This is probably the single most important geopolitical analysis that I’ve heard this year, if not this decade. Hugh White is widely recognized as one of Australia’s foremost strategic thinkers. He was the inaugural Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and the former Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in the Australian Department of Defence. He just published a new 70-page essay called “Hard New World: Our Post American Future”, in which he argues - with considerable evidence to prove it - that while everyone debates about whether America will ultimately let China become the dominant regional power in the Western Pacific, it has in fact already withdrawn. White says that, effectively, beyond all the rhetoric, the contest is already over. I just wrote a new substack article looking at all of White’s arguments and the evidence he presents, which I must say is incredibly convincing. We might in fact largely be debating the wrong question - not whether America will withdraw, but how to manage the fact that it’s already done so. Link to the article in the next tweet.