STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT 2020

Into a New Era of Great Power Competition

Edited by Thomas F. Lynch III

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT 2020
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT 2020

Into a New Era of Great Power Competition

Edited by Thomas F. Lynch III

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

NDU Press

Washington, D.C.

2020
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v

Contents

List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  vi

Foreword . 

Aaron L. Friedberg

Acknowledgments .  

Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  x

Part I. Conceptualizing the New Era of Great Power Competition

1. Introduction

Thomas F. Lynch III

2. Past Eras of Great Power Competition:

Historical Insights and Implications . 

Thomas F. Lynch III and Frank G. Hoffman

3a. Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics:

Relations and Strategies . 

Thomas F. Lynch III and Phillip C. Saunders

3b. Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics:

Competitive Elements and Tool Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7

Thomas F. Lynch III and Phillip C. Saunders

4. Contemporary Great Power Technological Competitive Factors in

the Fourth Industrial Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

T.X. Hammes and Diane DiEuliis

Part II. Warfighting, Innovation, and Technology 

in a New Era of Great Power Competition

5. Key Technologies and the Revolution of Small, Smart, an

Cheap in the Future of Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

T.X. Hammes

6. Emerging Critical Information Technology and Great Power Competition . 

Richard Andres

7. Social Media and Influence Operations Technologies:

Implications for Great Power Competition .  

Todd C. Helmus

8. Weapons of Mass Destruction, Strategic Deterrence, and

Great Power Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Paul Bernstein, Justin Anderson, Diane DiEuliis, Gerald Epstein, and Amanda Moodie
vi Contents

Part III. Geostrategic Interactions in a New 

Era of Great Power Competition

9. The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space:

China’s Vision and the Post–World War II American Order .  

Thomas F. Lynch III, James Przystup, and Phillip C. Saunders

10. Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers in an Era of Great Power Competition . 

Bryce Loidolt, Mariya Omelicheva, and James Przystup

11. Counterterrorism and the United States in a

New Era of Great Power Competition .  

R. Kim Cragin, Hassan Abbas, Zachary M. Abuza, and Mariya Omelicheva

12. Whither Europe in a New Era of Great Power Competition?

Resilient but Troubled.  .

Steven Philip Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos

13. Competing Visions and Actions by China, Russia, and the United States in

Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic .  

Bryce Loidolt, David Auerswald, Douglas Farah, Shannon Smith, and Caitlyn Yates

Part IV. Preparing to Compete

14. U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . 

Frank G. Hoffman

15. Conclusion: Realities, Imperatives, and Principles in a

New Era of Great Power Competition .  

Thomas F. Lynch III

Appendix A. Selected Bibliography . 

Appendix B. Contemporary Great Power Competition Dynamics Matrix (online only) . . . . . . 34

List of Contributors .  

Index .  
vii

Illustrations

Figures

1.1. Continuum of Major State Interaction Posture

2.1. Britain (William Pitt) and Napoleon Carving Up the Worl  

2.2. Britain, Germany, and Russia in Pursuit of Colonies                                         . 

2.3. Britain and U.S. Rapprochement: Uncle Sam and John Bull Shake Hans               . 

2.4. U.S. Army Anti-Japanese Propaganda Post

3b.1. Comparison of Great Power GDP

3b.2  Correlation Between Level of Industrialization and Percentag

of Commercial Global Financial Markets . 

4. Global Natural Gas Benchmark Prices in USD per MMbtu .

5.1. Kalibr Cruise Missile Ranges if Launched from West or Gulf Coasts                     . 1

5.2. Range of Missiles, Drones, and Aircraft in Nautical Miles                                 . 1

9.1. China’s Nine-Dash Line (in green) in the South China Sea 

9.2. The First and Second Island Chains 

11.1  Number of Successful Attacks and Failed Plot

Conducted by VEOs by Region, 1990–2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

11.2  Proportion of Attacks Conducted by VEO

in Salafi Jihadist Movement, 1996–2018 . 

11.3  Number of Successful Attacks and Failed Plots b

U.S. Homegrown Extremists, 2002–2018 

13.1. Russian and Chinese Aid and Investments in Latin America 

13.2. Chinese Strategic Partnerships in the Middle East 

13.3  Total Chinese Investment and Constructio

in Africa (2005–2018) as a Percent of Recipient 2018 GDP .  

Tables

2.1. Frameworks for Thinking About Categories/Dimensions of Competition                 . 

2.2. A Framework for Assessing the Aspects/Categories of Competition                       . 

2.3. Major Dyadic Dynamics During Four Eras of Great Power Competition 

2.4. Great Power Iron and Steel Production in Selected Years (in Tons)                         . 

2.5. Percentage of International Exports: Selected Years 
viii Illustrations

3a.1. Basic Postures and Compatibility of Strategic Aims, 2020–2025 

3a.2. Geographic Regions and Great Power Strategic Interest Intensity, 2020–2025 

3b.1. A Framework for Assessing the Aspects/Categories of Competition                       . 

3b.2  Percentage Disparity Between Gross an

Net Overall Power Factors Using Beckley’s Net Power Index . 

8.1. Biological Weapons and Gray Zone Operations 

14.1. Alternative Strategies (X equals Major Line of Effort) 
ix

Foreword

I

n retrospect, it seems clear that the new era of Great Power competition that is the subject of the chapters in this volume began to take shape almost as soon as the last era had 

drawn to a close. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the sudden end of the Cold War,

the United States found itself in a position of unchallenged (and seemingly unchallengeable) global preponderance. Surveying the scene in the early 1990s, American policymakers

quickly decided to put aside their previous grand strategy of containment in favor of what 

the George H.W. Bush administration initially described as “collective near-term engagement” aimed at the global “promotion of peace and democracy,” and what William Clinto

administration national security adviser Anthony Lake subsequently labeled a policy of 

“engagement and enlargement.” Henceforth, Lake declared, the goal of U.S. policy woul

be to encourage the spread of “democracy and market economics” to places where these 

had not yet taken firm root, most notably across the vast expanse of Eurasia, an area that 

included China, Russia, the newly independent nations of the former Soviet Union, and the 

former members of its erstwhile empire in Eastern and Central Europe

2

What Lake and his colleagues had in mind was nothing less than the fulfilment of 

Woodrow Wilson’s vision for an all-encompassing liberal world order, an international system made up of states bound together by free trade, international rules and institutions, 

and a shared commitment to the principles of democratic governance and universal human 

rights. This was the third time in the course of the 20th century that American policymakers

had sought to remake the world along liberal lines. Wilson’s first attempt, at the close of

World War I, had ended in failure. Twenty-five years later his successors would try again,

only to find their path blocked by the descent of the Iron Curtain and the start of the Cold 

War. In place of a truly global liberal order, in the wake of World War II, U.S. policymake

had to settle for a partial, geographically limited subsystem that ultimately came to include 

the advanced industrial democracies of Western Europe, East Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. Despite its constrained scope, this collection of nations (often referred to loosely

and somewhat inaccurately as the “West”) proved to be enormously successful in generating both wealth and power. Over a 40-year period of intense and sometimes dangerous

rivalry, its members were able to out innovate, outproduce, and ultimately outlast their 

Communist competitors

With the Cold War over, American policymakers hoped, in effect, to extend the 

boundaries of the Western system, expanding a partial order operating on liberal principles 

to encompass the entire globe, including nations that had previously chosen to remain outside its limits. Over the course of the 1990s, the United States and its European allies were

able to induce the smaller and weaker nations of the former Soviet empire to reshape their 

economic and political systems along liberal lines by making reform a requirement for full 
x Foreword

membership in the Western system. Lacking equivalent leverage with Russia and China,

the democracies chose to take the opposite tack: incorporating these major powers as fully 

as possible into existing institutions (and, in particular, into the international economy) in 

the hopes that doing so would, in itself, promote liberalizing reforms. It is the failure of this

approach, evidence of which has been accumulating for at least the past decade, that set the 

stage for the new era of Great Power competition

Traveling by different routes, in the 30 years since the end of the Cold War, Russia 

and China have ended up in broadly similar positions. The regimes that govern these two

powers have managed to integrate into the global economy, enjoying the benefits of international trade and investment without evolving into true market-based economies or 

surrendering their grip on domestic political power. Indeed, to the contrary, since the turn

of the century both the Russian and Chinese states have become more repressive and more 

militantly nationalistic, tightening their grip over society and the economy at home, while 

engaging in increasingly aggressive behavior on the international stage

Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China are driven by a mix of resentment, 

insecurity, and ambition

3

 Both seek redress for what they regard as past wrongs and humiliations; both feel themselves threatened by the physical proximity of the United States and 

its democratic allies and by the persistence of an international system built on principles 

that challenge the legitimacy of their own illiberal regimes. Albeit to varying degrees, both

Russia and China are revisionist powers; each aims to alter the status quo in its immediate neighborhood, pushing back what Chinese propagandists describe as “hostile foreign 

forces” and establishing a zone of effective control along its periphery. As its strength and

self-confidence have grown, Beijing has also begun to reveal broader ambitions. In ways

that are not yet fully specified, it intends, in Xi’s words, to “move closer to the center of the 

world stage,” reshaping existing international rules, norms, and institutions to better reflect 

its power and serve its interests

4

As the authors of several of the chapters in this volume point out, in terms of their 

relative national power China and Russia appear to be following very different trajectories

In the long run, the former will likely be able to mount a far more serious challenge to the 

United States and its allies than the latter. Notwithstanding this divergence, there are still

some notable similarities in the tactics and techniques that the two nations are currently 

employing in pursuit of their objectives. Both are using surveillance, censorship, and nationalist propaganda to harden their societies against what they see as the deadly subversive

threat of liberal ideas and influences. Both have developed forces and concepts of operation

suitable for ambiguous, low-level aggression in the geographic and strategic “gray zone.”

And both are strengthening their cyber warfare, antisatellite, nuclear, and conventional antiaccess/area-denial capabilities in hopes of deterring the United States from intervening in 

future large-scale conflicts along their peripheries

Developments in communications technology, and the vestiges of the failed policies of 

“enlargement” and “engagement,” have left the economies, societies, and political systems 

of the Western nations open to penetration and manipulation, vulnerabilities that their 

authoritarian rivals have been quick to discover and exploit. Thanks to the lingering aftereffects of the 2008 financial crisis and now the COVID-19 pandemic, the democracies are

also weaker and more divided at present than they were throughout most of the Cold War
Foreword xi

For these reasons, at least in its opening stages, the new era of Great Power competition 

could prove to be even more challenging than the one that preceded it. Success will require

creative and wide-ranging thinking of the sort that the Institute for National Strategic Studies was designed to promote, and which the following pages contain

—Aaron L. Friedberg

Princeton University

July 2020

Notes

1 For a review of the post–Cold War evolution of U.

grand strategy, see the series of National Security Strategy 

documents published between August 1991 and July 

1994, available at <https://history.defense.gov/Portals/7

Documents/nss/nss1991.pdf?ver=2014-06-25-121158-580>;

<https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/ns

nss1991.pdf?ver=2014-06-25-121158-580>; <https:/

history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/nss/nss19

pdf?ver=2014-06-25-121210-297>; and <https://history

defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/nss/nss199

pdf?ver=2014-06-25-121219-500>

2 See Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” Johns 

Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, 

September 21, 1993, available at <https://www.mtholyoke.ed

acad/intrel/lakedoc.html

3 This section draws on the analysis in Aaron L. Friedberg, The

Authoritarian Challenge: China, Russia and the Threat to the 

Liberal International Order (Tokyo: Sasakawa Peace Foundation, 

2017), available at <https://www.spf.org/_jpus-j_media/im

investigation/The_Authoritarian_Challenge.pdf

4 Simon Denyer, “Move over, America. China Is ‘Blazing a New

Trail’ for the World,” Washington Post, October 19, 2017. For

more on what China’s leaders may have in mind, see Nadège 

Rolland, China’s Vision for a New World Order, NBR Special 

Report #83 (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, January 

2020), available at <https://www.nbr.org/wp-content/upload

pdfs/publications/sr83_chinasvision_jan2020.pdf

xiii

Acknowledgments

The completion of an edited volume that is composed of original material at this depth and scope is a testament to collaboration by a team of teams. As editor, I wish to thank

each of these teams for its hard work and dedication in providing the high-caliber substance 

and the appealing form of this volume about the new era of Great Power competition

First, I thank the chapter authors and co-authors. Each contributor added original

insights and invaluable content to the book and demonstrated thoughtfulness, patience, 

and dedication during reciprocal and dynamic rounds of editing and revision. This volume

stands as testimony to their subject matter expertise and their hard work

Second, my colleagues Phillip Saunders and Frank Hoffman had an enormous impact 

on the quality of this volume beyond their direct contribution to authored and co-authored 

chapters. Phil and Frank provided timely and high-quality informal assessments of almost

all the chapters during the research, writing, and editing processes. Their wide-ranging

knowledge and experience with the most vital contemporary geopolitical and global economic factors in emerging Great Power competition and their innate attention to detail 

and excellent writing skills combined in reviews that enhanced individual chapters and the 

linkages between and among them. Phil and Frank helped assure that this volume became

a whole that is more than the sum of its parts

Third, two research interns made enormous contributions to the successful completion 

of this book: Sabrina Volpe and Areesha Irfan. Sabrina expertly enabled this project from

its beginning. She provided original research and organization to early framing chapters

and was the driving force behind the Great Power Competition Dynamics Matrix appendix (online only) for the volume. Later in the process, Sabrina contributed research and

fact-checking along with a steady eye for content review, editing, and proofreading. So,

too, with Areesha, who joined the project as the early chapters came onboard. Areesha

conducted targeted research, writing, and analysis for updates to several chapters, and especially detailed research for chapter 2 that looked into historical Great Power competition 

rivalries, country data, and competitive analytics. Undaunted by unwelcomed interruption

of the COVID-19 pandemic, Areesha dedicated time and attention from a distance to finalize and refine chapters and to catalog materials found in the front and back matter

Finally, I thank the interactive teams at NDU Press, the Government Publishing Office 

(GPO) Creative Services, and the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review 

(DOPSR). Each contributed expertise and skill to the completion of this quality volum

William Eliason and Joanna Seich at NDU Press and Cameron Morse at DOPSR found a 

way around the massive disruption of COVID-19 to assure that all chapters were cleared for 

publication as quickly as possible. NDU Press Executive Editor Jeffrey Smotherman was the

driving force behind the entire production process, from copyediting to layout and design 
xiv Acknowledgments

to cover design and much more. John Church at NDU Press and Lisa Yambrick worked

diligently as copyeditors. Joanna Seich and John Church helped generate quality artwor

Marco Marchegiani at GPO provided expert guidance for book cover, text layout, and overall design. Finally, thanks to Susan Carroll, who both proofread and indexed the boo

As editor, I extend high praise and sincere thanks to each one on this team of teams
xv

Major Findings on Contemporary 

Great Power Competition

This strategic assessment is both firmly focused on the dynamics of contemporary Great Power competition (GPC) and respectful of past strategic assessments generated by 

the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) over the course of almost 40 years. As an

homage to the format of several historical INSS strategic assessments, this one begins with 

a summary of major findings within the current volume

The chapters that follow provide multiple insights and analytical conclusions about 

contemporary GPC. This prelude provides many of the most significant and substantive

findings and conclusions found within them. The findings are provided with an explicit

reference to the book chapters where they are found. Readers are encouraged to consult the

referenced chapters for deeper analysis and insight into these major research conclusions 

about, and considerations for, a new era of GPC

Before perusing these major findings, readers may be entertained by three key findings 

extracted from the INSS Strategic Assessment 1998: Engaging Power for Peace. These findings underscore the degree to which the world of a mere 20 years ago was breathtakingly

different from the one today featuring an emerging new era of GPC:

■ The United States now enjoys a secure and promising position in the world.... 

other most successful nations are its closest friends; its few enemies are comparatively 

weak, isolated, and swimming against the current of .. globalization [which] is bo

integrating and extending the core of free-market democracies, thus favoring U.

interests and winning converts to the norms of state behavior

■ Great uncertainties still exist: the future of China and other large transition states

Because of its capabilities, the United States has considerable influence, and a crucial 

stake, in how these uncertainties are resolved

■ In the best plausible case, an expanded core or commonwealth of peaceful 

democracies could encompass most of the planet—with U.S. partners shoulderin

an increased share of the burden of defending common interests and norms. China

would reform and integrate into the core.... In the worst case, U.S. friends 

be free riders instead of responsible partners, China’s reforms would founder 

leaving the United States superior but beleaguered

1

The major findings from Strategic Assessment 2020: Into a New Era of Great Power 

Competition follow:
xvi Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition

■ A Great Power displays three conspicuous attributes: capabilities, behavior, and status 

attribution by other states in the international system. It has unusual capabilities in

comparison with other states. It uses those unusual capabilities to pursue broad

foreign policy interests beyond its immediate neighborhood. It is perceived by other

states as powerful, having influence, and is thus treated accordingly. In the dawning

era of new GPC, the United States, China, and Russia fit this description (chapter 1)

■ Competition is not synonymous with conflict; competition exists on a continuum of 

interactions between and among states. On one end of the spectrum is cooperation,

and on the other is direct armed conflict. In between, states compete in varying

states of collaboration and confrontation. They edge toward cooperation and

collaboration when geopolitical goals are aligned. They drift toward confrontation

and armed conflict when main geopolitical aims are perceived as divergent and 

mutually unattainable (chapter 1)

■ Power has absolute, relative, and transitional properties. State power exists in two

major dimensions: hard power (or the coercive use of military power and leveraging 

economic power as a payoff) and soft power (which includes cooperative and 

collaborative interactions that attain influence by attraction: cooperative economic 

arrangements, ideological appeal, cultural and social engagements, diplomatic 

acumen, and reciprocal information exchanges). Smart power is sometimes today

used to describe policy choices that effectively mix coercive hard power and the 

attractive features of soft power. Sharp power has become a vogue phrase to describe

state actions that twist soft power attributes in a manipulative or confrontational 

manner to undermine or severely distort the political system or social order of a 

competitor state (chapter 1)

Part I. Conceptualizing the New Era of Great Power Competition

■ All states, especially Great Powers, compete to gain relative advantage in the classic 

objectives of power, prosperity, status, and influence. More critically, Great Powers

contend for these relative advantages in five distinct categories of interaction: 

political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, military, and economic. States

apply power capabilities (for example, foreign policy tools) in these categories

Effective state use of power capabilities establishes the degree to which they attain 

relative influence and secure strategic advantage. A complete analysis of GPC status

requires a review of the comparative aims and relative power capabilities of each 

Great Power in these five competitive categories (chapter 2)

■ As Great Powers compete, these particular states inevitably confront the dilemma 

of transition in relative power status. Great Power transition challenges rising states

with the dilemma of how to assert their relative power gains without provoking 

outright clash with the dominant state(s). Transition also confronts the dominant

but relatively declining state with a vexing choice of how to accommodate its 

rising challenger(s) in a manner that avoids both destructive military clash and an 

unacceptable change in its preferred status quo (chapter 2)
Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition xvii

■ Great Power transitions play out over decades or centuries, not years. Three-quarters

of Great Power transitions since 1500 have culminated with—or featured during—a 

destructive period of direct violent clash. The inevitability of war between Great

Powers during times of transition is not foreordained; Great Powers may channel 

or expend their worst animus in nonviolent categories of competition: politicodiplomatic, economic, ideological, and informational (chapter 2)

■ Once a Great Power competition is under way, the most reliable indicator of when a 

war will erupt is when one or both sides recognizes a shift in the relative alignment 

of economic and military power that is perceived as immutable and untenable. As

states view the relative power alignment moving decisively against them, they are 

much more inclined to risk a preemptive conflict than when they perceive a stable 

power status quo (chapter 2)

■ Although incompatible ideologies and caustic informational exchanges about a Great 

Power rival’s people are not a lone determinant of when Great Power rivalry will devolve 

into direct violent clash, they are strong yet lagging indicators of insurmountable 

contentiousness. Great Power leaders should appreciate the degree to which blanket

invective of a rival’s entire population differs from criticism of a competitor’s political 

leadership. The latter, circumspect approach to official criticism—a feature of the

peacefully resolved dyadic competitions between Great Britain and the United States 

and later the United States and the Soviet Union—was correlated with avoidance of 

war between those Great Power competitors (chapter 2)

■ During power transition periods, Great Power competitors may not perceive their 

own various forms of power accurately. Too often, misperceptions of relative power,

rather than detailed and empirical assessments of power, inform and then drive 

policymakers. Even when accurate assessments of relative decline or vulnerability

are made, domestic or bureaucratic interests may retard agile adaptation necessary 

to mitigate risks. Thus, success in GPC requires extraordinary political leadership

in both international statecraft and in generating domestic renewal and adaptation 

(chapter 2)

■ During periods of dynamic technological change, the likelihood of strategic surprise 

or operational obsolescence is greater in the military dimension of GPC. States may

overestimate or underestimate the potential combat power of new innovations, 

whether they are technological or conceptual. The dawning era of GPC is in just

such an era—one featuring a fourth industrial revolution. The convergence of new

technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, 3D 

printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, energy storage, and autonomous vehicles, 

among other breakthroughs, increases the risks of strategic surprise (chapters 2, 4)

■ The United States enters the emerging era of GPC as the dominant of the three 

rivals. Its preferred norms, rules, and institutions for interstate interactions today

set the patterns for all major categories of global activity. The emerging strategic

aims of China and Russia are incompatible with those established by United States, 

and this conflict has produced the return of a historically dominant pattern of GPC 

in the international system. But the strategic challenges posed by China and Russia

diverge significantly, portending a long-term Sino-American strategic competition, 
xviii Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition

while the U.S.-Russian rivalry is more likely to be a more regional set of contestation

(chapter 3a)

■ China is the most important—albeit presently less threatening—Great Power 

challenger to American power and policy interests. China is the lone contemporary

rising Great Power with the combination of a positivist strategic vision for the future 

and the ambition to push for changes in the international system on near- and longterm bases. Moreover, gross power indicators in 2020, and projections for the next

5 to 10 years, clearly indicate that China is the Great Power best poised to displace 

America from its long-dominant position. While a net power comparison between

the United States and China indicates that their power transition timelines are 

longer than some now fear, the Sino-American competitive dyad is likely to be the 

dominant Great Power rivalry into the future (chapters 3a, 3b)

■ Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an urgent but transient security risk for the United 

States and China, with the potential to do enormous military damage to the world 

if miscalculation leads to military clash. But Russia is a Great Power competitor

without any positivist, global strategy or discernable norms, institutions, and 

procedures for establishing an alternative international order. Instead, it practices

a reactive, disruptive strategy aimed to pacify its immediate borders and question 

contemporary institutions and processes it perceives as a threat. Putin’s Russia has

generated limited power factors that align well with the short-term, geographically 

limited strategy it is pursuing, thus making its long-term status as a Great Power 

questionable (chapters 3a, 3b)

■ China and Russia may continue a tactical entente over the coming 5 to 10 years, 

working together on common near-term strategic interests to erode U.S. power

frustrate U.S. actions, challenge U.S.-dominated institutions, and question U.S.underwritten norms and rules these states deem threatening. However, div

long-term Sino-Russian strategic interests make it unlikely they will form a longterm alliance. The United States should remain careful not to misunderstand tactical

coordination between Beijing and Moscow that balances U.S. power as evidence o

some deeper strategic cooperation (chapter 3a)

■ All three contemporary Great Powers are dissatisfied with some aspects of 

international order and are growing less willing to make compromises and sacrifices 

to keep the order working. Thus, there is heightened potential for Great Power

rivalry to reduce the effectiveness of global institutions in managing complex 

regional and global problems. The absence of Great Power cooperation to confront

the 2019–2020 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was symptomatic of this 

breakdown (chapter 3a)

■ Over the next 5 to 10 years, U.S. economic and strategic interests in the Indo-Pacifi

region and in Eastern Europe most conflict with Chinese and Russian regional 

interests. Thus, the competition will be fiercest, and risks of misperception and

violent confrontation greatest, there (chapter 3a)

■ Space and cyberspace are interrelated contested domains where GPC is increasingly 

on display, and inclining toward direct confrontation and clash. These relatively

unregulated areas also present an opportunity for Great Power dialogue and a 
Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition xix

chance to craft norms and rules emphasizing greater deconfliction of interests and 

reduction in the risks from unbridled competition (chapter 3a)

■ The United States, China, and Russia face major internal structural, economic, and 

demographic challenges. Political leadership’s decisions in each state about how to

address these internal dynamics as well as international challenges will determine 

the future power each will possess and the future policy options each might pursue

Russia appears most likely to confront these challenges first, then China, and then 

the United States, although national leadership choices will greatly impact timing 

(chapter 3b)

■ The crucible of emerging technologies that make up the fourth industrial revolution 

is today changing the manner in which products have been made, distributed, and 

used internationally over the past 40 years. The fourth industrial revolution is fueling

deglobalization by eroding many aspects of global markets and supply chains, most 

notably moving product manufacturing closer to natural markets. This movement

will mean less global economic integration and greater supply chain regionalization 

(and even localization) as the world moves into this era of GPC (chapter 4)

■ The United States has distinct advantages over both China and Russia as the fourth 

industrial revolution begins to reshape the world. The one key American weakness

is the gridlock in our current political systems. Failure to adjust American laws

and regulations to fourth industrial revolution realties risks squandering nascent 

American advantages in higher education, innate innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, 

and the largest natural market in the world (chapter 4)

■ China also could benefit greatly from the fourth industrial revolution. It is heavily

subsidizing priority high-technology manufacturing sectors as part of its Made 

in China 2025 plan. Simultaneously, it is shifting its economy from export-based

growth to domestic consumption as an economic engine. However, China must

also deal with a looming dramatic reduction in labor demand and associated 

unemployment caused by the fourth industrial revolution while addressing the 

social and economic impact from a rapidly aging and less productive work force

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must find a way to manage these challenges 

to continue its decades-long economic rise into the era of GPC (chapter 4)

■ Russia, in contrast, is not well positioned for the fourth industrial revolution. It

suffers from a combination of low investor confidence, a poor innovative culture, a 

low-quality workforce and education system, and a rapidly aging population. As a

kleptocracy, Putin’s Russia does a poor job in allocating capital to the industries and 

properties most likely to benefit from the convergence of critical fourth industrial 

revolution technologies. These multifaceted economic challenges reinforce the

tenuous position of Russia as a durable Great Power (chapter 4)
xx Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition

Part II. Warfighting, Innovation, and Technology 

in a New Era of Great Power Competition

■ The technologies of the fourth industrial revolution will not change the fundamental 

nature of war or bring clarity about its imminence or brevity to its conduct. War will

remain the domain of fog, friction, and uncertainty. Each society will use emerging

technologies in unique ways that are best suited to it, and any conflict will evolve 

based on the reciprocal and dynamic interaction of all societies involved (chapter 5)

■ The fourth industrial revolution is reducing the price of precision and advanced 

manufacturing, creating a new generation of smaller, smarter, and cheaper weapons

Yet the United States, China, and Russia continue to pursue exquisite, high-end 

systems such as fifth-generation fighters, heavy bombers, and aircraft carriers. As

manufacturing continues to rapidly change in the era of GPC, a key question appears: 

Which nation can most rapidly and effectively adapt to this revolution (chapter 5)?

■ In the conventional military arena, the revolution of small, smart, and cheap favors the 

United States over China or Russia. Operationally and tactically, the United States is on

the defensive in both Eastern Europe and Asia. In the Indo-Pacific region, the United

States could move from easily targeted bases and platforms to multiple locations and 

mobile systems that could disperse through the First Island Chain, denying China 

tactical military advantage for at least some time. In Europe, if the United States and

its Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are willing to equip 

frontline states with a mix of inexpensive drones and improvised explosive devices, 

and invest in autonomous drones and cruise missiles, they could deter and defend in 

depth against the most challenging Russian security threats (chapter 5)

■ The foundation of modern Great Power wealth and competitive advantage has 

essentially changed from one dominated by industrial era technology to one in 

which information technology (IT) has become the source of geopolitical power

This change has been affecting the balance of global power in favor of China for over 

a decade, and is about to enter a dramatic new phase (chapter 6)

■ Where China and Russia are concerned, information power is more likely than 

industrial power to determine the outcomes of long-term geopolitical contests

Indeed, no amount of American investment in industrial era technology could 

do much to defend against the damage being done by autocratic states’ politicalpsychological operations or help the United States respond with information 

operations that uphold American values and characteristics (chapter 6)

■ To compete in the critical IT arena, the United States must work with other 

developed nations, and in public-private partnerships, to reprioritize resources 

into key information technologies and capabilities. Simultaneously, America and

its partners must effectively counter China’s ability to steal intellectual property and 

Beijing’s quest to control global information flows (chapter 6)

■ Russia and China have been increasingly waging foreign propaganda campaigns 

on social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. These campaigns are

enticing because they are cheap, easy to execute, allow targeting of specifically 
Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition xxi

refined audiences, and provide anonymity that limits the risks of attribution or 

reprisal (chapter 7)

■ Russia has proved adept at using social media and other online channels of 

international influence and global propaganda in the new era of GPC. Multiple

Russian campaigns since 2013 have been skillful and disruptive in many other 

states, but it remains unclear that they have met particular strategic goals or changed 

audience attitudes, behaviors, or beliefs in ways that Moscow intended. Nonetheless,

the confusion sewn in these repetitive campaigns makes it likely Russia will value 

them in the future. Moscow appears prepared to adapt and persist in the face of any

emerging countermeasures (chapter 7)

■ China has gained a strong reputation for effectively stifling and influencing online 

debate within its borders, effectively censoring illicit content on the Web, and shaping 

online conversations. But it has struggled to weaponize social media or online tools

to influence international policy and popular opinion abroad. There can be no doubt

that Beijing will learn lessons and generate new projects to build international social 

media presence, leveraging its large state-generated IT investments to generate 

better scale and scope for international social media influence (chapter 7)

■ To succeed in the GPC for influence through propaganda in social media, the 

United States must pursue broad, agile approaches to limiting the threat—featuring 

public and private domestic cooperation and close international collaboration

First, it must track, highlight, and block adversarial social media content. Then it

must build resilience in at-risk populations at home and in allied states targeted 

by adversaries. Finally, it must better organize government to counter adversary

propaganda (chapter 7)

■ Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) remain a critical feature and potentially 

dynamic factor in GPC. For Russia and China, WMD contribute to multiple goals:

conflict deterrence at the strategic and regional levels, regime survival, coercion 

of rival states, and, potentially, as an adjunct to conventional forces to support 

operations. The erosion of longstanding arms control treaties and nonproliferation

norms increases the risks of arms races and the use of WMD in conflict. Ongoing

advances in the technologies that underpin WMD could lead to the emergence of 

novel threats with uncertain consequences for GPC (chapter 8)

■ The risk of an arms race in nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and missile 

defenses is growing as Great Power relations become more competitive and even 

confrontational. Systems of arms control treaties, which for decades limited U

and Russian nuclear forces, are under great strain and could even collapse. China

is investing more in nuclear capabilities, modernizing and expanding strategic 

systems, and developing dual-capable theater-range platforms that would heighten 

nuclear risks in Indo-Pacific conflicts. And while the introduction of hypersonic

vehicles by the Great Powers is unlikely to affect the balance of nuclear power in 

the next few years, as these capabilities are deployed in larger numbers, the risks to 

nuclear stability at both the strategic and theater levels are likely to grow (chapter 8)

■ China and Russia may perceive chemical and biological warfare agents, including 

agents developed through new scientific and manufacturing techniques, as important 
xxii Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition

capabilities for a range of operations against the United States and its allies. Chemical

or biological attacks could be difficult to attribute and may be well suited to support 

Russian and Chinese objectives in operations below the threshold of open armed 

conflict (chapter 8)

Part III. Geostrategic Interactions in a New 

Era of Great Power Competition

■ U.S. and Chinese strategic interests are less aligned in the Indo-Pacific region tha

anywhere else in the world, and the importance of those interests to both countries 

makes the region a central venue for GPC. The U.S. Free and Open Indo-Pacif

vision is not compatible with China’s aspirations for increasing control within 

its First Island Chain and wider Chinese regional aims sometimes espoused as a 

“community of common destiny” (chapters 3a, 9)

■ China has economic dominance in markets and investment across most of the region

It also has eroded the U.S. military advantage in potential locations of confrontatio

near its shores and inside the First Island Chain. The United States retains an overall

advantage in military technology and power projection across the wider Indo-Pacific 

region, a resonant ideology and ability to communicate it, along with a regional 

political and military alliance structure unmatched by China (chapter 9)

■ China’s superior ability to use market access and other economic tools to provide 

benefits means that Indo-Pacific countries will not give up their economic ties 

with Beijing, even if Washington attempts to decouple from the Chinese economy

But Washington needs to be actively involved in regional economic affairs, both 

to advance specific U.S. economic interests and to shape rules and norms in th

most dynamic region in the world. A policy that combines engagement with China

and attention to nurturing a balance of economic power around Beijing as a hedge 

would best serve U.S. interests (chapter 

■ The United States should build on its relative political-military advantages to sustain 

and strengthen its overall Indo-Pacific security position. Reinforcing present

alliances, building military partnerships, extending cooperative training, and 

expanding interoperability are techniques that states in the region would embrace 

and which would work against unilateral Chinese efforts to intimidate or erode the 

U.S. alliance system (chapter 

■ As long as American society models and promotes open, transparent, and democratic 

institutions, the United States likely will appear as an ideological and even existential 

threat to CCP leaders. But strong and consistent messaging with Indo-Pacific allies and

partners could send a positive signal to the Chinese people about the value of good, 

representational governance and provide other states around the region a positive 

alternative framework that contrasts with China’s authoritarian model (chapter 9)

■ Although best understood as a contemporary Great Power, Russia could be 

alternatively considered to be a rogue, disruptor, or spoiler state, such as Iran and 

the Democratic Republic of Korea. These are countries that lack the military and
Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition xxiii

long-term economic power and/or transnational cultural appeal to match U.

power globally or stabilize an alternative international political order. They are

motivated by a combination of regime survival, aspirations for regional dominance 

and sometimes global relevance, as well as an inclination to confront the United 

States, which they believe is the main obstacle to their own aspirations (chapter 10)

■ Rogue states tend to confront the United States below the threshold of active armed 

conflict and across multiple domains in the contemporary era of GPC. As they do,

these states’ actions divert American attention and resources away from longer 

term objectives, thus impeding the United States and benefiting China. However,

Russian, Iranian, and North Korean provocative behavior is not uniformly beneficial 

to China (chapter 10)

■ The prospect of a robust and fully cooperative anti-U.S. rogue state axis in the earl

2020s remains remote. While U.S.-Chinese competition will yield limited prospec

for burden-sharing between Beijing and Washington to confront Russian, Iranian, 

or North Korean conduct harmful to the United States, China also must fear 

negative spillover from such conduct onto its own economic interests and strategic 

aims. The United States thus can expect a mixture of cooperative and obstructive

responses from China when addressing these actors on a case-by-case basis in the 

new era of GPC (chapter 10)

■ Terrorism is far from eradicated and will not go away in the emerging era of GPC

Instead, American counterterrorism efforts will confront a set of new realities

Recent American counterterrorism operations in Syria likely will be the model of the 

future. The U.S. Government should reconsider counterterrorism authorities, n

technologies, and other tools that could help manage the risks from small-footprint 

deployments—especially those with active proxies—and that hold sponsor states 

accountable for actions by proxies against U.S. counterterrorism forces (chapter 1

■ Russia must be expected to undermine U.S. counterterrorism objectives, eithe

directly or indirectly. Moscow will likely try to destabilize U.S. objectives 

fomenting right-wing and other homegrown violent extremists indirectly through 

media campaigns. Russia also will confront U.S. forces, especially in the Middle Ea

and North Africa, as the forces attempt to mitigate threats to the U.S. homeland. 

in Syria, Russia will combine diplomatic initiatives, proxy warfare, and electronic 

warfare to foil U.S. military dominance (chapter 1

■ Regional states will continue to pursue their own counterterrorism objectives

Sometimes they will deploy their forces in a manner that the United States finds 

unacceptable. Sometimes they will utilize proxy forces in a destabilizing manner. I

other instances, important regional states will have objectives, ways, and means that 

align with U.S. goals for countering violent extremist organizations. The best way 

mitigate the risk of regional states acting in an unruly manner is to be involved—

even to a minimal degree if necessary—and then leverage American influence with 

them (chapter 11)

■ In the dawning age of GPC, Europe is a resilient but troubled region. Europe has

shown considerable hardiness while overcoming the 2008 Great Recession and 

saving the euro in the face of a serious sovereign debt crisis. But its cohesion and
xxiv Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition

solidarity also have been severely tested by terrorism, uncontrolled migration, 

Brexit, and most recently, the still-evolving complications from the COVID-19 

pandemic. These problems have generated extremist populist movements across the

continent that challenge liberal democracy and inhibit cohesive European policy 

positions or security activities (chapter 12)

■ Despite a share of global economic output comparable to that of the United States in 

2020, Europe is not a Great Power. Europe finds itself an object of Great Power rivalry

on the continent rather than a subject competitor itself. In 2020, it confronts a more

aggressive Russia, growing Chinese power, and reduced trust in the longstanding 

U.S. commitment to Europe’s security and the wider construct of transatlanticis

(chapter 12)

■ European cohesion and stability has long been a function of both American support 

and a collaborative Franco-German core. In 2020, that core is weak, as Germany

and France lack common positions on many critical issues, including on European 

defense. As Brexit moves the United Kingdom out of the European Union, much

about Europe’s way forward will be decided in Washington and Moscow. Europeans

worry that the United States may detach itself from Europe—particularly NATO—

even as Europe today remains unable to create an autonomous system of security 

and defense. While Europeans mistrust Russia generally, their perception of Russia

as a security threat varies greatly. All know that Europe cannot alone defend

member states from Russia. Should America move to detach from NATO, Europe

may intensify accommodation with Russia—and even with China—believing this 

move to be the least-worst path to the evolving competition among the Great 

Powers (chapter 12)

■ The era of GPC will confront U.S. policymakers both with the challenge of ho

to shift greater resources and attention toward Russian and Chinese traditional 

spheres of influence—in the Indo-Pacific region and Europe—as well as the 

challenge of whether and how to compete with Moscow and Beijing on a global 

scale. Washington will require distinct strategies for competing with Russia and

China, a recalibration of U.S. interests across the world, and a discerning approac

that reduces the prospects of pulling U.S. regional partners into an unrestricted

zero-sum competition (chapter 13)

■ Russia and China present distinct competitive threats to the United States around 

the globe. China’s behavior is grounded in its global investment strategy and desire

to shape an international political order more conducive to Chinese interests, even 

if not fully Sino-centric. Russia’s desire to be a global Great Power is not grounded

in a proactive vision for a new global geopolitical order (chapters 3a, 13)

■ In many regions, Russia often poses the more immediate challenge, whereas the 

repercussions of Chinese economic investments manifest themselves subtly and will 

likely undermine U.S. strategic interests more gradually. Both are only nominal

united in their desires to compete with and displace U.S. influence across Lati

America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic (chapter 13)

■ States in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic are often eager 

recipients of Russian and Chinese attention and resources due to convenience rather 
Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition xxv

than ideological commitment. With few exceptions, these countries accept support

without any allegiance to China’s global vision or Russia’s cynicism vis-à-vis Western 

norms and institutions. The limitations to Russian and Chinese approaches—as

well as the transactional hedging strategies of many of these smaller states—should 

induce caution and prudence in Washington (chapter 13)

■ Few, if any, smaller states wish to be pulled into a zero-sum U.S.-China or U.S.-Rus

GPC. Thus, the United States should avoid imposing regional strategies that view

Russian or Chinese activities as uniformly harmful to U.S. interests and detrimenta

to the stability of recipient states across these regions. Instead, Washington should

emphasize American strengths as an economic partner, the quality and quantity of 

its military assistance, and the positive and benign nature of its military forward 

presence (chapter 13)

Part IV. Preparing to Compete

■ Great Power competitions and accompanying power transitions are rarely resolved 

without a holistic approach, managed within an appropriate strategic framework

They require leadership involvement, disciplined priorities, sustainable resourcing, 

and adaptive oversight. In 2020, Russia is a dangerous competitor in the near term,

but the U.S.-China competitive dyad is the one that will determine the prospect

for continued global stability and the contours of any geopolitical Great Power 

transition (chapters 3a, 3b, 14)

■ After more than two decades of geopolitical dominance featuring mainly cooperative 

interactions and relative comfort, the United States must acquire a competitive 

mindset. A competitive American mindset must understand that while interstate

cooperation remains feasible today in areas of shared mutual interests, competitive 

tensions can occur in formerly cooperative political and economic categories so long 

as they are contested within established bounds. The challenge is to expand on the

potential for cooperation while carefully managing the competition to keep it short of 

armed conflict, all without compromising vital national interests (chapter 14)

■ In the Sino-American competition, the United States cannot merely accommodate 

China’s rising power by acquiescing to its ambitions. An effective U.S. strategy mu

create leverage and accept risk. It must create leverage by working with allies and

partners to strengthen rules and norms, set standards, collaborate on industrial 

policy, cooperate on critical information technologies, rejuvenate research and 

development, enhance innovation, invest in higher education, and share best 

practices. It must accept risk, while standing with these partners, to counter

aggressive Chinese behaviors, violations of standing rules and norms, or the 

suborning of human rights. These principles frame a strategy of Strategic Balancing

for America’s role vis-à-vis China in the new era of GPC (chapter 14)

■ The COVID-19 pandemic is far less likely to change the basic trajectory of emerging 

GPC than to accelerate it and expose underlying dynamics. The three contemporary

Great Powers are likely to remain dominant rivals through at least the middle of 
xxvi Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition

the dawning decade. If any of the three might falter, Russia seems the most likely

candidate, but the odds of that are long. China and the United States may joust

over whose model best dealt with COVID-19 crisis, but the basic outlines of their 

strategic disagreements will remain. Moreover, the phenomena of deglobalization

and partial economic decoupling seems most likely to continue (chapter 15)

■ As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, Washington will face the same choice that it 

confronted before: whether, where, and how to compete. As the dominant Great

Power in a multipolar competition, America could contest or confront its Great 

Power rivals today with a resolve to sustain its global position and the standing rules, 

norms, institutions, and alliances of the current international order. Alternatively, it

could abdicate leadership of the global order and allow Russia to trample it and then 

an increasingly powerful China to extend its own version of global norms, rules, 

and institutions. The former course entails risks of expanding confrontation and

potential direct military clash, but the latter course would not necessarily avoid a 

military fight, especially if the United States comes to view an increasingly Chineseordered world to be unacceptable (chapters 3b, 15)

■ The history of rivalrous dyads played out in periods of multilateral GPC offers 

several informative principles for competing effectively while minimizing the 

prospect of Great Power transition collapsing into Great Power war. Four stand ou

» Firmness with Flexibility. The dominant Great Power must demonstrate firmness

with flexibility. It must clearly signal to the fullest extent possible the strategic aims

it will defend at all costs and then offer the prospect for dialogue on those aims 

it may be willing to negotiate. While firm on its nonnegotiable goals, it should

be flexible in finding issues and venues where win-win outcomes are possible

For example, the United Kingdom accepted U.S. primacy in the western Atlanti

as a better path to sustaining high seas primacy on vital routes for its Middle 

East and Asian colonies—and preferable to naval confrontation in recognition 

of growing American power. At the same time, the rising United States came to

accept the once-abhorrent British monarchy in recognition of growing political 

enfranchisement for a great number of British citizens. Is there such a trading

room today for the United States and China to agree on rules for collaboration 

in space and cyberspace while at the same time negotiating over reduced CCP 

domestic economic and human rights constraints (chapters 2, 15)?

» Durable Partnerships and Alliances. The dominant Great Power must build

and maintain durable interstate alliances and provide would-be partners with 

alternatives to the either-or choices posed by a hard-charging rival. Great Britain

was right to seek strategic partnerships and allies in its rivalry with Napoleonic 

France, parlaying these alliances into first containment of the threat and then 

its defeat. Napoleon had no such partnerships, relying instead on conquest of

allies. Today, the United States has a far greater base for building economic and

military partnerships than any Great Power in modern history, and it confronts 

a rising Great Power in China with little experience or inclination in this area

Washington has an enormous opportunity to construct alternative economic, 
Major Findings on Contemporary Great Power Competition xxvii

diplomatic, and political geometries with an array of partners giving them 

alternatives to Chinese enticements and blandishments (chapters 2, 15)

» The Peril of Reciprocal Societal Denigration. Successful GPC short of direct

military confrontation is unlikely if the rivals give into a poisonous, open, 

and reciprocal denigration of each other’s people. The choice to criticize the

government or policies of a rival state while distinguishing it from the people is 

not as fraught with peril—although a tightrope must be walked to maintain the 

difference. Once the British and German press went after the character of the

other’s society, the march toward World War I accelerated. So, too, World War II

in the Pacific loomed ominously once the United States and Tojo’s Japan devolved 

to mutual societal recrimination. But the U.S. Government’s conscious Co

War effort to distinguish the Soviet Union’s Communist Party from the Russian 

people, reserving greatest criticism toward the Party and offering outreach to its 

people, generated a far different result. American leaders are likely to compete

best with China while clearly distinguishing between its criticism of the CCP and 

its feelings for the Chinese people (chapters 2, 15)

» Play for Time. Some argue that time works in favor of the rising Great Power

in a competitive dyad, putting the dominant Great Power at more risk should 

it not take confrontational and decisive action. But this thesis rests on a false

assumption that the rising power will continue to ascend in mainly a linear 

fashion and not confront problems or challenges on the way. The United

States has its own domestic inconsistencies and challenges, but these pale in 

comparison to those certain to play out in China. The CCP faces multifaceted

challenges to safeguarding both its political position and an economic rise, 

including environmental degradation; rising income inequalities; a rapidly aging 

and less productive population; chronic worry about abuses of political power; 

widespread corruption; restive domestic regions, including Tibet, Xinjiang, and 

Mongolia; and a poor record on human rights. As China’s economy shifts and its

economic growth decelerates, these issues are likely to move to the fore. Thus, a

U.S. strategy that plays for time as China’s challenges grow seems best suited fo

successful contemporary GPC (chapter 15)

Note

1

 Hans Binnendijk and David C. Gompert, eds., Strategi

Assessment 1998: Engaging Power for Peace (Washington, DC: 

NDU Press, 1998), xiii, available at <https://apps.dtic.mil/dti

tr/fulltext/u2/a354594.pdf

Part I

Conceptualizing the New Era of 

Great Power Competition

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

By Thomas F. Lynch III

This chapter establishes the return of Great Power competition (GPC) as the fully 

acknowledged, dominant paradigm of interstate relations in 2017 after a 25-year 

absence from mainstream thinking. It establishes that competition is not synonymous with confrontation and clash and that GPC features a continuum of friendly-to-confrontational interactions between the competitors. The chapter notes 

the important linkage between GPC and Great Power transitions, observing that 

power transitions do portend greater instability and possible military clash (war). 

It establishes that Great Powers compete for an array of interests with a mixture 

of hard and soft power tools. It also defines a Great Power as one with three major 

characteristics in comparison to other states: unusual capabilities, use of those 

capabilities to pursue broad foreign policy interests beyond its immediate neighborhood, and a perception by other states that it is a major player. This makes the 

United States, China, and Russia today’s Great Powers. After a brief introduction 

of the volume’s 15 chapters, this chapter provides a short analytical evaluation of 4 

relevant topics to contemporary GPC that cannot be addressed fully herein: space, 

cyberspace, homeland security, and climate change.

Great Power competition (GPC) is a framework for understanding global interstate relations that dominated global political affairs for centuries prior to World War II. Many 

past GPC eras have featured multiple powerful states jockeying for relative status and position. During the Cold War (1945–1991), GPC played out as a two-state competitive dyad 

between the United States and the Soviet Union. After lying dormant during a relatively 

short two-decade period of post–Cold War globalization and American international ascendance, the construct of GPC returned to the vocabulary of international relations and 

security studies in earnest during the late 2010s.1

The National Security Strategy of 2017 openly advanced the idea that America and 

fellow Great Powers, Russia and China, had transitioned formally from a more than 20-year 

period of collaboration and cooperation into one of competition.2

 In Washington, DC, 2017 

was the year of fully acknowledged Great Power rivalry.3 The National Security Strategy 

simultaneously identified three additional threats to U.S. security: North Korea, Iran, and 

transnational terrorist and criminal organizations, but it clearly focused American security 
2 Lynch

and future prosperity on the ability to compete with the two emerging Great Powers 

headquartered in Moscow and Beijing.4

The United States National Defense 

Strategy of 2018 defined the central challenge to U.S. and Western prosperity and 

security as the reemergence of long-term 

strategic competition with those it classified as “revisionist powers,” particularly 

Russia and China.5 It also observed that 

the emerging security environment would 

now be characterized by rapid technological advancements and a changing character 

of war. Specifically, technological changes 

would both broaden and unhelpfully blur 

the lines of competition and conflict.6

Debates about the meaning and relevance of GPC have been prominently 

featured in strategic discussions from 2017 

to 2020. Beneath the surface of these discussions lurks another historic feature of GPC: 

Great Power transition. Transition is concerned with differential state growth rates and 

the impact on relative power between and among the states. A transition of differentiated 

power levels generates new relationships and the formation of new political and economic 

entities. One byproduct of differential state growth is a high potential for conflict when a 

challenger (or challengers) to a dominant country approaches the stage of relative equivalence of power, and specifically when the challenger is dissatisfied with the status quo.7

Strategic analysts and political scientists have haggled over the precise definition and 

detail of greatness, power, and competition in a raft of literature.8 A complete analysis of 

these debates and disputes is beyond the scope of this volume, but a few elements of these 

debates are important to set the scene for the chapters that follow.

First, competition is not synonymous with conflict. To a worrisome degree, some 

Western pundits have begun to conflate competition with clash, asserting that most if not 

all interactions between and among the three contemporary Great Powers must now be 

confrontational or even more extreme.9 Students and policy practitioners of this new era 

need to be mindful that competition exists on a continuum of interactions among states, 

nonstate actors, and some super-empowered individuals (see figure 1.1). On one end of the 

spectrum is cooperation. Cooperating states are exceptionally aligned in geopolitical goals 

and means of achieving them, thus able to pursue means of attaining them harmoniously. 

Collaborating states have similar goals and a general agreement on the means of achieving 

them. Competing states recognize that some, but not most, of their major goals are compatible and simultaneously disagree on the best means for attaining mutual gains in their 

remaining aligned goals. Confrontational states are characterized by incompatible aims in 

almost all major goals and in general conflict about what constitutes legitimate means for 

attainment of national goals. On the far end of the interaction continuum is the undesirable 

“China and Russia challenge American 

power, influence, and interests, attempting 

to erode American security and prosperity. 

They are determined to make economies 

less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data 

to repress their societies and expand their 

influence. . . . These competitions require 

the United States to rethink the policies of 

the past two decades—policies based on 

the assumption that engagement with rivals 

and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn 

them into benign actors and trustworthy 

partners. For the most part, this premise 

turned out to be false.”

—National Security Strategy of the United 

States of America, December 2017
Introduction 3

environment where state goals are perceived as so incompatible, and even threatening, that 

the dominant form of state-to-state interaction devolves into armed conflict.10

As it exists on a continuum of interactions, competition features elements of collaboration and some aspects of cooperation. At the same time, competition is not conflict, and it is 

definitely not a clash between states (or armed warfare). And yet the ongoing move toward a 

competitive-dominant interactive framework among the three most mighty states and several 

others in the new era of GPC interweaves more elements of conflict and confrontation into 

competition and more preparations for clash than witnessed in recent history. Recent history 

was dominated by a preference for cooperation and collaboration among the major states 

of the post–Cold War era—an era that came to be known in some circles as an ascent of a 

liberal international order.11 This volume proceeds from the perspective that the emerging 

era of GPC, while not exactly the same as previous eras with two or more competitive powers, now features three dominant states with robust capabilities in the major areas of power 

interactions. These states have moved from a phase of generally cooperative and collaborative 

interactions to those now dominated by competitive and confrontational dynamics.12

Second, power is a multifaceted construct having to do with a state’s ability to attain 

its aims vis-à-vis another. Max Weber defined the essence of power as the “probability that 

one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite 

resistance.”13 Power has absolute, relative, and transitional properties. Scholars have long 

referred to power as relative to the type of actor, the goals the actor seeks, and the kind of 

relationships at play. Assessing relative power between states is an inherently challenging 

task.14 Power exists in two major dimensions: hard power (or the coercive use of military 

power and leveraging economic power as a payoff) and soft power (which includes cooperative and collaborative interactions that attain influence by attraction: partnered economic 

arrangements, ideological appeal, cultural and social engagements, diplomatic acumen, and 

reciprocal information exchanges).15 The term smart power is sometimes today used for 

policy choices that display an effective mix of coercive hard power and the persuasion and 

attraction of soft power in the pursuit of national interests.16 More recently, the term sharp 

power has become vogue as a phrase to describe state actions that twist soft power attributes 

in a manipulative or confrontational manner, especially the co-option of culture, educational institutions, media, and entertainment interactions by one state in a manner aimed to 

undermine or severely distort the political system or social order of another.17 The contributors in this volume provide thoughts on these different kinds of power and their relevance 

to the competition between the Great Powers today. Contributors also indicate the role of 

these kinds of Great Power relationships with other countries and global institutions.

Third, the notions of what constitutes “greatness” as an actor on the international stage 

are addressed in an operational manner throughout the majority of this volume. The framework of GPC tacitly acknowledges that not all players in the international arena of today are 

Figure 1.1. Continuum of Major State Interaction Postures

Cooperation Collaboration Competition Confrontation/Conflict Clash/Armed Warfare
4 Lynch

as equally important as the others. At the same time, Great Powers act on and interact with 

international entities, states, nongovernmental actors, and critical individuals (such as Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk, or Virgin’s Richard Branson) in a manner that critically 

impacts the prospects for relative gain and relative loss in the varying areas of competition 

between them. An operationalized definition for a Great Power state has three substantive 

features: capabilities, behavior, and status attribution by other states in the system. First, a 

Great Power is a state that has unusual capabilities—in comparison to other states—with 

which to pursue its interests and to influence interstate relations. Second, a Great Power 

uses those capabilities to pursue broad foreign policy interests beyond its immediate neighborhood. Finally, that state’s relative status is perceived by other states to be major in nature, 

and the other states act toward that state accordingly.18 Using this operational definition, 

this volume—for the most part—considers there to be three Great Powers in the contemporary era: the United States, Russia, and China.19 Only in chapter 10 is there analysis of Russia 

as though it is not a contemporary Great Power.

Intent, Audience, and Contributors 

This volume provides a succinct, expert, and nuanced understanding of important emerging dimensions of GPC today. It primarily focuses on the critical interactions and activities 

among the United States, China, and Russia. It simultaneously develops many of the major 

implications of these interactions for other state and for nonstate actors and processes. 

Therefore, its analyses and recommendations are generally framed for the years from 2020 

to 2025. The speed and pace of change in global power relationships and activities requires 

an update of credible analysis by mid-decade. Indeed, impactful events such as the 2019–

2020 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will generate important changes that are 

beginning to take shape only as this volume is published.

As begun in this chapter, contributors provide readers with text, analysis, and notes that 

reference primary documents and sources to the fullest extent possible. Where such sources 

are not available, the contributors cite and then note for reference the most prominent and 

influential secondary sources and analytical pieces available in the field. The volume is designed to enable each reader to gain access to the best and most relevant writings on the 

topics of contemporary GPC.

The volume is written with chapters that are short, are self-contained for standalone 

use, and tie back to the central themes of GPC developed in early chapters (chapters 2–4). 

Each chapter and the overall elements of the volume’s key findings and conclusions are 

for graduate-level students within professional military institutions, graduate students in 

civilian political science and national strategy programs, and mid- to upper-level career 

civil servants in the U.S. interagency community and other security establishments. Volume 

editors and authors hope that individual chapters and combinations of chapters will be of 

use to students and policy practitioners both in an academic setting and for personal study 

and understanding.

The contributors include many who have been directly engaged as thought leaders 

and policymaking pioneers grappling with the emerging contours of GPC. One contributor helped write the 2018 National Defense Strategy, working on that project directly for 

then–Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Another contributor has served as a subject matter 
Introduction 5

expert and consultant to U.S. Cyber Command. Two others are regular consultants and 

advisers for military and civilian U.S. Government organizations focusing on strategic deterrence and weapons of mass destruction. Others have served across the U.S. military and 

wider interagency community and intelligence organizations as subject matter consultants 

and as red-teaming leaders on China—providing uniquely informed insights on the key 

dimensions of China’s rise and interaction on the world stage. One contributor has been 

instrumental in developing U.S. and allied military leaders’ understanding about the future 

of terrorism and counterterrorism in an era of GPC. Two of the main chapter contributors have provided direct analysis and recommendation about the implications to the U.S. 

military from the emerging GPC dynamics across South Asia, the Middle East, and the 

Indo-Pacific region. Last, one contributor has been a leading public voice for understanding how the competitive space of social media has become and will continue to evolve as a 

critical nexus between Great Powers and their surrogates—aiming to generate power and 

influence in the emerging era.

Each chapter includes original author research, analysis, and insights—much of it generated from direct contact with senior U.S. Government policymakers and other global 

security leaders. Some chapters include text drawn from pieces the contributors have published elsewhere in recent years. All chapters feature original, updated analysis and insights 

for understanding GPC in the specific period from 2020 to 2025 and beyond.

Sections and Overviews 

This strategic assessment of the new era of GPC is organized into 4 discrete sections 

and a total of 15 numbered chapters that include a couplet chapter, chapters 3a and 3b.

The first section focuses on conceptualizing this new era of GPC. Its four chapters undertake a focused assessment of historic cases of Great Power rivalry among three or more 

parties and generates important lessons for the current era. It then provides an overview of 

the major geostrategic dynamics and technological competitive aspects of the present Great 

Power rivalry among China, Russia, and the United States.

Chapter 2 takes a short, focused historical look at past eras of GPC. Thomas Lynch and 

Frank Hoffman survey the major understandings of Great Power identities and transitions 

in historic eras of GPC. From this survey, they conclude that past eras featuring major 

power transitions trended toward direct military clash (war) between the rising and declining state absent an atypical exercise in sage Great Power leadership. They also develop 

five universally applicable aspects/categories of interstate competition and the competitive 

elements in each: political and diplomatic, informational, ideological, military, and economic. The authors then apply these categories to an analysis of the dynamics of major 

state competition in four GPC case studies, focusing on the most critical dyadic rivalries in 

each: France–the United Kingdom (UK) (late 18th and 19th centuries), UK-Germany (late 

19th and 20th centuries), the United States–UK (late 19th and 20th centuries), and the United 

States–Japan (early 20th century). All were contested in eras of multiple Great Power rivals 

with one ascendant Great Power worried about relative power decline in the face of at least 

one rising challenger and under conditions of emergent, disruptive technological change. 

Thus, they are cases with strong parallels to current GPC. The chapter concludes with a 
6 Lynch

summary of major insights and a framework for analysis of contemporary GPC tethered to 

relevant historical vignettes.

Chapter 3a looks at contemporary Great Power geostrategic dynamics in light of declared strategies and revealed strategic preference forces. It focuses on the main strategies 

and relationship dynamics among the United States, China, and Russia in 2020; how these 

dynamics developed; and where they should be anticipated to evolve by 2025. Phillip Saunders and Thomas Lynch utilize the five key categories of interstate activities important in 

past GPC eras developed in chapter 2 to assess the most critical aspects of emerging competitive postures and strategies of the three Great Powers. The authors make an analytic 

evaluation of relative strategic interest force by the Great Powers in various regions of the 

world, indicating how these could impact forthcoming GPC dynamics.

Chapter 3b extends beyond chapter 3a by analyzing contemporary GPC dynamics from 

the perspective of state power assets and the tool sets available to the three Great Power protagonists—evaluating their objective means to achieve the strategic preferences established 

in chapter 3a. Utilizing the main competitive elements defined in the five key categories of 

past GPC eras developed in chapter 2, the authors provide an array of quantitative and qualitative measures that evaluate the main power dynamics at play between the contemporary 

Great Powers. They assess Great Power relative present strengths and future trajectories. 

Chapters establish that—for the foreseeable future—Russia’s tool kit makes it an urgent but 

transient security challenger to the United States, while China’s growing power tools make 

it the long-term challenger to American national interests and global policy preferences.

Chapter 4 takes a focused look at contemporary Great Power competition through 

the lens of technological competitive factors central to the ongoing fourth industrial revolution. This revolution describes the blurring of boundaries among the physical, digital, 

and biological worlds. It is a fusion of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the 

Internet of Things, 3D printing (additive manufacturing), genetic engineering, quantum 

computing, energy, and biotechnology. Authors T.X. Hammes and Diane DiEuliis trace 

these technologies that most impact GPC in the short term and explain the importance of 

each individually. They also describe how together these technologies will revolutionize the 

global economy. The authors then indicate how these factors impact the economic growth 

potential and the relative strategic interests and power positioning of the three Great Powers.

The second section of the book takes up from chapter 4 with a featured focus on the 

critical dynamics of technology, innovation, and the evolving character of war in a new era 

of Great Power competition.

In chapter 5, T.X. Hammes begins this four-chapter part with specific attention to key 

technologies that are leading to a revolution of small, smart, and cheap in emerging warfare. 

He focuses on the important role of autonomous weapons. Hammes also tackles some dimensions and implications of hypersonic weapons for GPC and conflict. He concludes with 

thoughts about how small, smart, cheap, and super-fast weaponry will impact the dynamics 

of defense competition in the coming 5 years and, perhaps, the possibility of Great Power 

conflict in the distant future.

Chapter 6 looks directly at the emerging impact of AI, quantum computing, and 5G 

wireless technologies for GPC. Richard Andres explains that where control of industrial 

resources was once key to geopolitical power, today control of information resources is the 
Introduction 7

most important factor. The chapter examines the Sino-American competition in these critical technologies and explains why China’s state-led ascent in them is a serious challenge to 

American power and a key element of the ongoing GPC.

Chapter 7 addresses the contemporary dynamics and strategic implications of social 

media that influence operations technologies for Great Power competition and conflict. 

Todd Helmus of RAND explains why foreign propaganda campaigns on social media platforms have become prolific. The chapter reviews how three key U.S. adversaries—Russia, 

China, and the so-called Islamic State—have exploited modern technologies to attain political objectives. It evaluates the aims, capabilities, and limitations of online propaganda 

practiced by each of these American adversaries, concluding with recommendations for the 

United States to counter their use of online propaganda in the new era of GPC.

Chapter 8 focuses on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and strategic deterrence in 

the emerging era of GPC. Paul Bernstein and his co-authors assess the prospects for nuclear 

competition between the Great Powers and the potential role of biological and chemical 

weapons in Russian and Chinese strategies for various forms of competition and conflict. 

They identify both geopolitical and technology drivers of future competition in WMD and 

the steps the United States should take to manage strategic and operational risk in this important and potentially volatile area of GPC.

The third section of this strategic assessment examines selected geostrategic interactions in the new era of GPC.

Chapter 9 examines the Indo-Pacific competitive space—perhaps the most contentious geopolitical region in the emerging GPC era. Thomas Lynch, James Przystup, and 

Phillip Saunders develop American and Chinese strategic visions for the region, formerly 

described as the Asia-Pacific. They highlight the divergence of strategic interests between 

America’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vision and China’s “community of common interest” framework. Then the chapter conducts an analytical comparison of relative Chinese 

and American strengths in the competitive categories of political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, and military and economic. The analysis reveals a mixture of relative 

power advantages, indicating that despite growing regional tensions between the two Great 

Powers, there are opportunities to both secure stability and pursue selected collaboration if 

both parties identify and accept their relative power limitations.

Chapter 10 takes a direct and comparative look at Russia, North Korea, and Iran as 

a grouping of “rogue, disruptive, and spoiler states.” In doing so, the chapter treats Russia 

in a manner that diverges from its treatment in other chapters, and more like those contemporary scholars who view Moscow as more of a nuclear weapons–led, muscle-bound 

declining state with a disruptive rather than a constructive global worldview.20 The chapter 

develops key motivations and activities for rogue state activities and the new era of GPC. It 

explains why Russian, Iranian, and North Korean provocative behaviors are not uniformly 

harmful to the United States or beneficial for China. It further elucidates that the prospect 

of a robust and fully cooperative anti-U.S. rogue axis remains remote. It recommends appropriate U.S. strategic principles to meet these rogue state realities in a new era of GPC.

Chapter 11 addresses the future of counterterrorism missions by the U.S. military in 

the era of GPC. Kim Cragin and her co-authors assess that, over the next 3 to 5 years, Great 

Power competition likely will constrain the ability of U.S. forces to achieve even limited 
8 Lynch

counterterrorism objectives. They explore the insights from America’s recent counterterrorism experiences in Syria—where Russia was extensively involved—demonstrating that 

lessons from that experience inform the future of U.S. counterterrorism operations. The 

chapter then explores the long-lasting regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, explaining how this contest will exacerbate future threats to the United States from violent 

extremist organizations (VEOs). Then it demonstrates how Australia and similar countries 

might help reduce VEO risks to the United States, even as Washington shifts strategic priorities toward GPC. The chapter finally summarizes the VEO risks that America’s military 

should prioritize and the new authorities and technologies it should pursue for counterterrorism success in GPC.

Chapter 12 asks the question, “Whither Europe in the era of GPC?” Steven Kramer and 

Irene Kyriakopoulos trace Europe’s recent history: its lost promise, its major troubles, its 

relations with the three contemporary Great Powers, and its potential for evolution and regeneration. The authors explain how Europe in 2020 is a region troubled by recent financial, 

migration, and pandemic crises and one questioning the future of the transatlantic security 

alliance. They document the resilience of Europe in the face of these troubles and provide 

an understanding of how the experiment of post–World War II Europe should be expected 

to evolve between now and 2025.

Chapter 13 concludes the third section with a look at the competing visions and activities for the Great Powers in several critical regions of the world: the Middle East, Africa, 

Latin America, and the Arctic. Bryce Loidolt and his co-authors take an analytical look at 

the strategies and impacts of Chinese and Russian competitive activities across these regions. They trace regional receptivity to and potential repercussions from them. The chapter 

finds that the challenges posed to the United States are rarely grounded in an ideological 

commitment to Beijing’s global vision or Moscow’s cynicism. This points to the need for 

American regional strategies that appreciate the diverse challenges that China and Russia 

pose and American approaches that avoid pulling important U.S. regional partners into an 

unrestricted zero-sum competition.

The fourth section of the book features two chapters that ask “for what” and “how best” 

can the United States prepare to compete successfully in the era of GPC.

In chapter 14, Frank Hoffman provides a framework for thinking about U.S. competitive alternatives for the emerging era of GPC. He sketches out the elements of five possible 

strategy alternatives for the United States with its primary competitor, China. He reviews 

the key features of one collaborative alternative (bilateral bargain), two mainly competitive alternatives (managed competition and enhanced balancing), and two predominantly 

confrontational ones (compression and contested primacy), focusing on each one’s suitability, feasibility, and sustainability. The chapter details how each alternative leverages 

relative American and Chinese strengths and weaknesses and the international and domestic support likely for each. The author concludes that an American strategy of “enhanced 

balancing” best prepares America for successful competition with China.

Chapter 15 concludes the volume with a short summary and substantive extension of 

major insights about GPC. Thomas Lynch evaluates the main features of evolving GPC. 

He then situates major contemporary GPC dynamics in the context of past periods. The 

chapter offers an interim assessment about what the COVID-19 pandemic will mean for 
Introduction 9

dominant GPC trends, assessing that these are likely to accelerate rather than be supplanted 

by new ones. The chapter flags three main imperatives for U.S. competitiveness in the Sino-American dyadic rivalry, especially the wise choice of strategic allies and partners. It 

concludes with a historically framed assessment of four important dynamics for American 

success in a long-haul competition with China: firmness with flexibility, prioritization of 

partnerships and alliances, confronting China’s leaders rather than its people, and playing 

for time.

Finally, this volume features two appendixes. The first appendix is a selected bibliography of critical documents, books, and articles featured within book chapters. The second 

is an original, Web-only selected database compiled in the research for this volume titled 

“Contemporary Great Power Dynamics.” This modest catalogue of focused data provides 

readers with a ready reference for nine of the most significant quantitative indicators of 

relative state status (gross domestic product [GDP], GDP per capita, composite index of 

national capability, population, birthrate, level of industrialization, percentage of global 

financial markets, and innovation rank). Each indicator is provided for the three contemporary Great Powers and five other states. This data is measured for 7 different years between 

1980 and 2025. Some of this data is assimilated and assessed in chapter 3b. Mainly, this 

appendix is intended as a one-stop reader resource for follow-on investigations and as a 

living document that will be updated periodically by the research team in the Institute for 

National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. The Contemporary Great 

Power Dynamics Matrix can be found at the following URL: https://ndupress.ndu.edu/

Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/.

Important GPC Topics Without Individual Chapters 

There is no way to cover all the rich and varied topics that might be addressed in a full 

assessment of the new era of GPC. Reader attention could not be expected to withstand a 

barrage of separate chapters on every potential topic of relevance in a single volume. As a 

consequence, there are some interesting topics involving GPC that could not fit into these 

pages as standalone contributions. Many such topics are mentioned in context within several chapters, including the emerging implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. All also 

are covered in an authoritative manner in other publications. Among these, four topics 

stand out for specific mention and reader attention: space, cyberspace, homeland security, and climate change. It is likely that these topics will evolve significantly over the next 

half-decade—generating worthy chapter topics for the final years of the 2020s. For now, this 

chapter flags some key elements in these areas for contemporary Great Powers. It also offers 

readers some detailed reference sources that provide more insight into how these areas now 

impact emerging GPC.

Space 

The United States and the Soviet Union competed in space for decades during the Cold 

War. After a two-decade period of U.S.-Russian space cooperation and relative absence of 

Chinese space activity, outer space has once again become a key location for measuring 

relative power and conducting GPC.21 In early 2019, echoing calls for a U.S. Space Force, 

then–Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford reiterated the need 
10 Lynch

for the Nation to be intensely engaged on all five interactive domains (land, sea, air, space, 

and cyberspace) to stay competitive with Russia and China.22 Currently, NASA is working 

on a Moon-to-Mars mission that, in theory, will give the United States a more competitive 

edge.23 Despite an evolving competition, the United States remains tethered to a cooperative 

and codependent framework of working with Russia in space. As of 2020, Washington still 

uses the Russian Soyuz system to bring astronauts to the International Space Station, and 

the Lunar Gateway program remains a joint U.S.-Russian effort to ease access to the Moon.24

Meanwhile, during a reorganization of its military in 2015, China created a “space 

force” aimed at operating satellites and running counterspace missions, including a homegrown GPS system named the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, which has grown from 1 

to 54 satellites from December 2011 to March 2020.25 In 2019, former U.S. Acting Defense 

Secretary Patrick Shanahan stressed that Russia and China have weaponized space and that 

the United States now must join suit.26

A growing number of space-capable nations are filling Earth’s orbits with a high volume of satellites contesting a shrinking number of orbital spaces.27 In addition to the three 

Great Powers, seven other states in 2020 are reported as developing or considering the development of one or more types of counterspace systems.28 Intensifying GPC is a driver of 

antisatellite (ASAT) development and use, including high-profile tests by India in 2019 and 

a series of them by Russia including one in April 2020.29 Recognized norms, standards, and 

treaties do not exist to divvy up the limited volume of space or to regulate the risk from 

ASAT proliferation. The absence of a multilateral cooperative framework for Great Power 

interactions in space makes it more likely that competition may beget confrontation in this 

medium.30

Cyberspace 

The pursuit of competitive advantage and confrontational dominance extends far outside the arena of conventional warfare. Cyberspace has emerged as a new Great Power 

battlespace and has motivated the United States, Russia, and China to develop their own 

cyber attack and defense capabilities.31 The current U.S. Defense Cyber Strategy is aimed 

at preventing aggressive actors, specifically Russia and China, from conducting campaigns 

that impact the United States and its allies.32 U.S. Cyber Command has focused efforts on 

thwarting clandestine Russian intelligence and civilian proxy agent interference like that 

which occurred during the 2016 U.S. national elections.33 Chinese cyber espionage historically has been aimed at the U.S. commercial sector, but Beijing’s 2015 military strategy 

placed increasing cyber emphasis on domestic security—protecting its infrastructure from 

foreign interference and allowing its military to integrate further with the technological 

scene.34 Russian cyber operations are more aggressive and aimed at laying the groundwork 

for future major military and infrastructure disruptions.35

The cyber medium for competition will become increasingly important to defend as 

Great Power dynamics drive greater and more sophisticated cyber innovations.36 Chapter 6 

provides some important analysis about the wide-ranging dynamics of GPC in cyberspace. 

But chapter 6 is limited by the need to address additional critical factors involving computing automation, AI, and big data analytics.37
Introduction 11

Homeland Security 

The dominant construct for homeland security during the past 30 years has been that of 

defense from catastrophic terrorist attack. From the 1990s through the early 2010s, only 

the very latent risk of unforetold nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia 

stood outside the dominant paradigm of homeland protection from the threat of terrorism. 

With the dawn of openly announced GPC, the straitjacket on homeland security thinking 

has been removed. As North Korea launched nuclear-capable missiles in 2017 with a range 

to threaten the United States (and interestingly also Moscow and Beijing), the prospects for 

other nuclear weapons–capable states to attain global reach came astride as a major feature 

of the new global order.

Simultaneously, targeted cyber and social media activities against military, national, 

and civilian infrastructure capacity became—during the 2010s—a more substantive threat 

with ongoing homeland security implications. Finally, the emergence of unmanned platforms capable of operations against targets inside a national sovereign space launched from 

outside platforms on the ground, at sea, in the air, and from space are becoming far more 

significant than even a year or two ago. The 2018 National Defense Strategy states that 

“the homeland is no longer a sanctuary,” and “[d]efending the homeland from attack” is 

the number one defense objective listed for the United States as new threats develop on 

both private and public fronts.38 Russian and Chinese views on this also are changing, with 

Beijing looking inward toward bolstering social and economic stability and Chinese Communist Party dominance.

While chapters in this volume address many of the GPC competitive dynamics with 

homeland security implications—including those involving nuclear weapons, biochemical 

weapons, unmanned platforms, and social media—there are several other new dynamics at 

play in the rapidly evolving construct of homeland security in an era of GPC.39

Climate Change 

Over the past decade, the multifaceted implications of climate change and humankind’s role 

in that change have grown in salience while remaining contentious. Fossil fuels, textiles, 

plastics, and meat production industries have been placed under scrutiny for generating 

high levels of carbon pollutants damaging to water sources, the air, ambient temperatures, 

and the wider ecosystems they touch. While some countries and leaders resist the science 

attributing human activity for climate change, others contend that our world is in a climate 

emergency.40 Younger generations have become increasingly animated, with some ascribing 

“climate change anxiety” to the idea that many of the world’s youth under 30 are anxious 

about the impending doom of wider Earth ecosystems during their lifetimes.

Almost 5 years ago, in December 2015, 175 of the world’s governments adopted the 

Paris Climate Agreement to arrest increasing man-made stressors on the Earth’s ecosystems. The Paris Agreement focused on keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 

capping and apportioning greenhouse emission percentages among the signatory nations. 

That agreement resulted from two decades of international negotiations, but unanimous 

consensus about the urgency of the problem or the imperative for significant restraint of 

human activities remained elusive.
12 Lynch

China and the United States are the world’s biggest economies and also the biggest 

consumers of global natural resources and polluters.41 China is the world’s largest polluter, producing 30 percent of global carbon emissions.42 It signed and ratified the Paris 

Agreement in 2016 but remains the country most obviously afflicted by growing climate 

challenges. More than a half billion of its citizens live near oceans and face rising sea levels. Major Chinese cities are overwhelmed by smog and other air pollution requiring face 

mask protection and threatening pulmonary health. Chinese rivers have been ruined by decades of unregulated toxic waste.43 The United States is currently the second worst polluter, 

producing 15 percent of global carbon emissions.44 In 2017, the Trump administration 

announced its intention to quit the Paris Agreement and began the year-long process of 

withdrawal in late 2019. Absent a change in policy, the United States will exit the agreement 

in November 2020. America’s carbon emissions percentage is projected to increase after 

its planned Paris Agreement exit.45 Russia is the world’s fourth largest producer of global 

carbon emissions with nearly 5 percent of the total.46 In 2019, Russia finally ratified the 

Paris Agreement after a 3-year delay. But as of early 2020, Russia has not taken any actual 

measures to reduce greenhouse emissions. The government initially attempted to take small 

measures by imposing emissions quotas, but the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs lobbied against these measures and prevented their implementation.47

The World Health Organization states that climate change is an evolving human health 

crisis, slower moving but no less ominous than deadly pandemics for the future of global 

prosperity and stability.48 The economic and security implications of accelerating climate 

change on land, at sea, and in the air are only now coming into view. Over the coming years, 

the changing climate will shape Great Power natural endowments and national security in 

at least three important ways.49 First, rising global temperatures will affect resource availability. The changes will shift productive agriculture toward the Earth’s poles while making 

crop growth more difficult near the equator. Russia and Canada may be relative winners in 

new arable land, but uncertainties remain. Second, as the world transitions from fossil fuels 

to renewable energy sources, the relative importance of carbon resources will shift. Here, 

the United States has an inherent advantage over China, but less so with Russia. Third, as 

the Great Powers—and especially the United States and China—jockey for the competitive 

edge in high-tech industries and renewable energy technology, competition over critical 

mineral resources in major producing countries such as Australia, Brazil, Chile, Congo, and 

South Africa will intensify.

It remains difficult to predict precisely how climate change will impact Great Power 

competition into the future. Although natural endowment factors altered by climate change 

could become a point of contention between the United States and China, increasing risk 

of confrontation, these factors may also become a source of collaboration and cooperation. 

Washington and Beijing could work together on critical minerals, including research and development on less destructive ways to mine and refine these materials. Moreover, as climate 

change challenges agricultural productivity worldwide, international cooperation and trade 

could play an important part in adapting to changing conditions.50 Only one thing seems certain: Climate change will matter to new patterns of Great Power competition. Greater clarity 

about the dominant patterns will be present by mid-decade. Moreover, there are other major 

climate change factors influencing the dynamics of GPC in the emerging era.51
Introduction 13

Transitions 

This volume now turns to framing the backdrop for a new era of Great Power competition. Its first section sketches the key areas of historic GPC and assesses lessons from four 

representative past eras. Then in two “couplet” chapters, the section takes a look at contemporary GPC geostrategic dynamics, major power strategies, and available resources for 

competition. The section finishes with a chapter about the impact of emerging, revolutionary technological factors influencing the dynamics of emerging GPC.

The author thanks James Keagle, Laura J. Junor, and Richard Lacquement for their thoughtful 

reviews and editorial inputs on this chapter.

Notes 

1 For examples, see Robert Kagan, The Return of History and 

the End of Dreams (New York: Vintage Books, 2009); Aaron L. 

Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the 

Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: Norton, 2011); John 

Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2014); Shivshankar Menon, “How Great Power Competition 

Has Changed,” Brookings, May 4, 2015, available at <https://www.

brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2015/05/04/how-greatpower-competition-has-changed/>; Max Fisher, “The New Era 

of Great Power Competition,” Vox, April 13, 2016, available at 

<www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11421352/ash-carter-deterrence-power-competition>; Uri Freidman, “The New Concept Everyone 

in Washington Is Talking About,” The Atlantic, August 6, 2019, 

available at <www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/

what-genesis-great-power-competition/595405/>.

2 National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The White House, December 2017), 2–3, available 

at <https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/

NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf>.

3 Rivalry is the relationship between two or more actors (states) 

who regularly compete, while competition is the action taken to 

contest ascendance in a particular field. Rivalry describes the reciprocal competition between two or more states for ascendance.

4 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 2–4.

5 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United 

States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), 2, 

available at <https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/

pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf>.

6 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 4–5.

7 Ronald L. Tammen, Jacek Kugler, and Doug Lemke, “Power 

Transition Theory,” Trans-Research Consortium Work Paper 

#1, December 2011, available at <https://static1.squarespace.

com/static/576ef1a0be65941edd80fcf7/t/578d56e22e69cfbb1192c4cf/1468880611440/Power+Transition+Theory.pdf>. For 

a detailed look at power transition theory, see A.F.K. Organski, 

World Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf, 1968); A.F.K. Organski 

and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1980); Jacek Kugler and Douglas Lemke, eds., Parity and 

War: Evaluations and Extensions of the War Ledger (Ann Arbor: 

University of Michigan Press, 1996). Related transition theories 

of hegemonic decline and global cycles are found in Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 1981); George Modelski, Long Cycles in World 

Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987), respectively.

8 Thomas J. Wright, All Measures Short of War: The Context for 

the 21st Century and the Future of American Power (New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 2017); Ali Wyne, “America’s Blind Ambition 

Could Make It a Victim of Global Competition,” The National 

Interest, February 11, 2019, available at <https://nationalinterest.

org/feature/americas-blind-ambition-could-make-it-victim-global-competition-44227>.

9 For examples of this tendency in 2018–2020, see Geoff Hertenstein, “DIME Without the ‘M’ is DIE: A Case for Conventional 

Military Power in Modern Strategy Discourse,” Strategy Bridge, 

September 22, 2019, available at <https://thestrategybridge.org/

the-bridge/2019/9/22/dime-without-the-m-is-die-a-case-forconventional-military-power-in-modern-strategy-discourse>; 

Nikki Haley, “How to Confront an Advancing Threat from China,” 

Foreign Affairs, July 18, 2019, available at <www.foreignaffairs.

com/articles/china/2019-07-18/how-confront-advancing-threatchina>; Matthew Kroenig, The Return of Great Power Rivalry

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

10 This continuum is an original construct for this volume. It was 

developed from several major writings on the range of major 

state-to-state interactions, especially those found in Charles 

Glaser, Rational Theory of International Politics: The Logic of 

Competition and Cooperation (Princeton: Princeton University 

Press, 1986); Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30, no. 2 (January 1978), 167–214; Robert 

Koehane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 

1984), 51–52; Kenneth N. Waltz, “Structural Realism After the 

Cold War,” International Security 25, no.1 (Summer 2000), 5–41.

11 See G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, 

and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 2011), especially 35–75, 132–145. 

For a discussion of how the liberal international order has been 

used as a shorthand for three separate but related phenomena—

the creation of a rules-based order enshrined in institutions, the 

establishment of alliance relationships with the United States as 

security guarantor, and the propagation of liberal values—see 

“Is There a Liberal International Order?” Strategic Survey 2018: 

The Annual Assessment of Geopolitics (London: International 

Institute for Strategic Studies, 2018), 23–32.

12 This approach differs from the one advanced by RAND analyst Michael Mazarr and his colleagues that focuses on separate 

Great Powers or major players. The major analytical difference 

is established in the paragraph after next with an operational 

definition of what constitutes a Great Power. For the RAND 

take on why contemporary global interactions do not qualify 

as a period of Great Power competition, see Michael J. Mazarr 

et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of International Competition: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, RR2726 (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 2018).
14 Lynch

13 Max Weber, cited in Isidor Wallimann, Nicholas C. Tatsis, 

and George V. Zito, “On Max Weber’s Definition of Power,” The 

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology 13, no. 3 (December 1977), 231–235, available at <https://doi.org/10.1177/1

44078337701300308>.

14 This challenge dates to the philosophical writings of Sir Francis 

Bacon and his construct of scientific knowledge as the necessary 

essence of political power. See Timothy Paterson, “The Secular 

Control of Scientific Power in the Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon,” Polity 21, no. 3 (Spring 1989), 457–480. Estimating 

state power—particularly relative military power—continues 

to be a subject of deep discussion and debate. See A.W. Marshall, Problems of Estimating Military Power (Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND, 1966), available at <https://www.rand.org/pubs/

papers/P3417.html>.

15 The most resonant operational definitions of hard power and 

soft power are best developed in two books by Harvard political 

scientist Joseph Nye, Jr. See Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature 

of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); The Paradox 

of American Power (London: Oxford University Press, 2002).

16 The term smart power was coined by Nye in the early 2000s to 

respond to what he identified as a growing misperception that his 

writings asserted that soft power alone could produce effective 

foreign policy, as he explained in “Get Smart: Combining Hard 

and Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs 88, no. 4 (July/August 2009).

17 Sharp power has been developed and promulgated by U.S. National Endowment for Democracy employees Christopher Walker 

and Jessica Ludwig and focused mainly on what they view as the 

deliberate efforts of China and Russia to craft this new category 

of power. See Christopher Walker, “What Is ‘Sharp Power’?” 

Journal of Democracy 29, no. 3 (July 2018), 9–13; Christopher 

Walker, Shanthi Kalathil, and Jessica Ludwig, “Forget Hearts and 

Minds,” Foreign Policy, September 14, 2018, available at <https://

foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/14/forget-hearts-and-minds-sharppower/>. Sharp power is controversial and not fully accepted. 

Joseph Nye rejects it as but a longstanding form of hard power. 

He writes, sharp power is the “deceptive use of information for 

hostile purposes” and one that has been practiced by the intelligence and information services of democracies as well as those 

of authoritarian regimes. See Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “How Sharp 

Power Threatens Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs, January 24, 2018, 

available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-01-

24/how-sharp-power-threatens-soft-power>. China has labeled 

the expression as one concocted by the West to vilify China and 

without merit. See Xin Liu, “What Is Sharp Power? It’s Nothing 

But ‘Unsmart’ Power,” USC Center on Public Diplomacy CPD, November 15, 2018, available at <https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.

org/blog/what-sharp-power-it%E2%80%99s-nothing-%E2%80%-

9Cunsmart%E2%80%9D-power>.

18 This operational definition is taken from Thomas J. Volgy 

et al., “Major Power Status in International Politics,” in Major 

Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics: Global 

and Regional Perspectives, ed. Thomas J. Volgy et al. (New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 1–26. Their definition derives from an 

amalgam of several other classic efforts at defining Great Power 

status, including the following historic references: J. David Singer 

and Melvin Small, “Formal Alliances, 1815–1939: A Quantitative 

Description,” Journal of Peace Research 3, no. 1 (March 1966); 

Jack Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System: 1495–1975

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983); John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 

2001); and Benjamin O. Fordham, “Who Wants to Be a Major 

Power? Explaining the Expansion of Foreign Policy Ambition,” 

Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 5 (2011), 587–603.

19 As noted, this formal definition precludes inclusion of the 

other eight states listed in the RAND study of 2018. The other 

states in that study, including India, Japan, Turkey, and Brazil, 

do not meet the operational definition. They have no truly unusual capabilities. They do not use unique capabilities globally to 

pursue broad policy interests. Finally, they are not perceived as 

“Great” by other states. They do matter in consideration of GPC 

interactions, but in 2020 are not contemporary Great Powers. 

See Mazarr et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of International Competition.

20 For contemporary scholars who view Russia as less of a Great 

Power and more of a disruptor state, see Wyne, “America’s Blind 

Ambition Could Make It a Victim of Global Competition”; David 

J. Kramer, “Russia Is No Great Power Competitor,” The American 

Interest, April 24, 2019, available at <www.the-american-interest.com/2019/04/24/russia-is-no-great-power-competitor/>; 

Timothy Frye, “Putin Touts Russia as a Great Power. But He’s 

Made It a Weak One,” Washington Post, June 6, 2019, available at <www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/06/

putin-touts-russia-great-power-hes-made-it-weak-one/>.

21 Christian Trotti and Mark Massa, “Lessons from Apollo: Industry 

and Great-Power Competition,” Atlantic Council, July 26, 2019, 

available at <https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/

lessons-from-apollo-industry-and-great-power-competition/>.

22 C. Todd Lopez, “Great Power Competition’s Resurgence,” Defense.gov, November 19, 2019, available at <https://www.defense.

gov/explore/story/Article/1792014/great-power-competitions-resurgence/>; “War in the Fifth Domain,” The Economist, November 

19, 2019, available at <www.economist.com/briefing/2010/07/01/

war-in-the-fifth-domain>.

23 Trotti and Massa, “Lessons from Apollo.”

24 “Why Does America Still Use Soyuz Rockets to Put Its Astronauts in Space?” The Economist, October 16, 2018, available 

at <www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/10/16/

why-does-america-still-use-soyuz-rockets-to-put-its-astronautsin-space>; Trotti and Massa, “Lessons from Apollo.”

25 Kevin L. Pollpeter, Michael S. Chase, and Eric Heginbotham, 

The Creation of the PLA Strategic Support Force and Its Implications for Chinese Military Space Operations, RR2058 (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 2017), available at <https://www.rand.org/

pubs/research_reports/RR2058.html>.

26 Lara Seligman, “The New Space Race,” Foreign Policy, May 

14, 2019, available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/14/

the-new-space-race-china-russia-nasa/>.

27 As of late 2018, there were reportedly 6,000 satellites among 

24,000 Earth-orbiting space objects (satellites, space objects, 

space debris) being tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN). Another 100 satellites per year—mainly commercial 

but also governmental—are forecast to join an increasingly 

crowded Earth orbit during the 2020s. SSN is a component of 

the U.S. Space Command and is the only agency in the world 

tracking and forecasting collision risks for space objects. SSN 

has no authority for space orbit management and can only alert 

commercial companies about potential risk of collision in the 

event that a model forecasts such risks. See “Space Surveillance,” 

Science Direct, available at <www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/space-surveillance>; Alexandra Witze, “The Quest to 

Conquer Earth’s Space Junk Problem,” Nature, September 5, 2018, 

available at <www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06170-1>.

28 Brian Weeden and Victoria Samson, eds., “Global Counterspace Capabilities: An Open Source Assessment,” Security 

World Foundation, April 2020, available at <https://swfound.

org/media/206970/swf_counterspace2020_electronic_final.pdf>; 

Todd Harrison et al., Space Threat Assessment 2020 (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 

2020), available at <https://aerospace.csis.org/wp-content/

uploads/2020/03/Harrison_SpaceThreatAssessment20_WEB_

FINAL-min.pdf>.

29 Nathan Strout and Aaron Mehta, “Russia Conducted Anti-Satellite 

Missile Test, Says U.S. Space Command,” C4ISR, April 16, 2020, available 

at <www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/04/15/russiaconducted-anti-satellite-missile-test-says-us-space-command/>; 
Introduction 15

Aaron Mehta, “Indian Anti-Satellite Test Shows Importance of 

Space Force, Shanahan Says,” Defense News, March 27, 2019, available at <www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2019/03/27/

in-wake-of-indian-anti-satellite-test-shanahan-urges-thoughtfulness-in-space/>.

30 “President Donald J. Trump Is Unveiling an America First 

National Space Strategy,” The White House Briefings and Statements, March 23, 2018, available at <https://www.whitehouse.gov/

briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-unveiling-america-first-national-space-strategy/>; Alexander Bowe, China’s 

Pursuit of Space Power Status and Implications for the United States

(Washington, DC: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review 

Commission, April 11, 2019), available at <https://www.uscc.

gov/sites/default/files/Research/USCC_China%27s%20Space%20

Power%20Goals.pdf>; Anatoly Zak, Russian Military and Dual-Purpose Spacecraft: Latest Status and Operational Overview

(Arlington, VA: CNA, June 2019), available at <https://www.

cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/IOP-2019-U-020191-Final.pdf>; Omar 

Lamrani, “Great Power Competition Feeds the Threat Posed by 

Anti-Satellite Technology,” Real Clear Defense, April 19, 2019, 

available at <www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/04/19/

great_power_competition_feeds_the_threat_posed_by_anti-satellite_technology_114350.html>.

31 Francis C. Domingo, “Conquering a New Domain: Explaining 

Great Power Competition in Cyberspace,” Comparative Strategy

35, no. 2 (March 2016), 154–168, available at <https://doi.org/1

0.1080/01495933.2016.1176467>.

32 “Fact Sheet: 2018 DoD Cyber Strategy and Cyber Posture 

Review,” Department of Defense, available at <https://dodcio.

defense.gov/Portals/0/Documents/Factsheet_for_Strategy_and_

CPR_FINAL.pdf>.

33 Ellen Nakashima, “Pentagon Launches First Cyber Operation 

to Deter Russian Interference in Midterm Elections,” Washington Post, October 23, 2018, available at <www.washingtonpost.

com/world/national-security/pentagon-launches-first-cyber-operation-to-deter-russian-interference-in-midterm-elections/2018/10/23/12ec6e7e-d6df-11e8-83a2-d1c3da28d6b6_

story.html>.

34 Lyu Jinghua, “What Are China’s Cyber Capabilities and Intentions?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 

April 1, 2019, available at <https://carnegieendowment.

org/2019/04/01/what-are-china-s-cyber-capabilities-and-intentions-pub-78734>; Matthew Bey, “Great Powers in Cyberspace: 

The Strategic Drivers Behind U.S., Chinese, and Russian Competition,” Cyber Defense Review (Fall 2018), 5, available at 

<https://cyberdefensereview.army.mil/Portals/6/Documents/

CDR%20Journal%20Articles/Fall%202018/BEY_CDR_V3N3.

pdf?ver=2018-12-18-101630-063>.

35 Michael Kofman, “Russia’s Great Power Raiding Strategy,” War 

on the Rocks, June 14, 2018, available at <https://warontherocks.

com/2018/06/raiding-and-international-brigandry-russias-strategy-for-great-power-competition/>.

36 Bey, “Great Powers in Cyberspace,” 5.

37 National Cyber Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The White House, September 2018), available at 

<https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/

National-Cyber-Strategy.pdf>; Dmitry Adamsky, “From Moscow with Coercion: Russian Deterrence Theory and Strategic 

Culture,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, nos. 1–2 (2018), 33–60, 

available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2017.1347872

>; Nicu Popescu and Stanislav Secrieru, eds., Hacks, Leaks, and 

Disruptions: Russian Cyber Strategies, Challiot Paper No. 148 

(Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, October 

2018), available at <https://www.iss.europa.eu/sites/default/files/

EUISSFiles/CP_148.pdf>; Jinghua, “What Are China’s Cyber 

Capabilities and Intentions?”

38 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, 14.

39 National Strategy for Counterterrorism of the United States

(Washington, DC: The White House, October 2018), available at 

<https://www.dni.gov/files/NCTC/documents/news_documents/

NSCT.pdf>; The DHS Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2020–2024

(Washington, DC: Department of Homeland Security, 2019), 

available at <https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_0702_plcy_dhs-strategic-plan-fy20-24.pdf>; Anthony 

H. Cordesman, China’s New 2019 Defense White Paper: An 

Open Strategic Challenge to the United States, But One Which 

Does Not Have to Lead to Conflict (Washington, DC: Center for 

Strategic and International Studies, July 2019), 3–5, available 

at <https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-new-2019-defensewhite-paper>; Olga Oliker, “Unpacking Russia’s New National 

Security Strategy,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 7, 2016, available at <https://www.csis.org/analysis/

unpacking-russias-new-national-security-strategy>.

40 “The Stern Review on the Economic Effects of Climate Change,” 

Population and Development Review 32, no. 4 (2006), 793–798.

41 Wyatt Scott, Francis Gassert, and Sharon Burke, “Great 

Power Resource Competition in a Changing Climate,” New 

America’s Natural Security Index, October 23, 2019, available 

at <https://www.newamerica.org/resource-security/reports/

great-power-resource-competition-changing-climate/>.

42 “Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data,” Greenhouse Gas 

Emissions, Environmental Protection Agency, last modified 

September 13, 2019, available at <www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/

global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data>.

43 Avinash Godhole, “Paris Accord and China’s Climate Change 

Strategy: Drivers and Outcomes,” India Quarterly 72, no. 4 (2016), 

361–374.

44 “Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data.”

45 Godhole, “Paris Accord and China’s Climate Change Strategy.”

46 “Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data.”

47 Godhole, “Paris Accord and China’s Climate Change Strategy.”

48 Ellen Drage O’Reilly, “WHO Warns of 13 Emerging Health 

Threats Including Possible Pandemics,” Axios, January 20, 2020, 

available at <www.axios.com/who-emerging-health-challengespandemic-climate-change-inequalities-f83e0dd1-6d00-40c4-

aaca-11523270648c.html>.

49 For a more detailed review of these, see Scott, Gassert, and 

Burke, “Great Power Resource Competition in a Changing 

Climate.”

50 Ibid.

51 Roger A Pielke, “What Is Climate Change?” Issues in Science 

and Technology 20, no. 4 (2004), 31–34; Godhole, “Paris Accord 

and China’s Climate Change Strategy”; Barry Rabe, Statehouse 

and Greenhouse: The Emerging Politics of American Climate 

Change Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 

2014); Nate Hultman, “Climate Change and the Next Administration,” in Brookings Big Ideas for America, ed. Michael E. 

O’Hanlon (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 

167–175; David Sandalow, Guide to Chinese Climate Policy (New 

York: Columbia SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy, 2019); 

Bo Wang, “Exploring China’s Climate Change Policy from Both 

International and Domestic Perspectives,” American Journal of 

Chinese Studies 16, no. 2 (2009), 87–104; Laura A. Henry and 

Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, “Russia’s Climate Policy: International 

Bargaining and Domestic Modernization,” Europe-Asia Studies

64, no. 7 (2012), 1297–1322.

17

Chapter 2

Past Eras of Great Power Competition

Historical Insights and Implications

By Thomas F. Lynch III and Frank Hoffman

The chapter reviews the major contemporary theories about interstate power competition and state power transitions. It surveys many of the recent major studies 

about Great Power transitions since 1500, establishing that the vast majority of 

such transitions include some form of direct Great Power clash (war). The chapter develops a framework for evaluating the main competitive categories of Great 

Power competition (GPC): political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, 

military, and economic. It then applies these categories in analysis of four distinct 

dyadic rivalries contested in three post-1780 eras of GPC: the United Kingdom 

(UK) and France; UK and Imperial Germany; UK and the United States, and the 

United States and Imperial Japan. These eras were chosen due to several important parallels with the emerging era of GPC. It concludes with 10 major insights 

that hub around the broad conclusion that although periods of Great Power rivalry that involve major power transitions generally lead to direct clash (war) 

between them, adept statesmanship can arrest this tendency if properly attentive 

to both the geopolitical and domestic drivers of Great Power war.

This chapter provides a short overview of the historical context and construct for understanding the emerging era of Great Power competition (GPC). It begins with a 

discussion of the theoretical bases for understanding power: hard power and soft power, as 

well as the manner in which scholars of international affairs have understood the nature of 

Great Power competition and the transition between Great Powers. The chapter then operationalizes the main historic dimensions of interstate competition, focusing on five major 

categories of Great Power interaction: political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, 

military, and economic. It provides a compact overview of the major research literature 

findings about GPC dynamics and outcomes over the past 500 years. The chapter then 

features an analytical review of four cases of rivalry dyads contested during eras of GPC, 

evaluated across the five categories of state-to-state interaction. It concludes with delineation of 10 major insights and implications about Great Power competitions and transitions 

that seem germane for the dawning era of GPC.
18 Lynch and Hoffman

Understanding Great Power Identities and Transitions 

For the past several decades, political scientists and international relations theorists have 

written about global interactions while referencing the relative difference in power between 

the major protagonists. In realist theories, states are the primary actors, and they are locked 

in a constant struggle for security (a security dilemma) in a system that features anarchy 

(the absence of any supreme authority or sovereign). For realists, the anarchic international 

system gravitates toward confrontation and war absent a dominant power, or a balance 

of power among several states.1 Realist musings focus on the relative disparity between 

post-Westphalian states’ military power (or hard power) differences. In neorealist theory, 

military power remains the basis of the relative power measurement—but the disparity 

is understood with reference to the “polarity” of the wider international system, or the 

number of states with “top drawer” hard power capabilities.2 Alternatively, liberal and institutionalist theories dispute the deterministic nature of international system anarchy. They 

believe that durable interstate cooperation is feasible with the right international framework—like some constellation of cooperative rules, norms, and institutions. They compare 

international actor power with a wider array of measures, or soft power aspects, including economic size, diplomatic capability, cultural and social attractiveness, and informal 

relationships built on rules, norms, and protocols.3 Finally, constructivist international relations theory disagrees with the notion that anarchy or any permanent tendency conditions 

the international system at all. For constructivists, the individual actors together make the 

international system anything they want it to be.4

International relations scholars also pay some attention to the rise and fall in the relative 

power positions of international actors—with greatest attention on the transitions in power 

positions among and between those actors on the high end of the power spectrum, that is, 

the Great Powers.5 The realist framework for understanding Great Power transitions focuses 

on military capabilities and the manner in which these rise and fall based on individual 

states’ choices about developing and projecting military power. The neorealist modification 

of realism agrees that military power capabilities establish the essential framework for relative status transitions, but neorealists argue that it is the distribution of military power 

across the international system (the relative polarity of the system)—not individual state 

choices—that sets in motion power shifts among the states. Neorealism foretells unipolarity (a circumstance where one state is militarily dominant over all other states) is not only 

least likely to result in catastrophic violence but also inherently untenable. The multitude of 

smaller states will combine in balance against that dominant power, reducing it with a thousand tiny cuts until its military capabilities are exhausted. The once-dominant state then is 

caught and passed by one or more rising states. Neorealists contend that while bipolarity 

is inherently most stable, all other forms of multipolarity across the international system 

will encourage greater degrees of instability, direct violence among and between the Great 

Powers, and drive turbulent, hard power–dominated transitions among the major powers.

Hegemonic stability theory (HST) advances an alternative framework for understanding power transitions among the major actors, that is, the states. While not a realist theory, 

HST agrees with realism that relative military power is the bedrock for understanding status 

relations among the states at any given time. HST contends that a Great Power’s temporal 

dominance in military attributes (its relative position as a hegemon) enables the framing of 
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 19

system-wide rules, norms, and procedures in interstate relations that favor that dominant 

state’s ideology and policy preferences. These rules also reduce the costs to police that system. HST is an international political economy–based, game theory aligned understanding 

of the conditions for interstate cooperation rather than competition. Yet most HST proponents align with realists in one critical point: it is the hard power capabilities and the will to 

use of the dominant state that underwrite the rules-based relationships among the actors. 

Thus, without a dominant state (hegemon) willing to use its hard power for enforcement, 

cooperative and collaborative arrangements inevitably will give way to the inherent chaos 

and violence of the anarchical world system. Then a new state will seek the dominance 

necessary to establish its own norms and institutions as ascendant across all elements of 

international interaction.6

Liberal and institutional constructs contend that Great Power state transitions need 

not become violent contests. As noted earlier, they do not believe that anarchy is the default setting for international relations. Instead, they view durable interstate cooperation as 

feasible with proper arrangements. Thus, in limited agreement with HST, liberal institutionalists believe that a hegemon (or even a combination of Great Powers) can establish norms, 

rules, and procedures for interstate relations that are fundamentally cooperative and collaborative. Unlike HST advocates (and also realists and neorealists), liberal institutionalists 

believe that well-constructed cooperative and collaborative norms, rules, and institutional 

arrangements can take on a life of their own, long outlasting the military power and dominance of the state(s) that created them. In liberal institutionalism, it is the cumulative cost 

of challenging cooperative arrangements with more competitive and conflictual ones that 

dissuades a break from well-established, peace-sustaining norms.7 For constructivists, the 

transitions in global order—from cooperative to conflictual or from clash to collaboration—are dependent on the state-to-state interactions. It is about the choices made by the 

states themselves—and in particular the role of individual decisionmakers in each state and 

how leadership decisions shape the understandings of their people and other leaders in the 

global system—that establish the basic conditions of the system itself.8

The history of Great Power transitions over the past 500 years does not provide optimism for those hoping to see modern U.S. dominance culminate with a peaceful ascent of 

a successor state or combination. American political scientist Graham Allison’s study of 16 

major cases of rising power(s) versus an established Great Power found that only 4 of those 

cases—or 25 percent—ended without war.9

Allison’s work—and that of many other international relations analysts and historians 

over the past decade—captures the dominant worry of the moment: Must the transition 

of relative power dominance between the United States and its successor become violent? 

During the generation from 1992 to 2008, this worry was mooted. The United States stood 

alone—atop the power structure at a unipolar moment in history.10 Its post–World War II 

bipolar rival, the Soviet Union, was vanquished, and with it Moscow’s vision of universal 

communism and the superiority of command-directed economics.11 The next most feasible 

rising power, China, had declared itself in 1978 an aspirant to the international capitalist 

economy and found itself over the ensuing 30 years to be the benefactor of an American 

orthodoxy. In this orthodoxy, the rise of a Chinese entrepreneurial middle class would inevitably demand political liberalization and individual freedoms that would swamp the 
20 Lynch and Hoffman

Chinese Communist Party and see Beijing become a co-stakeholder in the web of liberal rules, 

norms, and institutions nurtured by American 

power from 1945 to 1990.12

After 2008, the promise of a reliably cooperative set of relations among these states was shaken, 

but not fully jettisoned. Almost a decade into his 

increasingly illiberal domestic political regime, 

Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a short, 

sharp invasion of neighboring Georgia and declared Russia a badly treated country that deserved 

Great Power recognition that the United States was 

unwilling to grant. That same year, Beijing—long 

wary of America’s insistence that Western values 

of liberal democracy and human freedoms were 

lagging in China—witnessed American capitalism 

narrowly avoid a complete, catastrophic financial 

meltdown. China took away a lesson that there can and must be a Chinese alternative to 

American global dominance. By 2014–2015, the dawn of a new competition-dominant era 

came fully into view—as a de facto if not fully acknowledged era of Great Power rivalry. 

