James Clad is Research Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Georgetown University and a former Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

China and India are mammoth countries, with millennial civilizations and muscular ambitions. A key and thus far little considered foreign policy question is whether their path will lead to confrontation or collaboration. Cold War policy perspectives may have blinded many American strategists to the Asian rivalry of these titans. It is a challenge that future American administrations will have to understand. James Clad explains why.