We have seen over the last few days that the concept of a “clash of civilizations” doesn’t really describe the current geopolitical reality very accurately. The major chord is good old-fashioned great power rivalry, as applied to a multi-polar world; the minor chord is a dispute between authoritarian and liberal government.
You can analogize, without undue difficulty, today’s world to Europe in 1914. China is Imperial Germany–growing rapidly, nationalistic, full of energy and ideas, and desperately looking for respect from its rivals; America is the UK–still the most powerful nation, but with its primacy under threat; the EU is France, in relative decline; and Russia is, well, the Russian Empire-a creepy, imperialist autocracy. The analogy isn’t perfect; ideological differences were less prominent then than they are now, as evidenced by the fact that Nicholas II was related to the British royal family (hence, his son’s hemophilia). It does work, however.
What does that mean for American foreign policy? It means that we are going to have to tolerate cooperating with some very imperfect nations in our quest to keep the revisionist autocratic countries from imposing their rules on the rest of us. That will be awkward at times, but it can be done. We did it every day during the Cold War.