Russia conducted a covert military invasion of Crimea and annexed it from the Ukraine. 

U.S.-led Western countries slapped Russia with various forms of economic sanctions and 

expelled Moscow from diplomatic and economic organizations that it had belonged to for 

a couple of decades. During those same years, Chinese territorial assertiveness in the South 

China Sea and its increasingly restrictive business and communications practices at home 

catalyzed competitive-to-confrontational American responses: insistence of unfettered 

freedom of navigation, open condemnation of Chinese industrial espionage practices, and 

exclusion of China from planning for a broad new trans-Pacific trading partnership.

It took another couple of years, but the passing of America’s “unipolar moment” begat 

the U.S. National Security Strategy of 2017 and National Defense Strategy (NDS) of 2018. 

Both declared that a two-decade-long dominant paradigm of cooperation in international 

relations was over, and competition would be the hallmark of the way forward among the 

three dominant states. A fully acknowledged era of GPC had begun. As noted in chapter 

1, the dominance of a competitive framework in the emerging era does not exclude many 

parallel residual and dynamic elements of cooperation and collaboration from the past. 

Liberal institutionalist theories are under duress, but far from disproved. At the same time, 

growing competition among the Great Powers does not make realists or neorealists correct; 

it remains uncertain that the only potential outcome from this new era of GPC is overt 

confrontation and violent conflict.

Instead, the reemergence of GPC in this new era puts the world in a phase that has 

been the norm over the past 500 years, just not in recent memory. It is thus informative 

to extract a set of representative historical cases in which competition among the Great 

Powers provides useful lessons about the nature and evolution of such competitive eras 

and the transformation of relative power that often ensues. First, we must establish the key 

“In the 1990s and 2000s, American 

leaders believed that Russia and 

China were converging with the 

West on basic questions of world 

order. Countries would work together on common challenges while old 

geopolitical rivalries would matter 

much less. The ‘era of convergence’ 

came to an end because Russian 

and Chinese leaders concluded 

that if the liberal order succeeded 

globally, it would pose an existential 

threat to their regimes.”

—Thomas J. Wright, “The Return to 

Great-Power Rivalry Was Inevitable,” 

The Atlantic, September 12, 2018
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 21

dimensions of GPC: How do they compete? Then how have some critical cases of historic 

competition been conducted in the contested categories?

How Do States Compete? The Dimensions 

of Interstate Competition 

It is important to establish the main historic dimensions of interstate competition. Since 

the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 codified statehood as the recognized form of geopolitical 

organization, state-to-state competition has been multifaceted, incorporating an array of 

state interactions. The international relations and security studies communities have used 

a variety of different dimensions of strategy or national power to capture the complexity 

of competition.

In the post-Vietnam era, British historian Sir Michael Howard identified four dimensions of national strategy and competition reflective of successful wartime circumstance.13 A 

decade later, American political scientist Aaron Friedberg defined four different categories of 

state-to-state power competition resonant during a Great Power transition in his assessment 

of Great Britain’s relative power decline over the late 

1800s and early 1900s.14 About the same time, Yale 

historian Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of the 

Great Powers stressed three major areas focusing on 

a state’s economic production base and productivity as key dimensions of Great Power competition 

while highlighting the importance of the military 

dimension.15 Leveraging these three authors and 

more, the NDS defined five dimensions of GPC in 

its conception of the expanded competitive space 

relevant to the future security environment. The 

various concepts found in these major works about 

GPC are summarized in table 2.1.

“The competition is likely to be multilayered and interactive. No single 

theme or model will capture the complex mosaic of global competition, 

and the intersections among diverse 

types of competition—how success 

or failure in one area exacerbates or 

mitigates others—will be a crucial 

determinant of relative success.”

—Michael J. Mazarr et al., Understanding 

the Emerging Era of International 

Competition, RAND (2018)

Table 2.1. Frameworks for Thinking About Categories/Dimensions of Competition

Howard (1974) Friedberg (1988) Kennedy (1987) NDS (2018)

Social and 

Cultural X

Military X X X

Political and 

Diplomatic X

Science and 

Technological X X X

Logistical X

Ideological X

Economic X X X X

Financial X

Informational X
22 Lynch and Hoffman

Subsequent to the publication of the NDS, RAND political scientist Michael Mazarr 

and his colleagues conducted a historical review and identified seven objectives of traditional interstate competition:

■ power and security

■ status, standing, and prestige

■ material and economic prosperity

■ resources

■ territory and sovereign claims

■ values and ideology

■ rules, norms, and institutions of the system.16

The seven objectives added texture but did not fundamentally reshape the construct of the 

five competitive categories (or aspects of competition) delineated in the NDS. Thus, for 

purposes of this chapter and the wider framework found in the volume, the competitive 

categories listed in table 2.2 will be applied to analyses of Great Power interactions.

Understanding Prototypical GPCs: Four Cases

In the past 5 centuries, Great Power transitions have played out over decades, not years. As 

noted earlier in this chapter, in 16 historical cases of GPC from the late 1400s to the present 

studied by a Graham Allison–led team at Harvard in the 2017 version of the Thucydides’s 

Trap Case File, 12 of them (75 percent) resulted in Great Power war.17 In a review of great 

strategic rivalries from the classical world to the Cold War, U.S. Marine Corps War College 

military historian James Lacey’s 2016 edited volume Great Strategic Rivalries demonstrated 

that rarely do strategic competitions during eras of major state power shifts end without at 

least one direct major military clash. The U.S.-Soviet Cold War denouement and the United 

Kingdom (UK) accommodation of U.S. power at the end of World War II stand out as just 

2 of 15 Great Power transition cases where a major direct military clash did not occur.18

The University of Michigan’s decades-old Correlates of War Project chronicles major and 

minor wars since the Napoleonic era and provides significant evidence that the dawn of 

Great Power rivalries inevitably introduces a heightened risk of major war into the international system.19 Moreover, since the fall of Napoleon in 1815, over half of all wars have been 

between enduring Great Power rivals. If one adds early conflicts among proto-rivals, that 

number climbs to over 80 percent.20 Thus, the most persuasive research done on past eras of 

GPC demonstrates that a majority of them involved power transitions among Great Powers 

and that a full three-quarters of them culminated with—or featured within the competitive 

transition period—a destructive period of violent Great Power clash (war).

And yet the inevitability of direct military clash among Great Powers during times of 

relative power transition is not foreordained. As neorealists observe, the structure of the 

international system can mitigate competition so that it culminates without direct combat—with a bipolar system being most likely to remain stable and great state competition 

settling into patterns of rivalry short of war.21 Other systemic factors may help Great Powers 

channel (or expend) their worst animus in one of the other four nonviolent categories of interstate competition: politico-diplomatic, economic, ideological, or informational. Liberal 
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 23

internationalists offer a “liberal peace” theory, arguing that states with shared ideological 

values—including liberal democratic political institutions and deference to individual 

human rights—are resistant to major war with each other.22 An alternative institutionalist 

thesis asserts that states with a high degree of economic interdependence are more likely to 

compete in categories and a manner short of war.23 Constructivists assert that national leadership can condition interactions and cultures to refrain from confrontation and clash with 

attention to social norms and cultural symmetries that build identities and communities 

of peace.24 Great Powers also may vent violent tendencies in surrogate conflicts and proxy 

wars. They may seek out networked partnerships or alliance systems with combinations of 

lesser powers in order to increase their prospects for successful competition in nonmilitary categories and/or to deter any move toward armed clash. Or they may seek common 

arrangements to restrain confrontation and inhibit armed clash within agreements such as 

the informal Concert of Europe (1815–1854), the League of Nations (1919–1930), and the 

United Nations (1945–present).25 Finally, the enormous destructive power and generational 

damage wrought by nuclear weapons may—as it has seemingly done since 1945 with rare 

exception—inhibit a resort to major violence and warfare between Great Powers.26

With the five primary dimensions of interstate competition established and the general 

understandings of research into past GPCs and power transitions highlighted, this chapter 

now turns to a short analytical review of several representative historical cases.27 Four dyadic cases within broader periods of GPC have been selected:

■ France and the UK, from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries

■ the UK and Imperial Germany, from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries

■ the UK and the United States, from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries

■ the United States and Imperial Japan during the early 20th century.28

These four rivalries were contested in a multipolar global system, like the era emerging 

in 2020. All four featured an ascendant Great Power worried about relative power decline 

and at least one rising power seeking recognition and status—also evident in 2020. Finally, all 

four were contested during periods of emergent, disruptive technologies driving global economic dynamics from one paradigm to another. In the late 1700s, agrarian economies and 

mercantilist trade preferences were giving way to industrialization and free trade networks 

across Western Europe. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, maturing industrial economies 

acted out globally across a landscape featuring contested colonial empires and a growing 

number of protectionist trading networks. In 2020, the world is moving beyond industrial 

economies and even digitized ones to those featuring the hallmarks of a fourth industrial 

revolution: the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds.29

At the same time, powerful political forces are questioning the wisdom of global free trade, 

but without any clear alternative framework.

Three of these rivalries resulted in war—a percentage consistent with the broader historic percentage of Great Power competitions culminating in war discussed earlier. The wars 

fought out of these competitive transition eras were three of the five most deadly conflicts 

in human history: World War II, World War I, and the Napoleonic Wars, respectively.30

Only in the case of the rise of the United States in an era of relative UK power decline did a 
24 Lynch and Hoffman

century of chilly interstate contestations resolve short of war. The U.S.-UK dyad ultimately 

produced an alliance and partnership during two global wars against other Great Power 

competitors. Their victorious alliance in the Second World War made way for the final 

accommodation of ascendant U.S. power into an alliance oriented toward a wider period of 

system stability and international peace.

A summary of the major dynamics of these four GPC dyads across the five dimensions 

of interaction listed in table 2.2 is provided in table 2.3. A short analytical review of each of 

Table 2.2. A Framework for Assessing the Aspects/Categories of Competition

Competitive Aspect/Category Main Competitive Elements

Political and Diplomatic Levels of influence in multilateral institutions, key posts held that control 

multilateral institutions, number and strength of political alliances.

Ideological Values and political systems’ appeal.

Informational The manner and degree of transnational communications: open and 

transparent vs. closed and restrictive. Extent of denigration of “the 

other” in mass communications.

Military Size, posture, technological edge of armed forces. Cohesion and 

capacity of military alliances.

Economic Size, technological breadth, diversity, and resource base of national 

economy. Innovation ecosystem of national economy, including access 

to and management of financial capital.

Table 2.3. Major Dyadic Dynamics During Four Eras of Great Power Competition

France/UK UK/Germany United States/UK United States/Japan

Political and 

Diplomatic

UK ascendance 

challenged

Competition over 

global colonies; later 

continental hegemony 

by Germany

UK global colonies 

preeminence and UK 

dominance of western Atlantic Ocean 

challenged

U.S. Asia-Pacific 

hegemony and rules 

for China

Ideological Aristocracy vs. 

Populist, charismatic rule

Limited ethnic 

prestige issues; later 

clash over human 

rights and liberties

Limited ethnic tensions, only lingering 

with Irish-Americans

Liberal democracy 

vs. divine rule and 

messianism

Informational

Exchange 

among elites vs. 

empowerment 

of popular passions; negative 

popular imagery

Press-fueled nationalism/xenophobia; 

later clash over 

state-dominated 

propaganda and 

expression limitations

Limited and linked to 

economic concerns; 

favorable reciprocal 

popular press

Open, individual 

communications vs. 

hierarchical information; xenophobic 

press eventually

Economic 

(with 

science and 

technology 

factors)

Trade and commercial dominance across 

Europe (level of 

industrialization)

Lines of communication and 

colonial preferences 

(chemical and industrial manufacturing 

industries)

UK colonial trade 

order vs. U.S. 

commerce preferences (manufacturing 

innovation mainly 

in electromagnetic 

spectrum)

“Open Door Policy” 

vs. Co-Prosperity 

Sphere (access to 

metals, oil products, 

rubber)

Military

Royal Navy 

vs. France’s 

Conscripted, 

Massed Army

Naval arms race Limited to naval parity Naval supremacy 

(emerging aviation)
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 25

these episodes follows that table. The reviews illuminate wider lessons about GPC histories, 

transition dynamics, and patterns of competitive interaction with relevance for 2020.

France and the United Kingdom, Late 18th to Early 19th Centuries

Between 1790 and 1820, longstanding European powers and rivals France and the United 

Kingdom entered a period of intensified competition and confrontation that resulted in two 

major wars—the French Civil War (and its continental spillover from 1792 to 1802) and 

the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). The international system at that time was multipolar, 

with other Great Power contestants including Russia, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, and the 

Ottoman Empire.

The UK and France had been competitors for more than a century. From the 1680s 

through the 1780s, the two jousted globally over colonies and international resource access 

and on the continent of Europe over economic and religious ascendance. For the 100-year 

period from 1648 to 1763, France was the dominant power and the UK its rising challenger.31 By the end of the 1700s—after four decade-long periods of continental war and 

interrelated colonial proxy war between the two conducted over a century—the power relationship had flipped. The UK commenced the 1790s as the dominant global and European 

power in command of the seas with its Royal Navy, flourishing as the most rapidly industrializing state astride Europe.32

From the 1500s to the mid-1700s, Great Britain and France contested economic supremacy in a mercantilist system. Mercantilist economics was based on the premise that 

Figure 2.1. Britain (William Pitt) and Napoleon Carving Up the World. Source: James Gillray, The Plumb-Pudding [sic] in Danger (London: H. Humphrey, 1805).
26 Lynch and Hoffman

a nation’s relative wealth and power were best secured by the accumulation of land, gold, 

and silver. The accumulation of overseas colonies also generated national wealth and relative power by assuring the export of home country goods to loyal colonists while limiting 

the number of foreign products available for purchase in those colonies. In the mid-1700s, 

France squandered its mercantilist advantages in continental land mass and in its overseas 

colonial presence. It lagged in modern techniques of crop rotation and fertilizer use, and 

its industrial advances in textiles, mining, and metallurgy came mainly from innovation 

by British entrepreneurs. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) increased royal debt and then 

lost France nearly all its North American colonial possessions. At the same time, the British 

industrial revolution began. Its innovations in steam engines, textile machines, tool-making, 

and railroads vaulted the UK into position as the world’s most prosperous economy. In 

turn, UK businessmen became leaders in international commerce, trade, shipping, and 

banking—with London quickly becoming the financial capital and focus of the world economy. The British military, and especially its Royal Navy, grew from the wealth of the nation. 

London leveraged this military advantage to assure preferential trade and exchange between growing British colonies and the home country.

Early British public empathy for the 1789 French Revolution waned by 1793. Never 

amused by the revolution, the British government first supported a failed Austro-Prussian 

military effort to march on Paris and end the revolution in the fall of 1792. Then the vulgar 

beheading of King Louis XVI and the bloody excesses of the Reign of Terror compromised 

all but the rashest British common folk sympathies for the rebels. Britain passed an Aliens 

Act that prohibited French radicals from travel into the UK, and London kept a wary 

eye on France’s activities. While the early years of revolutionary chaos in France helped 

Britain’s overall power status, persistent French-inspired turbulence on the continent left 

London worried about roiling instability there. The populist interim French government 

and its successor Napoleonic Empire both promised to topple or replace the Divine Right 

and standing of the monarchies across Europe. With this persistent ideological threat, the 

French Revolution introduced outright political and ideological conflict into what had been 

a serious but often constrained competitive rivalry among fellow monarchies. The rules 

of competition that dominated (and often moderated) the normally bitter French-English 

competition from the late 17th to mid-18th centuries vanished.

Populist France also posed a threat to the UK and fellow continental monarchies’ preferred means of communication and information exchange among royal elites—threatening 

to directly agitate anti-monarchy massed unrest in London and across the continent.33 The 

UK’s economic access to the continent through the Low Countries and Spain was put in 

jeopardy by revolutionary France’s crusade-like activism, sending mass armies into Austria, 

Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. England’s lead in industrial productivity also 

seemed in jeopardy should France conquer England’s favored European economic partners.34 France’s turn to universal military conscription for its army (levée en masse) and 

a new preference for total war instead of limited, seasonal campaigns—begun during the 

Directorate and perfected by Napoleon—disadvantaged traditional monarchic armies 

and threatened unconstrained French continental dominance. Fearful that France might 

establish absolute continental power and turn that power outward into serious confrontation against the UK’s overseas colonial holdings—a fear crystalized during the 1798–1801 
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 27

French campaign into Egypt and Syria—British resolve steeled. London forged continental 

military alliances against France and commenced armed military conflict geared to contain 

and then collapse France’s expansionist aims and ambitions.35

This UK-France period of dyadic rivalry was contested during a 26-year period following a dramatic upheaval in French politics and against a backdrop of multiple Great Powers 

jockeying for position in Europe—a relatively unstable multipolar system. It peaked into 

full-out warfare when London’s ascendance on the seas and largely unfettered access to 

preferred overseas colonies, once contested by Spain and France, seemed to be jeopardized 

by a radicalized France. The period of French-British competition turned exceptionally violent when the prospects for collaboration and/or accommodation between them in the 

five major areas of state-to-state interactions became seemingly impossible. The UK turned 

to anti-French military ground alliances across continental Europe and leveraged its superior navy to destroy the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805. These direct military clashes 

confined revolutionary France into a landlocked country with limited economic activities 

and constrained ideological reach.36 The UK’s clever exploitation of allied and partner continental armies to converge against French military forces from 1813 to 1814 and again in 

1815 eliminated the main French threat and reset the norms of monarchy-to-monarchy 

power competition on the European continent in political, ideological, informational, and 

economic areas of interaction. In a display that realist theorists would label an astute balance of power maneuver, Great Britain reestablished—for a time—its self-perceived relative 

power advantage against all European states, its general freedom of economic action on 

the continent, and its unrivaled ascendance in overseas commerce. It is important to note 

that the main domain of commerce and communications/information of that time—the 

high seas—was the arena of competition where the UK worked most vigorously and independently to sustain its dominance and to secure future ascendance over its Great Power 

rival, revolutionary France.

Great Britain and Imperial Germany, Late 19th to Early 20th Centuries

From 1870 to 1945, the United Kingdom again found itself challenged by a new and rising Great Power, Imperial Germany. Germany rose to challenge UK dominance in an era 

marked by a multipolar distribution of global power. The UK was the globally ascendant 

power; France was an established but constrained Great Power; Russia, Austria-Hungary, 

and the Ottoman Empire were established but declining Great Powers; and the United 

States, Germany, and Japan were economically rising states and aspiring Great Powers.

Berlin threatened London by direct competition for overseas colonies enabled by an 

ascent to be a global sea power and with potential dominance on the European continent. 

This dyadic rivalry played out within a wider era of GPC and culminated in two major global 

conflagrations: World War I and World War II. Initially, Imperial Germany’s challenge to 

an ascendant United Kingdom was an economic one and without sharp competition in the 

other four categories of major state interaction (see table 2.2). As they consolidated control 

of a majority of the European continent via wars in 1864, 1866, and 1870–1871, Imperial 

Germany’s founders effectively leveraged expanding German access to natural resources 

and labor. They forged a state with industrial prowess and manufacturing capacity that 

surpassed that of the long-dominant United Kingdom.37 In 1870, the UK produced almost 
28 Lynch and Hoffman

four times as much iron and steel as Imperial Germany and by 1910 the Germans twice as 

much as the British (see table 2.4). In the subset of steel—the product of a more advanced 

industrial process and of greater use in modern machine tools, construction, and advancing 

implements—the UK produced twice as much steel as Imperial Germany in 1870, but by 

1910 the Germans twice as much as the British.38

Over the same 40-year period, Germany increased coal production by 800 percent; the 

British increase was only 200 percent.39 As it grew, Imperial Germany protected its industrial manufacturing and its agricultural production from outside competition with steep 

import tariffs.40 The UK had quit protectionism and embraced free trade in 1840 so had no 

similar import tariffs to counter the German taxes (or, for that matter, similar American 

tariffs). Despite recurring British government efforts to establish countervailing protectionist tariffs, domestic British export merchant and financial interests prevailed in preventing 

any new UK tariff regime that could hurt their strong export businesses.41 In 1910, the UK 

had twice as much in credit bank assets as Germany.42

Beginning in the 1890s, Berlin turned its growing manufacturing advantage—especially in steel—into the quest for a world-class navy. The Kaiser and key German interest 

groups (or leagues) wanted a navy that could rival that of the UK for prestige and that 

could compete with imperial London for acquisition and maintenance of global colonies.43

In 1897, Imperial Germany began emphasis of a so-called world policy (Weltpolitik) that 

shifted popular attention from growing domestic social issues to foreign policy by focusing 

on overseas colonial expansion and the construction of a high seas fleet.44

Table 2.4. Great Power Iron and Steel Production in Selected Years (in Tons)

1870 1910 1935 1950

UK 5,819,492 12,050,361 12,905, 243 18,800,000

Germany 1,560,000 25,500,000 6,498,873 10,600,000

United States 375,000 25,643,871 51,100,000 80,100,000

France 1,417,073 11,200,000 33,301,000 10,600,000

Russia 2,336,000 11,900,000 27,918,000 53,200,000

Japan 0 180,000 4,703,000 7,800,000

Sources: Tibor Fabian, “A Linear Programming Model of Integrated Iron and Steel Production,” Management Science 4, no. 4 (July 1958), 415–449; M.S. Birkett, “The British Iron and Steel Industry,” Economica, 

no. 5 (June 1922), 149–161; John B. Parrish, “Iron and Steel in the Balance of World Power,” Journal of 

Political Economy 64, no. 5 (October 1956), 369–388; Muzaffer Erselcuk, “Iron and Steel Industry in 

Japan,” Economic Geography 23, no. 2 (April 1947), 105–129; Abraham Berglund, “The Iron and Steel Industry of Japan and Japanese Continental Policies,” Journal of Political Economy 30, no. 5 (October 1922), 

623–654; Charles Will Wright, The Iron and Steel Industries of Europe, Economic Paper 19 (Washington, 

DC: Government Printing Office, 1939); S.L., “Iron and Steel in the Soviet Union,” The World Today 8, 

no. 5 (May 1952), 210–222; Robert C. Allen, “International Competition in Iron and Steel, 1850–1913,” 

The Journal of Economic History 39, no. 4 (December 1979), 911–937; James E. Rowe, “The Development 

of the Russian Iron and Steel Industry,” The Geographical Bulletin, vol. 10 (May 1975), 24–30; Daniel J. 

Morrell, “Iron and Steel,” in Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, 

1878, vol. 3, Iron and Steel, Ceramics and Glass, Forestry, Cotton (Washington, DC: Government Printing 

Office, 1880), 1–112; William P. Blake, “Ceramics,” in Reports of the United States Commissioners to the 

Paris Universal Exposition, 1878, vol. 3, 113–224; John B. Parrish, “Iron and Steel in the Balance of World 

Power,” Journal of Political Economy 64, no. 5 (October 1956), 369–388; Henry Harrison, “Iron Ore, PigIron, and Steel Production,” Scientific American 110, no. 22 (May 1914), 444.
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 29

Kaiser Wilhelm II perceived 

Germany’s quest for a dominant 

navy as one to gain London’s respect as a peer Great Power to be 

accommodated. But this fateful 

policy choice had an opposite effect 

in London.45 Badly spooked, the 

UK made diplomatic moves during 

the 1890s to curtail Anglo-French 

enmity that had lasted over 800 

years. London’s diplomats also took 

steps to moderate a 60-year, often 

intense competition with Russia 

over colonies and boundaries in 

the Near East and Far East: the 

“Great Game.”46 London took these 

steps in order to seek an agreement with Paris and later Moscow 

to constrain Germany’s rise on the 

European continent.47 British diplomacy also undertook a “Great Rapprochement” with another putative Great Power rival 

of the era—the United States.48

By 1905, the UK turned the full British Empire’s attention—including London’s notorious press—toward the German threat. Germany returned the favor. The popular press in 

both Germany and the UK played a substantial role in accelerating Anglo-German hostilities. From about the mid-1890s, the British mass press featured a steady diet of invective 

against a militarized and menacing Germany. At the same time, the German press took 

delight in selling copy by accusing Britain of standing in the way of Germany’s rightful 

place as a global leader. German papers also made their mark by publicizing British troops 

in South Africa as cravenly bayonetting to death innocent Boer babies in their conduct of 

the Boer War.49 German publications fanned the flames of extreme nationalism advocated 

by the Pan-German League, founded in 1891 by Ernst Hasse.50 This xenophobic, right-wing 

league had a notable influence on German public opinion against Anglo-Saxons, Yankees, 

and Russians before World War I and set the stage for the interwar rise of Nazism’s hateful 

intolerance of all things insufficiently German.51

Of note, Imperial Germany and the UK had relatively similar political systems during 

their pre–World War I era of rivalry. Both were constitutional monarchies, and their aristocratic classes were heavily intermarried and related by blood. Both were growing more 

democratic during the period, each enfranchising more and more voters into its political 

systems. But unlike the cases of the UK and the United States addressed later, this political 

“sameness” did not limit descent into toxic rivalry.52

UK fears of decline vis-à-vis Germany and German grievances against British haughtiness contributed to the development of a European military alliance structure steeped in 

complex animosities and tethered to hair-trigger war plans in the event of crisis. Germany’s 

Figure 2.2. Germany, Britain, and Russia in Pursuit of Colonies. 

Source: Thomas Nast, “The World’s Plunderers: Germany, 

England, and Russia Grab What They Can of Africa and Asia,” 

Harper’s Weekly, 1885 (Sarin Images/Granger).
30 Lynch and Hoffman

major alliance partner, Austria-Hungary, was wrapped into a mesh of self-determination 

breakaway wars across Eastern Europe where Russian meddling fueled military grievance and 

a seemingly inevitable Russo-Austrian armed clash. In turn, the UK’s 1907 Entente with Russia did not fully appreciate St. Petersburg’s risky adventurism in the Balkans or the degree to 

which the Russian army was no match for the German war machine. Thus, each rival tethered 

itself to allies with great incentives to fight, and these incentives produced extremely risky war 

plans that set the conditions for the miscalculations of 1914 and the calamity of World War I.53

The aftermath of World War I featured a “victor’s peace,” with stifling economic war 

reparations against Germany, insufficient British economic power to moderate global economic shocks, and a postwar economic titan—the United States—unwilling to undertake 

an economic or diplomatic leadership role.54 These conditions accelerated global economic 

instability and military rivalries that fueled the rise of fascist and communist ideologies. 

The struggle over power transition and ascendance that generated World War I also set the 

conditions of fragmentation and confrontation between the UK, its allies, and Nazi Germany that followed the Great War. By the early 1930s, Nazi Germany and the UK again had 

major, intractable grievances across the political, economic, ideological, and informational 

dimensions of state-to-state interaction. These combined to produce a second, even more 

all-consuming global conflagration: World War II in Europe and the North Atlantic.55

The Anglo-German competitive dyad was contested over a 75-year period and in a 

multipolar world—one that neorealism views as the least stable and most prone to interstate war. It evolved from a period of wary competition between the UK and Germany that 

lasted from 1870 to 1895, when political, ideological, informational, and economic forms 

of interaction were reasonably collaborative.56 By 1900, this GPC dyad devolved into stark 

competition, confrontation, and major war when Germany moved to turn its economic advantage toward creation of a globally relevant navy and sought to become a colonial power 

on equal footing with the UK and France. After World War I, Germany’s grievances, Britain’s inability to fully recognize its accelerating decline of economic and political power as 

an outcome of the Great War, and the very wide differences between London’s and Berlin’s 

narratives about proper political, economic, human rights, and institutional norms set the 

stage for another violent and even more vicious clash of arms, World War II.

It is again worth noting that the UK became most worried that it would be eclipsed once 

Germany asserted a clear challenge for dominance over the principal medium of commerce 

and communications in that era—the high seas. After London’s early 1900s determination 

of the primacy of Germany’s challenge, the UK shifted into diplomatic, informational, and 

then military confrontation and clash with Imperial Germany.

The United Kingdom and the United States, Late 19th to Mid-20th Centuries

The United States and the UK participated in a dyad of Great Power competition from 

the 1880s through 1940. Their competition nested in the multiple rivalries between the 

many Great Power states of the era. The UK was the ascendant but declining power and 

the United States the rising one. London and Washington mainly contested naval dominance across the Western Hemisphere and about the rules and ascendant order in global 

economic exchange.57 In 1870, U.S. gross domestic product became equal to that of the UK. 

By 1890, American industrialization rapidly eclipsed that of the UK, and by the turn of the 
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 31

century, American economic industrialization and manufacturing prowess was on the path 

to eclipse the size of the entire economy of the British Empire.58 While the UK pursued an 

economic policy of openness, the United States established and maintained post–Civil War 

protectionist tariffs with special preference to industrial manufacturing and agriculture.59

Yet U.S.-UK trade expanded throughout the period as London tolerated American protectionism while pursuing the consumer and financial services economic benefits of liberal 

international trade.

A century of Anglo-American political and ideological animus began a slow decline in 

the 1880s. From before the American Revolution, the United States demonstrated a strong 

distaste for the British colonial empire. So, too, British politicians had a deep disdain for 

American views about liberal democracy that denigrated constitutional monarchies and 

often called for toppling old European dynasties and the demise of colonial empires.60 But 

during the 1880s and 1890s the UK became more democratic by enfranchising more voters, and the United States gained its own form of territorial empire.61 This growing sense 

of sameness along political and ideological lines allowed London and Washington to view 

each other’s power in less threatening ways. Between 1887 and 1901, London concluded a 

number of treaties and agreements with the United States that settled residual questions 

about Canadian boundaries, Alaskan fisheries, and the future of the Panama Canal Zone, 

among others.62

By the late 1890s, Americans began to convert economic might into diplomatic initiatives and naval military power. Where the Royal Navy had been ascendant over the Atlantic 

Ocean from the late 1790s, a small but increasingly capable and active U.S. Navy now began 

to assert itself. Rumors of possible war between the United States and the UK during 1895 

Figure 2.3. U.S. and UK Rapprochement—Uncle Sam and John Bull Shake Hands. Source: Victor Gillam, 

“Hands across the Sea,” Judge, June 11, 1898.
32 Lynch and Hoffman

and 1896 involving a territorial row between London and Venezuela caused panic in New 

York and worry in London.63 Yet cooler heads prevailed in both countries. Diplomats navigated Anglo-American frictions, so they were viewed less moralistically and with greater 

realism, inhibiting the potential for violent clash.

Around the same time, dynamics in the multipolar international system came to reinforce the nascent U.S.-UK rapprochement. As previously noted, the UK perceived greater 

risks to its colonial holdings and to a hostile takeover of the seas from Germany.64 British 

admiralty worries about the German naval buildup closer to home caused the War Office 

of the early 1900s to de-prioritize planning for possible war with the United States. Gradually, British politicians joined Royal Navy analysts in determining that America’s economic 

might meant that Washington could afford a navy that Britain could never hope to match. 

Moreover, without any powerful UK allies in the Western Hemisphere, it would be folly to 

engage in a military quarrel with the United States.65 The UK’s decision to seek accommodation and collaboration with the United States at the turn of the 19th century (the Great 

Rapprochement) paid future dividends.66 A historically isolationist United States eventually 

joined the UK in its fight against Imperial Germany during World War I and later against 

the consolidated European fascist powers led by Adolf Hitler’s Germany in World War II. 

The United States also became the global standard bearer for liberal democratic norms and 

institutions after World War II when the UK’s power and prospects for global influence 

sharply declined. Yet the British decision to accommodate rather than confront U.S. power 

negatively impacted long-term UK interests in one significant area—economics. Washington’s distaste for the British colonial empire generated a post–World War II set of global 

commercial and financial rules and norms that transferred fiscal and trade dominance from 

the UK to the United States and that saw the rapid disintegration of the once mighty British 

colonial empire and an attendant decline in British trade as a percentage of global trade (see 

table 2.5).67

The Great Rapprochement between the UK and the United States during 1895 and 

1915 was far from the certain thing that is often assumed today.68 In many ways, the 

Anglo-American competition prior to the 1880s featured more areas of confrontation (political, economic, and informational) than areas of collaboration (ideological and military). 

However, Britain made a proper assessment of its inherent economic and military-industrial power limitations compared to those held by a late 19th-century America. It also came 

Table 2.5. Percentage of International Exports: Selected Years

1900 1910 1920 1935 1950

United States 14 11.1 22.4 11.6 16.7

Germany 10.9 11.2 3.8 8.9 3.2

UK 14.6 13.5 14 12.1 10

France 7.9 7.6 7.5 5.3 5

Russia N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Japan 1 1.4 3.1 4 1.3

Source: United Nations (UN), International Trade Statistics 1900–1960 (New York: UN, 1962).
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 33

to see the United States as a Great Power rival with tolerable political, ideological, and information preferences. Realists contend that it was London’s balance of power calculus against 

Germany that led to a strategic decision to contest the rise of Berlin and convert tensions 

with its former American colonists into a long-term special relationship and geostrategic 

partnership. Liberal institutionalists argue this as a case where common norms, values, and 

political systems facilitated a peaceful Great Power transition. HST proponents view British 

acquiescence to the ascent of American power as a logical outcome between a dominant, 

declining hegemon and a rising state that viewed the future of global norms, orders, and 

procedures in a similar way.

The United States and Imperial Japan, Early 20th Century

Japan and the United States engaged in a 45-year period of rivalry over economic influence 

across the Asia-Pacific and for control of the Pacific Ocean sea lines of communication. 

Although both were largely rising powers in the Asia-Pacific region when compared to 

established Great Powers such as Britain and France, the United States perceived itself as 

the dominant commercial and maritime power in the region and the Japanese as the rising 

challenger to its regional hegemony. This contest culminated in a 5-year, deeply destructive 

war across Asia-Pacific fought as part of World War II.

American interest in commerce and free enterprise in the Asia-Pacific traced back to 

Commodore Matthew Perry’s maritime engagement with the Japanese in the early 1850s. 

U.S.-Japan relations were relatively positive and featured modest economic trade and cooperation during the late 1800s. After the Spanish American War of 1898, the United States 

took a great and growing interest in setting the rules for trade and commerce across the 

Asia-Pacific. Rapidly increasing American industrial might resulted in high-volume exports 

that needed import partners across Asia. American industrial prowess also was invested 

into a modern recast: iron- and steel-hulled U.S. Navy capable of enforcing commercial 

exchange in the Pacific Ocean. The 1899 U.S. declaration of an Open Door Policy calling for 

equal trading rights for all nations in China and recognition of Chinese territorial integrity 

set the stage for increasing friction with Imperial Japan. Japan already had territorial interests in China and on the Korean Peninsula, secured during the First Sino-Japanese War 

(1894–1895). Tokyo believed that it had to control selected tracts of territory on the Asian 

land mass to access natural resources and control markets necessary to be a regional Great 

Power. Japan reaffirmed its intent and its capability to assert imperial control of continental 

Asian territories with victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) where Japanese victory confirmed its control of land in Korea and Manchuria. In 1915, Japan announced its 

Twenty-One Demands for the Republic of China, asserting a far greater Japanese economic 

and territorial remit there.69

During late World War I and its immediate aftermath, the United States sought modest 

accommodation with Japan in a manner that enhanced Japan’s belief that it had the right to 

special territorial interests in China due to its geographic proximity but that maintained the 

public perception that America’s Open Door Policy remained intact.70 The United States and 

the UK also sought to constrain the burgeoning post–World War I naval arms race among 

them, Japan, France, and Italy with a Five-Power Treaty (1921–1922) that locked warship ratios among the UK, United States, and Japan at a 5:5:3 ratio.71 Initially acceptable to Japanese 
34 Lynch and Hoffman

politicians, this treaty became a 

growing aggravation with Japanese military leadership during 

the 1920s and 1930s. It also 

became a poster child codifying Tokyo’s grievance that, led 

by the United States, Western 

powers were treating Japan unfairly as a second-class power.72

At the same time, longstanding 

ideological and racial tensions 

between the United States and 

Japan hardened when President Woodrow Wilson refused 

a Japanese request for a racial 

equality clause or an admission 

of the equality of the nation in 

the League of Nation’s charter. 

U.S. isolationism in the 1920s 

and early 1930s meant that 

competition between Washington and Tokyo festered beneath 

the surface in the United States. 

But Japanese frustration with 

the United States grew increasingly palpable as its 1920s 

economy suffered from a post–

World War I recession and an early 1930s depression jolted by the U.S. stock market collapse 

and subsequent draconian U.S. tariffs on all imports.73

Jarred by severe economic depression, Japan’s military leaders gradually muscled aside 

its political leaders from 1931 to 1937, pressing the government into ever greater military 

adventures throughout eastern Asia. Japanese military and strident nationalist politicians 

became increasingly assertive in claims for colonial ascendance across Asia and in China. 

Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, exciting international condemnation. It withdrew from 

the League of Nations in 1933 over this criticism and increasingly turned away from international diplomatic and economic fora. In 1937, Japan launched an open war against 

China in Beijing, seeking expanded control of critical infrastructure and resources. From 

1937 to 1940, the United States and Japan coexisted in an uneasy truce—with the United 

States refusing formal entry into the war on the side of China and continuing to abide by 

the terms of the 1911 U.S.-Japan Treaty of Commerce and Navigation. But by 1940, Japan’s 

continuingly brutal war in China, coupled with its diplomatic and economic overtures toward the Axis powers of Germany and Italy and its formal declaration of a “Greater East 

Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” against all Western interests in the Pacific, triggered a much 

sharper U.S. reaction.

Figure 2.4. U.S. Army Anti-Japanese Propaganda Poster. Source: 

“Our Next Boss?” World War II propaganda poster (U.S. Army/University of Minnesota Libraries, Upper Midwest Literary Archives).
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 35

As a strong signal of growing worry about Japan’s unrelenting war in Asia and its 

growing naval fleet, America repositioned its Pacific Fleet Headquarters from San Diego 

to the territorial port of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, during the summer of 1940. In late 1940, 

Washington levied restrictive sanctions against Japan’s economy and stepped up overt aid 

and assistance to China. America sought to contain Japanese imperial expansion in the 

Asia-Pacific with an embargo of Japan’s access to critical materials, such as oil, rubber, and 

scrap iron. Japan viewed this policy with increasing alarm and perceived that it was being 

placed under existential threat. After the United States placed a full oil embargo on Japan 

in the middle of 1941, Japan’s military leadership resolved to preemptive war—hoping to 

strike a decisive blow against the U.S. Pacific Fleet early in a clash that would cause Washington to sue for peace in the Asia-Pacific. Japan properly recognized that U.S. industrial 

might and latent military capability would inevitably dwarf that of Japan, but its military 

junta would not auger long-term accommodation with Washington, instead gambling on 

success in a short, sharp 6-month war.74 This military gambit failed at Pearl Harbor, and 41⁄2 

years later, Japan’s imperial ambitions and its country lay in ruins.

During the early 1900s, U.S.-Japan GPC in the Asia-Pacific was contested in a multipolar 

world where the major powers of Europe along with Japan and the United States sought political and economic influence on the continent of Asia. A relatively dominant United States—led 

by its modern growing navy and strong economic influence—managed the palpable tensions 

with Japan through restraint and a number of frequently secret bilateral and multilateral arrangements involving Tokyo’s continental aims. Economic interests on the continent of Asia 

greatly diverged, but Japan and the United States continued direct trade with each other in a 

number of key categories, including those of energy and mineral resources. The two countries 

also found space for mutual financial benefit in secret deals impacting China. Ideological 

differences were obvious as U.S. aversion to Japanese and Chinese immigrants played out in 

public, but American and Japanese diplomacy sidestepped the issue until the outbreak of war. 

Japan’s growing military might was addressed in a series of temporal arms control treaties 

that weathered poorly when Japanese military leadership took center stage in Tokyo during 

the 1930s. Disarmament and arms control efforts at collaborative competition also fell short 

because they did not address emerging technologies with critical warfighting impact such as 

naval aviation and aircraft carriers, submarines, and electromagnetic sensing devices. Political and diplomatic niceties remained ascendant until the 1930s, but then sharply eroded once 

Japan’s government took a militaristic and fascist tone.

A destructive U.S.-Japan military clash was not foreordained. But the deep divisions 

in all the major dimensions of state-to-state interaction between them by the 1930s made 

peaceful competition exceptionally fraught. Economic accommodations made from 

the early 1900s to the late 1930s waned as Japan’s government turned militaristic, and 

long-festering cultural and ideological differences were thrown into stark relief as Japan 

pursued empire and America pushed back. Japan’s military became Tokyo’s preferred means 

of interaction as its quest for self-contained regional economic hegemony in the Asia-Pacific confronted America with a choice to abandon the region or engage in confrontation. 

Japan’s initial advantage in naval aviation and amphibious military operations did not hold 

up well in the face of America’s enormous industrial and manpower advantages. Its quest 

for ascendant power in the Asia-Pacific lay in ruins by late 1945.
36 Lynch and Hoffman

Insights from Selected GPC History 

There are a number of insights about GPC that can be drawn from analysis done in this 

chapter—including the selected analysis made of our four historic rivalry dyads. Among 

these insights, 10 stand out.

First, for all but liberal-institutionalist theorists, international relations scholars and 

modern strategic analysts identify the historical relations among the most powerful states 

(the Great Powers) as critical to determining the levels of peace and stability across the 

international system. All agree that GPC involves more than just military power, and many 

view military power as the most critical attribute. Geopolitical scholars agree that soft 

power matters to GPC and includes political, ideological, informational, economic, and 

emerging technological dimensions. Most of these strategic dimensions or instruments are 

interdependent to some degree.75

Second, over the past 500 years, interactions among Great Powers in the international 

system normally are dominated by competition in one or more of the major interactive 

categories (see table 2.2) with simultaneous elements of collaboration and conflict. Pure cooperation (unfettered peace and stability) and direct violent clash (war) among them have 

been the rarest forms of interaction.76 Thus, the unipolar moment featuring unchallenged 

American military ascendance, absence of war among major states, and the primacy of 

cooperation and collaboration in the international order from 1992 to 2008 was atypical.

Third, Great Power transitions play out over decades or centuries, not years. 

Three-quarters of transitions since 1500 have culminated with—or featured during—a destructive period of war. The inevitability of war among states during times of transition is 

not foreordained; Great Powers may channel or expend their worst animus in one of several other nonviolent categories of competition: politico-diplomatic, economic, ideological, 

and informational. Great Powers also may vent matters of confrontation or clash through 

surrogate agents, covert activities, and proxy forces short of war. In addition, GPC among 

nuclear armed actors may decrease the likelihood of rivalry moving into direct violent conflict due to the swift, comprehensive destruction 

threatened should nuclear weapons be used.77

Fourth, an alignment of conflictual demands 

or grievances across the five major areas of interstate competition (political and diplomatic, 

ideological, informational, economic, and military) sets the conditions for GPC to drift toward 

direct military clash. This fateful five-layer negative alignment occurred between the United 

Kingdom and Revolutionary France, and again 

between the United States and Imperial Japan. 

Such alignment did not occur between the United 

States and the UK. Late 19th-century leaders in 

Washington and especially in London found 

enough common ground in political, ideological, 

and economic interactions that they moved beyond residual diplomatic challenges and military 

“The history of relations among 

Great Powers is a story of persistent 

rivalry and recurrent warfare, punctuated by occasional, usually brief, 

periods of peace. . . . In the absence of a [global] higher power, 

states are always, in some measure, 

insecure. . . . The mistrust, military 

buildups, and diplomatic maneuvering . . . can sometimes result 

in periods of dynamic balance and 

tenuous stability . . . however, these 

have always broken down eventually, giving way to major wars.”

Aaron L. Friedberg,

A Contest for Supremacy (2012)
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 37

power realignments. Here, enlightened leadership mattered. Like those in late Victorian 

England and the United States, leaders can inhibit the alignment of intractable demands 

across all five areas, looking for avenues to undertake collaborative or cooperative activities 

where such opportunities exist.

Fifth, once a GPC rivalry is under way, the most reliable indicator of when a clash will 

erupt is when one side or both recognizes a shift in the relative alignment of economic and 

military power that is perceived as immutable and untenable. As states view the relative 

power alignment moving against them in an unacceptable way, they are much more inclined to risk a preemptive conflict than when they perceive a stable power status quo.78 The 

UK most acutely feared loss of naval ascendance in its rivalry with Revolutionary/Napoleonic France and later Imperial/Nazi Germany. Also, Imperial Japan perceived its imperative 

for naval dominance in the Pacific untenable if it did not strike first against encroaching 

U.S. forces. Applied to 2020, longstanding U.S. ascendance at sea, in space, and in cyberspace points to areas where a perceived shift in relative power among the Great Powers in 

these areas could foretell growing risk of direct armed clash.

Sixth, although incompatible ideologies and caustic informational exchanges about the 

rival’s people are not a lone determinant of when Great Power rivalry will devolve into direct 

violent clash (war), they are strong lagging indicators of insurmountable contentiousness. 

Limited but noteworthy UK popular support for the French Revolution turned irredeemably hostile when an increasingly bloody insurrection generated popular press revulsion for 

everything French across Great Britain. The UK press and that of Imperial Germany turned 

to ad homonym attacks on each other’s national character, and this crescendoed as the 

contest over colonies and naval ascendance peaked. U.S. antipathy for Japanese militarism 

and governance choices played out in crass press attacks against Japanese society during the 

late 1930s, and Tokyo propaganda returned the favor. Conversely, U.S. and UK similarities 

in culture, governance, and general worldview found positive press in America and Britain 

during the dawn of their late 1800s rapprochement. Modern analysts must beware when 

U.S. and/or Chinese press caricatures of “others” become uniformly negative—a historically 

bad sign for peaceful resolution of GPC transitions.

Seventh, during power transition periods, competitors may not perceive their own 

various forms of power accurately. Moreover, even when accurate assessments of relative 

decline or vulnerability are made, domestic or bureaucratic interests may retard agile adaptation necessary to mitigate risks. The UK of the late 1800s was afflicted by this challenge. It 

was aware of relative economic decline and made sensible foreign policy changes regarding 

the United States. But it found itself unable to persuade domestic constituencies favoring 

unfettered free trade to consider some targeted tariffs as a means to generate manufacturing 

innovation into new critical technologies. This inability to adapt domestic resource priorities left the UK disadvantaged versus Imperial Germany in emerging technologies such as 

industrial chemicals, machine tools, and military-grade steel. London required Swedish, 

Swiss, and U.S. assistance to compensate during World War I. Like the UK a century ago, 

American politicians in 2020 already may be finding themselves confronting similar resistance from exporters and financial business leaders to any adaption of national production 

priorities and trade activities toward Great Power competition.
38 Lynch and Hoffman

Eighth, perceptions of relative power, rather than detailed and empirical assessments 

of power, are likely to inform and then drive policymakers.79 Late 19th-century America and 

Germany might have benefited more domestically and seemed less threatening abroad with 

reduced economic tariffs as they grew, but politicians could not sway powerful agrarian 

and export political constituencies demanding such immutable protections. Here again, 

leadership matters. Enlightened state leaders can seek and promulgate factual assessments 

of national strengths and weaknesses. They can guard against the pitfall of blaming others 

and then acting out violently based on false perceptions, instead turning to and educating 

their people about empirical assessment of relative economic or military strengths.80 As the 

siren’s song of rapacious protectionism plays out in 2020, the United States and China might 

benefit from contemplation of this lesson from past GPC.

Ninth, during periods of dynamic technological change, the likelihood of strategic surprise or operational obsolescence is greater in the military dimension of GPC. States may 

overestimate or underestimate the potential combat power of new innovations, whether 

they are technological or conceptual. Napoleon’s tactical genius and his innovative use of 

massed artillery made him a formidable land opponent but did not translate into strategically vital sea power in his rivalry with the UK. Similarly, Imperial Germany’s superior 

battlefield use of railways and Nazi Germany’s perfection of the tactical use of airpower in 

blitzkrieg did not translate into an effective strategic challenge to the Royal Navy. Imperial 

Japan had a temporary advantage in strategic naval airpower, but insufficient national economic power to survive a U.S. industrial onslaught when its Pearl Harbor gambit fell short. 

In 2020, the rapid rise of new and novel forms of military and protomilitary technologies 

may contribute to improper estimates of relative power.

Finally, Great Power success in geostrategic competitions requires extraordinary political leadership, in both the conduct of statecraft and generating requisite forms of domestic 

renewal and institutional adaptation.81 The UK exhibited such statecraft in its competitions 

with post-revolutionary France and with a rising United States. The UK proved less adept 

during competition with Imperial and then Nazi Germany. Japan did not succeed in its 

contest with the United States over ascendance in Asia-Pacific. The challenge for leaders in 

2020 is at least as great as it was for those in past eras of GPC.

Conclusion

The history of Great Power competition and related debates over power rise and decline 

offer numerous insights. The most important conclusion is that while GPC is the historical norm, relative decline and violent clash among rivals are not predestined in any way. 

Instead, these outcomes reflect choices that leaders make and their capacity to assess and 

adapt. In 2020, contemporary debates about the evolving era of GPC among the United 

States, China, and Russia often betray a degree of fatalism about American power and 

where Washington stands in economic, military, or geostrategic influence terms.

As Aaron Friedberg noted in the afterword to his 1988 study of Great Britain’s policies vis-à-vis the United States at the dawn of the 20th century, “it would be unwise to bet 

against the resilience and adaptability of the American system.”82 But it would be equally 

unwise to allow complacency or inertia to drive national security strategy. In a world defined by disruptive political and socioeconomic change, and a potentially revolutionary 
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 39

altered character of warfare, the United States finds itself at the dawn of an era where it 

can no longer assume that its power advantages will adapt. Leadership matters. Understanding the emerging dynamics in an era of interstate relations dominated by three Great 

Powers across the five major arenas of interaction—politico-diplomatic, ideological, informational, economic, and military—cannot be underappreciated. When it comes to the 

proper development and utilization of U.S. power from 2020 to 2025, a competitive mindset 

in Washington is necessary. In turn, a solid historical understanding of GPC is important. 

Finally, a proper assessment of the strategic imperatives and relational dynamics as well as 

the competitive elements and power toolsets available to Washington, Beijing, and Russia 

must be established. The next two chapters provide an overview of these critical geostrategic 

elements for our new era of GPC.

The authors thank Michael S. Bell, Bernard Finel, Laura J. Junor, and James Lacey for helpful 

reviews and suggestions for this chapter.

Notes

1 Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf, 

1948).

2 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: 

Random House, 1979).

3 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Power and 

Interdependence (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977). In this seminal 

work on this topic, Keohane and Nye identified three pillars 

of soft power: political values, culture, and foreign policy. 

Each extends these constructs in subsequent works, including 

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of 

American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Joseph S. 

Nye, Jr., The Paradox of American Power (London: Oxford 

University Press, 2002); Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Future of 

Power (New York: Perseus Books, 2011); Robert O. Keohane, 

International Institutions and State Power (New York: Westview 

Press, 1989); Robert O. Keohane, Power and Governance in a 

Partially Globalized World (New York: Routledge, 2002).

4 Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: 

The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International 

Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992), 391–425; E. Adley, 

“Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World 

Politics,” European Journal of International Relations 3, no. 3 

(1998), 319–363; Steve Walt, “International Relations: One 

World, Many Theories,” Foreign Policy, no. 110 (1998), 29–46.

5 Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation: 

The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment (New York: 

Basic Books, 1975); Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World 

Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Jack S. 

Levy, “Theories of General War,” World Politics 37, no. 3 (April 

1985), 344–374.

6 Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics; Robert Gilpin, 

The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1987); Duncan Snidal, “The Limits 

of Hegemonic Stability Theory,” International Organization

39, no. 4 (Autumn 1985), 579–614. Economist Charles 

Kindleberger also is considered a proponent of hegemonic 

stability theory, but with a focus on trade and finance tools 

(soft power), rather than military ones, as the primary means 

for the hegemon to establish and sustain a liberal, free trade 

order. See Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 

1929–1939 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1973), 

288–305.

7 Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: International Change 

and Financial Reform (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 

1984); John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic 

Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); John Ikenberry, 

Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis and Transformation of 

the American World Order (Princeton: Princeton University 

Press, 2011).

8 E. Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in 

World Politics,” European Journal of International Relations 3, 

no. 3 (1998), 319–363.

9 Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China 

Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2017), 

244–286. Even the conclusion of 25 percent is generous; one of 

the four cases studied was that of Germany versus the United 

Kingdom and France for political influence in Europe from 

1990 onward. Arguably, this case is indeterminate because 

the overwhelming influence of American military power and 

political preferences across Europe remains both dominant 

and an inhibitor of political tensions migrating toward violent 

confrontation, and because the case is not yet concluded, so no 

final outcome is known.

10 Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign 

Affairs 70, no. 1 (1991), 23–33; Fareed Zakaria, The PostAmerican World (New York: Norton, 2008); Hal Brands, 

Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise 

of the Post–Cold War Order (Cornell, NY: Cornell University 

Press, 2016).

11 As the Soviet Union was wavering, American political 

scientist Francis Fukuyama questioned whether this moment 

of ascendant Western liberal democracy represented 

an unabashed and irreversible victory of economic and 

political liberalism. His pregnant question was premature. 

Liberalism and free trade orthodoxy may prove rather fragile 

achievements. Instead, the “desire for recognition and respect” 

may not be satisfied by prosperity or political participation. 

See Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National 

Interest, no. 16 (Summer 1989), 3–18; Francis Fukuyama, 

Identity: The Demand for Dignity and Politics of Resentment

(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018).
40 Lynch and Hoffman

12 Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner, “The China Reckoning: 

How Beijing Defied American Expectations,” Foreign Affairs 

(March/April 2018).

13 Michael Howard, “Military Science in an Age of Peace,” The 

RUSI Journal 119, no. 1 (March 1974), 4–23.

14 Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the 

Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1988), 3–20.

15 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New 

York: Random House, 1987).

16 Michael J. Mazarr et al., Understanding the Emerging Era 

of International Competition: Theoretical and Historical 

Perspectives, RR2726 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), 

available at <www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2726.

html>. These seven objectives meld classic realist definitions of 

state competitive objectives and those later defined by liberal 

institutionalists. See Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 

29–114; Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, 11–19.

17 Allison, Destined for War, 244–286.

18 James Lacey, ed., Great Strategic Rivalries: From the Classical 

World to the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2016).

19 See “COW Typology of War: Defining and Categorizing 

Wars” and “COW War List” at the Correlates of War Project, 

available at <www.correlatesofwar.org/>.

20 Gary Goertz and Paul F. Diehl, “Enduring Rivalries: 

Theoretical Constructs and Empirical Patterns,” International 

Studies Quarterly 37, no. 2 (June 1993).

21 Waltz, Theory of International Politics.

22 But that same research into this “democratic peace theory” 

indicates that war is more likely between liberal democratic 

states and those that are not and that the propensity for war 

between liberal democracies and those perceived as illiberal 

democracies also is greater than between two similar liberal 

democratic states. See Michael W. Doyle, “Kant, Liberal 

Legacies, and Foreign Affairs,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 12, 

no. 3 (Summer 1983), 222; David Lake, “Powerful Pacifists: 

Democratic States and War,” American Political Science Review

86, no. 1 (March 1992), 24–37.

23 The economic interdependence argument is made in Keohane 

and Nye, Power and Interdependence. The counterargument 

regarding the origins of World War I and the intense economic 

interdependence among European monarchies that did not 

inhibit major Great Power war is found in Barbara Tuchman, 

The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890–

1914 (New York: Macmillan, 1966).

24 Walt, Theory of International Politics, 40–42.

25 Mazarr et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of International 

Competition, 6–11.

26 This controversial “nuclear peace theory” is established 

in such major works as Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Spread of 

Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better,” Adelphi Papers 21, 

no. 171 (1981), available at <https://fliphtml5.com/lhec/

zexq>; John Mearsheimer, “The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear 

Deterrent,” Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (Summer 1993), 50–66; 

Robert Rauchhaus, “Evaluating the Nuclear Peace Hypothesis: 

A Quantitative Approach,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution

53, no. 2 (2009), 258–277, available at <www.jstor.org/

stable/20684584>. The rare but important exception is the 

war between nuclear weapons states India and Pakistan in 

July 1999, known as the Kargil War. While neither state was 

a Great Power by the definition used in this volume, the fact 

that each state possessed large and relatively modern militaries 

and engaged them in a month-long major war despite the 

specter of nuclear escalation stands as a caution against any 

orthodoxy that an absence of Great Power war in the nuclear 

weapons era is valid. See Neil Joeck, “The Kargil War and 

Nuclear Deterrence,” in Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia 

Crisis Behavior and the Bomb, ed. Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul 

Kapur (New York: Routledge, 2008).

27 We chose a short list of historical cases that represents several 

important dimensions of modern Great Power competition 

(GPC). This case study exercise is intended as illustrative rather 

than comprehensive. In that context, the U.S.–Soviet Union 

Cold War competition from 1945 to 1991 was considered but 

not chosen for review. It was omitted due to the expansive 

trove of analytical literature that already exists to describe 

the critical dynamics and outcomes from the 46-year rivalry. 

Cold War case study literature establishes in great detail the 

kinds of analytical observations featured in this chapter about 

the four less well-understood cases chosen. Under Mikhail 

Gorbachev, the Soviet Union (temporarily) ended the Cold 

War rivalry by quitting the competition in its three key 

dimensions: ideology, economic organization, and political 

identity. In this chapter and those that follow, the authors refer 

to many of the authoritative texts on the Cold War, with special 

consideration to the following seminal works: John Lewis 

Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 1997); Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs

(New York: Doubleday, 1995); John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold 

War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005); Sergey 

Radchenko, Two Suns in the Heavens: The Sino-Soviet Struggle 

for Supremacy, 1962–1967 (Stanford: Stanford University 

Press, 2009); Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet 

Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 2007).

28 Some of our reviewers specifically questioned why the rise of 

Japan from the 1970s to 1990s was not chosen for this chapter. 

Although briefly considered, the Japan-U.S. trade competition 

of the Cold War was not selected as a critical case for 

understanding modern GPC for a number of reasons. Three 

stood out. First, Japan never met the operational definition 

of a Great Power provided in chapter 1. Specifically, Japan 

never had unusual capabilities in terms of the other states 

during the Cold War and was never perceived by the other 

states in the system as a state able to leverage its commercial 

capabilities for a change in the international order. Second, 

Japan at that time was a veritable client of the United States in 

its military, political, and diplomatic activities, thus not truly 

an independent actor (much less a Great Power) in four of 

the five aspects of international competition defined in table 

2.2. Third, the “competition” between the United States and 

Japan over economic practices had no parallel ideological, 

informational, communications, or military competitive 

dimensions. Also, the limited economic dimensions 

contested in this power dyad never infected other critical 

bilateral interactions. For these and additional conclusions 

rendering the U.S.-Japan trade competition during the Cold 

War relatively unhelpful for understanding GPC historically 

or today, see Keyu Jin Keyu, “No, China Is Not the ‘Next 

Japan,’” World Economic Forum, October 13, 2016, available 

at <www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/no-china-is-notthe-next-japan/>; and Wendy Wu, “Why China’s U.S. Trade 

Stand-Off Is Not a Replay of Japan’s in the 1980s,” South China 

Morning Post (Hong Kong), April 16, 2018, available at <www.

scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2141824/

why-chinas-us-trade-stand-not-replay-japans-1980s>.

29 For details, see Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial 

Revolution (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2016).

30 World War II took an estimated 70 million lives over the 

course of 15 years. World War I cost about 17 million dead in 

a 41⁄2-year period. The Napoleonic Wars ended an estimated 

6.5 million lives over a 14-year series of military clashes. Only 

the 13th-century Mongol conquest of Europe (about 60 million 

dead) and the 17th-century, 60-year Qing Dynasty conquest 
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 41

of China (about 25 million dead) rank in the same category 

of deadliness for Great Power warfare. This accounting 

omits incorporation of civil war periods such as the multiple 

instances in China and that in 19th-century Russia—many of 

which are estimated to have killed more than 10 million people. 

See Matthew White, Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in 

Human History (New York: Norton, 2011).

31 In the 1500s, Portugal and Spain were ascendant Global 

Powers with international trade reach, naval prominence, and 

growing colonies. But in 1578, King Sebastian I of Portugal, 

who had no heir, was killed in the Battle of Ksar El Kebir. This 

led to the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580, which allowed 

Philip II of Spain to unite the two kingdoms under the rule of 

the Spanish kings for the next 60 years. Philip II mismanaged 

Portuguese colonies, declared war on England, and suffered 

the disastrous destruction of a large part of the Spanish 

Armada in 1588, which marked the end of Spanish colonial 

supremacy. During the 1600s, France, England, and the 

Netherlands overtook Spain and Portugal in commercial and 

naval supremacy. The Dutch gained an early trade advantage 

in South Asia, the Far East, and North America. England and 

France reduced the Dutch advantage with a century of shifting 

alliance combinations, continental battles, and proxy fights 

over disputed colonies. Beginning with the Treaty of Westphalia 

(1648) and culminating during the collapse of the Spanish 

monarchy and the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714), 

France attained an ascendant power position on the European 

continent and a relative ascendance in global colonies that it 

retained during the early 18th century. See Kennedy, The Rise 

and Fall of the Great Powers, 99; John A. Lynn, The Wars of 

Louis XIV, 1667–1714 (Harlow, UK: Longman, 1999), 17; 

and Francois Crouzet, Britain Ascendant: Comparative Issues 

in Franco-British Economic History (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 1990), 12.

32 Many historians mark the UK rise and ascendance over 

France to the erosion of France’s colonial reach and its naval 

prowess, highlighted most dramatically in Paris’s loss of the 

Seven Years’ War to the UK and its allies in 1763, and from 

the attendant erosion of its colonial possessions worldwide—

especially in North America—that ensued from the 1763 

Treaty of Paris. See Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great 

Powers, 120.

33 William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 197; Michael V. 

Leggiere, “Enduring Strategic Rivalries: Great Britain vs. 

France During the French Wars (1792–1815),” in Great 

Strategic Rivalries: From the Classical World to the Cold War, 

ed. James Lacey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 

289–390.

34 Ironically, British economic concerns with Revolutionary 

France lagged in the finance markets. In 1803, England’s 

Barings Bank financed two-thirds of the U.S. Louisiana 

Purchase price of $15 million by giving the French $10 million 

in cash for American bonds used in the purchase, then selling 

the bonds on international markets. Since Napoleon sold the 

Louisiana territories to fund France’s military war efforts, a 

major British bank basically enabled the growth of its Great 

Power military rival. See Paul Strathern, Empire: A New History 

of the World (New York: Pegasus Books, 2020), 225.

35 Clive Emsley, Britain and the French Revolution (London: 

Routledge, 2014), especially 53–76; Michael V. Leggiere, The 

Fall of Napoleon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 

2007), 2–5; and Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 

124.

36 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 2nd 

ed. (New York: Humanity Books, 1983), 123–148.

37 Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 202.

38 Joachim Remak, The Origins of World War I, 1871–1914

(Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1967), 77–78.

39 Ibid., 77.

40 These German import tariffs, forged from the so-called 

Marriage of Iron and Rye and implemented in 1879, became 

sacrosanct domestic political features that limited Germany’s 

politicians from adjusting to British calls for tariff reductions 

as Germany’s manufacturing moved from developing to 

dominant in the early 1900s. See Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, 

“Parties and Interests in the ‘Marriage of Iron and Rye,’” British 

Journal of Political Science 28, no. 2 (April 1998), 291–332; 

Edgar Crammond, “The Economic Relations of the British and 

German Empires,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 77, 

no. 8 (July 1914), 777–824; Friedberg, The Weary Titan, 39–40.

41 Friedberg, The Weary Titan, 33–36.

42 Crammond, “The Economic Relations of the British and 

German Empires,” 784–785.

43 Paul Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 

1860–1914 (New York: Humanity Books, 1980), 410–432; 

Remak, The Origins of World War I, 1871–1914, 35. For more 

on the role of Germany’s influential web of “interest leagues” 

and their important role in colonialism and a growing navy, 

see Gordon Craig, Germany, 1866–1945 (Oxford: Oxford 

University Press, 1981), 250–297.

44 Weltpolitik took over as Germany’s foreign policy at the same 

time as the Kaiser’s adoption of the Tirpitz Plan (named for 

its author, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, head of the German 

navy). The plan was for Germany to achieve world power 

status through buildout of its navy while at the same time coopting and minimizing growing economic and social issues by 

elevating a domestic policy of social imperialism. See James 

Joll, The Origins of the First World War (London: Pearson 

Education Limited, 1984), 131–134.

45 Remak, The Origins of World War I, 1871–1914, 78–80.

46 After almost 40 years of intense rivalry over influence in 

Central Asia and South Asia, British and Russian conflicting 

interests in 1900 centered on Afghanistan, Iran, and Tibet. 

Each of these states comprised competitive buffers between 

Britain’s and Russia’s colonial possessions in Asia. Germany’s 

rise as a competitive empire with global aspirations, along with 

the Russian navy’s embarrassing defeat by the Japanese in the 

Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, persuaded key leaders in 

London and Moscow to resolve their respective differences 

across Asia. By 1914, Russia and Britain agreed on terms to 

divide Iran, to recognize the standing Afghanistan border, 

and to conclude an agreement on Tibet that established the 

McMahon Line. See George P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, 

eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, 

vol. 4, The Anglo-Russian Rapprochement, 1903–07 (London: 

Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1929), 618–621.

47 London’s diplomacy resulted in the Triple Entente of 

Britain, France, and Russia. See George P. Gooch, “Chapter 

V: Continental Agreements, 1902–1907,” in The Cambridge 

History of British Foreign Policy, 1793–1919, ed. A.W. Ward and 

George P. Gooch, vol. 3, 1866–1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge 

University Press, 1923), 305–365; Remak, The Origins of World 

War I, 1871–1914, 44–46.

48 Charles S. Campbell, From Revolution to Rapprochement: The 

United States and Great Britain, 1783–1900 (New York: John 

Wiley & Sons, 1974), especially 194–204.

49 Remak, The Origins of World War I, 1871–1914, 82–85.

50 Mildred S. Wertheimer, The Pan-German League, 1890–1914

(New York: Octagon, 1924), 101–102.

51 Ibid., 198.
42 Lynch and Hoffman

52 Some argue that Imperial Germany’s democracy was too 

new to withstand the rapid rise of its industrial era and social 

interest groups, thus making it less resilient than the UK. See 

Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–

1914, 361. A Chinese author on Germany’s rise even goes so 

far as to intimate that it was too much democracy in Germany 

that set a course for German adventurism and eventual clash 

with the UK. This interpretation is far from persuasive given 

other factors but is a window into a potential particular psyche 

in modern China regarding the inherent dangers of too much 

democracy in a rapidly expanding economic state. See Xu 

Qiyu, Fragile Rise: Grand Strategy and the Fate of Imperial 

Germany, 1871–1914 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2017), 150–153.

53 Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism,

1860–1914, 167–222; James Lacey, “Great Strategic 

Rivalries and the Return of Great Power Politics,” The 

Strategy Bridge, August 22, 2018, available at <https://

thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2018/8/22/greatstrategic-rivalries-the-return-of-geopolitics>; H.C. Allen, 

Great Britain and the United States: A History of AngloAmerican Relations, 1783–1952 (New York: Saint Martin’s 

Press, 1955), 518–610; Gordon Martel, Origins of the First 

World War, 4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2017).

54 Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939, 288–300. 

For evidence of U.S. economic ascendance during the interwar 

period, see table 4.2, where steel and iron production is a good 

proxy for relative economic size and strength.

55 Williamson Murray, “Britain and Germany: 1914–1945,” in 

Lacey, Great Strategic Rivalries (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2016), 371–416; William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the 

Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 1960).

56 Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 

1860–1914, 291–410; William Harbutt Dawson, “Chapter III: 

Imperial Policy in the Old and the New World, 1885–1899,” 

in Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign 

Policy, vol. 3, 125–130, 200–222.

57 Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 149–176.

58 Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 200–201; 

Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America, and 

the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916–1931 (New York: 

Viking, 2014), 13. Also see table 4.2 for relative steel and iron 

production.

59 Douglas A. Irwin, Historical Aspects of U.S. Trade Policy

(Cambridge, MA: The National Bureau of Economic Research, 

2006), available at <https://data.nber.org/reporter/summer06/

irwin.html>.

60 Allen, Great Britain and the United States, 30–52, 518–548, 

941–948; Charles Kindleberger, World Economic Primacy, 

1500–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 35–36, 

125–148, 172–189.

61 While London and many other world capitals viewed 

American expansion and subsequent acquisition of former 

Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific as evidence 

of Washington’s own imperialism, American lore rejects any 

notion of American empire in favor of manifest destiny and 

expulsion of Spanish empire. It was the British perception 

that helped advance UK-U.S. rapprochement irrespective 

of divergent viewpoints about empire. See Kori Schake, Safe 

Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony

(Boston: Harvard University Press, 2017), 280–281; Strathern, 

Empire, 10–11, 224–225.

62 Dawson, “Chapter III,” in Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge 

History of British Foreign Policy, 223–227.

63 Campbell, From Revolution to Rapprochement, 174–189; 

Ernest R. May, Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America 

as a Great Power (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 

1961), 57–59; Kenneth Bourne, Britain and the Balance of 

Power in North America, 1815–1908 (Berkeley: University of 

California Press, 1967), 351; Walter A. McDougall, Promised 

Land, Crusader State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 

1997), 101–121; Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval 

Mastery, 185–210.

64 Kaiser Wilhelm II’s 1896 telegram of congratulations to 

the Boer president after the capture of British citizens in 

the Transvaal of Africa was effective as well. The Kaiser’s 

missive led many Americans to take the British side and 

reminded the British that they could use friends offshore 

from Europe. Campbell, From Revolution to Rapprochement, 

183–184; Valentine Chirol, “Chapter IV: The Boer War and the 

International Situation, 1899–1902,” in Ward and Gooch, The 

Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919, vol. 3, 

263–266.

65 Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 

1815–1908, 351; Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 

203; Friedberg, The Weary Titan, 97.

66 Campbell, From Revolution to Rapprochement, 91–204.

67 Allen, Great Britain and the United States, 944–948; 

Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939, 302–305.

68 For a similar conclusion, see Schake, Safe Passage.

69 Herbert Feis, Road to Pearl Harbor: The Coming of the War 

Between the United States and Japan (Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1950), 3–7, available at <www.jstor.org/

stable/j.ctt13x0wpg.4>; S.C.M. Paine, “China, Russia, and 

Japan and the Competition to Create a New World Order,” in 

Lacey, Great Strategic Rivalries, 417–448; William M. Morgan, 

“Enduring Strategic Rivalries: U.S.-Japan Strategic Rivalry to 

1941,” in Lacey, Great Strategic Rivalries, 479–510.

70 Of particular note in this respect was the Lansing-Ishii 

Agreement of 1917, where the United States and Japan agreed 

in public that the Open Door Policy would remain intact but 

established in a secret annex that Japan had “special rights” in 

territories across China and that the two would share financial 

spoils from major rail and infrastructure investments into 

China in a special banking consortium. Lansing-Ishii set the 

stage for numerous other secret post–World War I treaties that 

promised colonial enclaves in China be passed from Germany, 

Russia, and Austria-Hungary to Japan and the victorious 

World War I Allies. See Barbara Tuchman, Stillwell and the 

American Experience in China, 1911–1945 (New York: Grove 

Press, 2001); J. Chal Vinson, “The Annulment of the LansingIshii Agreement,” Pacific Historical Review 27, no. 1 (February 

1958), 57–69.

71 Michael Graham Fry, “The Pacific Dominions and the 

Washington Conference, 1921–22,” in The Washington Naval 

Conference, 1921–22, ed. Erik Goldstein and John Maurer 

(London: Frank Cass & Company, 1994), 60–101.

72 Sadao Asada, “From Washington to London: The Imperial 

Japanese Navy and the Politics of Naval Limitation, 1921–

1930,” in Goldstein and Maurer, The Washington Naval 

Conference, 1921–22, 147–191.

73 “Japanese-American Relations at the Turn of the Century, 

1900–1922,” Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign 

Relations (Washington, DC: Department of State Office of 

the Historian, n.d.), available at <https://history.state.gov/

milestones/1899-1913/japanese-relations>; Masato Shizume, 

The Japanese Economy During the Interwar Period: Instability 

in the Financial System and the Impact of the World Depression, 

Bank of Japan Review 2009-E-2 (Tokyo: Institute for Monetary 

and Economic Studies, May 2009), available at <www.boj.or.jp/

en/research/wps_rev/rev_2009/data/rev09e02.pdf>.
Past Eras of Great Power Competition 43

74 Hiroyuki Agawa, The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and 

the Imperial Navy, trans. John Bester (Tokyo: Kodansha 

International, Ltd., 1979), 202–223. The 6-month quote is 

to Fumimaro Konoe, Konoye Ayamaro Ko Shuki: Memoirs of 

Prince Ayamaro Konoye (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun-sha, 1946), 3.

75 Mazarr et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of International 

Competition; Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, War 

by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft (Boston: Harvard 

University Press, 2017).

76 Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers; Mazarr et al., 

Understanding the Emerging Era of International Competition.

77 On proxy wars, see Andrew Mumford, “The New Era of 

the Proliferated Proxy War,” The Strategy Bridge, November 

16, 2017, available at <https://thestrategybridge.org/thebridge/2017/11/16/the-new-era-of-the-proliferated-proxy-war>; 

Zack Gold and William Rosenau, “The Future of Conflict Is 

Proxy Warfare, Again,” Defense One, July 25, 2019, available at 

<www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/07/future-conflict-proxywarfare-again/158697/>; Geraint Hughes, My Enemy’s Enemy: 

Proxy Warfare in International Politics (Chicago: Independent 

Publishers Group, 2012).

78 Lacey, “Great Strategic Rivalries.”

79 Friedberg, The Weary Titan, 14–17, 286.

80 Ibid., 282–283, 286.

81 Ibid., 10, 15–16; Brian D. Blankenship and Benjamin 

Denison, “Is America Prepared for Great Power Competition?” 

Survival 61, no. 5 (October–November 2019), 43–64.

82 Friedberg, The Weary Titan, 318.

45

Chapter 3a

Contemporary Great Power 

Geostrategic Dynamics

Relations and Strategies

By Thomas F. Lynch III and Phillip C. Saunders

This chapter provides a comparative assessment of the strategic objectives for the 

three contemporary Great Powers: the United States, China, and Russia. It first 

traces the evolution of each power’s strategic interests from 2000 to 2017, indicating 

where important milestones transitioned the powers’ relations from relative cooperation and collaboration into de facto rivalry (by 2014 to 2015) and then a formally acknowledged rivalry (in 2017). The chapter next outlines the Great Powers’ 

current strategic viewpoints and how they contrast across the five major categories 

of state interaction: political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, military, 

and economic. It demonstrates that each power has many divergent strategic interests, making rivalry inevitable. The chapter indicates where varying strategic interest intensity combines to make risks of Great Power clashes most worrisome in the 

coming 5 years: the Indo-Pacific, cyberspace, outer space, and, to a receding degree, 

the Middle East. It concludes that Russian strategic aims make Moscow a transient 

security risk to U.S. geopolitical dominance, while China’s ideological vision and 

aspirations make it the most important, albeit presently less threatening, rival to 

the U.S. status as the head of the global liberal international order.

This chapter focuses on the three modern Great Powers—the United States, China, and Russia—and the broad framework of their contemporary interactions. It provides an 

overview of the ongoing major debates about the nature and degree of challenges posed by 

these three major states. It traces the recent trajectory of their strategic interaction narratives from 2000 to 2014–2015, establishing the dominant evolutionary themes for each over 

that time. The chapter next sketches the national strategy and major strategic aims for each 

country in 2020 and what these mean for the upcoming 5 years of Great Power competition 

(GPC). It then makes an analytical evaluation of what each of these national strategies implies about the Great Power’s aims for international norms, rules, and institutions, followed 

by a discussion of what these strategies suggest for Great Power relations in major geographic regions. It concludes with 10 major insights and implications for GPC from 2020 to 
46 Lynch and Saunders

2025, setting the table for a more detailed assessment of specific Great Power capabilities to 

achieve their strategic aims found in the next chapter.

Great Power Relevance and Geostrategic 

Dynamics in the Early 21st Century 

As described in chapter 1, this volume defines Great Power state as one that has three main 

characteristics: unusual capabilities in comparison with those of other states, behavior that 

indicates a willingness to use those capabilities in and beyond the state’s immediate neighborhood, and the perception by other actors in the system that the state has both unusual 

capabilities and the will to use them, making it an actor that must be treated as a major 

power.1 From the late 20th century and into 2020, three states have satisfied these criteria: 

the United States, China, and Russia.

Yet these three Great Powers are far from uniform in status. Each differs substantively 

in terms of the strategic outcomes it wishes to assure, the relative capabilities it possesses, 

and the specific cases and places where it seems ready to pursue its main strategic goals. In 

turn, these differences color the perceptions held by other global actors—states and nonstate entities—about where and how to treat each major power.

Although most global analysts and 

international relations scholars generally 

agree that the United States remains the 

most powerful of the three contemporary 

Great Power states in 2020, pundits diverge 

widely in terms of how great the challenge 

from Russia or China is to current U.S. 

dominance.2 They also diverge in practical terms about how the U.S. Government 

should conceive of competition between 

these two rivals.3 Some observers even 

question the pairing of Russia and China 

as Great Power competitors to the United 

States, noting that Beijing is a resurgent, selective revisionist power, while Moscow is a 

faltering, disruptive, and opportunist one.4

Among those pundits worried about conflation of Russia with China, most agree that China will pose a greater long-term challenge 

to Washington. History reminds us, though, that declining powers can enact more acute 

short-term disturbances.5

These debates make it important to carefully compare the commonalities and differences among the three modern Great Powers. This chapter does so first with a direct 

comparison of two dimensions of current global Great Power relations: their recent geostrategic trajectories and their contemporary national strategies for current and future 

geostrategic relations. Once established, these comparisons are applied to an overview of 

the major aspects of their interactions, with the current global institutions and norms and 

then in the major geographic locations of interaction. The following chapter then compares 

“First, who is America’s principal competitor? The Trump administration’s national 

security strategy and the aforementioned 

national defense strategy often refer 

to China and Russia jointly. That two 

countries of such significantly different 

economic proportions can both be considered Great Powers—China’s gross domestic product in 2017 was nearly eight 

times as large as Russia’s ($12.2 trillion 

versus $1.6 trillion)—suggests that analysts should delineate more clearly the 

criteria for earning that designation.”

—Ali Wyne, “America’s Blind Ambition Could 

Make It a Victim of Global Competition,” 

The National Interest, February 2019
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 47

and evaluates the Great Power national capabilities (tool sets) and their capacity and willingness to use these tools in pursuit of geostrategic ambitions as developed in this chapter.

In keeping with the framework developed in chapter 2 (table 2.2), this chapter and the 

next address Great Power strategies, capabilities, and willingness to use their tool sets in a 

framework focusing on five competitive categories: political and diplomatic, ideological, 

informational, military, and economic. A credible assessment of GPC in the emergent era 

must begin with a brief summary of the recent trajectory of geostrategic relations from the 

perspectives of each major power.

U.S. Perspectives from 2000 to 2015 

From 1992 to 2008, the United States stood alone—atop all aspects of the international 

power structure—at a unique unipolar moment.6

 Its post–World War II rival, the Soviet 

Union, was vanquished in 1991 with the end of the Cold War, and so was Moscow’s vision 

of universal communism and the superiority of command-directed economies. Another 

latent potential rising power, China, began its own “opening up and reform” in late 1978, 

when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) incorporated market principles into “socialism 

with Chinese characteristics.”7 With a pragmatic foreign policy focused on external stability, 

China began a gradual but accelerated integration into global economic and governance 

structures; this effort was accompanied by an end to CCP efforts to control thought and micromanage peoples’ daily lives. Relative to life during the Mao era, Chinese citizens gained 

increasing control over their life choices and enjoyed greater political and ideological freedom as long as they did not challenge CCP political control.8

 Policymakers in Washington 

welcomed these trends toward internal liberalization and external moderation. They were 

cautiously optimistic that a liberalizing China would eventually become integrated into the 

web of global economic, informational, political, and ideological norms established by the 

United States after World War II. Washington pursued “strategic engagement” in its official 

relations with both Moscow and Beijing.9 Thus, U.S. strategy and policies toward China 

and Russia from 1992 through 2008 were dominated by cooperative interactions and collaborative programs. The goal of this collaboration was supporting domestic reforms and 

integrating both countries as responsible members of the global community defined by U.S. 

norms and preferences. As documented in chapter 2, this dominant cooperative paradigm 

coincided with a period of U.S. military ascendance rarely seen in the past 500 years.

From a U.S. perspective, the era of stable cooperative/collaborative relations wavered 

and then collapsed between 2008 and 2014–2015 due to a series of Russian and Chinese 

military and paramilitary actions in Georgia, Ukraine, the South China Sea, and the East 

China Sea and in commercial interactions that demonstrated clear disagreement with key 

aspects of the U.S.-led liberal international order.10 Russia conducted a covert military invasion of Crimea in 2014 and then annexed it from Ukraine. U.S.-led Western countries 

slapped Russia with various economic sanctions and expelled Moscow from diplomatic 

and economic organizations it had joined in the immediate post–Cold War world. From 

2013 through 2015, Chinese assertiveness in maritime territorial disputes, increasing state 

intervention to support Chinese businesses at the expense of foreign competitors, and Xi 

Jinping’s centralization of power and tightening of political and information controls catalyzed U.S. responses. In 2014 and into 2015, the Obama administration asserted freedom 
48 Lynch and Saunders

of navigation rights and challenged Chinese Pacific maritime claims. It openly condemned 

Chinese industrial espionage and intellectual property practices, and it reimagined a broad 

new Trans-Pacific Partnership as a lever to reshape Chinese economic policies. The U.S. 

policy toward its former geopolitical “strategic engagement” partners chilled gradually 

during the second term of the Obama administration, with a public hardening toward both 

nations during 2014 and 2015.11 Thus, 2014 and 2015 were the years that a de facto, threeparty Great Power rivalry became obvious—although not yet fully acknowledged.12 The 

formal declaration of the Great Power rivalry was acknowledged and conveyed in U.S. strategy documents published in 2017 and 2018: the 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 

the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS).13

China’s Perspectives from 2000 to 2014–2015 

The central challenge facing Chinese leaders in the post–Cold War era was to take advantage of the opportunities provided by a globalizing world economy and rebuild domestic 

legitimacy while managing China’s vulnerability to outside pressure, especially that of ideological and military pressure from what it viewed as a dominant and unrestrained United 

States. After the United States imposed sanctions following the 1989 Tiananmen domestic 

political crackdown, Chinese leaders concluded that Washington was pursuing a strategy of 

“peaceful evolution” to end CCP rule and seeking to Westernize (xihua) and split up (fenhua) China. They adopted a strategy of trying to resist U.S. ideological subversion and limit 

pressure while maintaining a cooperative relationship with Washington by compromising 

on less important interests and deferring goals, such as unification with Taiwan and China’s 

maritime territorial claims.14 Chinese leaders sought to extend a post–Cold War “period 

of strategic opportunity” to build China’s comprehensive national power relative to that 

of the United States and to allow an inevitable global trend toward multipolarity to erode 

U.S. dominance and constrain its unilateral behaviors. This restrained policy was consistent with Deng Xiaoping’s dictum after the collapse of the Soviet Union that China should 

“bide its time and hide its capabilities” and avoid premature efforts to play an international 

leadership role.15

The U.S. response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks aided China’s strategic 

approach. Washington’s plunge into long-term commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq diverted U.S. attention to the Middle East and ensnared the U.S. military. Then the 2008 global 

financial crisis—which produced a prolonged U.S. recession even as China’s economy returned to its rapid growth trajectory—led many Chinese analysts to see an acceleration of 

U.S. relative economic decline as a sign of growing multipolarity that created new opportunities for China. Although Chinese leaders sought to avoid a direct clash with Washington, 

they hastened efforts to expand China’s regional and global economic presence and influence, sometimes at the expense of the United States. Rapid and sustained economic growth, 

especially following China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, 

helped the CCP increase domestic legitimacy based on its ability to build China’s power and 

raise living standards. Growth also gave Chinese leaders more resources and new channels 

of influence as additional countries became dependent on access to China’s market and 

sought loans and economic assistance from Beijing.
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 49

China’s economic success was based largely on orthodox development economic advice about maintaining a stable financial system while giving markets the dominant role in 

reallocating labor and resources to their most productive uses.16 China’s openness to foreign 

direct investment brought an infusion of Western capital, technology, and management 

practices that contributed to rapid growth and turned China into an export powerhouse, 

as Western and Asian multinational corporations incorporated inexpensive Chinese labor 

into their production networks. At the same time, China rejected advice from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to fully liberalize its capital account, preferring 

to manage its currency in order to create competitive advantage and avoid the risk of the 

destabilizing capital flight that brought down multiple governments in the 1997–1998 

Asian financial crisis. China also drew from the post–World War II experiences of Japan, 

South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, all of which adopted economic policies that involved 

a higher degree of state intervention to accelerate export-oriented development and build 

domestic companies into globally competitive national champions.

China’s model involved a large role for state-owned enterprises in which the CCP directly controlled management and provided support in the form of subsidies; preferential 

access to capital; protected domestic markets; and favorable laws, regulations, and courts. 

A series of reforms allowed Chinese state-owned enterprises to become more competitive 

by rationalizing their operations and jettisoning older workers as well as pension and social 

welfare obligations.17 China’s rapid and sustained growth, while maintaining a communist 

political system, yielded a growing sense of self-confidence among CCP leaders and theorists. Although CCP leaders initially downplayed praise of a “Beijing consensus” by Western 

analysts, in recent years Chinese leaders have argued that China’s development experience 

with authoritarian capitalism is a valid alternative model that deserves respect and has useful lessons for other developing countries.18 Some even argue that China’s performance in 

responding to the 2020 novel coronavirus demonstrates the superiority of China’s model 

over Western approaches.

At the same time, Chinese leaders worried about a range of potentially serious domestic threats to sustained CCP rule. These included separatist threats in Tibet and Xinjiang, 

where ethnic minorities mounted violent protests in 2008; the political impact of rising 

inequality and worries about what might happen if economic growth slowed; and a growing 

number of mass incidents in which citizens protested local CCP corruption and governance. CCP leaders also worried about U.S. subversion. Beijing shared Russia’s view that 

the United States had fomented a series of “colored revolutions” in the Middle East, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine to overthrow authoritarian governments, and it worried that 

China was a future target. China had conditionally tolerated U.S. alliances in Asia, as long 

as they were not aimed against China and contributed to regional stability. As Washington sought to modernize its alliances for the post–Cold War era and to increase security 

cooperation with Taiwan, Chinese leaders and strategists began to view the United States 

as encircling and constraining China in order to slow its growth and obstruct its regional 

ambitions. These concerns increased with the Obama administration’s rebalance to Asia, 

which was formally announced in 2011.19

By the time of Xi’s accession to the CCP Secretary General position in November 2012, 

China’s political leadership saw a new strategic moment, with both opportunity and threat. 
50 Lynch and Saunders

The strategic opportunity came from China’s dramatic economic and technological advances, increased influence and military power, and the perception that the United States 

and the West were entering a state of irrevocable economic and moral decline. The strategic 

threat came from internal pressures that could jeopardize stability and the potential for 

the United States to step up ideological efforts to subvert the Chinese socialist system and 

economic and military efforts to encircle and contain China. Although internal scholarly 

debates about whether its “moment had come” continued into Xi’s premiership, China’s 

self-concept and CCP leaders’ vision of a proper future world order dramatically changed 

between 2000 and 2014.20

Russian Perspectives from 2000 to 2014 

Vladimir Putin ascended to political leadership in Russia at the end of 1999. Under his predecessor Boris Yeltsin—Russia’s first post–Cold War elected leader—the country emerged 

from an unraveling Soviet Union as a weakened international power with an agenda to 

adapt to a global world order valuing individual freedoms, liberal democracy, capitalism, 

openness, and transparency. Yeltsin’s Russia aimed for accommodation and assimilation 

into the U.S.-led world order. The 1990s saw Moscow enter such economic and financial institutions as the G7/G8 and the WTO and witnessed Russia grudgingly accede to expansion 

of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance into Eastern Europe 

while gaining an observer status in NATO as a form of compensation.21

Russian cooperation with and convergence into a Western set of norms and institutions wavered as early as the mid- to late 1990s, with Washington and Moscow disagreeing 

over U.S./NATO intervention in the Balkan wars and aggressive U.S. expansion of NATO.22

Russian cooperation with the West reversed fully under Putin, who swiftly generated a 

Russian national security concept that decried the post–Cold War world as fundamentally 

unjust and untenably dismissive of Russia’s proper role as a Great Power:

The world situation is characterized by a system of international relations . . . [with] 

attempts to create an international relations structure based on domination by developed Western countries in the international community, under U.S. leadership 

and designed for unilateral solutions (primarily by the use of military force) to key 

issues in world politics in circumvention of the fundamental rules of international 

law. . . . Russia is one of the world’s major countries, with a centuries-old history and 

rich cultural traditions. Despite the complicated international situation and difficulties of a domestic nature, Russia objectively continues to play an important role in 

global processes by virtue of its great economic, science-technological, and military 

potential and its unique strategic location on the Eurasian continent.23

Putin immediately singled out NATO as an entity hostile to Russian security interests 

and insisted that the Alliance’s eastward expansion represented a dire threat to Moscow.24

Later, in a 2007 speech, he explicitly warned NATO to cease eastward expansion.25 Putin 

also tapped into historic Russian nationalism to contest U.S. and Western “disrespect” for 

Russia’s rightful role as a Great Power. Many Russian elites joined Putin, amplifying an 

already extant narrative that the United States and its Western allies had taken advantage 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 51

of Russia at its moment of greatest weakness—building a sense of national victimhood.26

Putin began a two-decade pushback on U.S. military and political power, tactically and operationally challenging the military and its allies in a series of global activities that included 

an invasion of the state of Georgia in 2008 and an annexation of its province, Abkhazia.27 Six 

years later, Putin orchestrated a paramilitary invasion and annexation of Crimea, followed 

by the initiation of a proxy war in eastern Ukraine that continues into 2020. Tough Western 

financial sanctions followed the Crimea/Ukraine adventures of 2014, and Russia withdrew 

its observers from NATO, found itself expelled from the G7/G8, and became a key player in 

the dissolution or abrogation of multiple post–Cold War arms control regimes.28

Russian domestic politics regressed from the early 1990s, with Putin crafting rules that 

moved Russia toward illiberal democracy and authoritarian rule, including abrogation of 

term limits for the Russian president. Economics under Putin devolved into what many 

Western analysts decried as a “military-industrial-political-criminal complex” designed 

to launder high volumes of Russian money captured by Putin-friendly oligarchs. Russian 

economic growth became increasingly tethered to global oil prices—its main export. Rising prices underwrote a period of heady prosperity in Russia from 2000 to 2006, but the 

majority of the country’s economy entered into long-term stagnation before and especially 

after the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. Putin’s team failed to diversify or modernize Russian industries. Massive state-backed construction projects became a gold mine for 

crooked officials in Russia, and a vast amount of Russian wealth got transferred out of the 

country by a cohort of Putin-connected oligarchs into Western banks, real estate ventures, 

and other personal investments.

Putin and his oligarch consorts welcomed those aspects of the international financial 

system that circulated their personal expropriation of Russian wealth. At the same time, 

they chafed against economic and financial institutions that joined in various ever-increasing sanctions against Russian individuals and entities indicted for illegal transactions, 

participation in lethal Russian espionage against “disloyal” expatriates, and involvement 

in Russian paramilitary interventions and encounters in Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere. 

For most of the 2010s, Russia invested heavily in traditional and modern media agencies 

around the world—leveraging military intelligence expertise as well as commercial technologies—to develop and deliver an array of anti-Western propaganda, conspiracy theories, 

and disinformation. This novel “information management” undertaking has generated 

enormous global impact by questioning the legitimacy of longstanding Western political 

institutions, societal norms, and leader legitimacy—enhancing the Russian narrative that 

U.S. and Western values and frameworks are illegitimate (except for those that the Putin 

kleptocracy deems useful).

At the end of 2019—20 years into the era of Putin—Russia stood as a Great Power state 

with pride in its recent past. It is a military Great Power. It has a reorganized military on 

which Putin has spent a disproportionate amount of Russian gross domestic product—an 

average of 4 percent per year since 2010—to ensure that its nuclear weapons remain a 

viable deterrent and its ground and air forces can protect its borders and act decisively 

against threatening states in its near abroad, and it continues to demonstrate limited but effective global projection abilities while leveraging Russian airlift and some sealift to enable 

a mixture of military and paramilitary forces.29 At the same time, Putin’s Russia displays 
52 Lynch and Saunders

characteristics in its economic, political, and ideological elements that make it seem less 

than a Great Power. To some extent, Putin has offset these serious liabilities masterfully 

while leveraging modern communications and information messaging to “question everything” about the Western-led world order.

With this short analytical overview of the past 20 years of U.S.-China-Russia relationship trajectories established, this chapter now turns to delineation of the current strategies 

of each of the Great Powers and what these strategies indicate for specific activities and 

policies from 2020 to 2025.

Great Power Strategies 

U.S. National Strategy and Geostrategic Trajectory 

The National Security Strategy (NSS) of December 2017 asserted that the United States and 

fellow Great Powers Russia and China had transitioned formally from an almost 20-year 

period of cooperation and collaboration into a new era of competition.30 The 2017 NSS 

identified three additional threats to U.S. security—North Korea, Iran, and transnational 

terrorist and criminal organizations—but clearly premised U.S. security and future prosperity on the ability to compete with Moscow and Beijing.31 Although the advancement 

of NSS and NDS premises into action during 2017–2020 generated tensions between U.S. 

economic and security aims as well as between U.S. administration political aspirations and 

ideological norms, these documents clearly build on trends present prior to 2016.

First, the United States continued its halting but longstanding efforts to rebalance economic, military, and informational priorities toward the Asia-Pacific region. The Trump 

administration formalized a new term, the Indo-Pacific region, to highlight the increasing 

priority placed on India and South Asia by successive U.S. administrations.32 The George W. 

Bush administration had declared the 21st century to be the “Asia-Pacific century” but then 

got enmeshed in the South Asian and Middle Eastern wars against terrorist organizations.33

Beginning in 2011, the Obama administration announced a long-anticipated “Rebalance to 

Asia” but, like its predecessor, found itself shackled to counterterrorism activities in other 

parts of the world that reduced the salience of a rebalance to Asia.34

Second, the 2017 NSS embedded several U.S. economic, military, and ideological 

norms for the Indo-Pacific region that evolved during the Bush and Obama administrations 

and adhered closely to longstanding post–World War II U.S. preferences for global order 

and interaction. Prior to the 2017 NSS, they were most clearly articulated in the U.S.-India 

Joint Strategic Vision for the Indo-Pacific Region of January 2015: commitment to growth 

and broad-based prosperity in the region; assurance of free and unfettered trade; assurance 

of freedom of navigation and flight; commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes 

among states; adherence to international norms and protocols (especially those regarding 

sovereignty); collective action against terrorism, piracy, and the proliferation of weapons of 

mass destruction; and the commitment to universal human rights.35

Third, growing U.S. energy independence in the early 21st century began to erode 

American interests in the provision of stability in and commercial access to areas of the 

world important primarily for their fossil fuel exports, particularly in the Middle East. This 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 53

trend was encouraged by growing domestic wariness of overseas military activities and a 

move toward insular nationalism that emerged before 2017.36

Conversely, the 2017 NSS exhibited a new and skeptical attitude toward post–World 

War II U.S. alliance structures and partnerships. NSS language focusing on the autonomous, 

unilateral imperatives of U.S. national strategy threw into stark relief the longstanding U.S. 

valuation of international institutions, multilateral alliances, and partner nations. An unwavering U.S. commitment to politico-military institutions such as NATO and its bilateral 

Pacific alliances with Japan and South Korea could no longer be taken for granted.37 This 

change signaled reduced U.S. interest in bearing the costs of maintaining global norms, 

rules, and procedures in economic, military, diplomatic, and informational domains. In 

2020, it remains to be seen how this devaluation of post–World War II institutions and 

alliances can be reconciled with consistent and continuing U.S. preferences for global rules 

and norms.

At the same time, U.S. foreign policy ended the 2010s in an ambiguous place. Strategic 

writings champion the importance of alliances, economic norms, and multilateral institutions, but U.S. actions between 2017 and 2019 veered between strong support and the view 

that these institutions are “fundamentally unfair.” U.S. foreign policy has focused on renegotiating agreements to redress the U.S. trade deficit but has found itself unable to “easily 

win” bilateral trade wars with an array of states, including China. Its efforts revealed that 

many domestic economic constituencies value multilateral free trade and fear American 

decoupling from both the Chinese economy and the wider global one. These tensions in 

early 2020 suggest that current foreign and domestic policies are impediments to the U.S. 

ability to successfully engage in the kind of strategic Great Power competition envisioned 

by the NSS and NDS.38

China’s National Strategy and Geostrategic Trajectory 

Avoiding a hostile relationship with Washington has been a consistent element of China’s 

post–Cold War national strategy. Simultaneously, Beijing has sought to reduce its vulnerability to U.S. power by building its own comprehensive national power (a Chinese construct 

that includes all elements of power) and improving relations with other major powers, countries on its periphery, and developing countries in other regions. Chinese leaders have relied 

primarily on economic, diplomatic, and informational instruments to advance foreign policy goals. China has pursued strategic partnerships with other Great Powers and major 

regional powers around the world to strengthen political and economic relations without 

the binding commitments inherent in alliances. China also has begun establishing and supporting new regional and global institutions that can expand its influence and provide a 

counterweight to the United States. They include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 

focused on Central Asia; the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) grouping; 

the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia; and the Asian 

Infrastructure Investment Bank, which provides an alternative to the World Bank and the 

Asian Development Bank.39 To dampen concerns about rising Chinese military power, 

Beijing launched a so-called charm offensive that articulated “win-win” policies based on 

economic cooperation and sought to downplay growing Chinese military capabilities and 

economic leverage over smaller states.40
54 Lynch and Saunders

Beijing’s efforts have been most complicated in the Indo-Pacific region, where economic and military power from China poses the greatest direct threat to its regional 

neighbors (see chapter 9). For countries outside the region, China successfully portrayed 

itself as an economic partner of opportunity with a vast supply of cheap labor that could reduce production costs for multinational companies; a large market with 1.3 billion potential 

consumers; and, by the mid-2000s, an important source of foreign direct investment, loans, 

technology, and foreign aid that could help other developing countries.

China’s rapid growth was achieved through increased integration into the global economy, a course that not only took advantage of opportunities in a globalizing world but also 

created new vulnerabilities. As China became the “workshop of the world” following its 

2001 entry into the WTO, its large trade surpluses meant that employment of many Chinese 

workers became dependent on continued access to developed country markets in North 

America and Europe. These critical markets were subject to unpredictable and unpleasant 

external economic developments, such as the 2008 global financial crisis. The production 

and consumption needs of China’s booming economy made Beijing increasingly reliant

on imported oil and natural gas, natural resources, and foodstuffs. In response, the Chinese government urged Chinese companies to “go global” in search of markets, natural 

resources, and technology.41

China’s strategic successes produced an expanded overseas footprint of investments, 

loans, companies, and workers—many in unstable parts of the world—that had to be protected. Success also increased China’s dependence on sea lines of communications that 

passed through maritime chokepoints such as the Malacca Strait and the Gulf of Aden. 

These areas were vulnerable to disruption by nonstate actors (such as Somali pirates) and to 

interdiction by major naval powers such as the United States and India. President Hu Jintao 

articulated the “new historic missions” for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 2004, 

tasking the Chinese military to expand beyond its traditional missions of defending China’s 

sovereignty and territorial integrity and ensuring CCP rule to also protect China’s overseas 

interests and right to development. This shift led the PLA to begin antipiracy patrols in the 

Gulf of Aden in December 2008 and to conduct evacuations of Chinese citizens from Libya 

(2011) and Yemen (2015).

Under President Xi, these various economic, diplomatic, and military initiatives have 

been drawn together into a more coherent strategy. In 2013, Xi launched the Belt and Road 

Initiative (BRI), which gathers many of China’s overseas investments, loans, and infrastructure projects under one grand banner.42 BRI seeks to strengthen China’s land and maritime 

connections to Eurasia with new ports, roads, and railroad infrastructure, funded by Chinese loans and built by Chinese companies. The vision is of a future in which China stands 

at the center of a vast Eurasian regional system, integrated economically and tied together 

by road, rail, and pipeline infrastructures. The economic benefits to China are obvious, but 

the BRI also has strategic implications in terms of expanding Chinese economic influence 

over participating countries and constructing alternative trade routes that bypass maritime 

chokepoints.43 Western critics of BRI fear that it will not only enhance China’s access to material resources and markets but also enable future capabilities for surveillance and social 

control and boost Chinese influence to push for broader changes in global governance and 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 55

international norms.44 BRI has expanded geographically to include Africa, the Middle East, 

and Latin America and functionally to encompass a “digital silk road.”

During its reform era, China initially focused on exploiting its comparative advantage in cheap labor, but Chinese leaders also sought to help state-owned enterprises and 

private companies innovate and move up the global “value chain.” This effort initially 

involved relatively decentralized joint ventures and efforts to acquire foreign technology, 

quality control, and management skills. But increasingly this strategic endeavor involved 

national-level industrial policy tools to promote indigenous innovation and help Chinese 

companies become globally competitive producers and exporters. Promulgated in 2015, 

Beijing’s Made in China 2025 is a 10-year economic development plan that leverages a 

range of government subsidies to make China dominant in global high-tech manufacturing. It includes a range of practices that skirt global investment, intellectual property 

rights, and technology transfer norms.45

China’s economic development has benefited greatly from access to an open, globalized world economy supported by relatively liberal rules, norms, and institutions and 

undergirded by U.S. power. As China’s power has grown, Beijing has expanded efforts to 

strengthen China’s influence in various international institutions and to seek changes in 

international rules and norms to better accommodate its national interests. In early 2020, 

China does not seek to challenge the United States for global leadership; China’s domestic 

fragility would make it difficult for Beijing to take on many of the responsibilities and burdens that such a role would entail.46 At the same time, China has no interest in shoring up 

the foundations of U.S. global leadership and is working with other countries such as Russia 

to promote a multipolar world where the United States is less dominant. Chinese scholars 

and officials have articulated a range of areas where China seeks modifications in international rules and norms: ensuring that China and other developing countries have more 

influence in global institutions, increasing the degree to which the United States is actually 

constrained by global rules and norms, and reducing the role of U.S. alliances and military 

deployments that might constrain China.47

China is broadly comfortable with the existing United Nations (UN) system and its 

formal emphasis on sovereign equality of states, not least because Beijing possesses a veto 

on the Security Council and can block actions against its interests. Chinese complaints are 

usually couched in terms of the need for fairness for developing countries and increased 

“democracy” in international relations. But the underlying demand is for a Chinese seat at 

the table and a greater role for Beijing in shaping international rules and norms. That said, 

China opposes many of the liberal principles embedded in the U.S.-led system, such as 

the emphasis on individual political rights rather than collective economic rights. It favors 

stronger norms of nonintervention and the rights of sovereign states to choose their political 

systems and control what happens inside their borders. After years of downplaying Western 

claims that China has a unique development model, the so-called Beijing consensus, China 

has begun to argue that its economic success showcases strengths of its CCP-controlled political system and presents a new development model that may have useful lessons for other 

countries.48 This message has appeal for authoritarian governments that hope to replicate 

Chinese economic success without liberalizing their political systems, although the extent 

to which China has a coherent model that other countries could emulate is debatable.49
56 Lynch and Saunders

Articulated after Xi became secretary general in 2012, his China Dream of national 

rejuvenation includes the aspiration to build a powerful and prosperous China by 2049. 

Subsequent CCP statements indicate that unification with Taiwan is considered part of 

“national rejuvenation.” This broad goal is accompanied by the “two centenary goals” 

of building both a moderately prosperous society by 2021 and a “prosperous, strong, 

democratic, civilized, harmonious, and beautiful modernized socialist strong country” 

by 2049.50 Xi’s 2017 report to the 19th Party Congress also articulated a three-step goal 

for military modernization: The PLA should achieve mechanization and make strides in 

applying information technology and developing strategic capabilities by 2020; national 

defense modernization should be basically completed by 2035; and the PLA should become a “world class military” midcentury, on its 100th anniversary in 2049.51 China has 

also published a range of narrower national plans and strategies in fields such as hightech manufacturing, space, and artificial intelligence.

