There’s a lesson for the US president in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in the early 19th century
Fans of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace all have their own reasons for loving the epic novel. Some read it as a story of personal growth, reflected in Prince Andrei’s spiritual quest. Others favour its portrayal of the Russian aristocracy in the early 19th century.
As for myself, the novel punctured the myth of the military genius – not just Napoleon’s. The book’s final section on Tolstoy’s philosophy of history presented the most significant challenge to G.W.F. Hegel – specifically regarding French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte as weltgeist (world-soul) on horseback – and Clausewitz, who proposed Napoleonic warfare could be generalised as universal military principles
“Who defeated Napoleon during his Russian campaign?” a professor once asked our class when I was in college. It was a trick question to check who had read their assignments. Unlike dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler in the next century, Napoleon didn’t lose; he actually won most of the major battles in Russia, much like the Americans did in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. But it was also a very deep question, the answer to which gets to the heart of the novel – and Mother Russia herself.
One answer was Russia’s General Kutuzov. Technically, he lost the crucial Battle of Borodino, which, however, sealed the fate of the Grande Armée. Overextended and without looted provisions from a burned down Moscow, Napoleon’s army that was once the terror of Europe retreated and disintegrated.
What has all that to do with the China-US rivalry, or more specifically, the summit between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump? Well, a little. Actually, I have been rereading the novel this week and just felt the need to talk about it with someone, even if it was just my computer screen.
But here’s one lesson or an analogy I have learned to draw. China is Kutuzov, old, patient and risk-averse. It wins by not losing and avoiding own goals or at least making fewer and less serious mistakes than the United States.
The US has been revolutionary France dominating the whole world, but Trump’s second presidency is Napoleon’s Russian campaign, which initially intimidated everyone with America’s awesome power and wealth. But then he keeps making more and worse mistakes, some of which are probably irreversible, out of sheer arrogance and ignorance.
Now, it’s becoming a tragicomedy to watch Washington exhaust the country by undermining both domestic institutions and foreign alliances.
Trump has weakened the US scientific establishment, once the envy of the world, by cutting or delaying billions in research funding, dismissing or sidelining hundreds of senior scientists and administrators across government agencies and cracking down on academic freedom at top universities.
His administration has especially singled out ethnic-Chinese scientists for persecution, triggering an exodus to a welcoming China that is powering ahead with advances in science and tech.
He has crudely attacked the integrity of the US electoral and judicial systems and threatened to overhaul them.
Overseas, he has imposed mostly illegal tariffs on friends and foes alike, threatened the territorial sovereignty of key allies and openly embarrassed and even discredited the European Union and the Nato alliance.
He has declared a new “Donroe doctrine” that includes gunboat diplomacy across Latin America, foreshadowing a return to the bad old days of intervention, subversion, invasion and kidnapping across the region by the US military alongside local thuggish militias and corrupt regional oligarchs.
With the illegal war against Iran, Washington is diverting military resources from the Asia-Pacific, further weakening allies’ confidence in the US military commitment and security guarantee to the region.
Washington under Trump is doubling down on fossil fuels while the rest of the world transitions to green energy, with China leading the way and dominating the markets for wind, solar and hydrogen power.
By going toe to toe with Trump over his tariff threats, “China emerged from the 2025 trade war in a position of relative strength”, wrote Henrietta Levin, a former senior official of the US Department of State and the National Security Council in a new issue of Foreign Affairs.
Under such circumstances, Xi doesn’t have to do much to look like a genius. Whether many Americans still believe Trump is making America “great again”, it seems pretty clear he is working hard to make China great again.
Like Kutuzov waiting out Napoleon, Beijing just needs to sit, wait and hope Trump gets to complete his full term before being replaced by someone more competent.
