undermined established norms of U.S. civil-military relations. To restore professional standards, the incoming Congress must actively exercise its oversight powers, moving beyond mere criticism to demanding transparency in defense policy and personnel decisions. Key reforms include enforcing meritocratic promotion processes, requiring documented justification for senior officer removals, and preventing the partisan use of the military. These actions are crucial for bolstering public trust and ensuring the military remains a nonpartisan instrument of civilian control.
The War Against Time
English Summary
The ongoing instability in the Gulf is creating systemic global risk by eroding energy and trade buffers, threatening macroeconomic stability across the Indo-Pacific. This immediate crisis distracts the United States from its core long-term strategic challenge: the economic and technological competition with China. While the U.S. gains some leverage in infrastructure, the article argues that Washington lacks a clear, predictable, and durable economic strategy to counter Beijing's methodical build-up of semiconductor and AI capacity. Policy must therefore prioritize developing a long-term economic competition framework that transcends crisis management and uses export controls with discipline to avoid accelerating Chinese indigenization.
中文摘要
海灣地區持續的不穩定正在透過侵蝕能源和貿易緩衝能力，造成系統性的全球風險，威脅著整個印太地區的宏觀經濟穩定。這一即時危機分散了美國對其核心長期戰略挑戰的注意力：即與中國在經濟和技術領域的競爭。儘管美國在基礎設施方面獲得了一定籌碼，但本文認為，華盛頓缺乏一套清晰、可預測且持久的經濟戰略來對抗北京在半導體和人工智慧（AI）能力上的系統性積累。因此，政策必須優先發展一個超越危機管理、用於長期經濟競爭的框架，並有紀律地運用出口管制，以避免加速中國的產業自主化進程。
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