Today, the U.S.-China competition is playing out against the backdrop of a world that is far less broken than in 1945. But it would be foolish to think that competition with China—which is stronger than the Soviet Union ever was economically, even if it remains weaker than the Kremlin was, militarily, at its peak—will be dramatically easier or morally cleaner than the Cold War was. Great power rivalry is not the worst of all evils; waging it may be the only way to protect the international system from the predations of aggressive authoritarians. Nevertheless, Lippmann’s warnings about one twilight struggle remind us not to romanticize what such contests entail.

Fortunately, the Kennan-Lippmann debate also reminds us not to deprecate America’s prospects in such a competition. During the Cold War, the United States was ultimately a far sharper competitor than Lippmann and other sophisticated observers gave it credit for. It proved that many of its supposed weaknesses—its democratic politics, free-market economy, and noisy policy debates—were actually among its greatest strengths. It pursued a relatively coherent strategy over two generations. It harnessed the ideological and geopolitical benefits of its democratic values while making necessary concessions to expediency. As a result, the United States often stumbled but never collapsed in a long race against a dangerous rival; an imperfect democracy outperformed an enemy that often seemed to epitomize authoritarian discipline.

There is no guarantee that America can replicate this feat against China, a country more economically and technologically dynamic than the Soviet Union. But neither does it seem wise to bet that a country with all of China’s internal and geopolitical challenges will ultimately be a world-beater. And if America were to surprise some of its own elites with its competitive prowess, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Last, the most successful strategies don’t always look like winners at the time. Containment never received, in the moment, the veneration it has received in hindsight, largely because it seemed to fuse perpetual danger with perpetual indecision. We can now see, however, that containment boasted attributes that counted for a great deal. It blended relative simplicity of concept with considerable flexibility of execution. It was based on a shrewd understanding of what made one’s rival dangerous, as well as what made that rival manageable. It married strategic purpose with strategic patience. Above all, it offered the possibility of avoiding catastrophic retreat as well as catastrophic escalation. Indeed, the fact that containment was assailed by some for being too weak, and by others for being too provocative, might indicate that it got the balance about right. Middle-ground strategies like containment are inherently dissatisfying. But in a long-term rivalry where the costs of war and the costs of appeasement could both be horrific, a strategy that blends strength with sobriety, ambition with equanimity, is the right approach.

Hal Brands is the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Bloomberg Opinion Columnist. This essay draws on his forthcoming book, The Twilight Struggle, about the lessons of the Cold War.

Image: Reuters.