Commentary As the West is facing a possible confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the United States can’t afford an open conflict with Vladimir Putin—and it’s not because the Russian autocrat is too strong, or the United States too disinterested. America has to keep its eyes on the real challenge, an ascendant China, and a new Cold War that Washington appears to be losing. That should not be. The United States won the Cold War before by building up its defensive capabilities and leveraging its economic prowess in foreign policy by investing in cutting-edge technologies and shoring up the economies of its allies. Over the past two decades, America seems to have forgotten its own winning strategy, while China clearly learned its lessons. The gradual and seemingly voluntary renunciation of the United States’ global primacy is lately fashionably interpreted as the decline of a hegemon. Another …