As the preceding discussions suggest, Chinese leaders proclaim national objectives formulated in terms of power and employ a range of diplomatic, economic, and military tools 

to advance those objectives; however, China’s public articulations of such regional and global 

goals consistently emphasize vague principles—“mutual respect for each other’s territorial 

integrity and sovereignty” and “peaceful resolution of disputes through dialogue”—while 

downplaying conflicts of interest between states and the central role that power plays in 

international relations. For example, China’s 2017 white paper on Asia-Pacific security cooperation stresses “common development” and “political and security partnerships” but 

expresses a negative view of alliances.

The document draws a distinction between “major powers” and “small and medium 

powers,” which “need not and should not take sides among big countries.”52 However, the 

white paper does not mention relative power or balance of power, even though the perceived 

vulnerability of other Asian countries to China’s rising power is the central dynamic in the 

Indo-Pacific. This diplomatic effort to obscure relative power and discourage regional efforts to balance against Chinese power is inconsistent with Chinese internal, military, and 

academic analyses, which regularly stress the importance of relative power and power trajectories. It is also inconsistent with Chinese 

diplomatic practice, which reflects an acute 

awareness of power relations and a willingness to use power to reward and punish.53

China’s efforts to articulate a global vision 

for a “harmonious world” and a “community of common destiny” suffer from similar 

shortcomings—the implication being that 

less powerful countries facing a more powerful China must rely on China’s uniquely 

peaceful nature. The real message is that 

China will not compromise in pursuing its 

interests and that less powerful countries 

must be prepared to give way.

“As they begin to assert themselves, rising powers usually feel impelled to challenge territorial boundaries, international 

institutions, and hierarchies of prestige 

that were put in place when they were still 

relatively weak. Their leaders and people 

typically feel that they were left out unfairly when the pie was divided up, and 

may even believe that because of prior 

weaknesses, they were robbed of what 

ought to be theirs. . . . This is what typically brings them into conflict with the 

established Great Powers.”

—Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest 

for Supremacy (2012)
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 57

Beijing’s lack of candor about its regional and global objectives leaves space for competing assessments of China’s international ambitions. There is an increasing consensus 

that China seeks to dominate the Indo-Pacific region; the analytic differences lie mostly 

in whether this authority will involve an intrusive effort to micromanage the region or a 

looser sphere of influence where China seeks a veto on actions that might damage its security interests.54 There is agreement that Beijing seeks greater influence over global rules, 

norms, and institutions, but disagreement on the scope and urgency of China’s ambitions 

and likelihood of realizing them.

Some analysts view China as a moderate revisionist power that seeks to change aspects of global rules and norms that affect its specific national interests, but that has limited 

ideological ambitions and remains willing to deal with countries regardless of their regime 

type.55 Those with this view see China’s articulation of the goal of building a “community of 

common destiny for mankind” as a continuation of past Chinese efforts to express normative principles that should govern international relations rather than a coherent program 

for systematic changes in the current rules, norms, and institutions of the post–World War 

II order. From this perspective, China’s efforts to use its economic achievements to win 

international respect for its governance model are aimed more at building domestic legitimacy than at forcing others to follow China’s example. Others view China’s authoritarian 

regime as requiring external validation and an accommodating international environment 

in order to keep the CCP in power, and thus see “a community of common destiny” as a far 

more ambitious effort to transform international rules and norms and propagate authoritarian values in order to maintain domestic stability.56 Both groups agree that China prefers 

authoritarian norms in areas such as cyber sovereignty and prioritizing collective economic 

rights over individual political rights, but the latter faction suggests that liberal norms pose 

an existential political threat to the CCP and thus require its active efforts to transform the 

international system rather than simply adapt to it.

In early 2020, China seems to conceive a national security strategy in concentric 

circles. Its primary focus is on internal security, both by maintaining political support 

from the Han majority and by managing a host of separatist and nontraditional security

challenges. For China, this includes preventing Taiwan independence, which it considers a domestic issue. The second ring involves countries on its periphery in the 

Asia-Pacific region (the Indo-Pacific). China will work to maintain regional stability, 

achieve a satisfactory resolution of its territorial disputes, and reconcile the region to a 

dominant Chinese role. The United States stands as an obstacle to these ambitions, so China 

will work to erode U.S. power and influence in the region while seeking to avoid direct 

confrontation. The third ring lies outside Asia, where China will seek to maintain access to 

resources and markets, protect its expanding overseas interests, and expand its influence in 

regional and global institutions while introducing alternative institutions where feasible. 

China’s approach to relations with its fellow Great Powers will be to seek recognition of 

its status as a global player and deference to its interests in Asia and beyond. Beijing will 

avoid direct military challenges or confrontations where possible and will compete in the 

economic, technological, military, and diplomatic spheres to improve its regional and 

global position.57
58 Lynch and Saunders

Russia’s National Strategy and 

Geostrategic Trajectory 

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia in 2020, the 

perception of existential threats drives its 

strategy of “aggressively defensive” policies 

aimed at disrupting the Western world.58

Russian global strategy is loosely tethered 

to a nostalgic view of imperialism and 

the bygone era of the Russian Empire.59

Unlike the Soviet Union, with its positivist 

strategic aim of promulgating global communism, Putin’s Russia pursues reactive 

and limited strategic outcomes. It asserts 

rights of control in the historic lands of 

the Russian and Slavic peoples of its “near 

abroad” and domestic borders, sometimes 

referred to as the construct of neo-Eurasianism.60 Simultaneously, Russia seeks to 

despoil U.S.-led rules, norms, and institutions around the globe. It pursues a strategy 

of reactive resistance to U.S. leadership internationally and proactive assertion of the right to historic imperial dominance over the 

states of its near abroad. Moscow seeks a multicentric world that impedes and resists U.S.-

led Western institutions. Simultaneously, it asserts regional power and authority based on 

bilateral, transactional military and economic relations advantages.61 Both elements of this 

strategic approach (versus a formal, lucid strategy) represent Putin’s desire that Russia be 

viewed as a global power despite Moscow’s demonstrably weak position across all but the 

military and informational dimensions of strategic interaction.62

Russia seeks to manage its relationship with the United States, the European Union, 

and NATO to deter “supposed” hostile action by weakening the cohesion of these alliances.63 Moscow also leverages a tactical relationship with China, the Chinese-led Shanghai 

Cooperation Organization, and the international BRICS consortium countries to tarnish 

U.S. influence abroad.64 Although the Russian government cooperates with China on a 

handful of political issues, it remains wary of its Asian Great Power competitor and seeks to 

limit Chinese influence in the former Soviet states.65 Russia’s regional priorities closely focus 

on consolidating Russian ascendance in former Soviet space and Eurasia and on projecting 

relevance in the Middle East and the Arctic.66

Putin understands that his control in Russia is not limitless, and his policy actions 

directly reflect his wishes to maintain personal power and legitimacy.67 He has become 

a master of deflection, shifting the dialogue from the problems Russia faces at home to 

managing conflicts abroad through diplomatic and military force.68 By flexing Russian specialized military and diplomatic power in the Middle East, Putin cultivates solidarity from 

“other dictators threatened by revolution,” but he does not demonstrate any capacity to 

bring nations together or work toward common goals or mutual betterment.69 Simulta-

“The competition for global influence between the United States and Russia has 

been exaggerated and fueled in large 

measure by a combination of inflated 

assessments of Russian capabilities and 

ambitions, the United States’ expansive 

definition of its interests, and a pervasive 

consensus within the foreign policy establishment that the exercise of U.S. leadership demands a central role for Washington in engineering American solutions 

to global problems. . . . The only realistic 

and sustainable solution to these challenges is to focus on their root causes 

and adopt a more realistic view of Russia 

and a more disciplined, restrained, and 

judicious approach to defining U.S. interests around the globe.”

—Eugene Rumer and Richard Sokolsky, “Thirty 

Years of U.S. Policy Toward Russia,” Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace, June 20, 2019
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 59

neously, Putin seeks Russia’s status as a Great Power, but his reliance on the narrative of 

neo-Eurasianism (sometimes referred to as confessional imperialism) is a far cry from the 

comprehensive ideological framework of the former Soviet Union or the modern, cohesive 

ideology of China.70 Unlike the Soviet Union, which oversaw the First and Second Communist International forums that proselytized a formal and structured vision of world rules, 

norms, and institutions featuring Marxist/Leninist sociopolitical and command-driven 

economies, Putin’s Russia does not have any form of a positivist vision for reordering the 

world political space.71

Thus, Russia is a contemporary Great Power with a peculiar mix of short-term power 

capabilities and long-term challenges. It leverages a history of martial prowess with unique 

global capabilities in several areas of military might, especially nuclear weapons, space, and 

aerospace, and specialized but limited precision weapons and elite forces power projection 

through recently modernized air and sea platforms. Modern Russia also generates considerable disruptive capacity and will do so over cyberspace and social media, undermining 

Western political, ideological, and informational narratives with a limited-aspiration, 

maximum-confusion campaign. As chronicled in the following chapter, Russia’s current 

capabilities match well with Putin’s limited strategic aspirations and transactional aims; 

however, the future of Russia’s Great Power status is in doubt, as its major power indicators 

are receding today and promise an even greater downward turn into the future.

Evolving GPC Bilateral and Trilateral Geostrategic 

Dynamics: Norms, Institutions, and Geographic Regions 

Based on the national strategies and geostrategic trajectories of the three Great Powers in 

early 2020, one can discern in and among them today broad philosophical and specific regional dynamics that are likely to remain salient over the coming 5 years. Some have to do 

with U.S.-Russia relations; several involve U.S.-China relations; and others engage Chinese 

and Russian dynamics.

First, all three Great Power states have unique perspectives and attitudes about the 

established rules, norms, and institutions of the international system, which produce consequential strategic contrasts and policy imperatives.

The United States was the dominant architect of post–World War II norms, rules, and 

institutions for international interactions and exchange. In general, these American preferences continue to dominate the contemporary global system, which bears the hallmarks 

of a U.S./Western desire for multilateralism, the peaceful resolution of disputes, cultural 

pluralism, free and open global trade and finance, open and transparent communications, 

and individual human rights.72

However, Washington increasingly has become sensitive to the fiscal and human costs 

of maintaining and enforcing the existing order. Since 2017, the Trump administration has 

amplified existing American concerns that preferred U.S. rules and norms are too costly 

and other states are unwilling to pay a fair share of maintenance costs (the free-rider problem). The Trump administration has chafed more openly than its predecessors at the fact 

that multilateral organizations and regimes constrain unilateral U.S. bargaining power. 

Growing insularity and nationalism have masked U.S. self-awareness that it derives enormous benefits from current rules that are unlikely to last should the standing order erode. 
60 Lynch and Saunders

Simultaneously, the United States remains oblivious to the ways in which it has acted outside of global rules when convenient. It also has been unable and/or unwilling to generate 

new rules about international issues, such as currency valuation, the use of space, the policing of cyberspace, and others.73

Although invited into the global order during 1945–1946, the Soviet Union spent the 

Cold War ideologically opposed to the U.S./Western “first-world” order, limiting its participation to parts of the United Nations (UN) system. After a brief period of attempted 

assimilation during the 1990s, Putin’s Russia entered 2020 with a mixed attitude toward that 

order: working to erode many aspects of the system while leveraging the selective benefits 

of the order where Russian national interests are met, such as at the UN and in the international banking and finance system. Working with China and other states, Russia desires 

to reshape some international rules and norms that constrain its power. At the same time, 

Russia is unlikely to accept integration into institutions that it did not design, as Putin 

believes Great Powers do not dissolve into other integration projects but forge their own.74

Contemporary Russia can be expected to support rules that allow for authoritarian 

regimes, resisting those that assert a “duty to intervene” against totalitarian or abusive 

governments. Russian political and diplomatic interests remain aligned with tethering 

friendships and transactional state-to-state engagements with all states willing to entertain Moscow’s presence—especially when those friendly states join Russia in opposing 

longstanding Western norms. Putin’s Russia will work against norms of nonintervention 

and military restraint—actively cultivating paramilitary and proxy forces that violate 

fellow-state sovereignty—in the pursuit of dominance in its near abroad and when responding in support of a friendly state anywhere in the world.75 Moscow will exploit 

today’s trade and finance systems to its advantage but will resist and subvert economic 

system norms when they mandate too much transparency or exact too much fiscal pain. 

Its approach to cyberspace, social media, and other forms of mass communication will 

continue to sow confusion and derision in the activities of competitor states, resisting the 

creation of new rules and norms mandating reciprocal freedom and openness in this informational realm.

The People’s Republic of China was not involved directly in the establishment of the 

post–World War II global order.76 As mentioned, Beijing began engaging global institutions 

beyond the UN system as part of its reform and opening up policy in 1978, with a focus 

on those areas with direct benefit to China’s growth and development. China claims to 

act as a representative of developing countries in global institutions, even though its own 

status and interests have diverged as its power has grown. China has benefited from many 

economic institutions that support trade and commerce, such as the WTO and the World 

Bank; however, China has sought to use its status as a developing country to resist or evade 

some commitments and has taken advantage of gaps in international rule and norms in 

areas such as currency valuation. China has sought a greater voting share and increased 

influence in institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the 

Asia Development Bank, but it has also begun to develop parallel institutions such as the 

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as vehicles for its interests.77

Great Power national strategies and geopolitical aims combine in 2020 in a manner 

that highlights some areas where collaboration may remain feasible. They also indicate 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 61

areas where strategic aims and values are likely to be competitive or even confrontational. 

Table 3a.1 helps paint a picture of the prospects for strategic compatibility in the five areas 

of state interactions that underpin global rules, norms, and institutions.

Political and Diplomatic 

The current system aligns with U.S. goals and strategic aims, supporting the role of the UN, 

multinationalism in diplomatic relations, and peaceful and collective resolution of disputes. 

It also is biased toward a U.S./Western preference for liberal democratic governance. Yet 

Washington demonstrates increasing ambivalence about many of these norms and institutions; it remains stolid in declared support but far less certain in its policy actions to 

sustain them. China values the UN and its protection of state sovereignty but is increasingly 

using its economic and military power to pursue its interests in the Indo-Pacific region at 

the expense of other countries. With its domestic CCP dominance and preference for a 

state-centric global order, China is opposed to liberal democratic governance norms and is 

Table 3a.1. Basic Postures and Compatibility of Strategic Aims, 2020–2025

United States China Russia Remarks

Political and 

Diplomatic

Liberal 

democratic 

governance

Authoritarian, one 

party state rule

Authoritarian rule 

with illiberal democratic facade

U.S.-China = incompatible; China-Russia = 

short-term compatible; 

U.S.-Russia = short-term 

incompatible

Ideological

“Free and open 

societies” with 

individual freedoms, universal 

human rights, and 

pluralism

“A community of 

common destiny” 

(ambiguous); state 

sovereignty and 

collective order, 

limited human rights

Loose “neo-Eurasianism” and 

multipolarity; state 

ascendance, Russian 

sovereignty and 

disruption of global 

norms

U.S.-China = incompatible; U.S.-Russia = 

short-term clash/long 

term? China-Russia = 

short-term compatible, 

long term?

Informational Free and open 

exchange, only 

limited restrictions

State control and 

cyber sovereignty 

restrictions; 

increasing external 

propaganda

State overwatch with 

selective closure; 

complementary 

disinformation

U.S. incompatible with 

China and Russia

Military

High-tech, robust 

quantity mix 

of regular and 

irregular forces, 

great deployment 

reach

Improving tech, 

high-quantity, regular forces; gradually 

expanding regional 

deployability

Some critical 

high-tech, limited 

quantity regular with 

irregular forces; 

global deployability 

in selected areas/

missions

(details provided in 

chapter 3b)

Economic 

(Trade and 

Finance)

Free and open 

trade; transparent, free-flowing 

finances

Open trade with 

strong state role; 

managed financial 

system; barriers to 

trade 

State-monopolized 

trade; exploitation of 

international finances 

for oligarch gains

U.S.-China = compatible in near term if U.S. 

underpins; China-Russia = compatible and 

largely complementary; 

U.S.-Russia = compatible 

if U.S. accepts Russia 

free riding and stops use 

of trade sanctions and financial listing to achieve 

political aims
62 Lynch and Saunders

seeking to expand its influence in regional and global institutions. Russia, with its Security 

Council veto power, also favors the status quo institution of the UN. Moscow has recently 

demonstrated a desire to take charge of multilateral political institutions such as Interpol 

and global counterterrorism organizations, presumably from a desire to bend these toward 

Russian interests.78 Moscow is less accepting of peaceful, collective resolution of disputes. 

Under Putin, Russia practices single-man authoritarianism with illiberal democratic institutions. After Putin, Russia’s political culture may change, but that outcome seems unlikely 

in the coming decade.

Ideological 

In 2020, the U.S./Western ideology valuing free and open societies, commercial markets, 

and protection of political rights clashes directly with Beijing’s desire to leverage Chinese 

power to obtain regional deference, preference for authoritarian norms, and pursuit of the 

ambiguous goal of a community of common destiny. There is a growing awareness of this 

clash, but the impacts from it moving forward remain uncertain. Moscow has no overarching ideology save that of sustaining historic Russian pride and prominence, maintaining 

ascendance in its territorial near abroad, and exercising global access and avoiding cooption by a U.S./Western order.

Informational 

U.S. preferences are for the free and open exchange of ideas with little restriction and a 

global communications architecture that features consensus-based cooperation. Russia and 

China find this construct threatening and prefer closed and restrictive communications 

and exchange, with the state having the right to control the flow of information within and 

across its borders. Both states have well-developed propaganda and censorship apparatuses 

for both online and traditional media and seek to use these operations to shape foreign 

perceptions. China denies Western accusations that it engages in extensive commercial and 

cyber espionage. Russia also has been willing to leverage the current openness in the system 

to flood it with disinformation and discordant themes, confronting its regional opponents 

and the United States with uncomfortable dissonance in open communications systems.

Military 

The current international system espouses the peaceful resolution of disputes and multilateral cooperation to deal with aggressor states. The UN was founded on this premise, 

and many subsequent regional and functional organizations and norms have grown up 

around sustainment of the practice. But this promise has not been met in practice, and in 

2020, there are differing views by the Great Powers on where and how to use the military 

instrument. In general terms, the United States has a dominant military across most of the 

use-of-force spectrum and an unparalleled ability to project military power. Washington 

continues to emphasize a high-tech, large-quantity force with a dominant set of deployment 

and sustainment resources. China has a military that is rapidly improving its technological 

capabilities and has a limited but growing reach. Chinese military reforms are improving 

naval, air, and missile capabilities and beginning to build a joint force focused on fighting and winning informationalized wars. Over the past decade Russia has recapitalized its 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 63

military in a manner that has sustained its nuclear ascendance, incorporated some critical advanced technologies, and moved toward utilization of a mixture of regular military 

forces with irregular and commercial forces. Russia also has modernized to sustain global 

deployability in limited numbers for much of its limited-sized military force. (The following 

chapter addresses in much greater detail the capabilities of the Great Power military forces.)

Economic (Trade and Finance) 

Never perfect in the post–World War II era, modern trade and finance systems were built 

around the norms of freedom and openness. The General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs 

established relative norms for free and open trade and was succeeded by the WTO. The 

World Bank provided pooled funds from developed countries to foster economic growth 

in underdeveloped ones. The International Monetary Fund offered donor funding to offset 

short-term imbalances in international payments between countries. As world currencies 

became convertible, tariffs were reduced and private international investment again became 

robust.79 The United States continues to underwrite the norms of freedom and openness 

represented in these institutions—but with increasingly obvious “donor fatigue.” China 

has greatly benefited from these norms and institutions and continues to support many 

of them. Beijing values free-flowing trade and finance, but with a model that emphasizes a 

large state role in economic decisionmaking. China has been slow to fundamentally lower 

domestic barriers to overseas ownership and has chafed at making its state-led economic 

decisions transparent. As noted, China has recently begun to establish parallel institutions 

and programs to compete with Western institutions in trade and finance, such as the BRI 

and the Asian Infrastructure Investment 

Bank. Russia, too, prefers state-monopolized trade. Moscow openly accepts and 

welcomes the elements of international 

trade and financial flows that sustain Putin 

and his oligarch constituency’s financial 

gains. Russia does not support or adhere to 

norms of freedom or openness in its general commercial activities.

As of 2020, trade and financial disputes 

have become primary flashpoints among 

the three global powers, and especially between the United States and China. Russia 

has bridled under U.S. and Western trade and financial sanctions in response to Moscow’s 

military adventures in its near abroad. More substantively, the United States and China 

entered a trade war in mid-2018 that continues into 2020. This emergent economic rivalry 

between the United States and China seems unlikely to just ease into a “normal business 

struggle,” similar to that between Japan and the United States in the 1980s, which waned 

with a decade of Japanese stagnation in the 2000s. Many in Washington are growing more 

and more convinced that an authoritarian, CCP-led China seeks to use unfair competition 

to challenge U.S. economic leadership and displace U.S. military dominance in the western 

Indo-Pacific in the near term. Beijing also may wish to supplant Washington’s preferred 

“From the outset [ June 2018], it was clear 

that the friction between the world’s two 

largest economies was about far more than 

just trade. At issue were long-simmering 

differences of ideology and values and a 

context for global geostrategic influence 

that was increasingly being played out in 

the economic and technological spheres.”

—“China’s Concept of World Order: Theory 

and Practice,” IISS Strategic Survey 2019
64 Lynch and Saunders

international rules, norms, and processes with a more state-centric model of economic activity in the more distant future.80

All three Great Power states also have different aims and attitudes toward different 

geographic regions in the competitive space of GPC.

As demonstrated in table 3a.2, there are eight major global regions and environments 

where the three Great Powers will compete. The strategies of each Great Power reveal that 

each nation has differing levels of interest intensity in these regions—all do not have primary interests in all spaces. A primary strategic interest intensity is defined as one in which 

the Great Power believes a significant risk to national security is found in that region, and 

where it could risk military conflict with a Great Power rival to defend that interest in the 

next decade. A secondary strategic interest intensity is one in which the state believes only 

a modest risk to its national security is in play, and where its preferred means of interaction 

with the other Great Powers will remain competitive and avoid confrontation or direct 

clash in other than accidental circumstances. A tertiary strategic interest involves a limited 

to no perceived risk to state security, and where Great Power interactions might be focused 

on activities that feature at least some collaboration, as well as subdued or proxy-level competition and (very rarely) confrontation.

As noted in this chapter’s review of the main Great Power strategic interests, the 

United States and China have primary interests in the Indo-Pacific region that conflict. 

Here, their competition could turn toward confrontation or a military clash if careful diplomacy is not exercised. Russia has a primary interest in Europe, with special sensitivity 

to its near abroad—the former Soviet Union provinces. American and European diplomacy will remain challenged to stanch Russian misadventures without generating overt 

confrontation or clash. The United States retains a historic interest in primacy across the 

Table 3a.2. Geographic Regions and Great Power Strategic Interest Intensity, 

2020–2025

United States China Russia Remarks

Indo-Pacific Primary Primary Secondary Elevated risk of confrontation or clash 

between the United States and China

Europe Secondary Tertiary Primary Competition unless Russian nearabroad security interests challenged

Middle East Secondary Secondary Secondary Mainly competition over resources, but 

increasingly for prestige

Africa Tertiary Secondary Tertiary China resource interests—mainly 

competition

Latin/South 

America Primary Tertiary Tertiary U.S. pride and prestige interests

The Arctic Secondary Tertiary Secondary Limited risk of confrontation short of 

miscalculation

Space Primary Primary Primary

Very high risk of confrontation and 

clash in this unregulated competitive 

space

Cyberspace Primary Primary Primary

Already evident confrontation and 

concern about greater clash without 

new norms and rules
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 65

Western Hemisphere, and this appears unlikely to be similarly important in the near term 

by the other two and likely to remain an area of less direct competition absent unforeseen 

miscalculation. Conversely, the Middle East promises to be an area of dynamic competition and occasional nonmilitary confrontation in the coming decade—with access to 

resources as the principal focal point of interaction. However, as U.S. and Russian interests 

in energy sources wane, the competitive focus in the Middle East seems destined to be that 

of prestige and resonance of ideological narratives.

Interestingly, two nontraditional competitive venues, space and cyberspace, are those 

where all three Great Powers have primary interests engaged now and into the foreseeable 

future. There is high risk that intensifying competition in space could lead to greater confrontation there between the modern Great Powers. Agreement on some viable rules and 

norms for collaborative use and cooperative actions in space would seem a vital undertaking to reduce the growing risks of confrontation and miscalculation leading to clash. 

Likewise, the absence of cooperative rules and norms in cyberspace has already witnessed 

this medium for state interaction take a dark turn toward confrontational dynamics; in the 

absence of new norms and standards for cooperation, this medium of Great Power interaction risks an even greater set of malevolent and confrontational activities in coming years.

Major GPC Comparative Insights and Implications 

This chapter’s analytical review of Great Power strategic postures and geostrategic preferences 

provides several important insights about the new era of GPC. Among them, 10 stand out.

First, the United States enters this new era as the dominant Great Power of the three 

rivals—its preferred norms, rules, and institutions for interstate interactions color all major 

categories of global activity. But the strategic aims of the three modern Great Powers are 

incompatible and thus assure the return to a historically dominant pattern of competition 

between Great Powers in the international system.

Second, China is the one rising Great Power with the combination of a positivist vision for the future and the ambition to push for changes in the international system on a 

near-term and long-run basis. China may not intend to do so, but the United States finds 

this combination disruptive to the standing—and Washington’s preferred—international 

order. China’s lack of a meaningful boundary between public and private ventures and its 

wide-ranging and intrusive efforts to gain competitive advantage and coercive leverage over 

states within its region carry significant risk of escalating confrontation with the United 

States. Thus, the primary competition in the emerging era—the only truly global, comprehensive national-level competition—likely will be between the United States and China.81

Third, Russia’s Great Power aims are not grounded in a positivist global strategy with 

discernible alternative norms, institutions, and procedures for an international order. Instead, Moscow in 2020 practices a reactive and often disruptive strategy oriented toward 

questioning contemporary institutions and processes by which it feels threatened and simultaneously keeping subservient the smaller states on its geographic boundaries. Putin’s 

Russia, therefore, has the potential to cause difficulties on specific issues but does not have 

the global aspiration to reshape the international system.82

Fourth, Chinese and Russian challenges to the existing U.S.-established global order 

of 2020 should be sharply distinguished. It is incorrect and unhelpful to lump China and 
66 Lynch and Saunders

Russia together as the same kind of comprehensive U.S. rival now or into the future. The 

divergent degree of their global ambitions means that, for the United States, the future portends an overarching political, ideological, information, and economic competition with 

China, with secondary, largely regional contestations with Russia.83

Fifth, despite China’s long-term strategic vision and ambition, both China and 

Russia have regional interests in 2020 that 

appear more important and urgent than 

their global interests. Each desires de facto 

spheres of influence free from outside interference—on their borders and in nearby 

regions.84 This is especially true in Central 

Asia and in the Russian Far East.

Sixth, China and Russia may continue 

their tactical entente over the coming 5 to 

10 years, working together to erode U.S. 

power, frustrate U.S. actions, challenge 

U.S.-dominated institutions, and question 

U.S.-underwritten norms and rules they 

deem threatening. However, divergent 

long-term Sino-Russian strategic interests 

make it unlikely they will form an enduring alliance.85 The United States should remain careful not to misunderstand, as evidence 

of some deeper strategic cooperation, tactical coordination between Beijing and Moscow 

that balances U.S. power.86

Seventh, all three contemporary Great Powers are dissatisfied with some aspects of international order and are growing less willing to make compromises and sacrifices to keep 

it running. Thus, there is heightened potential for GPC rivalrous activities to reduce effectiveness of global institutions in managing complex regional and global problems. Some 

observers argued that the absence of Great Power cooperation or collaboration during the 

height of the early 2020 coronavirus pandemic was symptomatic of this breakdown.87

Eighth, U.S. economic and strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific and in Europe challenge Chinese and Russian regional interests most. These are competitive regions with the 

greatest near-term salience. The Middle East is evolving as a secondary area of GPC where 

less important Great Power interests collide in various ways. Other regional areas are of 

tertiary importance, where GPC interests exist but vary greatly and where competitive dynamics are less clear.

Ninth, space is an arena where longstanding cooperation and a relative absence of strategic competition is giving way to Great Power rivalry and the potential for confrontation. 

Great Power geopolitical competition is increasingly observed from and managed by spacebased platforms. Thus, as global Great Power rivalries heat up, more and more states will 

develop technologies, including antisatellite weapons, that put human access to or effective 

use of space at risk. The risk of confrontation and clash in this unregulated competitive 

“China and Russia refer to their relationship as a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership,’ in which Russia supplies oil to 

China and the two countries hold joint 

military exercises. And, officially, their 

relationship has rarely been better. But 

trade is lopsided in China’s favor; the fall 

in energy prices has made China considerably less dependent on Russia. Russia 

sells arms to China’s adversaries, India 

and Vietnam. And China has copied 

Russian weapons designs. These deeper geopolitical realities mean China and 

Russia will be only allies of convenience.”

—Robert Kaplan, The Return of 

Marco Polo’s World (2018)
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 67

arena is great, but so too is an opportunity to craft norms and rules of cooperation and 

deconfliction capable of reducing the risk of confrontation in space.88

Tenth, cyberspace is already a major medium impacting relative state power and an 

important element of the emerging era of Great Power competition. The risk of cyber-clash 

will grow without concerted effort to effect agreed-to global standards and norms that reconcile cyber-openness with security and safety concerns.89

From Aspirations to Actions: From “What to Do” to “How to Do It” 

The end of the 2010s heralded an indisputable shift of the major dynamics of international 

affairs from cooperation and collaboration and into a far more competitive set of international relations, especially between the United States, Russia, and China.

In a nutshell, the modern Great Powers have divergent strategic interests, meaning 

they will compete across five major interaction categories in the next 5 years. Cooperation and collaboration remain possible, but episodes of confrontation and clash are likely, 

even over nonmilitary issues. The United 

States must proceed with a clear-minded 

strategic approach that understands 

that Putin’s strategic aims make Russia 

a transient security risk, while Beijing’s 

ideological vision and aspirations make 

China the more important, albeit presently less threatening, security threat. A 

U.S. strategy that cooperates when possible, competes smartly, confronts only 

when necessary, and concurrently builds 

out unique U.S. strategic tools and power 

capabilities across all of its economic, diplomatic, ideological, informational, and military categories appears to be one best suited 

to the beginning of a new era of GPC.

The next chapter moves beyond an assessment of the strategic aims and intentions of 

the modern Great Powers. It will explore whether the United States, China, or Russia can 

achieve their aims. Do they have now, or will they soon possess, the capabilities necessary to 

achieve their strategic goals? It will itemize and evaluate many of the most important power 

capabilities and the relative abilities of the United States, China, and Russia now and into 

the coming decade—with special attention to the next 5 years.

Notes 

1

 This operational definition is derived from Thomas J. Volgy 

et al., “Major Power Status in International Politics,” in Major 

Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics: Global 

and Regional Perspectives, ed. Thomas J. Volgy et al. (New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 1–26. Their definition derives from 

an amalgam of several other classic efforts at defining Great 

Power status, including the following historic references: Melvin 

Small and J. David Singer, “Formal Alliances, 1815–1939: A 

Quantitative Description,” Journal of Peace Research 3, no. 1 

(1966), 1–32; Jack Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System, 

1495–1975 (Louisville: University Press of Kentucky, 1983); 

John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New 

York: Norton, 2001); Benjamin O. Fordham, “Who Wants to 

Be a Major Power? Explaining the Expansion of Foreign Policy 

Ambition,” Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 5 (2011), 587–603.

2 For examples of the range of these perspectives on China, see 

Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, 

and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: W.W. Martin 

and Company, 2011); Charles Edel and Hal Brands, “The Real 

Origins of the U.S.-China Cold War,” Foreign Policy, June 2, 2019, 

“[I]f China’s power continues to grow, and 

if it continues to be ruled by a one-party authoritarian regime, its relations with 

the United States are going to become 

increasingly tense and competitive. That 

is the path along which events are presently proceeding, and like it or not, it is 

the future for which America and its allies 

have no choice but to prepare.”

—Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest 

for Supremacy (2012)
68 Lynch and Saunders

available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/02/the-realorigins-of-the-u-s-china-cold-war-big-think-communism/>; 

Xiaoye Pu and Chengli Wang, “Rethinking China’s Rise: 

Chinese Scholars Debate Strategic Overstretch,” Chatham 

House Papers 94, no. 5 (September 2018). The range of views 

about the challenge posed by Russia to the United States and 

the international order is discussed in “How Big a Challenge 

Is Russia? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts,” Foreign Affairs, 

November 13, 2017, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/

ask-the-experts/2017-11-13/how-big-challenge-russia>.

3 Michael J. Mazarr et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of 

International Competition: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), available at <www.rand.org/

pubs/research_reports/RR2726.html>; Ashley J. Tellis and 

Robert D. Blackwill, Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China

(New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2015), available at 

<www.cfr.org/report/revising-us-grand-strategy-toward-china>; 

Ian Bremmer, “The End of the American International Order: 

What Comes Next?” Time, November 18, 2019, available at 

<https://time.com/5730849/end-american-order-what-next/>.

4

 Chapter 10 of this volume addresses the perspective that Russia 

is not really a Great Power but instead a disruptive (or spoiler) 

state. Those looking for an alternative view of Russia’s role in 

an era of Great Power competition are encouraged to turn to 

that chapter.

5 Ali Wyne, “America’s Blind Ambition Could Make It a Victim 

of Global Competition,” The National Interest, February 11, 2019, 

available at <https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-blindambition-could-make-it-victim-global-competition-44227>. 

Among those concerned with the short-term Russian risks, 

Soviet-expat-turned-Norwegian research fellow Pavel Baev’s

concern is most concise: “Russian revisionism from a position 

of weakness is both ambitious and desperate.” See “How Big a 

Challenge Is Russia? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts.”

6 Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign 

Affairs 70, no. 1 (1990/1991), 23–33; Fareed Zakaria, The PostAmerican World (New York: Norton, 2008); Hal Brands, Making 

the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post–

Cold War Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016).

7 Susan L. Shirk, How China Opened Its Door: The Political Success 

of the PRC’s Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms (Washington, 

DC: Brookings Institution Press, October 1, 1994); Barry 

Naughton, Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 

1978–1993 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

8The 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen protestors and the Chinese 

Communist Party’s 1999 campaign to eradicate the Falun Gong 

movement stand out as exceptions to these general trends.

9 The belief that China’s economic liberalization would most 

likely lead to middle-class demands for greater national political 

participation and a weakening-to-collapse of Communist Party 

control became somewhat bipartisan political orthodoxy in 

Washington. See Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin, 

2011), 356–367, 393; “Asia,” Strategic Survey 119, no. 1 (January 

1, 2019), 68–133, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/045972

30.2019.1676992>.

10 Russian experts observe that Moscow saw the United States as a 

Great Power rival much earlier. This is documented in subsequent 

paragraphs. China experts suggest that Beijing would argue that 

its rivalry with the United States did not become public until 

2015. China’s perspective is documented in the following section.

11 Among the tell-tale U.S.-China events signaling the arrival 

of their de facto Great Power rivalry in 2014 and 2015, 

several stood out. First, the U.S. Department of Justice made 

a first-ever public indictment of Chinese military hackers for 

cyber espionage against U.S. corporations in May 2014. See 

Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “U.S. Charges 

Five Chinese Military Hackers for Cyber Espionage Against 

U.S. Corporations and a Labor Organization for Commercial 

Advantage,” May 19, 2014, available at <https://www.justice.

gov/opa/pr/us-charges-five-chinese-military-hackers-cyberespionage-against-us-corporations-and-labor>. Second, the U.S. 

Department of State published a paper formally challenging 

China’s assertion of sovereignty over maritime claims related to 

its “dashed line” encircling islands and waters in the South China 

Sea. This paper set the legal predicate for freedom of navigation 

operations conducted in the South China Sea by U.S. warships 

that began in 2015. See Limits in the Seas: Maritime Claims in 

the South China Sea, Paper no. 143 (Washington, DC: Bureau of 

Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, 

December 5, 2014), available at <www.documentcloud.org/

documents/1376464-us-limits-in-the-seas-dos-no143-chinain-scs-12.html>. Finally, President Barack Obama’s November 

2014 summit in China did realize agreement by both states to 

sign the Paris Accord, but it did not find formal compromise for 

simmering grievances on the two critical issues of Chinese cyber 

espionage or maritime disputes. See Jane Perlez, “China’s ‘New 

Type’ of Ties Fails to Sway Obama,” New York Times, November 

9, 2014, available at <www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/world/asia/

chinas-new-type-of-ties-fails-to-sway-obama.html>.

12 See the similar conclusion found in International Institute for 

Strategic Studies (IISS), “A New U.S. Consensus on China?” in 

Strategic Survey: The Annual Assessment of Geopolitics (London: 

Routledge, 2019), 390–391.

13 National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, 

DC: The White House, December 2017), available at <https://

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/

NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf>; Summary of the 2018 National 

Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening 

the American Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, DC: 

Department of Defense, 2018), available at <https://dod.

defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-NationalDefense-Strategy-Summary.pdf>. The 2018 National Defense 

Strategy (NDS) is a classified document and thus not in public 

circulation; this NDS summary is the published, public record 

of that strategy.

14 Phillip C. Saunders, “Managing Strategic Competition with 

China,” in Global Strategic Assessment 2009: America’s Security 

Role in a Changing World, ed. Patrick M. Cronin (Washington, 

DC: NDU Press, 2009), 260–264.

15 Deng Xiaoping’s statement came in the context of whether 

China should seek leadership of the international communist 

movement but was applied more widely as a guide to Chinese 

policy vis-à-vis the United States.

16 Naughton, Growing Out of the Plan; Nicholas Lardy, 

Sustaining China’s Economic Growth After the Global Financial 

Crisis (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International 

Economics, December 2011).

17 For an example from the Chinese steel industry, see Edward 

S. Steinfeld, Forging Reform in China: The Fate of State-Owned 

Industry (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

18The “Beijing Consensus,” also known as the Chinese Economic 

Model, is a phrase coined by Joshua Cooper Ramo to distinguish 

China’s economic growth experience featuring authoritarian 

politics and state-managed capitalist economics from the 

“Washington Consensus,” which blends privatized, deregulated 

capitalism and liberal democratic politics. See Joshua Cooper 

Ramo, The Beijing Consensus: Notes on the New Physics of 

Chinese Power (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2004); Joshua 

Kurlantzick, “Why the ‘China Model’ Isn’t Going Away,” The 

Atlantic, March 21, 2013, available at <www.theatlantic.com/

china/archive/2013/03/why-the-china-model-isnt-goingaway/274237/>. Some Western observers see the Chinese 

model as emphasizing the need for a strong, centralized state 

to constrain rampant economic inequality and social injustice 

associated with rapacious capitalism and liberal democracy. 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 69

See IISS, “China’s Concept of the World Order: Theory and 

Practice,” in Strategic Survey 2019, 27–28; Friedberg, A Contest 

for Supremacy, 245–263; Aaron Friedberg, “Getting the China 

Challenge Right,” The American Interest, January 10, 2019, 

available at <www.the-american-interest.com/2019/01/10/

getting-the-china-challenge-right/>.

19 See Yawei Liu and Justine Zheng Ren, “An Emerging Consensus 

on the U.S. Threat: The United States According to PLA Officers,” 

Journal of Contemporary China 23, no. 86 (2014), 255–274; “Why 

Is the U.S. So Keen on ‘Color Revolutions’?” People’s Daily Online, 

October 11, 2014, available at <http://en.people.cn/n/2014/1011/

c98649-8793283.html>; Phillip C. Saunders, The Rebalance to 

Asia: U.S.-China Relations and Regional Security, INSS Strategic 

Forum 281 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, August 2013).

20 For evidence of a continuing debate, see Pu and Wang, 

“Rethinking China’s Rise.” On the certainty of China’s change in 

strategic approach, see Kissinger, On China, 478–513.

21 Eugene Rumer and Richard Sokolsky, Thirty Years of U.S. Policy 

Toward Russia: Can the Vicious Circle Be Broken? (Washington, 

DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019), 

available at <https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/06/20/

thirty-years-of-u.s.-policy-toward-russia-can-vicious-circlebe-broken-pub-79323>.

22 For a review of the trajectory of Russian grievances against its 

post–Cold War treatment by the United States and the West, see 

Angela Stent, The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations 

in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton: Princeton University 

Press, 2014).

23 “Section I: Russia in the World Community,” in National 

Security Concept of the Russian Federation (Moscow: The 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, January 

1, 2000), available at <www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/official_

documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/

id/589768>.

24 “Section III: Threats to the Russian Federation’s National 

Security,” in National Security Concept of the Russian Federation.

25 The 2008 promise of membership to Georgia and Ukraine—a 

U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

announcement—pushed across an invisible but distinct Putin 

line in the sand. Russia viewed it as another sign of NATO’s 

boundless ambitions, and it raised the prospect that Moscow 

might lose control, or at least immediate influence, over two 

neighbors that it saw as critical to its security, well-being, and 

prestige as a major power. Given the Alliance’s commitment 

to spreading democracy, Russia also perceived its neighbors’ 

intended accession as a threat to its domestic stability. See Rumer 

and Sokolsky, Thirty Years of U.S. Policy Toward Russia.

26 Ibid.

27 The Russo-Georgian war of 2008 was a turning point in U.S.-

Russia relations and in Russian relations with the West and 

proved a harbinger of competitive relations into the future, 

despite brief efforts by the Obama administration to “reset” 

them to a more cooperative footing. See Michael Kofman, 

“Raiding and International Brigandry: Russia’s Strategy for 

Great Power Competition,” War on the Rocks, June 14, 2018, 

available at <https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/raiding-andinternational-brigandry-russias-strategy-for-great-powercompetition/>.

28 Rumer and Sokolsky, Thirty Years of U.S. Policy Toward Russia. 

Of course, the United States took the lead in abrogating some 

Cold War arms-control treaties with Russia as well, most notably 

the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

29 Ibid. Also see John W. Parker, Putin’s Syria Gambit: Sharper 

Elbows, Bigger Footprint, Stickier Wicket, Strategic Perspectives 

25 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, July 2017), 6–20, available at 

<https://inss.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/

inss/Strategic-Perspectives-25.pdf>. For a review of Russian 

military spending as a percentage of gross domestic product—

greater than that by the United States, China, or any Western 

country since 2010—see SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, 

available at <https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex>.

30 National Security Strategy of the United States, 2–3.

31 Ibid., 2–4.

32 Rex Tillerson, “Defining Our Relationship with India for 

the Next Century: An Address by U.S. Secretary of State Rex 

Tillerson,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

2017, available at <https://www.csis.org/events/definingour-relationship-india-next-century-address-us-secretarystate-rex-tillerson>; “President Trump’s Administration Is 

Advancing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific Through Investments 

and Partnerships in Economics, Security, and Governance,” 

The White House, November 18, 2018, available at <https://

www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-trumpsadministration-advancing-free-open-indo-pacific-investmentspartnerships-economics-security-governance/>.

33 For a review of the George W. Bush administration efforts to 

increase the priority on Asia, see Nina Silove, “The Pivot Before 

the Pivot: U.S. Strategy to Preserve the Power Balance in Asia,” 

International Security 40, no. 4 (Spring 2016), 45–88.

34 “Fact Sheet: Advancing the Rebalance to Asia and the Pacific,” 

The White House, November 16, 2015, available at <https://

obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/16/

fact-sheet-advancing-rebalance-asia-and-pacific>; Brian 

Michael Jenkins, “President Obama’s Controversial Legacy as 

Counterterrorism-in-Chief,” RAND, August 22, 2016, available 

at <https://www.rand.org/blog/2016/08/president-obamascontroversial-legacy-as-counterterrorism.html>. For a perspective 

suggesting that the Obama administration did more toward 

realizing an Asia rebalance before 2011 than is accepted in other 

accounts, see Jeffrey A. Bader, Obama and China’s Rise: An Insider’s 

Account of America’s Asia Strategy (Washington, DC: Brookings 

Institution Press, 2012).

35 “U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and 

Indian Ocean Region,” The White House, January 25, 2015, 

available at <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-pressoffice/2015/01/25/us-india-joint-strategic-vision-asia-pacificand-indian-ocean-region>.

36 Alec Tyson, “Should U.S. Strike First If Threatened? 

Americans Are Divided,” Pew Research Center, November 

28, 2017, available at <https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2017/11/28/americans-are-split-on-the-principle-ofpre-emptive-military-force/>; “Public Opinion on Foreign 

Affairs, Terrorism, and Privacy,” Pew Research Center, June 26, 

2014, available at <https://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/

section-6-foreign-affairs-terrorism-and-privacy/>.

37 “New Troublemakers Emerge,” The Economist, December 7, 

2019, available at <www.economist.com/leaders/2019/12/07/

new-troublemakers-emerge>; Maria Bartiromo, “President 

Trump Touts Tariffs as ‘Very Powerful’ Tool,” video, Fox 

News, June 26, 2019, available at <www.youtube.com/

watch?v=citAb7fdq44>; @realDonaldTrump, “South Korea Has 

Agreed to Pay Substantially More Money to the United States in 

Order to Defend Itself from North Korea. Over the Past Many 

Decades, the U.S. Has Been Paid Very Little by South Korea, but 

Last Year, at the Request of President Trump, South Korea Paid 

$990,000,000,” Twitter, August 7, 2019.

38 IISS, “China’s Concept of the World Order,” 390–398; Brian 

D. Blankenship and Benjamin Denison, “Is America Prepared 

for Great-Power Competition?” Survival 61, no. 5 (October–

November 2019), 43–64, available at <www.iiss.org/publications/

survival/2019/survival-global-politics-and-strategyoctobernovember-2019/615-04-blankenship-and-denison>.
70 Lynch and Saunders

39 See Marc Lantaigne, China and International Institutions: 

Alternative Paths to Global Power (New York: Routledge, 2005); 

Scott L. Kastner, Margaret M. Pearson, and Chad Rector, China’s 

Strategic Multilateralism: Investing in Global Governance (New 

York: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

40 Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power 

Is Transforming the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 

2008).

41 Phillip C. Saunders, China’s Global Activism: Strategy, Drivers, 

and Tools, Occasional Paper 4 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 

2006); David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Elizabeth Economy 

and Michael Levi, By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource 

Quest Is Changing the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2013).

42 Nadege Rolland, “A Concise Guide to the Belt and 

Road Initiative,” National Bureau of Asian Research, 

April 11, 2019, available at <https://www.nbr.org/

publication/a-guide-to-the-belt-and-road-initiative/>.

43 Joel Wuthnow, Chinese Perspectives on the Belt and Road 

Initiative: Strategic Rationales, Risks and Implications, China 

Strategic Perspectives 12 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2017).

44 Daniel Kliman and Abigail Grace, Power Play: Addressing 

China’s Belt and Road Strategy (Washington, DC: Center for a 

New American Security, September 2018), available at <https://

www.cnas.org/publications/reports/power-play>; IISS, “China’s 

Concept of the World Order,” 35.

45 Jost Wübbeke et al., Made in China 2025: The Making of a 

High-Tech Superpower and Consequences for Industrial Countries

(Berlin: MERICS, 2016), available at <https://www.merics.org/

en/papers-on-china/made-china-2025>; Max J. Zenglein and 

Anna Holzmann, Evolving Made in China 2025: China’s Industrial 

Policy in the Quest for Global Tech Leadership (Berlin: MERICS, 

2019), available at <https://www.merics.org/en/papers-on-china/

evolving-made-in-china-2025>. By early 2019, China had begun 

to downplay “Made in China 2025,” not mentioning it in public 

since the beginning of a very public trade war launched against 

Beijing by the United States in summer 2018. Nonetheless, most 

observers believe Made in China 2025 remains a major Chinese 

economic and foreign policy underpinning. See Emily Crawford, 

“Made in China 2025: The Industrial Plan that China Doesn’t 

Want Anyone Talking About,” Frontline, May 7, 2019, available 

at <https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/made-in-china2025-the-industrial-plan-that-china-doesnt-want-anyonetalking-about/>.

46 For example, the United States kept its goods and financial 

markets open after the 2008 global financial crisis at the cost of 

a deeper recession and increased domestic unemployment. The 

Chinese system would have difficulty bearing that strain.

47 Thomas Fingar, “China’s Vision of World Order,” in Strategic 

Asia 2012–13: China’s Military Challenge, ed. Ashley J. Tellis 

and Travis Tanner (Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian 

Research, 2012), 342–373.

48 Ramo, The Beijing Consensus; “The China Model: The Beijing 

Consensus Is to Keep Quiet,” The Economist, May 6, 2010, 

available at <https://www.economist.com/asia/2010/05/06/

the-beijing-consensus-is-to-keep-quiet>.

49 For an affirmative view, see Stefan Halper, The Beijing 

Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate 

the Twenty-First Century (New York: Basic Books, 2010); for 

a skeptical view, see Scott Kennedy, “The Myth of the Beijing 

Consensus,” Journal of Contemporary China 19, no. 65 (June 

2010), 461–477.

50These dates are the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the 

Chinese Community Party and the People’s Republic of China, 

respectively.

51 Xi Jinping, “Secure a Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately 

Prosperous Society in All Respects and Strive for the Great 

Success of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” 

Report to the 19th National Party Congress of the Communist 

Party of China, Xinhua, October 18, 2017, available at <www.

xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping’s_report_at_19th_

CPC_National_Congress.pdf>.

52 China’s Policies on Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation (Beijing: 

State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, 

January 2017), available at <http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/

white_paper/2017/01/11/content_281475539078636.htm>.

53 For a useful assessment of the Chinese white paper that 

illustrates these points, see Daljit Singh, “China’s White Paper 

on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region and Chinese 

Grand Strategy,” ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute Perspective 22, 

April 7, 2017, available at <https://www.iseas.edu.sg/images/

pdf/ISEAS_Perspective_2017_22.pdf>.

54 Graham Allison, “The New Spheres of Influence: Sharing the 

Globe with Other Great Powers,” Foreign Affairs (March–April 

2020), available at <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/

united-states/2020-02-10/new-spheres-influence>.

55 Fingar, “China’s Vision of World Order”; Phillip C. Saunders, 

“Implications: China in the International System,” The PLA 

in 2025 (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2017); 

Alastair Iain Johnston, “China in a World of Orders: Rethinking 

Compliance and Challenge in Beijing’s International Relations,” 

International Security 44, no. 2 (Fall 2019), 9–60.

56 In the less benign interpretation, “a community of common 

destiny” is the core of a Chinese revisionist strategy that is 

incompatible with the current international order; it is based on 

the ideology that a strong centralized state is the only way to arrest 

the inherent inequalities and unacceptable aspects of Westernmodel electoral democracy, pluralistic civil society, and laws that 

emphasize protection of individual rights. In this framework, the 

Belt and Road Initiative and “Made in China 2025” are viewed 

as strategic enablers aimed toward the Chinese global economic 

dominance and integration necessary for a new international 

order where political and social norms of noninterference within 

state borders will supplant the freedom and openness norms 

predominant today. See IISS, “China’s Concept of the World 

Order,” 27, 390–398; Blankenship and Denison, “Is America 

Prepared for Great-Power Competition?”; Rolland, A Concise 

Guide to the Belt and Road Initiative; Liza Tobin, “Xi’s Vision for 

Transforming Global Governance: A Strategic Challenge for 

Washington and Its Allies,” Texas National Security Review 2, no. 

1 (November 2018), 155–166; François Godement, “Global Values: 

China’s Promotion of New Global Values,” in Strategic Asia 2019: 

China’s Expanding Strategic Ambitions, ed. Ashley J. Tellis, Alison 

Szalwinski, and Michael Wills (Washington, DC: National Bureau 

of Asian Research, 2019); Melanie Hart and Blaine Johnson, 

Mapping China’s Global Governance Ambitions (Washington, 

DC: Center for American Progress, 2019); Friedberg, A Contest 

for Supremacy.

57 IISS, “China’s Concept of the World Order,” 35–36.

58 Peter B. Zwack and Marie-Charlotte Pierre, Russian 

Challenges from Now into the Next Generation: A Geostrategic 

Primer, INSS Strategic Perspectives 29 (Washington, DC: NDU 

Press, 2019), available at <https://inss.ndu.edu/Portals/82/

Documents/Strategic%20Perspectives/SP%2029%20Final%20

for%20Web.pdf?ver=2019-03-25-100758-543>.

59 Jeffrey Mankoff, “A Century After the Armistice, the 

World Is Still Coping with the End of Empires,” Center 

for Strategic and International Studies, November 

13, 2018, available at <https://www.csis.org/analysis/

century-after-armistice-world-still-coping-end-empires>.

60The oft-cited declaration of this construct of neo-Eurasianism 

is found in Vladimir Putin’s October 2011 article in Izvestia, 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 71

“A New Integration Project for Eurasia: The Future in the 

Making.” See Christopher S. Chivvis, Understanding Russian 

Hybrid Warfare and What Can Be Done About It (Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND Corporation, 2017), available at <https://www.

rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT400/CT468/

RAND_CT468.pdf>; Nadezda Arbatova, “Three Faces of Russia’s 

Neo-Eurasianism,” Survival 61, no. 6 (December 2019/January 

2020), 7–24.

61 Each of these core elements of Russian strategy is detailed 

in “Section I: General Provisions,” Foreign Policy Concept of 

the Russian Federation (Moscow: Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

of the Russian Federation, February 18, 2013), available at 

<https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/official_documents/-/

asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/2542248>.

62 Rumer and Sokolsky, Thirty Years of U.S. Policy Toward Russia; 

Chivvis, Understanding Russian Hybrid Warfare, 2.

63 Karl-Heinz Kamp, “From Wales to Warsaw: NATO’s Future 

Beyond the Ukraine Crisis,” American Foreign Policy Interests

36, no. 6 (November 2014), 361–365, available at <https://doi.

org/10.1080/10803920.2014.995544>.

64 Rachel S. Salzman, Russia, BRICS, and the Disruption of Global 

Order (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019), 

available at <www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcj2sb2>.

65 “Russia, China Agree to Natural Gas Deal,” Stratfor, May 

21, 2014, available at <https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/

russia-china-agree-natural-gas-deal>; “China, Russia: An 

End to an Island Dispute,” Stratfor, July 17, 2008, available at 

<https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/china-russia-end-islanddispute>; and, Zwack and Pierre, Russian Challenges from Now 

into the Next Generation.

66 Zwack and Pierre, Russian Challenges from Now into the Next 

Generation.

67 Michael Crowley and Julia Ioffe, “Why Putin Hates Hillary,” 

Politico, July 25, 2016, available at <http://politi.co/2EwrOVM>. 

Putin’s grab for permanent control took a new twist in March 

2020 when a Putin-inspired initiative passed the Russian 

Duma, which allows him to serve another two 6-year terms 

beyond 2024—effectively allowing him to be president for life. 

See “Russia’s President Reluctantly Agrees to 16 More Years in 

Power,” The Economist, March 12, 2020, available at <https://

www.economist.com/leaders/2020/03/12/russias-presidentreluctantly-agrees-to-16-more-years-in-power>.

68 Tom Kutsch and Michael Pizzi, “Russia May Be Wading into 

a Quagmire in Syria,” Al Jazeera America, October 2, 2015, 

available at <http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/2/

the-risks-of-russias-intervention-in-syria.html>.

69 Anne Applebaum, “Putin’s Grand Strategy,” South Central 

Review 35, no. 1 (2018), 22–34, available at <https://doi.

org/10.1353/scr.2018.0001>; Jeffrey Mankoff, Russian 

Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics (Lanham, 

MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011), 197; Stephen M. 

Walt, “I Knew the Cold War. This Is No Cold War,” Foreign 

Policy, March 12, 2018, available at <https://foreignpolicy.

com/2018/03/12/i-knew-the-cold-war-this-is-no-cold-war/>.

70Chris Buckley, “Xi Jinping Thought Explained: A New Ideology 

for a New Era,” New York Times, February 26, 2018, available at 

<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/asia/xi-jinpingthought-explained-a-new-ideology-for-a-new-era.html>; James 

H. Anderson, “A New Global Paradigm: The United States versus 

Russia,” in Great Strategic Rivalries: From the Classical World to 

the Cold War, ed. James Lacey (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2016), 479–510.

71 Applebaum, “Putin’s Grand Strategy”; David Gibbs, “Does 

the USSR Have a ‘Grand Strategy’? Reinterpreting the Invasion 

of Afghanistan,” Journal of Peace Research 24, no. 4 (December 

1987), 365–379. For a review of the Communist International 

framework for a global world and the Soviet Union’s domination 

of that entity throughout its history, see Edward B. Richards, “The 

Shaping of the Comintern,” Slavic and East European Review

18, no. 2 (April 1959), 197–204, available at <https://www.jstor.

org/stable/3001362>; Robert H. McNeal, “The Legacy of the 

Comintern,” International Journal 201, no. 2 (Spring 1966), 

199–204, available at <https://www.jstor.org/stable/40200330>. 

For a discussion of how Putin’s Russia oversees no such cohesive, 

globalist positive vision, instead preferring a strategic approach 

that sustains Russian oligarch kleptocracy and the destabilization 

of global norms and institutions along with disruption of rival 

state political cohesion, see Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, 

Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings 

Institution Press, 2015), especially 312–384; Walt, “I Knew the 

Cold War. This Is No Cold War.”

72 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Power and 

Interdependence, 2nd ed. (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and 

Company, 1989), 279–282; Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, 

Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, 3rd ed. (New 

York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1996), 179–186.

73 Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, “The Committee to 

Save the World Order,” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 6 (November–

December 2018), available at <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/

articles/2018-09-30/committee-save-world-order>; Matthew 

Bey, “Trump and the WTO’s Uncertain Future,” Stratfor, 

November 1, 2018, available at <https://worldview.stratfor.com/

article/trump-and-wtos-uncertain-future>.

74 Timofie Bordachev, “Russia and the Eurasian Economic 

Union: The View from Moscow,” European Council on Foreign 

Relations, January 21, 2015, available at <https://www.ecfr.eu/

article/commentary_russia_and_the_eurasian_economic_

union_the_view_from_moscow403>.

75 Simultaneously, Putin’s Russia will both obfuscate its 

interventionism and assert that multiple shameless U.S. 

interventions into sovereign states—Iraq, Libya, Syria, 

etc.—during the post–Cold War era make the United States 

ill-positioned to offer criticism.

76 It was Chaing Kai-Shek’s China—and Mao Zedong’s civil war 

rival—that was awarded a seat on the United Nations Security 

Council that the People’s Republic of China finally inherited 

in 1971.

77 The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) “is a 

multilateral development bank with a mission to improve social 

and economic outcomes in Asia. Headquartered in Beijing.” 

See “About AIIB Overview—AIIB,” available at <https://

www.aiib.org/en/about-aiib/index.html>; David Dollar, 

“The AIIB and the ‘One Belt, One Road,’” Brookings, June 21, 

2015, available at <https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/

the-aiib-and-the-one-belt-one-road/>.

78 “Russia,” Interpol, available at <https://www.interpol.int/

en/Who-we-are/Member-countries/Europe/RUSSIA>; Matt 

Apuzzo, “Interpol Rejects Russian as President, Electing 

South Korean Instead,” New York Times, November 21, 

2018, available at <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/

world/europe/interpol-russia-south-korea.html>; Amy 

Mackinnon, “The Scourge of the Red Notice,” Foreign 

Policy, December 3, 2018, available at <https://foreignpolicy.

com/2018/12/03/the-scourge-of-the-red-notice-interpoluae-russia-china/>; Robbie Gramer, “China and Russia 

Take the Helm of Interpol,” Foreign Policy, November 10, 

2016, available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/

china-and-russia-take-the-helm-of-interpol/>.

79 For a review of these economic system traits, see Charles P. 

Kindleberger, World Economic Primacy: 1500–1990 (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 1996), 225.

80 Joel Gahrke, “State Department Preparing for Clash of 

Civilizations with China,” Washington Examiner, April 30, 2019, 
72 Lynch and Saunders

available at <https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/

defense-national-security/state-department-preparing-forclash-of-civilizations-with-china>; Edward Wong, “U.S. Versus 

China: A New Era of Great Power Competition, but Without 

Boundaries,” New York Times, June 26, 2019, available at <https://

www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/world/asia/united-states-chinaconflict.html>.

81 Mazarr et al., Understanding the Emerging Era of International 

Competition, 32–33.

82 Ibid., 32.

83 Ibid., 18.

84 See Graham Allison, “The New Spheres of Influence: Sharing 

the Globe with Other Great Powers,” Foreign Affairs (March/

April 2020).

85 For more details on the limits to greater Sino-Russian strategic 

cooperation, see Robert Sutter, China-Russia Relations: Strategic 

Implications and U.S. Policy Options, NBR Special Report #73 

(Washington, DC: National Bureau of Asian Research, September 

2018), available at <https://www.nbr.org/wp-content/uploads/

pdfs/publications/special_report_73_china-russia_cooperation_

sep2018.pdf>.

86 Of particular note, Beijing and Moscow have been careful 

not to use the word ally in regard to each other until relatively 

recently. Russia began using it quite casually, but China has not 

gone along. Beijing continues to avoid the term at an official 

level, preferring official wording about an “all-encompassing 

partnership and strategic interaction.” See Vasily Kashin, “Tacit 

Alliance: Russia and China Take Military Partnership to a New 

Level,” Carnegie Moscow Center, October 22, 2019, available at 

<https://carnegie.ru/commentary/80136>.

87 Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer, “U.S. and China Turn 

Coronavirus into a Geopolitical Football,” Foreign Policy, March 

11, 2020, available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/11/

coronavirus-geopolitics-china-united-states-trumpadministration-competing-global-health-response/>.

88 For a brief review of contemporary Great Power competition in 

space—a topic not addressed in great detail in this volume—see 

the paragraph in chapter 1.

89 For greater detail, see Justin Sherman, “How the Internet Is 

Taking Center Stage in Great Power Competition,” New America, 

February 7, 2019, available at <https://www.newamerica.org/

weekly/edition-235/internet-great-power-world-order-china/>. 

Also see chapter 6 in this volume.
73

Chapter 3b

Contemporary Great Power 

Geostrategic Dynamics

Competitive Elements and Tool Sets

By Thomas F. Lynch III and Phillip C. Saunders

The chapter assesses the hard and soft power tools of the three contemporary Great 

Powers. It focuses on the tools that each has today and is likely to attain in the 

coming 5 to 7 years, analyzing how each might use these tools to advance its major interests and strategic aims in the five major categories of state interaction: 

political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, military, and economic. The 

chapter observes that the tools of competition traditionally associated with one 

category of interaction in less rivalrous eras will be used more often in other categories in this era of Great Power competition. It assesses that for the foreseeable 

future, Russia’s tool kit makes it an urgent but transient security challenger to the 

United States, while China’s growing power tools make it the true challenger to 

American national interests and global policy preferences. An assessment of both 

gross and net power indicators between the United States and China indicates 

that Beijing’s ongoing power transition timeline is longer than some now fear. 

This allows American and Chinese leaders time to negotiate mutually acceptable 

changes to contemporary international norms, rules, and institutions in order to 

prevent what would be a truly unwelcome and destructive direct military clash, 

should such accommodation be elusive.

Chapter 3a establishes the geostrategic trajectories and primary strategic aims of the three contemporary Great Powers: the United States, China, and Russia. It provides 

analysis of where their major strategic narratives align and diverge. The chapter also provides an assessment of each state’s national interest intensity in specific locations and 

domains—indicating where its most critical strategic interests come into conflict.

This chapter turns to an evaluation of the tools and main capabilities possessed by each 

Great Power to advance its general strategic aims and specific strategic goals. It considers the 

assets the Great Powers bring to their competitive interactions, with a focus on the tools each 

power now possesses, those likely to be attained in the next 5 to 7 years, and each nation’s 

ability to employ these tools to advance its interests and attain strategic aims. The chapter 
74 Lynch and Saunders

first evaluates power as the physical resources that states can draw on to attain strategic interests—their means. It then assesses each power’s potential to employ these means to attain 

strategic aims—their ends.

1

 The chapter briefly addresses the difference between gross power 

indictors and net power indicators, using net indicators to demonstrate that a power transition between the United States and China may be less imminent than most now imagine. 

Although the details anticipated from contemporary Great Power competition across many 

specific regions of the world are provided in chapters that follow, this chapter concludes with 

an assessment of how current and forecast future power tools of the major Great Powers 

should be anticipated to interact in major competitive areas from 2020 to 2025.

From Aspirations to Actions: Measuring State 

Ability to Do What Is to Be Done 

As operationalized in the chapter 1 definition, a Great Power state has three substantive features: capabilities, behavior, and status attribution by other states in the system.2

 In chapter 

3a, we establish the major goals and strategic interests of the three Great Powers and demonstrate that their interests display broad, global foreign policy aims and activities, with China’s 

strategic aims more ambitious and global in reach than Russia’s, and that other states in the 

international system view all three as major players and treat them accordingly. Chapter 3b 

now turns to an analytical review of the first aspect of our Great Power definition: the power 

capabilities (tool kits) they possess with which to pursue these strategic interests.

As observed in chapter 2, measuring power is a fraught enterprise and the subject of 

extensive scholarly debate. Determining what to measure as state power is contentious. So 

too is determining how to measure even agreed-on categories of state power.

The historic challenge of power assessment is manifested today in the fact that many 

scholars argue that the United States is in relative overall decline given China’s rapid economic growth. But this conclusion is far from certain. First, the baseline premise is debatable. 

Gross domestic product (GDP), the most frequently utilized state power metric, is a narrow 

basis for making an assessment. GDP was originally designed to measure mid-20th-century 

manufacturing economies, not those of the 21st century.3 The more knowledge-based and 

globalized a country’s production, the more GDP underestimates its true size. Thus, GDP 

likely overvalues China’s economic prowess and undervalues American advantage on the 

cutting edge of economic modernization. A significant amount of China’s economic success can be explained by the fact that it started from a low base and took good advantage of 

“catchup” opportunities, although the country is now trying to move up the value chain and 

pursue indigenous innovation. While China has been catching up in manufacturing, the 

United States has been expanding advantage in key industries, in nonindustrial processes, 

in financial services growth and rent extraction, and (generally) in the quality of higher education.4

 At the same time, the GDP gap between the United States and Russia is growing, 

and the United States continues to outperform Europe and Japan in economic growth since 

the end of the late 2000s financial crisis.5

Based on these economic considerations and a review of major military factors, some 

authors argue not only that the conventional wisdom of relative U.S. decline is off base but 

also that America is actually still a Great Power on the rise.6 They admit that America’s military advantage in 2020 has eroded in locations proximate to Russia and China, such as in 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 75

Crimea and the South China Sea, compared 

to 2000 and that these are now intense strategic interest areas and likely to be contested 

sternly in Moscow and Beijing. But they assess that with enough at stake and enough 

political will, the United States still has an 

unmatched capacity to concentrate overwhelming military in any area of armed 

hostilities.7

 They argue that the advantage is 

greater to the extent that America’s allies in 

a given armed conflict zone are willing participants. Their judgment is that America’s 

advantage in this area of hard power deployment/concentration ability will remain 

robust through 2030.

This chapter cannot grapple with all 

the details involved in measuring state 

power. Most scholars measure power in 

terms of resources, specifically wealth and 

military assets. They assume these gross 

power indicators are good enough, serving 

as “rough but reliable” measures of power, 

and they are the “best comparable indicators available given data constraints.”8

 In 

general, the chapter acknowledges inherent measurement limitations but mainly 

utilizes canonical measures of Great Power 

capabilities. Yet it also moves beyond canonical economic and military factors to 

consider some other nonstandard power 

tools important to Great Power strategic 

influence in the 21st century, such as levels 

of economic innovation and engagement 

with private global financial markets; resonance and popular appeal of state ideology, 

language, and culture; and a consideration of a relatively new approach to understanding 

national power and comparison of relative state power with an index that better considers 

net economic and military resources (assets less costs) than historic national capability indicators. The chapter thus focuses on the power factors most germane to the five categories 

of major state interaction developed in table 2.2, table 3a.1, and reprised in table 3b.1.

Major Political and Diplomatic Tools 

These tools include objective measures of the state’s presence in multilateral political institutions and qualitative assessment of its influence in intergovernmental organizations. They 

“Since the 1990s, and especially since the 

2008 financial crisis, hundreds of books 

and thousands of articles and reports have 

asserted that the United States’ economic 

and military edge over other nations is 

eroding and that the world will soon become multipolar. . . . The main evidence 

cited for these trends is China’s rising GDP 

and military spending and various statistics that are essentially subcomponents 

of GDP—most notably, China’s massive 

manufacturing output; volume of exports; 

trade surplus with the United States; infrastructure spending; consumer spending 

and large government bureaucracy and 

scientific establishment. . . . The problem, 

however, is that these are the same gross 

indicators that made China look like a 

superpower during its century of humiliation: in the mid-1800s. . . . China may 

(today) have the world’s biggest economy 

and military, but it also leads the world 

in debt; resource consumption; pollution; useless infrastructure and wasted 

industrial capacity; scientific fraud; internal security spending; border disputes; 

and populations of invalids, geriatrics, 

and pensioners. China also uses seven 

times the input to generate a given level 

of economic output as the United States 

and is surrounded by nineteen countries, 

most of which are hostile toward China, 

politically unstable, or both.”

—Michael Beckley, “The Power of Nations,” 

International Security 43, no. 2 (Fall 2018)
76 Lynch and Saunders

also include a quantitative overview of the state’s geopolitical diplomatic presence and its 

political tools for securing key state partners and multistate alliances.

■ Major Ideological Tools: These power factors consist of qualitative assessments 

regarding the attractiveness of the Great Power’s values, narratives, and political 

system in other states. The trajectory of this soft power attractiveness is best 

evaluated in geopolitical polling results.

■ Major Informational and Communications Capabilities: The qualitative dimensions 

of this competitive category are more important than the quantitative ones. State 

power tools include the degree of penetration by key communications technologies 

in vital geostrategic regions and around the globe. In addition, the state tool kit 

in this area incorporates the manner in which competitive visions of information 

pathways and system openness play with Great Power states and those lesser states 

integrated/integrating in the communications networks.

■ Major Military Capabilities: These capabilities include the classical quantitative 

hard power comparative assessments of available major weapons systems, which are 

the easiest to measure. This chapter also focuses on military systems and capabilities 

harnessing emerging commercial technologies from leading-edge commercial 

areas. Military tools include those with the potential for influence and suasion, such 

as the cohesion and capacity of military alliances and the manner in which military 

technology sales and military personnel exchanges work to enhance state aims and 

potential adversary perspectives.

■ Major Economic Tools—Commercial and Financial: Economic power is often 

understood as the ultimate foundation of military power and a strong influence on 

the other forms of state power. Here, the canonical economic growth dynamics are 

measured in nominal GDP, nominal GDP per capita, and level of industrialization. 

The chapter also considers the amount and impact of outbound direct foreign 

investment—governmental and private. To properly understand the influence 

of modern and future economic power factors, financial linkages and innovation 

potential are described and analyzed with reference to the percentage of global 

Table 3b.1. A Framework for Assessing the Aspects/Categories of Competition

Competitive Aspect/Category Main Competitive Elements

Political and Diplomatic Levels of influence in multilateral institutions, key posts held that control 

multilateral institutions, and number and strength of political alliances.

Ideological Values and political systems’ appeal.

Informational The manner and degree of transnational communications: open and 

transparent vs. closed and restrictive. Extent of denigration of “the 

other” in mass communications.

Military Size, posture, and technological edge of armed forces. Cohesion and 

capacity of military alliances.

Economic Size, technological breadth, diversity, and resource base of national 

economy. Innovation ecosystem of national economy, including access 

to and management of financial capital.
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 77

private investment transactions. Additionally, the level and trajectory of economic 

innovation potential in the state is discussed.

The chapter ends with the use of a relatively new index of net overall power that purports 

to better capture economic and military capabilities less cost by combining GDP with GDP 

per capita as well as military capabilities and internal costs—yielding an indicator that better accounts for overall net national size and efficiency.9

Great Power Competitive Postures and Tool Sets 

U.S. Competitive Posture and Tool Sets 

General American Power Factors and Approaches. Nominal U.S. GDP in 2019 was 

an estimated $22.32 trillion, ahead of China’s $15.3 trillion and Russia’s $1.7 trillion (see 

figure 3b.1). America remained the world’s top and most dynamic national economy, generating 23.9 percent of global GDP in 2019, far ahead of its nearest competitor, China, with 

15.9 percent that year.10 The U.S. share of the global GDP remains in slow relative decline, 

but it is anticipated to generate about 21 percent of global GDP in 2035. Given canonical 

projections in 2020, China’s nominal GDP would be about 25 percent of the global total 

in 2035, surpassing that of the United States in about 2030.11 The United States is not an 

export-dependent economy, but about 10 percent of its nominal GDP in 2018 was goods 

exports ($2.5 trillion). America also is the world’s leader in services exports, with $828 billion in 2018 nominal value led by audiovisual technology, banking services, energy, express 

delivery, information technology, insurance, and telecommunications service industries.12

Top U.S. export customers in the 2010s were China, Canada, and Mexico, all of which were 

0

5,000

1980 1990 2000 2010 2015 2020 2025

10,000

15,000

20,000

Billions (USD)

Years

25,000

30,000

Figure 3b.1. Comparison of Great Power GDP

U.S. China Russia

Source: Chart generated by authors. Data sources are at the online appendix B of this volume, available at 

<https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/>.
78 Lynch and Saunders

linked into complex regional and global supply chains accounting for a high percentage of 

U.S. manufactured exports.13 Forty-seven percent of the U.S. economy is industrialized (see 

table 3b.2). Almost 19 percent of American manufactured exports were in the high-technology category in 2018, lower than the 31 percent of China’s exports in 2017 but near 

the global average of 18 percent for 2018.14 In mid-2018, the United States began a trade 

war with China, which over its first 18 months had become the most serious disruption in 

global commerce in nine decades.15 Analysis of the Sino-U.S. trade war through September 

2019 revealed the effort to be a double-edged sword. China’s lost export revenue was triple 

that of the United States ($53 billion to $14.5 billion), but it had not achieved any substantive movement in the Chinese economic behaviors it was seeking to change. Moreover, key 

sectors of the U.S. economy—exporters of 

minerals and ores, forestry products, agribusiness, and transportation systems—lost 

substantial amounts of revenue and were 

disturbed that China has found alternative global suppliers, meaning potential 

lasting damage to their export revenues.16

The “phase one” U.S. trade deal with China 

announced in January 2020 involved Chinese agreement to lift some retaliatory 

tariffs and commit to substantial increases 

in imports from the United States.17 But 

trade disruptions due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020 

make it unlikely that China will fulfill those 

commitments.

The United States has been ranked in 

the top dozen innovative countries over 

the past decade and is expected to remain a 

global leader as an incubator for innovative 

manufacturing and services delivery for at 

“Those [states] that have the resources to 

do so will generally try to increase their 

military capabilities so as to reduce their 

vulnerability to coercion and attack. . . . 

Both strong and weak states may also enter 

into alliances intended to fend off potential enemies, or to overwhelm opposing 

powers or coalitions. . . . As a state’s capabilities grow, . . . rising powers typically 

attempt not only to secure their borders but 

also to reach beyond them, taking steps 

to ensure access to markets, materials, 

and transportation routes; to protect their 

citizens far from home and defend their 

foreign friends and allies; to promulgate 

their religious or ideological beliefs; and, 

in general, to have what they consider to 

be their rightful say in the affairs of their 

region and of the wider world.”

—Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest 

for Supremacy (2012)

Table 3b.2. Percentage Disparity Between Gross and Net Overall Power Factors 

Using Beckley’s Net Power Index

Great Power Rivalries

1990 2000 2010 2015

U.S. vs. Russia 10 10 4 5

U.S. vs. China 24 30 35 23

Russia vs. China 32 45 49 37

Note: Values calculated with the formula provided by Michael Beckley and from the data found at tab 2 

of the online appendix B of this volume, available at <https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Contemporary-GPCDynamics-Matrix/>. The noteworthy “blip” in these comparative gross-to-net power index values beginning 

in 2010 comes from the revaluation of one of the input Correlates of War (COW) Composite Index of 

National Capability index values significantly reevaluated in the late 2000s by COW to better account for 

economic factors.
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 79

least the next decade. The United States also has been the dominant nation in private global 

financial markets for decades, accounting for 53 percent of activity in 2018.18 China and 

Russia barely register on this measure of financial activity and corresponding revenue from 

global commodity and services exchange (see table 3b.2). The U.S. share of commercial 

financial markets has continued to grow over the past decade, and the anticipated continuation of this trend is a significant future U.S. economic growth advantage not easily 

accessed by other governments, so long as U.S. financial entities remain attractive compared to other options.19

At the same time, U.S. Government management of foreign access—governments and 

individuals—to America’s dominant financial markets is both a power opportunity and 

a challenge. It gives the United States a unique coercive economic power tool to modify 

foreign entity behaviors by denying or restricting foreign access to preferred U.S. financial institutions should their behaviors counter American national interests. Sharper than 

diplomatic censure while gentler than military confrontation, financial sanctions can be 

appealing as an asymmetric U.S. power tool. The United States has used sanctions with far 

greater frequency since 2000, especially against known and suspected terrorists and their 

financing agents during the war on terror.20 But overuse of financial sanctions can backfire, 

encouraging U.S.-sanctioned countries and groups to turn to alternative financial arrangements, reducing the effectiveness of the sanctions and straining relations with longstanding 

U.S. economic partners affected by the secondary impact. Over time, sanctioning can create 

incentives for friends and foes to develop alternative financial structures and arrangements 

that can work around U.S. entities and erode American current dominance in commercial 

financial services.21

Another risk to U.S. economic strength and future power standing lies in its level of 

national debt. As of late 2018, the United States had a nominal total national debt of $21.8 

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

2010 2015 2020

Figure 3b.2. Correlation Between Level of Industrialization and 

Percentage of Commercial Global Financial Markets

46 47

35

3.4

73 76

52.3

2.3 0

53.3

41.4

33

Source: Chart generated by authors. Data sources are at the online appendix B of this volume, available at 

<https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/>.

U.S. China Russia U.S. China Russia

Level of Industrialization
80 Lynch and Saunders

trillion, almost 100 percent of its nominal GDP. About 28 percent of that debt ($6.3 trillion) 

was held by foreign entities, with the top three holders being China ($1.1 trillion), Japan ($1 

trillion), and Brazil ($0.3 trillion).22 Thus, 72 percent of U.S. total national debt was held by 

U.S.-based investors, making it more of a domestic than a foreign relations challenge. The 

risks to U.S. economic standing and military investments would come in the out years if 

debt continues to grow. Interest on the national debt and spending for mandatory government programs, such as Medicare, could eat an ever-increasing piece of the Federal budget, 

leaving fewer dollars for the application of U.S. military, diplomatic, and economic power 

and influence activities around the world. Financing the debt also could drive up interest 

rates and reduce private investment in economic activity and technological innovation.23

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic will have significant impact on the global economy as 

a whole, but its impact will not be evenly distributed. The United States could conceivably 

come out of the pandemic with economic scars that would see atrophy in these significant 

advantages. However, unless it makes some truly intemperate health or economic policy 

decisions, it seems more likely that post-COVID-19 America will remain in a relatively 

similar economic posture with respect to its Great Power rivals.

America’s three-decade advantage of military-technological superiority—especially 

in precision-guided weapons and their sensors, information technology, and space-based 

networks—can no longer be assumed in this dawning era of Great Power competition. Yet 

the United States remains demonstrably superior across most major measures of military 

power. Absent some crushingly ill-considered decisions, America should remain the dominant military state for at least the coming decade. After several years of low-level increases, 

American military spending grew from $716 billion during fiscal year 2019 to $738 billion 

for fiscal year 2020. These figures triple the Chinese official defense budget and are 16 times 

that of Russia. This spending is forecast to slow again into the 2020s as domestic priorities 

and concerns about U.S. national debt return to political prominence.24

The U.S. nuclear arsenal remains below its treaty-limited number of 1,600 warheads, 

with 1,350 strategic nuclear warheads deployed on 650 land-based intercontinental missiles, 

158 strategic bombers, and 18 nuclear submarines. In 2018, the United States launched a 

program to modernize its nuclear weapons arsenal and delivery systems—especially the 

overworked, dual-capable strategic bomber fleet—to assure its strategic deterrent value 

in the face of fast-emerging delivery technologies. The all-volunteer U.S. military consists 

of approximately 1.29 million Active-duty forces as of 2017: 470,000 active in the Army, 

183,000 in the Marine Corps, 320,000 in the Navy, and 313,000 in the Air Force. The United 

States maintains forces with global reach and operational capability across a full spectrum 

of military operations.

The Navy is optimized for global presence with 12 top-end aircraft carriers and 12 

smaller ones, compared to 1 operational carrier for China (with 2 more on the way) and 

1 inoperable carrier in Russia. Its surface fleet features almost 90 frigates and destroyers, 

most with antiair, antiballistic missile, and antisubmarine capable systems. The Navy has 

68 modern submarines, 18 of which are ballistic missile carriers and all of which are nuclear powered and thus capable of extended range and duration operations. Sixty percent of 

Navy assets and operations took place in the Pacific Ocean during 2018. The combined U.S. 

aviation fleet constitutes a force with global reach, featuring 2,300 modern fighter aircraft, 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 81

2,800 attack aircraft, 1,150 transport aircraft, and over 5,700 total helicopters, including 970 

attack helicopters.25 As of 2017, the United States also has a fleet of 7,500 unmanned aerial 

systems (UAS), 10 percent of which (786) were strategic-range, mid- and high-altitude, 

long-endurance intelligence or strike platforms. The United States will spend about $12 billion per year in 2020 and 2021 to retain its lower end UAS fleet while investing in research 

and development for new strategic UAS technologies to modernize a strategic fleet that 

has become increasingly vulnerable to the growing number of air defense and electronic 

warfare capabilities of the Great Powers and other international actors.26 America’s number of troop transports, helicopters, and fighter jets dwarfs those of any other nation, and 

more than doubles those found in the next largest force, the Chinese military. The Army 

has engaged in two decades of low-intensity conflict and special operations forces counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations but retains a fleet of 6,000 technologically 

sophisticated main battle tanks, 39,000 armored fighting vehicles, and 3,000 artillery and 

rocket forces—most of which are operational and deployable worldwide.

America’s military reach and power capacity are significantly augmented by formal 

military alliances in Europe and Asia and strategic partnerships with individual nations in 

the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. These alliances have come under 

increasing duress in the late 2010s, but their structures remain intact. U.S. military forces 

have military interoperability with the 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nations and with two dozen other key allies and strategic partners across the Middle East 

and the Pacific. Perhaps more significantly, in a 2019 Pew International Survey, a median 

of 27 percent of respondents in 17 countries named the United States as their state’s most 

dependable partner, while only 6 percent cited China and 4 percent Russia.27 The United 

States remains the world’s largest arms exporter, with 36 percent of the global total in 2018. 

Of the 25 countries buying the most weapons from the United States, 10 are either NATO 

member nations or part of other alliances formed with the United States since the Cold 

War.28 With many of its military partners, the United States conducts security assistance 

and arms sales programs. Annual government-to-government U.S. defense assistance to 

foreign allies and partners averaged approximately $43 billion per year over the decade of 

the 2010s, with conspicuous spikes above that in 2012 and 2018.29 Major partner states for 

U.S. Government military foreign sales support and security assistance are the states of the 

Middle East, Israel, Egypt, and Pakistan.

American diplomatic and political assets have been under strain for a decade, but they 

still provide the United States with unmatched structural power and opportunities to favorably compete with would-be rivals. The United States is a full member of 22 formal 

international government organizations, including the United Nations Security Council Permanent Five, and the largest voting member of the International Monetary Fund 

and World Bank, and has been a leading member of the World Trade Organization and 

World Health Organization.30 For the past two decades, and especially since 2017, American policymakers have confronted a persistent question: Are the benefits of leadership of 

post–World War II, cooperative international organizations that help lock in predictable, 

U.S.-friendly policy orientations and minimize the need for Washington’s use of coercive 

power worth the price of the institutional maintenance costs and the sacrifice of a degree of 

political autonomy?31
82 Lynch and Saunders

Well before the administration of Donald Trump, American skeptics of global institution participation tapped insular and nationalist tendencies in the U.S. public to erode 

support for participation and maintenance, but national polling in 2018 indicated that a 

majority of Americans continue to view U.S. international engagement and leadership of 

global institutions and alliances worth the cost.32 U.S. leaders, if they choose to do so, have 

the public support and material resources to reverse the recent accelerated skepticism of 

U.S. international engagement. The still-dominant U.S. position in many intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations means it can recover from the domestic political 

exploitation of ordinary citizens’ grievances with “globalism.” American influence in longstanding international institutions can be reinvigorated with the political will to sponsor 

and fund programs that enhance transparency into global institutions and, at the same 

time, generate domestic policies that do a much better job of compensating aggrieved U.S. 

national constituencies that consider themselves “losers” from the economic and social adjustments resultant from the international trade, financial flows, migration, technological 

change, and international legal decisions identified with globalization.33

Measures of American ideological resonance and cultural identity are mixed in 2020, 

but generally remain stronger than those for its main competitors. The years 2017 and 2018 

witnessed a sharp decline in international views of the United States and its Presidential 

leadership. In 2016, a median of 64 percent of international respondents in the Pew Global 

Attitudes Survey held a favorable view of the United States and had confidence in President 

Barack Obama to direct America’s role in the world. By 2017, only 49 percent viewed the 

Nation positively and just 22 percent felt confident in President Trump’s leadership.34 Yet 

a subsequent 2019 Pew survey revealed that despite this decline, many countries still view 

the United States as the nation their country can most rely on as a dependable ally into 

the future. The allure of the American Dream—the interdependence of prosperity, individual freedom, and liberal democracy—remains a positive attribute in most corners of 

the world.35 While not without backlash, American products, popular culture, and basic 

individual rights are resonant around the globe. They are well marketed and do not require 

Americans to be physically present to exert this influence.36

Despite some notable erosion in confidence about the American ideal, its global appeal dwarfs that of any other country’s narrative and provides a fungible power attribute 

if applied wisely. The COVID-19 pandemic provides another opportunity for Washington 

to market this appeal wisely. Equally important, English is the dominant global language 

for business, industry, and cultural exchange—1.8 billion people speak English, and an increasing number of multinational corporations require English as their common corporate 

language.37 Fifty-five of the top 100 universities in the world are in the United States, and 

despite a decline in international student applications that began in 2012 and accelerated 

in 2017, revenue generated by American higher education in 2018 was nearly $41 billion—

double the value of soybean exports and only modestly below U.S. automobile exports ($53 

billion).38

In the information dissemination and communications arenas, longstanding American preferences are under duress in 2020. Yet here again, the United States possesses the 

economic strength and technological know-how to compete favorably, if not perfectly, 

across the information domain. Global acceptance of the U.S. preference for free and open 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 83

communications, including over the Internet and social media networks, has been badly 

bruised in the decade since 2010. The once dominant U.S.-led Internet Corporation for 

Assigned Names and Numbers oversight framework and its preference for openness and 

multi-stakeholder cooperation have encountered political challenges and then technological ones. China, Russia, and a number of other authoritarian states around the world 

believe that free and open communications on a mass scale present a threat to their national 

sovereignty and maintenance of domestic political order.39 They each have developed technologies and protocols to constrain the free flow of information across and within their 

borders; some, mainly China and Iran, have completely blocked Internet and global telecommunications flows during periods of public unrest or government worry.

The United States today relies primarily on the private sector to project external information about American values and ideals—the core of the liberal capitalist brand.40 During 

the Cold War, the U.S. Government invested substantial resources in public diplomacy, a 

term that covered a host of overseas activities—from libraries to lecture tours, art exhibits to world’s-fair-style expositions, international visitor programs to radio and television 

broadcasts meant to undermine Soviet censorship.41 As conducted by the United States 

Information Agency and the Department of State’s Division of Cultural Relations, these 

activities sought to convey “a full and fair picture” of America. The Voice of America, Radio 

Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia were all publicly funded efforts to counter 

propaganda and provide alternative sources of information to oppressed populations.42

Today, these U.S. public information activities are mostly gone, repurposed for other diplomatic duties, or cash-starved enterprises. The State Department does maintain a Bureau of 

Educational and Cultural Affairs and a Bureau of Global Public Affairs that perform some 

similar functions (including Internet and social media outreach), but with significantly less 

funding and impact than their Cold War–era equivalents.43

Instead, America’s most successful export, commercial entertainment, has stepped into 

the void and become far more influential than the remaining public diplomacy activities. 

Recently, a U.S. political scientist investigated the implications of this privatization of public 

diplomacy and found it often to be counterproductive: “Instead of showing the interdependence of prosperity, democracy, and freedom, contemporary [American] popular culture 

tends to single out freedom and portray it in ways that are very entertaining, but often also 

very alien to the concerns of most people in the world.”44 There is a case to be made for far 

greater U.S. Government attention to its external information messaging in the era of Great 

Power competition. America’s projection of information during and after the COVID-19 

pandemic will provide an opportunity to generate such additional attention. One recent 

positive step that might be built on was the establishment of the interagency Global Engagement Center in 2016 to coordinate U.S. Government efforts to “recognize, understand, 

expose, and counter foreign state and nonstate propaganda and disinformation efforts 

aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, 

its allies, and partner nations.”45

But even if the U.S. Government devoted more resources and attention to external 

messaging and counter-propaganda activities, it would face a major challenge given Russian and Chinese robust propaganda and domestic censorship activities—including those 

that block or distort the global Internet. Technology may provide a bit of an answer to this 
84 Lynch and Saunders

challenge, for satellites do not currently play a major role in global Internet infrastructure. 

As addressed in chapter 5, within the next decade, a new generation of satellites could lay 

the foundations for an “Internet from space.” That fast-emerging concept would use thousands of satellites instead of the tens of satellites used in contemporary telecommunications 

systems today. Laser light could then link these satellites to each other to form a network 

that would be able to reach remote, isolated, or even blocked regions of the world that today 

have no or limited access to the Internet.46 Should America choose leadership in developing 

these technologies, and those associated with land-based relay stations and handheld phone 

receptors, Washington may again leverage the advantages of innovation and technology to 

counter the ongoing balkanization of the Internet and compete to see its norms for telecommunications and information exchange dominate this domain of state-to-state interaction. 

In turn, this could provide a rejuvenated U.S. public diplomacy with a conduit to project a 

more realistic, cohesive, and attractive American brand.

Key American Power Tools and Their Strategic Utility. For the period 2020 to 2025 

and beyond, the United States remains relatively strong in military hard power and most of 

the soft power tools necessary to compete favorably in the five major areas of Great Power 

competition. Washington’s military might—while not as dominant as in the early 2000s—is 

still unmatched in global power projection capacity. Although the relative size of the U.S. 

economy and its manufacturing base is in decline compared to China, American financial 

dominance is unchallenged, its innovation dynamism far more robust, and its demographic 

profile more conducive to long-term economic adaptation and expansion. Combined, its 

economic power tools—unless self-limited—remain most formidable in modern economic 

competition.

Core U.S. ideological messages featuring freedom, openness, transparency, and universal human rights resonate in many parts of the world, providing America with an ability to 

attract other states and individuals to act favorably toward American objectives and interests. Nevertheless, Washington’s internal information management has been under duress 

from outside interference, and its external messaging remains largely a private commercial 

enterprise without a mandate or the means to compete with other Great Power narrative 

projections. Moreover, the government’s recent uneven policy support for these influential 

soft power attributes has begun to reduce the decades-long U.S. role as the most influential 

Great Power in the information and ideological domains. The U.S. response to the 2020 

COVID-19 pandemic, and how it is publicized domestically and internationally, will determine if America’s advantages in these vital areas are eroded or reinforced.

American political and diplomatic power tools are now and will remain under duress 

in many specific locations around the globe in the decade of the 2020s. But even these are 

unlikely to be displaced by Russia or China in the near term.

China’s Competitive Posture and Tool Sets 

General Chinese Power Factors and Approaches. China’s emergence as a global power 

is the product of its three-decade ascent to economic superpower status. From 1979 to 

2018, China’s economy grew at an annual rate of 9.4 percent. China became the world’s 

second largest economy, largest manufacturer, largest trader in goods, second largest consumer of commodities, second largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI), and 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 85

largest holder of foreign exchange reserves.47 In 2019, China’s GDP was second only to that 

of the United States, at an estimated $15.27 trillion in exchange rate terms (see figure 3b.1). 

China’s percentage of global GDP almost tripled in the decade from 2007 to 2017, moving 

from 6.18 percent to 15.25 percent.48 Should China continue annual growth between 5 and 

6 percent per year and the U.S. growth per year remain around 2.2 percent, then China’s 

GDP will pass that of the United States between 2030 and 2034.49 Less optimistic estimates 

of China’s growth rate and the negative implications to productivity from a rapidly aging 

Chinese population versus that of the United States pushes this crossover point out to beyond 2040, or later—if ever.50

China’s economic rise has been significantly fueled by export growth, as Western and 

Asian companies relocated production to tap low-cost Chinese labor. Chinese exports as a 

percentage of its GDP fell 8 percentage points in the decade from 2007 to 2017, down to 9 

percent by 2017. This decline reflects China’s increasing reliance on domestic consumption 

for growth. At the same time, Asian economies tightly coupled to Chinese supply chains, 

resource-rich countries that export to China, and developed countries selling to China’s 

consumer market are growing more dependent on China.51

Manufacturing plays a critical role in the Chinese economy. By 2018, China accounted 

for 35 percent of global manufacturing output.52 China’s manufacturing base is largely industrialized, with a 73 percent industrialization rate in 2010 and a 76 percent rate in 2015 

(see figure 3b.2). Thirty-one percent of China’s manufactured exports were high-tech ones 

in 2017.53 Most of these exports were originally produced by Western and Asian multinationals using imported components assembled in China, but Chinese firms are moving 

up the technology chain to produce more of these goods on their own. Sustaining strong 

economic growth and accelerating China’s advantages in high-end manufacturing and cutting-edge technologies are critical objectives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). As 

noted in chapter 3a, these objectives were codified in the 2015 Made in China 2025 10-year 

economic development plan. China’s trade surplus has been as high as 10 percent of GDP 

but declined to 2.2 percent of GDP (about $336 billion) in 2018. China’s trade profile has 

been put under duress from a trade war with the United States that began in mid-2018, 

when the Trump administration implemented multiple rounds of tariffs on goods imported 

from China to force changes in Chinese industrial policies.

This trade war is the most serious disruption in global commerce in nine decades. 

Although China’s losses from a year of this bilateral trade war totaled $53 billion, China 

found alternative partners for its exports, shifted some imports away from U.S. suppliers 

in retaliation, and has refused to make the policy changes the United States demanded.54

As addressed, the phase one bilateral trade deal aimed at easing the trade war signed in 

January 2020 consisted primarily of Chinese pledges to increase imports of U.S. goods and 

some modest measures to address U.S. concerns about forced intellectual property transfers.55 But the economic impacts of COVID-19 make it unclear if China will fulfill those 

commitments.

Despite policies aimed at stimulating “indigenous innovation,” China ranks as the 29th

nation in the world for economic innovation, much closer to Russia’s 48th-place ranking 

than America’s 5th-place ranking. However, some analysts see Chinese progress. One 2019 

study observed that over the past decade, China narrowed the gap with the United States 
86 Lynch and Saunders

on 36 indicators of scientific and technological progress and led the United States on some 

indicators.56 As of 2015, China accounts for only 2.3 percent of global commercial financial 

transactions, massively below the American 52.3 percent share and well below Japan and 

Western European countries (see figure 3b.2). China’s trajectory in the innovation and financial markets categories suggest that it will not be immune to challenges over the coming 

decade in an increasingly service-based and high-tech global economy.57

Long a net recipient of foreign direct investment, China became a net exporter of investment capital in 2015. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments have driven 

its outward FDI flows to above $150 billion per year since 2015, while its FDI inflows have 

remained near $140 billion annually.58 The China Global Investment Tracker estimates total 

Chinese outbound FDI at $1.2 trillion from 2005 to 2019 and total Chinese overseas construction projects (often funded by loans from Chinese state banks) at $800 billion. Chinese 

overseas investment is focused on access to resources (especially oil and natural gas), factories, and infrastructure projects that piggyback on Chinese trade and efforts to acquire 

advanced technology that will support China’s innovation and industrial upgrading from 

the United States, Europe, and Asia. Overseas construction largely focuses on the energy, 

telecommunications, and transportation sectors.59 In addition to direct investment, China 

has about $3.1 trillion in foreign currency reserves and is one of the two (with Japan) largest 

holders of U.S. Government securities, with about $1.1 trillion as of January 2020.60 In addition to economic value, China’s state-managed investments generate influence with foreign 

elites by contributing to economic development in other countries, while at the same time 

potentially enabling coercion if countries cannot service their loans and become overly 

indebted to Beijing.61

In 2020, China has an increasingly capable military with many instruments of power 

but does not yet match the United States and Russia. China is competitive in many areas of 

conventional force and weapons numbers but lags U.S. and Russian forces in several notable 

areas: overall level of technology, capabilities of individual systems, and power projection 

capacity. However, the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has made 

impressive progress over the last 15 years toward the goal of being able to “fight and win informationized wars,” including a major reorganization in late 2015 that will greatly improve 

its ability to conduct joint operations.62

The PLA Army is the largest of the services, making up about half of the PLA’s 2 million soldiers (China also has about 510,000 reservists). The postreform army is organized 

in a standardized group army-brigade-battalion structure, with each of the 13 group armies 

equipped with 6 combined-arms operational brigades and 6 specialized support brigades, 

including artillery, air defense, special operations forces, and army aviation. PLA combined-arms brigades have operational (armored, mechanized infantry, or light infantry) 

and support battalions. The result is modular, relatively flexible units that can perform multiple functions and deploy by rail or air to fight away from their home garrison.63 As part of 

efforts to build a fully mechanized force by 2020, the PLA operates 5,850 main battle tanks, 

although only about half of these are modern, frontline systems, along with 5,800 infantry 

fighting vehicles and 3,950 armored personnel carriers.64 The army also has six amphibious 

brigades that could be used in an invasion of Taiwan.
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 87

The PLA Navy has been upgrading and developing new major combat platforms 

(surface ships, submarines, and aircraft) that incorporate modern technology, including 

advanced antiship cruise missiles and advanced surface-to-air missiles. Its best surface platforms, such as the new Type-055 cruiser currently in sea trials, approach U.S. and Russian 

capability levels, and it is outbuilding the U.S. and Russian navies as it replaces older ships 

with much more capable modern replacements. The navy currently operates one rebuilt 

Ukrainian aircraft carrier, is conducting sea trials on an indigenously built carrier, and is 

building a third flat-deck carrier that can launch aircraft capable of offensive operations. The 

navy’s aircraft carriers, advanced destroyers (28) and frigates (52), replenishment vessels, 

and amphibious assault ships give it an increasing ability to operate further from China’s 

coast, including into the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. This capability is necessary to 

protect China’s overseas interests and is reflected in China’s new naval doctrine of “near seas 

defense and far seas protection.”65

Over the last 20 years, purchases of advanced aircraft from Russia and improvements 

in the ability of China’s aviation industry to produce modern aircraft have significantly 

enhanced the PLA Air Force’s combat capabilities. Although not on technical par with the 

most advanced U.S. and Russian aircraft, the Chinese air force now operates more than 900 

modern fourth-generation fighters such as the J-10 and J-11, has deployed its first squadron 

of J-20 stealth fighters, and is developing new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to 

augment its existing force of about 176 H-6 bombers. The air force also controls China’s 

paratrooper corps and transport aircraft, which provide the PLA a degree of strategic mobility. Air force doctrine has shifted from territorial air defense to conducting both offensive 

and defensive missions, including a growing emphasis on long-range strategic attack and 

bombing operations over water.66 China has a growing UAS program that features robust 

low-altitude, low-endurance systems; three known variants of mid-altitude, long-endurance surveillance or strike drones; and at least one high-altitude, long-endurance UAS that 

has been observed in the South China Sea and near the disputed Sino-Indian border.67

China’s Rocket Force, formerly known as the Second Artillery Corps, operates China’s 

intercontinental (about 100), intermediate-range (about 72), and medium-range (about 80) 

nuclear ballistic missiles and a large conventional force with ballistic and cruise missiles of 

various ranges that can target Taiwan and U.S. bases throughout the region. It has primary 

responsibility for deterring a nuclear attack and being prepared to retaliate if deterrence 

fails. China’s nuclear policy calls for a “lean and effective” nuclear force focused on deterring 

nuclear attack in accordance with China’s “no first use” nuclear policy. Accordingly, China 

has been satisfied with a much smaller nuclear arsenal than the United States and Russia 

(which both have about 1,600 deployed strategic warheads), although the size has expanded 

to about 300 deployed warheads as the Rocket Force has increased the number of missiles 

(including some with multiple warheads) and the navy has deployed four ballistic missile 

submarines.68 The Rocket Force probably also controls other strategic capabilities based on 

missiles, such as China’s direct-ascent antisatellite weapons and the antiship ballistic missile 

versions of the DF-21 and DF-26 missiles.

The PLA performs a range of tasks, including domestic missions such as maintaining 

political security and social stability, traditional military missions such as nuclear deterrence and protecting China’s sovereignty and security, new missions such as protecting 
88 Lynch and Saunders

China’s economic development and China’s interests in space and cyberspace, and nontraditional security missions such as emergency rescue, disaster relief, and international 

security cooperation. The PLA also supports China’s foreign policy and broader strategic 

objectives by engaging in military diplomacy, with a focus in 2020 on the United States and 

Russia, and by engaging with the countries on China’s periphery in the Pacific region.69 PLA 

diplomacy places special emphasis on senior-level visits, exercises with foreign militaries, 

and naval port calls. In 2018, the PLA conducted more than 60 bilateral and multilateral 

exercises with foreign militaries.70

China has the second largest defense budget. Its estimated $250 billion in expenditures 

in 2018 was roughly 40 percent of the U.S. base defense expenditure budget of $650 billion, 

but 4 times higher than Russia’s $61.4 billion.71 China remains a major importer of weapons 

and military technology, depending on Russia for jet engines, advanced missiles, sensors, 

and other military systems—although this dependence has declined significantly over 

time and will probably end in the next decade.72 China’s improved military industrial base 

makes it a major arms exporter to developing states, particularly in Asia. Between 2008 and 

2018, China exported some $15.7 billion worth of conventional weapons across the globe, 

making it the fifth largest arms supplier in the world—behind the United States, Russia, 

Germany, and France. The lion’s share of these exports—about 75 percent—went to Asia. 

An additional 20 percent flowed into Africa.73 China’s arms exports niche has historically 

been medium-cost, medium-capability systems, and its export potential is also limited by 

the fact that many countries will not procure Chinese arms for political reasons. From 2014 

to 2018, China delivered major arms to 53 countries, compared with 32 from 2004 to 2008. 

Pakistan was the main recipient (37 percent) from 2014 to 2018, as it has been for all 5-year 

periods since 1991. From 2014 to 2018, China became the largest exporter in the niche market of unmanned combat aerial vehicles, partly because the United States has restrictions on 

exports of these systems, and Russia has lagged in UAS development.74

China’s principal military weakness relative to the United States and Russia is its limited power projection capability. China has invested in antiaccess/area-denial capabilities 

such as advanced diesel submarines, advanced surface-to-air missiles, antiship cruise missiles, and an innovative antiship ballistic missile designed to attack U.S. aircraft carriers. 

These capabilities raise the costs and risks for U.S. forces operating near China. The PLA’s 

current limitations are partially offset by its geographic location and priority area for strategic focus in the Pacific. The United States, Russia, and other potential military contestants 

face challenges in projecting power and influence into the Western Pacific and Asia, where 

the Chinese are most obviously optimizing military capabilities for the coming decade.

However, the PLA’s power projection capabilities fall off rapidly with distance, and 

China lacks allies or a network of overseas bases that could extend its range into other regions.75 Nevertheless, the PLA is gradually expanding its global reach.76 China has invested 

in a range of antisatellite capabilities that could degrade, interfere with, or directly attack 

U.S. satellites and has extensive cyber capabilities to collect intelligence and attack U.S. military computer networks. The PLA is developing a range of hypersonic weapons (and has 

deployed the DF-17 medium-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle) and is 

investing heavily in military applications of artificial intelligence.77
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 89

China is using its political and diplomatic clout to advance its influence within existing 

global institutions and by creating alternative ones.78 In the late 2010s, China was a full 

member of 15 major intergovernmental organizations and an observer in two dozen others. 

These numbers were unremarkable and actually only two-thirds the number (22) of formal 

intergovernmental organization (IGO) memberships held by the United States and Russia 

at the same time.79 However, China has been using its influence within the United Nations 

(UN) system and with other intergovernmental organizations to pick up diplomatic and 

political “distressed assets” abandoned by the United States and its allies and repurpose 

them to serve its strategic goals. China is now the second largest funder of the UN (behind 

the United States) and provides more troops to UN peacekeeping missions than any of the 

other permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC). Over the past decade, Chinese candidates have taken on senior leadership positions at the World Bank, Interpol, the 

United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, and the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization. China has 

also sent military officers to lead UN peacekeeping missions in Western Sahara and Cyprus.

