Commentary One of the most significant strategic questions of our time is why the United States underestimated for decades the threat from the Chinese regime. Underestimating the threat, or threat deflation, is a rare event in international politics where a great power consistently does not perceive the rise of peer competitive threat. During the Cold War, U.S. decision makers had an accurate conception of the China threat. China was seen as an opponent second only to the Soviet Union until 1972, when President Richard Nixon travelled to China. After that opening in Sino-American relations, U.S. policy was informed by the principles of great power balancing against the Soviet threat. Only with the end of the Cold War did the United States abandon the conception that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was a threat. This was due to three reasons. First, the imbalance of ideological and material power in favor …