Foreign policy ‘rules’ are bullshit. We are always on our own, in our own moment - and models from the past can lead us astray. ‘Realism’ for instance mostly tries to apply the lessons of Bismarck to today. But you can’t assume China is like Germany, and will stoke a conflict with the West - or because Athens and Sparta had a vaguely familiar conflict. China historically has tried to be a regional hegemon, and hasn’t invaded a neighbor since 1979, when it hit Vietnam, accomplished little - and then withdrew. The long culture and history of a place is at least as important as a model thought up in a university. A huge blind spot of western diplomacy is following these ‘models’ without historical, social or even linguistic knowledge of the potential ‘rivals.’ And the tendentious efforts to ‘match’ those rivals could well create the conditions the models predict. But if you tried to make a deal first - it could work. We can’t really know this in the USA because we always assume the worst, provoke as much as possible, and then take the reactions of rivals as confirmation of the initial assumptions.