China’s pursuit of crucial international organization posts has raised alarm among 

human rights and free speech advocates who fear Beijing will set back progress on these 

issues. After a former Chinese official was appointed head of Interpol in 2016, Beijing successfully used Interpol’s “red notice” system to pursue critics living abroad. Beijing has also 

pressed to cut funding for human rights investigators in UN peacekeeping operations. In 

Geneva, the UN has stifled Chinese human rights advocates from making their case before 

the world. China’s play for leadership of UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) revealed that it views the Paris-based organization as more than just an 

overseer of world heritage sites and educational programs. Beijing also sees UNESCO as a 

vehicle to regulate the global Internet.80 In addition, China practiced “lawfare” by leveraging 

its positions in treaties and regimes to ignore or reinterpret canonical provisions of international agreements when these undercut Beijing’s preferences, as with UN Convention on 

the Law of the Sea provisions involving the right of all ships to innocent passage through 

its territorial seas.81

A second line of effort involves China creating alternative organizations that compete 

with existing international arrangements. Its BRI and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank 

(AIIB) stand out as state-led infrastructure development programs that provide alternatives to multilateral UN development organizations such as the World Bank, International 

Monetary Fund, and Asian Development Bank. India and the United States rejected the 

state-led BRI model, and the United States shunned participation in the AIIB for similar 

reasons. Some argue that China’s effort to build a parallel alternative framework for global 

infrastructure development does not pose a major challenge due to resource limitations 

and the AIIB’s status as a multinational entity relying on standing commercial markets.82

However, the existence of alternatives undercuts World Bank efforts to incorporate anticorruption, labor, and environmental standards in lending to developing countries. Others 

note that as BRI reached its 5-year anniversary in late 2018, as many as 14 percent of its 

projects (accounting for 32 percent of global BRI project value) had run into some kind of 

trouble. Many BRI projects confront local pushback from performance delays, lack of local 

workforce participation, and predatory project loan terms—including in states friendly 
90 Lynch and Saunders

to China such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and 

Malaysia.83 The extent to which China’s alternative global institutional framework 

will gain traction and produce significant 

leverage for Beijing in the coming decade 

remains unclear.

China has extensive propaganda and 

communications tools to get its message out 

to international audiences, but the content 

of that message limits its effectiveness. Beijing’s ability to craft and disseminate its preferred 

ideology in a resonant and positive message has been improving over the past decade but 

still exhibits significant liabilities and shortcomings. China’s ideological framework of “a 

community of common destiny” glosses over conflicts of interest between nations and instead places emphasis on state sovereignty at the expense of human rights and freedoms, 

which inherently limits appeal. These values resonate with autocratic elites but not so much 

with ordinary citizens.

China has historically maintained an extensive censorship and propaganda apparatus to get the party’s message out and to control and censor competing messages within 

China. The ruling Communist Party has adapted this apparatus to the Internet age, investing heavily in modern technologies (sometimes called the Great Firewall of China) to 

ban unwanted information from public view on the Internet and on social media. China 

has also increasingly pursued an assertive ideological strategy aimed at international audiences. With massive infusions of money—funding advertorials, state-owned newspapers 

and television networks, sponsored journalistic coverage, and positive messages from coopted boosters—China has been trying to reshape global views of itself by exploiting the 

vulnerabilities of the international free press and higher education establishments.

Beijing’s main means of international influence has been through print, television, and 

radio. Its pays for Chinese “information supplements” to appear in respected international 

newspapers like the Washington Post. It oversees Xinhua, a state-run global media service 

that produces CCP-friendly stories for worldwide dissemination in multiple languages 

and boasts an 11.5-million-follower Twitter account (despite the fact that Twitter access is 

banned in China). It endorsed the acquisition of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post in 

2015 by the CEO of the Alibaba Group (e-commerce), who inserted a management team that 

promised to provide a positive view of China. It generates content from its state-run China 

Radio International for use by broadcast networks from Norway to Turkey to Australia. It 

has generously funded a globally positioned China Global Television Network—rebranded 

in 2016 as the international arm of China Central Television—promising local journalists 

across the world excellent money and opportunity so long as they tell China’s story well. The 

content emphasizes the generosity of the Chinese people and the benign nature of the Chinese government while amplifying the chaotic and unpredictable nature of Western politics 

and liberal democracies. Finally, China invested extensively in several hundred Confucius 

Institutes at universities around the world to promote Chinese language and culture and 

to promulgate CCP perspectives on an array of international and Chinese-related issues. 

These have drawn scrutiny in recent years for stipulating that the Chinese government must 

“We assess that China’s intelligence services will exploit the openness of American 

society, especially academia and the scientific community, using a variety of means.”

—Daniel R. Coats, Worldwide Threat 

Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence 

Community, ODNI, January 29, 2019
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 91

approve teachers, events, and speakers at events on Western university campuses, while the 

Chinese government has refused U.S. State Department efforts to set up American Cultural 

Centers on Chinese college campuses.84

These efforts at information dissemination and image-making have met with uninspiring results. Across 34 countries surveyed, the 2019 Pew Global Attitudes Survey found a 

median of 40 percent had a favorable opinion of China, compared with a median of 41 percent who had an unfavorable opinion. Asia-Pacific, North America, and Western Europe 

saw a decline in favorable views of China compared to 2018.85 But it will be interesting to 

see how Western European perspectives trend after China’s very public assistance to states 

hard hit by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic there. Conversely, African views of China are 

generally positive, averaging 62 percent favorable ratings.86 Polling results indicate that China’s image-making tools are having limited success in the regions of greatest concern—the 

Asia-Pacific and South Asia. Just one state in the region considers Beijing to be a friend: 

Pakistan. Even North Korea and Iran have transactional relations with Beijing. The Chinese 

language also limits the effectiveness of Chinese propaganda efforts. Very few people speak 

Chinese fluently as a second language around the world, while English is spoken fluently by 

almost 1.8 billion people, including hundreds of millions across the Indo-Pacific. The language barrier and the heavy role of state censorship has limited China’s ability to use music, 

film, and entertainment as global soft power tools. These also are impediments to China’s 

ability to use education as a source of cultural influence. Although China hosted 492,000 

foreign students in 2019 (third most in the world), the quality of Chinese higher education 

institutions varies widely, and Xi Jinping’s efforts to tighten the CCP’s ideological grip over 

college lesson plans are likely to leave a negative impression on foreign visitors.87

Key Chinese Power Tools and Their Strategic Utility. China’s contemporary overall 

power rests largely on its status as an economic global giant with growing resources and 

a steadily improving technology base. Beijing’s global economic influence already exceeds 

that of the United States in some important categories that will continue to expand over 

the coming 5 to 7 years. Its capital reserves, level of industrialization, and attention toward 

high-tech innovation and military modernization underpin ongoing efforts both to assume 

leadership in current international economic and political institutions and to develop new 

ones more conducive to Beijing’s interests. Yet China’s projected economic power advantages may not be sustainable in the out years, unless it finds a way to redress weaknesses that 

may constrain growth, including a fast-aging population, an educational and intellectual 

culture that constrains innovation, and an undersized presence in financial markets that 

limits the revenue potential and influence of Chinese financial services.

Beijing is spending far more on military forces than Russia and more than any other 

country except the United States. If its military spending and investment trends continue, 

China has the capacity to equal or surpass the U.S. economy and U.S. military forces at 

some point during the next two decades but not in the coming one. China’s emergence as a 

full superpower is uncertain, and the timing is impossible to predict.88

China’s military capabilities have grown over the last decade to the point where it can 

compete with the U.S. military in East Asia and the Western Pacific. Its forces can deny 

U.S. naval and air forces uncontested access to areas near the Chinese coast, and it can hold 
92 Lynch and Saunders

major U.S. air and naval weapons platforms at risk. However, China will be pressed to project power outside the second island chain over the next 5 to 10 years.

China’s diplomatic power tools are important but not impressive. Beijing has filled 

leadership vacuums left by recent American and European withdrawals from international 

organizations and attempted to use these to advance Chinese national interests and/or 

change the institutional rules to suit Beijing’s preferences.

China displays clear deficiencies in its ideological, cultural, and communications power 

dynamics. Beijing has no real multilateral political or military alliances, and only one true 

long-term strategic relationship. It pursues transactional interactions with economic and 

investment partners often wary of Chinese interests and financial terms. China gets poor 

ratings and survey responses regarding levels of international respect and trust. Despite an 

intense effort to improve global messaging, its national narrative focused on state control 

and social order over individual liberties resonates poorly outside of authoritarian circles. 

Finally, China continues to demonstrate limited language, cultural, or academic appeal. 

Beijing’s proactive global response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic may help overcome 

these deficiencies and offset criticism that its repressive internal politics hid the problem 

from the rest of the world for far too long. How this plays out remains to be seen.89

China’s power tools are skewed toward the economic today but have long-term potential to develop more broadly. China’s trade and investment prowess make it a major force 

in the economic competitive space, and its long-term plan to leverage this economic advantage to develop military, political, informational, and ideological capability is palpable. 

China’s contemporary power factors do not present a current urgent military threat, but in 

the long term, China’s growth and global aspirations make it the most important potential 

Great Power challenger to the current U.S. global position and to longstanding American/

Western values, norms, and institutions.

Russia’s Competitive Posture and Tool Sets 

General Russian Power Factors and Approaches. In 2020, Russia’s application of its 

power resources to international competition remains as it has been for the prior decade: 

tactically successful despite severe structural shortcomings. Some analysts assert that Russia has a viable long-term strategy for use of its limited power base, a “raiding” strategic 

framework.90 They see an underlying strategic logic behind a decade of Russian activism 

that includes Moscow’s ongoing interventions into Georgia and Ukraine; its ventures into 

Syria and Libya; its norms-busting interactions with Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela; 

its ongoing use of cyber tools to disrupt and discredit elections in Europe and the United 

States; and its tactical rapprochement with China. Yet most strategic observers do not believe Russia has a true international strategy and credit Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with 

masterfully playing a weak and eroding power base to maximum short-term effect.91

Russia’s major power factors are not generally positive but do include critical military 

capabilities. Russian military power tools are a mixed bag. Moscow retains a vast nuclear 

arsenal, one equal in size to that of the United States, with an estimated, treaty-authorized 

1,600 active deployed strategic nuclear warheads.92 Russian nuclear weapons underpin Moscow’s claim to Great Power status and are distributed between an estimated 860 land-based 

delivery missiles, 10 ballistic missile submarines, and 50 bomber aircraft.93 Russia is actively 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 93

modernizing this nuclear weapons force with new single-warhead and multiple-warhead 

missiles, a hypersonic glide missile delivery vehicle, new cruise missiles for its bombers, and 

reportedly new intermediate-range missiles and a rail-mobile missile—both long banned 

by Cold War–era arms control treaties that have either expired or are not likely to survive in 

the future.94 Despite many reported delays and frequent testing challenges, Russian modernization efforts convince many military analysts that Moscow will be able to sustain a secure, 

second-strike nuclear deterrent at a price far more affordable than the prohibitive costs of 

developing robust antiballistic missile systems.95

Since 2011, Putin’s Russia also has modernized its conventional military forces. The 

modernization has not generated a globally relevant conventional force. In 2019, Russia 

had 1 million members in its active-duty, conscript-based military, with more than 800,000 

of these in ground and aviation units with home-country defense missions rather than 

deployment-capable ratings. Its navy featured 1 inoperable aircraft carrier, 56 aging submarines in varying states of repair, and a surface fleet heavy on Corvettes and shore patrol craft 

compared with an American fleet featuring 12 capital aircraft carriers, 68 fully operable 

submarines, and a surface fleet dominated by more than 90 frigates and destroyers. Russia’s 

air force possessed fewer than 900 fighters compared to the 2,400 in the U.S. Air Force; an 

attack aircraft fleet of 1,500 that was half that of the United States; helicopter units with only 

25 percent of the U.S. military’s 5,800; and a transport aircraft fleet of 400, barely more than 

one-third the size of the U.S. force.96 In addition, Russia’s recent conventional military track 

record features multiple mishaps and embarrassments that call into question its ability to 

sustain global reach: Its only aircraft carrier, the geriatric Admiral Kuznetzov, suffered debilitating mechanical and safety incidents from 2016 to 2018 that have placed it in dry dock 

through at least 2021; its vaunted and extremely expensive T-14 Armata main battle tank 

reportedly failed many operational tests before its prototype broke during rehearsal for the 

May 2015 Victory Parade in Moscow; and its military aircraft—fighters and transports—

began crashing at a regular and alarming rate from 2015 to 2019.97

However, since the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, strategically targeted military investments have underwritten a significant and meaningful upgrade of conventional and gray 

zone Russian military capabilities.98 Generating a small annual defense budget compared to 

China and especially the United States, Russia spent 50 percent of its military budget over 

the decade—a disproportionately large share—on procurement of precision-guided and enhanced conventional strike weapons.99 It capitalized a new generation of precision-guided 

munitions, modernized almost 1,000 of its current helicopter fleet of 1,485, and generated 

1,000 new or modernized combat aircraft out of a force of 1,500.100 The Russian military has 

increased its operational UAS fleet to over 2,000 systems, most of which are tactical and all 

of which are intelligence and surveillance models, not strike variants. Moscow has budgeted 

over $10 billion to develop combat UAS programs by 2020, and it has been aggressively developing counter-UAS capabilities featuring electronic warfare, counter-GPS spoofing, and 

kinetic detect-and-kill systems.101 These enhanced and modernized systems mesh well with 

a smaller and more professional and deployable Army and Special Forces military cadre, 

often intermixed with civilian Russian private military company or mercenary forces.102

Russia also has built flotillas of small surface ships and diesel-powered submarines in the 

Black Sea and Caspian Sea—both equipped with long-range, sea-launched cruise missiles—
94 Lynch and Saunders

and a number of cruise missile–carrying frigates. These weapons expand Russia’s military 

strike reach to waters around most of Eurasia.103 Russia aims to build a similar fleet in the 

Baltic Sea over the coming decade.

As of 2020, Russia’s nominal GDP is only $1.7 trillion compared with $15 trillion for 

China and $22 trillion for the United States (see figure 3b.1). Russia is a “one crop economy” 

with a heavy dependence on energy exports (mainly oil and natural gas) that accounted for 

almost 60 percent of Russian exports and almost all of Moscow’s $120 billion trade surplus 

in 2017.104 Russia’s dependence on energy export revenue is high, but its share of global 

exports remains low for its size—only 2.6 percent in 2018. Almost 55 percent of Russian 

exports went to Europe, with another 37 percent going to Asian trading partners, mainly 

China and South Korea.105 Russia’s level of industrialization hovers in the 30 percent range, 

well below other modern economies, and has remained relatively unchanged for more than 

two decades (see figure 3b.2). Russian high-tech manufacturing is subpar and declining, 

with only 11 percent of its 2018 manufactured exports consisting of high-tech products—

just over one-half of America’s 19 percent, one-third of China’s 31 percent, and well below 

the global average of 18 percent.106

These numbers correspond with Russia’s relatively low rankings on two other measures of modern economic performance: level of business innovation and share of global 

financial market transactions. In 2018, Russia’s global innovation ranking was 46 out of 

118 countries, relatively unchanged in the last decade, far below other modern economies, 

and a factor that restrains Moscow’s ability to modernize its economy for a fast-changing 

future. Russia’s share of global financial market transactions in 2018 was less than 1/10 of 

1 percent—far below all other modern economies and a statistic indicating the inability of 

Russia—save for a handful of Putin-linked autocrats—to derive profit from the dynamic 

and expanding elements of the broader global services economy. The political institutions 

for an effective market economy in Russia are largely missing, its currency (the ruble) is 

an untrustworthy investment instrument, and robber-baron state capitalism lacks the kind 

of effective regulation and predictability that generates the trust necessary for economic 

investment, exchange, or growth.107 Combined, Russia’s trade as well as its financial and innovation limitations bode ill for its ability to generate sustainable tools for successful Great 

Power competition today or into the future.108

Russia fares just as poorly in measures of ideological resonance and cultural identity. 

It has demonstrated some success in promulgating a message of mistrust for Western institutions and values around the world, modestly increasing Russia’s relative stature as an 

influential state.109 Russia also has obvious linguistic and cultural affinity in former Soviet 

states and its “near abroad,” especially in Belarus, Central Asia, and Mongolia, but the Russia brand and narrative do not resonate more widely. Only 34 percent of global respondents 

in a 2018 Pew International Survey had a favorable view of Russia, and 63 percent had no 

confidence in Vladimir Putin.110 Few outside Russia speak Russian or watch Russian films 

or Internet programming in Russian. No Russian universities are ranked in the global top 

100. Putin’s Russian lifestyle lacks global appeal. Its public health system is weak; average 

Russian life expectancy is 5 years shorter for men and women than in Europe and a dozen 

years lower for men than in the United States. Russia’s current population of 145 million 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 95

is forecast to decline to 121 million by mid-century, calling into question the ability of the 

Russian social system to support itself.111

Despite a negative global image and constrained ideological appeal, Russia does possess and wield several diplomatic and communications power tools to good effect. Putin’s 

Russia has been a member of 22 major intergovernmental organizations for a decade or 

more (it was expelled from the G7/8 in 2015 after its annexation of Crimea and invasion 

of eastern Ukraine). Its political IGO affiliations include permanent member status on the 

UNSC, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Interpol.112 Moscow applies this 

diplomatic power to advance Russian policy interests and to make its case for recognition of 

controversial policies. For example, in 2015 Moscow protested listing a Sevastapol nuclear 

facility as belonging to Ukraine in an annual IAEA report annex, insisting that the facility in 

the Crimean city be listed as Russian.113 Putin’s Russia also advances its preferred standards 

of international policing and criminal accountability via Interpol, where in late 2018 the 

Russian nominee for the president was rejected by Western delegates based on Moscow’s 

history of using Interpol to target Putin’s political foes.114

In the information and communications space, Putin’s Russia has funded and managed three substantive agencies for overt and covert dissemination of its global viewpoints: 

Russian Television (RT), Sputnik radio, and the Internet Research Agency (IRA). All are 

funded by the Russian government and work to disseminate propaganda and put out disinformation intended to polarize and confuse non-Russian audiences in a manner aimed to 

sow mistrust of Western media and institutions.115 These tools modernize and update techniques used by Soviet Union intelligence agencies during the Cold War, today making the 

viewpoints of Putin’s Russia available in 24 languages, especially English. They also amplify 

manifestly fake but disturbing stories that are difficult to disprove and create the feeling that 

no one knows quite what is real.

Relying heavily on the multiplier effect of high-volume retweeting and forwarding of 

its specious stories, the daily deluge of disinformation produced by RT and Sputnik has a 

nontrivial societal impact across much of the West and is a tactic that other authoritarian 

regimes are seeking to replicate.116 The IRA is the covert social media influence and operation funded by the Russian government that works with Russian military intelligence 

hacking units to promulgate targeted disinformation and propaganda designed to distort 

voter perceptions and manipulate participation in democratic elections across Europe and 

in the United States.117 At the same time, Putin’s Russia has been developing the tools to isolate Russia from the global Internet, passing a 2019 law that allows such a cutoff and testing 

the technology necessary to operate a Russia-only Intranet.118

Russia has attempted to counter a longstanding negative humanitarian image in reply 

to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moscow sent hard-hit Italy a shipment of pandemic assistance 

materials in late March 2020, in an apparent effort to contrast itself with the European 

Union that reportedly sent Italy nothing. It remains to be seen if Putin’s humanitarian gesture is remembered as genuine or a publicity ploy, especially since reports from Italy were 

that 80 percent of what Russia sent was of little use to Italy.119

Key Russian Power Tools and Their Strategic Utility. Even though Putin’s Russia is in 

unambiguous relative economic decline compared to the United States and China, Russia 

in 2020 possesses a geographic expanse, a skilled workforce, and the vast natural resources 
96 Lynch and Saunders

to balance against U.S. hegemony and China’s rise for at least the coming decade. Its most 

important power tools are its nuclear weapons, its skills in cyber technology and the promulgation of information/disinformation, and its vast stores of oil and gas. Russia also has 

a diplomatic gravitas and a limited, modernized military and paramilitary capability necessary for projection of force in selected areas where its most significant strategic interests 

are engaged.

Russia’s limited economic and ideological power attributes and potent but declining 

military, diplomatic, and communications tools make Moscow most capable of achieving 

foreign policy outcomes in its near abroad: Eurasia.

Outside Eurasia, the region where Russian diplomatic, military, and communications capability appears to be the most relevant is the Middle East. There, Moscow can 

use military bases in Syria and Iran to selectively employ its new conventional strike assets—conventional military and contractor ground forces equipped with precision-guided 

conventional weapons including missiles, rotary and fixed-wing attack aircraft, and conventional long-range cruise missiles launched from land and sea.

Russia’s power limitations require it to avoid direct military confrontation with the 

United States and to seek tactical accommodation with China in areas where Sino-Russian 

key interests align for the coming decade. For at least the next 5 years, the two will continue 

to cooperate closely in the UNSC, take similar positions on cyber sovereignty and Internet governance, and use various diplomatic frameworks such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, 

India, China, and South Africa) grouping and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to 

coordinate joint security and policy positions. They also should be anticipated to continue 

arrangements that share nonnuclear military technology and to conduct joint military exercises on a symbolic, limited basis. Despite the Sino-Russian entente, Russia continues to sell 

arms and provide advanced military technology to countries that have territorial disputes 

with China, such as Vietnam and India.

Russia’s relative power capabilities are heavily concentrated in the military arena, with 

tools ranging from a formidable nuclear weapons arsenal, to significant conventional military 

power projection capabilities, and to a successfully employed set of gray zone armed actors. 

Moscow’s information operations potential is equally impressive and unscrupulous, adding 

to the short-term capacity of Russia to pursue a strategy of disruption against Western institutions and organizations. Yet Russia’s economic, ideological, and political power tools are 

substandard for a durable global power now and are likely to atrophy further over the next 5 

years. Its severe limitations in many critical areas of power development and projection make 

Russia an urgent but not a grave threat to many immediate American/Western competitive 

interests. They also render it a dubious long-term challenger for Great Power ascendance.

Net Power vs. Gross Power Indicators: A Less 

Imminent Great Power Transition? 

The conclusions reached above about the relative status of American, Chinese, and Russian 

power attributes today and into the future—a future featuring the disruptive technologies 

of the fourth industrial revolution (addressed in chapter 4) and increasingly service-based 

economies—were made from comparison of their gross factors of power—that is, factors of 

power available for use before any internal “costs” or “taxes” on them from domestic needs 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 97

and constraints are factored in. Some political scientists, most notably Michael Beckley 

of Tufts University, contend that gross power indicators misrepresent actual state power. 

Beckley believes that one must move beyond gross power factors and calculate the net index 

of Great Power factors to get a realistic feel for relative state power.

Beckley has generated such a net power index. It focuses on net power resources, which 

he defines as the resources available to a country after subtracting production costs, welfare costs, and security costs. His net power approach captures the fact that countries with 

large populations and potential domestic challenges will spend most of their gross power 

resources supporting their people and maintaining domestic stability, leaving fewer net 

resources available for external use in Great Power competition. Beckley argues that for 

populous countries such as China, gross power often significantly overstates actual capabilities and net power provides a more accurate assessment. His determination of net power 

factors can be applied by a comparative index to the U.S.-China, U.S.-Russia, and China-Russia competitive dyads over the past 25 years. Table 3b.2 makes this application and 

demonstrates the discrepancy between gross power balances between two states and net 

power balances, measured as a percentage difference in the two calculations.

Low numbers indicate a small gap between gross power factor comparisons (from the 

Correlates of War Composite Index of National Capability) and net power comparisons, 

while higher numbers indicate a greater disparity.120 The calculated numbers for 2015 indicate that the net power disparity between Russia and the United States closely matches the 

gross power disparity, which validates a large gap in overall power attributes. Conversely, 

the figures for the United States vs. China and Russia vs. China show large disparities, suggesting that gross power calculations significantly exaggerate China’s actual power. The 23 

percent gap between U.S. and China net and gross power comparison reflects the high 

costs China faces in maintaining domestic stability and generating military forces that is 

not captured in gross power calculations. This difference is similar to the number Beckley 

calculated in net-vs.-gross power between Germany and Russia in the 1890 to 1917 period, 

where gross power calculations severely overestimated Russian power. The even higher 37 

percent gap for Russia and China in 2015 is similar to the disparity Beckley calculated 

between Britain and China between 1840 and 1910, a period where Britain’s small size misassessed the huge power deficiency that came from China’s enormous internal security and 

societal costs. The implication is that China’s contemporary internal challenges and costs 

again make its gross power indicators exaggerate its actual overall power potential.121 In 

turn, the use of a net power comparison indicates that a Great Power transition between the 

United States and China is far from imminent.

Comparative Insights and Implications: 2020–2025 and Beyond 

This detailed review of contemporary Great Power factors and their strategic utility reveals 

eight major insights.

First, the modern Great Powers—the United States, Russia, and China—will compete 

across the five categories listed in table 3b.1 in a manner featuring some cooperation and 

collaboration but with increasing episodes of confrontation, especially over nonmilitary 

issues. The tools of competition traditionally associated with one category of interaction in 

a less rivalrous era will be used more and more often to achieve strategic effects in another 
98 Lynch and Saunders

category during Great Power competition. 

This is both a return to historic dynamics of 

interstate rivalry and a reason that concepts 

such as sharp power, gray zone operations, 

and geoeconomics now appear frequently 

in the writing and thinking of those today 

grappling with old geopolitical concepts 

now made new.

Second, the most important gross 

power indicators available today and their 

projections for the next 5 to 10 years clearly 

indicate that for Washington, Russia is an 

urgent but transient security risk, while China is the most important—albeit presently less 

threatening—Great Power challenger to U.S. national interests and global policy preferences. A net power comparison between the United States and China indicates that their 

power transition timeline is longer than some now fear.

Third, America’s military advantage—albeit not what it was in the two-decade period 

from 1992 to 2014—remains robust. America remains largely unrivaled in the one area that 

matters most to its military power potential: its ability to deploy effective forces anywhere in 

the world in the event of a crisis.122 However, this advantage could be less definitive if China 

or Russia is able to pick favorable political and geographic ground for a short but decisive 

military conflict and limit America’s ability to bring its full power advantages to bear in a 

particular setting. This is especially true in the Indo-Pacific region and is addressed in detail 

in chapter 9.

Fourth—and in alignment with the third insight—neither Russia nor China possesses 

the power to prevail in a protracted military clash with the United States today or for the 

foreseeable future. Each knows this and, unless guilty of a serious miscalculation, will seek 

to avoid a direct military clash with the United States if at all possible, between now and 

2025. Washington can leverage this to its advantage while pursuing a strategy that collaborates when possible, competes smartly, and confronts unacceptable behaviors and policy 

challenges adroitly. American military dominance is an asset in this new era of Great Power 

competition, but the United States needs to develop new competitive tools in nonmilitary 

areas. Its current strength gives it the opportunity to wean itself from its post–Cold War 

addiction to military instruments and develop more fungible capabilities across the diplomatic, ideological, informational, and economic categories of Great Power interaction. 

Improving America’s capacity and ability to wield nonmilitary instruments effectively is 

necessary to compete effectively in a new era of Great Power rivalry.

Fifth, China today has the economic and communications/information power necessary to compete with the United States (and Russia) for access and influence around the 

world. Its use of foreign investment through the BRI and the AIIB demonstrates China’s 

ability to win access and influence, at least in the short run. The longer run strategic impact 

remains uncertain as the downsides of Beijing’s ideological message and its often-criticized 

predatory economics model may not provide sustainable influence in the future. China 

has the ability to seriously constrain U.S. (or Russian) military activities in East Asia, in 

“The competition is likely to be multilayered and interactive. No single theme or 

model will capture the complex mosaic of 

global competition, and the intersections 

among diverse types of competition—how 

success or failure in one area exacerbates 

or mitigates others—will be a crucial determinant of relative success.”

—Michael J. Mazarr et al., Understanding 

the Emerging Era of International 

Competition, RAND (2018)
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 99

the Western Pacific, in cyberspace, and increasingly in space. These factors suggest that 

the United States must calibrate a competitive strategy for these regions that leverages U.S. 

ideological and soft power advantages and seeks to undercut China’s economic strengths by 

highlighting the downsides for its partners.

Sixth, Russia’s power factors align well with the short-term, geographically limited 

strategy it has been pursuing. Moscow has clear military, economic, and communications 

advantages in its near abroad (Eurasia) and a limited but nontrivial ability to project these 

tools for influence in the Middle East, the Arctic, and cyberspace. However, Russia’s economic, ideological, and political challenges are likely to erode its power tools for influence 

beyond its near abroad as the decade of the 2020s progresses. A worthy U.S. approach to 

competition with Russia might optimize soft power and deterrent postures along Russia’s 

immediate periphery combined with more assertive competition (and, where necessary, 

nonmilitary confrontation) against Moscow’s use of global institutions and communications structures to delegitimize openness, transparency, and truth in the rest of the world.

Seventh, the combination of Great Power strategic interests and their current and 

future power potentials makes it clear that Russia is a dangerous near-term strategic competitor to the United States with the potential to do enormous military damage to America 

and the world if miscalculation leads to a military clash. China is a less insidious short-term 

challenger, but it is the Great Power with the strategic interests and the growing power 

potential to dramatically alter current norms, rules, and procedures preferred for international interactions by the United States and its Western allies. Washington must treat each 

Great Power accordingly. In the 2020 to 2025 window, Washington must choose whether, 

where, and how to compete. Put starkly, the United States can contest or confront its Great 

Power rivals today in accordance with a resolve to sustain its global position and the standing rules, norms, institutions, and alliances of the current international order, or it can 

abdicate leadership of the global order and allow a much more powerful China to extended 

its own version of global norms, rules, and institutions. The former course entails risks, 

but the latter course would not necessarily avoid a military confrontation, especially if the 

United States comes to view an increasingly Chinese ordered world to be unacceptable.123

Finally, past performance is not a guarantee of future results. The United States, China, 

and Russia each face major internal structural, economic, and demographic challenges.124

The choices each state’s political leadership make about how to address these domestic dynamics as well as their international challenges will determine the future power they will 

possess and the future policy options they might pursue.

Technology, Innovation, and GPC Considered 

The next chapter rounds out this volume’s first section dedicated to providing a conceptual 

framework for understanding a new era of Great Power competition. Major advances in 

technology have been demonstrated to empower the rise of new states into international 

preeminence. Emerging powers become dominant because they develop new economic 

spheres that become leading sectors of the global economy, underpinning the economic 

vitality and military power of that state in a reordered global hierarchy.125 At the same time, 

the diffusion of key technological know-how or inventiveness to other countries has been 

correlated with Great Power decline.126 Chapter 4 looks at the Great Powers in context with 
100 Lynch and Saunders

the ongoing fourth industrial revolution—one being driven by the rapid emergence and 

convergence of multiple technologies, including robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, energy, biotechnology, and food production. Chapter 4 considers critical technologies 

and their meaning for a new era of Great Power competition.

Notes

1

 This distinction from power literature, in particular, can be 

found in David Baldwin, Paradoxes of Power (New York: Bail 

Blackwell, 1989). The priority focus of this chapter on poweras-material-resources, before consideration of power as the 

ability-to-realize-ends, aligns with the approach in Stephen 

G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, America Abroad: The 

United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century (Oxford: Oxford 

University Press, 2016).

2

 This operational definition was derived from Thomas J. Volgy 

et al., “Major Power Status in International Politics,” in Major 

Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics: Global 

and Regional Perspectives, ed. Thomas J. Volgy et al. (New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 1–26. Their definition derives from 

an amalgam of several other classic efforts at defining Great 

Power status, including the following historic references: J. David 

Singer and Melvin Small, “Formal Alliances, 1815–1939: A 

Quantitative Description,” Journal of Peace Research 3, no. 1 

(March 1966); Jack Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System: 

1495–1975 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983); John 

J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: 

Norton, 2001); and Benjamin O. Fordham, “Who Wants to Be 

a Major Power? Explaining the Expansion of Foreign Policy 

Ambition,” Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 5 (2011), 587–603.

3 On the basic point of the misleading nature of gross domestic 

product (GDP) to capture overall national power decline, see 

Brooks and Wohlforth, America Abroad, 14–47.

4

 As an example, the United States realized $127 billion in 

receipts for the use of intellectual property in 2017, while 

China only netted $4.8 billion. On the number of America’s 

nonmanufacturing economic advantages underrepresented 

in GDP and other economic measurements, see Thomas J. 

Wright, All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the TwentyFirst Century and the Future of American Power (New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 2017), 165–168; Brooks and Wohlforth, 

America Abroad, 14–15. For data on comparative revenue from 

the global use of intellectual property in 2017, see “Charges for 

the Use of Intellectual Property, Receipts (BOP, Current US$)—

China, World, United States, East Asia & Pacific,” World Bank, 

available at <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.GSR.

ROYL.CD?end=2017&locations=CN-1W-US-Z4&start=2000>.

5

 Wright, All Measures Short of War, 165.

6

 Ibid., 165–168.

7

 Ibid.

8 Insight from Michael Beckley, “The Power of Nations: Measuring 

What Matters,” International Security 43, no. 2 (Fall 2018), 8–9, 

who argues for a use of net power indicators (power assets minus 

power liabilities). For insights on the historic use and defense of 

gross measures of state power in theory and in practice, see Paul M. 

Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change 

and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 

1987); John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

(New York: Norton, 2014), 55–138; Joseph Nye, Jr., The Future 

of Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011), 25–81; Ashley J. Tellis 

et al., Measuring Power in the Postindustrial Age (Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND, 2000), 1–33; Beckley, “The Power of Nations,” 8–12.

9

 This new index is based on the premise that while GDP 

systematically exaggerates the wealth and military capabilities 

of poor and populous countries—because they tally countries’ 

resources without deducting the costs countries pay to police, 

protect, and serve their people—thoughtful military studies show 

that the higher a country’s GDP per capita, the more efficiently 

its military fights in battle. The reason is that a vibrant civilian 

economy helps a country produce advanced weapons, train skillful 

military personnel, and manage complex military systems. GDP 

per capita provides a rough but reliable measure of economic and 

military efficiency. The new index reduces the distortions described 

by multiplying GDP and GDP per capita before making power 

comparisons. See Beckley, “The Power of Nations,” 14–19; Michael 

Beckley, “Economic Development and Military Effectiveness,” 

Journal of Strategic Studies 33, no. 1 (February 2010), 43–79.

10 Jeff Desgardins, “The $86 Trillion World Economy—In One 

Chart,” World Economic Forum, September 10, 2019, available 

at <www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/fifteen-countriesrepresent-three-quarters-total-gdp/>; Rob Smith, “The World’s 

Biggest Economies in 2018,” World Economic Forum, April 

18, 2018, available at <www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/

the-worlds-biggest-economies-in-2018/>.

11 Desgardins, “The $86 Trillion World Economy.”

12 “The Benefits of International Trade,” U.S. Chamber of 

Commerce, available at <www.uschamber.com/international/

international-policy/benefits-international-trade>.

13 Ken Roberts, “In Top 10 U.S. Exports for 2017, 3 Countries Keep 

Popping Up: China, Canada and Mexico,” Forbes, February 28, 

2018, available at <www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2018/02/28/

in-top-10-u-s-exports-for-2017-three-countries-keep-poppingup-china-canada-and-mexico/#3965f39860d3>.

14 World Bank, “High-Technology Exports (% of Manufactured 

Exports),” available at <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/

TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS?view=chart>.

15 Ken Roberts, “China Trade War Losses at $84 Billion 

and Counting—Does New Data Suggest Tide Turning 

Toward U.S.?” Forbes, December 16, 2019, available 

at <www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2019/12/16/

china-trade-war-losses-at-84-billion-and-counting—-does-newdata-suggest-tide-turning-toward-us/#35c3b543bd40>. Clearly, the 

global economic disruption from the 2019–2020 novel coronavirus 

will eclipse this trade war by quite some margin.

16 Steve Liesman, “Trade War Losses for the U.S. and China 

Grow into the Tens of Billions of Dollars,” CNBC, November 

5, 2019, available at <www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/trade-lossesfor-the-us-china-mount-into-tens-of-billions-of-dollars.html>.

17 See Economic and Trade Agreement Between the Government 

of the United States of America and the Government of the 

People’s Republic of China (Washington, DC: Office of the U.S. 

Trade Representative, 2020), available at <https://ustr.gov/sites/

default/files/files/agreements/phase%20one%20agreement/

Economic_And_Trade_Agreement_Between_The_United_

States_And_China_Text.pdf>.

18 In 2018, U.S. financial markets contributed 7.4 percent ($1.5 

trillion) to nominal U.S. GDP. In context, this was equal to 

the total size of the Russian economy that year. See “Financial 
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 101

Services Spotlight: The Financial Services Industry in the United 

States,” Select USA, n.d., available at <https://www.selectusa.gov/

financial-services-industry-united-states>.

19 Unless otherwise specified by individual note, the economic 

data cited in this paragraph and the prior one are found in the 

online appendix B of this volume, available at <https://ndupress.

ndu.edu/Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/>.

20 In 2014, the U.S. Treasury had some 6,000 financial sanctions 

in place; by late 2018, that number had reached 7,967. See Cathy 

Gilsinan, “A Boom Time for U.S. Sanctions,” The Atlantic, May 3, 

2019, available at <www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/05/

why-united-states-uses-sanctions-so-much/588625/>.

21 Ibid.

22 Foreign Holdings of Federal Debt, RS22331 (Washington, DC: 

Congressional Research Service, July 26, 2019), available at 

<https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf>.

23 Although not without economic pain and political risk, the 

United States has generated viable plans to reduce national debt 

and attendant risk to future power. For the most prominent 

recent one, the so-called Simpson-Bowles Plan, see Kevin 

Robillard, “Report: New Simpson-Bowles Plan,” Politico, 

February 19, 2013, available at <www.politico.com/story/2013/02/

report-new-simpson-bowles-plan-087769>.

24 Mark E. Cancian, “U.S. Military Forces in FY 2020: The 

Strategic and Budget Context,” Center for Strategic and 

International Studies (CSIS), September 30, 2019, available 

at <www.csis.org/analysis/us-military-forces-fy-2020-

strategic-and-budget-context?gclid=CjwKCAiAuqHwBRA

QEiwAD-zr3W5VXp25g3B_08uUJYHBc5_q9z58pywaOs_

SZD5HGS-xRlobyECggxoC2dEQAvD_BwE>.

25 All U.S. military data derived from “Chapter 2: Comparative 

Defence Statistics,” in The Military Balance (London: Institute 

of International Strategic Studies [IISS], 2019).

26 Zachary Morris, “U.S. Drones: Smaller, Less Capable Drones 

for the Near Future,” Military Review (May–June 2018), available 

at <https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/

English-Edition-Archives/May-June-2018/US-Drones-SmallerLess-Capable-Drones-for-the-Near-Future/>.

27 Laura Silver, “U.S. Is Seen as Top Ally in Many Countries—

But Others View It as a Threat,” Pew Research Center, 

December 5, 2019, available at <www.pewresearch.org/

fact-tank/2019/12/05/u-s-is-seen-as-a-top-ally-in-manycountries-but-others-view-it-as-a-threat/>.

28 Arms transfers from the United States bring security guarantees, 

which basically entail diplomatic and military assistance in case 

of troubles. See SIPRI Yearbook 2019: Armaments, Disarmament 

and International Security—Summary (Stockholm: Stockholm 

International Peace Research Institute [SIPRI], March 2019), 

6–9, available at <www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/

yb19_summary_eng.pdf>.

29 “U.S. Arms Sales and Defense Trade,” fact sheet, Department of 

State, May 21, 2019, available at <https://www.state.gov/u-s-armssales-and-defense-trade/>. Many analysts question the strategic 

value of military assistance and arms sales programs. For example, 

see Mara Karlin, “Why Military Assistance Programs Disappoint,” 

Foreign Affairs (November/December 2017), <www.brookings.

edu/articles/why-military-assistance-programs-disappoint/>.

30 “Diplomatic Dashboard,” available at <http://diplodash.pardee.

du.edu/>.

31 For this conceptualization, see John Ikenberry, “State Power 

and the Institutional Bargain: America’s Ambivalent Economic 

and Security Multilateralism,” in U.S. Hegemony and International 

Organizations: The United States and Multilateral Institutions, ed. 

Rosemary Foot, S. Neil MacFarlane, and Michael Mastanduno 

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

32 Dina Smeltz et al., America Engaged: American Public Opinion 

and U.S. Foreign Policy (Chicago: The Chicago Council on Global 

Affairs, 2018), available at <www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/

default/files/report_ccs18_america-engaged_181002.pdf>.

33 Stewart M. Patrick, “President Trump and the Future 

of Global Governance,” Council on Foreign Relations, 

January 31, 2017, available at <www.cfr.org/blog/

president-trump-and-future-global-governance>.

34 Jacob Poushter and Kristen Bialik, “Around the World, 

Favorability of the U.S. and Confidence in Its President 

Decline,” Pew Research Center, June 26, 2017, available at 

<www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/26/around-the-worldfavorability-of-u-s-and-confidence-in-its-president-decline/>.

35 See Martha Bayles, “How the World Perceives the New American 

Dream,” The Atlantic, October 10, 2015, available at <www.

theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/american-dreamworld-diplomacy/410080/>. Of note, the international projection 

of this “dream” has not been pushed by the U.S. Government since 

the Cold War. See Thomas G. Mahnken, Forging the Tools of 21st

Century Great Power Competition (Washington, DC: Center for 

Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2020), 30–31, 37.

36 Lane Crothers, Globalization and American Popular Culture, 

Vol. 4 (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017).

37 Tsedal Neely, “Global Business Speaks English,” Harvard 

Business Review (May 2012), available at <https://hbr.org/2012/05/

global-business-speaks-english>.

38 “One of America’s Most Vital Exports, Education, Never Goes 

Abroad, but It Still Faces Threats,” New York Times, January 3, 

2019, available at <www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/magazine/

one-of-americas-most-vital-exports-education-never-goesabroad-but-it-still-faces-threats.html>.

39 China’s National Defense in the New Era (Beijing: The State 

Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, 

July 2019), 5–7; Joel Wuthnow, Chinese Perspectives on the Belt 

and Road Initiative: Strategic Rationales, Risks and Implications, 

China Strategic Perspectives 12 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 

October 2017), 9.

40 Bayles, “How the World Perceives the New American Dream.”

41 Ibid.; Mahnken, Forging the Tools of 21st Century Great Power 

Competition, 30–31.

42 Mahnken, Forging the Tools of 21st Century Great Power 

Competition, 31.

43 As of early 2020, the leadership of this State Department 

Bureau had no political appointee, indicating its relative stature in 

American diplomacy. See Bureau of Global Public Affairs (Web 

site), Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. 

Department of State, available at <https://www.state.gov/bureausoffices/under-secretary-for-public-diplomacy-and-public-affairs/

bureau-of-global-public-affairs/>.

44 Bayles, “How the World Perceives the New American Dream.”

45 See Global Engagement Center (Web site), Department 

of State, available at <https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/

under-secretary-for-public-diplomacy-and-public-affairs/

global-engagement-center/>.

46 Brandi Vincent, “Laser-Linked Satellites Could Deliver 

‘Internet from Space,’” Nextgov, December 20, 2019, 

available at <www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/12/

laser-linked-satellites-could-deliver-internet-space/162009/>.

47 China and the World in the New Era (Beijing: The State Council 

Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, September 

2019), 4.

48 Desgardins, “The $86 Trillion World Economy”; Rob Smith, 

“The World’s Biggest Economies in 2018.”
102 Lynch and Saunders

49 Central Intelligence Agency, “China,” World Factbook, 

available at <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/ch.html>; Malcolm Scott and Cedric Sam, 

“Here’s How Fast China’s Economy Is Catching Up to the U.S.,” 

Bloomberg, May 21, 2019, available at <www.bloomberg.com/

graphics/2016-us-vs-china-economy/>.

50 Li Fuxian, “Why Ageing China Won’t Overtake the U.S. 

Economy as the World’s Biggest—Now or in the Future,” South 

China Morning Post (Hong Kong), March 29, 2019, available at 

<www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3003524/

ageing-china-simply-cannot-overtake-us-economy-worlds>.

51 Yen Nee Lee, “McKinsey Research Finds the World Becoming 

More Exposed to China—But Not the Reverse,” CNBC, July 21, 

2019, available at <www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/mckinsey-worldhas-become-more-exposed-to-china-but-not-the-reverse.html>.

52 Jonathan Woetzel et al., China and the World: Inside the 

Dynamics of a Changing Relationship (Washington, DC: McKinsey 

Global Institute, July 2019), i–ii.

53 World Bank, “High-Technology Exports (% of Manufactured 

Exports).”

54 Liesman, “Trade War Losses for the U.S. and China Grow into 

the Tens of Billions of Dollars.”

55 “What’s in the U.S.-China Phase 1 Trade Deal,” Reuters, 

January 15, 2020, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-usa-trade-china-details-factbox/whats-in-the-us-chinaphase-1-trade-deal-idUSKBN1ZE2IF>.

56 Robert D. Atkinson and Caleb Foote, Is China Catching Up to 

the United States in Innovation? (Washington, DC: Information 

Technology and Innovation Foundation, April 2019), available at 

<http://www2.itif.org/2019-china-catching-up-innovation.pdf>.

57 Unless otherwise specified by individual endnote, the economic 

data cited in this paragraph is found in the online appendix 

B of this volume, available at <https://ndupress.ndu.edu/

Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/>.

58 Wayne M. Morrison, China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, 

Challenges, and Implications for the United States, RL33534 

(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, updated 

June 25, 2019), 16, available at <https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/

RL33534.pdf>.

59 Derek Scissors, China’s Global Investing in 2019: Going Out Goes 

Small (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, January 

2020), available at <www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/

Chinas-global-investment-in-2019-1.pdf>.

60 U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Major Foreign Holders of 

Treasury Securities,” January 2020, available at <https://ticdata.

treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt>.

61 In developing countries, China buys political influence through 

development finance; in emerging and medium-sized economies, 

China uses state-owned enterprises and investment funds to buy 

what is on sale; and in large, advanced economies, China uses 

state-backed funds and Chinese private investors to buy shares in 

large companies with hopes of both realizing economic gain and 

reducing skepticism regarding the goals and effects of Chinese 

investments and global influence. See Frank Mouritz, “China’s 

Economic Coercion,” in China’s Global Influence: Perspectives 

and Recommendations, ed. Scott D. McDonald and Michael C. 

Burgoyne (Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 

2019), 174–189.

62 See Phillip C. Saunders et al., eds., Chairman Xi Remakes the 

PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms (Washington, DC: 

NDU Press, 2019).

63 See Denis Blasko, “The Biggest Loser in Chinese Military 

Reforms: The PLA Army,” in Saunders et al., Chairman Xi 

Remakes the PLA, 357–365.

64 Reserve, tank, infantry fighting vehicle, and armored personnel 

carrier numbers are from The Military Balance 2020 (London: 

IISS, 2020), 260.

65 Ship numbers are from The Military Balance 2020, 262–263. 

Also see Andrew Erickson, “Power vs. Distance: China’s Global 

Maritime Interests and Investments in the Far Seas,” in Strategic 

Asia 2019: China’s Expanding Strategic Ambitions, ed. Ashley 

J. Tellis, Alison Szalwinski, and Michael Wills (Washington, 

DC: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2019), 247–277; and 

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), China Military Power 2019

(Washington, DC: DIA, 2019), appendix B.

66 Aircraft numbers are from The Military Balance 2020, 265; 

DIA, China Military Power 2019, appendix C; also see Richard 

P. Hallion, Roger Cliff, and Phillip C. Saunders, eds., The PLA Air 

Force: Evolving Concepts, Roles, and Capabilities (Washington, 

DC: NDU Press, 2012).

67 Rick Joe, “China’s Growing High-End Military Drone Force,” The 

Diplomat, November 27, 2019, available at <https://thediplomat.

com/2019/11/chinas-growing-high-end-military-drone-force/>.

68 Intercontinental ballistic missile, intermediate-range ballistic 

missile, and medium-range ballistic missile numbers are from 

The Military Balance 2020, 259; DIA, China Military Power 

2019, appendix D; also see David C. Logan, “Making Sense of 

China’s Missile Forces,” in Saunders et al., Chairman Xi Remakes 

the PLA, 393–436.

69 Phillip C. Saunders and Jiunwei Shyy, “China’s Military 

Diplomacy,” in McDonald and Burgoyne, China’s Global Influence, 

209–210.

70 Ibid., 214–216; also see Phillip C. Saunders, “China’s Global 

Military-Security Interactions,” in China and the World, ed. David 

Shambaugh (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 181–207.

71 “Military Expenditure by Country, in Constant (2017) US$ 

m., 1988–2018,” SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, available 

at <www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/Data%20for%20all%20

countries%20from%201988%E2%80%932018%20in%20

constant%20%282017%29%20USD%20%28pdf%29.pdf>.

72 Pieter D. Wezeman et al., “Trends in International 

Arms Transfers,” SIPRI fact sheet, March 2019, available 

at <www.sipri.org/publications/2019/sipri-fact-sheets/

trends-international-arms-transfers-2018>.

73 A combined 61.3 percent of China’s conventional weapons sales 

since 2008 have found their way to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and 

Myanmar. Other Asian countries have purchased an additional 

14 percent of Chinese arms. See “How Dominant Is China in 

the Global Arms Trade?” China Power, available at <https://

chinapower.csis.org/china-global-arms-trade/>.

74 Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments 

Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019 (Washington, DC: 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2019), 27–28, available at 

<https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/02/2002127082/-1/-

1/1/2019_CHINA_MILITARY_POWER_REPORT.pdf>.

75 China has established one overseas logistics support facility 

in Djibouti but is unlikely to be able to use it to support combat 

operations.

76 Assessment on U.S. Defense Implications of China’s Expanding 

Global Access (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 

December 2018), available at <https://media.defense.gov/2019/

Jan/14/2002079292/-1/-1/1/EXPANDING-GLOBAL-ACCESSREPORT-FINAL.PDF>; see Joel Wuthnow, Phillip C. Saunders, 

and Ian Burns McCaslin, “PLA Joint Operations in the Far 

Seas,” in Going Global? The People’s Navy in a Time of Strategic 

Transformation, ed. Ryan Martinson and Andrew Erickson 

(Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, forthcoming).

77 The Military Balance 2020, 234.
Contemporary Great Power Geostrategic Dynamics 103

78 See Katherine Morton, “China’s Global Governance 

Interactions,” in Shambaugh, China and the World, 156–180.

79 “Diplomatic Dashboard.”

80 Since 2017, China has sought to portray itself as a responsible 

alternative, highlighting its support for international agreements, 

including the Paris Agreement and the Joint Comprehensive Plan 

of Action (Iran nuclear deal), and affirming its commitment to 

the United Nations (UN). President Xi Jinping’s January 2017 

speech at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva rejected 

isolationism and trade protectionism and placed Beijing at the 

center of UN-overseen international affairs. Of note, human 

rights advocates and other nongovernmental organizations were 

barred from attending Xi’s speech. See Colum Lynch and Elias 

Groll, “As U.S. Retreats from World Organizations, China Steps 

In to Fill the Void,” Foreign Policy, October 6, 2017, available at 

<https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/06/as-u-s-retreats-fromworld-organizations-china-steps-in-the-fill-the-void/>.

81 Jonathan G. Odom, “Understanding China’s Legal 

Gamesmanship in the Rules-Based Global Order,” in McDonald 

and Burgoyne, China’s Global Influence, 190–206.

82 See John Ikenberry and Darren J. Lim, China’s Emerging 

Institutional Statecraft (Washington, DC: The Brookings 

Institution, April 2017), available at <www.brookings.edu/

wp-content/uploads/2017/04/chinas-emerging-institutionalstatecraft.pdf>.

83 R i t i k a Pa s s i , “C h i n a’s B R I i n D o l d r u m s : 

Multilateralism to the Rescue?” ORF Online, October 

10, 2018, available at <www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/

bri-china-doldrums-multilateralism-rescue-44893/>.

84 Benjamin Wermund, “Chinese-Funded Institutes on 

U.S. College Campuses Condemned in Senate Report,” 

Politico, February 27, 2019, available at <www.politico.com/

story/2019/02/27/china-college-confucius-institutes-1221768>.

85 Laura Silver, Kat Devlin, and Christine Huang, “People Around 

the Globe Are Divided in Their Opinions of China,” Pew Research 

Center, December 5, 2019, available at <www.pewresearch.org/

fact-tank/2019/12/05/people-around-the-globe-are-divided-intheir-opinions-of-china/>.

86 “How Are Global Views on China Trending?” CSIS, December 

20, 2019, available at <https://chinapower.csis.org/global-views/>.

87 Shaun Breslin, “China’s Global Cultural Interactions,” in 

Shambaugh, China and the World, 137–155; Institute of 

International Education, “Project Atlas: China,” available at 

<www.iie.org/en/Research-and-Insights/Project-Atlas/ExploreData/China>; George Gao, “Why Is China So . . . Uncool?” 

Foreign Policy, March 8, 2017, available at <https://foreignpolicy.

com/2017/03/08/why-is-china-so-uncool-soft-power-beijingcensorship-generation-gap/>.

88 Anthony H. Cordesman, China and the United States: 

Cooperation, Competition, and/or Conflict (Washington, DC: 

CSIS, October 2019), available at <www.csis.org/analysis/chinaand-united-states-cooperation-competition-andor-conflict>.

89 On whether or how the novel coronavirus could play to 

China’s advantage, see Kurt M. Campbell and Rush Doshi, “The 

Coronavirus Could Reshape Global Order,” Foreign Affairs, 

March 18, 2020, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/

china/2020-03-18/coronavirus-could-reshape-global-order>; 

Mira Rapp-Hooper, “China, America, and the International 

Order After the Pandemic,” War on the Rocks, March 24, 2020, 

available at <https://warontherocks.com/2020/03/china-americaand-the-international-order-after-the-pandemic/>.

90 Michael Kofman, “Raiding and International Brigandry: Russia’s 

Strategy for Great Power Competition,” War on the Rocks, June 

14, 2018, available at <https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/

raiding-and-international-brigandry-russias-strategy-for-greatpower-competition/>.

91 For variations on this conclusion of Russian overachievement 

relative to limited strategy and a strapped resource base, see 

Christopher S. Chivvis, Understanding Russian ‘Hybrid Warfare’ 

and What Can Be Done About It (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 

2017), available at <www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/

testimonies/CT400/CT468/RAND_CT468.pdf>; Nadezda 

Arbatova, “Three Faces of Russia’s Neo-Eurasianism,” Survival

61, no. 6 (December 2019–January 2020), 7–24; Eugene Rumer 

and Richard Sokolsky, Thirty Years of U.S. Policy Toward Russia: 

Can the Vicious Circle Be Broken? (Washington, DC: Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace, June 20, 2019), available at 

<https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/06/20/thirty-years-of-u.s.-

policy-toward-russia-can-vicious-circle-be-broken-pub-79323>.

92 Revisions to the U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 

limited the number of strategically deployed U.S. and Russian 

nuclear warheads to no more than 1,600 by February 2018. 

In April 2020, Russia had an estimated 1,572 strategically 

deployed weapons and the United States had 1,600. See Hans 

M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, Status of World Nuclear Forces

(Washington, DC: Federation of American Scientists, April 

2020), available at <https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/

status-world-nuclear-forces/>.

93 “Strategic Rocket Forces,” Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, June 

2017, available at <http://russianforces.org/missiles/>; and DIA, 

Russia Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power 

Aspirations (Washington, DC: DIA, 2016), 47.

94 Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, “Russian Nuclear Forces, 

2019,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 75, no. 2 (March 2019), 

available at <www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0096340

2.2019.1580891>.

95 Michael Kofman, “Emerging Russian Weapons: Welcome to the 

2020s (Part 1—Kinzhal, Sarmat, 4202),” Russian Military Analysis, 

March 4, 2018, available at <https://russianmilitaryanalysis.

wordpress.com/2018/03/04/emerging-russian-weaponswelcome-to-the-2020s-part-1-kinzhal-sarmat-4202/>; Matthew 

Bodner, “Russia Releases Video of Its Modernized Ballistic Missile 

Defense System,” Defense News, February 20, 2018, available at 

<https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/02/20/russia-releasesvideo-of-its-modernized-ballistic-missile-defense-system/>.

96 Military numbers derived from “Chapter 2: Comparative 

Defence Statistics,” in The Military Balance.

97 Mark Epizkopos, “Is Russia’s Only Aircraft Carrier Doomed?” 

The National Interest, November 16, 2019, available at <https://

nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-only-aircraft-carrierdoomed-97246>; “Russia’s T-14 Armata Tank Is Amazing (But 

There Is a Big Problem),” The National Interest, April 6, 2019, 

available at <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-t14-armata-tank-amazing-there-big-problem-51022>; “Russia’s 

Most Advanced SU-57 Fighter Jet Suffers First Crash,” Reuters, 

December 24, 2019, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-russia-airplane-crash/russias-most-advanced-su-57-fighterjet-suffers-first-crash-idUSKBN1YS164>.

98 Kofman, “Emerging Russian Weapons—Part 1.”

99 Russia’s military expenditure in 2018 was $44 billion (the same 

size as France, despite an economy the size of Spain), only 20 

percent of that spent by China and just 6 percent of that spent by the 

United States. See Richard Connolly, Russian Military Expenditure 

in Comparative Perspective: A Purchasing Power Parity Estimate, 

CNA Occasional Paper (Alexandria, VA: CNA, October 2019), 7–8.

100 Richard Connolly and Michael Kofman, “Russian 

Defense Expenditure and Military Modernization: How 

Much Does the Military Spend?” video, CSIS Discussion 

Event, December 4, 2019, available at <www.csis.org/events/

russian-defense-expenditure-and-military-modernization>.

101 David Oliver, “Russia’s Rapid UAV Expansion,” Armada 

International, March 22, 2019, available at <https://

armadainternational.com/2019/03/russias-rapid-uav-expansion/>; 
104 Lynch and Saunders

Nikolai Novichkov, “Russia Develops Multilayered C-UAS 

Systems,” Janes, November 29, 2019, available at <www.janes.

com/article/92922/russia-develops-multilayered-c-uas-system>.

102 The most well-known of the Russian mercenary units is 

the Wagner Group, but in recent years, competitors to it have 

sprung up in Russia, including those known as “Patriot” and 

“Shield.” Detailed analyses emphasize that these companies are 

not monolithic paramilitary entities but highly personalized, 

riven with factionalism, and subservient to the personal 

relationships and transactional allowances by their leaders with 

Vladimir Putin. See Neil Hauer, “The Rise and Fall of a Russian 

Mercenary Army,” Foreign Policy, October 6, 2019, available at 

<https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/06/rise-fall-russian-privatearmy-wagner-syrian-civil-war/>; Nathaniel Reynolds, Putin’s 

Not-So-Secret Mercenaries: Patronage, Geopolitics, and the Wagner 

Group (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International 

Peace, July 8, 2019), available at <https://carnegieendowment.

org/2019/07/08/putin-s-not-so-secret-mercenaries-patronagegeopolitics-and-wagner-group-pub-79442>.

103 Nikiolai Sokov, Russia’s New Conventional Capability: 

Implications for Eurasia and Beyond, PONARS Eurasia Policy 

Memorandum No. 472 (Washington, DC: Elliott School 

of International Affairs, May 2017), available at <www.

ponarseurasia.org/memo/russias-new-conventional-capabilityimplications-eurasia-and-beyond>.

104 “Russia,” OEC World Profile, 2018, available at <https://oec.

world/en/profile/country/rus/>.

105 See Daniel Workman, “Russia’s Top Trading Partners,” 

World’s Top Exports, November 30, 2019, available at <www.

worldstopexports.com/russias-top-import-partners/>.

106 The World Bank, “High-Technology Exports (% of 

Manufactured Exports)—United States, Russian Federation,” 

available at <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX.VAL.

TECH.MF.ZS?locations=US-RU>.

107 Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “How to Deal with a Declining Russia,” The 

Strategist, November 6, 2019, available at <www.aspistrategist.

org.au/how-to-deal-with-a-declining-russia/>.

108 Unless otherwise specified by individual note, the economic 

data cited in this paragraph are found in the online appendix 

B of this volume, available at <https://ndupress.ndu.edu/

Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/>.

109 Clark Letterman, “Image of Putin, Russia Suffers 

Internationally,” Pew Research Center, December 6, 2018, 

available at <www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/12/06/

image-of-putin-russia-suffers-internationally/>.

110 Ibid.

111 Angela Dewan, “Russia vs. U.S.: Where Is Life Better?” CNN, 

March 14, 2018, available at <www.cnn.com/2018/03/14/europe/

russia-us-election-compare-intl/index.html>.

112 “Diplomatic Dashboard.”

113 “Russia Wants IAEA to Recognize Crimea’s Legal Status,” 

World Nuclear News, June 10, 2015, available at <www.

world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Russia-wants-IAEA-to-recogniseCrimeas-legal-status-10061501.html>.

114 Ann M. Simmons, “Russian Is Nominated to Lead Interpol, 

Alarming Western Officials,” Wall Street Journal, November 20, 

2018, available at <www.wsj.com/articles/russian-is-nominatedto-lead-interpol-alarming-western-officials-1542723109>.

115 Elizabeth Flock, “After a Week of Russian Propaganda, I Was 

Questioning Everything,” PBS, May 2, 2018, available at <www.

pbs.org/newshour/arts/after-a-week-of-russian-propaganda-iwas-questioning-everything>.

116 Robert Elliott, “How Russia Spreads Disinformation via RT Is 

More Nuanced Than We Realize,” The Guardian, July 26, 2019, 

available at <www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/26/

russia-disinformation-rt-nuanced-online-ofcom-fine>.

117 Alina Polyakova, “What the Mueller Report Tells Us About 

Russian Influence Operations,” Lawfare, April 19, 2019, available 

at <www.lawfareblog.com/what-mueller-report-tells-us-aboutrussian-influence-operations>; Robert S. Mueller III, Report on 

the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential 

Election—Volume I (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 

March 2019), available at <www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf>.

118 Patrick Tucker, “Russia Will Test Its Ability to Disconnect 

from the Internet,” Defense One, October 24, 2019, 

available at <www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/10/

russia-will-test-its-ability-disconnect-internet/160861/>.

119 Isabel Togoh, “From Russia with Love? Putin’s Medical Supplies 

Gift to Coronavirus-Hit Italy Raises Questions,” Forbes, March 26, 

2020, available at <www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/03/26/

from-russia-with-love-putins-medical-supplies-gift-tocoronavirus-hit-italy-raises-questions/#313feeed4a47>.

120 The Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) is a 

statistical measure of gross (not net) national power used in 

the University of Michigan Correlates of War (COW) Project 

that began in 1963. CINC uses an average of percentages in six 

different components that represent economic, demographic, 

and military strength to generate a “CINC number” for relative 

power. Its six components are total population of a country ratio, 

urban population of a country ratio, iron and steel production 

of a country ratio, primary energy consumption ratio, military 

expenditure ratio, and military personnel ratio. The COW 

Project is available at <http://www.correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/

national-material-capabilities>.

121 For the historical comparative numbers, see Beckley, “The 

Power of Nations,” 22–25.

122 This conclusion aligns with that of Wright, All Measures 

Short of War, 166. However, it is modified to focus on U.S. 

predominance in a “protracted” military clash—the kind that 

neither Russia nor China would willingly fight today with the 

United States. The third insight indicates that China or Russia 

might today prevail in a military clash proximate to their own 

territory and where America’s full power advantages might never 

be brought to bear.

123 Here, “unacceptable” relates to the phrase “immutable and 

untenable” in the fifth major insight of chapter 2’s historic review 

of Great Power competition: “The most reliable indicator of when 

a clash (war) will erupt is when one or both sides recognize a 

shift in the relative alignment of economic and military power 

that is perceived to be immutable and untenable.”

124 Anthony H. Cordesman, China and the U.S.: Cooperation 

and/or Conflict: An Experimental Assessment—Part Two: China’s 

Emerging Economic Power, with Max Molog (Washington, 

DC: CSIS, October 2019), 3, available at <https://csis-prod.

s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/191001_China_

Grand_Strategy_Part%202_.pdf>.

125 See especially, Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational 

Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment

(New York: Basic Books, 1975), 65–68; Robert Gilpin, War and 

Change in World Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 1981), 156–185.

126 William R. Thompson, “Long Waves, Technological 

Innovation, and Relative Decline,” International Organization

44, no. 2 (Spring 1990), 201–233; Daniel Drezner, “State Structure, 

Technological Leadership, and the Maintenance of Hegemony,” 

Review of International Studies 27, no. 1 (January 2001), 3–25.
105

Chapter 4

Contemporary Great Power 

Technological Competitive Factors 

in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

By T.X. Hammes and Diane DiEuliis

The convergence of new technologies is creating a fourth industrial revolution that 

will transform almost every aspect of 21st-century life. Even as the new technologies generate much greater wealth, the revolution will reshape trade patterns as 

it returns both manufacturing and services to home markets. The United States 

is particularly well positioned to take advantage of these changes—but only if it 

revises its immigration policies to attract and retain the best minds from around 

the world. China is also well positioned, but it must overcome increasing distrust 

of its government. Russia is dealing with an ongoing demographic crisis even as 

foreign and domestic investors have lost trust in its potential for growth.

As with earlier iterations, the fourth industrial revolution is developing from the convergence of multiple technologies. Despite the shorthand sometimes used to identify the 

three previous revolutions—steam, electricity, digital—none was driven by a single technology.1

 Each needed a merging of numerous new technologies alongside relevant economic, 

social, and political change before it could evolve.

In The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab states that the unifying of new technologies—“artificial intelligence [AI], robotics, internet of things, autonomous vehicles, 3D 

printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, material science, energy storage, and quantum 

computing, to name a few”2—is going to revolutionize almost every aspect of life, mostly 

in a positive way. But when discussing the fourth industrial revolution’s impact on international security, he was concerned that the technologies will provide much greater power to 

nonstate actors and create instability in many regions. Therefore, the fourth industrial revolution is a critical factor in the emerging era of Great Power competition (GPC) headlined 

in 2020 by the United States, China, and Russia.

In this chapter, we do not attempt to deal with all the technologies driving the fourth 

industrial revolution; instead, we focus only on those that will most directly impact GPC, 

economic potential, and international trade in the short term: robotics, AI, 3D printing, 

energy, and biotechnology. The chapter also considers two important factors essential to 
106 Hammes and DiEuliis

U.S. efforts to exploit new technologies: current immigration policy and research and development (R&D) investments.

Although we discuss each of these technologies individually, it is the combination of 

them in new ways that will revolutionize the global economy. For instance, the first industrial revolution is often referred to as steam driven, but steam had to be combined with 

improved steel production, new manufacturing techniques, the telegraph, and other technologies both new and old to create the railroads that revolutionized trade and production. 

While space limitations forced us to select only a few of the technologies driving today’s 

revolution, readers should keep in mind that the others are essential to enabling the chosen 

technologies (for instance, advances in material science are essential to advances in the 

chosen technologies).

Robotics 

Robotics covers a vast field that will fundamentally alter how humans do things—from in 

the deep sea to outer space. We start by examining industrial robots and then move on to 

collaborative robots.

General Motors purchased its first industrial robots in 1961. Since then, robots have 

steadily evolved with improvements in degrees of freedom, range of motion, strength, 

speed, reliability, accuracy, and repeatability. Industrial robots’ increasing flexibility and effectiveness are resulting in rapid and steady growth of sales. Sales averaged 115,000 per year 

from 2005 to 2008 but increased to 422,000 by 2018.3

Sales keep growing because robots dramatically improve productivity. The U.S. steel 

industry offers a prime example. From 1962 to 2005, it shed 75 percent of its workforce, 

but its shipment of steel products in 2005 equaled that of the early 1960s. Robots increased 

output per worker by a factor of five. Despite the massive shedding of jobs in the industry, 

steel manufacturing has been one of the fastest growing industries in the past three decades, 

behind only computer software and equipment.4

New sensors and improved mechanics mean industrial robots are becoming cost effective even in high-tech industries. China’s Changying Precision Technology Company has 

automated its mobile phone production lines and cut factory personnel from 650 to just 

60 while increasing productivity by 250 percent.5 Although perhaps an extreme example, 

this type of streamlining is driving chief executive officers to explore how industrial robots 

can improve their companies’ competitiveness. Robots tasked with routine computer electronics assembly cost about $7.25 per hour to operate, and the purchase cost of robots is 

expected to come down 22 percent by 2025, even as these machines become easier to integrate into current operations.6

 In 2020, Chinese labor costs $6.50 per hour.7

Products with potential for even greater growth—and hence greater impact on many 

aspects of life—are collaborative robots, or cobots. Unlike industrial robots, which must be 

separated from humans for safety, cobots are specifically designed to work in collaboration 

with people. And unlike industrial robots, which are expensive and have limited flexibility, 

cobots are cheap and flexible. Designed to be mobile, they are easy to be moved to different locations and assigned new tasks. They are already working in homes, laboratories, 

hospitals, nursing homes, warehouses, farms, and distributions centers to tend, test, carry, 

assemble, package, pick, place, count, secure, and inspect.8 They are even being used as 
Technological Competitive Factors in the Fourth Industrial Revolution 107

exoskeletons to provide strength and protection to people. And unlike most large industrial 

robots, cobots are relatively easy to upgrade.9

In 2019, basic cobots cost about $24,000.10 Assuming a 40-hour workweek and 3-year 

lifespan, this works out to approximately $4 an hour—well below U.S. labor costs and competitive with wages in emerging economies. And if a plant is running with three shifts, the 

hourly cost is about $1.35—well below even most emerging economy wages. Of course, 

robots need no medical, retirement, or leave benefits. Just as important, cobots are easily 

programmable. In fact, a “non-technical person can teach [a cobot] what to do through 

arm movement and simple button presses, and [a cobot] can master a new task in half an 

hour or so. There is also little assembly or setup required.”11 Moreover, the low prices, minimal technical support required, and flexibility mean that many of the 6 million small and 

medium enterprises worldwide will buy cobots. Goldman Sachs notes that today’s versions 

have a payback period as short as 6 months.12 ABI Research predicts global revenue from 

cobots will “grow at an annual rate of 49.9 percent between 2016 and 2025 compared to 12.1 

percent for industrial robots.”13

Even as costs of cobots come down quickly, their capabilities are growing at an exceptional rate. In 2012, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded a 

$1.3-million grant to develop a robot that could sew. Inevitably nicknamed “sewbots,” these 

systems are mastering the complex task of sewing—and thus are threatening to disrupt the 

global clothing industry.

The field of robotics seems to have reached the knee of its exponential growth curve—

the point at which the curve turns vertical. From heavy-duty industrial robots to small 

personal robots, the range of capabilities is expanding rapidly even as cost drops and ease of 

use improves. By eliminating any labor-cost advantage to production in low-cost regions, 

robots are, and will continue to be, central to the return of production to home markets. 

Even as industry masters the mechanical aspects of robotics, key advances are being made 

in the field of AI, which will further enhance the advantages robots provide in production. 

Artificial Intelligence 

AI will play the role electricity did in the second industrial revolution, when the world 

moved from steam to electrical power; it will be an integral part of every new technology. 

From task-specific AI that autonomously executes a job such as controlling a mining truck 

in an open pit to more powerful AI that assists with complex planning, analysis, and decisionmaking, this technology will be essential. Unfortunately, the term artificial intelligence

causes considerable confusion. Much of the current discussion concerns artificial general 

intelligence (AGI), which itself boasts a range of different definitions. In fact, there is a great 

deal of disagreement in the AI research community as to when or even if AGI is achievable. 

However, this chapter focuses on how limited, or task-specific, AI is rapidly improving 

productivity. Task-specific AI is essentially a machine operating with a set of guidelines to 

accomplish chores. Although such a system will provide great practical capabilities in its 

specific field, it will not be capable of fully independent operation.

Task-specific AI-driven robots are executing manual tasks in virtually every field of 

human endeavor, but AI is not limited to physical work. In January 2017, Japanese insurance company Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance replaced 34 insurance claim workers with 
108 Hammes and DiEuliis

software from IBM Watson Explorer. The software scans hospital records and other documents to determine insurance payouts, factoring in the specific injuries, each patient’s 

medical history, and the procedures administered. Fukoku Mutual reportedly spent $1.7 

million (200 million yen) to install the AI system, and now pays $128,000 per year for maintenance. By using the software, the firm saves roughly $1.1 million per year on employee 

salaries—meaning it hopes to see a return on the investment in less than 2 years.14

This kind of breakthrough acts as a major incentive for other firms to follow suit—simply to remain competitive in their industries. The result has been a steady return of service 

industries to their home countries as AI takes over many of the back-office tasks, such as 

computer programming, bookkeeping, handling insurance adjustments, and manning call 

centers, that used to be contracted to firms in India or the Philippines.

Another form of AI can develop optimal designs for a wide variety of structures. 

Autodesk’s “Dreamcatcher system allows designers to input specific design objectives, 

including functional requirements, material type, manufacturing method, performance 

criteria, and cost restrictions.”15 But the improved designs often cannot be produced using 

conventional manufacturing techniques,16 thus the need for another emerging technology: 

3D printing.

3D Printing 

The first 3D-printing patent was granted in 1986. Slow speeds and uneven finishes meant 

that 3D printing was initially used mainly to produce prototypes and a limited number of 

unique low-volume products. But in the past decade, it has transformed from an industry 

focused on prototyping to one engaged in creating a wide range of products. In addition 

to increasing the speed of printing and refining the finishes, a great deal of effort has gone 

into expanding the number of materials that can be used. More exciting, 3D manufacturing 

is rapidly developing entirely new materials: “up to 140 different digital materials can be 

realized from combining the existing primary materials in different ways.”17 3D printing is 

quite literally changing what can be made.

Meanwhile, researchers and 3D-printing companies continue to pursue both versatility 

and speed. Multimaterial printers were one of the big steps in this effort. Instead of printing 

a series of pieces that then must be assembled, the multimaterial machine forms the assembly in one go. As businesses learn to use these multimaterial printers, the range of products 

they will be able to print will expand exponentially. Furthermore, 3D printing’s efficiency is 

unmatched: Its material wastage is near zero.

The range of products—from medical devices and aircraft parts to buildings and 

bridges—and the order of magnitude increase in the speed of printing are already challenging traditional manufacturing.18 Better printing speeds mean that 3D printing has moved 

beyond prototyping and high-value parts. In April 2016, Carbon3D released a commercial 

printer that was 100 times faster than existing printers. Such improvements allowed 3D 

printing to capture 20 percent of the global plastics manufacturing market in 2016.19 Not to 

be outdone, metal printers have combined high speed and low cost to make them a system 

of choice even for mass production of small parts. The fact that key patents are expiring 

soon will further accelerate enhancements in printer capabilities and capacities.20
Technological Competitive Factors in the Fourth Industrial Revolution 109

3D printing opens up the possibility of a totally different supply chain, one that runs 

with lower costs and a smaller carbon footprint. The materials and energy required for 

manufacturers to create new parts will be harnessed into electronic design files that can 

be printed on demand anywhere in the world. In these new transformative supply chains, 

many spare parts may not even need to exist, which could translate into huge savings on 

warehousing costs.21

3D printing is revolutionizing manufacturing in many industries. The ability to change 

each product by changing the software means the era of mass customization and local production is on us. No longer will parts have to be shipped across oceans and then trucked 

to the user; they will be printed on site. 3D printing is clearly on the path to causing major 

disruptions in global supply chains.

Energy 

Energy, in the form of petroleum, natural gas, and coal, has been a key component of global 

trade for the past half-century, but the influence of petroleum on both global trade and 

national security may be waning. Rapid advances in energy technology are changing the 

world’s energy markets—and in many cases moving energy sources from overseas companies to locally produced oil, gas, and renewables. In its World Energy Outlook 2017, the 

International Energy Agency stated, “Four large-scale shifts in the global energy system 

set the scene for the World Energy Outlook 2017: the rapid deployment and falling costs 

of clean energy technologies, the growing electrification of energy, the shift to a more services-oriented economy and a cleaner energy mix in China, and the resilience of shale gas 

and tight oil in the United States.”22

Gas and Oil 

The U.S. fracking revolution is driving a global increase in demand for natural gas, even as 

oil use may have peaked. In November 2016, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article 

reporting that global oil producers such as Royal Dutch Shell and even state-owned Saudi 

Aramco anticipate that the world has reached peak oil usage and are preparing for a future 

decline in demand.23

U.S. shale oil production (fracking) has been the fastest growing source of oil globally. 

In 2012, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated that shale oil production could reach 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2035; it did so by 2013.24 In late 

November 2014, the EIA predicted the United States would become the world’s largest oil 

producer by 2020.25 This milestone was reached by June 2014.26

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of U.S. shale oil operations is the speed with which 

they can be closed or reopened in response to demand. From October 2016 to January 2017, 

U.S. crude production increased 500,000 bpd in response to the West Texas Intermediate 

(WTI) price increasing from $45 to $50 a barrel.27

The combination of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the short-term Saudi-Russian 

“oil wars” resulted in a collapse in the price of oil to less than $20 a barrel. Even the April 2020 

tentative pact between Russia and Saudi Arabia did not result in major price increases. In 

mid-April 2020, The Economist predicted that oil prices will remain low as the oil industry 

restructures post-pandemic.28 Although price spikes will still occur during times of crisis, U.S. 
110 Hammes and DiEuliis

shale oil supplies may well ensure that the WTI price will not exceed $60 a barrel (in 2018 

dollars). Even the September 14, 2019, attack on Saudi oil facilities resulted in only a few days’ 

increase to the mid-$60s before WTI returned to the mid-$50s.

Natural Gas 

Fracking has also created a natural gas boom in the United States. As recently as 2007, U.S. 

companies were racing to build liquid natural gas (LNG) import facilities. The demand 

for natural gas was growing quickly, and U.S. production was falling. In October 2005, the 

Henry Hub (U.S.) spot price rose to $13.42 per million British thermal units (MBTU). Then 

the fracking revolution occurred, which forced a massive drop in price to $1.93 per MBTU 

by December 2015—a reduction of 85 percent (see figure). Suddenly companies were applying for permits to turn their LNG import facilities into LNG export facilities.

As late as 2005, those U.S. industries that made heavy use of natural gas for their products (for instance, the petrochemical industry) or to generate energy for production were at 

a disadvantage in global competition. U.S. companies paid significantly more for this vital 

input. By 2008, fracking had completely reversed the situation, and the cost advantage to 

U.S. manufacturers has only increased since then.29 The result has been heavy investment 

in new U.S. petrochemical plants that use natural gas as a feedstock, with 310 new projects 

under way that will satisfy most U.S. demand and increase U.S. exports from $17 billion in 

2016 to $110 billion by 2027.30 This unplanned advantage for America’s chemical subsector 

will have spillover benefits as the expansion stimulates local development of directly related 

service and manufacturing businesses.

Renewables and New Transmission Lines 

In its 2017 report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) noted new renewables installation 

increased to almost two-thirds of all newly installed electrical energy production.31 By 2021, 

global generation from renewables should be “equivalent to the total electricity generation 

of the United States and the European Union put together today.”32 In its 2019 Global Energy 

Perspective, McKinsey & Company predicted that, even as energy consumption doubles by 

2050, renewables will generate over 50 percent of the world’s electricity by 2035.33

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Figure. Global Natural Gas Benchmark Prices in USD per MMbtu

U.S. (Henry Hub) Japan cif (LNG) Germany (AGIP) UK (Heren Index)

Benchmark Prices
Technological Competitive Factors in the Fourth Industrial Revolution 111

In 2006, the IEA predicted that by 2013 global installed photovoltaic capacity would 

be 20 gigawatts; it was actually 7 times larger—140 gigawatts—and increased to 227 gigawatts by 2015. These statistics reflect only utility-scale generating capacity and thus do 

not account for the growing private installation of renewable energy. Both developing and 

developed countries are seeing huge growth in local production and grids.34 In fact, Bangladesh is the world’s largest market for home-based solar power systems.

During the first three quarters of 2016, 15 percent of additional residential and nonresidential solar generating capacity was privately installed in the United States.35 Business is 

also growing in providing renewable energy to major corporations.36 However, two major 

problems with renewables persist. First, they are inherently intermittent. Wind intensity 

varies in unpredictable ways, and solar fails every night and during bad weather. Even hydropower is subject to reduction during periods of drought. Second, the best solar exposure 

or steadiest winds are often far from the places where people live. Thus, renewable energy 

and power transmission must be thought of as an integrated problem. Around the world, 

nations and private business are installing renewables along with long-line high-voltage 

transmission systems.

Like Europe and China, the United States needs to invest in transmission lines if it is 

to maximize the use of renewables. Fortunately, it has a successful model—Texas. Because 

its power grid is contained within the state, Texas overcame the various forms of political 

resistance and built transmission lines from its windy western plains to its energy-hungry 

eastern cities. At times, wind provides 40 percent of the state’s power needs. Other regions 

have great potential for renewables—for example, the Great Plains and offshore for wind 

and the Southwest for solar. In March 2017, Xcel announced plans to install 800 megawatts 

of new wind generation capability in the Dakotas and Minnesota.37 Delayed by regulators 

since 2005, a 3,000-megawatt line is finally being built to take Wyoming’s wind energy to 

southern California.38 Other investors are seeking to link wind and solar energy to the 

southeastern and eastern United States.

Impact of Batteries on Energy Sources 

Whether users are major power companies looking for a way to store power to feed back 

into the grid or individual homeowners seeking to get off of it, batteries can offer them an 

alternative to fossil fuel backups. This is another field in which many researchers—commercial, government, and academic—are pursuing a variety of possibilities. Major battery 

technology breakthroughs in 2019 include a battery that can fully charge in 10 minutes, 

thermal-energy devices that can store 1.2 megawatt-hours and can be hooked in series to 

create almost unlimited storage, and new processes that could double the storage capacity 

of lithium-ion batteries.39

Commercial power companies need massive storage capability to take over the 

“peaker” function now performed by natural gas–burning plants. These plants come online 

only during periods of peak load to prevent brownouts or even blackouts. Driven partly 

by California’s Public Utilities Commission, Southern California Edison plans to install a 

100-megawatt storage battery by 2020. Moving much more quickly, Elon Musk combined 

Tesla Motors and SolarCity to create a new way of supplying power. In July 2017, he signed 

a contract to provide 100 megawatts of storage in Australia and had the system running 
112 Hammes and DiEuliis

and highly profitable by January 2018.40 By October, it was on “track to make back a third 

of its construction costs in its first year of operation.”41 Tesla has contracted to increase the 

capacity of this system by 50 percent in 2020.42

The convergence of fracking, renewables, energy grids, and batteries means that more 

and more energy production will be local or regional. Renewables can be moved vast distances via transmission lines, so they can tie a region together. But there will not be a global 

market for renewables. Unlike oil, propane, coal, and LNG, it is impractical and unnecessary to move renewable energy across oceans. Thus, unlike the gas/oil market, which 

contributes to globalization, the renewables market will contribute to regionalization—and 

even to localization—as more and more businesses and homes take advantage of better 

battery capacity to move off-grid.

Emerging Biotechnology 

Just as information technology and the Internet have transformed society, business, government, and warfare since the late 20th century, emerging biotechnology will shape the 

global landscape for the next several decades. The world is entering a new era of biotechnology, highlighted by the advancing ease with which genomes can be engineered for 

specific purposes. Synthetic biology and associated genome-editing tools will be essential 

for addressing the global challenge of resource scarcity and environmental sustainability, 

while providing unprecedented advances in public health and medicine. The expanding 

U.S. biotechnology industry, including a wide range of startup companies, along with larger 

scale corporations, is already exploring capabilities for manufacturing high-value products, 

creating what is now referred to as the bioeconomy. Products of the bioeconomy include the 

creation of biology-based commodities, fuels, textiles, and consumer goods—all of which 

are proposed to be produced on innovative biomanufacturing platforms. Because the locus 

of this economic innovation is in industry, and particularly startups, government funding 

does not primarily drive the bioeconomic trajectory, making government just one of many 

actors shaping the field. In order to establish and maintain global leadership in biotechnology, the United States requires a holistic national approach that supports innovation and 

growth in the bioeconomy, establishes strategic priorities, and ensures responsible use.

Emerging biotechnology will have important implications for the Department of 

Defense (DOD), and internal DOD leadership has acknowledged this by including biotechnology as one of its 11 modernization priorities.43 Moreover, DOD intends to create 

a community of interest in biotechnology to coordinate biotechnology R&D across the 

Armed Forces. Just some of the many promising advances for defense could include innovative body armor designed from spider silk, jet fuels or runway material produced from 

algae, living plant-based sensors, and flame-resistant coatings. Many other advances, such 

as those related to skin or gut microbiotics, could benefit the health or performance of 

warfighters directly; however, DOD is not driving biotechnology innovation, and many 

challenges exist to the most beneficial incorporation of biotechnology into DOD requirements. Outside of traditional force health protections and the development of medical 

countermeasures, what advantages over adversaries could biotechnology provide? What 

unique DOD challenges and problems are best met with biotechnological solutions versus 
Technological Competitive Factors in the Fourth Industrial Revolution 113

other emerging technologies? These questions have yet to be addressed as industry continues to innovate.

At the same time, new dual-use technologies for defense will present significant challenges to biodefense, in addition to the ethical and moral dilemmas they have already 

created; the capabilities that drive the U.S. bioeconomy are the same tools that could allow 

for the creation of bioweapons (see also chapter 8). Most recently, the National Academy 

of Sciences published a biodefense consensus report, providing a framework for assessing those capabilities that are the most concerning to the DOD warfighter—namely, the 

creation of viruses from scratch, the modification of harmful bacteriological pathogens, 

and the development of harmful chemicals through biomanufacture.44 DOD will need to 

address these issues in ways that do not stifle the technology’s advancement or America’s 

competitiveness in the global bioeconomy. 

Enabling Factors 

As noted in the introduction, two factors should enable U.S. technological advances. The 

first, investment, is on a positive trend; the second, immigration policy, is having a powerful 

negative effect.

Obviously, in a period of swift technological change, robust investment in R&D is essential to leveraging those shifts. Fortunately, despite all the hype about the Made in China 

2025 plan to dominate 10 key emerging technologies, the United States still invests significantly more in R&D than does China. Unfortunately, from 2003 to 2016, U.S. Government 

spending in nondefense R&D was essentially flat. Since then, government investment has 

increased sharply.45 In 2018, the United States invested 2.84 percent of its gross domestic 

product (GDP) in R&D. China invested only 1.97 percent of a significantly smaller GDP.46

The key question is whether the United States will sustain this investment in the face of 

rapidly increasing debt-servicing costs and continued deficit spending.

The bad news is that current U.S. immigration policy is having a major negative impact 

on America’s progress toward a fourth industrial revolution economy. While immigration 

policy is a hot political issue, one element that is not usually associated with immigration is 

the intellectual nature of the fourth industrial revolution. Exploiting the revolution requires 

large numbers of smart, skilled, and educated people. Innovation at the top of the scale 

requires advanced education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. 

The 330 million people of the United States cannot hope to stay ahead of the 7 billion people 

in the rest of the world. In the past, the United States has had great success by encouraging 

the best STEM students from around the world to come to America for an education and 

then stay to work.

In 2017, foreign nationals in the United States accounted for 81 percent of the fulltime graduate students in electrical engineering and petroleum engineering; 79 percent in 

computer science; 75 percent in industrial engineering; 69 percent in statistics; 63 percent 

in mechanical engineering, and economics; 59 percent in civil engineering; and 57 percent 

in chemical engineering.47

The United States is generally recognized as having the finest university system in the 

world, and it attracts large numbers of the best foreign students. This is a major advantage, 

but what really counted was the fact that the number of foreign STEM graduates who chose 
114 Hammes and DiEuliis

to remain in the United States to work increased by 400 percent from 2008 to 2016. Essentially, the United States was attracting and keeping some of the finest minds in the world.

The policy of encouraging immigrants to stay paid off. Despite representing only 13 

percent of the U.S. population, immigrants start more than 25 percent of the new businesses 

in the United States. More than 20 percent of the chief executive officers of the 2014 Inc. top 

500 business are immigrants.48 And 55 percent of the new companies worth more than $1 

billion have at least 1 immigrant as a founding member.49

Then, in 2017, two things happened that dramatically reversed the flow of foreign students into U.S. universities. First, the U.S. Government made it much harder for students 

to obtain visas or to be certain they could renew them year to year. At the same time, the 

Trump administration restricted the number of graduates who can remain in the country to 

work. The result has been a major downturn in the number of foreign students enrolled in 

U.S. universities. Other countries, having seen the success that the United States was having, 

have started their own aggressive recruiting programs to attract foreign students—and current U.S. policy is only assisting those foreign programs in attracting top students. It makes 

no sense for a foreign student to invest heavily in a U.S. education when the visa might not 

be renewed and thus the investment will not pay off in a degree; even if he or she succeeds in 

getting a degree, the U.S. job market, which needs STEM graduates, will be closed. It makes 

much more sense for these students to go to school in Canada, Australia, or the United 

Kingdom. Canada and Australia, in particular, are encouraging overseas students.

Not only do current U.S. policies deprive the United States of intelligent, productive 

students and potential citizens, they also hurt America universities. Overseas students pay 

much higher tuitions than do U.S. citizens and so, in effect, subsidize their education. Universities across the country are having to cut STEM programs due to the reduction in funds 

flowing in from overseas.50 In short, U.S. immigration policies in 2020 are directly responsible for reducing the flow of the people America needs to thrive in the fourth industrial 

revolution. By failing to effectively distinguish between types of potential immigrants, the 

United States is excluding a great deal of talent. In sharp contrast, forward-thinking governments elsewhere are enticing the best and brightest from around the world to move to 

their nations. Current immigration policies are damaging American prospects for success 

in a rapidly changing global economy.

Conclusion 

The convergence of the aforementioned technologies will change societies in ways that are 

hard to imagine. It is already clear these technologies will change what, how, and where we 

manufacture commodities. Most important, manufacturing will be located near the market, which means the trend of onshoring manufacturing to America will continue. New 

technologies are also returning service-industry jobs to the markets they aid, and renewable 

energy is inherently regional rather than global. Environmental movements will reinforce 

these trends by pushing to reduce the impact of manufacturing and agriculture on the 

environment.

The fourth industrial revolution is shifting trade networks from the global to regional 

and even local levels. The United States may well be the nation best positioned to benefit 

from this shift. The U.S. economy already derives 84 percent of its GDP from the United 
Technological Competitive Factors in the Fourth Industrial Revolution 115

States, Canada, and Mexico. Although the supply chains are deeply embedded in Asia, U.S. 

manufacturing and services have been in the process of moving production back to the 

United States for years. The United States benefits from effective rule of law, strong protection of intellectual property, the largest market in the world, an exceptional university 

system, heavy investment in R&D, and a pervasive entrepreneurial spirit. These attributes 

will allow the country to thrive in this era of rapid technological change.

Until 2017, foreign investors thought so too. Foreign direct investment (FDI), particularly in manufacturing, was running at record levels in 2015 and 2016. Unfortunately, the 

uncertainty introduced by tariffs has reduced FDI into the United States by over 50 percent. 

However, the long-term advantages are still present, and FDI flows should recover once the 

United States establishes and sticks to stable trade agreements. America must also ensure 

its immigration and R&D policies do not hold it back. Economically, the United States has 

distinct advantages over both China and Russia as the fourth industrial revolution begins 

to reshape our world. The one key weakness is the gridlock in America’s current political 

systems. Failure to adjust our laws and regulations to the new reality risks squandering 

those advantages.

China could also benefit greatly from the fourth industrial revolution. The Chinese 

Communist Party specifically developed its Made in China 2025 plan to take advantage of 

the new technologies. The party selected 10 priority sectors to subsidize, which included 

robotics, green energy, artificial intelligence, biosciences, and materials. Essentially, China 

is investing heavily in each of the technologies discussed in this chapter; it is also working 

hard to shift its economy from export based to consumption based, to decrease its reliance 

on exports. It needs to do so because it is already suffering from businesses leaving to protect intellectual property rights and increasing labor costs. However, even as these efforts 

progress, China will have to deal with the dramatic reduction in labor required in its industries and its rapidly aging, and hence less productive, population. It must do so even as its 

economy slows significantly and pushback to its Belt and Road Initiative grows. While the 

Chinese government has once again turned to stimulus spending, a key question is whether 

the cumulative public and private debt is manageable.

On the positive side, China’s working population has been declining for the past couple 

of years and will continue to do so. Thus, it will need fewer jobs. At the same time, China 

has an enormous talent pool due to the sheer size of its population. Furthermore, Chinese 

universities have steadily improved in global rankings. Most important for China’s future 

is the fact that Asian trade is also regionalizing and China is central to the fastest growing 

region in the world. If the Chinese Communist Party’s use of centralized management can 

mitigate these challenges, China too can be a big winner in the fourth industrial revolution.

In contrast, Russia is not well positioned to benefit. Transitioning to advanced manufacturing requires major investment, and Russia currently suffers from a lack of investor 

confidence. The Institute of International Finance ranked Russia “last among 23 emerging 

economies in terms of ‘real’ FDI.”51 Russian businesses have not been particularly innovative, nor has the country created an environment that encourages foreign innovators to 

establish businesses there. Compounding its problems, Russia’s economy remains dependent on exporting energy, which generated 60 percent of its GDP.52 Today, technological 

improvements in various fields as well as global warming concerns are driving a worldwide 
116 Hammes and DiEuliis

shift to alternative energy. Russia also faces major human capital issues due to its demography and low-quality university system. No Russian institution rated in the top 250 of U.S. 

News & World Report’s university rankings, and only 2 made it into the top 400.53 Finally, as 

a kleptocracy, Russia does a poor job of allocating capital to the industries that benefit most 

from the convergence of these new technologies.

Notes

1

 Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Cologny, 

Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2016), 6–7.

2

 Ibid., 1.

3 “Global Industrial Robot Sales Reach Record Level in 2018,” 

Xinhua, September 19, 2019, available at <www.china.org.cn/

business/2019-09/19/content_75222098.htm>.

4 Allan Collard-Wexler and Jan De Loecker, “Reallocation and 

Technology: Evidence from the U.S. Steel Industry,” American 

Economic Review 105, no. 1 (January 2015), 131–171.

5 Mihai Andrei, “Chinese Factory Replaces 90% of Human Workers 

with Robots: Production Rises by 250%, Defects Drop by 80%,” 

ZME Science, February 3, 2017, available at <www.zmescience.

com/other/economics/china-factory-robots-03022017>.

6

 “Industrial Robots in United States to Cut Labor Costs,” Technavio

(blog), June 1, 2016, available at <https://blog.technavio.com/

blog/industrial-robots-united-states-cut-labor-costs-21-2020>.

7

 Erin Duffin, “Manufacturing Labor Costs per Hour for China, 

Vietnam, Mexico from 2016 to 2020 (in U.S. Dollars),” Statista, 

August 9, 2019, available at <www.statista.com/statistics/744071/

manufacturing-labor-costs-per-hour-china-vietnam-mexico/>.

8

 Frank Tobe, “Why Co-Bots Will be a Huge Innovation 

and Growth Driver for Robotics Industry,” IEEE 

Spectrum, December 30, 2016, available at <http://

spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/

collaborative-robots-innovation-growth-driver>.

9

 Bruce Geiselman, “Upgrades to Collaborative Robots Bring 

Cost Savings,” Plastics Machinery, May 31, 2017, available 

at <www.plasticsmachinerymagazine.com/blow-molding/

article/13002309>.

10 Ben Halder, “How China’s ‘Cobot’ Revolution Could Transform 

Automation,” OZY, March 24, 2019, available at <www.ozy.com/

fast-forward/how-chinas-cobot-revolution-could-transformautomation/93044>.

11 “Lightweight Cobots Take on Heavy-Duty Jobs—Even 

Welding,” Universal Robots, November 9, 2017, available 

at <https://blog.universal-robots.com/lightweight-cobotstake-on-heavy-duty-jobs-even-welding>.

12 “Goldman Sachs Summary on Cobots,” Robotenomics, July 

26, 2016, available at <https://robotonomics.wordpress.com/

tag/cobots/>.

13 Halder, “How China’s ‘Cobot’ Revolution Could Transform 

Automation.”

14 David Gershgorn, “Japanese White-Collar Workers Are Already 

Being Replaced by Artificial Intelligence,” Quartz, January 2, 

2017, available at <http://qz.com/875491/japanese-white-collarworkers-are-already-being-replaced-by-artificial-intelligence>.

15 Carlos E. Perez, “The Alien Style of Deep Learning Generative 

Design,” Intuition Machine, December 24, 2016, available at 

<https://medium.com/intuitionmachine/the-alien-look-ofdeep-learning-generative-design-5c5f871f7d10#.hp9oywmsv>.

16 Ibid.

17 “The Free Beginners Guide,” 3D Printing Industry, available 

at <https://3dprintingindustry.com/3d-printing-basics-freebeginners-guide/materials>.

18 Bridget O’Neal, “ORNL Researchers Improve 3D Printing 

at the Nanoscale with Simulation Guided Process,” 3D Print, 

August 16, 2016, available at <https://3dprint.com/146101/

ornl-3d-printing-nanoscale>.

19 Olivier Scalabre, “The Next Manufacturing Revolution Is Here,” 

TED Talks, video, 12:19, May 2016, available at <www.ted.com/

talks/olivier_scalabre_the_next_manufacturing_revolution_is_

here?language=en>.

20 Jelor Gallego, “A Host of Soon-to-Be-Expired Patents Are Set to 

Revolutionize 3D Printing,” Futurism, May 17, 2016, available at 

<https://futurism.com/expiring-patents-set-to-improve-3d-world/>.

21 Mary Ann Yule, “A Manufacturing Renaissance: How 3D 

Printing Can Bring Back Local,” Digital, December 5, 2016, 

available at <https://techvibes.com/2016/12/05/d-3d-printingmary-ann-yule-president-of-hp-canada>.

22 World Energy Outlook 2017 (Paris: International Energy 

Agency, 2017).

23 Sarah Kent and Brian Spegele, “Oil Firms Anticipate Day of 

Reckoning,” Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2016, 1.

24 Catherine Ngai, “Shale Boom Confounds Forecasts as U.S. Set 

to Pass Russia, Saudi Arabia,” Reuters, July 9, 2014, available at 

<www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-shale-forecasts-analysisidUSKBN0FE0CJ20140709>.

25 Isaac Arnsdorf, Wael Mahdi, and Grant Smith, “Saudis Go Back 

to the Future to Take on U.S. Shale Rivals,” Bloomberg, November 4, 

2014, available at <www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-04/

saudis-go-back-to-the-future-to-take-on-u-s-shale-rivals>.

26 U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Hydraulic Fracturing 

Accounts for About Half of Current U.S. Crude Oil Production,” 

March 15, 2016, available at <www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.

php?id=25372>.

27 Francine Lacqua and Javier Blas, “IEA Sees Significant Gains 

in U.S. Shale Oil as Prices Rise,” Bloomberg, January 18, 2017, 

available at <www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-18/

iea-sees-significant-increase-in-u-s-shale-oil-as-prices-rise>.

28 “A View of the Future,” The Economist, April 18–24, 2020, 8.

29 “Natural Gas Prices,” BP, available at <www.bp.com/en/global/

corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/

natural-gas.html#natural-gas-prices>.

30 Christopher Matthews, “Abundant Shale Oil Byproducts 

Reshape the Plastics Industry,” Australian (New South Wales), 

June 27, 2017, 28.

31 “Renewables 2017: A New Era for Solar Power,” International 

Energy Agency, video, 1:38, October 4, 2017, available at <www.

youtube.com/watch?v=mfNE_6ae6B4>.

32 Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2016 (Paris: 

International Energy Agency, 2016).
Technological Competitive Factors in the Fourth Industrial Revolution 117

33 Global Energy Perspective 2019: Reference Case (New York: 

McKinsey & Company, January 2019), 3.

34 Renewables 2016: Global Status Report (Paris: RN21 Secretariat, 

2016), available at <www.ren21.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/

REN21_GSR2016_FullReport_en_11.pdf>.

35 Solar Energy Industries Association, “Solar Market Insight 

Report 2016 Q4,” available at <www.seia.org/research-resources/

solar-market-insight-report-2016-q4>.

36 Michael Holder, “Solar Panel Researchers Investigate Powering 

Trains by Bypassing Grid,” The Guardian, January 10, 2017, 

available at <www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/

jan/10/solar-panel-research-power-trains-imperial-collegelondon-1010>.

37 Mike Hughlett, “Xcel Unveils New Phase of Wind Power 

Construction, with Huge Plant in South Dakota,” Star Tribune

(Minneapolis), March 16, 2017, available at <www.startribune.

com/xcel-unveils-new-phase-of-wind-power-construction-withhuge-plant-in-south-dakota/416340794>.

38 James Temple, “How to Get Wyoming Wind to California, and 

Cut 80% of U.S. Carbon Emissions,” MIT Technology Review, 

December 28, 2017, available at <www.technologyreview.

com/s/609766/how-to-get-wyoming-wind-to-california-andcut-80-of-us-carbon-emissions/>.

39 Nick Lavars, “The Biggest Battery Breakthroughs of 2019,” 

New Atlas, December 8, 2019, available at <https://newatlas.

com/science/battery-breakthroughs-2019/>.

40 Fred Lambert, “Tesla’s Giant Battery in Australia Made 

Around $1 Million in Just a Few Days,” Electrek, January 

23, 2018, available at <https://electrek.co/2018/01/23/

tesla-giant-battery-australia-1-million/>.

41 Calla Wahlquist, “South Australia’s Tesla Battery on Track to 

Make Back a Third of Cost in a Year,” The Guardian, September 

27, 2018, available at <www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/

sep/27/south-australias-tesla-battery-on-track-to-make-back-athird-of-cost-in-a-year>.

42 Lavars, “The Biggest Battery Breakthroughs of 2019.”

43 Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, 

“Modernization Priorities,” Department of Defense, available 

at <https://www.cto.mil/modernization-priorities/>.

44 National Academy of Sciences, Biodefense in an Age of Synthetic 

Biology (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2018).

45 Science News Staff, “Trump, Congress Approve Largest 

U.S. Research Spending Increase in a Decade,” Science, March 

23, 2018, available at <www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/

updated-us-spending-deal-contains-largest-research-spendingincrease-decade>.

46 Sintia Radu, “The Big Spenders in Research and Development,” 

U.S. News & World Report, November 9, 2018, available at <www.

usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-11-09/thesecountries-are-the-top-spenders-on-research-and-development>.

47 National Foundation for American Policy, “The Importance of 

International Students to American Science and Engineering,” 

October 2017, 3, available at <http://nfap.com/wp-content/

uploads/2017/10/The-Importance-of-International-Students.

NFAP-Policy-Brief.October-20171.pdf>.

48 Adam Bluestein, “The Most Entrepreneurial Group in America 

Wasn’t Born in America,” Inc., February 2015, available at 

<www.inc.com/magazine/201502/adam-bluestein/the-mostentrepreneurial-group-in-america-wasnt-born-in-america.

html>.

49 Stuart Anderson, “55% of America’s Billion Dollar Startups Have 

an Immigrant Founder,” Forbes, October 25, 2018, available at <www.

forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/10/25/55-of-americasbillion-dollar-startups-have-immigrant-founder/#766218e548ee>.

50 Nick Wingfield, “The Disappearing American Grad Student,” 

New York Times, November 3, 2017, available at <www.nytimes.

com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/american-graduate-studentstem.html>.

51 Lloyds Bank, “Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Russia,” 

available at <www.lloydsbanktrade.com/en/market-potential/

russia/investment>.

52 “Russia’s Natural Resources Valued at 60% of GDP,” Moscow Times, 

March 14, 2019, available at <www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/03/14/

russias-natural-resources-valued-at-60-of-gdp-a64800>.

53 “Best Global Universities in Russia,” U.S. News & World 

Report, available at <www.usnews.com/education/

best-global-universities/russia>.

Part II

Warfighting, Innovation, and 

Technology in a New Era of 

Great Power Competition

121

Chapter 5

Key Technologies and the 

Revolution of Small, Smart, and 

Cheap in the Future of Warfare

By T. X. Hammes

The convergence of fourth industrial revolution technologies is making possible 

smaller, smarter, and cheaper weapons systems that will challenge the few and 

exquisite systems of today’s militaries. Based on land, sea, and air, these small, 

smart, and cheap weapons will fundamentally change the character of war and 

may come to dominate Great Power conflicts.

