Is the U.S. Distracted from East Asia?

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have captured international media attention. In the past, such “international crises” have pressured U.S. presidents to “do something” about them. President Joe Biden—who is a veteran of the Cold War and the War on Terror—has reflexively and zealously enmeshed the United States within them. Yet he has also verbally gone beyond deliberate past ambiguity on U.S. policy toward Taiwan and pledged multiple times to defend the island from an attack or invasion by China. This interventionist…