Foreign Relations & International Law

Lawfare Daily: ‘The Rivalry Peril’ with Van Jackson and Michael Brenes

Tyler McBrien, Van Jackson, Michael Brenes, Jen Patja
Thursday, March 13, 2025, 8:00 AM
Should the United States take a less aggressive approach to China?

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
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On today’s episode, Van Jackson, Professor of International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, and Michael Brenes, Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in History at Yale University, join Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk about their new book,  “The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy,” in which they make the case for the United States to take a less aggressive approach to China. They discussed the pitfalls of great power competition, the origins of the China threat, and why a destructive U.S.-China rivalry is our choice, rather than our destiny.

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Tyler McBrien is the managing editor of Lawfare. He previously worked as an editor with the Council on Foreign Relations and a Princeton in Africa Fellow with Equal Education in South Africa, and holds an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago.
Van Jackson is a professor of international relations at Victoria University of Wellington and co-author of “The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy."
Michael Brenes is the associate director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and lecturer in history at Yale University and co-author of “The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy."
Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
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