The U.S. Civil War demonstrated the impact of the Industrial Revolution on warfare. The advent of mass production, railroads, telegraphs, and steam warships meant mass 

became a dominant, if not the dominant, element on the battlefield. World War I reinforced 

this fact. Even with the advent of maneuver warfare, World War II remained largely a competition of mass. In the 1980s, American leaders turned to precision weapons to defeat the 

Warsaw Pact’s mass.1 Thankfully, we never found out if precision weapons could defeat 

the Warsaw Pact, but the technologies developed to do so proved devastating in the 1991 

Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Unfortunately, these weapons and the platforms 

to deliver them have become progressively more expensive. The result is the United States 

entered the 21st century building fewer but ever-more-capable weapons systems.

Twenty years into the new century, the United States, China, and Russia continue to 

pursue high-end systems such as fifth-generation fighters, heavy bombers, and aircraft 

carriers. Yet by reducing the price of precision and advanced manufacturing, the fourth 

industrial revolution is creating a new generation of smaller, smarter, and cheaper weapons 

that challenges these weapons systems. In short, we are moving to an era of mass precision. 

A key question in the unfolding era of Great Power competition is which nation can most 

rapidly and effectively adapt to this revolution.

Technological Convergence 

Like all previous industrial revolutions, this one is not based on a single technology but 

the convergence of an array of technologies that are rapidly maturing. This chapter studies only those most directly affecting military capabilities in the next 5 years (2020–2025). 
122 Hammes

Nanotechnology has made long-range precision systems affordable. Hypersonic weapons, 

although expensive, are creating yet another challenge. Furthermore, since each of these 

technologies is new, improvements in capability are happening fast while, with the exception of hypersonic weapons, costing a fraction of what it costs to improve current weapons 

systems technology.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which 

is about 1 to 100 nanometers. To put this scale into perspective, a sheet of newsprint is 

about 100,000 nanos thick.2

 Nanotechnology is applicable to chemistry, biology, physics, 

and materials science to dramatically increase a range of properties such as strength, combustibility, and conductivity.

The most immediate military application of nanotechnology is nano-explosives. Opensource reporting indicates nano-explosives have demonstrated an explosive power 10 times 

that of conventional explosives.3 Nano-research continues, which means much greater 

conventional explosive power is available to states and, inevitably, nonstate actors as well. 

Increased explosive capacity can give new, smaller weapons the same effectiveness of much 

larger older ones.

The second area of interest is nanomaterials. Carbon nanotubes (created from graphene) 

are over 400 times stronger than steel and are exceptional conductors.4 They are being used 

to reduce the weight needed for structural strength in many products—electronics, vehicles, medical devices, and even water purification. When techniques under development 

eventually make graphene available cheaply in large quantities, they will free designers to 

improve performance across the spectrum, from bicycles to high-end military applications.

Nanomaterials also dramatically increase battery storage capacity, and graphene-based 

supercapacitors can recharge almost instantly.5 Nanomaterials are making smart, adaptive 

fabric that changes to match the background and nano-based paints, making the acquisition of electronically or visually coated objects challenging.6

 Potentially, some of the 

most valuable nanoproducts are radiation-hardened circuits to protect electronics from 

microwave weapons. In short, improvements in materials, circuitry, energy storage, and 

explosives based on nanotechnology will lead to major increases in range, payload, and 

stealth for various vehicles.

Drones

Exponential improvements in drone capabilities are being driven by commercial interests. 

Autonomous air, ground, and maritime drones are available to anyone who wishes to purchase them for surveillance/reconnaissance, communications, logistics, and even strike.

Surveillance/Reconnaissance Drones. Long-endurance (30+ hours), military, remotely 

piloted unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Global Hawk are expensive ($130 million) and 

require extensive support structures to maximize their effectiveness—up to 171 personnel 

for each orbit.7

 Today, commercial demand for long-endurance surveillance systems is resulting in solutions that are much less expensive and require only a few personnel. Defiant 

Labs’ DX-3 autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone has a mission range of 

900 miles and carries light detection and ranging technology or integrated optical and ther-
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 123

mal cameras with high-resolution zoom.8

 Aerovel’s autonomous VTOL Flexrotor provides 

long-term (32 hours) and long-range (1,800 miles) observation. It carries visual and infrared video and still cameras as well as synthetic aperture radar.9

 Each costs about $200,000.

Clearly, the rapid advances in commercial, autonomous surveillance drones and machine interpretation is lowering the cost of operating long-range, multispectral, and radar 

surveillance missions.

Communications Relay Drones. Long-endurance or tethered drones can provide temporary nodes either to extend the range of existing systems or to provide rapid replacement 

for a node that has sustained damage.

Strike Drones. Predator-type remotely piloted military strike drones have received extensive coverage over the past two decades. Like a traditional airplane, it is a runway takeoff 

and runway landing platform. But the important advances are taking place in autonomous, 

VTOL drones. At the high end, for $2 million or 1/45th the cost of an F-35, the Kratos 

XQ-222 drone features a 3,000-mile range (over two times the F-35) with a 600-pound 

payload.10 The cost advantage actually increases with time. With its vertical takeoff and 

recovery system, the XQ-222 has minimal monthly training costs, needs no airfield, and 

requires no training pipeline for pilots and maintainers, no pilot bonuses, no retirement 

costs, no health care, and so forth. The U.S. Air Force is testing a version it has designated 

the XQ-58A. Unfortunately, the XQ-222’s presence at the Paris Air Show in 2017 indicates 

America will not be the only nation with this capability.

Strike drone technology is not limited to million-dollar systems, however. The United 

States has shipped over 4,000 of its $15,000 Switchblade drones to Afghanistan since 2011. 

Measuring 2 feet long and 3 inches wide, and weighing only 6 pounds, it can fly for approximately 6.2 miles and provide live video to the operator. Because it is armed, operators can 

use it to “suicide” into any targets they find.11 Moreover, major states do not have a monopoly on strike missions. Iran demonstrated its capabilities in the strike on the Saudi Arabian 

Abqaiq oil facility in September 2019. Tehran also provided weapons for Yemeni cruise 

missile attacks on U.S. warships. Even before Iran’s activities, the so-called Islamic State 

conducted over 80 drone attacks between October 2016 and January 2017 that resulted in 

about a dozen dead and 50 injured enemy soldiers.12

Commercial firms are testing autonomous VTOL drones that are GPS-independent, 

hardened against electronic interference, range hundreds of miles, deliver with an accuracy 

of 1 meter, and are inexpensive enough to be disposable.13

Maritime Drones. The commercial shipping industry is working on an array of unmanned surface vessels (USVs), from North Sea ferries to electric coastal cargo vessels to 

full-size container ships and tankers. By 2018, the U.S. Navy was developing its own USVs 

to detect and strike enemy combatants, clear a mined strait within hours using a swarm of 

vessels, trail an adversary’s submarines, and guard a critical infrastructure.14

Imaginatively employed, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) could be a relatively 

inexpensive substitute/augmentation for a submarine force. Both the U.S. and Chinese navies are pursuing numerous autonomous maritime platforms.

Ground Drones. In Iraq, Shia militia employed four armed robots to fight the Islamic 

State.15 Russia deployed its Uran-9 remotely operated minitank to Syria with mixed results.16 This is not surprising. All revolutionary systems encounter major problems during 
124 Hammes

initial deployments. Despite early setbacks, many nations continue to develop unmanned 

ground vehicles.

In short, both military and commercial drone usage—on the ground, at sea, in the 

air—is exploding. The global smart commercial drone market is projected to reach $179 

billion by 2025,17 and there appear to be few limits to the planned uses.

Counter-Drone Efforts. Since 2002, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 

(DARPA) has sponsored the annual Black Dart live-fire exercise to explore ideas for defeating drones. Since then, anti-drone technology has taken many different paths: kinetic 

kill, directed energy (lasers and electromagnetic pulse), software attacks, and electronic and 

GPS jamming.

Lasers, software attacks, and electromagnetic pulse initially appeared to have the most 

potential impact on swarms. Unfortunately, each approach has significant limitations. 

Certain atmospheric conditions (dust, haze, water vapor) as well as reflective paints and 

ablative coatings can significantly reduce the effectiveness of lasers. Software attacks require 

the enemy to cooperate by leaving a path into his system to insert the software. Electromagnetic weapons can be defeated by hardening a drone’s electronics. During the Cold 

War, mission-critical electronics were protected from the potential electromagnetic pulse 

of a nuclear detonation by enclosing the electronics within Faraday cages.18 Today, radiation-hardened electronics can be placed into a system during its manufacture.19

In a new approach, DARPA is exploring the use of drone swarms to defeat drone 

swarms. It sponsored a 2017 competition among teams from the U.S. Service academies 

to see which could develop the most effective software and tactics for one swarm to defeat 

another. The teams then flew mixed swarms of 25 drones against each other with remarkable success.20 This concept has not been tested against larger swarms, and no attempt has 

been made to operationalize the concept. The fact remains, however, that current civil and 

military systems cannot defeat swarms of autonomous drones.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a wide-ranging, dynamic field. Chapter 6 of this volume addresses a number of AI implications for wider defense and security. In this chapter, we 

address two AI areas of particular importance in the rapid evolution of small, smart, and 

cheap weapons: GPS-independent navigation and target identification. At the cheap end, a 

University of Pennsylvania quadcopter “uses a smartphone for autonomous flight, employing only onboard hardware and vision algorithms—no GPS is involved.”21 At the expensive 

end, DARPA is developing precise navigation using variations in Earth’s magnetic field.22

Both systems are immune to GPS jamming or spoofing—a growing challenge from Russia 

and inevitably China.23 These systems can get a drone to the target area but they cannot 

ensure it can hit a specific target.

Thus, the second key element for truly autonomous drone strike operations is accurate 

target identification. Many researchers are working on limited AI that will provide accurate 

identification from onboard sensors.24 At the low end, an early 2019 online journal rated seven 

commercial drones that can identify and follow a person.25 These drones can certainly identify 

an aircraft on a parking apron. At the high end, the Air Force Research Lab is using a neuromorphic chip to identify military and civilian vehicles in radar-generated aerial imagery.26
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 125

Swarms

Truly autonomous drones will require no human intervention to execute missions, thus 

they will be able to operate in large numbers. This requires they be inexpensive. In 2014, a 

University of Virginia team 3D printed a drone in a single day, then added a small electric 

motor, 2 batteries, and an Android phone for guidance to produce an $800 autonomous 

drone with a range of approximately 30 miles.27 Today, a factory with 1,000 Carbon3D 

printers could print 100,000 such drone bodies daily. The limitation is now the assembly 

and shipment of the finished products. Both processes can be automated with robots.

Launching thousands of drones will be challenging, but by using standard shipping 

containers set up like multiple-launch rocket systems, numerous drones can be moved and 

employed quickly. Sheer numbers will overwhelm any current antiair system.

Small states and insurgents are not only operating but also manufacturing military 

drones. Azerbaijan builds a licensed version of Israel’s Orbiter 1K.28 In 2016, the Polish 

army contracted to buy 1,000 Polish-manufactured combat drones annually at a price of 

about $7,000 each.29 They have high-explosive, high-explosive anti-tank, and fuel-air explosive (also known as thermobaric) warheads.

Small Warheads Technology

As of 2020, design is clearly mastering the first two challenges to drone swarms: autonomous navigation and target identification. The last challenge—the payload limitation of 

small drones—can be overcome by three separate approaches. The first and least technically 

challenging approach is “bringing the detonator.” The second approach, the use of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) as warheads, requires more technical expertise. The third 

approach uses swarms and counts on the cumulative damage of dozens of small warheads 

to accomplish the mission.

“Bringing the detonator” uses the drone to deliver a small initiating charge to the much 

larger supply of explosive material provided by thin-skinned targets such as ammunition 

dumps, parked aircraft, fuel trucks, or rocket launchers. A few ounces of explosives delivered to the right point on these targets will initiate secondary explosions that completely 

destroy them. Russian separatists have repeatedly used small drones to drop simple thermite grenades on Ukrainian ammunition dumps. The resulting secondary explosions have 

destroyed hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition.30

To penetrate nonexplosive targets such as supply trucks or light armored vehicles, one 

can use the second approach, EFPs. A properly built thumb-sized EFP weighing only 3 

ounces can penetrate up to one-half inch of steel. Increasing the size of the EFP to only a 

few pounds allows it to destroy even well-armored vehicles.

The combination of drones, AI, and advanced manufacturing means there could be 

thousands of mobile, smart, active hunters spread widely over tomorrow’s battlespaces.

Space

Even as governments and large firms squeeze more capability out of expensive satellites, 

cube satellites—or CubeSats—measuring about 4 inches on a side are creating cheaper alternatives.31 Costing under $125,000, CubeSats are key to a new industry that sells space 

as a service. Using a network of CubeSats, Planet, a commercial venture, has achieved the 
126 Hammes

elusive goal of taking a medium-resolution photo of every place on Earth every day.32 Viasat 

is building a network that will allow customers to view images and video from the ever-increasing network of observation satellites in near real time.33

Major powers have lost their monopoly on the use of space. “Cheap space” means that 

in an era of disruptive technologies and Great Power competition, all military planners 

must assume almost any enemy can see their forces whenever they are moving.

Hypersonic Weapons

Hypersonic weapons, also known as hypervelocity weapons, travel between 5 and 25 times 

the speed of sound.34 There are three distinct approaches to achieving hypersonic weapons—boost-glide rockets, cruise missiles, and artillery projectiles. Each approach is rapidly 

maturing and will dramatically change the character of conflict. Most are not projected to 

be operational in large numbers within the next 5 years.

Boost-glide rocket systems require a ballistic missile to attain speed and altitude before 

they maneuver in the manner that gives them their name. When operational, they will provide maneuverable, long-range precision with devastating destructive power.35 Both Russia 

and China seem to be developing boost-glide as strategic weapons with a focus on carrying 

nuclear warheads. The United States hopes to have a boost-glide system operational by 2028.36

In contrast, hypersonic cruise missiles have the potential to be much cheaper and 

launched by a variety of ground, sea, and air platforms but are much smaller and have 

limited range. China’s DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle will have a range of about 1,200 miles 

and is nearing operational readiness.37 Russia’s Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile, with a 

range of 250 to 600 miles against land and sea targets, will be operational by 2023. It can be 

fired by surface ships and submarines.38 The U.S. Air Force is working on the AGM-183 airlaunched rapid-response weapon, and the U.S. Army is developing a long-range hypersonic 

weapon that it plans to transition to a program of record in 2024.39 Both provide specific 

threats to fixed facilities such as airfields and seaports.

The final technology, hypersonic artillery shells, is cheaper but with much less range—

currently only about 50 miles.40 The U.S. Army has set a goal of an artillery piece with a 

1,000-mile range but has no projected date for fielding such a system.41

In sum, these advances in nanotechnology—drones, AI, swarms, space, and hypersonics—will revolutionize combat in all domains of warfare in the emerging era of Great Power 

competition and change the tactical and operational context of future conflicts.

Tactical Impact 

The ascent of small, smart, cheap technologies will have major tactical impacts on each individual domain of combat: ground, sea, air, space, cyber, and electromagnetic—and more 

importantly on cross-domain operations.

Ground

When we combine simple drones, additive manufacturing, autonomous navigation, and 

target identification, ground forces may face thousands or even tens of thousands of autonomous aerial drones. Furthermore, if packaged in standard commercial containers or 

trucks for movement within the battlespace, they will be difficult to identify or preempt. 
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 127

Combined with mines, GRAMM (guided rockets, artillery, mortars, and missiles) fires, and 

other precision weapons, the emerging family of drones can create a deep zone denied to 

movement by either side.

Today, ground forces are in the first stage of the historically demonstrated process 

where a new technology starts out assisting the old. Then, as the technology improves, it becomes a partner until it finally replaces the old system (assistant-to-partner-to-replacement 

process). Ground forces are working out how to employ weapons to assist their current 

forces in combat. However, with the rapid improvements in cruise missiles and drones, division commanders may soon control weapons with a 1,000-mile range and be full partners 

with manned aircraft. Moreover, joint doctrine will have to adjust if ground forces must 

soon control weapons that exceed the range of fighter bombers.

The final step—replacement—will require careful consideration of which combat 

functions can be allocated to autonomous drones. The AI limitations of such autonomous 

systems indicate they will be better at conventional conflict than unconventional, where 

determining human intention is much more challenging. This area requires extensive wargaming, computer simulation, field experiments, and air-ground coordination.

Sea

At sea, it will soon be possible to pit numerous relatively cheap drones as well as cruise and 

ballistic missiles against the few but exquisite platforms of the U.S. Navy. Studies by the 

Navy’s assessment division indicate that in naval combat the first salvo wins.42 Although 

winning the first salvo wins the battle against another conventional fleet, it is less applicable 

for a fleet fighting a land-based force. The ground force can hide, creating no signature until 

it fires. In contrast, ships and aircraft create signatures merely by moving.

Russia, China, and Israel have already produced containerized cruise missiles, which 

can provide various platforms with ship-killing weapons. Container ships could be converted to warships by the addition of 40 to 50 containerized weapons and a simple command 

and control system for about $125 million, or a fraction of the purchase price of a Navy 

littoral combat ship (LCS). Unlike the LCS, container ships are well built due to the requirement to resist hogging and sagging of their long hulls in heavy seas. In short, they could be 

a survivable and cheaper class of ship and could add numerous missiles to a fleet.

In addition to increasingly capable cruise missiles, VTOL drones such as the XQ-58A 

described earlier in this chapter mean almost any seagoing vessel can be a small aircraft carrier. Drones do not have to carry weapons large enough to sink a ship to achieve a mission 

kill. A drone detonating against an aircraft on the deck of a carrier or firing a fragmentation 

charge against a phased array radar will significantly degrade that platform’s capabilities. 

In addition, many warships carry weapons in box launchers topside. These provide easily 

identifiable target points and great potential for secondary explosions. Aircraft carriers may 

well be the most vulnerable. The USS Oriskany, USS Forrestal, and USS Enterprise fires all 

demonstrate that a small explosion on a deck full of armed, fueled aircraft can result in a 

carrier being put out of action for weeks to months.43

Undersea weapons pose an even greater challenge to navies. The wide array of commercial unmanned underwater vehicles may provide even small nations with a submarine 

force. If developed as weapons systems, commercial UUVs could dramatically change naval 
128 Hammes

combat; the skills and organization needed to build and employ a short-range UUV force 

are orders of magnitude less than those needed for a submarine force.

While currently unable to intercept ships under way, UUVs can serve as self-deploying 

smart mines. With the right fuze, they could wait for a specific class of ship—commercial 

or military—before attacking. Although these systems cannot stop trade, damaging a few 

ships will cause major increases in maritime insurance rates. To date, no nation is capable 

of rapidly clearing smart mines with a high degree of confidence. Clearly, mines provide 

another major advantage to the defense.

The arrival of numerous relatively cheap, autonomous drones and cruise missiles will 

drastically change war at sea in the emerging era of Great Power competition. To adapt, navies must conduct rigorous and ruthless wargames to examine how a near-peer competitor 

will use many small, smart, and cheap weapons as well as a limited number of hypersonic 

missiles to destroy the few and exquisite platforms most navies currently deploy.

Air

Small, smart, cheap new technologies present two enormous challenges to aviators: how to 

protect critical high-demand, low-density assets and how to protect aircraft at their beddown sites.

Clearly, China sees U.S. enablers—Airborne Warning and Control Systems aircraft and 

aerial tankers—as a critical vulnerability and have dedicated major resources to crippling 

American airpower by defeating enablers with long-range, air-to-air missiles. Beijing is 

Figure 5.1. Kalibr Cruise Missile Ranges if Launched from 

West or Gulf Coasts

Source: Figure generated by author.
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 129

working hard to extend its cruise and ballistic missile ranges to force the United States to 

base its enablers and fighters so far from China’s shore that they are no longer a threat. In 

2018, China announced the activation of a brigade of 22 DF-26 missile launchers that can 

range U.S. bases on Guam.44 Prudent planners must also assume China will experiment 

with antiaircraft missiles in shipping containers. Mounted on various commercial ships, 

these could ambush tankers en route to the fight. Another way China seeks to reduce the 

effectiveness of and perhaps even defeat America’s advanced aircraft like the B-21 is to destroy them on the ground. Or, as figure 5.1 shows, Chinese ship-based Kalibr-class cruise 

missiles can range almost all U.S. tanker and bomber bases from launch positions off the 

coasts of the United States. Without tanker support, manned aircraft are rendered impotent 

in the Pacific.

Fortunately, destroying air bases will not affect mobile, vertical launch drones, which 

can hide easily in urban or most rural terrain. These drones can also almost turn any oceangoing vessel into an aircraft carrier—particularly if they are employed as suicide drones and 

the ship does not have to be around for recovery. Small ships will carry only a few containers, but it is important to remember that 18 Harpy drones fit in a single 20-foot container. 

Each Harpy can carry a 55-pound payload to a range of 600 miles—and hunt autonomously 

in visual, infrared, and electromagnetic spectrums. From mainland China, these drones can 

reach Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. A Chinese battery could launch 54 Harpies 

while a battalion could launch 162. Thus, the sheer number of drones could overwhelm 

defensive systems.

The combination of cheap drones and much more capable cruise missiles offers opportunities to overcome legacy, manned airpower’s key vulnerabilities. But it also may offer 

even small- and medium-sized states antiaccess/area-denial and precision, long-range 

strike capabilities. Airpower is facing enormous change. Relatively cheap, autonomous 

drones and somewhat more expensive but more capable cruise and ballistic missiles and 

potentially hypersonic missiles are rendering manned aircraft obsolete. The United States 

does not currently have a way to defend airbases against this new generation of weapons. 

Aircraft carriers, although tougher targets, are also under increasing threat. Nor can current 

or envisioned systems find and attack these mobile systems to preempt them. Airmen must 

embrace drones and work rapidly to transition them from their current status as partners 

for manned aircraft to that of replacements.

Space

In space, the advent of micro- and cube satellites, paired with commercial launch platforms, 

will provide space surveillance and even make attack from space a possibility. In April 2020, 

the Northrup Grumman Mission Extension Vehicle successfully docked with Intelsat 901 

and serviced it in orbit.45 The system could be used to destroy as well as repair. Whether 

space assets will be used to attack targets on Earth remains an open question.

Because China has demonstrated the ability to use both kinetic and soft kill on satellites, we should assume the United States is developing similar capabilities.46 This evinces 

a clear understanding that any major conflict will involve fighting in space to defend one’s 

own assets. Resilience is also required. A combination of small satellites, long-endurance 

solar-powered drones, and perhaps even balloons can mitigate the loss of current space 
130 Hammes

assets and is being actively explored by the United States. It is good news that the U.S. Air 

Force is shifting the emphasis of U.S. Space Command from that of a service provider to 

that of a warfighting command.47

Cyber 

Cyber operators have enjoyed enormous success in stealing data and money but much more 

varied results in attempts at physical damage. China has been at the forefront of cyber espionage and focused its teams “on the satellite, aerospace, and communications sectors.”48

The Snowden files confirmed that China had penetrated Lockheed Martin’s top-secret data 

on the F-35.49 There is no question that many nations continue to pursue cyber espionage. 

Even the most advanced cyber actors that have attempted it (Russia, Israel, and the United 

States) have achieved relatively modest physical destruction outcomes despite often months 

or even years of intensive efforts.50 Perhaps the only reassuring aspect of the increasing 

state-sponsored cyber activity is that it may be reducing the chance of a major surprise. 

Historically, devastating surprise attacks have usually taken place after a long period of 

peace when new operational concepts clash for the first time.

In contrast, cyber warfare is constant, global, ongoing, and evolving. The many sides 

in these cyber contests are constantly sharpening both offensive and defensive skills and 

testing them against each other. In addition, cyber attacks focused on societies are, by definition, attacking complex adaptive systems. These systems show remarkable resilience and 

power of recovery. The ongoing conflict in cyber space will accelerate as the fourth industrial revolution continues. However, it is virtually impossible to predict if a specific attack 

will succeed or how long it will remain effective.

One aspect not normally discussed is the potential for physical attacks on an enemy’s 

cyber capability. All networks have nodes in the real world. For instance, satellite downlinks, servers, and fiber-optic networks are vulnerable. Furthermore, unlike cyber attacks 

that have great uncertainty, physical attacks on known locations can cause more predictable 

major damage to an opponent’s cyber networks. It is also easier to coordinate real-world 

attacks than to mix cyber and real-world attacks. This is an area ripe for cross-domain 

exploitation.

Electromagnetic

Use of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is essential to conduct warfare in every other 

domain. If a force can dominate the spectrum, it can severely limit or even defeat an enemy’s efforts in land, sea, air, space, and cyber. With proper and constant training, naval and 

air forces can operate in emission-controlled environments, but such a posture severely 

degrades their capabilities. Land forces can fight without communications, but unless well 

trained and practiced in maneuver warfare, the result is a series of disconnected local engagements. If an enemy truly dominates the EM spectrum, it can make it difficult for an 

adversary to communicate with space assets. Also, cyber systems often rely on EM communications links that could be subject to jamming, degradation, or deception.

Although the United States has not yet officially recognized the EM spectrum as a 

domain of war, China has made it a key element of its newly organized Strategic Support 

Force (SSF). The SSF not only integrates space, cyber, information, and electronic warfare 
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 131

(EW) in support of Chinese operations, but also directs advanced research in EW.51 For its 

part, Russia has dedicated millions of dollars to upgrading its EW capabilities. As a result, 

Moscow has been able to use EW to damage or destroy Ukrainian command networks; 

jam radios, radars, and GPS signals; and control fires.52 Clearly both China and Russia have 

assigned high priority to operating in this environment.

Miniaturization of electronics, massive increases in computer power, creation of electromagnetic pulse systems, and improved sensors are driving the EM spectrum to be a 

key area of high-tech competition—one that may well determine the outcome of future 

engagements. The vulnerability of current communications systems provides great impetus 

to develop truly autonomous, sealed weapons systems.

Operational Implications 

Technological convergence is driving the “democratization” of military power by providing 

small states—and even groups—capabilities that used to be the preserve of major powers. 

Five factors will have a direct impact on the operational level of war: range obsolescence, 

the loss of immunity to attack, the tactical dominance of defense, the return of mass, and 

the requirement to mobilize.

Range Obsolescence

As discussed, missiles and drones have three major advantages over manned aircraft—

range, basing flexibility, and cost. An increasing number of drones and ballistic and cruise 

missiles outrange all fighter bombers. Because many are truck mobile, they are extremely 

difficult to suppress, much less destroy. Moreover, they are forcing U.S. warfighters to be 

based so far from the frontlines that the fighters are effectively neutralized. Finally, they are 

relatively cheap (see figure 5.2).

Loss of Immunity to Attack

Long-range drones, containerized weapons on commercial ships, sea mines, and submersible drones will provide small states and even nonstate actors the capability to strike air and 

sea ports globally. The United States will no longer project power anywhere in the world 

with impunity. Future enemies will be able to impose real costs that directly affect U.S. citizens, and they may not be shy about employing these weapons. Small states and nonstate 

actors have shown cyber capabilities that have distinctly reduced U.S. immunity to counterattack when America gets involved in a conflict overseas.

Internationally, attacks on Saudi oil facilities and U.S. facilities on Iraqi bases have 

demonstrated major increases in opponents’ abilities to threaten intermediate bases. If 

threatened, would friendly nations allow U.S. forces to use their transit facilities? Can the 

United States protect commercial airfields, key government facilities, and key economic 

assets in host countries to ensure continued access?

Small precision weapons also provide opportunities for state sponsors to vastly improve 

the capabilities of proxies, as demonstrated by the Yeminis firing cruise missiles at U.S. warships.53 Of more immediate concern will be the far larger number of weapons that can hit 

critical operational support bases such as Bagram, Afghanistan. Even if the United States 

can protect major fixed bases, can it defend all patrol bases, gatherings of local leaders, and 
132 Hammes

host-nation facilities essential to current U.S. operations? Even more challenging than protecting fixed facilities will be defending the convoys that move personnel, equipment, and 

supplies within the theater.

Tactical Dominance of Defense

Emerging autonomous systems will provide an inherent advantage to defenders because 

they do not have to generate any active signature until they choose to fire. Finding a defender’s system hidden in urban clutter, underground facilities, or even the complex littoral 

environment is much harder than finding the aggressor’s system as it moves to attack—particularly if it moves in the air or on the sea.

This is a major advantage of the United States and its allies because we are on the operational defensive in both Asia and Europe. If the United States chooses to create a new 

generation of inexpensive, smart weapons, it can share them with its allies. Japan, South 

Korea, Australia, and Europe all have defense industries that could produce these weapons 

Figure 5.2. Range of Missiles, Drones, and Aircraft in Nautical Miles

Source: Figure generated by author.

DX-3 (Commercial)

Flexrotor

Harop (CH)

UTAP-22 (US)

QX-222 (US)

DF-26 (CH)

DF-21A (CH)

DF-21D (CH)

DF-21C (CH)

HN-3A

KH-101 (RU)

Kh-55 (RU)

SSN-21 (RU)

SSC-8 (RU)

HN-2 (CH)

SSN-30 (RU)

CV Air Wing

F-16

F-35 A/C

F-22

Drones

Ballistic

Missiles

Cruise

Missiles

U.S.

Aircraft

Nautical Miles

Maximum Unrefueled Range of

U.S. Fighter/Bombers

0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200

800

810

540

1,450

1,850

1,890

1,160

944

1,690

1,511

1,350

1,690

1,080

972

1,350

450

675

625

800

1,100

1,400 1,600 1,800 2,000
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 133

to provide their nations with affordable, effective defensive capabilities against either China 

or Russia. In addition, the United States could provide these systems to smaller allies like 

those on the First Island Chain and the Nordic and Baltic countries. With allies adopting 

these systems, U.S. forces could integrate more effectively into the defense of these nations. 

This ability could significantly improve the capabilities of U.S. contact and blunt layers (as 

described in the National Defense Strategy) while making it easier for the surge forces to 

enter the theater.54

The proliferation of precision weapons may create a situation similar to World War I, 

where any person in range above the ground could be cheaply killed. The result was static, 

trench warfare. Able to reach out 1,000 miles in the surface, subsurface, and air domains, 

these drones and cruise and ballistic missiles may again make defense the tactically dominant form of warfare. Power projection may be limited to strike operations using a family of 

drones and cruise and hypervelocity missiles.

Proponents of directed energy weapons (DEW)—lasers and microwave systems—suggest their systems will defeat such drone and missile swarms and thus return offense to 

the tactical battlefield. Unfortunately, these systems are still expensive and power hungry, 

ineffective under some environmental conditions, and may be subject to defeat by relatively 

inexpensive countermeasures. At the same time, DEW will favor defenders who have the 

huge advantage of fixed-power facilities and the ability to blend into complex terrain.

If DEW systems ever become capable of defeating thousands of drones, they may also 

be able to defeat the much fewer conventional aircraft, guided bombs, and missiles the 

United States can deploy. This ability would reinforce the dominance of the defense. A key 

question that must be explored is whether land power—by taking advantage of complex 

terrain, unlimited magazines, massive power networks, and the ever-increasing range and 

speed of land-based weapons—will come to dominate the sea, air, and space domains.

Return of Mass

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, technological convergence means that mass with 

precision has arrived. Additive manufacturing will make numerous cheap drones and advanced GRAMM systems available. Sheer numbers of cheap, mass-produced, unmanned 

precision weapons may simply overwhelm the exceptionally capable but manned U.S. legacy weapons systems. Large numbers of relatively inexpensive precision weapons will defeat 

the current U.S. inventory of exquisite but few systems. In response, the Pentagon must 

figure out how to produce precision weapons in mass.

Requirement to Mobilize

Mobilization in World War II was possible because civilian industry could rapidly convert to military production. By 1990, the complexity of modern military weapons systems 

made rapid mobilization difficult if not impossible.55 Advanced manufacturing—particularly 3D printing and robotics guided by task-specific AI—may radically change this 

situation. 3D printing is inherently flexible because the product produced depends only on 

the materials the printer can use, the design of the printer, and the software that is loaded. 

With a change of software, 3D printers can go from producing commercial products to 

producing weapons. Thus, as 3D printing assumes a greater role in industry, the possibility 
134 Hammes

of industrial mobilization will reemerge. However, successful mobilization cannot be accomplished quickly without a significant planning effort. The Pentagon must be prepared 

to provide the computer files for the 3D printers as well as produce the required government-furnished equipment. The Pentagon must also be prepared to enlist and train new 

personnel, build them into coherent units, and then move those units and the weapons to 

an overseas battlefield. Unfortunately, the Pentagon has only recently begun to think about 

these issues.56

Cumulative Impact on Military Operations 

The convergence of technology over the next 10 to 20 years means everyone—even nonstate 

actors—will have precision strike capabilities. Nations with access to as few as 100 3D printers could have access to thousands of precision drones. By pairing these drones with passive 

sensors, defenders will not have to emit any signal until they choose to fire. In contrast, 

attackers must create a signal when moving to the target area. Thus, defenders will choose 

when to initiate the fight and will be able to do so with a massive barrage of precision weapons. In short, a prepared defense will be able to create tactical dominance.

Unfortunately, because of the huge physical and electronic signature of major military 

bases, they will prove the exception to the dominance of the defense. Rapidly improving 

inexpensive drones can reach 500 miles today. Relatively inexpensive cruise missiles reach 

1,000 miles or more. Both can be deployed on platforms that will offer new opportunities 

for surprise mass attacks on U.S. bases at home and overseas.

The combination of these factors means that states and nonstates will be able to impose 

significant casualties and even economic damage to opponents who try to land ground 

forces in their home territories. In human and financial terms, intervention will be much 

more costly in the future than it is today.

Impact on Great Power Competition and Conflict 

The technologies of the fourth industrial revolution will not change the fundamental nature 

of war. It will still be driven by Carl von Clausewitz’s primary trinity of passion, chance, 

and reason. It will remain the domain of fog, friction, and uncertainty. Technology will 

not bring clarity or brevity. For millennia, political and military leaders have embarked on 

wars where they thought they understood the situation and could win a short and decisive 

war—and subsequently paid the price for ignoring the true nature of war.57

In the conventional arena, the revolution of small, smart, and cheap favors the United 

States over China or Russia. Operationally and tactically, the United States is on the defensive in both Eastern Europe and Asia.

China is obviously the most serious military challenge. Its rapid buildup of conventional forces, fundamental reorganization to improve jointness, and intensive development 

of “system attack and destruction warfare” directly challenges U.S. doctrine for force projection.58 In response, the Department of Defense is working on a joint warfighting concept 

to meet these new challenges. While still a work in progress, the emergence of small, smart, 

and cheap technologies can do much to neutralize China’s ongoing investments in system 

attack.
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 135

By adopting mobile missile systems, VTOL drones, missile merchants, and smart 

mines, U.S. forces could move from dependence on large, fixed, easily targeted bases and 

platforms to systems that can disperse and hide throughout the First Island Chain as part 

of both the contact and blunt layers noted in the National Defense Strategy.59 This would 

greatly strengthen the American strategy that is based on defending the First Island Chain, 

denying China use of the seas inside the First Island Chain, and dominating the seas outside 

that chain.

As noted, the relatively low cost and simplicity of these systems mean the United States 

can share production of these weapons with Australia, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. 

The United States can also share them with the Philippines and Indonesia to provide these 

nations with weapons that can challenge Chinese forces. Forward basing or rotating similarly equipped U.S. forces to train with these allies will reinforce political aspects of the 

alliances even as it strengthens their military power.

In Europe, the fundamental challenge for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) is to prevent Russia from seizing territory before the Alliance can mobilize and 

respond. The concern is that once Russia seizes territory, it will “escalate to deescalate” 

by threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons against any forces moving to eject Russian 

forces. Given the reluctance of the population of NATO member states to engage in conflict with Russia, it is uncertain if many states will fight even if not threatened by nuclear 

weapons.60 If Russia threatens the use of nuclear weapons, the probability of NATO action 

will decrease significantly. Given the long mobilization and deployment times of Alliance 

forces, the only way to prevent this outcome is to prevent Russia from seizing the territory 

in the first place.

By equipping front-line states with a mix of inexpensive drones and improvised explosive devices, NATO could create a tough, quickly mobilized, and deep defense on its 

borders. If NATO states invest heavily in autonomous drones and cruise missiles, they 

could provide supporting fires in a matter of hours rather than the weeks or months currently envisioned.61

The Changing Character of War 

In contrast to the unchanging nature of war, the character of war—how it is fought—has 

changed continually. Despite America’s love of technology, how people fight wars will remain based more on the political, economic, and social aspects of their societies than the 

technology involved. Historically, each society’s employment of new technology has been 

heavily shaped by these same aspects. For over 200 years, Swiss pikemen dominated the battlefields of Europe. There was no technological mystery to making or even using pikes, but 

only the Swiss had the necessary social cohesiveness and trust to fight in tight formations 

under elected leaders. The hierarchical political entities of Europe could not.

Each society will use the emerging technologies in ways best suited to its unique needs. 

Furthermore, conflict will not be based solely on those aspects of one society but the interactions of all the societies in the conflict. In the dawning era of Great Power competition, 

wars are likely to be bloodier, longer, and more financially ruinous. Fortunately, the emergence and convergence of fourth industrial revolution technologies provide real advantages 

for the United States—if it can seize them.
136 Hammes

Notes

1 Robert Work, “The Third U.S. Offset Strategy and Its Implications 

for Partners and Allies,” Department of Defense, January 28, 

2015, available at <http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/

Speech-View/Article/606641/the-third-us-offset-strategy-andits-implications-for-partners-and-allies>.

2 “What Is Nanotechnology?” National Nanotechnology 

Initiative, available at <https://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/

what/definition>.

3 Louis A. Del Monte, Nanoweapons: A Growing Threat to 

Humanity (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2017), 47–48.

4 Michael Berger, “Carbon Nanotubes—What They Are, How 

They Are Made, What They Are Used For,” Nanowerk, available 

at <www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology/introduction/

introduction_to_nanotechnology_22.php>.

5 Li Yi Hsu, Thomas Lepetit, and Boubacar Kante, “Extremely 

Thin Dielectric Metasurface for Carpet Cloaking,” Progress in 

Electromagnetic Research 152 (2015), 33–40.

6

 S. R. Vadera and Narendra Kumar, “Nanotechnology and 

Nanomaterials for Camouflage and Stealth Applications,” 

Nanowerk, January 30, 2015, available at <www.nanowerk.com/

spotlight/spotid=38899_3.php>.

7

 Winslow Wheeler, “The MQ-9’s Cost and Performance,” 

Time, February 28, 2012, available at <http://nation.time.

com/2012/02/28/2-the-mq-9s-cost-and-performance>.

8

 “New 24-Hour Endurance Hybrid Drone Developed for 

Monitoring and Inspection,” Unmanned Systems News, December 

12, 2016, available at <www.unmannedsystemstechnology.

com/2016/12/defiant-labs-announces-new-dx-3-drone-formonitoring-inspection>.

9

 “Payload Options,” Serovel.com, available at <http://aerovel.

com/flexrotor/>.

10 Tyler Rogoway, “More Details Emerge on Kratos’ Optionally 

Expendable Air Combat Drones,” The Warzone, February 7, 

2017, available at <www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7449/

more-details-on-kratos-optionally-expendable-air-combatdrones-emerge>.

11 Sofia Bledsoe, “PEO Workers Receive Army Acquisition 

Awards,” Army, May 11, 2017, available at <https://www.army.mil/

article/148323/PEO_workers_receive_Army_acquisition_awards/>.

12 Eric Schmitt, “Papers Offer a Peek at ISIS’s Drones, Lethal 

and Largely Off-the-Shelf,” New York Times, January 31, 2017, 

available at <www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/middleeast/

isis-drone-documents.html?_r=1>.

13 Lora Kolodny and Darren Weaver, “These Drones Can Haul 

a 20-Pound Load for 500 Miles and Land on a Moving Target,” 

CNBC, May 26, 2018, available at <www.cnbc.com/2018/05/26/

volans-i-drones-can-haul-cargo-for-500-miles-and-land-on-amoving-ship.html>.

14 Rob Wittman, “U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Vehicle Efforts Are the 

Answer to Deterring Adversaries,” Defense News, April 26, 2018, 

available at <www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2018/04/26/

us-navys-unmanned-vehicle-efforts-are-the-answer-todeterring-adversaries/>.

15 Adam Rawnsley and Austin Bodetti, “The Warbot 

Builders of the Middle East Spill Their Secrets,” Wired, 

February 2, 2017, available at <www.wired.com/2017/02/

warbot-builders-middle-east-spill-secrets>.

16 Daniel Brown, “Russia’s Uran-9 Robot Tank Reportedly 

Performed Horribly in Syria,” Business Insider, July 

9, 2018, available at <www.businessinsider.com/

russias-uran-9-robot-tank-performed-horribly-in-syria-2018-7>.

17 “Global Smart Commercial Drones Market Is Expected to 

Reach US$ 179600 Million by 2025 with 83.3% CAGR,” Benzinga, 

June 10, 2019.

18 “What Is a Faraday Cage?” Faraday Cage, available at <www.

faradaycage.org/>.

19 John Keller, “The Evolving World of Radiation-Hardened 

Electronics,” Military & Aerospace Electronics, June 1, 2018, available 

at <www.militaryaerospace.com/computers/article/16707204/

the-evolving-world-of-radiationhardened-electronics>.

20 “Service Academies Swarm Challenge Pushes the Boundaries 

of Autonomous Swarm Capabilities,” Defense Advanced Research 

Projects Agency, May 11, 2017, available at <https://www.darpa.

mil/news-events/2017-05-11>.

21 Evan Ackerman and Celia Gorman, “This Drone Uses a 

Smartphone for Eyes and a Brain,” IEEE Spectrum, April 9, 

2015, available at <http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/robotics/

aerial-robots/this-drone-uses-a-smartphone-for-a-brain>.

22 Brian Wang, “Quantum Assisted GPS Would Be One Thousand 

Times More Accurate Than Any Existing GPS and Other High 

Potential DARPA Projects,” Next Big Future, May 23, 2014, 

available at <www.nextbigfuture.com/2014/05/quantum-assistedgps-would-be-one.html>.

23 Dana A. Goward, “Russia, China Alliance on Navigation 

Satellites Threatens GPS,” National Defense Magazine, August 

23, 2019, available at <https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.

org/articles/2019/8/23/viewpoint-russia-china-alliance-onnavigation-satellites-threatens-gps>; Above Us Only Stars: 

Exposing GPS Spoofing in Russia and Syria (Austin, TX: 

C4Ads, 2019), available at <https://static1.squarespace.com/

static/566ef8b4d8af107232d5358a/t/5c99488beb39314c45e78

2da/1553549492554/Above+Us+Only+Stars.pdf>.

24 “Cameras and Sensors,” HSE-UAV, available at <www.

agricultureuavs.com/photos_multispectral_camera.htm>.

25 “The 7 Best Follow You Drones—[Updated 2020] Follow Me 

Drone Review,” Drone Enthusiast, April 9, 2020, available at 

<www.dronethusiast.com/drones-that-follow-you/>.

26 Andrew Rosenblum, “Air Force Tests IBM’s Brain-Inspired Chip 

as an Aerial Tank Spotter,” MIT Technology Review, January 11, 

2017, available at <www.technologyreview.com/2017/01/11/5848/

air-force-tests-ibms-brain-inspired-chip-as-an-aerial-tankspotter/>.

27 Jordan Golson, “A Military-Grade Drone That Can Be Printed 

Anywhere,” Wired, September 16, 2014, available at <www.wired.

com/2014/09/military-grade-drone-can-printed-anywhere>.

28 Arie Egozi, “Azerbaijan Starts Producing Zarba Armed UAV,” Flight 

Global, January 10, 2017, available at <www.flightglobal.com/news/

articles/azerbaijan-starts-producing-zarba-armed-uav-433014>.

29 “Misiewicz: 1,000 Attack Drones for the Polish Army 

in 2017,” Defence 24, December 5, 2016, available 

at < w w w. d e fe n c e 2 4 . c om / 5 0 3 6 9 4 , m i s i e w i c z - on e 

hundred0-attack-drones-for-the-polish-army-in-2017>.

30 Tony Wesolowksy, “Ukraine’s Exploding Munition Depots 

Give Ammunition to Security Concerns,” Radio Free Europe, 

October 6, 2017, available at <https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraineexploding-munitions-security-concerns-russia/28777991.html>.

31 “What Are SmallSats and CubeSats?” NASA, February 

26, 2015, available at <https://www.nasa.gov/content/

what-are-smallsats-and-cubesats>.

32 Robinson Meyer, “Google Remakes the Satellite Business, 

by Leaving It,” The Atlantic, February 7, 2017, available 

at <www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/

google-gets-out-of-the-satellite-business/515841>.
Key Technologies and the Future of Warfare 137

33 Kent Leka, “Viasat Will Enable Near-Instant Satellite Images 

and Video Delivered Anywhere,” Viasat, May 15, 2018, available 

at <https://corpblog.viasat.com/viasat-will-enable-near-instantsatellite-images-and-video-delivered-anywhere/>.

34 Kris Osborn, “Hypersonic Weapons: Everything You Need 

to Know About the Ultimate Weapon,” The National Interest, 

July 22, 2017, available at <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/

the-buzz/hypersonic-weapons-everything-you-need-knowabout-the-21637>.

35 “Gliding Missiles That Fly Faster Than Mach 5 Are Coming,” 

The Economist, April 6, 2019.

36 Kelley M. Sayler, Hypersonic Weapons: Background and Issues 

for Congress, R45811 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, March 4, 2020), 5, available at <https://fas.org/sgp/crs/

weapons/R45811.pdf>.

37 “Hypersonic Weapons and Strategic Stability,” International 

Institute of Strategic Studies Strategic Comments 26, no. 4 

(March 2020), 2, available at <https://www.iiss.org/publications/

strategic-comments/2020/hypersonic-weapons-and-strategicstability?mc_cid=f55b265518&mc_eid=0a46c72ebe>.

38 Sayler, “Hypersonic Weapons,” 11.

39 Ibid., 6.

40 David Axe, “Mach 7.3 ‘Bullets’: The U.S. Navy Tested a 

‘Hypervelocity Cannon Round,’” The National Interest, January 9, 

2019, available at <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/mach73-bullets-us-navy-tested-hypervelocity-cannon-round-41022>.

41 Joseph Trevithick, “Photos Surface of the Army’s Crazy 1,000 

Mile Range Supergun Concept: Here’s What We Know,” The 

Warzone, February 25, 2020, available at <www.thedrive.com/

the-war-zone/32352/photos-surface-of-the-armys-crazy-1000-

mile-range-supergun-concept-heres-what-we-know>.

42 Megan Eckstein, “Panel: Navy Must Invest in CounterISR, Unmanned Boats, Railgun to Prepare for Future Fight,” 

USNI News, March 9, 2017, available at <https://news.usni.

org/2017/03/09/panel-navy-must-invest-counter-c4isrunmanned-boats-railgun-prepare-future-fight>.

43 For the history of these U.S. aircraft carrier deck incidents 

from 1966 to 1969, see Sebastien Roblin, “A Rocket Explosion 

Almost Destroyed a U.S. Navy Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier,” 

National Interest, December 17, 2019, available at <https://

nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/rocket-explosion-almostdestroyed-us-navy-nuclear-powered-aircraft-carrier-105891>.

44 Zachary Keck, “China’s DF-26 ‘Carrier-Killer’ Missile Could 

Stop the Navy in Its Track (Without Firing a Shot),” The National 

Interest, April 20, 2018, available at <http://nationalinterest.org/

blog/the-buzz/chinas-df-26-carrier-killer-missile-could-stopthe-navy-its-25493>.

45 Christian Davenport, “In Historic First, an Aging Satellite Is 

Resurrected by Another in a Technology That Could Reduce 

Junk in Space,” Washington Post, April 20, 2020, available 

at <www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/20/

new-technology-creates-fountain-youth-aging-satellitespotentially-reducing-space-junk/>.

46 For example, Jeffrey G. Lewis, “They Shoot Satellites, Don’t 

They?” Foreign Policy, August 8, 2014; George Kulacki and 

Jeffrey G. Lewis, “Understanding China’s Antisatellite Test,” 

The Nonproliferation Review 15, no. 2 (2008), 335–347.

47 Matthew Bienart, “Air Force Space Command Shifting to 

Warfighting Operational Mindset,” Defense Daily Network, March 

2, 2018, available at <www.defensedaily.com/air-force-spacecommand-shifting-warfighting-operational-mindset/>.

48 Adam Segal, “Chinese Cyber Espionage: We Know the Who, 

How, Why, and Why It Matters—We’re Missing the What to 

Do,” Council on Foreign Relations, June 11, 2014, available at 

<https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinese-cyber-espionage-we-knowwho-how-why-and-why-it-matters-were-missing-what-do>.

49 Franz Stefan-Gady, “New Snowden Documents Reveal 

Chinese Behind F-35 Hack,” The Diplomat, January 27, 

2015, available at <https://thediplomat.com/2015/01/

new-snowden-documents-reveal-chinese-behind-f-35-hack/>.

50 Dustin Volz and Timothy Gardner, “In a First, U.S. 

Blames Russia for Cyber Attacks on Energy Grid,” Reuters,

March 15, 2018, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-usa-russia-sanctions-energygrid/in-a-first-u-s-blames-russiafor-cyber-attacks-on-energy-grid-idUSKCN1GR2G3>.

51 John Costello, “The Strategic Support Force: Update 

and Overview,” China Brief 16, no. 19 (December 

2016), available at <https://jamestown.org/program/

strategic-support-force-update-overview/>.

52 Sergey Sukhankin, “Russian Electronic Warfare in Ukraine: 

Between Real and Imaginable,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 14, no. 71 

(May 24, 2017), available at <https://jamestown.org/program/

russian-electronic-warfare-ukraine-real-imaginable/>.

53 Idrees Ali and Matt Spetalnick, “U.S. Warship Targeted 

in Failed Missile Attack from Yemen: Official,” Reuters, 

October 15, 2016, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-yemen-security-usa/u-s-warship-targeted-in-failed-missileattack-from-yemen-official-idUSKBN12G004>.

54 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United 

States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive 

Edge (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), 7, 

available at <https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/

pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf>.

55 Matthew Richardson and Evan Hoopfer, “Lockheed Martin 

Lands $5.5B Contract for Dozens of F-35s—More to Come,” 

Dallas Business Journal, July 11, 2017, available at <www.

bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2017/07/11/lockheed-martinlands-5-5b-contract-for-dozens-of.html>.

56 Daniel Goure, “The First Signs of a National Mobilization 

for War Are Appearing,” Real Clear Defense, May 12, 2017, 

available at <www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/05/12/

the_first_signs_of_a_national_mobilization_for_war_are_

appearing_111371.html>.

57 Cathal J. Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars 

Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

58 Matt Devost, “What You Should Know About China’s 

‘Destruction Warfare’ Doctrine,” OODA Loop, July 23, 2019, 

available at <www.oodaloop.com/archive/2019/07/23/whatyou-should-know-about-chinas-destruction-warfare-doctrine/>.

59 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United 

States of America, 7.

60 Kate Simmons, Bruce Stokes, and Jacob Poushter, “NATO 

Publics Blame Russia for Ukrainian Crisis, but Reluctant 

to Provide Military Aid,” Pew Research Center, June 10, 

2015, available at <http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/10/

nato-publics-blame-russia-for-ukrainian-crisis-but-reluctantto-provide-military-aid/>.

61 For a detailed description of how such a defensive posture in 

Europe could work, see T. X. Hammes, The Melians’ Revenge: 

How Small, Frontline, European States Can Employ Emerging 

Technology to Defend Against Russia, Issue Brief (Washington, 

DC: Atlantic Council, June 2019), available at <https://www.

atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/The_Melians_

Revenge.pdf>.

139

Chapter 6

Emerging Critical Information 

Technology and Great 

Power Competition

By Richard Andres

Over the past few decades, the foundation of Great Power competition has 

changed. Where control of industrial resources was once the key to geopolitical 

power, today control of information resources is most important. China is currently investing heavily in three critical new information technologies—5G wireless, 

quantum computing, and artificial intelligence—that, as part of its information 

strategy, will vastly increase its control of the global information flow. The United 

States has a short window to contest China’s state-led ascent in these technologies, 

as well as in the underlying conditions that are allowing China to outpace the 

United States in this wider field. If the United States does not prevent China from 

dominating global flows of information, China will attain a clear advantage in its 

rise to replace the United States as the world’s leading Great Power.

Over the past few decades, and as observed in the chapter 4 discussion of the fourth industrial revolution, the foundation of Great Power wealth and competitive advantage 

has fundamentally changed from one dominated by industrial era technology to one in which 

information technology (IT) has become the primary source of geopolitical power. U.S. businesses were quick to recognize and act on this change. Today, the top three U.S. IT companies 

are worth 70 times as much as the top three U.S. car manufacturers. Apple Incorporated alone 

could buy all five major U.S. defense contractors with its cash on hand. Like U.S. private businesses, China’s government has seen and acted on this new IT reality. It has poured billions 

of dollars into key information technologies and bankrolled its so-called private company 

Huawei’s schemes to dominate global information infrastructure. China has focused vast military and commercial resources on stealing its adversaries’ intellectual property, infesting their 

critical infrastructure with malware, and conducting social media–based influence campaigns 

at home and abroad. Unfortunately, unlike U.S. commercial interests and the Chinese government, U.S. Government defense policy has been slow to respond to the changing foundations 

of global power. Today, U.S. defense resources generally go toward industrial era capabilities, 

and America’s strategy remains fixed on winning industrial era battles.
140 Andres

This chapter focuses on the critical role of IT in current geopolitics. It argues that the 

foundation of geopolitical power has shifted from industrial output to information control. 

This change has been affecting the global balance of power in favor of China for over a 

decade but is about to enter a dramatic new phase as China pours state-managed resources 

into new technologies—most critically, 5G wireless communication, quantum computing, 

and artificial intelligence (AI)—with the goal of increasing its control over the global flow 

of information. Meanwhile, although recognizing the problem on paper, U.S. defense policy remains wedded to the quixotic Cold War–era notion that U.S. entrepreneurialism and 

technology will eventually overcome China’s aggressive information policy—something 

that cannot happen so long as China continues to steal technology as fast as U.S. entrepreneurs and laboratories develop it.

It is imperative that U.S. policymakers recognize and act on the new reality. Information, not physical resources, is now the foundation of geopolitical power. Just as IT has 

reversed the relative value of physical- and information-based businesses in the past decade, in the next decade, IT will invert the effectiveness of physical- and information-based 

Great Power policies and politics. The United States has only a short window to come to 

grips with and act on the new foundation of global power. To do this, America must prioritize countering China’s current ability to steal intellectual property and otherwise control 

the flow of information within the United States and other developed nations while reprioritizing resources into key technologies and capabilities that will allow it to contest China’s 

ability to increase its future power and act in cyberspace.

This chapter is presented in six sections. The first describes the relationship between 

technology and geopolitical power. The second describes the difference between the way 

industrial and information era technologies affect global power. The third describes the way 

autocratic countries are currently using information technology against the United States 

and its allies. The fourth discusses the race for the three information technologies that will 

determine which country leads in the emerging geopolitical contest over control of the 

global flow of information. The fifth describes the problem with current U.S. defense policy, 

focusing on the futility of racing to develop technology when China can quickly steal it. The 

chapter concludes with a call to prioritize information over physical conflict as the key to 

success in Great Power competition.

Technology and Geopolitical Power 

Throughout history, states have pursued their political interests using various instruments 

of national power. The types of issues that states compete over vary. In the second half of 

the 20th century, the two main actors—the United States and the Soviet Union—vied over 

which superpower would control which regions of the globe and whether weaker states 

would be governed by communist or capitalist economic systems. Today’s main players 

are the United States and China, and the main issues in contention center on whether the 

U.S.-led liberal global order will persist or be supplanted by one based on China’s autocratic 

system and preferences. While the United States still dominates in industrial age military 

power, China has acted aggressively using information-based power. As a result, China’s 

system is beginning to hold sway over important issues in a number of countries in Asia 

and, increasingly, in Europe. On some key issues, such as its right to steal intellectual prop-
Emerging Critical Information Technology 141

erty without penalty or to force foreign business such as the National Basketball Association 

to conform to Chinese Communist Party dictat, its system could be said to prevail even 

inside the United States.1

In the current system, as in previous eras, geopolitical power is mainly determined by 

the amount of economic and military capabilities major players can project abroad, and 

these abilities in turn are shaped by the era’s dominant technology. Between the 15th and 19th

centuries, both economic and military power were principally shaped by ocean-borne trade 

and sea power. During this period, the nations best able to control the flow of commerce on 

the world’s seas tended to make the world’s rules. During the 20th century, the major powers 

best able to harness industry tended to dominate global politics; the countries able to bring 

the most men and materiel to bear tended to make the rules. In the current era, information technology is the key to both economic and military power. In this era, the countries 

best able to control the flow of information across the world’s networks tend to make the 

system’s rules.2

Industrial vs. Information and Global Power 

To understand how states have been using information technology to shape geopolitics and 

how they are likely to utilize emerging IT over the next decade, it helps to consider how the 

dynamics and incentives connected with IT differ from those associated with traditional 

industrial power.

In the past century, a state’s power was closely linked with its industrial capacity. To 

increase their power, major players worked to bolster their manufacturing base at home and 

often attempted to seize other states’ resources through military action. Both world wars 

were caused by nations acting on the belief that they could increase their power by seizing 

territory, and throughout the Cold War, the United States and Western Europe based much 

of their defense policies on the fear that the Soviet Union would invade Western Europe in 

order to seize its industrial resources.

To counter the industrial era incentive for invasion during the Cold War, nations built 

alliances to bolster their military capability; they expanded their conventional military 

power and developed large, often hair-trigger nuclear forces. By the end of the war, the 

Earth was encircled in competing military alliances and ringed in bases, bombers, and aircraft carriers. The United States and the Soviet Union, with the largest industrial capacities, 

dominated geopolitics, generally set the rules within their respective spheres of influence, 

and used their economic and military power to shape world politics.

Yet, even during the Cold War, there were signs that industrial power was beginning 

to lose its place to information power as the dominant technology in geopolitics. In a wellknown story, the Soviets were among the first to recognize this change. At the height of 

the Cold War, Soviet analysts noted that, while the Soviet Union could produce far more 

steel and mobilize a far larger army than the United States (the two traditional indicators 

of industrial-military capability), the West’s information economy allowed it to more than 

overcome its industrial disadvantages with superior information-based military technology.3

 Even worse, from the Soviet perspective, was the West’s ability to use what the Soviets 

saw as psychological-information operations to foment insurrection within the Eastern 
142 Andres

bloc. The first fear was proved accurate by the success of U.S. information age weapons in 

the 1990 Gulf War, the second by the fall of Soviet communism to internal insurrection.

While the Soviet Union did not survive long into the information age, the People’s 

Republic of China did. Writing in the early 2000s, holding up the fall of the Soviet Union 

as evidence, Chinese geopolitical strategists, such as Major General Xu Hezhen, spoke of 

the threat posed by the United States to the Chinese Communist Party.4

 As a counter to 

this, China proposed a national strategy based on information rather than industrial era 

methods. According to this argument, the most effective route to geopolitical power in the 

current century involved information. This led China to an overall strategy that sought 

control over the flow of knowledge, secrets, and beliefs rather than simply raw materials and 

industrial output.5 This included, for instance, its Three Warfares doctrine and an industrial 

policy aimed at controlling key industries that produced, among other things, software, 

undersea cables, microchips, and telecommunications rather than an approach aimed at 

merely controlling territory.6

With the advantage of hindsight, a U.S. strategist might characterize the idea as attempting to encircle the world in a virtual network rather than trying to compete directly 

with America’s physical network of bases, bombers, and ships. The new information age 

methods do not make conventional and nuclear war obsolete any more than nuclear forces 

made industrial era technology irrelevant or railroad and other industrial era technology 

made navies irrelevant. Rather, information technology has been layered on top of and 

throughout the older system. This overall philosophy has infused much of China’s geopolitical strategy for the past two decades.7

Geopolitical Targets of Autocratic Countries 

The Chinese strategy is effective. To benefit economically from emerging IT, the United 

States and other developed nations have connected essentially everything in their territories 

to computer networks. This includes businesses, critical infrastructure, and social media 

networks. Once connected, all these institutions are potentially vulnerable to exploitation 

or destruction by anyone connected to the global telecommunications grid.8 Meanwhile, as 

an autocratic state, China’s government has been able to control information domestically 

by fencing off many of its own information vulnerabilities from outside penetration.9

After two decades of experimentation by states attempting to use information as an 

instrument of geopolitics, three main types of targets have emerged. The first is economic. 

In traditional industrial era economies, wealth is generated and stored in physical assets, 

and this pattern continues in many less developed countries, including China and Russia. 

In the developed world, over the past few decades, firms have increasingly generated and 

stored wealth in nonphysical assets. By one estimate, as early as 2010, about 80 percent 

of U.S. corporate value was stored in intellectual property and trade secrets vulnerable to 

cyber theft.10 That percentage is almost certainly considerably higher today. Beyond this, in 

the United States, large amounts of wealth—much of which can be stolen—are stored in the 

knowledge and research held within state-funded universities.

In the industrial age, if an ambitious Great Power hoped to plunder the most valuable 

resources of the United States or Europe, it would have had to physically defeat North Atlantic Treaty Organization armed forces. Today, to steal the West’s assets, it is necessary only 
Emerging Critical Information Technology 143

to penetrate the computer networks where companies and nonprofit organizations store 

their wealth. According to the independent U.S. Intellectual Property Commission, China 

uses these methods to steal hundreds of billions of dollars of intellectual property from U.S. 

and European firms every year.11 The overall effect is to stunt the economies of plundered 

nations while vastly accelerating China’s economic growth. Over the past two decades, this 

approach has contributed to China’s rapid economic growth. Information theft is not the 

only cause of China’s economic miracle, but it is a necessary one. If it stops, China’s swift 

economic progress would slow considerably, but if it continues over the next decade, all 

things equal, it will likely lead to China’s economy eclipsing that of the United States. No 

state-sponsored physical piracy campaign in history has had anything like the geopolitical 

impact of China’s virtual piracy campaign. Given the costs of occupying conquered nations, 

it is unlikely that China could have gained as much wealth from even a Soviet-style conquest of the small countries on its borders.

The second main target for information operations involves civilian and military critical infrastructure. As early as 2010, when Stuxnet malware was found in Iranian nuclear 

centrifuges at the country’s Natanz facility, firms around the world began to realize they 

were vulnerable to software-based attacks on their hardware. Moreover, on inspection, 

thousands of critical infrastructure-providing companies discovered that their computers 

were infected with malware, and many more learned that unknown entities had developed 

methods of accessing their equipment. In 2015, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command 

informed the Senate that China and other countries had the means in place to take down 

U.S. critical infrastructure.12 On one end of the spectrum, such malware could be used to 

cause individual civilian or military systems to temporarily stop functioning; on the other, 

it could be used to create continent-wide, months-long infrastructure failures that could 

cause millions of deaths.13 As China works to increase its ability to attack civilian infrastructure, it also has integrated information operations into all aspects of its military capability 

and posture.14

Methods that use information technology to take down an adversary’s critical infrastructure and military systems are generally not as dependable as methods that use 

conventional or nuclear weapons. They are, however, superior to kinetic industrial era 

techniques in at least two ways. First, they are less expensive. Developing the bases, navies, and air forces necessary to project power globally costs trillions of dollars and is, at 

least currently, something only the United States can accomplish. Malware is less expensive 

and allows poor countries to project power cheaply. Second, information-based attacks on 

critical infrastructure can be calibrated and conducted in low-intensity situations. Thus, a 

country that might fear attacking the United States with conventional or nuclear weapons 

might be willing to conduct cyber attacks on critical infrastructure that it believes could 

work below the threshold that would elicit a violent response from America. Such capabilities could plausibly be used to coerce or deter the United States.15 The Department of 

Homeland Security has repeatedly warned that China and Russia have infected U.S. critical 

infrastructures with malware that could be used in this manner.16

The third target for information operations involves populations. In recent decades, 

firms have acquired access to most individuals in most countries (through social media) 

and developed AI technologies to manipulate targets’ purchasing behaviors. More recently, 
144 Andres

nations have begun using similar methods to manipulate targets’ political preferences 

and passions. A growing body of literature suggests that humans are susceptible to these 

techniques.

At present, China is the leader in the technology associated with state-centric manipulation of political behavior. Using its close relationship with Chinese Internet service 

providers, the Chinese government has developed methods to manipulate information, 

thought, and political activity within its borders and, increasingly, in other nations.17 Like 

China, Russia has experimented with these methods at home and abroad. Over time, both 

countries are likely to increase and refine their technologies and techniques. While it is unclear how effective these techniques will be in the long term as a tool of political control used 

against Western populations, the success of Chinese computer-based political-psychological 

operations against Chinese citizens and of Russian actions in Europe and North America 

suggest a clear danger. The 20th-century Soviet information operations that led to the global 

rise of communism represent a possible low-technology precedent that bears consideration. 

Just as the Soviet Union once persuaded over half the planet’s population to abandon that 

era’s dominant political systems in favor of communism, today’s autocratic information operations have the potential to do enormous harm to the current liberal world order.

Race for Three Information Technologies 

Given the ways IT can be used in geopolitical competition, if an autocratic Great Power was 

to gain complete control over cyberspace, eventually it would gain the wealth and military 

power to set the rules for the international system in much the same way the United States 

now does. Analogously, a major power gaining unfettered access to the world’s computer 

networks today would be similar to the Soviet Union gaining control of Western Europe’s 

industrial capacity during the Cold War.

To date, despite ongoing efforts, neither China nor Russia has gained unfettered access 

to Western networks. They have failed to do so largely because of the immense resources 

that governments and private industry dedicate to computer defenses. The battle for access 

is a constant struggle to control the domain that is played out every time a new piece of 

software or hardware is added to a network. It involves attempts to find holes in operating systems, commercial software, phone apps, hardware, and nearly everything associated 

with the growing Internet of Things. This contest is reminiscent of trench warfare during 

World War I in that it is a persistent whole-of-nation contest played out daily in millions of 

individual duels among individuals, firms, and agencies for small advantages, and what is 

won one day is often lost the next.

While battles in cyberspace are often for small and fleeting advantage, several contests 

occurring today are likely to have large and enduring results that will determine which 

Great Power dominates cyberspace for future decades.

The First Contest: 5G 

The first major contest for control of cyberspace involves the fifth-generation wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks, generally known as 5G.18 For 

much of the coming decade at least, this technology will provide the backbone for future 

cell phone communication and for the Internet of Things.19 This includes technologies 
Emerging Critical Information Technology 145

such as self-driving cars, supervisory control and data acquisition infrastructure, and the 

networks that military systems depend on. A country able to dominate 5G systems potentially will have access to and a good deal of control over most information flowing through 

cyberspace.20

The nearly unfettered access that 5G dominance provides to user information goes 

beyond simple data collection. A country with this type of access can use it to map critical 

systems throughout an adversary’s territory. It gains real-time intelligence about the physical and network location of individuals and systems.21 It could deny or corrupt information 

received by human or machine users, civilian or military (once such systems are installed 

nationally, a military would be hard pressed not to use them). These capabilities would 

vastly increase the ability of the controlling nation to conduct espionage, sabotage machines 

that are connected to digital networks, and perform a range of operations involved with 

conducting social-psychological operations against adversaries’ populations.

Traditionally, the United States has been able to purchase IT equipment from autocratic adversaries without much fear that they will be able to exploit the hardware; the end 

users have retained physical control of most of the software and hardware. But 5G is different in that it pushes far more functionality from the user to the supplier. For instance, in a 

5G environment, the apps on a phone might reside entirely on servers in Beijing. Moreover, 

in so far as a 5G provider uses proprietary software to perform a range of controls conducted by hardware in earlier wireless technology, the provider now largely controls access 

and control of information passing through its system. In certain places in China where 5G 

is well established, this ability sometimes reaches the point where customers no longer need 

handsets. Distributed cameras and microphones in places such as hotel lobbies or sidewalks 

identify users and respond directly to commands, completely removing any possibility of 

user-supplied defense or control. In general, the more bandwidth becomes available, the 

more control can be pushed from the user to the company supplying the service.22

Over the past two decades, China has enacted a national industrial policy that, among 

other things, seeks to make China the global leader in communications technology in general and 5G in particular. China’s industrial strategy aims to make the nation the world 

leader in 5G by supporting national champions, Huawei in particular, via direct funding from the state (mainly via subsidized loans) and by a campaign to steal cutting-edge 

telecommunications technology from Western firms and provide that technology to its 

champions for free. The overall effect has been to cut Huawei’s cost of producing goods far 

below that of its competition, thereby allowing it to undercut the prices of Western competitors. As a result, Huawei is able to sell 5G technology at rates far below those of other 

nations—in some cases, as much as 60 percent below market rates.23 With the exception of 

countries such as the United States that eschew Huawei’s high-quality/low-cost services out 

of concerns about national security, most nations in the world installing 5G are installing 

Huawei systems.

Huawei’s 5G dominance of global networks will not result in China instantly dominating cyberspace. If Huawei acts too aggressively on China’s interests, countries are likely 

to spend the money necessary to replace Huawei’s systems with hardware built in other 

countries. More than that, although China is currently using 5G within its own borders 

to control the flow of information, it will take time to develop and adapt software, tactics, 
146 Andres

techniques, and procedures that work abroad. Yet, over time, China will be able to become 

ever more aggressive as countries become increasingly dependent on Huawei’s goods and 

services. At some scale, China will be able to get away with virtually any use of 5G networks 

because the price of replacing the network will become too high. Two years ago, Congress 

was barely able to force a handful of small U.S. telecoms to divest themselves of Huawei’s 

hardware. In the future, China will be able to extract significant geopolitical information 

rents from countries that are dependent on its systems.24

The Second Contest: Quantum 

The second major contest for control of cyberspace involves the race for quantum technology.25 Because quantum computers are able to perform a range of operations at rates that 

greatly exceed older processing technology, they hold out the possibility of being able to 

break existing encryption.26 This ability would not only render current encryption obsolete 

but also most likely allow its holder to decrypt decades of older encoded messages. Because 

encryption is generally the single point of failure in all computerized defenses, having this 

capability would vastly increase its holder’s power.27

For decades, quantum computing has been the Holy Grail of computer technology but 

has always been out of reach. Over the past 2 years, however, several companies have introduced computers with limited quantum capabilities.28 While none of these companies so 

far has advertised the ability to break codes, this technology is within reach. While it might 

seem that quantum technology would equally aid both encryption and decryption, this is 

not the case. For practical reasons, the technology will do much more to aid decryption 

than encryption, and it is likely that the country to win the race to produce and utilize the 

technology will gain a significant advantage in the contest to control the cyber domain.29

Beyond this scenario, while both China and the West have many state secrets, the West simply has immensely more secrets than China—both Western industry and militaries depend 

on encryption in ways China’s industry and military do not.

Over the past few years, the United States has invested considerably in quantum technology, but recently China has begun to spend vastly more. While the United States is 

probably ahead in this race—at least as far as industry is concerned, with IBM and Google 

fielding computers with limited quantum capability—that lead is unlikely to last.30 Given 

forecasted spending trends, China is likely to finish the race to utilize quantum technology 

in support of national security goals well ahead of the United States.31 When it does, its ability to steal industrial secrets and infect and sabotage critical civilian and military systems 

will vastly increase.

The Third Contest: Artificial Intelligence 

The third major contest for control of cyberspace involves AI and has two main implications 

for national security.32 The first involves the potential for AI use in computer defenses. In recent years, AI has proved capable of vastly increasing both the offensive and defensive cyber 

capabilities by finding and exploiting or plugging gaps in defenses. The second involves social-psychological applications. Currently, firms are developing AI to create psychological 

profiles of individuals to market goods and services to them.33 AI applications are capable 

of processing vast amounts of information on individuals and conducting psychological 
Emerging Critical Information Technology 147

experiments on large populations in order to discover how to predict and manipulate their 

actions and beliefs. Experiments have demonstrated that this type of AI is often vastly better 

at predicting individual subjects’ decisions than even subjects’ friends and spouses.34

Over the past half-decade, both Russia and China have taken advantage of AI for political purposes. The full extent of these operations is not public, but China is generally 

believed to spend vast resources on experimenting with AI to monitor and control its own 

population, and Russia has made ample use of marketing AI supplied by Facebook and 

other companies to target and manipulate foreign populations’ political beliefs and passions. As AI advances, its potential for this type of social-political manipulation is likely to 

increase considerably.35

At present, both the United States and China are investing heavily in AI research. However, from the perspective of national security, China has two significant advantages. The 

first is that China’s political and economic systems allow it to provide much more data 

to government and corporate users than is the case in the United States.36 This data is a 

critical asset in creating practical applications for AI. Second, for the purposes of national 

security, the U.S. Government invests far less in this technology than does the Chinese 

government.37 Thus, while U.S. and Chinese companies are able to compete on a somewhat 

even basis, China’s government has a nearly unassailable lead over the U.S. Government in 

terms of how each uses AI in geopolitical information.38

The Big Picture and the Red Queen: The Problem with 

Current U.S. Defense Policy 

The outcomes of the three technology contests will be critical to the larger contest for cyberspace. Looked at individually, each does not tell the whole story about China’s overall 

strategy to gain control of information networks or how it will use them in geopolitics. 

China promulgated a broad manufacturing plan, Made in China 2025, that focuses on 

specific Chinese government support for these critical technologies for future Chinese 

dominance, but that aims for much more.39

Regarding China’s overall plan to gain control of cyberspace and dominate the information contest of the future, the three technologies are best seen as the tip of a much 

larger iceberg. According to the notion propounded by many Soviet and Chinese geopolitical strategists and also behind the U.S. third offset strategy, the United States defeated 

the Soviet Union in the Cold War because it was able to make up for its shortcomings in 

manpower and industrial capacity with advantages in science and technology.40

To stay ahead in technologies such as the three described, China has dedicated enormous resources to education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). 

This policy has both a domestic and foreign component. At home, China produces around 

eight times as many STEM graduates as does the United States. Abroad, in 2016, 43 percent 

of students in U.S. science and engineering schools were Chinese. In computer-related U.S. 

college programs, only 21 percent were American.41

The skills these students bring home, combined with the technology Chinese businesses and intelligence agencies steal from U.S. and allied countries, create a Red Queen 

problem for U.S. technology.42 The faster the United States runs, the faster it must run to 

stay ahead. Since new U.S. technology is immediately taught to Chinese citizens by U.S. 
148 Andres

professors and stolen by Chinese hackers, U.S. technological ingenuity and investment are 

not likely to overcome China’s lead in manpower and industrial capacity the way it overcame that of the Soviet Union three decades ago. Because China has invested heavily in 

controlling the global flow of information, China freely garners the benefits of U.S. public 

and private investment in science and technology. As a result, it is free to focus its own 

investments into 5G, quantum capabilities, AI, and other technologies that will expand its 

ability to control the global information flow.43 As a result, the United States cannot win the 

geopolitical information age contest simply by spending more on research. The Cold War 

paradigm will not work in the current era.

The Way Ahead: Prioritizing Information Over Physical Conflict 

There have been several attempts to address the technology problems described in this 

chapter. The Department of Defense’s third offset strategy attempted to address these issues 

by investing in new technology faster than China.44 The National Security Strategy defines 

specific technologies the United States will pursue to keep its lead, particularly singling out 

those related to information technology.45 The National Cyber Strategy further focuses on 

key information technologies the United States will pursue in its competition with Russia 

and China.

The problem with these approaches is not their specific proposals; it is more that they 

are written from an industrial era perspective. They tend to portray the contest for control of information and information technology as one more aspect of national security

policy rather than the emerging foundation of future geopolitical power. While it is true 

that traditional industrial power projection capability will play a central role in small state 

competition for the foreseeable future, where China and Russia are concerned, information 

power is more likely than industrial power to determine the outcomes of long-term geopolitical contests.46

A basic idea expressed—and then for the most part ignored—in each of the U.S. security policy documents referenced above is that the United States could do more to reduce 

threats to its interests and increase its geopolitical influence by solving information-based 

problems than by increasing its kinetic military power. Stopping Chinese intellectual property theft must be first on the agenda because little else will work until this problem is 

solved. This problem has been with us for a long time.47 Securing U.S. networks against 

industrial espionage would considerably bolster the U.S. economy and decrease Chinese piracy-based economic growth. Further increasing the U.S. military lead over Russia or China 

does neither. Securing U.S. critical infrastructure against cyber attacks from Russia, China, 

Iran, and North Korea would significantly increase U.S. defenses and decrease each state’s 

ability to deter or compel the United States in a crisis. More kinetic power would increase 

defenses and crisis bargaining power only marginally, if at all. Perhaps most important, 

no amount of investment in industrial era technology would do much to defend against 

the damage being done by autocratic states’ political-psychological operations or help the 

United States respond with information operations with American characteristics.

America’s long-time policy of paying lip service to the transition from the industrial to 

the information era—while mainly resourcing industrial era technologies and methods—was 

merely a curiosity when the United States was at its unipolar apex and did not face Great Power 
Emerging Critical Information Technology 149

competitors. That period is over. Today, the United States faces two autocratic rivals that are 

actively pioneering ways of using information age technologies and strategies to undermine 

the U.S.-led liberal international order. If the United States hopes to win this competition, 

it will need to change its approach. It will need to rethink the importance of defending its 

citizens, its firms, and its military from being quietly exploited by foreign militaries using 

steadily advancing cyber methods. It will need to resource its pursuit of key technologies that 

it has long prioritized on paper while paying whatever it takes to prevent adversaries from 

stealing that technology. It will have to decide how it will prevent adversaries from building 

and dominating the world’s information networks and supply chains. Most important, it will 

have to change its mindset in such a way as to understand that it must defend virtual property 

and territory as it currently does to protect physical space. The industrial age is over, and it is 

time U.S. defense policy comes to terms with the emerging reality.

Notes 

1

 Jonah Blank, “China Bends Another American Institution to Its Will,” The Atlantic, October 10, 2019, available 

at <www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/10/

nba-victim-china-economic-might/599773/>.

2

 Richard B. Andres, “Cyber Conflict and Geopolitics by Richard 

B. Andres,” Great Decisions 2019, Foreign Policy Association, 

2019.

3

 Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Military-Technical Revolution: A 

Preliminary Assessment (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic 

and Budgetary Assessments, 1992), 6.

4

 Timothy L. Thomas, Decoding the Virtual Dragon: Critical 

Evolutions in the Science and Philosophy of China’s Information 

Operations and Military Strategy—The Art of War and IW (Fort 

Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office, 2007).

5

 For an overview of early Chinese thinking on this topic, see 

Timothy L. Thomas, “Nation-State Cyber Strategies: Examples 

from China and Russia,” in Cyberpower and National Security, 

ed. Franklin D. Kramer, Stuart H. Starr, and Larry K. Wentz 

(Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2009).

6

 On the Three Warfares doctrine, see Sangkuk Lee, “China’s 

‘Three Warfares’: Origins, Applications, and Organizations,” Journal of Strategic Studies 37, no. 2 (2014), 198–221. For an overview 

of China’s information-industrial policy, see William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon, and Anna B. Puglisi, Chinese Industrial 

Espionage: Technology Acquisition and Military Modernization

(Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013). For an overview of underlying Chinese information and industrial strategy, see Dean 

Cheng, Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and 

Cyber Operations (Santa Barbara, CA: Prager, 2016); Gregory 

C. Allen, Understanding China’s AI Strategy: Clues to Chinese 

Strategic Thinking on Artificial Intelligence and National Security

(Washington, DC: Center for New American Security, February 2019), available at <www.cnas.org/publications/reports/

understanding-chinas-ai-strategy>.

7

 Cheng, Cyber Dragon. See also Jacqueline Newmyer, “The Revolution in Military Affairs with Chinese Characteristics,” Journal 

of Strategic Studies 33, no. 4 (August 2010), 483–504.

8

 Richard Andres, “Air Power and Cyber,” in Routledge Handbook of Air Power, ed. John Andreas Olsen (Abingdon, UK: 

Routledge, 2018), 203–214.

9

 Such defenses include censorship, data localization, and 

cross-border data flow limits. See “Digital Trade,” Congressional Research Service, March 29, 2019, available at <https://

crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10770>; Elsa Kania, 

“China: Active Defense in the Cyber Domain,” The Diplomat, 

June 12, 2015, available at <https://thediplomat.com/2015/06/

china-active-defense-in-the-cyber-domain/>.

10 IP Commission, The IP Commission Report: The Report of 

the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013), 

available at <http://ipcommission.org/report/IP_Commission_Report_052213.pdf>.

11 IP Commission, Update to the IP Commission Report: The Theft 

of American Intellectual Property: Reassessments of the Challenge 

and United States Policy (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2017), available at <http://ipcommission.org/report/

IP_Commission_Report_Update_2017.pdf>.

12 Jamie Crawford, “The U.S. Government Thinks China Could 

Take Down the Power Grid,” CNN, November 21, 2014, available 

at <www.cnn.com/2014/11/20/politics/nsa-china-power-grid/

index.html>.

13 “An Interview with Paul M. Nakasone,” Joint Force Quarterly

92 (1st Quarter 2019), 4–9, available at <https://ndupress.ndu.

edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-92/jfq-92_4-9_Nakasone-Interview.pdf>.

14 Jeffrey Engstrom, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Seeks 

to Wage Modern Warfare (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), 

available at <https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/

RR1708.html>.

15 “An Interview with Paul M. Nakasone.”

16 Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake, Cyber War: The Next 

Threat to National Security and What to Do About It (New York: 

Penguin, 2010), 158.

17 Chris Buckley and Paul Mozur, “How China Uses High-Tech 

Surveillance to Subdue Minorities,” New York Times, May 22, 

2019, available at <www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/

china-surveillance-xinjiang.html>.

18 National Strategy to Secure 5G of the United States of America

(Washington, DC: The White House, March 2020), available at 

<www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/National-Strategy-5G-Final.pdf>.

19 Of note—and an example of Moore’s law of technological 

progress—while most consumers still have yet to upgrade to 

5G wireless service around the world and its deployment is 
150 Andres

still only in roll-out stages, Beijing is already signaling plans 

to develop 6G technology. See Peter Suciu, “5G Is Old News: 

China Wants 6G for Its Military,” The National Interest, April 

28, 2020, available at <https://nationalinterest.org/blog/

buzz/5g-old-news-china-wants-6g-its-military-148806>.

20 Tom Wheeler, “5G in Five Not So Easy Pieces,” Brookings, July 9, 2019, available at <https://www.brookings.edu/

research/5g-in-five-not-so-easy-pieces/>.

21 Huawei argues that it would not share information with the 

Chinese Communist Party; however, China’s Counter-Espionage 

Law of 2014 and National Intelligence Law in 2017 require companies to comply with requests from intelligence services. See 

Daniel Harsha, “Huawei, a Self-Made World-Class Company or 

Agent of China’s Global Strategy?” Ash Center for Democratic 

Governance and Innovation at Harvard University, available at 

<https://ash.harvard.edu/huawei-self-made-world-class-company-or-agent-chinas-global-strategy>.

22 For a discussion of how China uses these capabilities domestically, see Kai-Fu Lee, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, 

and the New World Order (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 

2018).

23 On state funding, see Henry Tugendhat, “Banning Huawei’s 5G Won’t Halt China’s Tech Revolution,” The Guardian, 

January 30, 2020, available at <www.theguardian.com/

commentisfree/2020/jan/30/banning-huawei-5g-china-tech-revolution-free-market>. On Huawei undercutting 

competitors, see Alex Capri, “Beijing’s Global 5G Ambitions 

Threaten to Disrupt Telecoms,” Nikkei Asian Review, August 31, 2018, available at <https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/

Beijing-s-global-5G-ambitions-threaten-to-disrupt-telecoms>.

24 The Chinese Communist Party has a history of using economic 

threats to censor U.S. companies’ and individuals’ speech. See 

Jennifer Pan and Margaret Roberts, “These 3 Factors Explain 

Why the NBA and Other Companies Struggle to Push Back 

Against Chinese Censorship,” Washington Post, October 16, 2019, 

available at <www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/16/

these-factors-explain-why-nba-other-companies-struggle-pushback-against-chinese-censorship/>.

25 Quantum technology has numerous national security implications beyond those tied to cyberspace and information 

technology.

26 See Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy, Implications of Quantum Computing for Encryption 

Policy, Encryption Working Group Paper (Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 25, 2019), 

available at <https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/04/25/

implications-of-quantum-computing-for-encryption-policy-pub-78985>. For a more detailed discussion, see Richard 

A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake, The Fifth Domain: Defending 

Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber 

Threats (New York: Penguin Press, 2019), chapter 16.

27 E.B. Kania and J.K. Costello, “Quantum Technologies, U.S.-

China Strategic Competition, and Future Dynamics of Cyber 

Stability,” 2017 International Conference on Cyber Conflict (Washington, DC: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 

2017), 89–96.

28 David Grossman, “Did Google Just Achieve Quantum Supremacy?” Popular Mechanics, September 23, 2019, available 

at <www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a29190975/

google-quantum-supremacy/>.

29 The usual argument is that encryption is used by billions of 

users, whereas decryption is used by only a handful of intelligence organizations. As a result, it will be easier for a small 

number of intelligence agencies working on decryption to obtain 

expensive new quantum devices than for the general public to 

obtain use of quantum computers.

30 Paul Smith-Goodson, “Quantum USA vs. Quantum China: 

The World’s Most Important Technology Race,” Forbes, 

October 11, 2019, available at <www.forbes.com/sites/

moorinsights/2019/10/10/quantum-usa-vs-quantum-chinathe-worlds-most-important-technology-race/>.

31 Tim Johnson, “China Speeds Ahead of U.S. as Quantum 

Race Escalates, Worrying Scientists,” McClatchy DC, October 23, 2017, available at <www.mcclatchydc.com/news/

nation-world/national/national-security/article179971861.

html>; Smith-Goodson, “Quantum USA vs. Quantum China.”

32 For a general discussion of these security and related threats 

posed by artificial intelligence (AI), see U.S. National Security 

Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), Interim Report

(Washington, DC: NSCAI, November 2019), 11–13.

33 For an overview of the national security implications of AI, 

see Clarke and Knake, The Fifth Domain.

34 Frank Luerweg, “The Internet Knows You Better 

than Your Spouse Does,” Scientific American, March 14, 

2019, available at <www.scientificamerican.com/article/

the-internet-knows-you-better-than-your-spouse-does/>.

35 Regarding China’s resourcing, see Tiffany Lo, “Big Brother 

Is Watching You! China Installs ‘The Worlds Most Advanced 

Video Surveillance System’ with over 20 Million AI-Equipped 

Street Cameras,” Daily Mail, September 25, 2017, available at 

<www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4918342/China-installs20-million-AI-equipped-street-cameras.html>. On the Russian 

use of Facebook and other commercial AI, see Alina Polyakova, 

“Weapons of the Weak: Russia and AI-Driven Asymmetric Warfare,” Brookings, November 15, 2018, available at <https://www.

brookings.edu/research/weapons-of-the-weak-russia-and-aidriven-asymmetric-warfare/>.

36 See NSCAI, Interim Report, 17–20.

37 See Martijn Rasser et al., The American AI Century: A Blueprint 

for Action (Washington, DC: Center for New American Security, 

December 2019), 9, available at <https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.

cnas.org/documents/CNAS-Tech-American-AI-Century_updated.pdf?mtime=20200103081822>; NSCAI, Interim Report, 19.

38 NSCAI, Interim Report, 1, 17–20.

39 Released in 2015, but subsequently deemphasized in 2018 

and 2019 by the Chinese government when “Made in China 

2025” sparked international controversy, the document’s goal 

was to comprehensively upgrade Chinese industry, making it 

more efficient and integrated so that it can occupy the highest 

parts of global production chains. The plan identified the goal 

of raising domestic content of core components and materials 

to 40 percent by 2020 and 70 percent by 2025. The focus for attaining dominance is aimed at 10 priority sectors: new advanced 

information technology, automated machine tools and robotics, 

aerospace and aeronautical equipment, maritime equipment 

and high-tech shipping, modern rail transport equipment, new 

energy vehicles and equipment, power equipment, agricultural 

equipment, new materials, and biopharma and advanced medical 

products. Quite clearly, dominance in new information technology was “aim #1,” but within a wider construct of aims for 

modern technology dominance. See Scott Kennedy, “Made in 

China 2025,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

June 1, 2015, available at <https://www.csis.org/analysis/madechina-2025>; Melissa Cyrill, “What Is Made in China 2025 and 

Why Has It Made the World So Nervous?” China Briefing, December 28, 2018, available at <www.china-briefing.com/news/

made-in-china-2025-explained/>.

40 Paul McLeary, “The Pentagon’s Third Offset May Be Dead, 

But No One Knows What Comes Next,” Foreign Policy, December 18, 2017, available at <foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/18/

the-pentagons-third-offset-may-be-dead-but-no-one-knowswhat-comes-next/>.
Emerging Critical Information Technology 151

41 Arthur Herman, “America’s High-Tech STEM Cri

-

sis,” Forbes, September 10, 2018, available at <www.

forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/09/10/

americas-high-tech-stem-crisis/#f6730d8f0a25>.

42 The hypothesis is mainly used in evolutionary biology and is 

based on Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. It is termed 

Red Queen because populations have to “run” or evolve to stay 

in the same place, or else go extinct. See Leigh Van Valen, “A 

New Evolutionary Law,” University of Chicago, 1973, available 

at <https://www.mn.uio.no/cees/english/services/van-valen/

evolutionary-theory/volume-1/vol-1-no-1-pages-1-30-l-vanvalen-a-new-evolutionary-law.pdf>.

43 China outlines this strategy in its Medium- and Long-Term 

Plan for Science and Technology Development, 2006–2020. The 

plan calls for copying foreign innovation and focusing resources 

to achieve breakthroughs in targeted strategic areas of techno-

logical development and basic research. For an assessment of 

the plan and its outcome, see Hannas, Mulvenon, and Puglisi, 

Chinese Industrial Espionage. Private sources estimate the annual 

value of intellectual property stolen by China from the United 

States at $225 billion to $600 billion. See IP Commission, The 

IP Commission Report.

44 McLeary, “The Pentagon’s Third Offset May Be Dead, But No 

One Knows What Comes Next.”

45 National Security Strategy of the United States of America

(Washington, DC: The White House, December 2017).

46 For a similar perspective, see Michael C. Horowitz, “Artifi

-

cial Intelligence, International Competition, and the Balance 

of Power,” Texas National Security Review 1, no. 3 (May 2018).

47 For example, see James Andrew Lewis, Intellectual Property 

Protection (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Interna-

tional Studies, January 2008), available at <https://csis-prod.

s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publica-

tion/080802_LewisIntellectualProperty_Web.pdf>.

153

Chapter 7

Social Media and Influence 

Operations Technologies

Implications for Great Power Competition

By Todd C. Helmus

Nation-states have increasingly been waging foreign propaganda campaigns on 

social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Such campaigns are enticing because they are cheap and easy to execute; they allow planners to identify, 

target, and reach specific audiences; and the campaign’s anonymity limits the associated political and foreign policy risks. Russia, China, and the so-called Islamic 

State are three key U.S. adversaries that have exploited online technologies for 

propaganda. This chapter reviews the aims, capabilities, and limitations of online 

propaganda for each of these entities. The chapter also highlights key recommendations that the United States should adopt in order to counter adversary use of 

online propaganda.

As the world has entered a new era of Great Power competition over the past decade, nation-states have been increasingly waging foreign propaganda campaigns on social 

media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, effectively turning such platforms into influence operations technologies.1

 A study from the University of Oxford documented that 

some 70 countries around the world are engaged in manipulating social media to serve 

domestic and foreign policy ends. This is up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries 

in 2017. In particular, the study documented foreign propaganda campaigns conducted by 

Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.2

Why are states increasingly relying on social media as a tool of foreign propaganda? 

It is cheap and easy to operate and allows campaign planners to identify, target, and reach 

specific overseas audiences, such as individuals, voter demographics, and ethnic groups. 

Governments also seek to engage in such campaigns anonymously, thereby limiting the 

associated political and foreign policy risks. The campaigns can also be conducted at scale, 

and they can be informed by a wealth of easy-to-access big data on target audiences.

States conduct online propaganda campaigns in a number of ways, including using 

“bot” and “troll” accounts. Bots are automated social media accounts, often on Twitter, that 

employ code to replicate human activity to promote a particular message. To enable more 
154 Helmus

sophisticated interactions with other users, bot campaigns employ real people or trolls to 

monitor and control fake social media accounts. Campaigns employ these types of accounts 

in numerous ways. They can spread progovernment content, attack adversary positions, 

distract or divert conversations or criticism away from an issue, promote divisions and polarization, and suppress participation through attacks or harassment.3

This chapter offers a look at how three contemporary U.S. adversaries have used and 

are using online content and platforms to engage in foreign influence campaigns. It focuses 

on Russia, China, and the so-called Islamic State (IS). The first two are, as defined earlier 

in this volume, America’s modern Great Power rivals. As noted in the 2018 U.S. National 

Defense Strategy, and discussed in detail in chapter 11, IS remains, despite major recent 

setbacks, a modern violent extremist organization with global reach and sustained influence that will challenge America into this Great Power era. For each case study, the chapter 

identifies the adversary’s aims and objectives in using online technologies for influence operations and propaganda. It also identifies the capabilities and limitations for using online 

propaganda. In addition, because online platforms are not the only means of disseminating 

propaganda, the chapter briefly describes relevant offline mechanisms for influence. The 

chapter does not explicitly list U.S. Government aims, objectives, capabilities, or limitations 

for using social media and online technologies for external propaganda, instead offering an 

implicit assessment of these technologies in the final section on recommendations. This approach for the chapter has been selected in part because of the limited information available 

in open-source reporting.

Russia 

Aims and Objectives 

In a recent report on hostile social manipulation, RAND political scientist Mike Mazarr 

and his colleagues identified several key strategic aims for Russian online operations. 

First, they noted that Russia has long believed it is a target of adverse information 

operations, and Moscow may use its social manipulation efforts to counter these “disinformation” programs. Second, they noted that Russia uses social manipulation to pursue 

what it calls “discrete policy objectives” to influence a particular policy debate or foreign 

policy in order to suit its interests.4 In addition, they noted that some analysts see an 

animus to push foreign societies to a “‘posttruth’ environment—one in which the distinction between fact and falsehood is immaterial, objectivity is unattainable, and reality 

is malleable.”5

Diego Martin and Jacob Shapiro offered a glimpse of Russian influence objectives by 

analyzing a specially created database of influence campaigns waged between 2013 and 

2018. The campaigns were waged by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran and targeted 

14 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, the 

Netherlands, and Ukraine.6 Russia accounted for some 38 of 53 identified influence efforts, 

highlighting the obvious importance Russia places on this aspect of its foreign policy. 
Social Media and Influence Operations Technologies 155

Capabilities 

First, we should note that Russia benefits from a broad set of capabilities for influencing 

overseas governments and publics. Elizabeth Bodine-Baron and colleagues specifically 

identified four key categories of capabilities.7

 The first category includes actors that are part 

of the Russian state, such as the Main Intelligence Unit (Glavnoye razvedyvatel’noye upravleniye) or Sputnik online media. Second is the RT international news network, which is a 

nonprofit news organization that is visibly supported by the Russian state. Third are those 

actors who knowingly work on behalf of the Russian government but whose connections 

to the state are concealed. This includes the Internet Research Agency (IRA; also known as 

the St. Petersburg troll factory) and patriotic Russian hackers and networks run by criminal 

oligarchs. Last, in the fourth category, are the various proxies and potential proxies. These 

include those actors who may or may not hold pro-Russian views but are nonetheless motivated to spread messages in line with Russian campaign objectives.

The media and messages produced by these different arms often work together in a 

seemingly systematic manner. Following the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, various channels, combined with official press statements and Russian bots and trolls, 

produced “a blizzard of falsehoods” designed to muddy the waters of international investigations and opinion on Russian blame for the assassination.8

The most famous example of Russian propaganda stems from its systematic campaign 

to target the U.S. 2016 election. Russia employed a high-volume array of social media content to include 10.4 million tweets, 1,000 YouTube videos posted on 17 accounts, 116,000 

Instagram posts from 133 accounts, and 61,500 unique Facebook posts across 81 pages. 

These postings yielded 77 million engagements on Facebook, 187 million engagements on 

Instagram, and 73 million engagements on original Twitter content.

The content sought to promote wide-ranging themes specially targeted at different U.S. 

demographic groups. Targets included African-American communities to promote black 

separatism, inflame opinions toward police, and undermine confidence in the electoral 

system. Content engaged in voter suppression tactics included promoting third-party candidates, encouraging voters to stay home on election day, and creating confusion about 

voting rules. Beginning in the primaries and continuing through the election, the content 

promoted pro-Trump operations and countered Hillary Clinton.9

Many of these competing themes appeared to promote disunity among the American 

electorate. Campaigns sought to promote both Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter 

themes to inflame opinions. Skillful manipulation of social media even proved successful at 

promoting dual street protests.10 Other campaigns sought to promote secession by the state 

of Texas, anti-immigrant causes, gun rights, patriotism, Tea Party culture, and so forth.11

Russia has since engaged in a number of other online influence campaigns. For example, Russia supported the Brexit referendum in 2016, heavily promoted Catalonia’s 

independence referendum in 2017, and sought to undermine the presidential election of 

Emmanuel Macron in France. Statistics tabulated by Martin and Shapiro suggest that Russia engaged in at least 28 campaigns in 2017 and 21 in 2018.12

Overall, Russia appears to demonstrate a relatively skilled approach to these information operations. First, we should note that Russia was one of the first countries to recognize 

the potential value of using social media for Great Power competition, and Russia’s efforts to 
156 Helmus

implement social media–based information operations have unfortunately paved the way 

for other nations, such as Iran and China, to follow suit. Second, by some accounts, Russia 

implemented the campaign with skill. IRA staffers visited the United States in order to conduct “market research.” IRA social media accounts clustered around identity- or issue-based 

online communities and built sizable audiences—all without tipping off audiences (at least 

so far) to the Russian origin of the campaigns. Russian accounts were retweeted by political 

figures and news media. As Tom Uren and colleagues noted, the “IRA campaign displayed a 

clear understanding of audience segmentation, colloquial language, and the ways in which 

online communities framed their identities and political stances.”13

Why is Russia so adept at using social media and other online channels of influence? 

Some analysts point to a 2013 article published on “ambiguous warfare” by the chief of the 

Russian general staff and general of the army, Valery Gerasimov, which led to some scholars 

believing that the Russian information campaigns are the result of an “elaborate strategy” 

developed and executed by Russian planners.14 Sergey Sanovich, a researcher at Princeton’s 

Center for Information Technology Policy, alternatively suggests that Russia’s online propaganda tools were “conceived and perfected” in the liberal Russian economy and politics 

of the 1990s. After the 1990s, Russia proved unsuccessful at using its network of bots and 

trolls to curb domestic online discussions, and the government was unwilling to “ban the 

platforms outright.” Consequently, it then adapted and stepped up its online international 

influence game.15

Limitations 

The Russian campaign may have been skilled, but was it effective? Clearly, audiences have 

seen and interacted with Russian content. However, clear scientific evidence is lacking on 

whether such social media campaigns helped Russia meet any particular campaign goals 

or change audience attitudes, behaviors, or beliefs in the ways that the Russian planners 

intended.16

Interestingly, one study assessed the IRA’s impact on political attitudes and behaviors 

of American Twitter users in late 2017. The study identified users who interacted with IRA 

content on Twitter and analyzed whether outcomes of six distinctive measures of political 

attitudes and behavior changed over a 1-month period. The study found no such evidence 

of change and suggested that the Russian trolls might have failed because they directly targeted those who were already highly polarized in their attitudes and beliefs.17

Still, the campaign’s ingenuity and scope have garnered it significant attention from 

politicians, journalists, researchers, and the American public. The social media campaign, 

combined with other elements of a broader Russian interference campaign—including hacking the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server and the release of DNC 

emails—has led at least some audiences to question the legitimacy of the 2016 election.18

Such an outcome may well lead Russian planners and politicians to conclude that the campaign was a success.

One key limitation or challenge for Russia and other disinformation actors is that Facebook, Twitter, and other such platforms are now on the lookout for Russian content. Bots 

will need to be more sophisticated to overcome the various bot detectors that exist in the 
Social Media and Influence Operations Technologies 157

market. Russia will no longer be able to pay for advertisements with rubles or post content 

directly from IRA-affiliated computers.

An arms race will certainly ensue. Russians will likely adapt to any countermeasures 

Western governments or online platforms put in place. Evidence suggests this is already 

taking place. Russia has sought to test new disinformation tactics on the African continent. Instead of creating fake Facebook groups from the IRA offices in St. Petersburg, it has 

rented or purchased accounts already created and cultivated by locals. Russia also has created local media organizations in select African countries that post the content on behalf of 

Russia. The seemingly authentic nature of the content will make detection more difficult.19

China 

Aims and Objectives 

By documenting the expansion of the Communist Party media influence since 2017, analyst Sarah Cook identified several broad and overarching aims of the Chinese Communist 

Party (CCP) communication and influence strategy. First, she noted the government seeks 

to “promote a positive view of China and the CCP’s authoritarian regime.” By the same 

token, it also seeks to “marginalize, demonize, or entirely suppress anti-CCP voices” and 

other information that might cast a negative light on its government or leaders. China also 

seeks to promote nationalistic sentiment at home and abroad, promote the reunification of 

Taiwan with the mainland, and quell the protests in Hong Kong.20

Capabilities 

China has gained a strong reputation for effectively stifling and influencing online debate 

within its borders, and it has fostered a number of seemingly effective offline tools for international influence. However, China’s ability to use online tools to influence international 

policy and opinion remains in a relatively nascent state.

Censorship and Influence at Home 

China uses both the “Great Firewall” and its “Golden Shield” to stifle dissent at home. The 

Great Firewall blocks access to restricted foreign Web sites. If a China-based user tries 

to access a restricted site, it will not load and the user will receive a time-out message.21

Additionally, China uses its Golden Shield to regulate information on domestic sites. 

According to Gillian Bolsover at the University of Oxford, social media sites in China actively monitor user-generated content to ensure that posted information is not deemed 

illegal by the state. Examples of content often censored include information related to political scandals, political leaders, and efforts to organize protests.22

China also actively seeks to shape the social media–based conversations and discussions of its citizens. Starting in 2011, the Chinese government saw a need to do more than 

just censor online content; it engaged in political communication. The Central Party, state 

institutions, state-run media, and individual party cadres soon began setting up government social media accounts. By 2014, the government had created more than 100,000 

official social media accounts on WeChat and 180,000 profiles on Sina Weibo.23

One potential tool for this internal information control is the use of 50-cent accounts. 

Academics and policy experts have written about an army of volunteers who are paid 50 
158 Helmus

cents per post to “attack critics and support the state” online and to do so in a way that appears these attacks come from ordinary people.24 A 2017 Harvard paper studied a data leak 

associated with the 50-cent accounts. The authors estimate that the government fabricates 

and posts about 448 million social media comments a year. Instead of engaging in direct 

arguments with potential skeptics of the government, these bogus users often try to change 

the subject and engage in cheerleading for China and the CCP.25 Much of this work is done 

by government employees who post part time outside their regular day jobs.

Influence Abroad: “Offline” Capabilities 

Although the focus of this chapter is online influence operations and propaganda technologies, China has built a robust and multimodel offline approach to influence overseas 

populations and governments. This approach was addressed earlier in chapter 3b but merits 

brief repetition here. First, China has built an expanding capacity for global media reach. 

China’s most prominent state-owned media outlets offer an international presence.26 The 

China Global Television Network (CGTN), for example, broadcasts in English, Spanish, 

French, Arabic, and Russian to every region in the world via satellite and cable. In addition, Chinese state media have distributed content associated with the China Daily and the 

Washington Post in newsstands in New York City and congressional offices in Washington. 

Diplomats and other key influencers draft various op-ed articles and assiduously work to 

build relationships with foreign journalists. China also often threatens to withhold access to 

its markets if representatives of various business interests do not toe the party line.27

In addition, China’s state media organs have broadened their reach with the use of social media. The English-language Facebook pages for China Daily, the official Xinhua News 

Agency, and CGTN, according to disinformation researcher Renee DiResta, have amassed 

more than 75 million followers each, a sum two to three times greater than CNN or Fox 

News. DiResta argues that China’s heavy use of paid social media advertisements played a 

key role in cultivating this large following.28

Influence Abroad: Chinese Online Capabilities 

China has attempted to use online tools, including fake social media accounts, to advance 

its Taiwan unification campaign and its efforts to counter the Hong Kong protests. China 

has engaged in several small-scale efforts at using social media to promote Taiwanese unification. In one interesting case, following a typhoon that disabled a bridge to Osaka’s Kansai 

International Airport, a post on the Professional Technology Temple (PTT), a Taiwanesefocused bulletin board, falsely suggested that the Chinese consulate could evacuate Taiwan 

citizens from Osaka only if they identified themselves as Chinese citizens. Researchers 

traced the story on PTT to an account on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo and a 

“content farm” that posted on mainland media sites, where it was then picked up by PTT 

messaging.29 The consequences were harmful: Taiwan’s foreign ministry representative in 

Osaka committed suicide due to pressure stemming from his inability to aid Taiwanese 

citizens.

