| This week's curated content continues our comprehensive coverage of how the United States might manage the threat from an emerging China. Daniel Davis argues in an insightful piece that successful long-term engagement requires identifying and pursuing realistic objectives in the present. Strategic restraint in foreign policy requires that one not exaggerate foreign threats--but it also requires that one not underestimate legitimate threats where they exist. In this vein, we recommend this piece by David Santoro drawing attention to the serious nature of the Chinese nuclear threat. To round off coverage of China, we recommend especially Jacopo Scita's piece contextualizing the much-hyped China-Iran Military Trade partnership. Readers interested in understanding the impediments to President Trump's much discussed and promised troop withdrawals in Afghanistan will benefit from Sara Bakhtiar's piece, which focuses on the bi-partisan nature of such impediments, as well as Katie Bo Williams' piece, focusing specifically on the congressional tactics used. On the question of possible U.S. troop withdrawals from South Korea, we recommend Michael R. Gordon & Gordon Lubold's piece. Of course, much of the bottlenecks to troop withdrawal are financial---the Pentagon often justifies its substantial budgets with sustained expansionist policies. To more fully understand the nature and foreign policy implications of the Pentagon's prodigious budget, we recommend two pieces arguing for budget cuts--one from a conservative perspective and one from a more left-wing perspective. Finally, any serious effort to correct endless unfocused military engagement overseas must take a sophisticated and critical view of how and under what parameters the United States enters into military engagements in the first place. On this question, readers will benefit considerably from Samuel Moyn's piece on how to control America's use of military force. In the News Doug Bandow, Responsible Statecraft Michael R. Gordon & Gordon Lubold, Wall Street Journal Andrew Lautz & Jonathan Bydlak, Politico Bernie Sanders, Politico Daniel Larison, American Conservative David Santoro, Responsible Statecraft Richard Hanania, American Conservative Ivo Daalder, Chicago Tribune Daniel Davis, RealClearWorld Annelle Sheline, Responsible Statecraft Ivan Eland, American Conservative Samuel Moyn, Quincy Institute Daniel Larison, American Conservative Patrick Porter, War on the Rocks Daniel DePetris, Townhall Fox News Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said on Thursday that he is backing President Trump’s effort to pull troops out of Afghanistan. “We are trying to support his efforts in the National Defense Authorization Act by offering an amendment that would codify what he wants to do, which is get us out of Afghanistan,” Massie told “Fox & Friends First.” “Not just to withdraw some troops but to withdraw all of the troops," he added. Reason Now that we're ending his presidential term, do noninterventionists believe Donald Trump actually has moved the world closer to peace? Rising Trita Parsi weighs in on a reported economic and security partnership between Iran and China that would undermine the Trump Administration's efforts to isolate the Iranian government because of its nuclear and military ambitions. | 
