As Washington fixates on its coming war with China and Russia, the world’s ills will have to wait.

(Originally published April 19 in “What in the World“) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a pain in Washington’s waddle.

But after agreeing to let Finland into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Turkey has won White House approval to buy $259 million worth of avionics from Lockheed Martin for its F-16 fighter jets. Congress still needs to approve the sale, but the White House is urging lawmakers to approve it as a reward for Turkey playing along. Still under consideration, however, is Turkey’s request to buy $20 billion worth of brand-new F-16s.

The sales to Turkey are also part of a broader shift within NATO to a much more

aggressive state of readiness against threats from Russia—from preparing for potential retaliation against incursions against NATO members to preparing to completely block any incursion. Or, as The New York Times puts it: “deterrence by retaliation to deterrence by denial.” That means that instead of having NATO forces stationed behind the lines, they now need to maintain a constant troop presence along the eastern border, ready to counter Russian attack at any second. It means greater coordination between NATO and U.S. forces and more military spending by alliance members. U.S. officials are also warning NATO that Putin is increasingly likely to respond to a Ukrainian counteroffensive with tactical nuclear weapons.

The forward deployment of NATO forces to the alliance’s eastern front ironically accomplishes precisely the kind of encroachment Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was trying to prevent by invading Ukraine. While that might be cause for reflection, it also increases the odds of conflict, if only because it puts opposing militaries in much greater proximity on a permanent basis.

Which is also why stationing 200 U.S. Marines in Taiwan makes it increasingly likely the U.S. will go to war with China. The Marines are part of an effort by the Pentagon to help Taiwan overhaul its defenses into a “porcupine” strategy of deterrence against invasion by China. But the only reason China would invade Taiwan is if it felt the “renegade province” was no longer willing to consider peaceful reunification, i.e., was pursuing independence.

China has said it won’t rule out using force if necessary to achieve reunification, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has listed reunification as one of the goals of his tenure. But China hasn’t issued any solid deadlines for this to occur. In the meantime, China uses military exercises to both signal its resolve to Washington and its own nationalists, as well as to discourage (some might say bully) Taiwan from developing notions that it might tolerate any steps toward independence. Unfortunately, these increasingly large martial displays only help further convince hawks in Washington that China is preparing for imminent invasion, justifying a more assertive U.S. military posture around Taiwan.

That’s what prompted the secret insertion in mid-2020 by the Administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump of roughly 30 Marine special forces into Taiwan, the first U.S. troops on the island since 1979. With their number now increased to 200, they represent human shields against invasion. But military officials have now been put in the position of walking back talk of imminent war over Taiwan after legislators apparently misinterpreted a comment in February by CIA director William Burns that China would be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027 as Beijing’s deadline for invasion. “Invasion is neither imminent or inevitable,” Jedidiah Royal, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday.

Washington’s reduction of global affairs to this increasingly tense showdown over just two locations doesn’t resonate with much of the world. Instead, many see it as a dangerous distraction from more important issues facing the planet, notably climate change and inequality. In a devastating piece in Foreign Affairs, former U.K. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband reminds us that:

“…two-thirds of the world’s population live in countries that are officially neutral or supportive of Russia. These countries do not form some kind of axis of autocracy; they include several notable democracies, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa.”

Most of this ambivalence isn’t because people in the Global South feel Russia was right to invade. On the contrary: it’s the result, Miliband writes, of “anger at perceived Western double standards and frustration at stalled reform efforts in the international system.”