In another case, it was discovered that a large number of PTT accounts, some of which 

were deemed “influential,” were purchased on an online auction site active in Taiwan and 

Southeast Asia. Many of these accounts switched their content from being pro-democratic 
Social Media and Influence Operations Technologies 159

to leaning pro-Chinese. The accounts posted at a time to allow the Taiwanese public to see 

the posts first thing in the morning.30

China has most recently been caught using sham Facebook and Twitter accounts in an 

attempt to counter the Hong Kong protests. On August 19, 2019, both Twitter and Facebook announced the discovery of the Chinese campaign. Twitter identified 936 accounts 

that originated within the People’s Republic of China that were “deliberately and specifically 

attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong, including undermining the legitimacy 

and political positions of the protest movement on the ground.”31 Fake accounts were also 

detected on Facebook and YouTube.32

Subsequently, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) released a detailed analysis of the archive of terminated Twitter accounts. The researchers discovered that the 

940 false accounts had disseminated 3.6 million tweets and identified three key narrative 

themes of the accounts: condemnation of the protesters, support for the Hong Kong police 

and the “rule of law,” and conspiracy theories about Western involvement in the protests.33

The authors described the campaign as relatively small and “hastily assembled” and lacking 

in sophisticated advance planning. They observed that the accounts were cheaply acquired 

repurposed spam or marketing accounts. Prior account owners, for example, tweeted in 

Arabic, English, Korean, Japanese, and Russian on topics that ranged from British football 

to pornography.34

The researchers also observed that there was “little attempt to target online communities with any degree of psychological sophistication.”35 In contrast, they noted that carefully 

crafted and long-running influence operations on social media, such as those conducted by 

the Russian state, are often characterized by tight network clusters associated with key target audiences. Analysis of the Chinese database revealed no such network characteristics. 

They finally observed that the Chinese dialect in some of the tweets was a dead giveaway for 

Chinese mainland authors.36

Beyond the anti–Hong Kong protest campaign, the researchers at ASPI found evidence 

of relatively small campaigns targeting China’s political opponents. The largest campaign 

targeted Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman and bookseller now residing in the United 

States who has publicly levied allegations of corruption against senior members of the Chinese government. Over 38,000 tweets from 618 accounts targeted Wengui with vitriolic 

attacks on his character.37 Two other smaller campaigns targeted two dissidents who had 

already been arrested in China.38

With the 2019–2020 outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), China launched 

a new propaganda campaign partially aimed at avoiding blame for the virus and promoting 

its own relief efforts. First, China has pushed social media content arguing that the virus 

may not have originated from China. On March 7, for example, the Chinese embassy in 

South Africa tweeted, “Although the epidemic first broke out in China, it did not necessarily mean that the virus is originated from China, let alone ‘made in China.’”39 The tweet 

further speculated that the virus originated in the United States. Chinese media promoted a 

conspiracy theory that a U.S. military cyclist may have brought the disease to Wuhan from 

Fort Detrick, the location of the U.S. Army’s premier biological laboratory. The spokesman 

and deputy director general of the Information Department of China’s Foreign Ministry 
160 Helmus

also speculated on Twitter that the United States secretly concealed COVID-19 deaths in its 

count of flu fatalities.40

Second, China has promoted its domestic and international response to COVID-19. In 

February, Chinese state-run media began running social media advertisements that praised 

Secretary General Xi Jinping for his leadership in containing the virus.41 On March 9, the 

official account of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted, “China’s endeavor to combating the epidemic has bought time for [international] preparedness.”42 China also promoted 

its international relief efforts. State-run media pushed advertisements that promoted stories 

of countries such as Italy and Serbia expressing gratitude to China for supporting them with 

medical supplies.43 Pro-China bots pushed out tweets promoting Chinese medical relief efforts in Italy with two hashtags: #forzaCinaeItalia, which means “Come on China and Italy,” 

and #grazieCina, which means “Thank you, China.” Chinese diplomatic Twitter accounts 

also used these hashtags.44

Limitations 

The discovered Chinese online propaganda campaigns targeting Taiwan and protesters in 

Hong Kong suggest that China has struggled to weaponize social media to influence audiences abroad. China clearly has had success at home in terms of effectively censoring illicit 

content on the Web and shaping online conversations. The control it enjoys domestically 

over the Internet is not so easily replicated abroad, where it must contend with competing 

narratives that cannot be suppressed.45

China will likely learn its lesson. On the same August 2019 day that Twitter announced 

China’s suspensions, China’s Internet regulator put out notice for a contract to help it “operate and grow” overseas social media accounts on platforms such as Facebook. The project 

sought a team of experts who could “tell China’s stories with multiple angles, express China’s voice, and get overseas audience recognition and support for Jinping Thought.” The 

state news agency, China News Services, also announced that it has started a new project 

to build its social media presence overseas. It specifically seeks to increase Twitter followers 

on its 2 accounts by 580,000 within 6 months. It wants at least 8 percent of the accounts to 

come from North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Overall, China is spending more 

than $1 million on both accounts.46

Further aiding China will be its investment in artificial intelligence, which, if effectively 

integrated in highly scaled social media campaigns, could prove a serious social media 

threat.47 China’s stake in the rapidly growing TikTok social media application could also 

help further the country’s message. Suspicions have already arisen about China using the 

application to promote censorship and manipulation. Growing access to a widening public could be an information advantage for the Chinese and give them a new platform for 

influence.

The So-Called Islamic State and Social Media 

Aims and Objectives 

According to a leaked strategy document, IS had three main aims for its information operations campaign: recruitment, governance, and media.48 First, IS sought to increase the 
Social Media and Influence Operations Technologies 161

recruitment of local and foreign fighters into the organization. Second, IS developed a 

plan that included a sophisticated information and intelligence apparatus designed to help 

IS expand and maintain control over its territory. Finally, IS’s well-crafted media system 

sought to empower its recruitment and governance efforts while strengthening its embrace 

of atrocities intended to deter opponents and energize supporters with maximum psychological impact.

Other studies have sought to understand IS information objectives and aims by examining the content of its propaganda campaigns. Researchers in a RAND study isolated 

a community of ardent IS members and supporters on Twitter and lexically analyzed the 

content. They found that IS appeared to demonstrate “a more self-aware social media strategy” than any of the other groups, with disproportionately high usage of social media terms 

such as spread, link, breaking news, and now released.

49 In addition, themes of religion and 

belonging resonated strongly. In reference to violent IS activities, users employed noble 

phrases such as lions of the Islamic State and mujahideen and coopted the trappings of real 

states by using terms such as army and soldiers of the Caliphate.

50

Capabilities 

To understand IS capabilities for using online tools in radicalization and recruitment, it is 

important to first understand the evolution of extremist radicalization and recruitment. Al 

Qaeda and other militants in places such as Bosnia, Chechnya, and the Palestinian territories used to disseminate propaganda content via DVD and cassette videos. Many of these 

videos featured depictions of atrocities that were meant to inflame opinions and sermons 

of religious leaders who sought to lay the intellectual and spiritual groundwork for terrorist actions. Recruitment into militant groups was often done through small social groups. 

For example, gatherings at private homes or mosques targeted Saudi recruits for Iraq and 

served as a venue where a “harmless discussion about Islam” turned to the U.S. war in Iraq 

and U.S.-committed atrocities.51

This approach to extremist propaganda and recruitment began to evolve slowly as al 

Qaeda turned to the Internet to aid in recruitment efforts. After initially disseminating 

speeches on al Jazeera, Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, began posting 

long and dry speeches. Anwar al-Awlaki, a key al Qaeda ideologue, gained particular fame 

through sermons posted to YouTube. His success as a propagandist led to him being targeted by U.S. forces in Yemen.52 During the Iraq War, al Qaeda gained notoriety by posting 

videos of improvised explosive device attacks on American troops.53 Throughout this process, al Qaeda and other groups used the Internet primarily as a broadcast tool, but limited 

effort was placed into harnessing social media platforms or the social aspects of online life.

IS helped revolutionize how extremist groups used the Internet and its social media platforms. IS decentralized its propaganda production and dissemination, used a multilayered set 

of media centers to produce its official media publications, and then leveraged a network of 

supporters in order to distribute its message. It also learned how to use direct messaging capabilities to reach out and connect to prospective recruits. A range of outlets helped IS produce 

its official propaganda. Official outlets Al-Furqan Media and Al-Hayat Media produced and 

released top-level messaging, such as the sermons of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and issues of the 
162 Helmus

sleek English-language magazine Dabiq. Various “provincial” media outlets also produced an 

assortment of content and propaganda videos.

IS sought to disseminate this content not only on various Internet sites but also 

through a variety of social networking applications, including Facebook, Instagram, 

Tumblr, Ask.fm, and, most famously, Twitter. These channels allowed IS to enlist a worldwide 

army of supporters in both propaganda creation and dissemination. In addition to disseminating its own content on the Internet, IS welcomed supporters and members taking 

the initiative to create their own unofficial propaganda. In her 2014 study of tweets posted 

by 29,000 accounts belonging to Western IS foreign fighters, Jytte Klausen found that 

disseminators outside the conflict zone, including a handful of particularly influential 

women, played a key role in this effort to “build redundancy by spreading the material, 

often posting and reposting material provided by the feeder accounts belonging to organizations and fighters based in Syria.”54

IS also worked with individual fighters who had their own Twitter, Instagram, or Tumblr accounts. IS worked to coordinate and synchronize the postings of fighters. These tales 

describing life and success on the battlefield gained a wide following.55 In addition, a report 

by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence emphasized the role of disseminators based primarily in the West, arguing that many foreign 

fighters informed themselves about the conflict by following unofficial disseminators rather 

than official IS channels.56

IS also used social media to support its recruitment efforts. IS enlisted “units of specialized recruiters operating around the clock from Internet cafes in Iraq and Syria, interacting 

on an individual level with prospective recruits.”57 Individuals who liked, retweeted, or 

positively commented on IS social media accounts self-identified themselves as potentially 

suitable targets for recruitment. Recruiters could then make contact using private communications such as direct messaging on Twitter or Facebook. The two-way dialogue allowed 

the recruiter to groom the target and promote action (be it conducting attacks in the West 

or emigrating to IS territory). As J.M. Berger notes, such recruitment efforts became increasingly important as IS sought to recruit from lands farther than Iraq and Syria.58

Overall, these efforts appeared successful. IS gained significant media exposure and 

notoriety for the conduct of its social media campaign. Ultimately, it recruited over 40,000 

people (32,809 men, 4,761 women, and 4,640 children) to join its ranks. Over 5,900 foreign 

fighters joined from Western Europe and 753 joined from the Americas.59 IS operatives also 

launched various deadly attacks, most notably the Brussels airport and subway bombings 

of March 22, 2016, which killed 32 individuals, and the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015, 

which resulted in 130 fatalities. IS-inspired attacks also took place in the United States, 

Canada, Australia, Tunisia, Turkey, and Egypt.60

Limitations 

IS success with social media did not last. In 2015, Twitter and other social media firms initiated an effort to suspend IS social media accounts based on terms of service violations. IS in 

turn worked diligently to overcome these suspensions. As soon as Twitter suspended one IS 

supporter’s account, the supporter was supposed to move to a backup account.61 However, 
Social Media and Influence Operations Technologies 163

even under the best of circumstances, such remediation efforts could not maintain the 

previous breakneck pace of propaganda dissemination.62 Soon the platforms created new 

artificial intelligence tools that could detect and terminate accounts in near real time. In the 

first 6 months of 2017, Twitter took down nearly 300,000 terrorist accounts.63 As a result, 

Maura Conway and colleagues wrote in their research on Twitter takedowns that “the costs 

for most pro-IS users of engaging on Twitter (in terms of deflated morale, diffused messages, and persistent effort needed to maintain a public presence) now largely outweigh the 

benefits. This means that the IS Twitter community is now almost nonexistent.”64

IS has since sought new online territory from which to recruit and radicalize. For some 

time, IS turned to Telegram, an application that, while lacking the unique broadcast capability of Twitter, allowed IS a secure way to “communicate with likeminded supporters 

across the world, disseminate official and unofficial [IS] media, and provide instructional 

material for operations.”65 However, a series of account suspension efforts by Telegram, 

mostly recently conducted in collaboration with Interpol in late 2019, has left IS once again 

looking for more friendly territory.

Recommendations 

The growing use of social media as a technology tool for strategic influence operations 

and nation-state propaganda represents a significant threat to U.S. interests as America 

moves into a new era of Great Power competition. While Russian social media may not 

have decisively impacted the U.S. election of 2016, it is clear the campaign likely negatively 

impacted American trust in that election. Additionally, it seems clear that such attacks will 

continue against the United States, its allies, and other nations’ democratic elections. As 

demonstrated by its assertive social media activities during 2020 to shape a factually suspect 

COVID-19 narrative, Beijing has targeted the United States and its allies with online propaganda. Clearly, the United States needs to safeguard the authority, legitimacy, and respect of 

American norms, values, and institutions from such adversaries.

Numerous documents and reports lay out an array of recommendations for how the 

United States can best counter this threat.66 Reviewing the long lists of recommendations 

is beyond the scope of this chapter; however, it is useful to briefly consider some broad approaches that the United States could undertake to limit the threat.

Track, Highlight, and Block Adversarial Content 

The U.S.-led and Western campaign against IS propaganda proved successful largely because social media platforms were able and willing to identify IS content and terminate IS 

social media accounts. Overall, the platforms seem uniquely able to identify and target such 

content in part because extremists clearly branded their campaigns for driving terrorist 

recruitment. The U.S. Government should continue to work with Twitter, Facebook, and 

other platforms to ensure suspensions of extremist accounts. The challenge is much greater 

for nation-state campaigns, which wage stealth propaganda using fake accounts and targeting a litany of causes. An arms race is already taking place between those charged with 

planning and executing online propaganda and those seeking to detect and remove such 

campaigns. The U.S. Government will need to work closely with technology firms and the 
164 Helmus

academic community to support this arms race and enable new approaches for detecting 

campaigns.

Build Resilience of At-Risk Populations 

It will be crucial to help audiences be more critical consumers of social media. Doing so 

means giving audiences the skills and capabilities to identify fake news, consider the credibility of sources on social media, and recognize their role in countering such content or 

limiting its propagation. Media literacy campaigns represent one potential avenue for this 

resilience-building, and efforts are under way to develop and implement relevant educational curriculums in the United States and elsewhere. Governments should also warn 

citizens when they detect or other otherwise suspect that adversaries are targeting such 

citizens with online influence campaigns.

Support Allies Targeted by U.S. Adversaries 

The United States should help its allies stand up against online propaganda. For example, 

Russia has been engaged in a near-persistent propaganda campaign against the government 

of Ukraine as well as other Eastern European countries. The United States should work 

with the targeted countries to give them the necessary capabilities to withstand and counter 

these campaigns. The specific policy prescriptions will vary, but efforts may include training 

local governments in better communication strategies, improving training for journalists, 

providing funds to support outing adversary propaganda, and establishing media literacy 

campaigns.

Better Organize to Counter Adversary Propaganda 

The U.S. Government must ensure it is properly organized to fight online disinformation. 

The Intelligence Community will need the necessary capabilities and funding to help detect 

foreign influence campaigns before or as they occur. Interagency coordination will be critical 

as the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, and Department of Defense 

will each be responsible for countering a particular component of adversary campaigns.67

Coordination should continue down to the state level to help states prepare for elections 

and address locally targeted campaigns. It is critical that the United States and social media 

firms work closely together in an information-sharing capacity to ensure communication of 

threats and adversary campaigns and to coordinate on counterpropaganda activities.

Notes 

1

 This chapter uses the terms propaganda and disinformation. Merriam-Webster defines propaganda as “Ideas, facts, or allegations 

spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause.” Disinformation is considered a type of propaganda. 

Christina Nemr and William Gangware describe disinformation 

as including authentic material used in a deliberately wrong 

context to make a false connection as well as fake news sites, 

manipulated sites, or outright false information shared through 

graphics, images, and videos. See Christina Nemr and William 

Gangware, Weapons of Mass Distraction: Foreign State-Sponsored Disinformation in the Digital Age (Washington, DC: Park 

Advisors, 2019).

2

 Samantha Bradshaw and Philip N. Howard, The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organized Social 

Media Manipulation, Working Paper No. 2019.3 (Oxford, UK: 

Project on Computational Propaganda, 2019).

3

 Ibid., 1, 13.

4

 Michael J. Mazarr et al., Hostile Social Manipulation: Present 

Realities and Emerging Trends (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2019).

5

 Ibid., 61.

6

 Diego A. Martin and Jacob N. Shapiro, Trends in Online Foreign 

Influence Efforts, Working Paper Version 1.2 (Princeton: ESOC 

Publications, 2019).
Social Media and Influence Operations Technologies 165

7 Elizabeth Bodine-Baron et al., Countering Russian Social Media 

Influence (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018).

8 Joby Warrick and Anton Troianovski, “Agents of Doubt: How 

a Powerful Russian Propaganda Machine Chips Away at Western Notions of Truth,” Washington Post, December 10, 2019, 

available at <www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/

national-security/russian-propaganda-skripal-salisbury/>.

9

 Robert S. Mueller III, Report on the Investigation into Russian 

Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, vols. 1 and 2 (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, 2019).

10 Claire Allbright, “A Russian Facebook Page Organized a Protest 

in Texas. A Different Russian Page Launched the Counterprotest,” Texas Tribute (Austin), November 1, 2017, available at 

<www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/>.

11 Renee DiResta et al., The Tactics and Tropes of the Internet 

Research Agency (New York: New Knowledge, 2018), available at <https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.

cgi?article=1003&context=senatedocs>.

12 Martin and Shapiro, Trends in Online Foreign Influence Efforts.

13 Tom Uren, Elise Thomas, and Jacob Wallis, Tweeting Through 

the Great Firewall: Preliminary Analysis of PRC-Linked Information Operations Against the Hong Kong Protests, Issues Paper 

Report No. 25/2019 (Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2019), 5, available at <https://www.aspi.org.au/report/

tweeting-through-great-firewall>.

14 Sergey Sanovich, Computational Propaganda in Russia: The 

Origins of Digital Misinformation, Working Paper No. 2017.3 

(Oxford, UK: Computational Propaganda Research Project, 

2017), available at <http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/

uploads/sites/89/2017/06/Comprop-Russia.pdf>.

15 Ibid., 15.

16 Looking at the Russian campaign targeted at the U.S. 2016 

elections, it appears that Russia’s ad-targeting efforts were not 

focused on the battleground states critical to Presidential victory. 

Russia spent less than $2,000 on advertisements in Wisconsin, 

Pennsylvania, and Michigan, suggesting the campaign was not 

decisive in changing votes associated with the Electoral College. 

See Nemr and Gangware, Weapons of Mass Distraction.

17 Christopher A. Bail et al., “Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency’s Impact on the Political Attitudes and Behaviors 

of American Twitter Users in Late 2017,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 1 (January 2020), 243–250.

18 Matthew Nussbaum, “Worries About Trump’s Legitimacy Resurface with Russia Indictment,” Politico, February 

16, 2018, available at <www.politico.com/story/2018/02/16/

muller-indictment-trump-election-legitimacy-416163>.

19 Davey Alba and Sheera Frenkel, “Russia Tests New Disinformation Tactics in Africa to Expand Influence,” New York Times, 

October 30, 2019, available at <www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/

technology/russia-facebook-disinformation-africa.html>.

20 Sarah Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone: The Expansion of Chinese Communist Party Media Influence Since 2017, Special Report 

(Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2020), available at <https://

freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/01152020_SR_

China_Global_Megaphone_with_Recommendations_PDF.pdf>.

21 Gillian Bolsover, Computational Propaganda in China: An 

Alternative Model of a Widespread Practice, Working Paper No. 

2017.4 (Oxford, UK: Computational Propaganda Research Project, 2017), available at <https://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/politicalbots/

wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/06/Comprop-China.pdf>.

22 Ibid.

23 Hauke Gierow, Karsten Luc, and Kristin Shi-Kupfer, “Governance Through Information Control: China’s Leadership 

Struggles with Credibility in Social Media Staged Propaganda, 

Everyday Tips, Lack of Interactivity,” China Monitor 26 (January 

19, 2016), available at <https://www.merics.org/sites/default/

files/2019-08/China_Monitor_No_26_Social_Media_EN.pdf>.

24 Bolsover, Computational Propaganda in China.

25 Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How the 

Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic 

Distraction, not Engaged Argument,” American Political Science 

Review 111, no. 3 (2017), 484–501.

26 Cook, Beijing’s Global Megaphone. China has also exerted 

significant influence on Hollywood by granting select films 

access to Chinese markets. The films Martian and Gravity

received significant praise in the Chinese market for giving 

Chinese astronauts key roles in saving beleaguered American astronauts. See Gus Lubin, “18 Hollywood Films That 

Pandered to China’s Giant Box Office,” Business Insider, October 14, 2016, available at <www.businessinsider.com/

hollywood-movies-in-china-2016-10#cloud-atlas-removednearly-30-minutes-from-its-chinese-cut-largely-plotlines-andscenes-with-controversial-sexual-relations-3>.

27 Such was learned when Daryl Morey, the general manager of 

the Houston Rockets, published his now-deleted tweet: “Fight for 

freedom, Stand with Hong Kong.” He quickly deleted the tweet, 

apologized, and the National Basketball Association worked 

overtime to avoid alienating itself from the lucrative Chinese 

basketball market. See Theodore Yu, “One Tweet, a Week of 

Turmoil: NBA Steps Out of Bounds with China and Pays the 

Price,” Sacramento Bee, October 13, 2019, available at <www.sacbee.com/sports/nba/sacramento-kings/article235933242.html>.

28 Renee DiResta, “For China, the ‘USA Virus’ Is a 

Geopolitical Ploy,” The Atlantic, April 11, 2020, available at <www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/

chinas-covid-19-conspiracy-theories/609772/>.

29 Gary Schmitt and Michael Mazza, Blinding the Enemy: CCP 

Interference in Taiwan’s Democracy (Washington, DC: Global 

Taiwan Institute, October 2019).

30 Ibid., 8–9.

31 Twitter Safety, “Information Operations Directed at Hong 

Kong,” Twitter, August 19, 2019, available at <https://blog.twitter.

com/en_us/topics/company/2019/information_operations_directed_at_Hong_Kong.html>.

32 Nathaniel Gleicher, “Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior from China,” Facebook, August 19, 2019, available at 

<https://about.fb.com/news/2019/08/removing-cib-china/>; 

Chris Welch, “YouTube Disabled 210 Accounts for Spreading 

Disinformation About Hong Kong Protests,” The Verge, August 

22, 2019, available at <www.theverge.com/2019/8/22/20828808/

youtube-hong-kong-protests-china-disabled-accounts-suspension-disinformation>.

33 Uren, Thomas, and Wallis, Tweeting Through the Great Firewall.

34 Ibid., 4.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid., 11.

37 Ibid., 14.

38 Ibid., 22.

39 Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Beijing’s Coronavirus Propaganda 

Blitz Goes Global,” Axios, March 11, 2020, available at <www.

axios.com/beijings-coronavirus-propaganda-blitz-goes-global-f2bc610c-e83f-4890-9ff8-f49521ad6a14.html>.

40 DiResta, “For China, the ‘USA Virus’ Is a Geopolitical Ploy.”

41 Ibid.
166 Helmus

42 Allen-Ebrahimian, “Beijing’s Coronavirus Propaganda Blitz 

Goes Global.”

43 DiResta, “For China, the ‘USA Virus’ Is a Geopolitical Ploy.”

44 Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Bots Boost Chinese Propaganda 

Hashtags in Italy,” Axios, April 1, 2020, available at <www.axios.

com/bots-chinese-propaganda-hashtags-italy-cf92c5a3-cdcb4a08-b8c1-2061ca4254e2.html>.

45 Echo Huang, “No Little Red Guidebook: Why China 

Isn’t as Skillful at Disinformation as Russia,” Quartz, September 19, 2019, available at <https://qz.com/1699144/

why-chinas-social-media-propaganda-isnt-as-good-as-russias/>.

46 “China’s Propaganda Machine Is Spending Over $1 Million 

to Buy Influence on Foreign Social Media,” Quartz, August 21, 

2019, available at <https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-propaganda-machine-spending-over-150453611.html>.

47 Christopher Paul and Marek Posard, “Artificial Intelligence 

and the Manufacturing of Reality,” RAND Blog, January 20, 

2020, available at <www.rand.org/blog/2020/01/artificial-intelligence-and-the-manufacturing-of-reality.html>.

48 See Linda Robinson et al., Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible Responses (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND, 2018); Shiv Malik, “IS Papers: Leaked Documents 

Show How IS Is Building Its State,” Guardian, December 7, 

2015, available at <www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/07/

leaked-isis-document-reveals-plan-building-state-syria>.

49 Elizabeth Bodine-Baron et al., Examining IS Support and 

Opposition Networks on Twitter (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 

2016), available at <https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/

pubs/research_reports/RR1300/RR1328/RAND_RR1328.pdf>.

50 Another study analyzed the content of IS propaganda magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah. Common themes associated with the 

articles in the magazines included IS theological justification and 

inspiration for violence; descriptions of community, belonging, 

and meaning; stories of progress or heroism; establishment of a 

common enemy, that is, the West and Muslim “apostates”; and 

instructional and inspirational articles empowering individual 

violent action. See Tyler Welch, “Theology, Heroism, Justice, and 

Fear: An Analysis of IS Propaganda Magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah,” Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict 11, no. 3 (2018), 186–198.

51 Thomas Hegghammer, Saudi Militants in Iraq: Backgrounds 

and Recruitment Patterns (Kjeller: Norwegian Defence Research 

Establishment, February 5, 2007), available at <https://www.

ffi.no/en/publications-archive/saudi-militants-in-iraq-backgrounds-and-recruitment-patterns>; Alexandria Zavis, “Foreign 

Fighters in Iraq Seek Recognition, U.S. Says,” Los Angeles Times, 

March 17, 2008, available at <www.latimes.com/world/la-fgiraq17mar17-story.html>.

52 “The Propaganda Wars Since 9/11,” Washington Post, May 8, 

2015, available at <www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/

propaganda/>; Scott Shane, “The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki,” New York Times, August 27, 2015, available at <www.

nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-anwar-alawlaki.html>.

53 Edward Wyatt, “Anti-U.S. Attack Videos Spread on Web,” 

New York Times, October 6, 2006, available at <www.nytimes.

com/2006/10/06/technology/06tube.html>.

54 Jytte Klausen, “Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of 

Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq,” Studies in Conflict 

& Terrorism 38, no. 1 (October 2014), 1–22.

55 Ibid.

56 Joseph Carter, Shiraz Maher, and Peter Neumann, #Greenbirds: 

Measuring Importance and Influence in Syrian Foreign Fighter 

Networks (London: International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, 2014), 5.

57 Landon Shroder, “The Islamic State’s Propaganda War: Advertisers and Marketers Weigh in on the World’s Angriest Ad Campaign,” 

VICE News, July 14, 2015, available at <www.vice.com/en_us/

article/8x3nnv/the-islamic-states-propaganda-war-advertisersand-marketers-weigh-in-on-the-worlds-angriest-ad-campaign>.

58 J.M. Berger, “Tailored Online Interventions: The Islamic State’s 

Recruitment Strategy,” Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel

8, no. 10 (October 2015), available at <https://www.ctc.usma.

edu/posts/tailored-online-interventions-the-islamic-states-recruitment-strategy>.

59 Joana Cook and Gina Vale, From Daesh to Diaspora: Tracing the 

Women and Minors of the Islamic State (London: International 

Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, 2018).

60 Karen Yourish, Derek Watkins, and Tom Giratikanon, “Where 

IS Has Directed and Inspired Attacks Around the World,” New 

York Times, March 22, 2016, available at <www.nytimes.com/

interactive/2015/06/17/world/middleeast/map-isis-attacksaround-the-world.html>.

61 As one IS supporter urged in a blog, “To counter suspensions, 

you must support each other. Don’t make the brothers and sisters 

ask for a shout out. If someone you recognize has followed you 

after a suspension, tell your followers to follow them.” See “Blog 

Post Suggests Ways for IS Supporters to Boost Social Media Effectiveness,” SITE Intelligence Group, July 17, 2015.

62 J.M. Berger and Heather Perez, The Islamic State’s Diminishing Returns on Twitter: How Suspensions Are Limiting the Social 

Networks of English-Speaking IS Supporters, Occasional Paper 

(Washington, DC: Program on Extremism at George Washington University, 2016).

63 Madhumita Murgia, “Twitter Takes Down 300,000 

Terror Accounts as AI Tools Improve,” Financial 

Times, September 19, 2017, available at <www.ft.com/

content/198b5258-9d3e-11e7-8cd4-932067fbf946>.

64 Maura Conway et al., “Disrupting Daesh: Measuring Takedown 

of Online Terrorist Material and Its Impacts,” Studies in Conflict 

& Terrorism 42, nos. 1–2 (2019), 141–160.

65 Bennett Clifford and Helen Powell, Encrypted Extremism: 

Inside the English-Speaking Islamic State Ecosystem on Telegram

(Washington, DC: Program on Extremism at George Washington University, 2019), available at <https://extremism.gwu.edu/

sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/EncryptedExtremism.pdf>.

66 See, for example, Todd C. Helmus et al., Russian Social Media 

Influence: Understanding Russian Propaganda in Eastern Europe

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), available at <https://www.

rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2237.html>; Bodine-Baron 

et al., Countering Russian Social Media Influence; Alina Polyakova 

and Daniel Fried, Democratic Defense Against Disinformation 2.0

(Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2019), available at <https://

www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Democratic_Defense_Against_Disinformation_2.0.pdf>; Paul Barret, 

Tara Wadhwa, and Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, Combating Russian 

Disinformation: The Case for Stepping Up the Fight Online (New 

York: NYU Stern Center for Human Rights, 2018), available at 

<https://issuu.com/nyusterncenterforbusinessandhumanri/docs/

nyu_stern_cbhr_combating_russian_di?e=31640827/63115656>.

67 There is no single U.S. agency or government entity leading the 

work to counter foreign propaganda and influence. See Homeland 

Security Advisory Council Interim Report of the Countering Foreign Influence Subcommittee (Washington, DC: Department of 

Homeland Security, June 2019), 10, available at <https://www.dhs.

gov/sites/default/files/publications/ope/hsac/19_0521_final-interim-report-of-countering-foreign-influence-subcommittee.

pdf>; Melissa Dalton et al., By Other Means—Part II: U.S. Priorities in the Gray Zone (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 

2019), 6–11, available at <https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/

s3fs-public/publication/Hicks_GrayZone_II_full_WEB_0.pdf>.


169

Chapter 8

Weapons of Mass Destruction, 

Strategic Deterrence, and 

Great Power Competition

By Paul Bernstein, Justin Anderson, Diane DiEuliis, Gerald Epstein, and Amanda Moodie

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and the means to deliver them—are an important feature of the global security environment and a key element of Great Power competition. For Russia 

and China, WMD contribute to multiple goals: conflict deterrence at the strategic 

and regional levels; regime survival; coercion of rival states; and, potentially, as an 

adjunct to conventional forces to support operations. U.S.-Russia competition in 

nuclear weapons has been constrained in recent decades by various arms control 

agreements, but the erosion of this regulatory regime in the context of deteriorating 

bilateral relations could create new competitive pressures. China has elevated the 

importance of its nuclear forces, modernized and expanded its strategic nuclear 

capabilities, and fielded a growing number of dual-capable theater-range missile 

systems whose role (whether conventional or nuclear) in a future crisis or conflict could complicate deterrence and heighten escalation risks. China and Russia 

may perceive chemical and biological warfare agents, including agents developed 

through new scientific and manufacturing techniques, as important capabilities for 

a range of operations against the United States and its allies. Chemical or biological 

attacks could be difficult to attribute and may be well suited to support Russian 

and Chinese objectives in operations below the threshold of open armed conflict.

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) remain a significant concern for U.S. defense planning. Core strategy and policy documents such as the National Security Strategy, 

National Defense Strategy (NDS), Nuclear Posture Review, and Department of Defense 

Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction highlight these weapons as an enduring feature of the security environment.1

 They are also a potentially dynamic factor in 

Great Power relations. Understanding the role of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons 

in competition—from strategic nuclear deterrence to regional conflict (traditional, hybrid, 

irregular) to operations below the level of armed conflict—is essential to manage geopolitical risk, limit the possibility of surprise, prepare the joint force for future operations, and 
170 Bernstein, Anderson, DiEuliis, Epstein, and Moodie

inform the American people about the dangers associated with potential crises and conflicts. Advances in the technologies that shape WMD could make these tasks more difficult.

Nuclear Weapons in Great Power Competition 

New pressures for competition in nuclear capabilities among the Great Powers are likely to 

emerge in the next few years. In the U.S.-Russia relationship, a weakened arms control regime and the introduction of new technologies could catalyze a period of competition and 

arms-racing in both offensive and defensive systems, which could affect the nuclear balance 

in uncertain ways. China’s continued expansion and improvement of its nuclear forces may 

create the basis for a more competitive stance vis-à-vis the United States, should Beijing 

decide this is necessary to advance its global and regional aspirations. Emerging technologies enabling improved prompt strike (for example, hypersonic vehicles) and active defense 

against missile attacks could be a factor, as various nuclear competitions unfold at both 

strategic and nonstrategic levels. Additionally, Great Power nuclear competition could have 

important effects on U.S. extended deterrence relationships, prospects for further nuclear 

proliferation, and the future of the global nonproliferation regime.

The United States and Russia 

Deterrence and arms control have been central to managing nuclear competition between 

Washington and Moscow for decades. Both sides have adhered to a concept of mutual 

deterrence that has ensured neither government saw advantage in mounting a surprise nuclear attack or using nuclear weapons in a crisis. A series of arms control agreements dating 

back to the 1970s has sought to reinforce deterrence by first capping and then reducing 

or eliminating nuclear delivery systems, including those considered to have destabilizing 

effects. This framework of deterrence and force reduction has been successful in limiting 

pressures for nuclear arms-racing and in mitigating (though not fully eliminating) other 

dangers of the nuclear age, including crisis instability and accidental launch.

Today, stress on this framework is growing, as bilateral relations have deteriorated and 

the network of treaties designed to ensure nuclear stability continues to erode. To be sure, 

neither country has been standing still regarding strategic nuclear forces. Russia has nearly 

completed modernizing its entire strategic nuclear arsenal and has also introduced or stated 

its intent to develop several nontraditional nuclear systems (so-called exotic weapons) that 

are important, from Moscow’s vantage, to pose a credible retaliatory threat to the United 

States.2

 The United States is in the early stages of executing a program to replace all three 

legs of its strategic nuclear triad by the 2030s.3 These respective strategic force upgrades 

have long been planned; their origins predate the downturn in bilateral relations and adoption of a Great Power competition framework by the 2018 National Defense Strategy. For 

both Washington and Moscow, the fundamental purpose of these programs is to ensure 

parity in strategic forces going forward—and thereby sustain a status quo that has long 

delivered mutual and global security benefits.

The question today is whether either side might see the need or the opportunity in 

the near term to move toward a more open and unconstrained rivalry in strategic nuclear 

forces, in order to achieve strategic competitive advantage. A new nuclear arms race is 

hardly inevitable—neither is it clear that this would be in America’s interest. Some have 
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Deterrence 171

argued that robust and evidently superior 

nuclear forces would yield meaningful geopolitical advantage for the United States 

and a clear edge in competitions with other 

nuclear-armed states.4

 Others suggest that 

the costs and risks of such a posture are 

likely to outweigh any benefits. Nothing in 

current U.S. strategy and policy documents 

states or suggests a need to pursue nuclear superiority over Russia, or that achieving the 

goals of the NDS requires nuclear capabilities and policies markedly different from those 

that define U.S. planning.

The United States is not well postured for more open nuclear competition with Russia, 

as compared with earlier historical periods. Although today there is in Congress a bipartisan political consensus favoring the triad replacement program, it is unlikely this consensus 

would survive an effort to pursue a more expansive—and expensive—nuclear development 

program in the name of outcompeting Russia. Many of those who support modernization 

also question the cost of the triad replacement program in relation to that of the other 

capabilities required to fulfill the main objectives of the NDS. Accordingly, as a practical 

matter, it makes sense for the United States to avoid inviting an unconstrained competition 

in nuclear capabilities with an adversary that seems willing (to a point) to bear high costs 

in prioritizing nuclear forces.

This possibility points to the need to maintain a focus on stability characterized by 

parity in strategic nuclear forces, regulated through an arms control regime.5

 The U.S. goal 

should be to extend and adapt the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) 

and thereby create for strategic nuclear weapons a type of “competition sanctuary” that will 

limit strategic risk generally and avoid diverting resources from areas of competition that 

are arguably more important to fully implement the NDS.6

If the New START, currently set to expire in February 2021, is not extended or updated, 

some degree of heightened nuclear competition seems likely, as either side could then act 

without legally binding constraints.7 How significant a competition this would be is not 

entirely clear. Russia might see an advantage to rapidly building up the number of warheads 

it can deliver on its strategic systems or expanding its strategic nuclear capabilities in other 

ways. Moscow could conclude that this was a relatively easy and cost-effective way to establish a degree of benefit and impose additional risk on the United States. Russia might feel a 

stronger incentive to move in this direction if it was experiencing the weight of other competitive pressures in nonnuclear domains, such as global nonnuclear strike, outer space, 

or cyber. After all, nuclear weaponry is one of the few strategic technology areas in which 

Russia is capable of competing effectively with the United States. But Moscow likely will not 

want to trigger a strong U.S. counter-response that creates new risk and prospective high 

additional costs for Russia, so it can be expected to exercise caution in moving too quickly 

or too aggressively toward a larger deployed force.8

The United States might or might not respond with similar steps. The political and 

psychological importance of maintaining the perception and reality of numerical parity 

would be an important consideration that could lead Washington to reverse the reductions 

“I would like to tell those who have been 

trying to escalate the arms race for the 

past 15 years, to gain unilateral advantages over Russia . . . the attempt at curbing 

Russia has failed.”

—Russian President Vladimir Putin, March 1, 2018
172 Bernstein, Anderson, DiEuliis, Epstein, and Moodie

taken under the New START. But as recent studies have demonstrated, the United States 

could remain within the treaty limits even if Russia did not—and it could do so without 

undermining its nuclear deterrent, as long as the resilience inherent in the U.S. nuclear 

triad is sustained.9

 Furthermore, neither side has the capacity to upend the strategic nuclear 

balance by exceeding the treaty limits if the other chooses to do so too.10 In other words, 

one highly plausible outcome of renewed nuclear competition is a modified form of parity 

at higher levels of strategic forces.11

Competitive pressures in strategic nuclear weapons could also be shaped by Russia’s 

assessment of U.S. missile defense capabilities. Moscow has demonstrated that it will go 

to great lengths and bear considerable costs to ensure that its strategic nuclear forces can 

reliably overcome U.S. missile defenses if it needs to deliver a retaliatory strike in the event 

of a nuclear exchange. Russia fears that the United States will significantly expand its missile defense capabilities, and new nuclear systems being introduced by Russia, such as the 

Avangard nuclear-armed hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), are intended mainly as a hedge 

against a U.S. breakout in missile defenses. While some analysts see the introduction of this 

and similar capabilities as signaling a new arms race or posing a qualitatively novel strategic 

threat, the number of such systems that Russia fields is likely for reasons of strategy and cost 

to be calibrated against U.S. missile defense deployments and the requirements for a secure 

second strike. That said, significant departures from current U.S. missile defense policy (for 

example, development of space-based interceptors) or an open effort to develop defenses 

tailored to HGVs could lead Russia to take more dramatic steps to ensure the survivability 

of its strategic nuclear forces.12 This effort, in turn, could unleash new competitive pressures.

At the regional level, a somewhat different competitive landscape has taken shape in 

recent years. Russia continues to field modern land-, sea-, and air-based nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW)—a category of weaponry in which it has long enjoyed uncontested 

advantage in relation to the United States and its Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In the post–Cold War period, this imbalance in NSNW has been a source 

of concern precisely because of the fear that it could contribute to deterrence instability in 

Europe. Rather than compete with Russia in theater nuclear systems, the United States and 

NATO have sought repeatedly to extend the bilateral arms control framework to capture 

these capabilities. Moscow consistently has refused.

Still, during a period in which a nuclear crisis seemed a remote possibility, the United 

States judged the risk posed by this persistent asymmetry in NSNW to be manageable. 

Today, in light of Russia’s conduct and its continued investment in these capabilities, this 

possibility is less remote and the risk therefore higher. Of particular concern is the threat 

that, in a regional conflict, Russia might see an advantage in escalating to the limited use 

of NSNW in the belief that the United States or NATO lacks the means to respond proportionately. Accordingly, mitigating this danger is now a priority for the United States. This 

strategy does not require matching Russia’s large, diverse NSNW capabilities or its doctrine, 

but it does require a more tailored form of competition to narrow the imbalance in forces 

and convey resolve to strengthen the U.S. regional deterrence posture. To accomplish this, 

the United States will develop and field two nonstrategic nuclear capabilities: a low-yield 

option for existing submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads and a nuclear-armed sealaunched cruise missile.13 Additionally, combatant commands and the Services have been 
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Deterrence 173

directed to strengthen the ability of the joint force to operate effectively in a nuclear environment following an adversary’s limited use of nuclear weapons. More openly competitive 

measures designed to achieve parity or advantage in this category of nuclear weapons are 

not necessary for the United States to meet the requirements of regional deterrence.

A second issue in considering regional nuclear competition with Russia is the demise 

in 2019 of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. It remains to be seen what 

enduring effect this loss will have.14 To date, it does not appear that Russia’s deployment of 

previously prohibited INF systems alters the balance of power in Europe. The United States 

currently has no plans to develop a nuclear-capable INF system for deployment in Europe 

or elsewhere. The United States could choose to develop a land-based nonnuclear INF missile in support of NATO, which could help narrow the gap with Russia in such systems. In 

fact, Washington is much more focused on developing capabilities to close the conventional 

missile imbalance in East Asia that threatens to disadvantage the joint force in a future conflict with China. In the immediate period ahead, the most salient post-INF competitions 

will likely feature conventionally armed theater missiles.

The United States and China 

Compared with the near-term dynamics that could shape U.S.-Russia nuclear competition, 

the prospects for U.S.-China nuclear competition need to be viewed over a longer time 

horizon. It is difficult to anticipate dramatic changes in the next 5 years, though trends in 

Chinese and U.S. capabilities should be monitored carefully; they could contribute to conditions that lead to a more competitive bilateral nuclear relationship in the future.

China has moved definitively away from its small, static strategic nuclear force of the 

past. As part of its broad-based modernization of its armed forces, China now fields a 

modern strategic dyad composed of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) based on 

land and on submarines.15 Structural reform of the People’s Liberation Army has elevated 

the Rocket Force to coequal status with land, sea, and air forces, making more resources 

available for nuclear force development. Modern ICBMs (a growing number of them mobile) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles constitute an increasingly dynamic force 

designed to give Beijing high confidence that it possesses a survivable deterrent against U.S. 

nuclear forces and missile defenses—one that would allow it to resist nuclear coercion in a 

crisis and press its advantage in a local or regional military conflict with the United States. 

Clearly, China’s leadership sees such a capability as a critical component of long-term competitive strategy toward the United States.

But China historically has not sought to engage in nuclear competition with the United 

States, choosing instead to maintain only those capabilities needed to deter and respond to 

nuclear threats. China’s political leadership continues to have a generally conservative view 

of the role of nuclear weapons and has long accepted a large disparity in capabilities—a posture embodied in slogans such as “nuclear strategy of self-defense” and “lean and effective 

nuclear force.”16 While Beijing views a credible strategic nuclear deterrent as indispensable 

to a stable relationship with Washington, achieving equal status in numbers and types of 

nuclear weapons has not been its goal. China does not wish to be seen as an arms-racing 

global power.
174 Bernstein, Anderson, DiEuliis, Epstein, and Moodie

As the strategic environment changes 

and as the technological impediments to 

fielding larger and more advanced forces 

continue to fall, it is reasonable to ask 

whether and under what conditions China 

could adopt a more competitive approach 

to its nuclear forces. One possibility is that 

leadership will decide that parity (or something close to it) in strategic nuclear weapons is necessary to enhance China’s status as a 

coequal global power and a dominant force in East Asia. Especially if U.S. force levels remain relatively static, this goal may become increasingly attractive; it likely would be even 

more attractive should the United States decide in 2020 or beyond to reduce current levels 

of operationally deployed forces, either unilaterally or through a renewed commitment to 

arms control with Russia. Should U.S. (and Russian) forces fall to, say, two-thirds of New 

START limits, Beijing’s task in moving toward parity would be much more manageable—

assuming it continues to rebuff U.S. entreaties to join the process of making negotiated 

reductions. If China were to achieve parity or equivalence in deployed or deliverable warheads, it might then be expected to explore ways to translate this status into political and 

military advantage.

Another possibility is that, as with Russia, competitive pressures for China could be 

driven by changes to U.S. missile defense and defeat capabilities. Should the United States 

expand its regional missile defense network, move toward a larger or more sophisticated 

homeland defense capability (for example, boost-phase kill, space-based interceptors), and 

field advanced theater-range missiles capable of precision strike against Chinese nuclear 

sites (fixed and mobile), concerns about the survivability of its nuclear forces could lead 

China to consider any number of steps to ensure the credibility of its deterrent. These types 

of offense-defense dynamics might have little to do with a decision by China to pursue 

nuclear parity as an explicit policy goal, but they nonetheless point to the possibility that, 

under certain circumstances, Beijing could feel compelled to undertake a significant expansion of its strategic nuclear forces.

The United States must also consider the possibility of nuclear competition with China 

at the regional level. Beijing historically has eschewed theater or tactical nuclear weapons 

that would support more expansive deterrence concepts and more operational scenarios 

that envision the limited use of nuclear weapons. But there are indications that this stance 

is changing as China considers how to strengthen its options for coercing and deterring 

the United States (and its allies) at different stages of conflict in an increasingly complex 

operating environment. Should China move decisively in the direction of limited nuclear 

options, it will need to consider how the United States might respond.17 The United States 

does not station land-based or air-delivered nuclear weapons in the Far East and has no 

current plans to do so. If China’s theater nuclear footprint expands, then U.S. allies in the 

region could press Washington to take countervailing steps. This potential competitive dynamic bears watching.

The converse could happen as well. The United States currently extends nuclear deterrence to regional allies through over-the-horizon nuclear capabilities; however, if the 

“While China’s declaratory policy and 

doctrine have not changed, its lack of 

transparency regarding the scope and 

scale of its modernization program raises 

questions regarding its future intent.”

— Nuclear Posture Review, DOD (2018)
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Deterrence 175

nuclear crisis with North Korea is not resolved and indeed worsens, Washington could face 

pressures from the Republic of Korea and Japan to provide a more visible nuclear presence 

in the theater. This could lead the United States to deploy nuclear weapons to the region as 

a means to deepen extended deterrence relationships with these allies and perhaps other 

regional security partners. Should the U.S. nuclear presence in the region grow significantly 

and in a visible way—even for the purpose of countering a North Korean threat—Beijing 

might see the need to respond in kind by building up its own theater nuclear presence.

Finally, other regional developments could shape Chinese thinking about nuclear 

forces. Notably, China is closely watching India’s efforts to develop a nuclear triad. While 

China was an important factor in India’s decision to acquire nuclear weapons, India’s nuclear 

force is not optimized for use against China or any other state; rather, India’s nuclear deterrent historically has been more existential in nature, with the goal of maintaining India’s 

strategic independence and keeping it free from intimidation or coercion by other nuclear 

powers. For its part, Beijing is reticent to acknowledge that India’s nuclear arsenal could 

impact China’s security. Still, the two nations have divergent and potentially competing 

interests and ambitions in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. As Beijing assesses future nuclear risks in the region, it cannot ignore India’s progress in developing new and improved 

nuclear-capable delivery systems or India’s efforts to build missile defense capabilities.

The Impact of Competition in Hypersonic Systems 

The introduction of hypersonic vehicles by the Great Powers is not likely to have a major 

impact on the global balance of nuclear power in the next few years. To date, only Russia, as 

noted, is fielding a nuclear-armed hypersonic missile as part of its strategic forces. This capability will not in itself alter the U.S.-Russia nuclear balance in a significant way. Over time, 

if the Great Powers deploy intercontinental-range hypersonic missiles in growing numbers, 

it will be necessary to consider the strategic implications regardless of whether these systems are nuclear or conventionally armed. Could the conventional hypersonic systems of 

one Great Power pose a credible threat to the strategic nuclear deterrent of another? How 

would strategic stability be affected if the United States fielded a new generation of missile 

defenses capable of defeating Russian and Chinese hypersonic platforms?

Such questions will become more important in the period ahead, but strategists and 

defense planners must also closely examine the potential impact of hypersonic weapons 

on nuclear stability at the theater level. One concern is whether the widespread use of hypersonic missiles in a regional conflict would undermine stability by creating pressures for 

early nuclear use. If, as might be anticipated, theater-range hypersonic weapons give both 

sides to a conflict the capability to inflict more decisive nonnuclear damage (for example, 

against power projection forces, air defenses, or missile arsenals) at an earlier stage, then 

these reciprocal vulnerabilities could not only reinforce deterrence and restraint but also 

generate pressures to consider limited use of nuclear weapons to avoid or redress major 

operational setbacks.18 How much more dangerous would such a scenario be if each side 

faced uncertainty about the payload of hypersonic missiles that were, in fact, dual capable?
176 Bernstein, Anderson, DiEuliis, Epstein, and Moodie

Extended Deterrence and Proliferation Implications of 

Great Power Nuclear Competition 

More open nuclear competition among the Great Powers likely would reverberate in the 

security environment in several ways. The impact on U.S. allies and security partners is 

one area of concern. The prospect of nuclear arms racing and heightened nuclear tension 

would make many partners anxious. This anxiety could lead some to demand a return to 

arms control and risk-reduction measures, while others are likely to demand stronger nuclear security guarantees from the United States. Either way, Washington would face new 

challenges in alliance management.

Indeed, the United States cannot dismiss the possibility that one or more of its allies, in 

the face of Great Power nuclear competition and a weakened arms control regime, could decide to pursue an independent nuclear weapons capability; other, less friendly states could 

make the same calculation as nuclear dangers rise. This is one way that Great Power nuclear 

competition could fuel proliferation. Additionally, sharper nuclear competition among the 

Great Powers is certain to be viewed by many nonnuclear states party to the Treaty on 

the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as additional evidence that the “nuclear 

haves” remain unprepared to make progress toward nuclear disarmament. This would add 

to growing questions about the utility of the NPT in the 21st century and to pressures facing 

allies under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and others to embrace the Treaty on the Prohibition 

of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty) as an alternative to the NPT—a development that could undermine the legitimacy of nuclear deterrence as a security strategy.

Biological Weapons in Great Power Competition 

There has been a broad consensus for decades that biological weapons are not useful as instruments of warfare because their effects are too difficult to control and too dependent on 

conditions such as weather, which cannot be predicted long in advance. Even in a strategic 

role beyond the battlefield, use of a contagious biological agent on a large scale could threaten 

to spread back to the attacker. Although the Soviet Union was not deterred by such considerations, or by the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), from pursuing an extensive 

offensive biological weapons program, that threat receded with the end of the Cold War and 

the exposure and dismantling of many Soviet biological weapons facilities. Thereafter the biological weapons threat came to be seen by the United States as tied principally to terrorists 

rather than to nation-states, especially after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that followed.

The BWC, which entered into force in 1975, embodies this global consensus on the lack 

of military utility of biological weapons and the importance of establishing a norm prohibiting 

their use.19 The question today is whether, 45 years later, advances in technology and the revival 

of Great Power competition could challenge these assumptions. For example, progress in the 

life sciences could lead to the emergence of disease agents that are more easily controlled than 

their natural counterparts. Certain manipulations, such as conferring antibiotic resistance or 

hardening agents to environmental conditions, are likely to be within the capacity of scientists 

working for national defense establishments. Should U.S. competitors become interested in a 

new generation of biological weapons, defense planners would have to anticipate a threat of 

greater sophistication than in the past—one that could be employed in a set of contingencies 

that extends well beyond those associated with terrorists or violent extremist groups.20
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Deterrence 177

Thus, an important task is to understand how the “new biology” could help determined competitors such as Russia and China overcome the traditional obstacles to effective 

battlefield or even strategic employment of disease agents—and to what potential effect. 

Should Russia or China be willing to violate its BWC commitments, either country could 

seek to develop more effective capabilities designed to target specific U.S. military activities 

and facilities important to the prosecution of a regional conflict. Examples could include 

attacks on U.S. power projection or logistical supply activities critical to flowing U.S. forces 

and equipment, such as operations at ports of embarkation or debarkation. Such attacks, 

if successful, would interrupt key supply chains by disabling or killing unprotected civilian 

port workers. Military personnel could also be affected by a no-notice attack that infects 

them before physical or medical protections could be put into place. Panic in the general 

populace could further complicate military activities.

Aside from the question of effects on military activities is the challenge of attribution. 

It is already difficult to determine whether a disease outbreak is natural or deliberate and 

to identify with high confidence the source of an intentional attack. A new generation of 

biological agents could make it even more challenging and thus encourage other powers to 

consider militarizing such agents as a tool of asymmetric warfare for various nontraditional 

battlefields. Here, the Department of Defense needs to look beyond the possibility of major 

war. In the types of irregular or hybrid operations exemplified by recent Russian activities, 

or even in so-called gray zone operations, innovations in the life sciences could allow peer 

competitors to exploit the ambiguity associated with biological agents; these actors could 

pursue important goals while avoiding accountability. Table 8.1 notes the attributes of biological weapons that could make them attractive in such an effort.

Emerging biological applications have the potential to shape Great Power competition more broadly. Bioinspired innovations—such as advanced materials, “living” sensors, 

engineered medicines, and new forms of energy production—could confer advantage on 

those militaries best able to develop, field, and exploit them. State competitors could also 

invest in biotechnology to directly enhance warfighter capabilities—for example, through 

machine interfaces or more direct physical enhancements or protections. These kinds of 

military applications may be legitimate in the sense that they do not violate international 

Table 8.1. Biological Weapons and Gray Zone Operations

Ambiguity Pathogens naturally present in the affected area could be selected to disguise the 

deliberate origins of an attack.

Nonlethality Pathogens could be disseminated to cause nonlethal rather than fatal diseases.

Delay Effects from the release of a biological weapon would be delayed from the time of 

release, with the length of the delay depending on the dose received and the health of 

the victim.

Psychological 

Amplification

The invisible, time-delayed, and potentially lethal consequences of exposure to 

disease agents—whether deliberate or natural—could cause great anxiety among civilian or military personnel in the vicinity of any disease outbreak, greatly amplifying 

the disruptive effects.

Behavioral 

Consequences

Advanced biological agents might be developed that could influence the mood 

and behavior of those infected, rather than causing illness or death, with uncertain 

consequences.
178 Bernstein, Anderson, DiEuliis, Epstein, and Moodie

legal prohibitions against the use of biological weapons, but they could also mask illicit 

programs to develop such weapons.

Additionally, technological advances in the life sciences could lead to the exploitation 

of genetic vulnerabilities and the genetic targeting of populations. Knowledge of the genetic 

makeup of key individuals might indicate health conditions to which they are especially 

vulnerable; more speculatively, in the event that relationships may be gleaned between genetic traits and behavior, this knowledge could indicate propensities to act in certain ways. 

Advances in genetics and biotechnology raise related questions about the possibility that 

genetic weapons might be developed that selectively target individuals or groups based 

on specific genetic signatures. A 2018 report from the National Academies of Sciences, 

Engineering, and Medicine finds that developing such a weapon confronts a number of 

technical challenges; however, the rate of technical progress in relevant fields suggests that 

this issue should continue to be monitored.21 To the extent that these possibilities exist, genetic databases containing information on a nation’s population or leaders assume national 

security sensitivity.

Looking ahead, the United States will need to develop intelligence capabilities that can 

anticipate, monitor, and assess the range of advanced agents that modern biotechnologies 

may make possible and adversary efforts to militarize these agents. This is a formidable 

challenge, not least because of the dual-use nature of work in the life sciences. The potential for adversary use of biological weapons with deliberate ambiguity requires the United 

States to develop techniques and practices that can reliably identify disease outbreaks and 

differentiate natural from deliberate attacks, attribute the source of a possible attack, and 

accelerate the execution of medical management strategies. Given the importance of allies 

and coalitions to U.S. defense strategy and the prosecution of any regional conflict, the 

United States must work with partners to ensure an adequate level of preparedness for plausible biological weapons attacks. The United States cannot anticipate all possible weapons 

applications of the life sciences and biotechnology, but it must be postured to respond effectively to biological warfare threats so as to deny any meaningful advantage to adversaries 

seeking to exploit these technologies for military gain.22

The coronavirus pandemic underscores this point. Although the novel coronavirus is 

clearly not a biological weapon (despite persistent efforts by those hostile to U.S. interests to 

assert otherwise), the pandemic nonetheless could hold lessons for adversaries inclined to 

see utility in asymmetric or unconventional means of conflict—and who have invested in 

modern biology. Future threat assessments will need to consider how potential adversaries 

view the economic and social disruption caused by the virus in the United States and for 

some of its partners, the challenges in mounting an effective response, and possible effects 

on the readiness of the joint force.

Chemical Weapons in Great Power Competition 

As with biology, advances in chemical science and technology could result in novel military threats, new proliferation risks, and further challenges to the Chemical Weapons 

Convention (CWC). For example, the convergence of chemistry and biology—an important aspect of what has been called the fourth industrial revolution (as described in chapter 

4)—has led some analysts to ask whether bad actors could use processes such as peptide 
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Deterrence 179

synthesis or metabolic engineering to create toxins or other chemical agents in order to exploit loopholes in the CWC or avoid detection through its routine verification measures.23

Likewise, the convergence of chemistry and information technology means that many 

chemical production processes could become automated or capable of being performed 

remotely, which would make it more difficult to detect the existence of a covert or illicit 

chemical weapons program.24

Another potential challenge is the interest of several countries, including Russia 

and China, in developing incapacitating chemical agents or central nervous system 

(CNS)–acting chemicals for domestic law enforcement purposes.25 The CWC permits 

member states to use chemical agents for this purpose and does not rule out the use 

of incapacitants or CNS-acting chemicals under this exemption. Although the treaty 

prohibits the use of such agents as weapons, it is possible that Russia or China would 

consider this prohibition a useful tactic in military operations below the level of open 

armed conflict, while claiming that the use was both legal and acceptable under a broad 

interpretation of the law enforcement provision of the CWC.

Russia has already demonstrated its willingness to use chemical agents in operations 

other than war. In 2002, Russian security forces employed a fentanyl derivative to incapacitate Chechen separatists in a Moscow theater, leading to the death of 117 hostages. 

In 2018, a failed assassination attempt against a former Russian intelligence agent using a 

new variant of nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s resulted in the accidental death of a British citizen.26 Similar incidents, such as the 2017 assassination of the 

half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un using the nerve agent VX,suggest that 

chemical agents may be an attractive option for governments seeking plausibly deniable 

means to conduct tailored operations short of war.27

Far more troubling is the use of chemical agents to support major military operations. 

The government of Bashar al-Asad has repeatedly employed chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, ranging from a massive attack using sarin gas in August 201328 to numerous 

smaller scale chlorine attacks in the following years,29 even after Syria acceded to the CWC 

in September 2013. The apparent effectiveness of these attacks and the lack of a forceful, sustained international response in their aftermath could lead other autocratic governments 

to conclude that chemical weapons have utility in ensuring internal security and regime 

survival. Russia’s shielding of the Syrian government’s attacks further suggests that Moscow 

itself does not view the longstanding taboo against chemical weapons—or the international 

censure that might result from their use—as a constraint on its behavior, especially in the 

gray zone and when not confronting the United States directly.

The United States has been investing for decades in protection for deployed forces 

that might be exposed to chemical weapons. Whether the Department of Defense in a 

new era of Great Power competition now needs to consider additional threat possibilities is a reasonable question. Russia might not contemplate the use of chemical weapons 

in a major conflict with NATO, but such employment cannot be ruled out. Facing significant operational challenges or setbacks from a NATO counterattack, Moscow might 

well consider asymmetric responses to regain the initiative, including chemical attacks 

against NATO ground formations, air bases, and forward logistics sites. It is possible that 

such operations’ effectiveness would be limited if Russia were to choose to constrain its 
180 Bernstein, Anderson, DiEuliis, Epstein, and Moodie

preparations (material and nonmaterial) for fear of signaling its intent to violate the CWC. 

Nonetheless, the possibility of such attacks and their impact on Alliance operations should 

be incorporated into future plans and exercises, in order to strengthen deterrence and 

battlefield preparations.

While China also engages in a wide range of gray zone activities in an attempt to assert 

and defend controversial maritime and land border claims and shape the political environment, it has not yet violated the norm against the use of chemical weapons and does not 

appear prepared to do so.30 In the past 3 years, the Department of State’s annual arms control report addressing CWC compliance has made no mention of China.31 Chinese military 

leaders may not perceive a need for chemical weapons on current or future battlefields; 

this may dovetail with a broader political strategy under which China seeks to counter the 

negative effects of its regional policies by maintaining a cooperative posture with the United 

States on other issues, including WMD proliferation.

The world may have entered an era in which the norm against chemical warfare continues to weaken while the incentives to resort to unconventional weapons could grow. 

Ongoing technology developments could further undermine traditional constraints against 

the use of chemical weapons—while enhancing their appeal as a tool to achieve specific political or operational goals.32 Varied uses of chemical agents could become a more common 

occurrence across the spectrum of competition and conflict. This possibility is an important 

feature of the new era of Great Power competition and should inform U.S. strategic thinking and defense planning.

Notes

1 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United 

States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive 

Edge (Washington, DC: Department of Defense [DOD], January 

2018), 2–3; 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (Washington, DC: 

DOD, February 2018), V–VI, available at <https://media.defense.

gov/2018/feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-nuclear-posturereview-final-report.pdf>; Department of Defense Strategy for 

Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington, DC: 

DOD, June 2014), 3.

2

 See Matthew Kroenig, Mark Massa, and Christian Trotti, Russia’s 

Exotic Nuclear Weapons and Implications for the United States 

and NATO (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, March 2020), 

available at <www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/

issue-brief/russias-exotic-nuclear-weapons-and-implicationsfor-the-united-states-and-nato/>.

3

 Land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), Columbia

class nuclear submarines carrying submarine-launched ballistic 

missiles (SLBM), and long-range bombers carrying air-launched 

cruise missiles and gravity bombs.

4

 See, for instance, Matthew Kroenig, The Logic of American 

Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2018).

5

 See Rose Gottemoeller, “Don’t Let the New START Treaty 

Lapse,” New York Times, November 8, 2019.

6

 The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) 

aggregate limits are 700 deployed ICBM, SLBM, and nuclearequipped heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armament, 

and 1,550 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads 

associated with these systems. See Department of State, “New 

START Treaty,” available at <www.state.gov/new-start/>.

7

 With the U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear 

Forces (INF) Treaty in August 2019, following years of Russia 

violating the accord, New START is the only nuclear arms control 

treaty currently in force between the two countries. New START 

can be extended for up to 5 years, if both the United States and 

Russia agree to an extension.

8

 Vince Manzo, Nuclear Arms Control Without a Treaty? Risks and 

Options After New START (Arlington, VA: CNA, March 2019), 

59. The author notes, “Russia has prioritized funding for nuclear 

forces, but it probably does not have the economic wherewithal 

for a massive arms buildup.”

9 Ibid., 59–60.

10 Ibid., 2.

11 An additional consideration is the ability of the Department of 

Energy to produce warheads in numbers beyond those required 

for the triad replacement program of record. Constraints on the 

department’s production capacity could be a limiting factor.

12 The 2019 Missile Defense Review discusses the potential 

benefits of space-based interceptors and states that DOD will 

examine concepts and technologies to support such a capability. 

See 2019 Missile Defense Review (Washington, DC: DOD, 

2019), 36–37, available at <https://media.defense.gov/2019/

Jan/17/2002080666/-1/-1/1/2019-MISSILE-DEFENSE-REVIEW.

PDF>.

13 The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review fully explains the strategic 

logic behind the decision to field limited new nonstrategic nuclear 

capabilities. See 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, 52–55.

14 For an overview of the INF Treaty, see Bureau of Arms 

Control, Verification and Compliance, Department of State, 
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Deterrence 181

“The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty,” available at 

<www.state.gov/inf>. For the U.S. statement withdrawing from 

the treaty, see Michael R. Pompeo, “U.S. Withdrawal from the 

INF Treaty on August 2, 2019,” Press Statement, Department of 

State, available at <www.state.gov/u-s-withdrawal-from-the-inftreaty-on-august-2-2019/>. For a discussion of implications of 

the treaty’s demise, see Amy Woolf, U.S. Withdrawal from the INF 

Treaty: What’s Next, IF11051 (Washington, DC: Congressional 

Research Service, updated January 2, 2020), available at <https://

crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11051>.

15 China may be moving toward a nuclear triad through the 

fielding of upgraded aircraft that can carry a nuclear-armed 

air-launched ballistic missile. See Annual Report to Congress: 

Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic 

of China 2019 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, May 2019), 67, available at <https://media.defense.

gov/2019/May/02/2002127082/-1/-1/1/2019%20CHINA%20

MILITARY%20POWER%20REPORT%20(1).PDF>.

16 China’s National Defense in the New Era, 2019 Defense White 

Paper (Beijing: State Council Information Office of the People’s 

Republic of China, July 2019); China’s National Defense in 2006,

2006 Defense White Paper (Beijing: State Council Information 

Office of the People’s Republic of China, December 2006).

17 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, 32.

18 See Paul Bernstein and Harrison Menke, “Russia’s Hypersonic 

Weapons,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, December 

12, 2019, available at <https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2019/12/12/

russias-hypersonic-weapons/>.

19 The Biological Weapons Convention prohibits signing 

parties from developing, producing, stockpiling, or otherwise 

acquiring or retaining biological agents or toxins “of types 

and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, 

protective, or other peaceful purpose.” These prohibitions also 

include “weapons, equipment, or means of delivery designed 

to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed 

conflict.” See “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, 

Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and 

Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction,” Article I, available 

at <http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/bwc/text>.

20 See Gerald L. Epstein, “Biodefense and Great Power 

Competition,” Nonproliferation Review, Spring/Summer 2020 

(forthcoming).

21 See Biodefense in the Age of Synthetic Biology (Washington, DC: 

National Academies Press, 2018), 71–84, available at <http://

nap.edu/24890>.

22 Kim Riley, “Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense 

Focuses on DOD Role in Protecting U.S. Against Bio 

Attacks,” Homeland Preparedness News, February 6, 

2019, available at <https://homelandprepnews.com/

countermeasures/32417-blue-ribbon-study-panel-on-biodefensefocuses-on-dod-role-in-protecting-u-s-against-bio-attacks/>.

23 Jonathan B. Tucker, “The Future of Chemical Weapons,” The 

New Atlantis, no. 26 (Fall 2009/Winter 2010), 3–29.

24 Spiez Convergence: Report on the Third Workshop 11–14 

September 2018 (Zurich: Spiez Laboratory, November 

2018), available at <www.labor-spiez.ch/pdf/en/rue/Spiez_

CONVERGENCE_Report_on_the_3rd_workshop_2018.pdf>.

25 Michael Crowley and Malcolm Dando, “The Use of 

Incapacitating Chemical Agent Weapons in Law Enforcement,” 

The International Journal of Human Rights 19, no. 4 (2015), 

465–487.

26 Government of the United Kingdom, “Novichok Nerve Agent 

Use in Salisbury: UK Government Response, March to April 

2018,” April 18, 2018, available at <www.gov.uk/government/

news/novichok-nerve-agent-use-in-salisbury-uk-governmentresponse>.

27 Oliver Holmes and Tom Phillips, “Kim Jong-nam Killed by VX 

Nerve Agent, Say Malaysian Police,” The Guardian, February 24, 

2017, available at <www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/24/

kim-jong-nam-north-korea-killed-chemical-weapon-nerveagent-mass-destruction-malaysian-police>.

28 United Nations General Assembly Security Council, Report of 

the United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use 

of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic on the Alleged 

Use of Chemical Weapons in the Ghouta Area of Damascus on 

21 August 2013, A/67/997-S/2013/553, September 16, 2013, 

available at <https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/756814/files/

A_67_997%26S_2013_553-EN.pdf>.

29 Third Report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical 

Weapons–United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, 

S/2016/738, August 24, 2016, available at <https://undocs.

org/S/2016/738>.

30 John A. Stevenson, Belinda Bragg, and Sabrina Pagano, 

Violating Normal: How International Norms Transgressions 

Magnify Gray Zone Challenges, NSI Concept Paper (Arlington, 

VA: NSI, February 2017), available at <https://nsiteam.com/

how-international-norms-transgressions-magnify-gray-zonechallenges-2/>.

31 Compliance with the Convention on the Prohibition of the 

Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical 

Weapons and on Their Destruction, Condition, (10)(c) Report 

(Washington, DC: Department of State, April 15, 2019), 

available at <www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/AVCCondition-10c-2019.pdf>. See also 2018 and 2017 reports, both 

available at <www.state.gov/adherence-to-and-compliance-witharms-control-nonproliferation-and-disarmament-agreementsand-commitments-compliance-report/>.

32 Peter Beaumont, “The Taboo on Chemical Weapons Has Lasted 

a Century—It Must Be Preserved,” The Guardian, April 18, 2018, 

available at <www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/18/

chemical-weapons-taboo-syria>; Filippa Lentzos, “Strengthen the 

Taboo Against Biological and Chemical Weapons,” Bulletin of the 

Atomic Scientists, July 26, 2018, available at <https://thebulletin.

org/2018/07/strengthen-the-taboo-against-biological-andchemical-weapons/>.

Part III

Geostrategic Interactions in a New 

Era of Great Power Competition

185

Chapter 9

The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space

China’s Vision and the 

Post–World War II American Order

By Thomas F. Lynch III, James Przystup, and Phillip C. Saunders

This chapter examines the major strategic goals, interests, and policies being 

pursued by Washington and Beijing—the two major Great Power rivals in the 

Indo-Pacific region. It highlights the divergence of strategic interests between 

America’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vision and China’s “community of common interest” framework. This divergence and the strategic importance of each 

country’s regional interests make the Indo-Pacific region the most hotly contested geopolitical space at the dawn of the 2020s. An analysis of U.S. and Chinese 

critical power tools for attaining strategic outcomes finds a mix of relative advantages. China has clear advantage in economic leverage across the region and 

has developed some meaningful advantage in military tools necessary for success 

in conflict within the First Island Chain. On the other hand, the United States 

continues to possess demonstrable advantages in alliance diplomacy, ideological 

resonance, informational appeal, and broad military capabilities. Despite great 

and growing regional tensions, there are opportunities for collaboration between 

the Great Power competitors so long as both accept relative power limitations and 

rejuvenated American regional leadership provides a clear signal to Beijing that 

accommodating a continuing U.S. presence is a better choice than stoking conflict.

This chapter, like the volume itself, continues to analyze the emerging era of Great Power competition (GPC) with a framework focused on the three contemporary Great 

Powers: the United States, China, and Russia. In the Indo-Pacific region, however, Russian 

strategic interests and power capabilities pale in comparison with those of China and the 

United States. Thus, while in 2020 Moscow signals that it is interested in a greater role in 

the Indo-Pacific, significant doubts about its abilities to influence that region remain.1 This 

chapter thus discusses Russia only to consider its role as an object rather than a subject in 

the dominant regional Great Power competition.

This chapter focuses on the Sino-American Great Power competitive dyad in the Indo-Pacific. It first summarizes the decade and a half of relations in Asia and the Pacific 
186 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

that immediately followed the Cold War, examining how these relations set the conditions 

for significant strategic changes that began after 2008. The chapter then evaluates Chinese 

strategy and interests in the Indo-Pacific region since 2009, followed by the evolution of 

American strategic aims over the 2010s. The Sino-American competition for relative power 

across the Indo-Pacific region is then evaluated in the five categories of interstate competition established in table 2.2: political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, military, 

and economic. The differential power resources held by Washington and Beijing in these respective categories are assessed for 2020 and projected for at least the next half-decade. The 

unique case of Taiwan is considered in light of its special resonance to the regional rivalry.

The chapter establishes that each side pursues strategic goals that display historic continuity: The United States pursues unfettered economic and diplomatic access to the region 

with a preference toward open communications and human liberties, while China seeks 

domestic stability and to assert its sovereignty over long-contested geographic spaces with 

state-led management. While major aims have remained consistent, the power differential between Washington and Beijing has changed over the past 20 years. It has moved in 

Beijing’s favor in terms of economic influence and selected measures of conventional military power, most notably in areas near China. At the same time, American relative power 

advantages remain strong in the diplomatic, ideological, and informational categories and 

the political-military aspects of defense competition. For America to compete effectively 

in the Indo-Pacific region now and into the near-term future, it must better leverage its 

advantages by strengthening existing alliances and security partnerships while actively promoting an attractive alternative vision for regional development. At the same time, it must 

parry Chinese efforts at economic diplomacy and military coercion to undercut the political foundations of U.S. alliances and American regional presence.

U.S. Regional Vision, Alliances, and Activities: 1992–2008 

America’s engagement with Asia began before the United States existed. In February 1784, 

the ship Empress of China departed New York harbor, arriving in Macau in August of that 

year. During the 20th century, Washington pursued Open Door trading rights in China, 

fought a war with Japan to sustain maritime access and commercial rights, and then developed a robust economic and security framework toward the region consistent with an array 

of American national interests. The common principle underlying various American policy 

approaches to the Western Pacific and Asia has been the concept of “access”—that is, economic access to the markets of the region to pursue U.S. commercial interests, strategic and 

physical access to allies to ensure confidence in U.S. security commitments, and political 

access to allow for the promotion of democracy and human rights.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has not only championed the evolution of a postwar liberal, open, rules-based international economic order allowing for 

the free flow of commerce and capital but also promoted efforts to support international 

stability and the peaceful resolution of disputes.2

 These global commitments applied firmly 

in America’s post–Cold War approach to the Indo-Pacific and contributed significantly to 

the stability and prosperity of the region. To do so, the United States relied on military primacy expressed through an informal “hub and spoke” alliance structure. With Washington 

as the hub, American security treaties with Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Australia, 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 187

the Philippines, and Thailand connected as 

spokes and served as the arrangement that 

Washington used to protect and advance its 

Asian and Pacific security interests.3

At the end of the Cold War in 1992, 

the United States was poised to enter what 

many pundits had dubbed the “Asian century.” Although post–Cold War America 

had urgent imperatives to consolidate the 

gains from newly liberated former Soviet 

bloc states and assist with the safe denuclearization of thousands of Soviet strategic weapons, Washington took strong steps to expand its economic competitiveness and influence in 

the dynamic Far East. Globally, and especially in Asia and the Pacific, the United States pursued a strategy of engagement (remaining active and connected globally) and enlargement 

(expanding the reach and strength of liberal political and economic rules and norms).4 In a 

September 1993 address, President Bill Clinton explained that the “successor to a doctrine 

of containment must be a strategy of . . . enlargement of the world’s free community of market democracies.”5

 China was a key part of America’s approach there.

As detailed in chapter 3a, Beijing started its own economic metamorphosis from a 

command economy into a market-based one in 1978. A reforming China was a key beneficiary of American policies. Despite a lingering wariness after the 1989 Tiananmen Square 

crackdown by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership security forces against human 

rights and democracy protestors, American leadership across the political spectrum converged during the mid-1990s around the view that including China in global institutions 

and supporting Chinese market reforms offered the best chance that China would rise 

peacefully and become a responsible global economic power and stakeholder within the 

existing order. Many Americans were optimistic that a rising Chinese middle class would 

demand a direct political voice and challenge CCP authoritarian rule.6 Washington opened 

American markets to Chinese goods, encouraged China’s introduction into regional supply 

chains, allowed the transfer of advanced civilian technologies, paved Beijing’s way into the 

World Trade Organization in 2001, and encouraged Beijing to become more engaged and 

influential in both regional and global diplomacy.7 Washington believed its support helped 

produce explosive growth of Chinese foreign trade from about $20 billion in the late 1970s 

to $475 billion in 2000.8

Between 1992 and 2008, American companies turned toward China to access its rapidly growing market and to use cheap Chinese labor to lower production costs.9

 In 1993, the 

World Bank and International Monetary Fund published projections that China was on the 

verge of replacing Japan as the world’s second largest economy.10

At the same time, Washington’s alliance with Japan evolved into a genuine strategic 

partnership. Tensions over the trade imbalances that bedeviled Tokyo and Washington 

during the 1980s subsided as Japan entered a lengthy economic stagnation, bilateral voluntary trade restraints took hold, and Japanese production shifted to the Asian mainland. 

Despite a period of worry in Tokyo, numerous shared interests and similar democratic values enhanced the political and military cohesion of the alliance. Japan provided the military 

“I would argue that both the domestic 

dynamics and each country’s increasingly gloomy assessment of the other’s 

true intentions against the backdrop of 

China’s rise help explain the current state 

of affairs.”

—James B. Steinberg, “What Went Wrong,”

Texas National Security Review 3, no. 1

(Winter 2019/2020)
188 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

bases and other logistical support that undergirded America’s regional military dominance 

and helped maintain regional stability conducive to U.S. strategic interests. Common democratic values reinforced U.S.-Japan relations, making the bilateral commitment more than 

a mere strategic expediency. Public opinion polls throughout the 1990s and 2000s demonstrated an American-Japanese popular consensus that the alliance and common values 

mattered a great deal to their bilateral relationship and were elements missing in the two 

countries’ relations with China.11

During the early post–Cold War period, the United States tried to manage a sullen, 

stagnant North Korea (simultaneously pursuing deterrence and diplomacy to try to eliminate the North’s nuclear program); maintain stability in the tense relations between China 

and Taiwan; foster greater Asia-Pacific multilateral economic, political, and security cooperation; and integrate China into regional and global economic and security regimes. These 

ambitions progressed in fits and starts. While regional economic integration got a boost 

from China’s rapid growth and openness to foreign investment, Beijing’s assimilation into 

the World Trade Organization fell short of obligations and Western expectations. The Clinton administration responded to the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait security crisis with an effort 

to build a partnership with China, including limited military-to-military cooperation. The 

incoming Bush administration took a more skeptical view of China’s military potential, and 

the accidental collision of a Chinese navy fighter and a U.S. reconnaissance plane on April 1, 

2001, produced a tense diplomatic standoff and a freeze in Sino-American military contacts.

The terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 detoured U.S. attention 

from the “Asian century” to the Middle East for the better part of a decade. After 9/11, the 

U.S. Government engaged Asian states for support in the war on terror and instability in 

the Middle East and South Asia.12 It also leveraged its strategic relationships with Japan 

and South Korea to move equipment and materiel into American-led counterterrorism 

activities in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both contributed money and personnel to the counterterrorism missions. When America did engage with China in the aftermath of 9/11, it was 

to appeal for China to help deal with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and to serve 

as a “responsible stakeholder” in the U.S.-led international system. Chinese responsiveness 

remained tepid. While China was restrained in employing force, its military modernization 

accelerated, supported by large increases in defense budgets that raised concerns across the 

region. The 2007 announcement of an 18 percent increase in military spending led Vice 

President Dick Cheney to state, “A China military buildup is not consistent with the country’s stated goal of a ‘peaceful rise.’”13

Months earlier, America’s main regional ally, Japan, publicly announced its worries 

over China’s growing strategic challenge. In a major speech, “The Arc of Freedom and Prosperity,” Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso established a framework of policies to structure 

East Asia marked by “value oriented diplomacy,” based on “universal values” such as democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law, and a true market economy.14 Then Japanese 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in August 2007 addressed the Indian parliament and called for 

a “Confluence of the Two Seas” running from Japan to India where shared fundamental 

values such as freedom, democracy, and respect for basic human rights were honored.15

These Japanese statements—and the effort to engage India—were seen as efforts to alert a 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 189

distracted America and the rest of the world that China’s rise had the potential to undercut 

liberal values at the regional and international levels.

China’s Regional Vision and Activities: 1992–2008 

For China, the Indo-Pacific is the most important region of the world in economic, security, 

and political terms. This was true during the Cold War and especially after, when China 

became more actively and deeply engaged with neighboring countries.

In the economic realm, the region serves as a source of raw materials; as a supplier of 

components, technology, and management expertise for production networks operating in 

China; and as a market for finished Chinese products. During the 1990s, China’s increasing 

role in world trade and expectations of future growth made it an attractive market and gave 

Beijing leverage in dealing with nearby Asian and Pacific trading partners and enabled negotiation of regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). China worked to persuade 

Asian countries that they would share in the benefits of its rapid growth, while simultaneously advancing its own interests through commercial diplomacy. Win-win and mutual 

benefit became the watchwords of China’s economic diplomacy. 

Geography makes the Indo-Pacific region critically important to China from a security perspective. China shares land borders with 14 East Asian, South Asian, and Central 

Asian countries. Chinese leaders worry that neighboring countries could serve as bases 

for subversion or for military efforts to contain China. This is of particular concern 

because much of China’s ethnic minority population, which Chinese leaders view as a 

potential separatist threat, lives in sparsely populated border regions such as Xinjiang 

and Tibet. Chinese concerns about threats posed by “terrorism, separatism, and religious 

extremism” have prompted increased efforts at security cooperation with its Central and 

South Asian neighbors.

China’s unresolved territorial claims all are in Asia, including claims to the Spratly 

and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, a disputed maritime boundary with Japan in the East China Sea, a 1,600-mile-long disputed land border 

with India, and China’s self-described “core interest” in unification with Taiwan. China also 

worries about the possibility of encirclement and threats from conventional military forces 

based on its periphery. Chinese strategists have been highly sensitive to U.S. regional alliances and partnerships that might someday be turned against China.

Beijing also views Asia as politically critical. Its preference is for a stable environment that permits rapid Chinese economic growth to continue and supports increased 

Chinese regional influence. Chinese officials and analysts acknowledge that the U.S. role 

in supporting regional stability and protecting sea lines of communication has made a 

significant contribution to regional stability and supported Chinese interests. Beijing opposes alliances in principle but has tolerated them so long as they are not aimed toward 

China and help constrain Japanese militarization. The potential for U.S. power and alliances to be turned against China makes Chinese analysts uneasy, especially as changes 

in the U.S.-Japan alliance now appear to be empowering Japan rather than restraining it. 

China disclaims any desire to dominate Asia, declaring that it will never seek hegemony 

and talking about cooperation on the basis of equality, mutual respect, and noninterference in the internal affairs of other nations. But Chinese elites also appear to expect that 
190 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

weaker countries will defer to 

Chinese wishes as the country 

grows more powerful.16

Aggressive Chinese behavior toward Taiwan and in the 

South China Sea from 1994 to 

1996 created regional alarm 

about a “China threat.” In late 

1994, Beijing seized and then 

fortified a small shoal, Mischief 

Reef, claimed by the Philippines. 

This event highlighted China’s 

controversial “nine dash line” 

claims to sovereignty over the 

land features and most of the 

waters in the South China Sea, 

including a number of features 

claimed and occupied by other 

countries (see figure 9.1).

In late 1995 and in March 

1996, China used military exercises (including firing ballistic 

missiles into waters near Taiwan) to express its concerns 

about the Taiwan independence 

movement and its displeasure at 

a U.S. decision to permit Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui to visit the United States. Washington responded to Chinese attempts to intimidate Taiwan before its elections by deploying 

two carrier strike groups to nearby waters. These actions prompted numerous articles and 

books highlighting China’s military modernization and growing nationalism and asking 

whether China posed a threat to the Asia-Pacific region.17 More restrained Chinese behavior 

and assurance measures adopted from 1997 to 2008 helped ease some regional concerns.18

During this period, many Asian views shifted from regarding China as a potential threat to 

regarding China as an opportunity.19 However, as noted earlier, Japan did not join in this 

view and instead introduced a policy vision between 2006 and 2007 for a future in Asia that 

challenged preferred Chinese outcomes.

The growth of Chinese military power in the mid-2000s was driven partly by the military’s desire to convert China’s economic strength into military power and partly by CCP 

leadership concerns about vulnerability to unconstrained U.S. power. China observed and 

then participated in bilateral and multilateral military exercises with neighboring countries 

as a confidence-building measure and an opportunity for Asian militaries to interact with 

the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As observed in chapter 3a, the 2008 global financial 

crisis—which produced a prolonged U.S. recession even as China’s economy returned to 

its rapid growth trajectory—led many Chinese analysts to see an acceleration of U.S. relFigure 9.1. China’s Nine-Dash Line (in green) in 

the South China Sea

Source: South China Sea (Islands), Perry-Castañeda Map Collection (Central 

Intelligence Agency, 1988)
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 191

ative economic decline as a sign of growing multipolarity that created new opportunities 

for China. Although Chinese leaders sought to avoid a direct clash with Washington, they 

accelerated efforts to expand China’s regional presence and influence. China also began to 

adopt a more assertive approach to its maritime territorial claims in the South China and 

East China seas. These developments set the stage for increased regional tensions and a 

negative turn in U.S.-China regional relations.

China and America in the Indo-Pacific Region: 2009 and Beyond 

America’s counterterrorism entanglements in the Middle East and South Asia did not 

change the underlying view in Washington that the center of gravity for American interests 

was in Asia. As the world crawled out from under the Great Recession of 2008–2009, the 

Obama administration began with a series of Indo-Pacific speeches and policy initiatives to 

extend cooperation with China, India, and longtime U.S. regional allies and partners in a 

manner that would “uphold international norms and [respect] universal human rights.”20 As 

noted in chapter 3a, Beijing’s increased influence and military power reinforced a belief that 

the United States had entered an accelerated period of decline that presented China with an 

opportunity to set the agenda in U.S.-China relations and regional affairs. At the same time, 

Chinese leaders continued to worry about domestic vulnerabilities (as evidenced by ethnic 

unrest and violence in Tibet and Xinjiang in 2008) and concerns about possible U.S.-led 

subversion à la the colored revolutions that had overthrown Middle Eastern dictators and 

pro-Russian authoritarian leaders in the Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Xi Jinping was part of the 

CCP collective leadership that charted a more assertive regional policy, a trend that would 

intensify once he became the CCP general secretary in November 2012. The conditions for 

a dramatic change in the tone of U.S.-Chinese relations had been set.

China’s Geostrategic Aims and Trajectory 

Beginning in 2009, a more assertive Chinese posture emerged on a wide range of bilateral, 

regional, and global issues.21 Within the space of 18 months, Chinese diplomatic bullying, 

assertive military and paramilitary actions, and disregard for foreign reactions undid many 

of the gains from Beijing’s decade-long charm offensive in the Indo-Pacific region. In particular, the means used to advance Chinese maritime sovereignty claims in the South China 

Sea and East China Sea—including harassment of U.S. military ships and aircraft operating 

legally in international waters or within China’s exclusive economic zone—did considerable 

damage to Beijing’s efforts to persuade others that China’s rise would be peaceful.22

The shift in tone and substance of Chinese policy had both international and domestic 

causes. As noted in chapter 3a, when Chinese growth resumed, and the United States and 

Europe remained mired in the 2008–2009 recession, Chinese officials and analysts appear 

to have exaggerated the negative impact of financial problems on U.S. global leadership and 

mistakenly concluded that a fundamental shift in the global balance of power was under 

way. Chinese officials also appear to have misinterpreted Obama administration efforts to 

increase bilateral cooperation and expand China’s role in global institutions as a sign of 

U.S. weakness and an opportunity to press Washington for concessions.23 This assessment 

played into a nationalist mood in China, where many commentators argued that a more 
192 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

powerful China should take a hard line on challenges to Chinese territorial claims and use 

its economic leverage to punish the United States for arms sales to Taiwan.24

Chinese officials and scholars denied that Beijing changed its foreign policy goals, 

expanded its territorial claims, or adopted a more assertive attitude toward maritime disputes. They argued that other countries, emboldened by U.S. support, had stepped up their 

challenges to China’s long-established territorial claims. The May 2009 deadline for submissions to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) did spur 

many Asian countries (including China) to reinforce their claims to disputed islands and 

waters. Chinese officials and military officers argued that restraint in response to provocations was misinterpreted as weakness.25 Beijing employed economic coercion in some of 

the sovereignty disputes, including a temporary ban on exports of rare earth elements to 

Japan following the 2010 arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain and import restrictions on 

Philippine bananas in 2012. China also took a tough line on military activities in its exclusive economic zone, acting to interfere with U.S. ships (including a March 2009 incident off 

Hainan Island when Chinese paramilitary vessels attempted to snag the towed sonar array 

of the USNS Impeccable).26

During this period, Chinese policymakers talked about the need to maintain the 

proper balance between the competing goals of defending Chinese sovereignty [weiquan] 

and maintaining regional stability [weiwen]. But under President Xi, China began placing 

more emphasis on pursuing territorial claims and exhibiting less concern about the negative impact on relations with its neighbors and with the United States. Tactics to assert 

sovereignty include patrols by Chinese coast guard and naval forces, occupying land features, enforcement of fishing regulations in disputed waters, oil and natural gas exploration, 

harassment of military ships and aircraft operating in disputed areas, and use of legal means 

to press tendentious Chinese interpretations of international law.

In 2013, the year after Xi’s political ascension, China began land reclamation projects 

in the South China Sea on several low-tide elevations, geologic features that do not extend above water at high tide. China’s efforts at land reclamation were not unprecedented: 

Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam have also engaged in such projects since 

the 1980s. In May 2014, China deployed an oil rig into waters near the Paracel Islands 

claimed by Hanoi, raising tensions and setting off collisions between Chinese and Vietnamese coast guard ships and virulent anti-Chinese demonstrations in Vietnam. By June 

2015, China’s land reclamation projects totaled “more than 2,900 acres, or 17 times more 

land in 20 months than the other claimants combined over the past 40 years, accounting 

for approximately 95 percent of all reclaimed land in the Spratly Islands” (see figure 9.1).27

In September 2015, President Xi pledged that China would not “militarize” the artificial islands that it had constructed, but the commitment was vague.28 Soon China began to 

use the airfields and port facilities for both military and civilian purposes. China has never 

precisely specified the exact nature or the legal basis for its South China Sea maritime claims 

under international law. Beijing’s position is that “China has indisputable sovereignty over 

the Nansha islands and their adjacent waters,” with “sovereignty and relevant rights . . . 

formed over the long course of history and upheld by successive Chinese governments.”29

However, on July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in a case brought by the 

Philippines contesting Chinese claims in the South China Sea, ruled in favor of Manila 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 193

and found that most of Beijing’s claims—including to historic waters inside “the nine dash 

line”—had no basis under UNCLOS. China denied that the court had jurisdiction, did not 

participate in the hearings, and refused to accept the court’s judgment.

While benefiting from a stable regional order underpinned by U.S. power and alliances, 

China gradually moved to form new regional institutions to advance its interests that mostly 

excluded the United States. Initial steps involved the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 

in 2005 and Chinese efforts to exclude the United States from the nascent plans for an 

East Asian Summit. Since 2013, new initiatives include the Asian Infrastructure Investment 

Bank, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and 

reinvigoration of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia 

(CICA) as vehicles for Xi’s “Asia for Asians” security concept. In announcing the “Asia for 

Asians” concept at a 2014 CICA summit, Xi argued,

Asia has come to a crucial stage in security cooperation where we need to . . . strive 

for new progress . . . to move from the 20th century with the outdated thinking from 

the age of the cold war and zero-sum game . . . to innovate our security concept to 

establish a new regional security cooperation architecture . . . that is shared by and 

win-win to all.30

An accompanying Xinhua article characterized U.S. alliances as the “‘Achilles’ heel’ of and 

a major impediment to ‘a peaceful Asia.’”31 Themes blaming “outside powers” for stirring 

up trouble in the region have become a staple of Chinese propaganda and diplomatic 

messaging.

America’s Geostrategic Aims and Trajectory 

As observed in chapter 3a, the American narrative on Sino-U.S. interactions is that the era 

of cooperative relations with China stumbled beginning in 2008, with efforts at cooperation 

gradually faltering and competitive aspects of relations coming to the fore with a de facto 

shift toward strategic competition in 2014/2015—one formalized by the United States in 

2017/2018.

After taking office in January 2009 and despite an enormous American military 

footprint straddling South Asia and the Middle East, Obama administration officials proclaimed a U.S. “return to Asia.” In formally announcing the rebalance in a November 17, 

2011, address to the Australian parliament, President Barack Obama argued that “Our new 

focus on this region reflects a fundamental truth—the United States has been, and always 

will be a Pacific nation. . . . Here we see the future.” The President noted that Asia is “the 

world’s fastest growing region,” “home to more than half of the global economy,” and critical 

to “creating jobs and opportunity for the American people.” He described the rebalance as 

“a deliberate and strategic decision” to increase the priority placed on Asia in U.S. policy.32

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton elaborated on the rationale for the rebalance, arguing that 

“harnessing Asia’s growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests” and that the United States had an opportunity to help build “a more mature security 

and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity.”33
194 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

While the main objective of the rebalance was to bring American foreign policy commitments in line with the global distribution of U.S. strategic interests, it also responded to 

China’s increasingly assertive regional policies, especially in maritime territorial disputes. 

Countries across the Asia-Pacific region urged Washington to play a more active role in 

regional economic, diplomatic, and security affairs in order to demonstrate U.S. commitment and help maintain regional stability in the face of a more powerful and active China. 

One early U.S. response was at the May 2010 meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian 

Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum, where the United States offered to assist countries in 

the peaceful resolution of concerns with China’s assertive maritime policies, noting that 

these posed a threat to freedom of navigation. China urged regional states to keep silent, 

and, when they spoke up, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi walked out in protest, only 

to return the following day to remind ASEAN states that “China is a big country and other 

countries are small countries and that is just a fact.”34

Obama administration officials stressed that the rebalance included diplomatic, economic, and military elements, coupled with efforts to build a more cooperative and stable 

Sino-U.S. relationship. The broad U.S. strategy of seeking to integrate China more fully 

within the existing global order, while discouraging any efforts to reshape that order by 

force or intimidation, remained in place. Washington sought to make the rebalance robust 

enough to reassure U.S. allies and partners of its capability and will to maintain a presence 

in Asia over the long term while not alarming Chinese leaders to the point where they abandoned bilateral cooperation.35 Nevertheless, the rebalance was widely viewed as evidence of 

increasing U.S.-China competition for regional influence.

From 2013 through 2015, Chinese assertiveness in maritime territorial disputes, 

increasing state intervention to support Chinese businesses at the expense of foreign 

competitors, and Xi’s centralization of power and tightening of political and information 

controls catalyzed American responses. In 2014 and into 2015, the Obama administration 

publicly stated that Article V of the Japan Security Treaty extended to the Senkaku Islands 

in the East China Sea, asserted freedom of navigation rights in the South China Sea, and 

conducted more frequent freedom of navigation operations to challenge illegitimate Chinese maritime claims. It openly condemned Chinese industrial espionage and intellectual 

property practices, and it reimagined a broad new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a lever 

to reshape Chinese economic policies. U.S. policy toward both China and Russia chilled 

gradually during the second term of the Obama administration, with a public hardening 

increasingly evident during 2014 and 2015.36 This gradual hardening did not precipitate a 

formal rupture in U.S.-Sino relations, but it set the conditions for a new U.S. administration. 

The administration of President Donald Trump, elected in 2016 and inaugurated in January 

2017, took the bilateral hardening to a new and official level.

The December 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy argued that a “geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific 

region,” labeling China a “revisionist power.”37 That report was especially critical of China’s use 

of “economic inducements and penalties, influence operations, and military threats” to alter 

the regional order.38 A principal architect of the 2017 strategy, H.R. McMaster, later wrote that 

a careful study of history and experience teaches that the CCP will not liberalize internally 

and will not act abroad according to U.S.-led international rules. Instead, McMaster wrote, 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 195

China’s goal is to replace the current international order with one led by the CCP. China will 

continue to engage in “economic aggression” and seek to exert control of “strategic geographic 

locations and establish exclusionary areas of primacy.” In other words, China’s goal is 

to reduce, then eliminate, U.S. influence in the Indo-Pacific region.39 This assertion of 

hostile Chinese aims contrasted with the more equivocal tone on China’s rise in Bush 

43– and Obama administration–era strategic documents.40 In May 2018, the U.S. military 

renamed its U.S. Pacific Command to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), 

symbolizing the growing importance of India in intensifying U.S. competition with China.41

The Defense Department’s June 2019 Indo-Pacific report likewise noted China’s “campaign 

of low-level coercion to assert control of disputed spaces in the region, particularly in the 

maritime domain.”42 In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February 

2019, USINDOPACOM’s inaugural commander was even more direct in his dire assessment 

of the future threats posed by China to the United States and its partners in the Indo-Pacific 

region. He testified:

China represents our greatest long-term strategic threat to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and to the United States. . . . Those who believe this is reflective of an intensifying 

competition between an established power in the United States, and a rising power in 

China, are not seeing the whole picture. . . . Rather, I believe we are facing something 

even more serious—a fundamental divergence in values that leads to two incompatible visions of the future. . . . Through fear and coercion, Beijing is working to expand 

its form of ideology in order to bend, break, and replace the existing rules-based 

international order. . . . In its place, Beijing seeks to create a new international order, 

one with “Chinese characteristics” and led by China—an outcome that displaces the 

stability and peace of the Indo-Pacific that has endured for over 70 years.43

In November 2017, shortly before his administration released the 2017 National Security Strategy, President Trump announced a “free and open” Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision at 

a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation business leaders in Da Nang, Vietnam.44

In July 2018, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained that the core principles of U.S. 

FOIP are freedom from coercion, good governance, open access to seas and airways, and 

free and fair trade.45 The State Department’s November 2019 report on the U.S. Indo-Pacific 

FOIP vision stated that the Trump administration was implementing a “whole of government strategy” to defend these principles. The document noted that U.S. trade in the region 

topped $1.9 trillion in 2019, supporting more than 3 million American jobs.46

Trump’s emerging Indo-Pacific economic policies placed firm emphasis on bilateral 

FTAs, in contrast to the Obama administration’s pursuit of the multilateral TPP, which was 

an immediate casualty of domestic politics and the new administration. In April 2018, a State 

Department official explained that this shift reflected the view that a multilateral deal would 

provide fewer benefits to “U.S. workers and U.S. businesses” than bilateral agreements.47 Another change has been greater emphasis on infrastructure development, as exemplified by the 

October 2018 Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act, which 

raised U.S. financing from $29 billion to $60 billion.48 Of note, these funds, while funneled 

through a U.S. Government entity, were to combine some government dollars with a lot of 
196 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

loan guarantees for anticipated private equity, unlike the fully state-backed loans that support 

the Chinese BRI and state-owned enterprises that are China’s biggest overseas investors.

From 2017 to 2019, the Trump administration successfully strengthened key alliances in 

the Indo-Pacific region, namely with Japan and Australia. It expanded military cooperation 

with traditional allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, while using exercises and 

dialogues to reach out to nontraditional partners such as India, Malaysia, and Vietnam.49

The Defense Department’s Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, released in June 2019, illuminated 

how the acquisition and deployment of advanced capabilities, new operational concepts, 

and initiatives to strengthen security partnerships (highlighting Taiwan, New Zealand, and 

Mongolia) would contribute to the preservation of a “free and open” region and dissuade 

Chinese adventurism.50 That report featured plans for the strengthening of America’s five 

treaty alliances; expanded partnerships with Taiwan, New Zealand, and Mongolia; and 

emerging partnerships with other nations from South Asia to the Pacific islands.

The American strategy also prioritized greater development of a security partnership 

framework known as the “Quad,” featuring the United States, Japan, Australia, and India. It 

encouraged greater trilateral regional security partnerships, greater American engagement 

with the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and support for intra-Asian partnerships (most 

notably between Australia and Japan and Japan and the Philippines; trilateral cooperation 

among Australia, Japan, and the United States; and among Japan, the ROK, and the United 

Source: Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2009 (Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, 2009), 18.

Figure 9.2. The First and Second Island Chains
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 197

States). The document also prioritized the American purchase of fifth-generation aircraft, 

long-range antiship missiles, offensive cyber capabilities, and the development of new operating concepts. It highlighted American arms sales to Taiwan ($10 billion) and India ($16 

billion), funding for a Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative ($356 million), the Bay 

of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, greater U.S. 

Coast Guard engagement, and an explosives removal package for Vietnam ($340 million).

Thus, the American strategic design—its policy interplay—across the Indo-Pacific is 

to seek partners that support and extend FOIP. This is a contrast to what the United States 

views as China’s coercive efforts to advance its sovereignty claims inside the First Island 

Chain and increasingly to assert military dominance through the Second Island Chain (see 

figure 9.2). Washington sees China’s desire to build a “community of common destiny” as 

part of efforts to exclude the United States from the Indo-Pacific and build a new regional 

order emphasizing values of state sovereignty, collective order, and limited human rights 

and freedoms.

American and Chinese Competitive Power Tools 

and Prospects for Indo-Pacific Success 

As described in chapter 3a, several factors are driving the U.S.-China relationship into Great 

Power competition. Although this competition has global and extra-regional dimensions, the 

Indo-Pacific region is the most important venue, especially for diplomatic and military aspects of the competition. This leaves countries in the region in an uncomfortable position. 

Most share U.S. concerns about the risks of Chinese hegemony and have no desire to be left 

alone in a Chinese sphere of influence, forced to subordinate their interests to those of Beijing.

At the same time, countries across the Indo-Pacific region do not want Washington to 

drag them into a confrontation with China that could damage their economies (all of which 

depend heavily on trade with China), destabilize the region, and potentially lead to 

a devastating war. They seek to maintain a 

balance that allows them to cooperate economically with both the United States and 

China and limits Beijing’s opportunities 

for coercion for fear of driving them into 

Washington’s arms. Maintaining this balance is the difficult challenge for regional 

leaders as U.S.-China Great Power competition broadens and intensifies.

This chapter analyzes the Indo-Pacific competitive arena in terms of the five 

major categories first described in table 2.2: 

political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, military, and economic. Below, U.S. 

and Chinese competitive advantages in these categories are briefly compared and assessed. 

This evaluation establishes that, while China’s power tools have grown over the past several 

years, the United States retains formidable assets and capabilities if properly marshaled in 

cooperation with regional allies and partners.

“What has changed in recent years 

are not the CCP’s goals, but rather the 

means available to achieve them, as 

well as Beijing’s willingness to exercise 

its growing power in order to do so. 

Since the mid-1990s, China’s rapid economic growth has enabled it to fund a 

wide-ranging and sustained modernization of its armed forces.”

—Aaron L. Freidberg, “Getting the 

China Challenge Right,” The American 

Interest 14, no. 4 (January 2019)
198 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

Political and Diplomatic Tools and Prospects 

The United States. America’s longstanding network of alliances and friendships across 

the Indo-Pacific region has traditionally been a huge advantage over China. Habits of cooperation have been institutionalized between Washington and a number of regional allies: 

Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand. The United States also has 

strategic partnerships with other important Indo-Pacific nations—India, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia—that view Washington as a preferable partner to Beijing so 

long as not forced to make an either-or choice.

America’s diplomatic approach to the region was undergoing change before the Presidential election of 2016. It has undergone even more since. Since 2017, Washington has 

placed less emphasis on some multilateral regional forums that it encouraged and later 

joined during the post–Cold War years.51 President Trump appears more interested in bilateral engagements with major countries than in multilateral forums, although his Cabinet 

officials have continued to participate regularly in multilateral meetings such as the ARF 

and ARF Defense Ministers meetings.52 The Trump administration has pursued a series 

of bilateral initiatives—economic, security, and diplomatic—that have tested allies and 

partners in ways that many analysts have found worrisome. Interestingly, the diplomatic 

balance sheet of 2020 finds that longstanding American allies have weathered rather well 

the Trump administration’s frequent questioning and testing, coming through as strong 

and resilient. Among these, America’s alliances with Japan and Australia have been updated 

and enhanced.53 Even longstanding partnerships with challenging allies—South Korea 

and the Philippines—have endured despite public spats over American military bases and 

cost-sharing.

The November 2019 State Department document titled A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: 

Advancing a Shared Vision pledged a wide range of American diplomatic, economic, and 

security programs to engage and sustain American interests and partnerships across the 

Indo-Pacific region.54 The document emphasized continuing American diplomatic engagement with regional partners and institutions via programs including the Pacific Pledge 

($100 million) and the Lower Mekong Initiative ($3.8 billion). It also championed continuing good governance with a Transparency Initiative ($600 million) and a Myanmar 

Humanitarian Assistance Program ($669 million), among others. The United States also 

invested in regional human capital development with a number of programs, including 

enhanced Fulbright Fellowships, a Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, and a Food 

for Peace Program. These and other American diplomatic programs are carried out under 

many different labels, banners, and names, which may undermine their collective impact. 

