Shifting Global Sands Bedevil US Foreign Policy

Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi on Sept. 4.

Photographer: Sergei Guneyev/AFP/Getty Images 

Welcome to Balance of Power, bringing you the latest in global politics. If you haven’t yet, sign up here.

Time and again, the US is finding the biggest challenges to its effort to contain China, and Russia, come from its own prickly partners.