American leaders might consider a common branding for these and related economic and 

security assistance initiatives.

At the same time, American diplomatic efforts remain under-resourced for their critical Indo-Pacific role. As of 2019, China surpassed the United States with the largest number 

of diplomatic posts in the world and also outmanned Washington in number and staffing of 

embassies and consulates across the Indo-Pacific region.55 This relative decline in U.S. diplomatic presence risks undoing the programs Washington has crafted for political outreach 

and could turn a longstanding American regional diplomatic advantage into weakness.56
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 199

China. China’s political and diplomatic framework for activity in the Indo-Pacific region is based on looser and more complicated relationships with major regional neighbors 

and regular participation in multilateral regional forums such as Asia-Pacific Economic 

Cooperation, the East Asian Summit, ASEAN + 3 (China, Japan, and South Korea), and the 

China-ASEAN Forum. Its regional policy often seeks to serve multiple objectives and avoid 

embarrassing setbacks to its domestic interests and public image.57 The priority Beijing 

gives to domestic concerns and its territorial disputes with countries such as India, Japan, 

Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia can leave China isolated and awkwardly positioned, giving the United States a potential advantage in coalition-building based on longstanding 

strategic relationships.58 China’s preference for nonbinding strategic partnerships allows it 

to cooperate on a selective basis with most countries in the region but does not translate 

readily into coalitions for deeper strategic goals. China’s longstanding “all-weather friendship” with Pakistan is a conspicuous exception to the paucity of alliances, partnership, and 

friends for Beijing in the Indo-Pacific region.

China’s competitive approach to regional diplomacy is oriented on a three-pronged 

framework. First, China contrasts its five principles of peaceful coexistence, a new model of 

international relations centered on mutually beneficial cooperation, and the vague notion of 

collective security embodied in the notion of community of common destiny against Washington’s supposed “Cold War mentality” and alliance-based approach to regional security.59

Beijing increasingly portrays U.S. alliances and the U.S. military presence as stirring up trouble for the region and unfairly aiming to choke off China’s legitimate rise. Second, China 

seeks to use access to its market and preferential benefits from its BRI infrastructure projects and other investment programs to increase its influence in the region and to dissuade 

countries from taking actions against its interests. This is a potential source of diplomatic 

leverage, although China’s record of using economic sanctions and pressure to alter partner 

behaviors has been mixed at best, often producing blowback from states it is seeking to influence. Third, China has sought to undercut U.S. diplomatic initiatives through strategically 

targeted high-level visits and improved relations with traditional U.S. allies and would-be 

American partners. Xi Jinping’s October 2019 visit to New Delhi and his planned visit to 

Tokyo in 2020 stand as cases in point.60 China’s public response to the Trump administration 

FOIP vision criticizes U.S. partnership activities as out of touch with regional needs, complains that American initiatives are intended to encircle China, and critiques the initiative 

as insultingly under-resourced for success. Chinese analysts and strategists are particularly 

focused on limiting the salience and effectiveness of the Quad security arrangement involving the United States, Japan, Australia, and India—with special attention to India as both the 

most worrisome strategic partner and the weakest link in the structure.61

During 2019 and into early 2020, a much more assertive Chinese diplomatic approach 

became evident globally, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. Critics complain that Chinese diplomats have become more strident and combative, including in aggressive efforts 

to deflect Chinese responsibility for mistakes in managing the novel coronavirus (COVID19) outbreak, to threaten economic retaliation against states calling for an investigation of 

the origins of the virus, and to cite China’s eventual success in taming the virus as evidence 

of the superiority of the Chinese political system.62 For example, Australia explicitly rejected what it called economic coercion by China in April 2020 when China’s Australian 
200 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

ambassador stated that the Chinese public could avoid Australian products and universities 

should Australia continue to press for an independent investigation into the origins and 

early actions in China surrounding COVID-19.63 Chinese officials argue that more active 

diplomacy simply reflects Beijing’s more prominent role on the world center stage and the 

West’s relative decline.64

Although China’s diplomatic presence and activity continues to grow, its overall political influence across the region remains low compared with that of the United States, 

especially in terms of its ability to mobilize countries for costly actions. But America’s 

advantages are tenuous. Should it abandon efforts to exert leadership in regional organizations, understaff and under-resource its diplomatic presence, or take its regional allies and 

partners for granted, America’s palpable advantage in Indo-Pacific diplomatic competition 

could suffer a noteworthy downturn.

Ideological Tools and Prospects 

The United States. The FOIP vision captures critical elements of historic American 

aims and interests in the Indo-Pacific region. It rests on the bedrock of American ideals 

of liberal democracy and a free trade system: respect for the rule of law; individual rights; 

freedom of navigation and overflight, including open shipping lanes; peaceful resolution of 

disputes; and transparency in the free flow of information. Some contend that these aims 

and values are “Western” and not inherently “Asian,” claiming Asian culture and history 

prioritize strong central governments, collective responsibilities, and social harmony over 

economic liberty and political rights. But Asia’s history since the late 1980s has challenged 

the notion of any sort of “Asian exceptionalism.” Progress has been mixed, but countries 

such as Japan and South Korea remain impressive democracies even as states such as Thailand and the Philippines have wobbled in recent years. Taiwan also stands as a success 

story.65 At the same time, the United States has been pragmatically applying its preferred 

values of liberal democracy and individual rights in the Indo-Pacific region. Singapore’s 

authoritarian governance with a democratic veneer has been acceptable to Washington, and 

Thailand’s rough-hewn, frequently illiberal democracy has not resulted in its termination as 

an American treaty ally.

FOIP vision themes have wide regional appeal, showing up in bilateral accords and in 

prominent regional bilateral and multilateral documents. Even before the Trump administration, these ideas appeared as cornerstones of two major regional vision documents: 

the U.S.-India Strategic Vision of January 2015 and the India-Japan Vision 2025 signed in 

December 2015.66 Since 2017, FOIP’s ideological foundations have been included in other 

major regional declarations, including American Two-Plus-Two Joint Statements with 

Japan and Australia and in other key partnership diplomatic documents.

American culture and social engagement remain robust in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Despite some downturn since 2017, the United States is an enormously attractive location 

for regional pursuit of graduate and tertiary education. In 2018, more than one-third of 

Chinese students who studied overseas did so in the United States (321,625), as well as 

half of Japan’s overseas tertiary students (14,787), almost one-third of those from Australia 

(4,286), and almost half of those from India (142,618).67 In 2019, some 730,000 students 

from the Indo-Pacific region were at graduate or fellowship programs in American colleges 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 201

and universities, representing more than two-thirds of all foreign students in American 

higher education programs.68

Americans remain the predominant and highest spending tourists across the region 

and were—before COVID-19 complications—anticipated to spend $257 billion in the region (28 percent of the market) by 2020, compared with a projected $60 billion by China (8 

percent).69 English is the language of business in the Indo-Pacific region, and Australia, New 

Zealand, Singapore, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and Nepal are either English-speaking 

or recognize English as an official language.70 The proliferation of Americans and Americanisms across the region gives the United States a decided advantage in promulgating its 

ideological viewpoint and ideas.

This plays out in Indo-Pacific popular culture, including within China itself. There, 

American-imported entertainment offers an attractive alternative to state television’s tightly 

controlled lineup dominated by historical costume dramas and anti-Japanese war films. 

As an example, when Hollywood actor Alan Thicke died in December 2016, there was an 

outpouring of sympathy on Chinese social media by a generation of Chinese that had come 

of age watching Thicke’s character on Growing Pains during the 1980s and 1990s, one of 

the first American shows to air there. In late 2013, China established a national security 

committee to focus on “unconventional security threats” to thinking in Chinese youth, 

including Hollywood movies. By 2015, China’s then–Minister of Education Yuan Guiren 

reportedly ordered university officials to disallow teaching materials that “disseminate 

Western values.”71

China. Xi Jinping’s work report at the CCP’s 19th Party Congress in October 2017 introduced some new themes with specific resonance in the Indo-Pacific region.72 Xi called 

for CCP members to focus on governance, politics, and ideology with an emphasis that 

“Ideology determines the direction a culture should take and the path it should follow 

as it develops.” He called on China’s writers and artists to produce work that not only is 

thought-provoking but also extols “our party, our country, our people and our heroes.” Chinese state media openly declared China’s socialist system to be an alternative ideological 

model for the developing world and a clear competitor with Western liberal democracy.73

Ideological competition now stands as a significant feature in China’s efforts to build support across the Indo-Pacific region, especially with illiberal regimes.74

As noted in chapter 3b, Beijing’s ability to craft and disseminate its preferred ideology 

in a resonant and positive message has improved, but still exhibits significant liabilities 

and shortcomings. China’s ideological framework of a community of common destiny is 

a vague slogan that glosses over conflicts of interest between nations, including China’s 

territorial disputes with many of its neighbors.75 China’s emphasis on state sovereignty at 

the expense of human rights and freedoms is inherently limited in appeal, resonating with 

autocratic elites but not so much with ordinary citizens, even in the Indo-Pacific region.76

Moreover, leaders and people in the region judge China’s lofty principles against the reality 

of an increasingly authoritarian China whose growth is slowing and as a big country that 

increasingly uses coercive means to get its way with smaller countries.

China continues to expand efforts to generate soft power to persuade others in the 

region to pursue its goals and values or to emulate its behavior. Flows of tourists and students between China and other Asian countries continue at record highs, with about 47.8 
202 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

million Chinese citizens visiting other East Asian countries in 2018.77 China hosted more 

than 295,000 students from the region in 2018, with South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan, and 

India sending the most.78 The Chinese government has supplemented student exchanges 

by establishing Confucius Institutes in foreign countries to teach Chinese language and 

promote Chinese culture. As of 2020, 19 Indo-Pacific countries hosted some 97 Confucius 

Institutes, with South Korea, Japan, and Thailand hosting at least 10 apiece.79

Appeals to cultural and linguistic affinities have been important in dealing with countries that have significant ethnic Chinese minorities. Malaysia and Indonesia, which have 

historically viewed their ethnic Chinese populations with considerable suspicion, came to 

regard them as an asset in building economic relations with China. However, Beijing’s recent efforts to strengthen outreach to the ethnic Chinese diaspora in Asia are renewing 

these concerns. Beijing found some sympathy in Southeast Asia for appeals to “Asian values” in the 1990s, but this has been tempered by the deepening of democracy in Japan, 

South Korea, Taiwan, and some Southeast Asian countries. Cultural and linguistic diversity 

in Asia is likely to limit China’s ability to harness purported common “Confucian values” 

as a diplomatic tool.80

In the cultural sphere, some Chinese products reflect traditional Chinese culture in 

ways that resonate within Asia, but most have limited appeal due to their focus on Chinese domestic concerns, derivative nature, political constraints on content, and language 

barriers. Films have arguably been China’s most successful cultural exports. Some of these 

constraints may ease as China becomes richer, but for now other Asian countries are producing work with more regional impact and influence. It is worth noting that many of the 

most successful Chinese artists achieved their fame with work done outside China, including Nobel Prize–winning novelist Gao Xingjian.81

The American FOIP vision and China’s community of common destiny are competing 

regional visions for a diverse Indo-Pacific region. As of 2019, regional views suggest that 

America and its global vision remains most appealing, although with some recent relative 

decline. A December 2019 Pew Survey reported China receiving unfavorable reviews from 

all but Pakistan in the region. In Japan, 85 percent have an unfavorable opinion of China, 

with 63 percent of South Koreans, 57 percent of Australians, and 54 percent of Filipinos 

sharing this view. Indonesian opinion of China plunged 17 percent between 2018 and 2019, 

the most negative drop in regional countries over the past decade.82 For now, American 

ideas and ideology, and its projection of them, continue to resonate in the Indo-Pacific 

region. It is unclear how China will close this gap, but American complacency might still 

give Beijing a chance.

Informational Tools and Prospects 

The United States. As noted in the section on ideology, American public diplomacy and 

information dissemination in the Indo-Pacific region remains reliant on its post–Cold War 

medium of private sector journalism and entertainment. It also relies heavily on the penetration of social media images and interpersonal interactions where those are not blocked 

outright by the host nation government, as in China. The Indo-Pacific region accounts for 

more than half of all social media users worldwide, with 426 million active Facebook users 

and one-third of all global Twitter users. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 203

Zealand, and Malaysia all rate above 50 percent in national social media penetration—and 

have access to universal content. China ranks at only 46 percent penetration—but without 

global access.83 These numbers give American cultural, social, and ideological themes high 

resonance—for better or for worse—in a broad and deep messaging arena.

U.S. public information activities prominent during the Cold War are largely gone, but 

the State Department does maintain a Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and a 

Bureau of Global Public Affairs that engage in some Internet and social media outreach. In 

2016, the State Department stood up an interagency Global Engagement Center to coordinate U.S. Government efforts to expose and counter foreign state and nonstate propaganda 

and disinformation.84 Radio Free Asia is a U.S.-based, private, nonprofit corporation funded 

by the U.S. Agency for Global Media that broadcasts news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press.85

China. One of China’s strengths in the information domain is a well-developed propaganda and influence apparatus that delivers consistent and coordinated messaging through 

a range of official and semiofficial channels. In 2018, China conducted a major reorganization of CCP and state bureaucracies that consolidated organs engaged in international 

propaganda and influence projection under Party control.86 As noted in chapter 3b, China 

oversees Xinhua, a state-run global media service that produces CCP-friendly stories for 

worldwide dissemination in multiple languages and boasts an 11.5-million-user Twitter 

account (despite the fact that Twitter access is banned in China). It endorsed the acquisition of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post in 2015 by the chief executive officer 

of the Alibaba e-commerce group, which inserted a management team that promised to 

provide a positive view of China. It generates content from its state-run China Radio International for use by broadcast networks from Norway to Turkey to Australia. It has lavishly 

funded the China Global Television Network—rebranded in 2016 as the international arm 

of China Central Television—recruiting local journalists across the world with excellent 

pay and airtime to contribute stories acceptable to the Chinese propaganda apparatus. 

The content seeks to fulfill Xi Jinping’s charge to “tell China’s story well,” emphasizing the 

generosity of the Chinese people and the benign nature of the Chinese government while 

amplifying the chaotic and unpredictable nature of Western politics and liberal democracy. 

However, the consistency and coordinated nature of the CCP messaging apparatus may 

actually work against the effectiveness of the message as received by foreign audiences. 

Public opinion of China is very low across the Indo-Pacific region, and China is deemed to 

be relatively untrustworthy.87 Moreover, the extensive media and Internet censorship and 

message control that China practices at home undercuts Beijing’s credibility in projecting 

a positive image overseas.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a good illustration of China’s ability to promulgate its narrative domestically and internationally. Confronted with a negative image as 

the source of the coronavirus outbreak, the CCP began a concerted effort to reshape the 

adverse narrative of China as an authoritarian power slow to sound the alarm and reluctant 

to share information to one of China as a global leader that stepped up when others did 

not. Interestingly, it sometimes did so in coordination with Iran and Russia. The Chinese 

government went from letting Russian disinformation claiming the United States was the 

source of the virus proliferate in Chinese social media, to raising questions on state media 
204 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

about the virus’s origin, to promoting disinformation that the United States was the source 

of the virus.88 Simultaneously, it orchestrated heavy media coverage of Chinese provision 

of tests kits and face masks around the globe, with Chinese diplomats browbeating host 

governments for positive statements praising Chinese generosity. The full fruits of these 

efforts remain to be seen, but initial returns have not been favorable. Reports of faulty test 

kits, defective masks, and Chinese imperiousness combined to sour popular opinion of 

Beijing across the wider Indo-Pacific region, especially in countries such as Australia, India, 

and the Philippines.89 China expert Bates Gill notes that, although the Chinese propaganda 

apparatus seeks to promote a positive image of China internationally, the most important 

audience for that message is domestic.90

Despite noteworthy disorganization and atrophy of official information channels, 

American informational tools in the Indo-Pacific region remain substantial and gain credibility from the diversity of viewpoints expressed. China’s external messaging is hindered 

by its unified propaganda message and hypersensitivity to criticism, which leads Chinese 

diplomats to complain about any foreign government statements or media coverage that 

paint China in an unattractive light. The quality of a government’s information apparatus 

is important, and the U.S. Government needs to devote more resources and attention to 

its public diplomacy and informational tools. But ultimately it is the content of the message—both in terms of the performance of competing governance models and an attractive 

regional vision that others want to follow—that makes informational tools effective.

Military Tools and Prospects and the “Hard Case” of Taiwan 

Since the end of World War II, the United States has been the dominant maritime and airpower in Asia. As noted, America has relied on a network of alliances and arrangements 

with allies and friendly partners in the Indo-Pacific region to support naval and air access and freedom of maneuver. The regional military balance in terms of relative U.S. and 

Chinese capabilities is important, but the real U.S. strategic center of gravity is the political-military relationships that underpin its alliances and the forward-deployed military 

presence that they support. Some American military advantages have eroded over the past 

2 decades as PLA capabilities have grown, but the U.S. military is welcome in the region in 

a way that the Chinese military is not.

In 2020, the U.S. military enjoys significant quantitative and qualitative advantages 

over the PLA, especially in a long conflict that would allow it to bring all its assets to bear. 

USINDOPACOM oversees a Pacific Fleet with a complement of about 50 capital ships, 2 or 

3 aircraft carriers, and approximately 30 advanced U.S. submarines operating in the region. 

USINDOPACOM manages 3 numbered U.S. Air Forces with an unrivaled mixture of some 

2,000 fighter, bomber, and mobility aircraft. It also oversees 80,000 U.S. Army and Marine 

Forces stationed throughout the region and has access to another 100,000 deployable troops 

on command from the continental United States, if required. The United States also has 

advantages in its proven ability to employ space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and cyber capabilities to support its ground, naval, and air assets.91

Conversely, the PLA Navy (PLAN) has 3 fleets with about 140 capital ships, but lacks 

long-range, blue water warfare capabilities. Its two aircraft carriers use a ski-ramp design that 

limits the payload of their aircraft; the PLAN will not field a modern carrier until 2023. Its air 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 205

forces are large and composed primarily of multirole fighters, with a limited number of stealth 

fighters coming into the force. Its current bombers are based on a late 1950s Soviet design, 

although they are equipped with modern engines and capable land-attack and antiship cruise 

missiles. PLA Army and marine forces have been reorganized in a corps-brigade-battalion 

structure to improve their abilities to conduct combined arms and joint operations with other 

services. The PLA has a limited number of army and marine amphibious units but lacks the 

sea lift capability to deploy and sustain them too far from the Chinese mainland. The PLA is 

optimized for fighting conventional land conflicts along its borders, but for the last 15 years, 

its modernization efforts have emphasized the need to develop its naval, air, and missile forces 

and to develop the ability to conduct joint operations employing the full range of PLA capabilities.92 These efforts have significantly improved the PLA’s ability to project power within and 

beyond the First Island Chain (see figure 9.2).93

One aspect of the U.S.-China military competition in the Indo-Pacific region involves 

Chinese efforts to use increasing military and paramilitary presence and coercion to enhance its effective control of the maritime territories it claims in the South China and East 

China seas and U.S. military efforts to operate in these disputed waters to maintain the 

principles of freedom of navigation and international law. The United States does not take 

a position on the merits of the competing claims to sovereignty over land features, but insists on the principles of peaceful resolution of disputes and compliance with international 

law.94 Chinese aggressive tactics to enforce its claims—which the United States regards as 

incompatible with UNCLOS—have involved the creative use of civilian fishing vessels and 

coast guard ships on the front line, backed by naval capabilities.95 China has practiced gray 

zone tactics that seek to avoid the use of lethal force while employing a range of military, 

paramilitary, economic, diplomatic, legal, and informational tactics to reinforce its maritime claims.

These actions have increased the willingness of countries in the region to spend more 

on their militaries and their interest in enhanced security cooperation with the United 

States and other major powers. Absent U.S. intervention, China now has the military capability to seize and hold the disputed land features in the South China Sea, but this would be 

a bloody affair that would severely damage China’s relations with claimant and nonclaimant 

states alike and stimulate military balancing against China. To date, Beijing has judged the 

costs of a military solution to be too high. This low-level war of nerves on the high seas is 

likely to continue without a definitive resolution for some time to come.

In addition to continuing military presence missions such as freedom of navigation 

operations, the United States remains well postured to help regional militaries—prioritizing Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines—develop the ability to challenge China’s 

power-projection capabilities.96 Formal American alliances and partnerships, while under 

some recent duress, remain robust and growing. From 2017 to 2019, the Trump administration successfully strengthened key alliances and expanded military cooperation with 

traditional allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, while using exercises and dialogues to reach out to nontraditional partners such as India, Malaysia, and Vietnam.97

The Defense Department’s Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, released in June 2019, illuminated 

the contributions made by the U.S. acquisition and deployment of advanced capabilities, 

new operational concepts, and initiatives to strengthen security partnerships.98 The United 
206 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

States also could support India’s efforts to pose military dilemmas for China, a relatively 

low-cost means of complicating the PLA’s ability to concentrate attention and resources on 

U.S. forward locations across East Asia and the Western Pacific.99

U.S.-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region will also have a high-end 

conventional military aspect where U.S. qualitative advantages in military hardware, ability 

to project power globally, and proven ability to conduct effective joint combat operations 

are partially offset by China’s geographic advantages when operating from its own home 

territory. Since the mid-1990s, the paradigmatic PLA planning and modernization scenario 

has been an invasion of Taiwan in response to a de jure declaration of independence, with 

the United States intervening on Taipei’s behalf. This scenario would require air and sea lift 

capabilities to get a PLA invasion force onto the island, but the ranges required would be 

relatively limited since the island is less than 100 miles away.

The PLA has invested in an array of antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities intended to raise the costs and risks for U.S. forces operating near China, with the goal of 

deterring or delaying U.S. intervention. These include advanced diesel submarines, which 

could attack U.S. naval forces deploying into the Western Pacific; surface-to-air missiles 

such as the Russian S-300, which could target U.S. fighters and bombers; and antiship cruise 

missiles and antiship ballistic missiles optimized to attack U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups. 

China has invested in a range of accurate conventional missiles that can target the bases 

and ports the U.S. military would use in a conflict. China has also sought to exploit U.S. 

military dependence on space systems by developing a range of antisatellite capabilities that 

could degrade, interfere with, or directly attack U.S. satellites and their associated ground 

stations. It has invested in cyber capabilities to collect intelligence and degrade the U.S. 

military’s ability to employ computer networks in a crisis or conflict. In a conflict, the PLA 

would attempt to use multidomain attacks to paralyze U.S. intelligence, communications, 

and command and control systems and force individual units to fight in isolation, at a huge 

disadvantage.100 This would make American defense of allies and national interests inside 

the First Island Chain difficult.

A potential U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan represents a “hard case” where China 

might hope to mount a successful surprise attack and force Taiwan’s capitulation before 

the U.S. military could bring its forces to bear. This could present the United States with 

a hard-to-reverse fait accompli. China considers Taiwan part of its historic territory and 

is committed to eventually achieving unification as part of the “great rejuvenation of the 

Chinese nation.” The United States abrogated its security treaty with the Republic of China 

(Taiwan’s formal name) in 1979 and agreed to have only unofficial relations with it as part of 

the process of normalizing relations with the People’s Republic of China. The United States 

does not have a formal security commitment to Taiwan, but the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act 

requires providing Taiwan with defensive arms and states that U.S. policy is to retain the 

capability to resist the use of force or coercion to undermine Taiwan’s security.101

This task has become more difficult given the tyranny of distance and successful PLA 

modernization. RAND’s 2015 evaluation of U.S.-China military force capability trends 

found that the United States had “major advantages” in 7 of 10 critical capability areas in 

a Taiwan scenario in 1996, but that by 2017, the United States would have clear “advantages” in only 3 categories, and the PLA would enjoy advantages in 2: its ability to attack 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 207

U.S. airbases and its ability to attack U.S. carriers. China’s advances in ballistic missiles, 

cruise missiles, and modern diesel attack submarines now give it advantages it did not have 

during the 1990s Taiwan standoff.102 The U.S. Air Force ended its 16-year bomber forward 

presence on Guam in late April 2020 in recognition of China’s enhanced missile capabilities, especially its DF-26 “Guam killer.”103

In a South China Sea scenario, where PLA 

weaknesses in power projection would 

matter more, RAND assessed that the U.S. 

military would retain an edge in 2017, but 

even there the PLA would have made up 

considerable ground.104

The implications for the U.S. ability to 

defend Taiwan are significant in the context 

of U.S.-China Great Power rivalry in the 

Indo-Pacific region. As noted in chapter 

3b and above, while China is not close to 

catching up to the U.S. military in terms of 

aggregate military capabilities (quality and 

quantity), it does not need parity to frustrate U.S. intervention in a short conflict 

on its immediate periphery. Despite ongoing U.S. military efforts to develop new 

military capabilities and operational concepts to operate in an A2/AD environment, 

China has made significant improvements 

in its ability to attain a decisive military 

advantage in confrontation scenarios near 

China’s coast—such as with Taiwan. These 

emerging realities suggest that American and Taiwanese militaries should consider an active denial strategy that reduces the risk from preemptive attack and makes Taiwan a more 

resilient target. Chapter 5 discusses some of the small, smart, and cheap alternatives that 

Taiwan and the United States might consider in this vein. Washington and other Western governments should continue to make it clear to China that aggression against Taiwan 

would carry immense costs and risks, but they must be more circumspect in predicting any 

absolute ability to prevail in armed conflict. Taiwan’s allies and friends should simultaneously engage China on issues of strategic stability and escalation to reduce the prospects for 

miscalculation.105

Economic Power and Influence Prospects 

The United States. Almost every government in the Indo-Pacific region is focused on 

increasing economic growth and raising living standards for its people, which gives economic instruments of power great salience. U.S. leadership and support for the open global 

economic order has underpinned the Asian economic miracle that saw first Japan, then 

the four tigers (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), and finally China enjoy 

“The United States’ ambiguous commitment to Taiwan’s defense is making the 

actual defense of Taiwan less tenable. 

Two decades ago, when the threat of a 

Chinese invasion could be deterred by 

sending a U.S. aircraft carrier through 

the Taiwan Strait, a mostly symbolic military relationship between the two countries was a sufficient way to keep the 

peace. This is no longer true. The PLA 

has grown strong enough that neither 

Taiwan nor the United States can afford 

to have the Taiwanese military devote 

another decade to suboptimal arm purchases. If the United States wants to increase the defensive power of Taiwan’s 

armed forces, then Washington must 

find other ways to give the Taiwanese 

leaders the symbolic victories they seek 

from arms packages.”

—Tanner Greer, “Taiwan’s Defense 

Strategy Doesn’t Make Military Sense,”

Foreign Affairs, September 17, 2019
208 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

rapid economic development. Access to the U.S. market and U.S. technology continues to 

play a major role in sustaining regional growth, and reciprocal access to growing Indo-Pacific markets and technology is important for U.S. growth and prosperity. While free trade 

produces mutual benefits, every government seeks to maximize the benefits for its country 

and companies by capturing an increased share of high-value-added products and rapidly 

growing markets.

UN trade data shows that China was the number one export market for other Indo-Pacific countries in 2017, taking $413 billion in their exports (plus an additional $82 billion 

routed through Hong Kong), compared with $343 billion for the United States.106 China 

is the number one export market for most countries in the Indo-Pacific region, including 

most U.S. allies. Yet these figures greatly understate the U.S. role in the regional economy 

because many exports to China are raw materials or components that are processed or 

assembled into final products and subsequently exported to the United States or other developed country markets. Such goods show up in the data as part of Chinese exports to 

the United States, which totaled $526 billion in 2017.107 U.S. companies play an important 

role in these regional production networks (including by owning and operating factories 

in China) and the U.S. market is the final destination for many of these products. There is 

extensive trade integration within and across the Indo-Pacific region, and countries want to 

be included in regional production networks and to access both U.S. and Chinese markets.

The centerpiece of the Obama administration’s Indo-Pacific economic policy was the 

Trans-Pacific Partnership, an “ambitious, next-generation Asia-Pacific trade agreement” 

including 12 regional countries and extensive environmental, labor, and intellectual property standards.108 The TPP did not include China, but advocates hoped that the prospect of 

eventual membership would provide incentives for China to modify its economic practices 

to comply with TPP rules. The TPP agreement was signed on February 4, 2016, but the 

Obama administration did not submit the agreement to Congress for approval in the face 

of bipartisan opposition. One of the Trump administration’s first acts was to withdraw from 

participation in the TPP.

Since 2017, the Trump administration has focused on trying to change the terms of 

U.S. trade with foreign partners, including U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific region. This has 

included tariffs on steel and threatened tariffs on automobiles and auto parts based on “national security grounds,” renegotiating the Korea-U.S. FTA, and a bilateral agreement to 

increase access to the Japanese market for U.S. agricultural goods. These bilateral deals continued a long-term U.S. approach to trade. But abandoning the TPP was a major deviation 

in U.S. regional economic strategy, which places the United States outside the rules-setting 

role of the successor Comprehensive Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership 

(CPTPP) established in 2018 by the 11 other signatories of the TPP.109 Preferring to resolve 

trade disputes through bilateral negotiations, the Trump administration also has blocked 

the appointment of judges to the World Trade Organization’s appellate body, rendering this 

multilateral institution unable to rule on trade disputes.110

In the absence of a multilateral trade agenda, the U.S. FOIP vision has focused on developing alternative forms of regional infrastructure assistance to compete with China’s BRI 

regional investment infrastructure initiatives. In July 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo 

announced a $113 million “down payment” on U.S. investments in the digital economy, 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 209

energy, and infrastructure sectors.111 In October 2018, Trump signed the BUILD Act, which 

raised the ceiling on U.S. global development financing to $60 billion. In November 2018, 

the U.S. Government signed a memorandum with its Japanese and Australian counterparts 

to create a new partnership designed to provide financing for projects that “adhere to international standards and principles for development,” an implicit critique of Chinese projects 

viewed as falling short of those standards.112 Other elements included funding for the Millennium Challenge Corporation ($2.3 billion) and establishment of a Blue Dot Network to 

set financially sustainable standards for infrastructure development.

In mid-2018, the United States began a trade war with China by imposing a series of 

tariffs covering most Chinese exports to the United States. China responded with tariffs 

targeting U.S. exports, including agricultural exports from farm states crucial to American 

electoral politics. The trade war was the most serious disruption in global commerce in 

the post–World War II era.113 Analysis through September 2019 revealed the effort to be a 

double-edged sword. China’s lost export revenue was triple that of the United States ($53 

billion to $14.5 billion, respectively), but the United States had not achieved any substantive movement in the Chinese economic behaviors it was seeking to change. Key sectors 

of the U.S. economy—exporters of minerals and ores, forestry products, agribusiness, and 

transportation systems—lost substantial revenue and were disturbed that China has found 

alternative suppliers, meaning potential lasting damage to export revenues.114 The “phase 

one” U.S. trade deal with China announced in January 2020 involved Chinese agreement 

to lift some retaliatory tariffs and to substantially increase imports from the United States, 

but making no major concessions on the issue of government industrial policies.115 Many 

economists were skeptical that the targets were realistic, and trade disruptions due to the 

COVID-19 pandemic make it unlikely that China will fulfill those commitments.116

The uncertainties arising from the U.S.-China trade relationship, and particularly U.S. 

policy discussions about trying to “decouple” the U.S. economy from China, are moving alliance partners to consider alternative trade structures.117 These include the Japan-European 

Union FTA; ongoing negotiations for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership 

that will include China (but not the United States); and continuing negotiations between 

Japan, China, and South Korea for a trilateral FTA. This region-wide hedging may have 

long-term negative political and strategic consequences. A serious U.S. effort to use tariffs 

to dismantle regional production networks and force countries to move production out of 

China is likely to meet with significant resistance given the importance of trade and investment ties with China to virtually every country in the Indo-Pacific region.

China. The growing economic dependence of other Indo-Pacific countries on the China 

market is a potential source of influence for Chinese leaders, but a tricky one to use. The desire 

to maintain market access makes Indo-Pacific countries reluctant to take actions that might 

offend China, but Chinese efforts to use restrictions on trade and tourism as an active coercive 

tool have had mixed results.118 In many cases, such as China’s efforts to punish South Korea 

for agreeing to host U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense antiballistic missile systems, 

these measures have signaled Beijing’s unhappiness and imposed costs on the target country 

but have not succeeded in forcing it to make the policy changes China wanted.

China has had more success using economic incentives such as FTAs, outbound investment, foreign aid, and infrastructure loans as carrots that provide concrete benefits to 
210 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

recipient countries and give substance to China’s vision of a stable, prosperous region with 

extensive economic integration. China is building on its existing FTAs with ASEAN, New 

Zealand, and Singapore via ongoing negotiations for a Regional Comprehensive Economic 

Partnership and a trilateral Japan, China, and South Korea FTA, both of which would exclude the United States and expand China’s preferential access to regional markets. China 

has emerged as a huge overseas investor over the past two decades. Although Indo-Pacific 

countries account for only about 20 percent of Chinese overall outbound investment, as of 

2019, this totaled almost $250 billion, along with an additional $242 billion in construction 

projects by Chinese companies.119

China does not publish a detailed breakout of its foreign aid programs, but poorer 

countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania have been significant recipients of Chinese development assistance, receiving at least $38 billion from 2000 to 2016.120 Much of this 

assistance goes to improve transportation infrastructure connecting South and Southeast 

Asia with China; many of these projects are now included as part of the BRI. These infrastructure investments, some of which are funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment 

Bank established by China in 2016, not only contribute to economic development but also 

link these countries more closely to the Chinese economy and will produce greater trade 

dependence in the future. Expanding BRI financing is an important tool for advancing 

China’s regional influence, but there is growing skepticism in some Chinese quarters about 

spending massive sums on foreign development.121

In summary, the United States and China bring different strengths to Great Power 

competition in the Indo-Pacific region. In terms of political and diplomatic tools, China 

has raised its diplomatic game but is unlikely to find much support for efforts to limit U.S. 

presence in the region because most countries in the Indo-Pacific want the United States 

involved to help balance against Chinese power. In terms of ideological tools, the U.S. regional vision resonates with a number of countries and is likely to have more appeal than 

China’s vague call for a community of common destiny. The soft power of both countries 

is likely to be damaged by poor performance in governance and the disjuncture between 

their stated regional visions and actual policies. China has a clear informational advantage 

in its ability to articulate and reinforce a consistent message, but the fact that this message 

is usually parroting CCP talking points that are inconsistent with Chinese behavior undercuts the effectiveness of its informational efforts. The United States has a more appealing 

message, but American government tools to express that message to Indo-Pacific countries 

have atrophied and need more resources.

U.S. military dominance has eroded as Chinese military capabilities have improved, 

but the fact that the Chinese military is viewed as a threat and the U.S. military is viewed 

as a partner is a huge political-military advantage. The United States needs to improve its 

ability to operate in an A2/AD environment, including its willingness to accept operational 

risk in peacetime settings. Neither side is likely to attain decisive military advantage in the 

region. The question is whether the high costs and escalation risks of a major war could 

continue to maintain a cold peace. In terms of economic tools, China has significant advantages in its ability to mobilize and direct resources and to provide countries with valued 

opportunities to increase their economic growth. The U.S. Government must rely primarily 

on creating incentives and opportunities for private-sector actors. The lack of a multidi-
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 211

mensional regional trade strategy and recent efforts to strong-arm U.S. allies and partners 

have reduced American economic influence in the region. If the United States tries to force 

countries to participate in an aggressive effort to decouple their economies from China’s, 

Washington seems likely to meet significant regional resistance.

Conclusions 

U.S. and Chinese strategic interests are less aligned and more important to both countries 

in the Indo-Pacific region than in any other area of the world, making it a central venue for 

Great Power competition. Over the past decade, Beijing has become more critical of the 

U.S. military presence and U.S. alliance system, arguing that it reflects Cold War thinking 

and emboldens U.S. allies to challenge Chinese interests. The U.S. Free and Open IndoPacific vision and increased U.S. regional security cooperation in activities such as the 

Quad have stoked Chinese fears of U.S. encirclement or containment. Beijing has resisted 

making any binding commitments that might restrict its military capabilities or ability to 

employ military power to defend its core interests. Its increasing military capabilities and 

more assertive approach to maritime territorial disputes have heightened regional concerns 

about how a strong China could behave, leading most countries to improve their security 

ties with the United States.

To protect and advance its interests, the United States will need to acknowledge that the 

appeal of access to China’s superior market and the weight of Beijing’s other economic tools 

make Indo-Pacific countries unlikely to give up economic ties with Beijing, even if Washington attempts to decouple from the Chinese economy. Washington’s relative disadvantage 

in economic power limits its ability to persuade countries to fully align with it economically 

against China now, and for some time. Thus, it must develop flexible policies that allow China’s neighbors to avoid an explicit choice of aligning completely with Washington or Beijing 

in the regional Great Power competition, unless they are compelled by Chinese behavior 

to do so. But Washington still has a full agenda to pursue, both to advance specific U.S. 

economic interests and to shape rules and norms in the most dynamic region in the world. 

A U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy that combines some degree of engagement with China and 

attention to nurturing a balance of economic and military power around Beijing as a hedge 

would best serve U.S. interests. In that spirit, the United States needs to find a pragmatic 

basis for bilateral economic relations with China that protects what is working and helps 

adjust what is not. A trade war or full economic decoupling is unlikely to achieve that end.

At present, the Trump administration is attempting to address trade and market access issues unilaterally through tariffs and other administrative measures. The United States 

should reconsider participation in the TPP in order to promote the integration with the Indo-Pacific economies that would be needed to form a truly viable counterweight to China. 

Admittedly, many U.S. interest groups and citizens have grown skeptical of FTAs, but the 

shortcomings of the past should not be allowed to hamper what is needed economically 

and strategically for the country’s future. The successful negotiation and implementation 

of a new TPP-like agreement—including accession into the CPTPP—could be a powerful 

collective lever to reshape objectionable Chinese economic practices so that Beijing can 

eventually participate.
212 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

In the security domain, the United States is at a relative military power disadvantage if 

a clash over Taiwan or another sovereignty issue breaks out within the First Island Chain, 

where China could use its A2/AD capabilities to full effect. Thus, Washington should review military dispositions in these areas and adjust strategies, capabilities, and operational 

concepts with an eye toward making better use of emerging technologies and increasing the 

resilience of its military forces in theater. Chinese A2/AD capabilities will necessitate some 

tough military planning choices in these special cases. U.S.-China military-to-military relations are unlikely to overcome these competitive dynamics in areas where China’s core 

interests lie, but they could have value enhancing deterrence, increasing transparency, and 

dispelling unfounded worst-case suspicions. They also can help improve communication 

mechanisms and understandings about how military ships and aircraft would behave when 

they encounter each other, which would help avoid incidents and provide more effective 

crisis management tools.122

At the same time, the United States should build on its relative political-military advantages to sustain and strengthen its regional security position. Reinforcing present alliances, 

building military partnerships, extending cooperative training, and expanding interoperability are techniques that regional states will embrace and will work against unilateral 

Chinese efforts to intimidate. If the United States emphasizes its alliances, expands security 

cooperation with other partners, and actively engages in regional multilateral institutions, 

it can deal with Chinese regional security initiatives and actions from a position of strength 

and resist Chinese efforts to erode the U.S. alliance system. Conversely, if Washington appears disengaged, it will become less relevant and less able to shape the evolving regional 

security environment.

America’s advantages in alliance diplomacy, relative trustworthiness, resonance of 

ideological vision, and (for the time being) approach toward open information and communications should be highly valued and enhanced. At present under Xi Jinping, the CCP 

is moving China in the direction of increased authoritarian control and a greater state role 

in the economy, policies that prioritize stability over growth. These are likely to have adverse side effects within China that undercut the appeal of China’s model.123 If Washington 

can prioritize its many concerns with China and partner with like-minded allies and partners to develop a practical agenda, there eventually may be renewed support within China 

for past reform proposals that are currently on hold due to resistance from Chinese special 

interests. Washington should work with regional and extra-regional partners to provide 

outside pressure that might help reenergize these reforms.124

At the same time, American interests will be strongly advanced by working with Indo-Pacific partners to articulate and build regional support for the vision and values that 

underpin the FOIP. If China violates international law and regional norms, the United 

States should say so consistently. As long as American society models and promotes open, 

transparent, and democratic institutions, the United States likely will appear as an ideological and even existential threat to CCP leaders.125 But strong and consistent messaging 

with allies and partners could send a positive signal to the Chinese people about the value 

of good, representational governance and provide other states around the region a positive 

alternative framework that contrasts with China’s authoritarian model.
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 213

Put a different way, support for human 

rights and democracy in the Indo-Pacific region today makes sense given Washington’s 

relative power advantage in the competitive 

categories of ideology, informational openness, and diplomacy. Standing publicly with 

supporters of human rights and political reform in China could be a key part of any 

U.S. strategy for a Great Power competition 

that is about values as much as it is about 

relative economic or military power.126 Rallying support of this type today requires 

that U.S. officials act realistically about the 

nature of the challenge and spell out clearly 

what meeting it requires. It also requires 

articulating how addressing the Chinese 

challenge would be central to preserving the relatively stable, open, and democratic Indo-Pacific region that has taken hold over the past seven decades. In turn, this demands a 

level of sober but resolved political leadership in Washington. The size and scope of China’s 

economic presence across the Indo-Pacific region means that the United States will need 

a strategy that is as broad and enduring as the threat it is meant to counter.127 Chapter 14 

considers several American strategies and evaluates which might best rise to this test.

The authors thank Dr. Joel Wuthnow for his thoughtful observations and critiques of early 

versions of this chapter.

Notes 

1

 Russia rates this lesser status for three major reasons. First, 

Vladimir Putin’s Russia has an unrelenting strategic focus on its 

troubled relations with the West. Second, Russia lacks capacity 

in its Far East and will take a long time to generate capabilities 

even if it determined to generate them. Third, the Sino-Russian 

relationship is highly uneven despite the tactical value each sees 

in specific cooperation against the United States. Beijing possesses 

a vision, resources, and a game plan for the Pacific region, while 

Russia has no fully articulated or resourced Asia policy. Thus, 

despite some noteworthy short-term common interests and 

concerns, Moscow and Beijing priorities diverge significantly. 

While Moscow wishes to derail the present U.S./Westerndominated international system, China sees much residual 

value in the current international framework, so long as Beijing 

can expand its influence and work to address its perception of 

major flaws. Russia and China can today agree to constrain 

American hegemonic power and liberal interventionism, but 

they do not have a convergent strategic vision and are unlikely to 

cooperate on grand strategy or the framework for post-Western 

international rules, norms, and institutions globally or in the 

Indo-Pacific region. For more detail, see the review of Russian 

strategy in chapter 3a. Also see Bobo Lo, Once More with Feeling: 

Russia and the Asia-Pacific (Sydney, Australia: Lowy Institute, 

2019), available at <https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/

once-more-feeling-russia-and-asia-pacific>; Malin Ostevik and 

Natasha Kuhrt, “The Russian Far East and Russian Security Policy 

in the Asia-Pacific Region,” in Russia’s Turn to the East, ed. Helge 

Blakkisrud and Elana Wilson Rowe (London: Springer, 2017), 

75–94; Nivedita Kapoor, “The Long Road Ahead: Russia and 

Its Ambitions in the Far East,” Observer Research Foundation, 

September 11, 2019, available at <https://www.orfonline.org/

expert-speak/the-long-road-ahead-russia-and-its-ambitions-inthe-far-east-55378/>; Liz Bagot and Josh Wilson, “The Russian 

Far East, Gateway to Asia,” GeoHistory Today, October 1, 2011, 

available at <https://geohistory.today/russian-far-east/>; James 

Brown, “Japanese Investment in Russia Floundering Despite 

Arctic Energy Deal,” The Moscow Times, October 16, 2019, 

available at <www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/16/japaneseinvestment-floundering-despite-arctic-energy-deal-a67754>.

2

 These economic norms and principles were underwritten 

by international organizations established and supported by 

the United States, including the Bretton Woods institutions 

of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, General 

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and its successor, the World 

Trade Organization.

3

 The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a multilateral 

treaty established in 1954 to resist the expansion of communism 

in Southeast Asia, is a partial exception. SEATO was dissolved 

in 1977.

4

 For a review of successive American national security strategies 

from 1993 through 1998 that articulated the objectives of 

“China surely has an extended time horizon, [but] its theory of influence actually 

betrays a short-term approach, favoring 

immediate, coercive results over shared 

values and extended cooperation. Power is likely to be more sustainable when 

exercised within and reinforced by a 

shared system of mutual benefit. . . . 

The U.S. helped to build precisely such 

a system in the form of a post-war, rulesbased order, one that endures as a profound U.S. competitive advantage.”

—Michael J. Mazarr and Ali Wyne, 

“The Real U.S.-China Competition,”

The Interpreter, January 29, 2020
214 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

“engagement and enlargement,” see “National Security Strategy 

Archive,” available at <http://nssarchive.us/>.

5

 William J. Clinton, “Address by President Bill Clinton to 

the UN General Assembly,” September 27, 1993, available at 

<https://2009-2017.state.gov/p/io/potusunga/207375.htm>; 

Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” speech at 

The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International 

Studies, Washington, DC, September 21, 1993, available at 

<https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lakedoc.html>. Also 

see Richard N. Haass, “Fatal Distraction: Bill Clinton’s Foreign 

Policy,” Foreign Affairs No. 108 (Autumn 1997), 113.

6

 As noted in chapter 3b of this volume, this assertion is contested. 

For the contrasting arguments, see Kurt M. Campbell and Ely 

Ratner, “The China Reckoning: How Beijing Defied American 

Expectations,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2018, available at 

<www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-02-13/chinareckoning>; Aaron Friedberg, “Getting the China Challenge 

Right,” The American Interest, January 10, 2019, available at 

<www.the-american-interest.com/2019/01/10/getting-the-chinachallenge-right/>; Alastair Iain Johnston, “The Failures of the 

‘Failure of Engagement’ with China,” Washington Quarterly 42, 

no. 2 (Summer 2019), 99–114, available at <https://doi.org/10.

1080/0163660X.2019.1626688>.

7

 Jim Mann, “Clinton’s Asia Policy Puts China First,” The Los 

Angeles Times, March 18, 1998, available at <www.latimes.com/

archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-18-mn-30092-story.html>.

8

 Nicholas R. Lardy, “Issues in China’s WTO Accession,” 

Brookings Institution, May 9, 2001, available at <https://www.

brookings.edu/testimonies/issues-in-chinas-wto-accession/>.

9

 Since the late 1970s, U.S. multinational corporations were key 

proponents of normalizing the relationship with China, and 

their operations in China have been central to ties between the 

two countries. Over the past quarter century, these firms have 

transferred technology, created jobs, and helped reshape the 

Chinese economy. See Two-Way Street: 25 Years of U.S-China 

Direct Investment (New York: National Committee on U.S.-China 

Relations, 2016), 1, available at <https://www.ncuscr.org/sites/

default/files/page_attachments/Two-Way-Street-2016_ExecSummary.pdf>.

10 World Development Report 1995: Workers in an Integrating 

World (London: Oxford University Press, 1995); World Economic 

Outlook (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1995).

11 Neil E. Silver, The United States, Japan, and China: Setting the 

Course (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999).

12 Kurt M. Campbell, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft

(New York: Hatchett Book Group, 2016), 3.

13 “Cheney Concerned About China and North Korea,” New 

York Times, February 23, 2007, available at <www.nytimes.

com/2007/02/23/world/asia/23iht-cheney.4698458.html>.

14 Taro Aso, “Arc of Freedom and Prosperity: Japan’s Expanding 

Diplomatic Horizons,” November 30, 2006, available at <https://

www.mofa.go.jp/announce/fm/aso/speech0611.html>.

15 Shinzo Abe, “Confluence of the Two Seas,” Ministry of Foreign 

Affairs–Japan, August 22, 2007, available at <http://www.mofa.

go.jp/region/asia-paci/pmv0708/speech-2.html>.

16 Denny Roy, More Security for Rising China, Less for Others?

AsiaPacific Analysis No. 106 (Honolulu: East-West Center, 

January 2013); Odd Arne Westad, “Legacies of the Past,” in 

China and the World, ed. David Shambaugh (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2020), 25–36.

17 Denny Roy, “Hegemon on the Horizon? China’s Threat to East 

Asian Security,” International Security 19, no. 1 (Summer 1994), 

149–168; Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming 

Conflict with China (New York: Knopf, 1997). For a survey of 

regional views and strategies, see Alastair Iain Johnston and 

Robert S. Ross, eds., Engaging China: The Management of an 

Emerging Power (New York: Routledge, 1999).

18 David M. Finkelstein, “China’s New Security Concept: Reading 

Between the Lines,” Washington Journal of Modern China 5, no. 

1 (1999), 37–50.

19 David Shambaugh, ed., Power Shift: China and Asia’s New 

Dynamics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Evelyn 

Goh and Sheldon W. Simon, eds., China, the United States, and 

Southeast Asia: Contending Perspectives on Politics, Security, and 

Economics (New York: Routledge, 2008).

20 Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Obama to the Australian 

Parliament,” Canberra, November 17, 2011, available at <https://

obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/

remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament>.

21 See Jeffrey A. Bader, Obama and China’s Rise: An Insider’s 

Account of America’s Asia Strategy (Washington, DC: Brookings 

Institution Press, 2012), chapter 7. Also see the discussion in 

Michael D. Swaine, “Perceptions of an Assertive China,” China 

Leadership Monitor 32 (2010).

22 Michael D. Swaine and M. Taylor Fravel, “China’s Assertive 

Behavior—Part Two: The Maritime Periphery,” China Leadership 

Monitor 35 (2011).

23 For an insider’s perspective on Obama administration thinking 

about building a partnership with China, see Bader, Obama 

and China’s Rise, chapter 1. Chinese overconfidence in Western 

decline and the increasing power of the developing world is 

evident in the shifting language used to describe the trend toward 

a multipolar world in the 2008, 2011, and 2013 Chinese defense 

white papers. Also see Andrew Scobell and Scott W. Harold, “An 

‘Assertive’ China? Insights from Interviews,” Asian Security 9, 

no. 2 (2013), 111–131.

24 Suisheng Zhao, “Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese 

Nationalism Revisited: The Strident Turn,” Journal of 

Contemporary China 22, no. 82 (2013), 535–553.

25 Authors’ interactions with Chinese officials, military officers, 

and scholars, 2009–2013.

26 Mark E. Redden and Phillip C. Saunders, Managing Sino-U.S. 

Air and Naval Interactions: Cold War Lessons and New Avenues 

of Approach, China Strategic Perspectives 5 (Washington, DC: 

NDU Press, 2012).

27 Ibid.

28 Jeremy Page, Carol E. Lee, and Gordon Lubold, “China’s 

President Pledges No Militarization in Disputed Islands,” Wall 

Street Journal, September 25, 2015, available at <www.wsj.com/

articles/china-completes-runway-on-artificial-island-in-southchina-sea-1443184818>.

29 “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang’s Regular Press 

Conference on October 27, 2015,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs 

of the People’s Republic of China, October 27, 2015, available 

at <www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/

t1309625.shtml>.

30 Xi Jinping, “New Asian Security Concept for Progress in 

Security Cooperation,” remarks at the Fourth Summit of the 

Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures 

in Asia, delivered at the Shanghai Expo Center, May 21, 2014, 

available at <https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/

t1159951.shtml>.

31 Adam P. Liff, “China and the U.S. Alliance System,” China 

Quarterly No. 233 (March 2018), available at <https://www.

cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/china-andthe-us-alliance-system/1FF369905B4A8110DC8693A3C8A7

857B/core-reader>.

32 Obama, “Remarks by President Obama to the Australian 

Parliament.”
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 215

33 Hillary Clinton, “America’s Pacific Century,” Foreign Policy No. 

189 (November–December 2011), 56–63.

34 Ian Storey, “China’s Missteps in Southeast Asia: Less Charm, 

More Offensive,” Jamestown China Brief 10, no. 25 (December 

17, 2010), available at <https://jamestown.org/program/

chinas-missteps-in-southeast-asia-less-charm-more-offensive/>.

35 China also made efforts to stabilize bilateral relations, proposing 

that the United States and China build a “new type of major 

country relations.” The Obama administration was prepared to 

consider the framework but did not want to accept obligations to 

respect China’s self-defined “core interests” (including claims to 

Taiwan) or suggest that Washington would cut deals with Beijing 

at the expense of its regional allies. See Jane Perlez, “China’s ‘New 

Type’ of Ties Fails to Sway Obama,” New York Times, November 

9, 2014, available at <www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/world/asia/

chinas-new-type-of-ties-fails-to-sway-obama.html>.

36 Among the tell-tale U.S.-China events signaling the arrival 

of their de facto Great Power rivalry in 2014 and 2015, a 

few stood out. First, the U.S. Justice Department made a 

first-ever public indictment of Chinese military hackers for 

cyber espionage against U.S. corporations in May 2014. See 

Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “U.S. Charges 

Five Chinese Military Hackers for Cyber Espionage Against 

U.S. Corporations and a Labor Organization for Commercial 

Advantage,” May 19, 2014, available at <https://www.justice.

gov/opa/pr/us-charges-five-chinese-military-hackers-cyberespionage-against-us-corporations-and-labor>. Second, the 

U.S. State Department published a paper formally challenging 

China’s assertion of sovereignty over maritime claims related to 

its “dashed-line” encircling islands and waters in the South China 

Sea. This paper set the legal predicate for freedom of navigation 

operations conducted in the South China Sea by U.S. warships 

that began in 2015. See Bureau of Oceans and International 

Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of 

State, “Maritime Claims in the South China Sea,” Limits in the 

Seas No. 143 (December 5, 2014), available at <http://www.

documentcloud.org/documents/1376464-us-limits-in-the-seasdos-no143-china-in-scs-12.html>. Finally, President Obama’s 

November 2014 summit in China did realize agreement by both 

states to sign the Paris Climate Accord, but the administration did 

not find formal compromise for simmering grievances on the two 

critical issues of Chinese cyber espionage or maritime disputes. 

See Perlez, “China’s ‘New Type’ of Ties Fails to Sway Obama.”

37 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

(Washington, DC: The White House, December 2017), 45.

38 Ibid., 46.

39 H.R. McMaster, “How China Sees the World: And How 

We Should See China,” The Atlantic, May 2020, available 

at <www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/

mcmaster-china-strategy/609088/>.

40 For comments on U.S.-China cooperation, see The National 

Security Strategy of the United States of America, 27; National 

Security Strategy (Washington, DC: The White House, February 

2015), 24.

41 Idress Ali, “In Symbolic Nod to India, U.S. Pacific Command 

Changes Name,” Reuters, May 30, 2018, available at <www.

reuters.com/article/us-usa-defense-india/in-symbolic-nod-toindia-us-pacific-command-changes-name-idUSKCN1IV2Q2>.

42 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and 

Promoting a Networked Region (Washington, DC: Department 

of Defense, June 1, 2019), 8.

43 Admiral Phil Davidson, Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services 

Committee: Opening Remarks, February 12, 2019, available at <https://

www.pacom.mil/Media/Speeches-Testimony/Article/1755445/

senate-armed-services-committee-sasc-opening-statement/>.

44 “Remarks by President Trump at APEC CEO Summit,” Da 

Nang, Vietnam, November 10, 2017, available at <https://

vn.usembassy.gov/20171110-remarks-president-trump-apecceo-summit/>. Henceforth, this chapter uses “FOIP vision” 

to describe the Free and Open Indo-Pacific framework first 

articulated by President Donald Trump at the 2017 APEC CEO 

Summit. While FOIP is more of a concept than a vision, it is 

certainly not a strategy, for it lacks a clear linkage of ends, ways, 

and means. It is, as described in the June 2019 Department of 

Defense Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, “our nation’s vision . . . a 

commitment to a safe, secure, prosperous, and free region that 

benefits all nations . . . [and] flows from common principles that 

underpin the current international order . . . principles we have a 

shared responsibility to uphold.” See Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 

3. Also see reference to FOIP vision in Ely Ratner et al., Rising 

to the China Challenge: Renewing American Competitiveness in 

the Indo-Pacific (Washington, DC: Center for New American 

Security, December 2019), available at <https://s3.amazonaws.

com/files.cnas.org/documents/CNAS-Report-NDAA-final-6.

pdf?mtime=20200116130752>; Assessing the Global Environment: 

Asia (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, October 30, 

2019). The authors acknowledge that the November 2019 State 

Department document talks about a “FOIP strategy” in its cover 

letter and main text but does so interchangeably with FOIP 

vision and its actual subtitle uses the term vision. See A Free and 

Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision (Washington, DC: 

Department of State, November 4, 2019), available at <https://

www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Free-and-OpenIndo-Pacific-4Nov2019.pdf>.

45 See “Sec. Pompeo Remarks on ‘America’s Indo-Pacific Economic 

Vision,’” Inaugural Indo-Pacific Business Forum, U.S. Chamber of 

Commerce, Washington, DC, July 30, 2018, available at <https://

asean.usmission.gov/sec-pompeo-remarks-on-americas-indopacific-economic-vision/>.

46 A Free and Open Indo-Pacific, 6.

47 “Briefing on the Indo-Pacific Strategy,” Department of 

State, April 2, 2018, available at <https://www.state.gov/

briefing-on-the-indo-pacific-strategy/>.

48 For details, see Shayerah Ilias Akhtar and Marian L. Lawson, 

BUILD Act: Frequently Asked Questions About the New U.S. 

International Development Finance Corporation, R45461 

(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 

15, 2019).

49 For a recent overview of these activities, see Admiral Harry B. 

Harris, Jr., Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee 

Hearing on U.S. Pacific Command Posture, February 23, 2016, 

available at <www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/

Harris_02-23-16.pdf>.

50 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report.

51 For a review of U.S. engagement with these multilateral 

Indo-Pacific organizations including Asia-Pacific Economic 

Cooperation, the East Asia Summit, the U.S.-ASEAN Summit, 

the ASEAN Regional Forum, and others, see U.S.-East Asia 

Relations: A Strategy for Multilateral Engagement (New York: Asia 

Society Task Force Report, November 2011), 9–20. Also see James 

Steinberg, “By Abandoning Asia’s Multilateral Organizations, U.S. 

Empowers China,” Nikkei Asian Review, November 21, 2019, 

available at <https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/By-abandoningAsia-s-multilateral-organizations-US-empowers-China>.

52 Trump has held bilateral summits in India, China, and Japan, 

but has attended only two of the six East Asian, Asia-Pacific 

Economic Cooperation, and U.S.-ASEAN summit meetings while 

in office. See Jonah Langan-Marmur and Phillip C. Saunders, 

“Absent Without Leave? Gauging U.S. Commitment to the 

Indo-Pacific,” The Diplomat, May 6, 2020, available at <https://

thediplomat.com/2020/05/absent-without-leave-gauging-uscommitment-to-the-indo-pacific/>.
216 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

53 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper (Canberra: Government 

of Australia, November 2017); “Trump Marks U.S.-Japan 

Security Pact with Call for Stranger, Deeper Alliance,” Reuters, 

January 19, 2020, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-usa-japan-security/trump-marks-u-s-japan-security-pactwith-call-for-stronger-deeper-alliance-idUSKBN1ZI050>.

54 A Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

55 Bonnie Bley, “The New Geography of Global Diplomacy: 

China Advances as the United States Retreats,” Foreign Affairs, 

November 27, 2019, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/

articles/china/2019-11-27/new-geography-global-diplomacy>.

56 Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, The Empty Throne: 

America’s Abdication of Global Leadership (New York: PublicAffairs, 

2018), 164–170.

57 Douglas H. Paal, America’s Future in a Dynamic Asia

(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 

January 31, 2019), available at <https://carnegieendowment.

org/2019/01/31/america-s-future-in-dynamic-asia-pub-78222>.

58 Ibid.

59 China’s five principles of peaceful coexistence are mutual 

respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual 

nonaggression, noninterference in the internal affairs of others, 

equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. These 

have been essential to Chinese foreign policy for more than 60 

years and were amplified in “China’s Policies on Asia-Pacific 

Security Cooperation,” State Council Information Office of 

the People’s Republic of China, January 2017, available at 

<http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/white_paper/2017/01/11/

content_281475539078636.htm>. Also see Ankit Panda, 

“Reflecting on China’s Five Principles, 60 Years Later,” The Diplomat, 

June 2014, available at <https://thediplomat.com/2014/06/

reflecting-on-chinas-five-principles-60-years-later/>.

60 Feng Liu, “The Recalibration of Chinese Assertiveness: China’s 

Responses to the Indo-Pacific Challenge,” International Affairs

96, no. 1 (January 2020), 23–24.

61 Joel Wuthnow, Just Another Paper Tiger? Chinese Perspectives 

on the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, INSS Strategic Forum 305 

(Washington, DC: NDU Press, June 2020), 13–14.

62 See Lily Kuo, “Australia Called ‘Gum Stuck to China’s Shoe’ by 

State Media in Coronavirus Investigation Stoush,” The Guardian, 

April 28, 2020, available at <www.theguardian.com/world/2020/

apr/28/australia-called-gum-stuck-to-chinas-shoe-by-statemedia-in-coronavirus-investigation-stoush>.

63 Kristy Needham, “Australia Rejects Chinese ‘Economic 

Coercion’ Thread amid Planned Coronavirus Probe,” Reuters, 

April 27, 2020, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-health-coronavirus-australia-china-idUSKCN2290Z6>.

64 See “West Feels Challenged by China’s New ‘Wolf Warrior’ 

Diplomacy,” Global Times (Beijing), April 15, 2020, available at 

<https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1185776.shtml>.

65 Ambassador Derek Mitchell, American Leadership in the Asia 

Pacific, Part 3: Promoting Democracy, Human Rights, and the 

Rule of Law, Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations 

Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International 

Cybersecurity Policy, July 12, 2017, available at <https://www.

usip.org/publications/2017/07/american-leadership-asia-pacificpart-3-promoting-democracy-human-rights-and>.

66 Thomas F. Lynch III and James J. Przystup, India-Japan Strategic 

Cooperation and Implications for U.S. Strategy in the Indo-Pacific 

Region, INSS Strategic Perspectives 24 (Washington, DC: NDU 

Press, 2017).

67 “Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students,” United Nations 

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, available 

at <http://uis.unesco.org/en/uis-student-flow>. At the same 

time, growing American fear of systematic, state-led spying by 

Chinese students at American higher learning institutions is 

poised to reduce Chinese exchange student numbers. In July 

2019, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher 

Wray testified to a Senate Judiciary Committee that China poses 

the greatest threat of intellectual and economic property theft 

in the United States and that much of this theft flows through 

Chinese students at American universities. See Ken Dilanian, 

“U.S. Universities Are a Soft Target for China’s Spies, Say Officials,” 

NBC News, February 2, 2020, available at <www.nbcnews.com/

news/china/american-universities-are-soft-target-china-s-spiessay-u-n1104291>.

68 A Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

69 “U.S. Travelers Will Dominate Tourism Spending in AsiaPacific Through 2020,” Skift, May 18, 2016, available at <https://

skift.com/2016/05/18/u-s-visitor-spending-in-asia-pacific/>.

70 Victor Kiprop, “English Speaking Countries in Asia,” World 

Atlas, December 12, 2018, available at <www.worldatlas.com/

articles/english-speaking-countries-in-asia.html>.

71 Eric Fish, “China’s Youth Admire America Far More 

than We Knew,” Foreign Policy, February 9, 2017, 

available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/09/

chinas-youth-admire-america-far-more-than-we-knewsurprising-survey-results-ideological-university-crackdown/>. 

As observed in this article, it is important to note that Western 

researchers do not believe that Chinese youth—or Chinese in 

general—affinities for America and the West are about wholesale adoption of Western liberal democracy. Instead, decades 

of research consistently suggests that many Chinese yearn to 

adopt certain elements of Western governance, such as freedom 

of the press, personal liberties, and official transparency and 

accountability.

72 Abraham Denmark, “Ideological Competition in the IndoPacific,” Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, March 27, 

2018, available at <https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/

ideological-competition-the-indo-pacific>.

73 “Milestone Congress Points to a New Era for China, the 

World,” Xinhua, October 24, 2017, available at <http://www.

chinadaily.com.cn/china/19thcpcnationalcongress/2017-10/24/

content_33648051.htm>.

74 Denmark, “Ideological Competition in the Indo-Pacific.”

75 Denghua Zheng, “The Concept of ‘Community of Common 

Destiny’ in China’s Diplomacy: Meaning, Motives and 

Implications,” Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies 5, no. 2 (March 

2018), 196–207.

76 As Aaron Friedberg observed, China’s ideological appeal is 

constrained by the Chinese Communist Party’s actions at home. 

The expanded resources available to the CCP regime have given 

it a widening array of options for crushing domestic dissent. 

It has strengthened the “Great Firewall” to block unwanted 

internet content. It also is moving toward a nationwide “social 

credit” system that will use facial recognition software and big 

data analytics to monitor the activities, track the movements, 

and assess the political reliability of virtually every person in 

China. This is a capability of which the 20th-century’s totalitarian 

dictators could only dream. See Friedberg, “Getting the China 

Challenge Right.”

77 Authors’ calculations from United Nations World Tourism 

Organization (UNWTO) 2018 data. See “Country ProfileOutbound Tourism,” UNWTO, available at <https://www.

unwto.org/country-profile-outbound-tourism>. An additional 

45 million visited Hong Kong and Macao.

78 Figures for 2010 outbound Chinese students are from the 

UNESCO Institute for Statistics. See “Data for the Sustainable 

Development Goals,” UNESCO, available at <http://www.uis.

unesco.org/Education/Pages/international-student-flow-viz.

aspx>. Figures for Indo-Pacific students in China are from 
The Indo-Pacific Competitive Space 217

“Statistical Report on International Students in China for 2018,” 

Ministry of Education, April 17, 2019, available at <http://en.moe.

gov.cn/documents/reports/201904/t20190418_378692.html>.

79 “Confucius Institutes: Asia,” Office of Chinese Language 

Council International, available at <http://english.hanban.org/

node_10971.htm>.

80 Jonathan Stromseth, The Testing Ground: China’s Rising Influence 

in Southeast Asia and Regional Responses (Washington, DC: 

Brookings Institution, November 2019), available at <https://

www.brookings.edu/research/the-testing-ground-chinas-risinginfluence-in-southeast-asia-and-regional-responses/>.

81 See Shaun Breslin, “China’s Global Cultural Interactions,” in 

China and the World, 137–155.

82 Laura Silver, Kat Devlin, and Christine Huang, “People Around 

the Globe Are Divided in Their Opinions of China,” Pew Research 

Center, December 5, 2019, available at <https://www.pewresearch.

org/fact-tank/2019/12/05/people-around-the-globe-are-dividedin-their-opinions-of-china/>.

83 “Social Media Usage in the Asia Pacific,” Pixium Digital, available 

at <https://pixiumdigital.com/social-media-usage-asia-pacific/>.

84 “Global Engagement Center,” Department of State, 

available at <https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/

under-secretary-for-public-diplomacy-and-public-affairs/

global-engagement-center/>.

85 “About Radio Free Asia,” RFA, available at <https://www.rfa.

org/about>; “U.S. Agency for Global Media,” U.S. Broadcasting 

Board of Governors, available at <https://www.usagm.gov/>.

86 See Larry Diamond and Orville Schell, eds., China’s Influence 

and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance

(Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2019), appendix 1.

87 Silver, Devlin, and Huang, “People Around the Globe Are 

Divided in Their Opinions of China.”

88 This claim attributed to U.S. Department of State Global 

Engagement Center Director Lea Gabrielle, reported in Betsy 

Woodruff Swan, “State Report: Russia, Chinese, and Iranian 

Disinformation Narratives Echoing Each Other,” Politico, April 

21, 2010, available at <www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/

russia-china-iran-disinformation-coronavirus-statedepartment-193107>.

89 Needham, “Australia Rejects Chinese ‘Economic Coercion’ 

Threat amid Planned Coronavirus Probe”; Yasmeen Serhan, 

“Indians Aren’t Buying China’s Narrative,” The Atlantic, April 

21, 2020, available at <www.theatlantic.com/international/

archive/2020/04/india-china-pandemic-coronavirusdistrust/610273>; Philip Citowicki, “COVID-19 Escalates the 

China-Australia Contest in the Pacific,” The Diplomat, April 

10, 2020, available at <https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/

covid-19-escalates-the-china-australia-contest-in-the-pacific/>.

90 Bates Gill, “China’s Global Influence: Post-COVID Prospects for 

Soft Power,” The Washington Quarterly 43, no. 2 (Summer 2020), 

97–115, available at <https://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/files/2020/06/

Gill_TWQ_43-2.pdf>.

91 These numbers are extracted from “Asian-Pacific Military 

Strength (2020),” Global Firepower, available at <www.

globalfirepower.com/countries-listing-asia-pacific.asp>; “Asia,” 

Heritage Foundation, October 30, 2019, available at <https://www.

heritage.org/military-strength/assessing-the-global-operatingenvironment/asia>. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command claims far 

more robust numbers for its regional forces on its public-facing 

information sites, contending that it has 5 carrier groups, 200 

ships, and more than 300,000 military personnel. These numbers 

have understandable deterrent value, but overcount actual intheater assets by claiming credit for all U.S. military assets that 

could be deployed in the event of a major surge requirement. 

See “About USINDOPACOM,” available at <https://www.pacom.

mil/About-USINDOPACOM/>.

92 See Joel Wuthnow and Phillip C. Saunders, Chinese Military 

Reforms in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and 

Implications, China Strategic Perspectives 10 (Washington, DC: 

NDU Press, March 2017); China Military Power: Modernizing a 

Force to Fight and Win (Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence 

Agency, 2019).

93 While the notion of “island chains” is a construct that the 

Chinese military borrowed from American World War II military 

and diplomatic talk, and there is no authoritative Chinese military 

definition of each of the chains, most Chinese sources include 

Taiwan, Japan/the Ryukyu Islands, and the Philippines as being 

in the First Island Chain, and all include the Northern Mariana 

Islands in the Second Island Chain. See Andrew S. Erikson and 

Joel Wuthnow, “Barriers, Springboards, and Benchmarks: China 

Conceptualizes the Pacific ‘Island Chains,’” The China Quarterly

No. 225 (January 2016), 6–9.

94 The United States recognizes Japanese administrative control 

over the Diaoyu/Senakaku Islands and therefore regards them 

as covered under the U.S.-Japan security treaty but does not take 

a position on the underlying sovereignty dispute.

95 See Lyle J. Goldstein, Five Dragons Stirring Up the Sea: Challenge 

and Opportunity in China’s Improving Maritime Enforcement 

Capabilities No. 5 (Newport, RI: U.S. Naval War College China 

Maritime Studies Institute, April 2010).

96 Ratner et al., Rising to the China Challenge.

97 For a recent overview of these activities, see Harris, Statement 

Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on U.S. 

Pacific Command Posture.

98 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report.

99 Ratner et al., Rising to the China Challenge.

100 The People’s Liberation Army calls this “systems attack” or 

“systems confrontation.” See Jeff Engstrom, Systems Confrontation 

and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People’s 

Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare (Arlington, 

VA: RAND, 2018).

101 For a concise overview of U.S. policy, see Richard C. Bush, A OneChina Policy Primer, East Asia Policy Paper, No. 10 (Washington, 

DC: Brookings Institution, March 2017), available at <https://

www.brookings.edu/research/a-one-china-policy-primer/>.

102 “An Interactive Look at the U.S.-China Military Scorecard,” 

RAND–Project Air Force, available at <https://www.rand.org/

paf/projects/us-china-scorecard.html>. RAND defined advantage

to mean that one side is able to achieve its primary objectives 

in an operationally relevant time period, while the other side 

would have trouble doing so.

103 Stephen Bryen, “Why the U.S. Withdrew Its Bombers from 

Guam,” Asia Times (Hong Kong), April 28, 2020, available at 

<https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/why-the-us-withdrew-itsbombers-from-guam/>; Lee Jeong-ho, “China Releases Footage of 

‘Guam Killer’ DF-26 Ballistic Missile in ‘Clear Message to the U.S.,’” 

South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), January 28, 2019, available 

at <www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/2183972/

china-releases-footage-guam-killer-df-26-ballistic-missile-clear>.

104 “An Interactive Look at the U.S.-China Military Scorecard.”

105 Similar conclusions are found in Eric Heginbotham et al., 

The U.S.-China Military Scorecard Forces, Geography, and the 

Evolving Balance of Power, 1996–2017 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 

2015), available at <https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/

RR392.html>.

106 Figures are 2017 data from the United Nations Comtrade 

Database, using the trade dashboard to count exports by Japan, 

North Korea, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India, 
218 Lynch, Przystup, and Saunders

Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Nepal. Hong Kong re-exports 

to China are calculated at the 2018 rate of 55 percent.

107 This figure is U.S. imports from China, which captures Chinese 

exports routed to the United States through Hong Kong.

108 Members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership included Australia, 

Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, 

New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

109 The Comprehensive Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific 

Partnership established an 11-country trading bloc representing 

495 million people and a combined gross domestic product of 

$13.5 trillion. It was written with an eye to future expansion. 

If the United States chooses to join, it would add nearly 330 

million people and make the bloc the largest free-trading single 

market in the world, at 40 percent of world trade. See Keith 

Johnson, “The U.S. Wants Back in the TPP? Good Luck with 

That,” Foreign Policy, March 29, 2018, available at <https://

foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/united-states-wants-back-intpp-good-luck-with-that-trans-pacific-partnership-asia/>; 

“Overview and Benefits of the CPTPP,” Government of Canada, 

available at <https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/

trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/cptpp-ptpgp/

overview-apercu.aspx?lang=eng>.

110 Keith Johnson, “How Trump May Finally Kill the WTO,” 

Foreign Policy, December 9, 2019, available at <https://

foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/09/trump-may-kill-wto-finallyappellate-body-world-trade-organization/>.

111 “Sec. Pompeo Remarks on America’s Indo-Pacific Economic 

Vision.”

112 “Joint Statement of the Governments of the United 

States of America, Australia, and Japan,” The White House, 

November 17, 2018, available at <https://www.whitehouse.gov/

briefings-statements/joint-statement-governments-united-statesamerica-australia-japan/>.

113 Subsequently, this distinction was superseded by the economic 

impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. See Ken Roberts, “China 

Trade War Losses at $84 Billion and Counting—Does New Data 

Suggest Tide Turning Toward U.S.?” Forbes, December 16, 2019, 

available at <www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2019/12/16/

china-trade-war-losses-at-84-billion-and-counting—does-newdata-suggest-tide-turning-toward-us/#35c3b543bd40>. Clearly, 

the global economic disruption from COVID-19 will eclipse this 

trade war by quite some margin.

114 Steve Liesman, “Trade War Losses for the U.S. and China 

Grow into the Tens of Billions of Dollars,” CNBC, November 

5, 2019, available at <www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/trade-lossesfor-the-us-china-mount-into-tens-of-billions-of-dollars.html>.

115 See Economic and Trade Agreement Between the Government 

of the United States of America and the Government of the 

People’s Republic of China (Washington, DC: Office of the U.S. 

Trade Representative, 2020), available at <https://ustr.gov/sites/

default/files/files/agreements/phase%20one%20agreement/

Economic_And_Trade_Agreement_Between_The_United_

States_And_China_Text.pdf>.

116 See Scott Kennedy, “China’s Poor Purchasing Performance: 

How Should the United States Respond?” Center for Strategic 

and International Studies, May 8, 2020, available at <https://

www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-poor-purchasing-performancehow-should-united-states-respond>.

117 See Sam Kim, “Korea Warns of Trade Pain That Will Shift 

Supply Chains,” Bloomberg, May 10, 2020, available at <www.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-10/korea-warns-ofsharper-trade-pain-that-will-shift-supply-chains>; Carmen 

Reinicke, “These 8 Asian Countries Will Get the Biggest Boost 

If the Trade War Forces U.S. Companies to Leave China,” 

Markets Insider, August 28, 2019, available at <https://markets.

businessinsider.com/news/stocks/8-asian-countries-that-couldbenefit-us-china-trade-war-2019-8-1028481289>.

118 Peter Harrell, Elizabeth Rosenberg, and Edoardo Saravalle, 

China’s Use of Coercive Economic Measures (Washington, 

DC: Center for a New American Security, June 11, 2018), 

available at <https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/

chinas-use-of-coercive-economic-measures>.

119 “China Global Investment Tracker,” American Enterprise 

Institute, April 30, 2020, available at <https://www.aei.org/chinaglobal-investment-tracker/>. Figures do not include Chinese 

investment or construction projects in Hong Kong or Macao.

120 Figures are calculated from “China’s Public Diplomacy 

Dashboard Dataset (Version 1.0),” AidData, December 

9, 2019, available at <https://www.aiddata.org/chinapublic-diplomacy>; also see Cheng Cheng, The Logic 

Behind China’s Foreign Aid Agency (Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 2019), 

available at <https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/05/21/

logic-behind-china-s-foreign-aid-agency-pub-79154>.

121 Wuthnow, Just Another Paper Tiger? 15.

122 See Joel Wuthnow, “Managing U.S.-China Military Relations in 

an Era of Strategic Competition,” paper presented at a University 

of Pennsylvania colloquium on U.S.-China relations, June 4, 2020.

123 For a discussion of these challenges, see Thomas Fingar and 

Jean C. Oi, “China’s Challenges: Now It Gets Harder,” Washington 

Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 2020), 65–82.

124 Paal, America’s Future in a Dynamic Asia.

125 Charles Edel and Hal Brands, “The Real Origins of the 

U.S.-China Cold War,” Foreign Policy, June 2, 2019, available 

at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/02/the-real-origins-ofthe-u-s-china-cold-war-big-think-communism/>.

126 Ibid.

127 Ibid.
219

Chapter 10

Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers in 

an Era of Great Power Competition

By Bryce Loidolt, Mariya Omelicheva, and James Przystup

This chapter reviews the interests and behavior of Russia, Iran, and North Korea, 

so-called rogue, disrupter, and spoiler states. Motivated by goals ranging from a desire for regime survival to aspirations for regional dominance and even global relevance, these countries threaten to divert U.S. attention and resources away from 

the imperatives of Great Power competition and draw the United States into escalating and destructive crises. At first glance, then, there might appear to be strong 

incentives for China to form enduring, fully cooperative relationships with each of 

these countries. Yet this chapter also finds that Russian, Iranian, and North Korean 

provocative behavior is not uniformly beneficial for China, and the prospect of a 

robust and fully cooperative anti-U.S. axis in 2020 remains remote. U.S. policymakers should anticipate the threat from each of these states to persist, but not 

necessarily to become more pronounced, as U.S.-Chinese competition intensifies.

As the United States continues to move into an era of Great Power competition featuring long-term rivalry and the prospect of Great Power transition with China, it will continue to encounter destabilizing activities from so-called rogue, disrupter, and spoiler states 

and regimes. We define this group of countries as those that lack the military and longterm economic power and/or transnational cultural appeal to match U.S. power globally or 

stabilize an alternative international political order. These states also tend to confront the 

United States below the threshold of active armed conflict and across multiple domains.1 In 

defining this category of states based both on material and nonmaterial attributes as well 

as on conduct, this chapter reaches across what are often subjective, analytically blurry, 

and historically contingent concepts and definitions.2 Although many countries meet the 

criteria identified above, this chapter focuses specifically on the challenges posed by the 

Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of 

Korea (DPRK).

Notably, the grouping of these three countries within the same analytic category is a 

departure from the National Defense Strategy and the National Security Strategy, both of 

which describe the DPRK and Iran as rogue regimes and Russia as a near-peer competitor 
220 Loidolt, Omelicheva, and Przystup

on a par with China.3

 This categorizing also deviates from the other chapters in this volume that treat Russia as a near-peer Great Power competitor. This change is intentional. 

The inclusion of Russia and exclusion of China—whose behavior is sometimes consistent 

with the definitional criteria offered above—is not intended to argue that Russian foreign 

policy lacks a desire for global relevance or that Russia is currently unable to compete with 

the United States. It is also not intended to sidestep the dimensions of Chinese behavior 

consistent with rogue, disrupter, or spoiler states. Instead, we posit that Russia and China’s divergent economic trajectories imply a divergence in their future military strength. 

If Russian material power continues to decline and China’s increases in the years to come, 

then Moscow’s somewhat debatable status as a contemporary Great Power will recede even 

further.4 Thus, the alternative view of Moscow offered in this chapter may be an increasingly 

useful lens through which to analyze and understand Russian behavior and its implications 

for an era that becomes increasingly dominated by a U.S.-China Great Power dyad.5

The DPRK, Iran, and Russia are motivated by a combination of regime survival, aspirations for regional dominance and sometimes global relevance, as well as an inclination to 

confront the United States, which they all see as the main obstacle to their own aspirations. 

And lacking a proactive vision for or means to stabilize an alternative international order, 

these countries employ a variety of coercive instruments—ranging from proxy warfare to 

direct military threats—to pursue their interests.6 Moreover, their development of nuclear 

weapons and, in some cases, proliferation of ballistic missiles poses a serious threat to regional stability.

Through these activities, each of these countries threatens to undermine the security 

of U.S. allies and partners, erode U.S. credibility and influence abroad, and mire the United 

States and its allies in a labyrinth of internal challenges by impairing the legitimacy of their 

democratic political processes. Although such coercive activities tend to fall below a threshold that would prompt a conventional military response from the United States, they also 

risk escalating into potentially lethal crises. These states could not only divert U.S. attention 

and resources away from longer term objectives but also draw the United States into more 

distracting and costly confrontations.

Costs for the United States imply benefits for China, naturally raising the troubling 

specter of a more robust strategic alignment among these states against the United States. 

Indeed, China’s security and economic relationships with Russia, Iran, and the DPRK often 

serve to constrain U.S. power. Welcoming the diversionary and constraining benefits of 

these countries’ activities, Beijing could seek to strategically instigate these states’ destabilizing behavior to the detriment of the United States.

This chapter finds, however, that Russian, Iranian, and North Korean provocative 

behavior is not uniformly beneficial for China, and the prospect of a robust and fully cooperative anti-U.S. axis in 2020 remains remote. U.S.-Chinese competition will yield limited 

prospects for burden-sharing between Beijing and Washington in comprehensively addressing Russian, Iranian, or DPRK conduct that is harmful to the United States. Given the 

negative externalities, the behavior of each country likely limits the depth of its relationship 

with Beijing.

China will need to balance the costs that these states can inflict on the United States 

and its allies with the potential spillover effects rogue and spoiler activities can have on 
Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers 221

Beijing’s economic interests and strategic partnerships. Ultimately, U.S. policymakers can 

anticipate neither fully cooperative nor obstructive responses from China to address the 

challenges each of these countries poses to regional stability.

The remainder of this chapter begins with an overview of the interests and behavior of 

the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the DPRK—paying specific attention to how these states’ activities affect U.S. security interests. The second section turns to 

a discussion of China’s relationship with these countries as well as the positive and negative 

consequences that their behaviors have for Chinese interests. It concludes with a projection 

for how these security challenges might evolve over the next 5 years and the implications 

for U.S.-China strategic competition.

Russian Federation 

As detailed in chapter 3a of this volume, Russia’s foreign policy is motivated by Great Power 

aspirations, a desire to reconstitute a sphere of influence in a multipolar world, and the desire for a buffer zone along its western, southern, and eastern borders to protect the country 

from potential security threats.7 Russian leadership views the unipolar world dominated by 

the United States as the gravest threat to its national interests. Russia perceives the United 

States as a dangerous meddler in the domestic affairs of sovereign states and as a rogue 

disrupter of stability in the Middle East and other parts of the world. This shift in Russian 

foreign policy from cooperation to competition with the United States did not occur all at 

once in 2014 but, rather, in the mid-1990s, when Russia’s foreign policy establishment, disillusioned with the lack of reciprocity to its accommodation and integration with the West, 

began conceiving of a unipolar world as inimical to its own national interests.

As delineated in chapter 3b of this book, while Russia tends to pursue its interests 

through unconventional means of coercive influence, its conventional military capabilities 

loom large.8 Beginning in Ukraine in 2014, Russia’s disinformation campaign and use of 

“little green men” were deemed effective substitutes for the direct application of military 

power, and in Syria, Russia’s military proxies have allowed the Kremlin to plan and direct 

military actions under the cover of plausible deniability. Yet it is improved conventional 

military capabilities—rapidly deployable force; air defense; command, control, intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance; long-range strikes—that have been equally, if not more, 

decisive for Moscow in both theaters.9 Conventional military power has helped Moscow 

sustain pressure on Kyiv; in Syria, Russia’s expeditionary capabilities have forged it into a 

key powerbroker in the conflict. Russia’s gray zone tactics, which encompass psychological, 

cyber, computer network, proxy warfare, and electronic operations, are thus complementary to its conventional military capabilities.

Together with its information warfare in Ukraine, Moscow’s interference in U.S. domestic politics represents a blueprint for a so-called strategy of active defense. Discussed 

by a chief architect of Russia’s military doctrine, General Valery Gerasimov, this preemptive strategy encompasses a range of information tactics applied to destabilize potential 

threats to Russia’s interests.10 These approaches include the use of Internet trolls (government-funded individuals who exploit social cleavages through fake blogs, offensive and 

inflammatory comments, and false information for sowing discord or swaying public opinion); leaking adverse, sensitive, or misleading information on foreign government officials 
222 Loidolt, Omelicheva, and Przystup

and institutions; and using government-funded mass media to disseminate propaganda 

favoring Russia. Releasing a significant amount of sensitive information or disinformation 

ahead of foreign elections or at the height of an international crisis involving Russia, using 

trolls and bots to amplify it, and publicizing these findings on Russia-sponsored outlets are 

used synergistically to orchestrate Russia’s information strategy.11

The spread of Russia’s cyber intrusions and operations—ranging from the distributed 

denial-of-service (DDoS) and Structured Query Language injection attacks to phishing and 

eavesdropping—speaks to the sophistication of the country’s cyber tools and institutional 

architecture for implementing them. The latter combines multiple security agencies with 

vast expertise in foreign and domestic intelligence-gathering with proxy-cyber activists, 

the so-called patriotic hackers, cyber criminals, and even legitimate cyber tech firms. Outsourcing cyber attacks allows Russia to create plausible deniability and lower the risks and 

costs associated with controversial foreign information campaigns. These attacks can also 

be used to sabotage critical physical infrastructure—banks, state institutions, and power 

plants—on a massive scale (as they did in Estonia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Montenegro). 

Multiple international organizations, including the World Anti-Doping Agency and the 

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), have also been targets 

of Russia’s cyber attacks.12 Russia’s hacking attempt at the chemical weapons watchdog took 

place against the backdrop of the OPCW’s ongoing investigation into the 2018 use of a military-grade nerve agent attack against Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom.13

Proxies and mercenaries are other assets that allow Russia to accomplish its objectives 

without resorting to conventional military means. Russian mercenaries have fought alongside regular forces in complex battlespaces in Syria and eastern Ukraine and have operated 

in various capacities in the Central African Republic (CAR), Libya, Sudan, and even Venezuela. In all these contexts, the presence of Russian private military companies (PMCs) on 

the ground has allowed the Kremlin to play a critical role in security policies of these states. 

Because Russia’s PMCs, in particular the Wagner Group, rely on the profits from natural 

resources seized on behalf of regimes in Syria, Sudan, or CAR for reimburse for their military service, their involvement in conflicts redirect the supported governments’ operational 

priorities. Furthermore, in Sudan and CAR, Wagner has not only operated in a combat role 

but also provided these regimes with training, site defense, and security provision for toplevel officials.14 

Of course, Russia also employs more traditional means, using diplomacy, foreign aid, 

and arms transfers to pursue its strategic objectives. For example, in the United Nations 

Security Council, Russia has continued to veto resolutions aimed at investigating or sanctioning Bashar al-Asad’s use of chemical weapons and wider brutality during the Syrian 

civil war.15 In Latin America, Russia has extended critical economic support to the embattled regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, stymying hopes for a democratic transition 

and undermining regional stability.16 Additionally, through its arms transfers, Russia has 

sought to exploit or otherwise create strategic daylight between the United States and its 

allies.17 Moscow has upped the ante through coercive messaging to Western audiences, 

stressing Russian resolve for nuclear retaliation and touting its purported superiority in 

hypersonic and other weapons systems.18 Russia often accompanies these announcements 
Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers 223

with displays of force in massive wargames and provocative air force maneuvers near North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) territory.19

These activities from Russia have far-reaching consequences for political stability, societal harmony, and continuous functioning of democratic institutions in its immediate 

neighborhood and around the world. Cyber attacks on physical infrastructure, particularly 

when they are combined with political trolling, not only have immediate grim consequences 

but also stimulate public fear, disengagement, and mistrust in the ability of the government 

to protect citizens. Information operations and the use of proxies have allowed Russia to 

maintain or expand its political and military influence (and supplant that of the United 

States) in many theaters around the world at relatively low cost. Turkey’s status and NATO’s 

continued viability and integrity are also in question, as Ankara is being pulled away from 

the West by the conflict. The unresolved war in Ukraine threatens to transform into a frozen 

conflict that would preclude Kyiv’s integration into an array of liberal, democratic, and open 

European states. By offering security to embattled autocratic leaders in Africa, Russia also 

threatens to undermine U.S. interests by weakening local governance; this elevates Moscow’s geopolitical posture and its material gains derived from weapons sales and access to 

natural resources.

The Islamic Republic of Iran 

A mix of ideational and material factors motivates Iranian foreign policy behavior and 

underpins Iran’s pursuit of regional interests. Iranian foreign policy revolves around the 

survival of the Islamic Republic in the face of perceived internal and external threats. 

Although the revolutionary zeal that characterized Iranian foreign policy throughout the 

1980s has withered, Iran seeks to displace U.S. and Israeli regional dominance. Iran has 

often framed its policies in defensive terms. The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, 

Major General Mohammad Baqeri, declared in early 2019, “Regional enemies should know 

that in addition to [a] doctrine of peace, Iran has a strong military presence.”20 Nevertheless, 

Iran has been able to exploit the instability generated by the Arab Spring to counter what 

it views as U.S. and Israeli imperialist hegemony in the region, while also shoring up traditional allies and creating new ones in the Levant.21

Hampered by economic sanctions, particularly after the U.S. May 2018 withdrawal 

from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and facing a hostile geopolitical 

environment, Iran has been unable to address the threats to its national security through 

conventional military power. Since the Iran-Iraq War, the Islamic Republic has not had 

access to the foreign inputs required to rebuild and modernize its conventional military 

forces; it also lacks the requisite indigenous defense industrial base to do so unilaterally.22 

Moreover, the devastating Iran-Iraq War has been seminal in shaping Iran’s force structure 

decisions, creating a strong inclination among Iranian decisionmakers to avoid conventional warfare altogether.23 As a result, Iran pursues its goals through a more asymmetric 

approach that aims to coerce and deter the United States and Israel, as well as rival Arab 

Gulf states, without prompting a conventional military response from its better equipped 

and more militarily proficient adversaries.

Iran’s regional defense strategy relies on several instruments of coercion, deterrence, 

and defense, each of which can be calibrated to meet an array of threats. First, Iran has 
224 Loidolt, Omelicheva, and Przystup

developed a standoff strike capability that allows it to credibly threaten military, economic, 

and civilian targets within its rival’s borders.24 These weapons, which include ballistic and 

cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), afford Iran not only a lower cost but 

also a plausibly deniable alternative to manned aircraft. In many ways, this obviates Iran’s 

need for an air force capable of long-range precision strikes.25 For example, on September 

14, 2019, an attack using a combined 25 missiles and drones allowed Iran to jeopardize 

roughly half of Saudi Arabia’s oil output. Moreover, in response to the U.S. killing of Islamic 

Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force commander Qassem Suleimani and Kata’ib Hizballah commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic 

missiles at two Iraqi bases hosting U.S. and coalition personnel in January 2020.26 

Iran maintains several capabilities that have allowed it to disrupt global shipping in 

the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime chokepoint.Although Iran has continued to threaten 

to close down the strait, the technical requirements and subsequent countermeasures that 

such an attempt would instigate make this prospect unlikely.27 Nevertheless, Iran has several 

options that it could employ in various combinations to affect the calculus of the shipping 

industry, raising the costs of transiting the Strait of Hormuz and threatening to constrain 

the global energy supply; they include shore-based antiship cruise missiles, naval mines, 

armed IRGC navy speed boats, and UAVs.28 The continued, albeit recently less prevalent, incidence of provocative behavior by the Iranian navy demonstrated a willingness to obstruct 

maritime traffic by attacking civilian tankers in the gulf with limpet mines in June 2019.29

Next, Iran maintains an array of militant clients that, although varying in the degree of 

their responsiveness to Tehran, allows Iran to extend its influence to neighboring countries, 

forming what Iranian officials commonly refer to as the “Axis of Resistance.”30 This includes 

longstanding clients such as Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas, as well as the Ansar Allah or 

Houthi rebels in Yemen, al-Ashtar Brigades in Bahrain, and the Afghan Fatimiyun and Pakistani Zaynabiyun Brigades that fight in Syria.31 Iran’s diverse network of militant partners 

also contains several Shia groups in Iraq, encompassing long-term Iranian partners such 

as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hizballah, and the Badr Organization, as well as recent iterations of smaller so-called special groups, that, although lesser in terms of pure numbers, are 

suspected to have closer ties to Tehran.32 These clients allow Iran to extend its political influence while offering it additional platforms from which it can attack U.S. and allied interests.

Iran has also sponsored terrorist attacks farther abroad, beyond areas where Iran lends 

support to militant proxies in the Middle East. For example, throughout the 1990s, Iranian 

operatives supported or directly executed a series of assassinations of Iranian dissidents in 

Europe.33 In 2018, law enforcement authorities in Belgium, France, and Germany arrested 

Iranian operatives—including a government official—who had planned to bomb a political 

rally in France.34 IRGC-led plots to attack Western and Israeli targets have also been disrupted in Nigeria, Kenya, Uruguay, and the United States.35 

Iran has recently expanded its cyber activities to offensive intrusions and attacks on 

foreign companies.36 From September 2012 through January 2013, a hacker group known 

as the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters carried out several DDoS attacks against U.S. financial institutions. Moreover, Iran is suspected to be behind the August 2012 cyber attack 

on Saudi Aramco as well as a 2016 attack that affected the Saudi General Authority for Civil 

Aviation and the Central Bank.37
Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers 225

Finally, since the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran has gradually resumed its 

nuclear enrichment activities. In 2018, Iran prepared to expand its manufacturing and enrichment capacity, remaining within the JCPOA-prescribed limits.38 In the wake of the U.S. 

killing of Qassem Suleimani, Iran also announced that it would be abandoning operational 

limits imposed by the nuclear deal.39

Though not by any means an existential threat to the United States, Iran’s set of coercive 

options and activities presents hazards to the stability of U.S. partners, allies, and regional 

interests. Beyond the recent U.S. strikes against Suleimani and Katib Hizballah facilities, 

U.S. allies and partners in the Middle East have come into conflict with Iranian-backed 

clients. This includes the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen as well as Israel, which has taken 

a more forward-leaning role in striking Iranian-backed proxies in Iraq and Syria.40 Iran’s 

activities in the Strait of Hormuz, including the June 2019 downing of a U.S. UAV and the 

seizing of civilian tankers, further risk instigating tit-for-tat escalations that could significantly disrupt maritime traffic through a key strategic chokepoint—just as a resumption in 

Iran’s nuclear activities could spark a dangerous regional conflict.41

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 

The DPRK operates more as a quasi-criminal enterprise than a legitimate nation-state.42 At 

its core, the Kim Jong-un government is most concerned with sustaining its family enterprise and ensuring the survival of the regime at all costs. It also prioritizes the reunification 

of the Korean Peninsula as a means to the end of regime survival and an endstate of itself.43 

This apparent lack of international ambition on the part of the Kim regime might suggest 

an attenuated threat to global stability, but its activities have far-reaching consequences for 

U.S. security interests in the new era of Great Power competition.

Through the development of weapons of mass destruction, use of chemical weapons, 

and aggressive posturing of its conventional forces, the DPRK threatens regional stability 

and global norms. North Korea is estimated to have somewhere between 15 and 60 nuclear 

warheads, as well as approximately 650 ballistic missiles that could threaten cities in South 

Korea, Japan, and eastern China.44 It has also tested intercontinental ballistic missiles that 

could be capable of striking the United States.45 At the same time, North Korea continues to 

pose a conventional threat to South Korea and Japan. The People’s Army, an estimated 1.2 

million in strength, is overwhelmingly forward-deployed toward the Demilitarized Zone 

in an offensive posture.46 Kim has also pursued more advanced conventional capabilities, 

including more precise artillery and ballistic missile capabilities as well as UAVs.47 In this 

environment, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal provides Pyongyang with the potential for nuclear blackmail, allowing it to engage in lower level conventional provocations and, at the 

same time, affect South Korean and U.S. decisions on kinetic responses or induce economic 

concessions.

Underscoring the criminal nature of the regime, in February 2017, the DPRK carried 

out the assassination of Kim’s half-brother using the nerve agent VX in Malaysia.48 North 

Korea’s malign behavior has historically extended beyond Asia and included weapons 

transfers to hostile states and armed groups in the Middle East. Iran has been accused of 

being “one of the two most lucrative markets for DPRK military-related cooperation.”49

Pyongyang has indeed engaged in an ongoing relationship with Iran featuring sales and 
226 Loidolt, Omelicheva, and Przystup

the transfer of military technology that has served to advance the development of Tehran’s 

ballistic missile programs.50 The DPRK has also pursued military cooperation and technology transfers in the Sudan and offered small arms and ballistic missiles to the Houthi rebels 

in Yemen through a Syrian intermediary.51 North Korea has also exported the SCUD-D, a 

newly tested advanced short-range ballistic missile, to Syria.52 

To sustain the regime in the face of international sanctions and condemnation, North 

Korea has resorted to a wide range of illegal activities that violate global norms. Pyongyang 

has employed its cyber capabilities to hack banks across the globe, reportedly carrying out 

successful cyber heists against banks in Bangladesh, Chile, Guatemala, India, Kuwait, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam.53 These attacks 

can be quite lucrative; it has been reported that in one such attack against the Central Bank 

of Bangladesh in 2016, North Korea netted $81 million.54 A United Nations Security Council report estimates that in total the DPRK may have acquired as much as $2 billion through 

its cyber operations.55 North Korean cyber operations have also targeted media outlets that 

it deems critical of its policies or of Kim in particular.56

Currency counterfeiting and narcotics trafficking have helped the regime generate 

funds and offset the effects of sanctions. In the late 1970s, Pyongyang began to put counterfeit U.S. currency into circulation, featuring “supernotes”—phony bills of remarkably high 

quality—of $50 and $100 denominations. There is a high degree of uncertainty regarding 

the value of this activity; estimates range from $1.25 million to $250 million per annum.57

Since the 1970s, when Pyongyang began to sponsor opium cultivation and the production 

of opiates, North Korean diplomats have been arrested in antinarcotics operations across 

the globe. As of 2007, North Korea has been linked to drug seizures in at least 20 countries.58

In the 1990s, North Korea reportedly began manufacturing crystal methamphetamine for 

exports using Chinese triads, the Japanese Yakuza, and the Russian mafia as distribution 

channels.59 To weaken the effect of sanctions on North Korea’s exports, Pyongyang has 

moved to step up production of illicit drugs to earn the hard currency needed to fund its 

nuclear and missile development programs.60

North Korea thus represents a multidimensional threat to the prosperity and security 

of the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region, as its nuclear weapons, ballistic 

missiles, and conventional posture place several U.S. allies at risk. The DPRK’s willingness 

to use chemical weapons and its involvement in transnational criminal activity similarly 

violate international norms, and the aforementioned cyber operations have important consequences for the security of the global financial sector.

Rogue, Disrupter, and Spoiler State Behavior 

and U.S.-China Competition 

Beijing currently maintains collaborative, if sometimes distant, relations with Russia, Iran, 

and the DPRK. China shares with all of these countries a general displeasure with U.S. hegemony and dominance of international institutions. Iran is considered a “comprehensive 

strategic partner” by Beijing, and Chinese-Iranian cooperation spans the economic and 

security spheres.61 With respect to the former, since 2005, Chinese investments in and contracts with Iran have topped $27 billion.62 And China has reportedly assisted in developing 

Iran’s ballistic missiles, antiship mines, fast-attack boats, and other weapons technology.63 In 
Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers 227

2018, China also imported $15 billion worth of oil from Iran.64 China and Russia maintain a 

“comprehensive cooperative” strategic partnership, which may be emblematic of deepening 

Sino-Russian cooperation.65 In addition to regular diplomatic and military exchanges under 

the auspices of regional and international organizations, Russia agreed to assist China in 

building a strategic missile early-warning system and may view a relationship with China 

as a valuable avenue through which it can challenge the United States.66 China’s share of 

Russia’s trade and investments has also grown.67 While Beijing officially continues to support United Nations sanctions on North Korea, cross-border trade with North Korea has 

bolstered regime stability. In July 2019, the South China Morning Post reported a 14.3 percent increase in China’s trade with North Korea in the first half of 2019, amounting to $1.25 

billion.68 President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pyongyang in June 2019 stands as a clear indication 

of China’s political and economic support for the DPRK.

Although Chinese interests in maintaining relationships with each state are distinct, 

ranging from shared hostility toward the United States to China’s energy needs and desire to 

maintain a peaceful neighborhood, China’s behavior has the consequence of insulating Russia, Iran, and the DPRK from the costs of their provocative behavior. In the case of Iran and 

the DPRK, economic relations with Beijing offer relief from international sanctions. Additionally, Iran has relied on China for advanced conventional capabilities. Chinese trade and 

largesse similarly offer Russia an economic lifeline. China has also been willing to purchase 

Russian combat aircraft and surface-to-air missile systems despite U.S. sanctions.69

In turn, each state’s provocative activities offer some important perks for Beijing. First, 

China benefits from having additional voices questioning the value and wisdom of U.S. hegemony and international norms. This benefit is perhaps most apparent in the cyber domain, 

where both Russia and China have advocated for a different set of norms on cyber and information security that emphasizes state sovereignty and prioritizes constraints on the free flow 

of information over the safeguarding of critical cyber infrastructure and networks.70

The diversionary benefits of each country’s behavior are also considerable. Iranian 

provocations tie U.S. resources down in a volatile and often hostile region rather than 

the Indo-Pacific.71 Indeed, since May 2019, the United States has deployed 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East, coinciding with a rise in tensions between Iran and 

the United States.72 China similarly benefits from Russia’s propensity for distracting the 

United States from China’s potentially destabilizing and convention-breaking activities 

around the world.73

These countries’ behavior also poses important risks for Beijing, however: for one, the 

prospect of crisis escalation between the United States and any of these countries would be 

enormously costly for China. China’s objectives toward the Korean Peninsula and North 

Korea in particular have remained consistent since the beginning of the nuclear crisis in 

the early 1990s. China seeks to avoid war on the peninsula and inhibit the collapse of the 

North Korean regime, while also pursuing the peaceful denuclearization of the DPRK. As a 

result, China likely views U.S.-DPRK sabre rattling with a degree of alarm. Thus, while seeking the survival of the Kim regime as a major priority, Beijing has continued to encourage 

diplomatic engagement between Washington and Pyongyang even as it offsets the effects 

of U.S. sanctions.74 An active conflict in the Persian Gulf that could come about as a result 
228 Loidolt, Omelicheva, and Przystup

of U.S.-Iranian tensions would similarly be devastating to China, which relies on the Gulf 

states for roughly 45 percent of its energy imports.75

Next, Iranian and Russian behavior could frustrate China’s other strategic partnerships. 

China maintains a diverse and somewhat contradictory alliance portfolio in the Middle 

East, including not only Iran but of some its regional adversaries as well. China relies heavily on Saudi Arabia for its energy needs and has pursued a relationship with Israel in part 

to acquire advanced technologies. Any increase in destabilizing Russian behavior in Africa 

could similarly complicate Beijing’s relationships with states in that region.76

This balance of risks and benefits has likely motivated China’s policies of cautious enablement—rather than complete endorsement—of North Korean, Russian, and Iranian 

activities. Even as it maintains rather friendly relations with Moscow, Beijing has refused 

to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after the Russo-Georgian 

war of 2008, and abstained from, rather than vetoing, the 2014 United Nations resolution 

condemning Moscow’s seizure of Crimea.77 The pursuit of a diplomatic path toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remains a priority for China, even as it alleviates the 

effects of economic pressure. Beijing has likewise continued to engage with Tehran, while 

also responding to Iran’s calls for more confrontational policies toward Washington and 

proposed accession into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization with little enthusiasm.78

Conclusion 

Russia, Iran, and the DPRK pose a threat within and beyond their respective regions. Russia 

is the most materially capable of these states and has deftly employed a mix of information, 

cyber, and proxy warfare to foment instability and erode the legitimacy of democratic political processes across the globe. The threats of Iran and the DPRK are more pronounced in 

their immediate regions but still undertake activities and behaviors that are global in scope. 

Iran has demonstrated a willingness to employ its precision-strike capabilities against 

civilian targets within Saudi borders and is located in a geopolitically sensitive region. 

Additionally, DPRK missile tests pose a danger to proximate states. Through their cyber 

intrusions, chemical weapons use, and other coercive and convention-breaking behavior, 

all of these states threaten to erode international norms.

Each country’s provocative behavior can tie down U.S. resources while undermining 

Washington’s global standing. This naturally produces a strong set of incentives for Beijing 

to build and maintain partnerships with all three of these states, and by establishing bilateral 

relationships that often span the economic and security domains, China can shield these 

states from some of the costs of what the United States perceives to be malign behaviors.

Nevertheless, the negative repercussions—real and potential—that each state’s behavior poses for China inhibit the extent of these relationships. Iranian escalatory actions 

threaten China’s energy supplies and regional partners, just as destabilizing behavior from 

Russia might complicate its relations with African states. DPRK recalcitrance and coercive 

threats also have the potential to yield a miscalculation and a devastating confrontation on 

the Korean Peninsula. Somewhat paradoxically, the more China insulates these countries 

from the costs of their activities through more in-depth cooperation, the more Beijing risks 

increasing the audacious behaviors that can threaten China’s key interests.
Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers 229

China is likely well aware of these risks. Beijing will thus be unlikely to deepen its cooperation with these countries solely as a means of confronting and frustrating the United 

States; instead, U.S. policymakers can expect Beijing to adopt a more delicate approach 

that seeks to limit, but not completely eliminate, malign behavior. In turn, this means that 

U.S. policymakers should be cautiously optimistic that the prospects of an in-depth, fully 

cooperative bi- or multilateral anti-U.S. strategic alliance taking hold across these states will 

remain remote.

U.S. policymakers may even be able to identify cooperative space with Beijing in addressing some of the more detrimental dimensions of Iranian, Russian, and DPRK actions. 

With respect to Iran, the United States could find common ground with China in limiting Tehran’s destabilizing activities in the Persian Gulf and its anti-Israel proxies, many of 

which threaten not only global energy supplies but also important Chinese partners.79 The 

United States might similarly be able to leverage Chinese support for containing the destabilizing effects of Russian activities in Africa, just as it can rely to some degree on Chinese 

diplomatic support in reigning in Kim Jong-un.

Even so, U.S. policymakers should harbor no illusions regarding the potential for 

more robust cooperation from Beijing in implementing comprehensive punitive measures 

against any one of these countries. China will instead seek to keep Russian, Iran, and DPRK 

behaviors below a tolerable threshold. The United States can thus anticipate the threat of 

these states to persist, but not necessarily to become more pronounced, as it moves forward 

into a new era of Great Power competition marked by increasing rivalry with China.

The authors thank Mike Eisenstadt, John Parker, Shane Smith, and other reviewers for their 

thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

Notes

1

 On measures short of armed conflict, commonly referred to as 

gray zone tactics or political warfare, see, for example, Michael 

Mazarr, Mastering the Gray Zone: Understanding a Changing 

Era of Conflict (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Army War College Press, 

December 2015); Van Jackson, “Tactics of Strategic Competition: 

Gray Zones, Redlines, and Conflicts Before War,” Naval War 

College Review 70, no. 3 (Summer 2017), 39–62; Linda Robinson 

et al., Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible 

Responses (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018).

2

 Since the end of the Cold War, states have often been referred to 

by the term rogue if they pursue or proliferate weapons of mass 

destruction; provide material support for terrorist, mercenary, 

or other nonstate proxies; or habitually violate the principles, 

norms, and practices of the post–Cold War international order. 

See, for example, Kelly P. O’Reilly, “Perceiving Rogue States: 

The Use of the ‘Rogue State’ Concept by U.S. Foreign Policy 

Elites,” Foreign Policy Analysis 3, no. 4 (October 2007), 295–315; 

Michael Rubin, Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging 

Rogue Regimes (New York: Encounter Books, 2014), 2–10; Mary 

Caprioli and Peter F. Trumbore, “Rhetoric Versus Reality: Rogue 

States in Interstate Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, 

no. 5 (October 2005), 770–791; Thomas H. Henriksen, “The Rise 

and Decline of Rogue States,” Journal of International Affairs

54, no. 2 (Spring 2001), 349–373; Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert, 

“How Sudan’s ‘Rogue’ State Label Shaped U.S. Responses to the 

Darfur Conflict: What’s the Problem and Who’s in Charge?” 

Third World Quarterly 35, no. 2 (March 2014), 284–299. The 

phrase spoiler state has historically been reserved for countries 

with enough economic clout to “do damage to the [international 

financial] system, but not substantial enough to stabilize it.” See, 

for example, Charles P. Kindleberger, “Dominance and Leadership 

in the International Economy: Exploitation, Public Goods, and 

Free Rides,” International Studies Quarterly 25, no. 2 (June 1981), 

242–254. The term spoiler to describe this category of country 

appears in David A. Lake, “International Economic Structures 

and American Foreign Economic Policy, 1887–1934,” World 

Politics 35, no. 4 (July 1983), 517–543. And disrupter describes 

states that employ “short-of-war tactics and techniques” in an 

effort to “disrupt the established international system as well 

as delegitimize the United States as the leading power of the 

current world order.” See, for example, Isaiah Wilson III and Scott 

Smitson, “Solving America’s Gray-Zone Puzzle,” Parameters 46, 

no. 4 (Winter–Spring 2016), 65. For other terms policymakers 

have used to describe these states, see Gerry J. Simpson, Great 

Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International 

Legal Order (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004); 

Anthony Lake, “Confronting Backlash States,” Foreign Affairs 73, 

no. 2 (March–April 1994), 45–55; Ronald Reagan, “The New 

Network of Terrorist States,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism

9, no. 2 (1987), 101–112.

3 Summary of the National Defense Strategy of the United States 

of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge

(Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2018), 2; National 

Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, 

DC: The White House, December 2017), 26.
230 Loidolt, Omelicheva, and Przystup

4

 See chapter 1 for this volume’s three-attribute operational 

definition of a Great Power, which consists of unusual capabilities, 

truly global behavior, and Great Power status attribution by 

other states in the system. See chapter 3a for a review of how 

Russia’s power tools make its long-term retention of Great Power 

status uncertain.

5

 On the material and nonmaterial limitations of Russian power 

and influence, see James Dobbins, Howard J. Shatz, and Ali Wyne, 

Russia Is a Rogue, Not a Peer; China Is a Peer, Not a Rogue (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 2018); Peter B. Zwack and Marie-Charlotte 

Pierre, Russian Challenges from Now into the Next Generation: A 

Geostrategic Primer, INSS Strategic Perspectives 29 (Washington, 

DC: NDU Press, March 2019); Daniel R. Coats, Worldwide Threat 

Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community (Washington, DC: 

Office of the Director of National Intelligence [ODNI], February 

13, 2018), 36–37, available at <www.dni.gov/files/documents/

Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA—-Unclassified-SSCI.pdf>.

6

 For more on Russia’s lack of a proactive ideology for crafting an 

alternative world order—especially in comparison to the United 

States and China—see chapter 3a of this volume.

7

 Thomas Graham, “Let Russia Be Russia: The Case for a More 

Pragmatic Approach to Moscow,” Foreign Affairs, November/

December 2019, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/

russia-fsu/2019-10-15/let-russia-be-russia>; Julia Gurganus 

and Eugene Rumer, Russia’s Global Ambitions in Perspective

(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 

2019); Mariya Y. Omelicheva, “Critical Geopolitics on Russian 

Foreign Policy: Uncovering the Imagery of Moscow’s International 

Relations,” International Politics 53, no. 6 (2016), 708–726.

8

 For an overview of Russian military capabilities, see Russia 

Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power 

Aspirations, DIA-11-1704-161 (Washington, DC: Defense 

Intelligence Agency [DIA], 2017), available at <www.dia.mil/

portals/27/documents/news/military%20power%20publications/

russia%20military%20power%20report%202017.pdf>.

9

 Nicole Ng and Eugene Rumer, The West Fears Russian Hybrid 

Warfare: They’re Missing the Bigger Picture (Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 2019), 

available at <https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/07/03/

west-fears-russia-s-hybrid-warfare.-they-re-missing-biggerpicture-pub-79412>.

10 Valery Gerasimov, “Vektory razvitiya voennoi strategii,” 

Krasnaya Zvezda [Red Star] (Moscow), April 3, 2019, available 

at <http://redstar.ru/vektory-razvitiya-voennoj-strategii/>; Dara 

Massicot, “Anticipating a New Russian Military Doctrine in 

2020: What It Might Contain and Why It Matters,” War on the 

Rocks, September 9, 2019, available at <https://warontherocks.

com/2019/09/anticipating-a-new-russian-military-doctrinein-2020-what-it-might-contain-and-why-it-matters/>. See also 

Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections, 

Intelligence Community Assessment 2017-01D (Washington, 

DC: ODNI, January 6, 2017), available at <www.dni.gov/files/

documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf>.

11 Andrei Soldakov and Irina Borogan, “Russia’s Approach to 

Cyber: The Best Defense Is a Good Offence,” in Hacks, Leaks, 

and Disruptions: Russian Cyber Strategies, ed. Nicu Popescu 

and Stanislav Secrieru (Paris: European Union Institute for 

Security Studies, 2018), 15–24. Additional detail on Russian 

social media and information operations is provided in chapter 

7 of this volume.

12 For further information, see Soldakov and Borogan, “Russia’s 

Approach to Cyber,” 15–24.

13 Coats, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence 

Community, 8.

14 Andrew Linder, “Russian Private Military Companies in Syria 

and Beyond,” New Perspectives in Foreign Policy, no. 16 (Fall 2018), 

17–21; Nathaniel Reynolds, Putin’s Not-So-Secret Mercenaries: 

Patronage, Geopolitics, and the Wagner Group (Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019).

15 “Russia’s 12 UN Vetoes on Syria,” RTE (Dublin), 

April 11, 2018, available at <www.rte.ie/news/

world/2018/0411/953637-russia-syria-un-veto/>.

16 John E. Herbst and Jason Marczak, Russia’s Intervention in 

Venezuela: What’s at Stake? Policy Brief (Washington, DC: 

Atlantic Council, September 12, 2019), available at <www.

atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/

russias-intervention-in-venezuela-whats-at-stake/>.

17 Henry Meyer and Ilya Arkhipov, “Russia Wants to Sell Its 

Missiles to U.S. Allies,” Bloomberg, June 22, 2018, available 

at <www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-22/

russia-wants-to-sell-its-missiles-to-u-s-allies>.

18 David Brennan, “Russia Deploys First of ‘Invulnerable’ 

Hypersonic Missiles Putin Claims Can Defeat Any American 

Defenses,” Newsweek, December 27, 2019, available at <www.

newsweek.com/russia-deploys-first-invulnerable-hypersonicmissiles-putin-defeat-american-defenses-1479362>.

19 Elias Groll, “Russian Military Escalates Provocation 

Campaign in Europe,” Foreign Policy, October 30, 2014, 

available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/30/

russian-military-escalates-provocation-campaign-in-europe/>.

20 “Besides Doctrine of Peace, Iran Has Strong Military Presence: 

Commander,” Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), January 

1, 2019, available at <https://en.irna.ir/news/83154430/Besidesdoctrine-of-peace-Iran-has-strong-military-presence>. For an 

overview of Iranian strategic culture, see Michael Eisenstadt, The 

Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Operational and Policy 

Implications (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2011).

21 For an overview, see, for example, Michael Eisenstadt, 

Operating in the Gray Zone: Countering Iran’s Asymmetric 

Way of War (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near 

East Policy, 2020); DIA, Iran Military Power: Ensuring Regime 

Survival and Securing Regional Dominance (Washington, 

DC: DIA, 2019), available at <www.dia.mil/Portals/27/

Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/

Iran_Military_Power_LR.pdf>.

22 Anthony H. Cordesman et al., U.S.-Iranian Competition: The 

Gulf Military Balance—I (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic 

and International Studies [CSIS], 2013); Michael Wahid Hanna 

and Dalia Dassa Kaye, “The Limits of Iranian Power,” Survival

57, no. 5 (September 2015), 173–198; DIA, Iran Military Power.

23 Michael Eisenstadt, Iran After Sanctions: Military Procurement 

and Force-Structure Decisions (London: International 

Institute for Strategic Studies, December 2017), available at 

<www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/opeds/

Eisenstadt20171219-IISS-chapter.pdf>.

24 For an overview of several of these, see Seth Jones et al., Iran’s 

Threat to Saudi Critical Infrastructure: The Implications of U.S.-

Iranian Escalation (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2019).

25 Shahryar Pasandideh, “Under the Radar, Iran’s Cruise Missile 

Capabilities Advance,” War on the Rocks, September 25, 2019, 

available at <https://warontherocks.com/2019/09/under-theradar-irans-cruise-missile-capabilities-advance/>; Sitakanta 

Mishra, “Cruise Missiles: Evolution, Proliferation and Future,” 

Journal of Defence Studies 6, no. 3 (July 2012), 139–142; Dennis 

M. Gormley, Dealing with the Threat of Cruise Missiles (New 

York: Routledge, 2013).

26 Mike R. Pompeo, “Department of State Remarks to 

Traveling Press,” The Iran Primer, September 19, 2019, 

available at <http://iranprimer.usip.org/index.php/blog/2019/

sep/18/pompeo-briefing-saudi-attacks>; Natasha Turak, 

“Drone and Missile Debris Proves Iranian Role in Aramco 

Attack, Saudi Defense Ministry Claims,” CNBC, September 

18, 2019, available at <www.cnbc.com/2019/09/18/
Rogues, Disrupters, and Spoilers 231

saudi-arabia-drone-and-missile-debris-proves-iranianrole-in-attack.html>; Jon Gambrell, Aya Batrawy, and Fay 

Abuelgasim, “Mike Pompeo Calls Drone Attacks on Saudi 

Oilfields ‘An Act of War’ by Iran,” Associated Press, September 

18, 2019, available at <www.businessinsider.com/pompeodrone-attacks-saudi-oilfields-act-of-war-by-iran-2019-9>; 

“DOD Statement on Iranian Ballistic Missile Attacks in Iraq,” 

Department of Defense, January 7, 2010, available at <www.

defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2052103/

dod-statement-on-iranian-ballistic-missile-attacks-in-iraq/>.

27 Sidharth Kaushal, “Shutdown Showdown: How the Strait 

of Hormuz Factors into the U.S.-Iran Crisis,” The National 

Interest, July 7, 2019, available at <https://nationalinterest.org/

feature/shutdown-showdown-how-strait-hormuz-factors-usiran-crisis-65596?page=0%2C1>; Caitlin Talmadge, “Closing 

Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz,” 

International Security 33, no. 1 (Summer 2008), 82–117; Abhijit 

Singh, “‘Dark Chill in the Persian Gulf ’—Iran’s Conventional 

and Unconventional Naval Forces,” Maritime Affairs 6, no. 2 

(February 2011), 108–132; Ilan Goldenberg, Jessica Schwed, 

and Kaleigh Thomas, In Dire Straits? Implications of U.S.-Iran 

Tensions for the Global Oil Market (Washington, DC: Center for 

a New American Security, 2019).

28 “Iran Says Has Built ‘Smart’ Remote-Controlled Submarine,” 

Eurasia Review, January 22, 2012, available at <www.

eurasiareview.com/22012012-iran-says-has-built-smart-remotecontroled-submarine>; DIA, Iran Military Power, 51–56.

29 Outlaw Regime: A Chronicle of Iran’s Destructive Activities

(Washington, DC: Department of State, 2018), 27–30, 

available at <www.state.gov/outlaw-regime-a-chronicle-ofirans-destructive-activities/>; Jim Garamone, “Selva 

Details Iranian Oil Attacks, Need for International Efforts,” 

Department of Defense, June 19, 2019, available at <www.

defense.gov/explore/story/Article/1879849/selva-detailsiranian-oil-attacks-need-for-international-efforts/>; Robert 

Burns, “U.S. Military Official: Iran Naval Forces Halt 

‘Provocations,’” Associated Press, March 15, 2018, available at 

<https://apnews.com/a36e23a8d549464caaea7dc1932babae/

US-military-official:-Iran-naval-forces-halt-%27provocation>.

30 “Iran Making Progress on Basis of Rationality, Resistance in 

Int’l Arena,” IRNA, August 2, 2019, available at <https://en.irna.

ir/news/83421453/Iran-making-progress-on-basis-of-rationalityresistance-in-int-l>.

31 For overviews, see Afshon Ostovar, “The Grand Strategy of 

Militant Clients: Iran’s Way of War,” Security Studies 28, no. 1 

(October 2018), 159–188; Outlaw Regime, 9–17; Seth G. Jones, 

War by Proxy: Iran’s Growing Footprint in the Middle East

(Washington, DC: CSIS, 2019).

32 Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, Iranian Strategy in Iraq: 

Politics and “Other Means” (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism 

Center, 2008); Michael Knights, “Iran’s Expanding Militia Army 

in Iraq: The New Special Groups,” CTC Sentinel 12, no. 7 (August 

2019).

33 Daniel Byman, “Iran, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass 

Destruction,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31, no. 3 (February 

2008), 169–181; Bruce Hoffman, Recent Trends and Future 

Prospects of Iranian Sponsored International Terrorism (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 1990); Michael Rubin, “Iran’s Revolutionary 

Guards—A Rogue Outfit?” Middle East Quarterly 15, no. 4 (Fall 

2008), 37–48.

34 “France Blames Iran for Foiled Paris Bomb Plot,” BBC 

News, October 2, 2018, available at <www.bbc.com/news/

world-europe-45722523>.

35 Outlaw Regime, 15–17.

36 Michael Eisenstadt, Iran’s Lengthening Cyber Shadow

(Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 

2016).

37 “Iranian Regime Malign Activities During Negotiations with 

Iran and During JCPOA,” Department of State, October 17, 2019, 

available at <www.state.gov/iranian-regime-malign-activitiesduring-negotiations-with-iran-and-during-jcpoa/>.

38 Coats, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence 

Community, 10.

39 “Iran Takes Final Step by Abandoning JCPOA Restrictions,” IRNA, 

January 5, 2020, available at <https://en.irna.ir/news/83622509/

Iran-takes-final-step-by-abandoning-JCPOA-restrictions>.

40 David M. Halbfinger, Ben Hubbard, and Ronen Bergman, “The 

Israel-Iran Shadow War Escalates and Breaks into the Open,” 

New York Times, August 28, 2019, available at <www.nytimes.

com/2019/08/28/world/middleeast/israel-iran-shadow-war.

html>; Nadav Ben Hour and Michael Eisenstadt, “The Great 

Middle Eastern War of 2019,” Washington Institute for Near East 

Policy, August 20, 2018, available at <www.washingtoninstitute.

org/policy-analysis/view/the-great-middle-eastern-war-of-2019>.

41 “Iran Seizes British Tanker in Strait of Hormuz,” BBC News, 

July 20, 2019, available at <www.bbc.com/news/uk-49053383>.

42 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 

46. The nature of the North Korean regime is exemplified by 

the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang by the international 

community. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions 

now operative include UNSC 825, May 11, 1993; UNSC 1695, 

June 15, 2006; UNSC 1718, October 14, 2006; UNSC 1874, June 

12, 2009; UNSC 2087, January 22, 2013; UNSC 2094, March 7, 

2013; UNSC 2270, March 2, 2016; UNSC 2321, November 30, 

2016; UNSC 2356, June 2, 2017; UNSC 2371, August 5, 2017; 

UNSC 2375, September 3, 2017; and UNSC 2397, December 

22, 2017. In addition, the United States, South Korea, Japan, 

Australia, Russia, and the European Union have adopted 

individual country sanctions on North Korea. See Eleanor 

Albert, “What to Know About Sanctions on North Korea,” 

Council on Foreign Relations, July 16, 2019, available at <www.

cfr.org/backgrounder/what-know-about-sanctions-north-korea>; 

James Schoff, “Making Sense of UN Sanctions on North Korea,” 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, n.d., available 

at <https://carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/

north-korea-sanctions>.

43 Summary of the National Defense Strategy of the United States 

of America, 2.

44 Gian Gentile, Four Problems on the Korean Peninsula: North 

Korea’s Expanding Nuclear Capabilities Drive a Complex Set of 

Problems (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2019).

45 Nuclear Threat Initiative, “North Korea,” August 2019, available 

at <www.nti.org/learn/countries/north-korea/>.

46 Andrew Scobell and John M. Sanford, North Korea’s Military 

Threat: Pyongyang’s Conventional Forces, Weapons of Mass 

Destruction, and Ballistic Missiles (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic 

Studies Institute, 2007).

47 Coats, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence 

Community, 28.

48 Ibid., 8.

49 UNSC, “Report of the Panel of Experts Established Pursuant 

to Resolution 1874 (2009),” S/2019/171, February 21, 2019, 34, 

available at <www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2019_171.pdf>.

50 Coats, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence 

Community, 8.

51 UNSC, “Report of the Panel of Experts Established Pursuant 

to Resolution 1874 (2009),” February 21, 2019, 44–45.

52 UNSC, “Report of the Panel of Experts Established 

Pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009),” S/2019/691, July 

31, 2019, 135, available at <www.securitycouncilreport.
232 Loidolt, Omelicheva, and Przystup

org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-

CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2019_691.pdf>.

53 “Treasury Sanctions North Korean State-Sponsored Malicious 

Cyber Groups,” Department of the Treasury, September 13, 2019, 

available at <https://home.treasury.gov/index.php/news/pressreleases/sm774>; “North Korean Hackers Blamed for Wave of 

Cyberattacks on Banks,” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), 

October 3, 2018, available at <www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/

article/2166869/north-korean-hackers-blamed-wave-cyberattacksbanks>; UNSC, “Report of the Panel of Experts Established 

Pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009),” July 31, 2019, 109–112.

54 Jim Finkle, “Cyber Security Firm: More Evidence 

North Korea Linked to Bangladesh Heist,” Reuters, 

April 3, 2017, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-cyber-heist-bangladesh-northkorea-idUSKBN1752I4>.

55 UNSC, “Report of the Panel of Experts Established Pursuant 

to Resolution 1874 (2009),” July 31, 2019, 4.

56 “Update on Sony Investigation,” Federal Bureau of 

Investigation, December 19, 2014, available at <www.fbi.gov/

news/pressrel/press-releases/update-on-sony-investigation?utm_

campaign=emailImmediate&utm_medium=email&utm_sourc

e=national-press-releases&utm_content=386194>; David Sanger, 

David Kirkpatrick, and Nicole Perlroth, “The World Once Laughed 

at North Korean Cyberpower. No More,” New York Times, October 

15, 2017, available at <www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/world/asia/

north-korea-hacking-cyber-sony.html>.

57 Greg Walters, “North Korea’s Counterfeit Benjamins Have 

Vanished,” Vice News, March 16, 2016, available at <www.vice.

com/en_us/article/vb8pk9/north-korea’s-counterfet-benjaminshave-vanished>. Also see Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Illicit: North 

Korea’s Evolving Operations to Earn Hard Currency (Washington, 

DC: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2014).

58 Raphael F. Perl, Drug Trafficking and North Korea: Issues for 

U.S. Policy, RL32167 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, January 25, 2007).

59 Mike Ives, “Crystal Meth Is North Korea’s Trendiest Lunar New 

Year’s Gift,” New York Times, February 12, 2019; Kim Young Il, 

“North Korea and Narcotics Trafficking: A View from the Inside,” 

North Korea Review 1, no. 1 (March 2004).

60 Julian Ryall, “North Korea ‘Ramps Up Manufacture of Illegal 

Drugs’ amid Sanctions,” Deutsche Welle, August 21, 2017, available 

at <www.dw.com/en/north-korea-ramps-up-manufacture-ofillegal-drugs-amid-sanctions/a-40169753>.

61 For an overview of Chinese-Iranian relations, see Ariane 

Tabatabai and Dina Esfandiary, Triple-Axis: Iran’s Relations with 

Russia and China (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018); 

Scott W. Harold and Alireza Nader, China and Iran: Economic, 

Political, and Military Relations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2012).

62 Derek Scissors, “China Global Investment Tracker,” 

American Enterprise Institute, available at <www.aei.org/

china-global-investment-tracker/>.

63 Harold and Nader, China and Iran, 6–7.

64 “Bilateral Trade Between China and Islamic Republic of Iran 

in 2018, Product: 2709 Petroleum Oils and Oils Obtained from 

Bituminous Minerals, Crude,” International Trade Commission. 

Most of these imports took place prior to the reimposition of 

U.S. sanctions and the expiration of U.S. waivers. See Dan Katz, 

“Despite Sanctions, China Is Still Doing (Some) Business with 

Iran,” Atlantic Council, October 1, 2019, available at <www.

atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/despite-sanctions-chinais-still-doing-some-business-with-iran/>.

65 Vassily Kashin, “Tacit Alliance: Russia and China Take Military 

Partnership to New Level,” Carnegie Moscow Center, October 

22, 2019.

66 Ibid.; Dmitri Trenin, “U.S. Obsession with Containment Driving 

China and Russia Closer,” Carnegie Moscow Center, July 31, 2019.

67 Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, “Russia-China Strategic Alliance 

Gets a New Boost with Missile Early Warning System,” The 

Diplomat, October 25, 2019, available at <https://thediplomat.

com/2019/10/russia-china-strategic-alliance-gets-a-new-boostwith-missile-early-warning-system/>.

68 Le Jeong-ho, “China-North Korea Trade Up 14.3 Percent 

in First Half to US$1.25 Billion,” South China Morning 

Post (Hong Kong), July 24, 2019, available at <www.

scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3019940/

chinas-first-half-trade-north-korea-recovers-old-allies>.

69 Marshall Billingslea, Statement Before the U.S. House Financial 

Services Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade, September 

26, 2018, available at <https://home.treasury.gov/news/

press-releases/sm496>.

70 See, for example, James Carden, “Time to Pursue an 

International Cyber Treaty?” The Nation, April 30, 2019, available 

at <www.thenation.com/article/international-cyber-treaty-russiachina-dnc/>; United Nations General Assembly, “Developments 

in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the 

Context of International Security,” A/C.1/73/L.27, October 

22, 2018, available at <https://undocs.org/A/C.1/73/L.27>; 

United Nations General Assembly, “Developments in the 

Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context 

of International Security,” A/C.1/73/L.37, October 18, 2018, 

available at <https://undocs.org/A/C.1/73/L.37>.

71 John W. Garver, “Is China Playing a Dual Game in Iran?” The 

Washington Quarterly 34, no. 1 (Winter 2011), 75–88.

72 “DOD Statement on Deployment of Additional U.S. 

Forces and Equipment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” 

Department of Defense, October 11, 2019, available at <www.

defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/1987575/

dod-statement-on-deployment-of-additional-us-forces-andequipment-to-the-kingdo/>.

73 Andrea Kendall-Taylor and David Shullman, “A Russian-Chinese 

Partnership Is a Threat to U.S. Interests,” Foreign Affairs, May 14, 2019, 

available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-05-14/

russian-chinese-partnership-threat-us-interests>.

74 Shannon Tiezzi, “Why China Isn’t Mourning the Collapse of the 

Trump-Kim Summit,” The Diplomat, March 1, 2019, available at 

<https://thediplomat.com/2019/03/why-china-isnt-mourningthe-collapse-of-the-trump-kim-summit/>.

75 Alexander Simoes and César Hidalgo, The Economic Complexity 

Observatory: An Analytical Tool for Understanding the Dynamics 

of Economic Development, Workshops at the 25th AAAI 

Conference on Artificial Intelligence, August 2011, available 

at <https://oec.world>.

76 Vita Spivak, “Russia and China in Africa: Allies or Rivals?” 

Carnegie Moscow Center, October 25, 2019, available at <https://

carnegie.ru/commentary/80181>. For an overview of Russian 

activities in Africa, see Paul Stronski, Late to the Party: Russia’s 

Return to Africa (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace, 2019).

77 Leon Aron, “Are Russia and China Really Forming an Alliance?” 

Foreign Affairs, April 4, 2019, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/

articles/china/2019-04-04/are-russia-and-china-really-formingalliance>. For an alternative view, see Kendall-Taylor and Shullman, 

“A Russian-Chinese Partnership Is a Threat to U.S. Interests.”

78 Alex Vatanka, “China’s Great Game in Iran,” Foreign 

Policy, September 5, 2019, available at <https://foreignpolicy.

com/2019/09/05/chinas-great-game-in-iran/>.

79 Brett McGurk, “China’s Risky Middle East Bet,” The Atlantic, 

April 29, 2019, available at <www.theatlantic.com/ideas/

archive/2019/04/chinas-risky-middle-east-bet/588166/>.
233

Chapter 11

Counterterrorism and the 

United States in a New Era of 

Great Power Competition

By R. Kim Cragin, Hassan Abbas, Zachary M. Abuza, and Mariya Omelicheva

This chapter addresses the likely impact of Great Power competition on future 

counterterrorism missions by the U.S. military; it argues that the military should 

prioritize preventing external operations, directed or virtually planned by foreign 

violent extremist organizations (VEOs), against the U.S. homeland and minimizing the ability of foreign VEOs to inspire attacks by sympathizers in the West, 

commonly referred to as homegrown violent extremists. Yet the chapter also observes that, over the next 3 to 5 years, Great Power competition will likely constrain the ability of U.S. military forces to achieve even these more limited counterterrorism objectives. The U.S. Government, therefore, will need to cooperate 

closely with allies and partners to manage global terrorist threats. The military 

also will need to preserve its ability to conduct unilateral operations to protect the 

U.S. homeland. Given these requirements, this chapter recommends that the U.S. 

military revisit its risk threshold for small-footprint deployments, especially force 

protection requirements. It also should reconsider counterterrorism authorities, 

technologies, and other tools in light of the new realities created by Great Power 

competition. And, in this context, the U.S. Government should explore more ways 

to deter actions by surrogates and proxies against U.S. forces engaged in counterterrorism and to hold sponsors accountable.

The September 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda focused the attention of the U.S. national security community on the threat posed by nonstate adversaries. Since then, the United 

States and its allies have conducted multiple military operations to mitigate this threat: 

Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Resolute Support, and 

Operation Inherent Resolve, to name a few. Yet the emphasis on countering violent extremist 

organizations (VEOs) could not last indefinitely. Nation-state adversaries, such as China, 

Russia, Iran, and North Korea, also present immediate and future, and arguably greater, 

challenges to U.S. national security interests. A reprioritization was inevitable and, as chronicled in chapter 3a, took place with the publication of two new U.S. security documents in 
234 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

2017 and 2018: the 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and the 2018 National Defense 

Strategy (NDS).1

 The 2017 NSS retained counterterrorism as an important component of 

protecting the U.S. homeland, rebranding this effort as “pursuing threats at their source.”2

The NDS acknowledged the need to counter VEOs, such as al Qaeda’s network and the 

so-called Islamic State (IS), but it prioritized threats from near-peer competitors and other 

nation-state adversaries above counter-VEO operations.3 Together, these new strategic documents indicated that the United States would assume some increased risk from terrorism 

in the emerging era of Great Power competition.

These documents adjusted the U.S. strategic framework for countering VEOs. The 2018 

National Strategy for Counterterrorism captured these adjustments while emphasizing the 

importance of future counter-VEO activities in a context of prioritization and partnerships. 

Two passages in this document stand out:

Experience has . . . highlighted the importance of strong partnerships in sustaining our counterterrorism efforts. Whenever possible, the United States must develop 

more efficient approaches to achieve our security objectives, relying on our allies to 

degrade and maintain persistent pressure against terrorists. This means collaborating 

so that foreign governments take the lead wherever possible and working with others 

so that they can assume responsibility in the fight against terrorists.4

We will not dilute our counterterrorism efforts by attempting to be everywhere all the 

time, trying to eradicate all threats. We can and will, however, optimize and focus 

our resources to effectively prevent and counter those terrorists who pose a direct 

threat to the United States homeland and vital national interests.5

Since 2018, the NDS has become the baseline document for the U.S. military as it plans, 

trains, and organizes the joint force. Thus, this chapter proceeds from the perspective of the 

NDS that the U.S. military will prioritize its near-peer competitors as well as rogue states 

in defense planning. This chapter also aligns with the definition of Great Power competition

found in chapter 1, which validates three contemporary near-peer rivals: Russia, China, and 

the United States. The chapter affirms that VEOs will continue to be a major security issue 

for the U.S. military and its allies; it focuses on the fact that over the next 3 to 5 years, al 

Qaeda, the IS, and their associates will continue to pursue local insurgencies and external 

operations against the West. The U.S. military will be presented with the choice of engaging 

these VEOs unilaterally, as part of a coalition, indirectly through local partners, or not at all. 

Whatever the U.S. counterterrorist approach, Russia and China also will weigh the threats 

by VEOs to their own national security and make their own choices among a range of similar options. Other countries will do the same. The United States may benefit directly from 

the actions taken by Russia, China, or other nation-states against VEOs. Alternatively, these 

interventions may exacerbate the VEO threat to the U.S. homeland. In any case, these risks 

will need to be managed, and counterterrorism in a new era of Great Power competition 

just got a lot more complicated.

Subsequent paragraphs address this complication. The chapter provides an overview 

of the evolving terrorist threat, not only emphasizing the United States and its allies but 
Counterterrorism and the United States 235

also touching on threats to Russia and China. It then delves more deeply into the U.S. military’s Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria. Syria represents the most concrete example of 

how U.S. counterterrorism objectives can be undermined by the presence of other Great 

Powers (in this instance, Russian military forces and their proxies). Next, the chapter 

explores the long-lasting regional rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran has been 

defined as a “disruptor” state in this book (see chapter 10); nevertheless, it remains a U.S. 

adversary, and its competition with Saudi Arabia for regional hegemony exacerbates the 

threat posed by VEOs. Finally, this chapter provides a discussion of Australia’s role in 

Southeast Asia. Australia represents an important contrast to Russia and Iran: It illustrates how allies can assist the United States in its fight against VEOs, allowing the U.S. 

military to shift resources away from counterterrorism missions with reduced risk. The 

chapter concludes with thoughts on the implications of Great Power competition for U.S. 

counterterrorism in this new era.

Understanding the Threat Posed by Violent Extremists 

The United States faces threats from a wide range of extremist groups, including domestic right-wing terrorists, left-wing terrorists, and foreign operatives linked to al Qaeda or 

IS. The U.S. military retains responsibility for countering VEOs that originate abroad but 

not for domestic terrorist groups. Among the foreign VEOs, the greatest priorities for the 

United States fall under the subcategory of Salafi-jihadists.

6

 This section, therefore, provides a broad overview of global trends in terrorism over the next 3 to 5 years, but it 

focuses more on the evolving threat from Salafi-jihadists to the United States and its allies. 

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

18,000

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

Number of Attacks

Figure 11.1. Number of Successful Attacks and Failed Plots 

Conducted by VEOs by Region, 1990–2018

Source: National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Global Terrorism Database, 2018, 

available at <https://start.umd.edu/data-tools/global-terrorism-database-gtd>.

Sub-Saharan

Africa

Central and

South America

East and

Southeast Asia

South Asia

Middle East and

North Africa

Eastern Europe

North America

Western Europe
236 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

Finally, to provide greater context to the threat from Salafi-jihadists, the section concludes 

with a short discussion of domestic left-wing and right-wing terrorism.

Global Trends in Terrorism 

Any chart depicting overarching trends in terrorist attacks worldwide tends to be alarming; 

figure 11.1 is no different. It displays the total number of successful attacks and failed plots 

by VEOs globally since 1990. The trend line reveals several fluctuations in global terrorism: 

a steady decline in attacks between 1992 and 2000; a gradual increase in the number of 

attacks, starting in 2001, until the numbers flatline between 2007 and 2011; and a dramatic spike in the number of attacks between 2012 and 2014, followed by a decline again, 

beginning in mid-2015 until the present. While the overarching trend since 2015 is encouraging—for example, the numbers are decreasing—it still has not reached the relatively low 

levels of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

A closer examination of figure 11.1 offers a slightly more nuanced assessment. Although 

it is easy to assume, for example, that most attacks have taken place in the Middle East and 

North Africa over the past three decades, the data does not support this conclusion. Instead, 

the relative number of attacks by VEOs in the Middle East and North Africa, as compared 

with those in other regions, ranges from a low of 13 percent in 1991 to a high of 45 percent 

in 2016. Other regions, such as Central and South America in the early 1990s or sub-Saharan 

Africa at present, also experience relatively high numbers of attacks on their populations.

Interestingly, none of the regions with Great Powers—North America, Eastern Europe, 

East and Southeast Asia—have experienced high levels of terrorism since 1990. Beyond 

these overarching numbers, it is noteworthy that foreign VEOs have not systematically targeted Russia or China in recent years.7

 A few exceptions exist. In Egypt, IS fighters placed 

an improvised explosive device on a Russian airline flying from Sinai to Saint Petersburg 

in October 2015.8 The Baluchistan Liberation Army attacked the Chinese consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, in November 2018.9

 Nevertheless, the limited number of attacks by foreign 

VEOs on Russian and Chinese interests explains, in part, why Moscow and Beijing tend 

to emphasize domestic terrorist threats over those posed by foreign VEOs.10 These realities also limit the potential areas of cooperation between the Great Powers on countering 

foreign VEOs.11 Now and into the future, the U.S. Government is more likely to find itself 

hampered in its counterterrorism operations due to the expanding military, political, and 

economic influence of these other two Great Powers than it is to find substantial areas for 

cooperation.12

The Salafi-Jihadist Threat 

Salafism offers literalist, rigid, and puritanical approaches to Islam. It emerged from political developments in the second half of the 19th century, when Muslim-majority regions 

were confronted with the spread of European ideas. Salafists often extol the first three generations of Muslims as well as the most geographically expansive caliphate of the 1200s.13

Most Salafists pursue their fundamentalist beliefs peacefully. Others advocate for a violent 

political revolution in the Muslim world; these individuals are referred to interchangeably 

as either Salafi-jihadists or takfiris, which is a derogatory term that means Muslims who declare others apostates and kill them. Between 1996 and 2014, al Qaeda was at the vanguard 
Counterterrorism and the United States 237

of the Salafi-jihadi movement. Al Qaeda leaders argued that their political revolution was 

failing because the United States propped up corrupt Arab regimes.14

The so-called Islamic State emerged in 2014—in many ways as an alternative to al 

Qaeda. Led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi until his death in November 2019, IS rejected al Qaeda’s emphasis on jihad against the West and instead aimed to establish an Islamic caliphate 

within the territories under its control.15 That said, IS also pursued external operations, or 

terrorist attacks, that took place outside its territorial control, in Syria, Iraq, and other countries. In fact, IS leaders met in Tabqah, Syria, in November 2015 to plan a way forward for 

the IS external operations campaign.16 Since then, al Qaeda and IS leaders have fought for 

preeminence among Salafi-jihadists, with most VEOs taking sides.17

Figure 11.2 depicts the overall trajectory of attacks by Salafi-jihadists, beginning after 

al Qaeda leaders announced their war against “Americans Occupying the Lands of the Two 

Holy Mosques” in 1996.18 It was derived from the Global Terrorism Database maintained 

by the START Consortium at the University of Maryland. The numbers report attacks by 

Salafi-jihadists as a proportion or ratio of all attacks by VEOs worldwide.19 Figure 11.2 also 

shows that the overarching trajectory of attacks by Salafi-jihadists remains upward, despite 

the recent territorial defeat of IS.20

Significantly, most of the attacks shown in figure 11.2 were conducted against local targets or targets within easy reach—within the same countries—of IS territorial control. They 

were not external operations. Only 2 percent of all attacks by Salafi-jihadists since 1996 can 

be considered “external operations,” and the IS has been the most aggressive VEO in this 

regard. Indeed, while the IS recently lost both its caliphate and its caliph (al-Baghdadi), its 

decisive defeat remains a remote prospect. The new IS leader, Abdullah Qardash, has vowed 

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

Proportion of Attacks

Figure 11.2. Proportion of Attacks Conducted by VEOs in 

Salafi Jihadist Movement, 1996–2018

Source: National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Global Terrorism Database, 2018, 

available at <https://start.umd.edu/data-tools/global-terrorism-database-gtd>.
238 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

to avenge al-Baghdadi’s death and has embarked on rebuilding the group’s strengths and reenergizing IS supporters and sympathizers.21 Most experts agree that IS retains the capacity 

to direct an external attack against the U.S. and allies’ homelands; it also continues to target 

U.S. forces and citizens abroad.22

That said, among Salafi-jihadists, homegrown violent extremists—individuals inspired 

by foreign VEOs, such as the IS, to conduct attacks locally—represent the most persistent 

threat to the U.S. homeland over the next 3 to 5 years. IS has sustained a sophisticated 

media campaign propagating a “long war” against its enemies.23 This campaign includes 

outreach to local sympathizers in the West, urging them to execute attacks. According to 

the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the number of active investigations related to international terrorism in the United States has stayed about the same since 2014, hovering around 

4,000. The percentage of IS-related arrests for domestic attacks, however, has continued to 

increase over the past 2 years, even after the IS’s territorial defeat.24 As of August 2019, 194 

individuals in the United States had been charged with offenses related to IS. Forty percent 

of these cases involved traveling or attempts to travel abroad; 32 percent of the cases were 

plots of terrorist attacks within the U.S. homeland.25 These data suggest that the IS’s message 

continues to reach and resonate with U.S. audiences.

Other Terrorist Threats to the United States 

There are terrorist risks to the United States beyond Salafi-jihadists.26 Over the past decade, 

domestic terrorism motivated by a range of far-right and white supremacist ideologies also 

has increased (see figure 11.3). According to a report by the New America Foundation, 

between 2002 and 2018, American Salafi-jihadists killed an estimated 104 people in the 

U.S. homeland, while the death toll from far-right, white supremacist, and other nonreli0

5

10

15

20

25

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Number of Attacks or Plots

Figure 11.3. Number of Successful Attacks and Failed Plots by 

U.S. Homegrown Extremists, 2002–2018

Source: Anti-Defamation League, H.E.A.T. Map, 2018, available at 

<https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-heat-map>.

Islamist Right wing Left wing
Counterterrorism and the United States 239

gious extremist ideologies stood at 125 people.27 Left-wing terrorists also have historical 

roots inside the United States. According to the Global Terrorism Database, the number 

of attacks by left-wing extremists inside the United States has dropped from more than 20 

per year in 2003 to less than 5 per year in 2018.28 And, for the past several years, attacks 

by left-wing and anarchist groups have held steady at about 3 percent of all domestic terrorism inside the United States, according to both the Global Terrorism Database and the 

Anti-Defamation League (figure 11.3).29 Much like their jihadist counterparts, domestic 

terrorists are empowered by the Internet and social media platforms, where they share their 

ideas and resources.30 Although these individuals are largely decentralized and operate in 

small independent cells, many take ideological cues and inspiration from broader, more 

global movements.31 Importantly, at least for the purposes of this chapter, investigative journalism and academic research indicates that Russia’s disinformation campaign, directed 

against the West, has amplified right-wing extremist movements.32

In summary, this threat assessment suggests that the U.S. military should prioritize 

preventing external operations, directed or virtually planned by foreign VEOs, against the 

U.S. homeland, and minimize the ability of foreign VEOs, or even foreign nation-state 

adversaries, to inspire attacks by sympathizers in the West, commonly referred to as homegrown violent extremists. This way forward accepts risk, including the possibility of terrorist 

attacks on our allies’ and partners’ homelands.33 It also includes risks from greater local or 

regional instability, which may in turn weaken some of our allies or partners.34 Still further, 

some terrorism scholars have argued that too much U.S. counter-VEO retrenchment will 

allow for a third generation of global jihadists and homegrown violent extremists to emerge, 

setting us back to where we were before September 2001.35 As the United States transitions 

into the 2020s, its defense strategy now accepts these risks when weighed against the threats 

from near-peer competitors and rogue states. The next sections review how Great Power 

rivals are likely to constrain U.S. counter-VEO endeavors in the future and how regional 

state actors and partners might exacerbate or mitigate VEO risks to the U.S. homeland, its 

vital interests, and its allies.

Counterterrorism and the Impacts from 

Great Power Competition: Syria 

Syria represents the best, most concrete example of counterterrorism in the new era of 

Great Power competition. Recent experiences in Syria underscore the likelihood that the 

U.S. military will no longer be able to execute counterterrorism operations with little to 

no interference in the near future. It will face direct or indirect opposition from other 

nation-states. To be successful, the U.S. military will need to adjust its authorities, technologies, and other resources accordingly.

Operation Inherent Resolve is a counterterrorism mission begun in late 2014 against the 

Islamic State and led by the United States. Between 2015 and 2018, IS leaders used Syrian 

cities such as Tabqah, Raqqah, and Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) to orchestrate external terrorist 

operations against the West. IS media campaigns and other outreach to local sympathizers 

further exacerbated this threat. The U.S. national security community determined that the 

only way to halt the IS external operations campaign was for the U.S. military to reduce 

IS control over territory in Syria. It initially chose to accomplish this mission through a 
240 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

combination of precision strikes and working by, with, and through local Kurdish militias, 

renamed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This approach allowed the United States to 

pursue its military objectives with a limited footprint, approximately 2,000 U.S. Soldiers, 

Sailors, and Airmen. Beginning in late 2019, the Trump administration reduced the U.S. 

force level in Syria even more, although counterterrorism operations continue at present.

But U.S. interests in Syria—narrowly focused on counterterrorism—clash with those 

of Russia, Iran, and Turkey, all of which view the conflict more broadly through the lens of 

their own geopolitical influence. Since 2011, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad and his security forces have struggled greatly against a wide range of opposition forces, even going so 

far as to deploy chemical weapons in this campaign.36 During both the Obama and Trump 

administrations, the U.S. Government has articulated its opposition to the Syrian regime 

often and repeatedly, thereby assuring that Asad has no interest in U.S. military forces on 

the ground in Syria. Asad did, however, welcome—and count on—the presence of Iranian, 

and later Russian, military and paramilitary assistance in the fight. Turkey also was a critical 

party to the Syrian civil war, with its own unique mix of strategic interests and objectives. 

Initially an opponent of Asad and a supporter of anti-Asad insurgents, Turkey’s involvement has proved fluid and its motives far from fully aligned with those of the United States. 

Ankara’s longstanding battle against domestic Kurdish antigovernment militias made Turkey incredibly wary of Kurdish ethnic forces operating in Syria. Turkey’s direct proximity 

to Syria meant that Turkish forces and their proxies had a serious impact on the U.S. counterterrorism mission against IS. The presence of Russian, Iranian, and Turkish forces and 

their proxies has complicated the U.S. counterterrorism mission. Indeed, the intermixing of 

cross-cutting Russian, Iranian, Turkish, and U.S. strategic aims during a time of reemerging 

Great Power competition has made Inherent Resolve a poster child for the complexities that 

U.S. counterterrorism missions will likely face in the future. The following paragraphs explore these experiences in greater detail.

President Vladimir Putin’s Russia has three primary interests in the Syrian conflict: 

It prefers to see President Asad retain power in the country; it wants to reduce the threat 

posed by returning foreign fighters, primarily from Chechnya and the Caucasus; and it 

wishes to establish Putin as an alternative “broker” to the United States in the Middle East 

and North Africa.37 Putin’s Russia has sent as many as 4,000 soldiers and military advisors to 

Syria—along with rotary-wing aircraft, heavy weapons, and artillery—to bolster the Asad 

regime.38 The Russian air force (RuAF) also has conducted airstrikes in support of regime 

forces and sent airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms to Syria: 

unmanned aerial vehicles, Il-20 Coots, and Tu-214R.39 As noted in chapter 3b, Syria became a testing ground for some of the new Russian military capabilities heavily invested 

in by Putin since the mid-2000s. The RuAF has used the conflict in Syria to tests its stealth 

bombers (T-50s) and fighters (Su-57s) against U.S. forces.40 In a pattern begun with Russian 

operations in Chechnya in 2014, at least 2,500 Russian mercenaries have fought on behalf 

of the Syrian regime, demonstrating an often-overlooked capability critical to the strategic 

reach of Russia in its rivalry with the United States.41

Likewise, Iran—a regional hegemon with both animus toward the United States and 

hatred of IS—has played a key role in the Syrian conflict. Syria and Iran have a longstanding 

alliance. Iran has provided financial and military aid to Asad. It also has sent military advi-
Counterterrorism and the United States 241

sors from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps–Qods Forces (IRGC-QF) to work with 

regime security forces. Specifically, IRGC-QF advisors oversee approximately 25,000 fighters from Lebanon (primarily Hizballah), Iraq, and Afghanistan, who have reinforced Asad’s 

forces in his fight against opposition troops.42 To make the situation even more complicated, 

Russian military advisors reportedly have trained Hizballah and IRGC-QF personnel to call 

in RuAF airstrikes, in an effort to reduce fratricide for its close air support.43

Unlike Russia and Iran, Turkey opposes Asad and his regime. President Recep Tayyip 

Erdogan has provided approximately 15,000 opposition forces within Syria with weapons 

and other forms of support.44 Turkey also has deployed its own security forces into Syria as 

part of two military operations: Euphrates Shield (August 2016) and Olive Branch (March 

2018). Turkish leaders did this to eliminate Syrian Kurds’ control over territory close to the 

Turkish border. Turkey views Syrian Kurds as closely tied to a Turkish VEO, referred to as 

the Kurdistan Workers Party. In addition, Erdogan has accused Syrian Kurds of small-scale 

cross-border attacks with mortars.45 Unfortunately, these Syrian Kurds are the same militias 

that form the backbone of the SDF and have partnered with the U.S. military to fight against 

IS. U.S. counterterrorist operations against IS had to factor in not only Russian and Iranian 

motivations and presence but also complex Turkish grievances against a major U.S.-allied, 

anti-IS militia.

In the midst of these crosswinds, U.S. forces have had to execute missions against IS 

in the thick of a highly complex operational environment, one not seen in the post–Cold 

War world prior to the return of Great Power rivalry. Despite efforts to deconflict ongoing 

operations, the presence of Russian, Iranian, and Turkish security forces, along with their 

proxies, has reduced U.S. military effectiveness. The following are some concrete examples 

of what happens to U.S. forces when they attempt to execute counterterrorism missions in 

the midst of Great Power competition:

■ In October 2015, reports emerged of Russia jamming U.S. military communications 

equipment, navigation systems, and aircraft in Syria. The former commander of U.S. 

Special Operations Command subsequently described Syria as the “most aggressive 

[electronic warfare] environment on the planet.”46

■ In May 2017, Iranian-backed Shia militias stationed near the outskirts of At-Tanf 

garrison, Syria, entered the deconfliction zone, threatening U.S. forces and their 

partners (an Arab militia called Maghaweir al-Thowra). Russian jets provided the 

Shia militias with close air support.47

■ In November 2017, a Russian jet flew an unsafe flight profile—dangerously low—

over U.S. forces in the Euphrates Valley. Two U.S. Air Force F-22s reportedly warned 

off the Russian jets by releasing infrared flares.48

■ In February 2018, approximately 300 Russian mercenaries attacked U.S. forces and 

their SDF partners near Dar el-Zour.49 U.S. forces called for close air support, and 

F-15E Strike Eagles responded, killing approximately 200 of the mercenaries.50

■ In October 2019, Turkish-based opposition forces threatened U.S. Soldiers as they 

withdrew from Ain Issa, Syria. F-15E Strike Eagles responded with a show of force.51
242 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

In summary, American experiences in Syria illustrate how Great Power competition 

could complicate a narrowly defined U.S. counterterrorism mission. Over the next 3 to 5 

years, the U.S. military should expect Russia and China to continue to position themselves 

as alternatives to the United States—not only in the Middle East and North Africa but also 

in other regions.52 Thus far, China appears less likely to use military forces outside East and 

Southeast Asia. But the presence of Russian ground forces and their proxies, combined with 

close air support provided by RuAF to these forces, will indelibly complicate the U.S. military’s ability to conduct counterterrorism operations. Great Power rival use of electronic or 

cyber warfare also will likely constrain U.S. military options.

Regional States and VEO Risk Exacerbation or Mitigation 

Salafi-jihadists have directed most of their violence against local and regional targets, not 

the United States or the West. Thus, it makes sense that other Great Powers and regional 

states will have their own calculations about the threat posed by local, regional, and global 

VEOs; they also will decide whether to intervene directly against VEOs or counter them 

with proxy forces. This dynamic exists in many areas, including the Middle East, North 

Africa, Central Asia, and South and Southeast Asia. In some places, the interventions by 

regional powers will likely reduce the threat of VEOs to the U.S. homeland, but in other 

areas, regional states will likely intervene in such a way that they exacerbate the threat of 

foreign VEOs to the United States and its interests abroad. These risks will need to be managed, even as the U.S. military prioritizes Great Power competition. The following are two 

distinct and contrasting examples of this dynamic, underscoring the complex requirements 

of countering VEOs in this new era of Great Power competition.

Saudi Arabia vs. Iran in the Middle East as VEO Risk Exacerbators 

The escalating proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran represents the best example of 

how regional powers can strengthen VEOs—either directly or indirectly—in their pursuit 

of dominance. The competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran has played out in various 

theaters across the Middle East, North Africa, and into South Asia. For the United States, 

Saudi Arabia is a valued ally and Iran is an adversary. But their proxy war elevates the risks 

of unleashing empowered VEOs with international reach as well as adding to the volatility 

of many nation-states around them, many of which host either IS or al Qaeda fighters. This 

Saudi-Iranian confrontation has been stoking conflicts in Iraq and Yemen; they offer two 

instructive examples of how regional power competition can create environments hospitable to VEOs.

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not new. It started off as a cold war between regional competitors, both surviving on petrodollars while adhering to two different 

shades of Islam that have historically been at odds. Both of these world views—Shiism in 

Iran and Sunni-Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia—have been revolutionary in essence, highly 

political in orientation, and particularly zealous in proselytization. Over time, the competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran has turned into a balance-of-power game.53 As of 2020, 

this competition has not yet led to a direct military confrontation.54 However, Saudi Arabia 

and Iran have targeted each other’s core national security interests, and these efforts have 

included the use of proxies and all actions short of war.55
Counterterrorism and the United States 243

Within the past decade, Iraq has been at the center of this rivalry. In Iraq, the Saudi 

footprint has been less visible than Iran’s. Since the United States toppled Saddam Hussein 

from power in Iraq in 2003, Iran has used its relationship with Iraq’s Shia population to 

garner influence within its neighbor. To do this, Iran has focused attention on solidifying 

its influence in the Iraqi south, where pilgrimage routes in and around Shia-dominated 

Najaf and Karbala have religious significance. Iran also was able to take advantage of IS 

expansion and control over territory within Iraq between 2014 and 2019. Iran overtly sponsored several of the Hashd Al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq, which 

emerged after Iraqi Shia Ayatollah Ali al-Seestani’s 2014 fatwa encouraging Iraqis to assist 

government forces as they attempted to push back the Salafi-jihadist IS. The PMF played 

an important role in confronting IS fighters in Iraq between 2014 and 2016, in a parallel 

effort to Inherent Resolve in Iraq, led by U.S. forces. PMF success, in turn, reinforced Iranian 

influence in Iraq.

For Saudi Arabia, Iran’s expanding influence in Iraq has been a grave concern. More 

sympathetic to Iraq’s minority Sunni population, Riyadh has been trapped between IS expansion into Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq on one side and Iranian influence on the other. 

While Riyadh has been somewhat concerned about the regional threat posed by IS fighters 

and operatives, it has been equally worried about its waning influence in Iraq. Iraq’s political leadership routinely has sympathized with Iranian interests against Saudi Arabia over 

the past decade. For Saudi Arabia and Iran, everything in the region is a zero-sum game, 

and so their competition for influence in Iraq only feeds into brewing instability in the 

wider Middle East.56

Yemen offers an even more severe example of the consequences of this poisonous rivalry. Yemen has been in the midst of a civil war since early 2015. Its main factions are 

those loyal to the more formalized government of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour 

Hadi, supported by Saudi Arabia, and the minority Shia-affiliated Huthi rebel movement, 

supported by Iran. Beyond these factions, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has 

retained control over some territory in Yemen, as has its competitor Salafi-jihadist outfit, IS 

in Yemen. AQAP remains the most threatening terrorist outfit to the United States and its 

allies, plotting multiple attacks over the years, including a foiled attack against Northwest 

Airlines 253 in Detroit (December 2009), a series of plots that prompted the U.S. Government to close 22 Embassies worldwide (August 2013), and a successful attack against the 

Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris (January 2015). AQAP also claimed responsibility for a 

December 2019 attack by a Saudi military officer at a U.S. base in Pensacola, Florida.57

For Iran, Yemen represents a launching pad to target the Saudi military through proxies. The IRGC-QF has provided weapons, ammunition, communications equipment, and 

other support to Huthi rebels in Yemen’s ongoing civil war. In December 2019, for example, 

the U.S. Government sanctioned the ESAIL Shipping Company and Mahar Air for smuggling weapons to Yemen on behalf of the IRGC-QF.58 Many other materials have made their 

way from Iran to Yemen via well-established criminal smuggling networks.59 Saudi Arabia 

and its close ally, the United Arab Emirates, have responded with airstrikes against Huthi 

targets. The resulting war has displaced more than 3.3 million people and has exacted an 

estimated death toll ranging from approximately 7,000 to more than 65,000 people.60 Yemen 

stands destroyed, and it will take decades to rebuild its infrastructure.
244 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

The Yemen conflict also has posed direct challenges for the U.S. military. Huthi rebels 

have used weapons provided by IRGC-QF to attack U.S. military targets and personnel in 

the region, some of which are there for the explicit purpose of countering the threat posed 

by AQAP to the United States and its allies.61 For example, in June 2019, Huthi fighters 

shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone as it flew over western Yemen, an area with local 

popular support and freedom of movement for AQAP fighters. U.S. Central Command 

subsequently stated the MQ-9 was shot down by a SA-6 and accused Iran of enabling the 

attack.62 The Huthis responded by threatening to attack any future drones that fly outside of 

AQAP territory, viewing them as a direct threat.63

The Saudi-Iranian struggle will likely continue to motivate both sides to invest in destabilizing each other—and search for new proxies to serve their interests.64 These proxies, 

as we have seen in Yemen, are inextricably linked to weapons-smuggling networks in the 

region. Furthermore, Salafi-jihadists have taken advantage of this instability to threaten the 

United States and its allies.65 Granted, from a contemporary U.S. policy perspective, Iranian-backed proxies may be worse than those spawned by Sunni-led governments, but the 

net result of their mutual hostility continues to make space for VEOs that threaten the U.S. 

homeland, U.S. and allied military units, and vital U.S. interests. Washington must continue 

to manage the Saudi-Iranian rivalry in a manner that offsets that contest’s ongoing potential 

to exacerbate the risks from truly dangerous VEOs in the era of Great Power competition.

Australia in Southeast Asia as a VEO Risk Mitigator 

Australia represents an important contrast to the proxy warfare risks generated by the 

struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Counterterrorism in Southeast Asia is a distant 

priority for the United States in an era of Great Power rivalry, well behind coping with a 

rising and more assertive China, freedom of navigation operations, alliance management, 

and the denuclearization of North Korea. Given these U.S. priorities, it is reasonable to expect that within the Indo-Pacific region, U.S. counterterrorism efforts will remain focused 

on the Philippines, where a number of pro-IS, al Qaeda, and other Salafi-jihadist groups 

continue to spread the poorly resourced Philippine military thin. For the rest of the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, the United States will likely maintain a 

smaller intelligence and law enforcement engagement.

Australia, therefore, represents a critical partner in combating terrorism in the Indo-Pacific region during the dawning era of Great Power competition. Australia has paid 

far closer attention to Indonesia than the United States and has legitimate concerns about 

what it considers the “arc of instability” to its immediate north. Australian Federal Police 

have worked actively with their Indonesian counterparts, and they have been at the forefront of the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation. The United States should be 

confident in both Australia’s leadership and approach. For no other reason than proximity, Australia has taken the threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia more seriously than the 

United States.

Australia also has increased its bi- and multilateral engagement with the Armed 

Forces of the Philippines (AFP). During the 5-month-long siege of the Philippine city 

of Marawi by pro-IS militants in mid-2017, Australia deployed two AP-3C Orion aircraft to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support to the Philippine 
Counterterrorism and the United States 245

military.66 The Australian Defence Forces have conducted urban warfare training with 

the AFP. Australia also has assisted the Philippine police with forensic instruction, an 

improvised explosive device database, and other training. In 2019, Australian aid to the 

conflict-plagued Philippines was $85 million, with a large portion of that money going to 

support the peace process between the government and the largest Islamist secessionist 

movement, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.67

Moreover, Australia has been an important backer of the trilateral maritime patrols established in 2017 among the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. In some ways, Australia 

is better poised to assist in the maritime component of counterterrorism, as Malaysia and 

Indonesia have largely resisted the involvement of the U.S. Navy. Australia is seen as a more 

acceptable partner, as U.S. Naval presence—and in particular its freedom of navigation operations—is often viewed as provocative. While the trilateral patrols have been going on for 

more than 2 years already, there is still no fusion center, and intelligence is shared on an ad 

hoc basis. Australia has been reluctant to join any freedom of navigation operations in the 

South China Sea, yet the United States wants Canberra to play a greater maritime role in the 

region. Australia also has been able to leverage its multilateral task force experience from 

the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden.

Finally, while Australia has every reason to take a leadership role in countering VEOs 

in Southeast Asia, it has its own domestic IS challenge. On a per capita basis, Australia 

had one of the highest rates of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria.68 Additionally, there have 

been a number of IS-inspired attacks in Australia, including the 2014 cafe siege and a 2017 

shootout in Melbourne. A plot to import weapons and explosives for a campaign against 

churches and embassies was thwarted in July 2019; it was the 16th alleged mass casualty attack to have been foiled in Australia since 2014.69 So Canberra feels the need to play defense 

overseas as well. These actions reinforce Australia as a willing and able partner for countering VEOs, with longstanding commitment and credibility in Southeast Asia. In this sense, 

Australia exemplifies the opportunities presented by partner regional states becoming more 

engaged in countering VEOs, even as the United States devotes more of its resources to 

Great Power competition.

Implications 

The cases reviewed in this chapter imply several realities for U.S. counterterrorism in the 

new era of Great Power competition. First, U.S. national security officials should assume 

that Putin’s Russia will continue to undermine U.S. counterterrorism objectives, either 

directly or indirectly. Moscow will likely do this by fomenting right-wing and other homegrown violent extremists indirectly through a media campaign. Russia also will confront 

U.S. forces, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, as they attempt to mitigate VEO 

threats to the U.S. homeland. For the former, Syria will likely be the model, with Russia 

combining diplomatic initiatives, proxy warfare, and electronic warfare to foil U.S. military 

dominance.70

The U.S. Government, therefore, should reconsider its counterterrorism authorities, technologies, and other tools in light of the evolving realities created by Great Power 

competition. The U.S. military also should revisit its risk threshold for small-footprint deployments, especially force protection requirements in areas with active proxies. In this 
246 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

context, the U.S. Government should explore more ways to deter actions by proxies against 

U.S. forces and hold all sponsors accountable.

Finally, U.S. national security officials should assume that regional states will continue 

to pursue their own counterterrorism objectives. Sometimes they will deploy their forces 

in a manner that the U.S. Government will find unacceptable. Sometimes they will utilize 

proxy forces in a destabilizing manner. In other instances, important regional states will 

have objectives, ways, and means that align with U.S. aims for countering VEOs. The best 

way to mitigate the risk of regional states acting in an unruly manner is to be involved—

even to a minimal degree if necessary—and then truly leverage U.S. influence with them. 

That said, U.S. military defense priorities outlined in the 2018 NDS make regional power 

struggles, including their potential to exacerbate some VEO threats, an area where the U.S. 

Government will accept some additional risk.

Notes

1 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy: Sharpening 

the American Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, DC: 

Department of Defense, 2018).

2

 “A New National Security Strategy for a New Era,” The White 

House, December 18, 2017, available at <www.whitehouse.gov/

articles/new-national-security-strategy-new-era/>.

3 Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy.

4

 See National Strategy for Counterterrorism of the United States 

(NSCT) (Washington, DC: The White House, October 2018), 

available at <www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/

NSCT.pdf>; “White House Releases National Strategy for 

Counterterrorism,” October 4, 2018, available at <www.dni.

gov/index.php/nctc-newsroom/item/1911-white-house-releasesnational-strategy-for-counterterrorism>.

5

 NSCT, 11.

6

 Ibid.

7

 Mariya Omelicheva and Lawrence Markowitz, The Nature and 

Sources of Terrorist Threat in Russia: An “Armed Underground” 

or ISIL? Eurasia Policy Memo 550 (Washington, DC: Institute 

for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, November 

2018), available at <www.ponarseurasia.org/memo/armedunderground-or-isis-nature-sources-terrorist-threat-russia>; 

Mariya Omelicheva and Lawrence Markowitz, “When Does 

the Crime-Terror Nexus Fail to Materialize? Drug Trafficking, 

Militants, and the State in Russia,” Journal of Global Security 

Studies, March 17, 2020, 1–19, available at <https://doi.

org/10.1093/jogss/ogz078>.

8

 “Russia Plane Crash: ‘Terror Act’ Downed A321 over Egypt’s 

Sinai,” BBC News, November 17, 2015, available at <www.bbc.

com/news/world-europe-34840943>.

9

 Maher Ahmad and Salman Masood, “Chinese Presence in 

Pakistan Is Targeted in Attack on Consulate in Karachi,” New 

York Times, November 23, 2018, available at <www.nytimes.

com/2018/11/23/world/asia/pakistan-karachi-attack-chineseconsulate.html>.

10 Omelicheva and Markowitz, The Nature and Sources of 

Terrorist Threat in Russia; Ekaterina Stepanova and R. Kim 

Cragin, “Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism,” in 

A Roadmap for U.S.-Russia Relations, ed. Andrey Kortunov 

and Olya Oliker (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, 2017), available at <www.csis.org/analysis/

roadmap-us-russia-relations>.

11 Stepanova and Cragin, “Countering Terrorism and Violent 

Extremism.” This report was the result of 2 years of Track II 

diplomacy between American and Russian academics on areas 

for cooperation in national security, including topics related to 

counterterrorism.

12 Ibid.

13 For more information, see Shiraz Maher, Salafi-Jihadism: The 

History of an Idea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); 

Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (London: I.B. 

Tauris, 2002); Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 2004); Sayyid Qutb, Milestones 

(Location unknown: International Islamic Federation of Student 

Organizations, n.d.).

14 Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global 

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); R. Kim Cragin, 

“An Early History of al-Qaeda,” The Historical Journal 51, no. 

4 (December 2008), available at <www.cambridge.org/core/

journals/historical-journal/article/div-classtitleearly-historyof-al-qaandaposidadiv/712B4E593C762040899BB4A78E62

AEA1>.

15 Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of 

Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015); Abu Bakr Naji, Management 

of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Ummah 

Will Pass, trans. William McCants (Cambridge, MA: John M. 

Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006).

16 Rukmini Callimachi, “How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built 

a Global Network of Killers,” New York Times, August 3, 2016. 

See also Martin Chulov, “How ISIS Laid Out Its Plans to Export 

Chaos to Europe,” The Guardian, March 25, 2016.

17 R. Kim Cragin, “The November 2015 Paris Attacks: The Impact 

of Foreign Terrorist Fighters,” Orbis, February 2017; Louise 

Callaghan, “Clandestine ISIS Unit Training Britons to Launch 

Attacks on UK,” The Times (London), August 6, 2017, available 

at <www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/clandestine-isis-unittraining-britons-to-launch-attacks-on-uk-9hjm3b6gr>.

18 Cragin, “An Early History of al-Qaeda.”

19 Beginning in 2012, the START Consortium at the University 

of Maryland changed its data-collection methodology, which 

caused a spike in the overall number of terrorist attacks in the 

Global Terrorism Database. The proportional numbers allow 

accounting for this data-collection bias, revealing a more accurate 

trend in attacks.
Counterterrorism and the United States 247

20 Readers should note that there is a slight downward turn after 

2018. It is too soon to determine if this downturn will continue 

and represent a true change in trajectory, or if it simply represents 

a small bounce.

21 Operation Inherent Resolve and Other Overseas Contingency 

Operations: Lead Inspector General Report to the United States 

Congress, October 1, 2018–December 31, 2018 (Washington, 

DC: Government Publishing Office, 2019), available at <https://

media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/05/2002086500/-1/-1/1/FY2019_

LIG_OIRREPORT.PDF>.

22 Christopher Wray, Global Terrorism: Threats to the Homeland: 

Statement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Director 

Before the House Homeland Security Committee, October 

30, 2019, available at <https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/

global-terrorism-threats-to-the-homeland-103019>.

23 Michael Munoz, “Selling the Long War: Islamic State 

Propaganda After the Caliphate,” CTC Sentinel 11, no. 

10 (November 2018), available at <https://ctc.usma.edu/

selling-long-war-islamic-state-propaganda-caliphate/>.

24 Seamus Hughes and Devorah Margolin, “The 

Fractured Terrorism Threat to America,” Lawfare, 

November 19, 2019, available at <www.lawfareblog.com/

fractured-terrorism-threat-america>.

25 Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, ISIS in America: From 

Retweets to Raqqa (Washington, DC: George Washington 

Program on Extremism, 2015), available at <https://extremism.

gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/downloads/ISIS%20in%20

America%20-%20Full%20Report.pdf>.

26 For additional detail, see NSCT, 1, 10.

27 Peter Bergen et al., “Part IV: What Is the Threat to the United 

States Today?” in Terrorism in America After 9/11 (Washington, 

DC: New America, n.d.), available at <www.newamerica.org/

in-depth/terrorism-in-america/what-threat-united-states-today/>.

28 Trends in Global Terrorism: Islamic State’s Decline in Iraq 

and Expanding Global Impact; Fewer Mass Casualty Attacks in 

Western Europe; Number of Attacks in the United States Highest 

Since 1980s (College Park, MD: START Consortium, 2019), 

available at <https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_GTD_

TerrorismIn2018_Oct2018.pdf>.

29 Ibid. See also Anti-Defamation League, “Murder and Extremism 

in the United States in 2019,” February 2020, available at <https://

www.adl.org/murder-and-extremism-2019#key-findings>.

30 Maura Conway, Ryan Scrivens, and Logan Macnair, Right-Wing 

Extremists’ Persistent Online Presence: History and Contemporary 

Trends, Policy Brief (The Hague: International Centre for 

Counterterrorism, October 2019), available at <https://icct.nl/

wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Right-Wing-Extremists-PersistentOnline-Presence.pdf>.

31 Ibid.

32 See, for example, Clint Watts, “America Has a White Nationalist 

Terrorism Problem. What Should We Do?” Foreign Policy 

Research Institute, May 1, 2019, available at <www.fpri.org/

article/2019/05/america-has-a-white-nationalist-terrorismproblem-what-should-we-do/>.

33 Bruce Hoffman, “Why the Fall of Raqqah Doesn’t Signify 

the End of the Islamic State,” NPR Radio, interview with 

Scott Simon, October 21, 2017, available at <www.npr.

org/2017/10/21/559215236/why-the-fall-of-raqqa-doesntsignify-the-end-of-the-islamic-state>.

34 Seth G. Jones et al., The Evolution of the Salafi-Jihadist Threat

(Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International 

Studies, 2018), available at <https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.

com/s3fs-public/publication/181221_EvolvingTerroristThreat.

pdf?_y6E2kgbXecCEcHFqTayRVST5k60KbTB>; see also 

Charles Lister, “Al-Qaeda and the Decentralization of Terrorism,” 

Asharaq al-Wasat, August 8, 2019, available at <https://

aawsat.com/english/home/article/1849491/charles-lister/

al-qaeda-and-decentralization-terrorism>.

35 Charles Lister, “Leaving Syria Won’t Make Things Better—

for the U.S. or for Syria,” Middle East Institute, August 14, 

2019, available at <www.mei.edu/publications/leaving-syriawont-make-things-any-better-us-or-syria>; Lara Seligman, “In 

Overflowing Refugee Camps, Extremism Takes Root,” Foreign 

Policy, July 29, 2019, available at <foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/29/

in-overflowing-syrian-refugee-camps-extremism-takes-rootsyria-bashar-assad-islamic-state-isis/>.

36 Jared Malsin, “Assad’s Regime Is Still Using Chemical 

Weapons in Syria,” Time, September 14, 2016, available at <time.

com/4492670/syria-chemical-weapon-aleppo-assad-regime/>; 

Charles Lister, The Syrian Jihad: al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and 

the Evolution of an Insurgency (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2015).

37 Since Soviet times, Russia has used facilities in the small 

Syrian port of Tartus, the only Russian naval outpost beyond 

the Bosporus. While the utility of this naval base has been a matter 

of debate, it allows Russia to firm up its naval presence in the 

Mediterranean region. This port represents one of many reasons 

why Russia prefers that President Bashar al-Asad remain in power.

38 Mark Mazzetti, Anne Barnard, and Eric Schmitt, “Putin Gains 

Leverage as Army Wins Syria Battles: By Bludgeoning Rebels, 

Russia Gets Upper Hand in Proxy War Against U.S.,” New York 

Times, August 8, 2016.

39 Ralph Shield, “Russian Airpower’s Success in Syria: Assessing 

Evolution in Kinetic Counterinsurgency,” Journal of Slavic 

Military Studies 31, no. 2 (April 2018), 214–239.

40 Nina Khrushcheva, “Mercenaries Cloud Russia’s Real Casualty 

Figures in Syrian War,” The Australian (New South Wales), March 

2, 2018; David Axe, “Putin Sends His Stealth Jets into Air War 

over Syria,” The Daily Beast, February 23, 2018.

41 Ben Brimelow, “Russia Is Using Mercenaries to Make It Look 

Like It’s Losing Fewer Troops in Syria,” Business Insider, February 

14, 2018; Maria Tsvetkova and Anton Zverev, “Russians ‘Backed 

by the Kremlin’ Are Secretly Dying in Syria Fighting for Bashar 

al-Assad,” The Independent (London), November 4, 2016.

42 Liz Sly, “Syria’s War Could Be Entering Its Last and Most 

Dangerous Phase,” Washington Post, August 10, 2018.

43 Shield, “Russian Airpower’s Success in Syria.”

44 Jonathan Spyer, “Fresh Sparring by Old Rivals,” The Australian

(New South Wales), November 28, 2015, 17; Sarah el Deeb, 

“Factors Realign as U.S. Pulls Out of Syria,” The Hamilton 

Spectator (Ontario), January 7, 2019.

45 “Erdogan Warns Kurds and Syrian Ceasefire Gets Off to a Rocky 

Start,” Al Jazeera, October 18, 2019, available at <www.aljazeera.

com/news/2019/10/erdogan-warns-kurds-syria-ceasefire-rockystart-191018183950579.html>.

46 Lara Seligman, “Russian Jamming Poses a Growing Threat to 

U.S. Troops in Syria,” Foreign Policy, July 30, 2018; Alan Dupont, 

“Putin’s Gambit Changes the Game Strategy,” The Australian

(New South Wales), October 10, 2015.

47 Nicholas Blanford, “At Remote Desert Garrison in Syria, a 

U.S.-Iran Confrontation Is Brewing,” Christian Science Monitor, 

June 6, 2017, available at <www.csmonitor.com/World/

Middle-East/2017/0606/At-remote-desert-garrison-in-Syriaa-US-Iran-confrontation-is-brewing>.

48 Axe, “Putin Sends His Stealth Jets into Air War over Syria.”

49 Eric Schmitt, Ivan Nichepurencho, and C.J. Chivers, “The 

Truth About the Brutal Four-Hour Battle Between Russian 

Mercenaries and U.S. Commandos,” New York Times, May 26, 

2018; Neil Hauer, “Russia’s Mercenary Debacle in Syria,” Foreign 
248 Cragin, Abbas, Abuza, and Omelicheva

Affairs, February 26, 2018, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/

articles/syria/2018-02-26/russias-mercenary-debacle-syria>.

50 This kind of fatality-producing incident between the U.S. 

and Russian military or paramilitary forces had not occurred 

since accidental encounters during the Balkan wars of the late 

1990s. For further information, see Oriana Pawlyk, “Fewer 

Russian Mercenaries Entering Syria Since Airstrike: Mattis,” 

Military.com, March 27, 2018, available at <www.military.com/

daily-news/2018/03/27/fewer-russian-mercenaries-enteringsyria-airstrike-mattis.html>; Brimelow, “Russia Is Using 

Mercenaries”; Tsvetkova and Zverev, “Russians ‘Backed by the 

Kremlin’ Are Secretly Dying in Syria”; and Seligman, “Russian 

Jamming Poses a Growing Threat to U.S. Troops in Syria.”

51 Taylor Heyman and Jack Dutton, “Putin and Erdogan Speak 

as Syrian Regime Takes Town of Manbij,” The National (Qatar), 

October 15, 2019.

52 For more information on Russia’s strategy of “active defense,” 

see a March 2019 speech by Russian Chief of General Staff 

Valery Gerasimov, “The Development of Military Strategy 

Under Contemporary Conditions,” trans. Harold Orenstein 

and Timothy Thomas, Military Review, November 2019, available 

at <www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/

Online-Exclusive/2019-OLE/November/Orenstein-Gerasimov/>.

53 F. Gregory Gause III, Beyond Sectarianism: The New Middle 

East Cold War, Doha Centre Analysis Paper 11 (Washington, DC: 

Brookings Institution, July 2014), available at <www.brookings.

edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/English-PDF-1.pdf>.

54 Banafsheh Keynoush, “Saudi Arabia and Iran Are Adapting 

to Perpetual Conflict,” Atlantic Council, May 23, 2019, 

available at <www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/

saudi-arabia-and-iran-are-adapting-to-perpetual-conflict/>.

55 For how they view each other, see Mohammad Javad Zarif, 

“Saudi Arabia’s Reckless Extremism,” New York Times, January 

10, 2016, available at <www.nytimes.com/2016/01/11/opinion/

mohammad-javad-zarif-saudi-arabias-reckless-extremism.html>; 

Adel Bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, “Can Iran Change?” New York Times, 

January 19, 2016, available at <www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/

opinion/saudi-arabia-can-iran-change.html>.

56 Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine, R.I.P.,” The Atlantic, 

April 7, 2017, available at <www.theatlantic.com/international/

archive/2017/04/the-obama-doctrine-rip/522276/>.

57 “Al-Qaeda in Yemen Claims Charlie Hebdo Attack,” Al 

Jazeera, January 14, 2015, available at <www.aljazeera.com/

news/middleeast/2015/01/al-qaeda-yemen-charlie-hebdo-parisattacks-201511410323361511.html>; Mark Sappenfield, “Al 

Qaeda Embassy Threats: Sign of Shrinking Ambition?” Christian 

Science Monitor, August 4, 2013, available at <www.csmonitor.

com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2013/0804/Al-Qaeda-embassy-threatsSign-of-shrinking-ambition>; Thomas Joscelyn, “AQAP Claims 

‘Full Responsibility’ for Shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola,” 

The Long War Journal, February 2, 2020, available at <https://

www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2020/02/aqap-claims-fullresponsibility-for-shooting-at-naval-air-station-pensacola.php>.

58 Darryl Coote, “Iran Shuns New U.S. Sanctions for 

Smuggling Weapons into Yemen,” UPI, December 12, 2019, 

available at <www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/12/12/

Iran-shuns-new-US-sanctions-for-smuggling-weapons-intoYemen/7161576141059/>.

59 Ahmed Nagi, “Oman’s Boiling Yemeni Border,” Carnegie 

Middle East Center, March 22, 2019, available at <carnegie-mec.

org/2019/03/22/oman-s-boiling-yemeni-border-pub-78668>.

60 “UN and Partners to Hold Conference Seeking Urgently 

Needed Funds to Save Millions in Yemen from ‘Horrific’ Plight,” 

UN News, February 24, 2019, available at <news.un.org/en/

story/2019/02/1033401>; “Yemen War Deaths on Overall Decline 

as UN Works to Salvage Truce,” Armed Conflict Location and 

Event Data Project, March 20, 2019, available at <www.acleddata.

com/2019/03/20/press-release-yemen-war-deaths-on-overalldecline-as-un-works-to-salvage-truce/>.

61 In December 2009, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula 

(AQAP) attempted to bomb Northwest Airlines 253, flying 

from Amsterdam to Detroit, utilizing a new recruit from Nigeria 

(Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab) in an effort to foil airport security. 

He successfully boarded the flight with an explosive device, but it 

ultimately failed to detonate. This event sparked a concerted effort 

by the U.S. military against AQAP fighters in Yemen. See Mark 

Sappenfield, “Detroit Attack: Terrorist Once Again Confounds 

Airport Security,” Christian Science Monitor, December 27, 

2009, available at <www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/1227/

Detroit-attack-terrorist-once-again-confounds-airport-security>.

62 “CENTCOM: MQ-9 Reaper Shot Down Last Week,” 

Military Times, June 16, 2019, available at <www.

militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/06/16/

centcom-mq-9-reaper-shot-down-over-yemen-last-week/>.

63 Ammar al-Ashwal, “Houthis Tout Missiles that Down Advanced 

U.S. Drone,” al-Monitor, August 30, 2019, available at <www.

al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/08/yemen-houthis-downus-drone-al-qaeda.html>.

64 See Patrice Taddonio, “As Oil Attacks Raise Questions, Revisit 

Saudi Arabia and Iran’s Bitter Rivalry,” PBS Frontline, September 

16, 2019, available at <www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/

as-oil-attacks-raise-questions-revisit-saudi-arabia-and-iransbitter-rivalry/>.

65 In August 2013, the U.S. Government closed more than 20 

Embassies worldwide due to an intercepted conversation between 

AQAP operatives indicating an imminent attack. Additionally, 

in January 2015, AQAP orchestrated an attack on the offices of 

the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris, killing 12 people, and, in 

December 2019, AQAP claimed responsibility for the attack by 

a Saudi military officer in Pensacola, Florida. See “Al-Qaeda in 

Yemen Claims Charlie Hebdo Attack”; Sappenfield, “Al Qaeda 

Embassy Threats”; Joscelyn, “AQAP Claims ‘Full Responsibility’ 

for Shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola.”

66 Mannuel Mogato and Tom Westbrook, “Australia to Send 

Spy Planes to Help Philippines Fight Militants,” Reuters, 

June 22, 2017, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-philippines-militants-australia-idUSKBN19D2TU>.

67 “Overview of Australia’s Aid Program to the 

Philippines,” Australian Government Department of 

Foreign Affairs and Trade, available at <https://www.dfat.

gov.au/geo/philippines/development-assistance/Pages/

development-assistance-in-philippines>.

68 Nash Jenkins, “You’ll Never Guess Which Country Is the Biggest 

Per Capita Contributor of Foreign Jihadists to ISIS,” Time, June 

23, 2014, available at <time.com/2911040/australia-isis-syriairaq-terrorism/>; Andrew Zammit, Australian Foreign Fighters: 

Risks and Responses (Sydney: Lowy Institute for International 

Policy, April 2015), 30.

69 “Australia Police Arrest Three Men over Terrorist Attack Plan,” 

Al Jazeera, November 19, 2018, available at <www.aljazeera.

com/news/2018/11/australia-police-arrest-men-terroristattack-plan-181120003913960.html>; Sally Rawsthorne 

and Matt Bungard, “‘Sworn Allegiance to ISIS’: Sydney Men 

Arrested over Foiled Terror Plot,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 

July 2, 2019, available at <www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/

three-alleged-isis-supporters-arrested-in-sydney-accused-ofterror-plot-20190702-p523az.html>; Rob Taylor, “Australia Foils 

Alleged Beheading Plot Linked to Islamic State,” Wall Street 

Journal, September 18, 2014, available at <www.wsj.com/articles/

australia-detains-suspects-in-terrorism-probe-1411008044>; 

Ashley Fantz and Chelsea J. Carter, “Australian PM: Public 

Execution Terror Plot Foiled,” CNN, September 18, 2014, 
Counterterrorism and the United States 249

available at <www.cnn.com/2014/09/17/world/asia/australiaterror-arrests/index.html>.

70 Over the past several years, within the United Nations (UN), 

Russia has begun to seek greater diplomatic influence as it 

relates to the global counterterrorism agenda. Most notably, 

Vladimir Voronkov of the Russian Federation was appointed 

as the first Under Secretary General of the United Nations’ 

Counterterrorism Office in June 2017. Voronkov received a 

broad mandate to provide strategic leadership for the complex 

counterterrorism architecture within the UN with the aim of 

strengthening coordination and improving efficiency of the UN 

counterterrorism system. While the UN Counterterrorism Office 

and the Under Secretary General are supposed to be politically 

neutral, the critics of the new agency and its head have warned 

about Russia’s possible influence on the institution.

251

Chapter 12

Whither Europe in a New Era 

of Great Power Competition? 

Resilient but Troubled

By Steven Philip Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos

This chapter examines Europe’s role and prospects as an important player in the 

emerging era of Great Power competition. Although the European Union’s (EU’s) 

share of global economic output is comparable to that of the United States, it is 

not a Great Power, never realizing some forecasts that it would become a superpower in the post–Cold War world. Instead, the European integration experience 

has been fraught with challenges. Europe has shown considerable resilience while 

overcoming the 2008 Great Recession and saving the euro in the face of a serious 

sovereign debt crisis. However, the EU’s cohesion and solidarity have been severely tested by terrorism, uncontrolled migration, Brexit, and, most recently, the 

still-evolving complications from the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic. Across 

the continent, these problems have generated extremist populist movements that 

challenge liberal democracy and inhibit cohesive EU policy positions or security 

activities. Europe faces a more aggressive Russia, growing Chinese economic and 

political power, and a lack of trust in the U.S. commitment to the transatlantic 

union and European common defense. Despite its enormous latent power potential, Europe has become an object of Great Power rivalry on the continent rather 

than a subject competitor itself. Europe’s responses to its ongoing and potential 

future challenges will shape its role in the new era of Great Power competition.

Early 20th-century French poet and political philosopher Charles Péguy’s comment that “everything begins with mystique and ends in politics” could be aptly applied to 

European integration.1 Embarked on just a few years after World War II, with origins in 

the 1949 Schuman Plan—then the 1951 European Coal and Steel Community, and later 

the European Economic Community of 1957—European integration was based on the 

romantic vision of a continent transcending conflict and forming an ever-closer union. 

Over the years, European integration evolved into a complex and opaque mix of federalism and intergovernmentalism. The crowning organizational jewel of the European 
252 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

integration experiment—the European Union (EU), established by the 1992 Treaty of 

Maastricht and entered into force in 1993—has struggled yet endured.

The EU never has been greatly beloved by its citizens, who felt they had too little direct 

say in its governance. Even though it gradually expanded to include parts of the former 

Soviet bloc in a deepening economic and political union with security and defense cooperation, the EU has rarely preempted crises, has often been slow in reacting to crises, and has 

struggled to sustain the consent of those it governs. In addition, the EU has never realized 

the aspirations held out for it by integration optimists: It has not risen—as a whole or in 

any subgroup—to the status of a Great Power. The EU has never cleaved to the degree necessary to meet the three-feature definition of a Great Power in the post–Cold War world, 

and thus finds itself an important but lower tier player in the emerging new era of Great 

Power competition being shaped by the United States, China, and Russia.2

 There is also the 

matter of population size. If demography is destiny, then the prognosis for Europe’s future 

as a potential Great Power is not good; beneath the lack of dynamism lurk the problems of 

low birth rates, an aging society, and internal migration. Europe’s population today is about 

10 percent of world population; it was about 20 percent in the 18th century. Europe’s place 

in the world is shrinking.3

Yet the EU—as the experiment of European integration as a whole—has managed 

to survive with surprising resilience. Despite its shortcomings and problems, the EU has 

transformed Europe from a region prone to and deeply damaged by war to an area of peaceful cooperation.

The EU enters the 2020s grappling with its challenges and seeking a way forward. In the 

past 10 years, it has been assailed by a series of internal and external problems: a debt crisis, 

economic stagnation, Islamist terrorism, uncontrolled migration, and the 2019–2020 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The first four challenges, together with Brexit, the United 

Kingdom’s rocky departure from the union, have destabilized liberal democracy across Europe. Geopolitically, the EU is facing a darkened international situation with an assertive 

Russia, the cohesion of its longstanding transatlantic alliance in doubt, and the problems 

posed by China’s ascent as a significant economic competitor with growing political and 

military power.

This chapter examines the challenges facing the EU and traces their implications for 

the future of Europe. The debt crisis, economic stagnation, terrorism, migration, and the 

changing security environment are the hallmarks of Europe’s status in 2020 and its path 

forward to 2025. So, too, is the impact of COVID-19, but that is a legacy yet to unfold.

Legacy of the Financial Crisis 

The greatest test to EU resilience since its founding was posed by the effects of the financial 

turmoil that erupted in the United States in 2008 and precipitated the Great Recession. In 

the United States, the crisis originated mainly in the private financial sector of the economy. 

Its transmission to Europe led to a sovereign debt crisis. The EU managed to survive the 

Great Recession, but the crisis threatened the very existence of the common currency, the 

euro.

Europe’s leaders were determined to preserve monetary union, even though they 

lacked traditional macroeconomic policy instruments.4 The Eurozone has a monetary 
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 253

arm—the European Central Bank (ECB)—but lacks a fiscal arm or European treasury; EU 

treaties do not allow for that. Aware of these limitations, European leaders devised ad hoc 

solutions to deal with the immediate challenge of the possible default of member states on 

their sovereign debt. The term Grexit, coined by Citigroup economists, signified the serious 

risks to the Eurozone if Greece, the weakest member of the Eurozone, defaulted and left the 

common currency. There was grave concern that such an event would trigger fiscal contagion and loss of confidence in the ECB. To save the euro, the EU took drastic measures that 

tested all of Europe’s institutions to the limit. Faced with an existential crisis, the EU devised 

novel policy measures to avert default by Ireland, Portugal, Greece, and later, Cyprus, and 

to rescue Spain’s banking sector.5

The course the EU pursued from 2010 to 2018, in partnership with the International 

Monetary Fund, generated controversy that continues to this day. The approach consisted 

of two types of measures: rescue loans and austerity policies requiring cuts in public spending, tax increases, drastic structural reforms to liberalize labor and product markets; and 

the creation of a rescue fund of €750 billion. Key ingredients of the program were packaged 

so as to avoid violations of the EU’s treaty obligations. Specifically, rescue loans for the 

states were structured to sidestep the no-bailout clause of the Maastricht Treaty.6 A special 

debt-relief measure was applied to the case of Greece, calling for a 50 percent writeoff of 

Greek sovereign debt held by banks, hedge funds, and private investors. Another debt-relief 

measure was a “bail-in” used in the case of Cyprus; it involved special levies on bank deposits of over €100,000 as a condition for Cyprus’s rescue loan.7

The rescue loans imposed high costs on recipient EU states. As a condition for loan 

disbursement, the affected countries had to legislate and pass a broad set of fiscal and structural austerity measures. These macroeconomic stipulations brought major cuts in public 

spending and steep tax increases to the people of the recipient states. Recessionary forces 

exacerbated preexisting economic imbalances, leading to sharp increases in national unemployment and budget deficits. Unemployment rates in the worst affected countries of 

the EU periphery skyrocketed, reaching over 15 percent in Spain and nearly 25 percent in 

Greece. The level of indebtedness of Eurozone countries rose from an average of 85 percent 

of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 to nearly 93 percent of GDP by mid-2014. The 

ECB committed to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro.8 The ECB has persisted in providing monetary stimulus to the Eurozone economy through 2020. Ten years into the crisis, 

the euro remains intact.

But Europe’s economy never fully recovered. In 2020, the EU is still dealing with 

anemic economic growth, and popular dissatisfaction with economic conditions is high. 

Structural economic reforms in various bailout recipient states, mandated to promote 

efficiency and competitiveness, brought dramatic transformations to Europe’s economic 

and social landscape. Rescued states had to impose reductions in welfare benefits, expand part-time work, cut the minimum wage, freeze pay, eliminate bonuses, cut pensions, 

increase the retirement age, reduce severance and holiday pay, and ease restrictions of 

firings and layoffs, among other measures. Each of these actions contributed to a steep 

erosion in how Europe’s social market economy functioned. In combination with fiscal 

retrenchment, structural reforms reduced living standards across the board and hit the 

least well-off across Europe especially hard. Increases in poverty, homelessness, and social 
254 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

exclusion, affecting as much as a quarter of the population, were recorded throughout 

Europe in the wake of the wider financial crisis.

Popular resistance to the effects of strict macroeconomic discipline grew across Europe 

during the 2010s, with widespread political instability testing the EU’s resilience. Governments that resorted to fiscal contraction and structural economic reforms were voted out 

of office amid rising social discontent. But political events that were deemed consequential 

a decade ago seem less relevant in 2020. Victories such as the 2012 election of François 

Hollande, France’s first socialist president in 17 years, or Greece’s Syriza, a radical left-wing 

party that became the governing party in 2015, were ephemeral. Ten years after the onset of 

the debt crisis, the anti-austerity rhetoric has subsided. The return to power of mainstream 

parties seems to affirm the electorate’s assessment that saving the euro was of paramount 

importance. Europe’s common currency has maintained its support by a large majority of 

Eurozone citizens throughout its first two decades, reaching the highest level in 2019, the 

euro’s 20th birthday.9

Europe’s ability to weather the financial crisis and the Great Recession demonstrated 

the resilience of its institutions and their adaptability. By 2019, the EU’s economy had recovered to its 2010 level. EU member states’ budget deficits have been nearly eliminated. 

Unemployment rates have come down; the EU average, nearly 10 percent in 2011, was 

about 6 percent in 2019.

Even as wages and real per capita income recovered from the Great Recession, the EU 

debt crisis exacerbated wealth and income inequalities.10 The distribution of the burden 

of austerity was borne disproportionately by those least able to afford it: the unemployed 

and the poor across the board and the EU’s member states with the weakest economies. 

Greece was the worst hit of all; it suffered a recession greater in length and severity than 

the United States did after the 1929 stock market crash. Yet sovereign default was averted. 

Rescue programs for Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus ended in 2017. Even Greece’s 

bailout program ended in August 2018, while the economy was transitioning to the recovery phase.11 In early 2020, the temporary respite from the worst of the debt crisis seemed 

likely to pass. There will be serious economic consequences from the COVID-19 pandemic 

playing across Europe, and it remains to be seen if these consequences will pose another 

episode of serious trauma for Europe’s economic union.

At the same time, Europe’s recovery from the debt crisis involved a new role for China 

on the continent—setting the conditions for new triangular relations among Europe, 

China, and the United States. While most international investors—including those from 

the United States—fled Europe in the worst days of its debt crisis, China-based companies surged in. Chinese cash flowed directly to some of the hardest hit countries in the 

EU, including Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. But Chinese investors also moved into 

reduced-value assets across Europe during the debt challenge, investing heavily in developed European countries such as Germany, France, and especially Great Britain to acquire 

commercial brands and important technologies. From 2010 to 2012, the stock of Chinese 

direct investment in the EU quadrupled from a level that was smaller than holdings by 

Nigeria before 2010 to a main stakeholder by 2013.12 Research into the implication of this 

prolific investment demonstrates that China has tried to use its economic strength to gain 

political concessions in Europe but has had limited success.13 Many eyes are now on the 
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 255

issue of 5G Internet in Europe to see if China’s ability to parlay economic presence into 

political influence holds, or if China’s post–debt crisis economic prowess will lead Europe 

to a decision that goes against specific U.S. strategic interests to limit Chinese information 

technology penetration there.14

The Chinese investment surge notwithstanding, the EU’s ability to manage the debt 

crisis was due to its application of a multiplicity of measures requiring more extensive and 

deeper fiscal and financial integration, or in the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 

“More Europe.”15 The European monetary union remains incomplete—lacking a common 

banking system, a common treasury, and a central fiscal policy, among other features. Still, 

the actions taken by European decisionmakers to sustain the EU’s most compelling symbol, 

the euro as a common currency, held its financial status in the international community. 

The euro emerged from the debt crisis still the second most important currency in the 

international financial system. In 2020, the euro remains second only to the dollar in the 

size of its share in global foreign reserves, at 20 percent. The euro’s share of global payments 

in 2019 was relatively even more impressive, at 33 percent versus the dollar’s share at 45 

percent.16 By contrast, the role of China’s and Russia’s currencies in the international financial system remains minimal. The Chinese renminbi has limited convertibility; its share of 

global foreign exchange reserves is less than 2 percent.17 The Russian ruble is not a reserve 

currency.

Thus, the most optimistic dream of Europe becoming “the first postmodern superpower” built on the prowess of the largest common market and common currency in the 

world—a dream with traction during the heady days of the early 21st century—was dealt 

a serious blow by the debt crisis. The EU did weather the storm with an intact common 

currency and an enviable global economic standing.18 Europe’s profound investments in 

salvaging its monetary union from collapse have secured the euro’s key role and Europe’s 

important position at the international financial “high table.”

The Challenge of Migration 

Migration was instrumental in rebuilding Europe in the post–World War II era. To meet 

the demand for workers, governments of richer and growing northwestern European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland) 

systematically recruited labor from Europe’s periphery, mostly in the south. Inter-European 

migration was skills based, legal, and highly controlled, and migrant workers were treated 

as temporary guests.19

The ongoing migration challenge to the EU’s common market for population flows 

paralleled the debt crisis but differs from it. In recent years, Europe has become a destination of choice for millions of people trying to escape war, political turmoil, and poverty in 

the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. From 2015 to 2016, nearly 1 million migrants and refugees passed through Greece’s Aegean Islands and mainland toward central and northern 

Europe. Since 2015, nearly 4 million people have applied for asylum in the EU’s 28 member 

states. After a temporary pause in 2018, the number of asylum seekers and unlawful entrants has continued to increase. Almost a quarter-million illegal crossings, mainly through 

sea routes, and illegal stays were detected in 2019.20 The EU has been slow and ineffective 
256 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

in dealing with a new challenge to its border security: uncontrolled population movements 

through European territory.

The migration crisis has not yet presented an overt threat to the EU, home to more 

than 500 million inhabitants, but it has the potential to pose a fundamental challenge by 

sowing discord and weakening solidarity and cohesion, key pillars of European integration. 

The influx of uninvited people from distant lands and foreign cultures—which peaked in 

2015—has generated social, political, and economic pressures in a continent still recuperating from the financial shocks of the Great Recession.

The composition of population inflows changed significantly between 2015 and 2019. 

Early on, most arrivals were war refugees; by 2019, the majority of arrivals were economic 

migrants. Thus, the political economy of EU countries near or at its external borders has 

been destabilized. Regions and communities in frontline states, such as Greece and Italy, 

were overwhelmed by the asymmetric burden of the migration crisis. In these areas, it felt 

then and still feels in 2020 as if Europe is indeed under siege and without effective defenses. 

The rise of nationalist parties across Europe is a symptom of mounting dissatisfaction with 

the status quo in the prevention, deterrence, and management of illegal migration.21

Politics and geography have contributed to these developments. EU decisionmakers 

were caught unprepared to deal with chaotic migrant flows in a concerted fashion. Policy 

paralysis was overtaken by Chancellor Merkel’s open-door policy announcement in 2015, 

which proved to be a major pull factor to migrants and refugees.22 During the peak of the 

migration crisis in 2015, hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees arriving at the 

Greek islands were transported by boat to the mainland, northern Greece, and beyond. 

Neighboring states sought protection from sudden and massive migrant flows by temporarily blocking entry or closing their borders altogether. More than 80,000 migrants and 

refugees thus became stuck in Greece, unable to move to central and northern Europe, their 

original destinations. The Dublin Regulation, which came into force in 1997 and requires 

that all asylum seekers register at their first point of entry into the EU, virtually assured that 

many of those who escaped Greece would be returned there and to other frontline states.23

Newly restrictive national migration policies adopted in haste often clashed with aspects of EU law, such as the common visa requirement and free movement of the Schengen 

area, which consists of 26 European states that officially abolished all passport and other 

types of control at their mutual borders in 1995. Repeated attempts by the European Commission to establish quotas for asylum seekers and a more equitable distribution of the 

migration burden among member states ultimately failed. Finally, an EU-Turkey statement 

issued in April 2016 promised billions of euros as compensation to non-EU member Turkey 

for stemming the exodus of migrants and refugees crossing over to EU member Greece.24

This arrangement was deemed vital, aiming to make Turkey the stopping point of migrant 

flows with a money-for-refugee-camp swap.25

The EU-Turkey migration deal has been fraught with significant capacity constraints 

and delays. Fragile from its inception, this arrangement began unraveling in early 2020. 

In February, Turkey announced that it would no longer keep refugees on its territory, 

threatened to let thousands cross into Europe, and accused the EU of falling short on 

commitments of financial support. Some 35,000 migrants massed on Turkey’s border with 

Greece, and many were thrust back by Greek border forces. In March 2020, EU leaders 
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 257

made their highest level visit ever to Greece’s border with Turkey in an effort to defuse 

the crisis. There, they pledged solidarity with Greece and promised human and financial 

resources to enhance border security of the country that is “Europe’s shield in the migrant 

crisis.”26 As of spring 2020, the future of the EU-Turkey deal remains in doubt, further complicated by geopolitical considerations.

The relevance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe’s migration crisis has been mostly symbolic. In November 2016, NATO launched a non–Article 

5 maritime security operation called Sea Guardian.27 Its goals were similar to those of the 

EU-Turkey agreement and included reduction in the flows of migrants and refugees from 

the Asia Minor coast to the Greek islands and interdiction of traffickers and smugglers. 

Sea Guardian involved limited operations (during certain hours and days of the week). Its 

effectiveness has not been assessed, but it has not been perceived to be much of a success.

A leader in welcoming migrants to Europe during 2015, Angela Merkel paid a political 

price at home for this stance and announced in 2018 that she is not seeking reelection.28

Backlash to migrant transit across Europe via the so-called Balkan Corridor, stretching 

from the northern Greek border to points north, became severe. That migrant pathway was 

sealed in 2016, as Austria, Hungary, and other European states closed their borders. Buffeted by the anger about migrant encroachment in multiple European states and a growing 

backlash at home, Germany’s policy stance changed. In 2018, Germany announced it would 

set up border camps for migrants.29 By 2019, German Interior Minister Horst Seehoffer 

announced the Geordnete-Rückkehr-Gesetz—or “Orderly Return Law”—which facilitates 

the deportation of failed asylum seekers.30

In response to these developments, EU decisionmakers also have adapted their strategic goals, assigning higher priority to stopping irregular migration flows at their source, 

before they reach Europe’s borders. In 2019, new policy ideas, including French President 

Emmanuel Macron’s idea for a “European Renaissance,” emphasized the need for a unified 

asylum policy and stricter external border controls.31 The European Commission’s “European Agenda on Migration Four Years On,” introduced on March 6, 2019, considers it 

essential to pursue a comprehensive approach to restrict migration flows and strengthen 

external border protection.32 But these goals may undermine the essence of the border-free, 

visa-free Schengen area, the backbone of Europe’s single labor market. Nor is it clear that 

the EU can allocate resources for a reinforced security infrastructure at its external borders. 

Border protection will remain a divisive issue, due to the social, political, and resource burdens that it would impose on the most vulnerable member states. A related factor is the size 

and effectiveness of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX), which 

coordinates contributions of border guards from EU member states.33 A 2019 announcement by the EU Commission to increase the size of FRONTEX to 10,000 by 2027 is viewed 

as highly unrealistic. There is no political consensus on the matter, and no resources have 

been allocated to such an enterprise.34

Then there is the issue of a common asylum policy; the EU has been grappling with it 

since the beginning of the migration crisis. Absent a common policy, each state has been 

granting asylum based on its own laws and interpretations of the United Nations charter. According to the EU commissioner for migration, “The current system is broken.”35

To fix it, the commissioner submitted in 2019 seven proposals requiring agreement on 
258 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

all components of a Common European Asylum System, such as stepping up returns of 

individuals not qualified to receive asylum, ensuring that return decisions are enforced, 

making plans to address the root causes of migration, and more tightly enforcing the 

EU-Turkey deal. Aiming for consensus to stem irregular migration at the source in northern Africa, the commission has set up a European Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, with 

planned contributions of nearly €3 billion from the EU budget.36 But that fund is unlikely 

to be fully funded anytime soon.

The EU’s newly developed strategy of containment of the migration crisis through a 

unified common asylum policy, tighter border controls, and stricter management of migrant flows at their source is an acknowledgment that the status quo is unsustainable and 

must be reformed. The implementation of policy reforms proposed by the EU Commission 

requires political consensus from all heads of state. Such a consensus cannot be formed as 

long as the migration burden is placed unevenly on European border states.

The migration crisis reinforced preexisting centrifugal forces unleashed by serious 

macroeconomic and resource imbalances across the EU. As noted, several EU member 

states have renationalization policies dealing with border controls and other measures to 

protect or project national sovereignty. These unilateral moves strongly indicate that the 

migration challenge poses a greater danger to European integration than the debt crisis. The 

EU was determined to devise and impose radical new policies to save the euro. By contrast, 

neither the EU’s institutions nor its member states have invoked a comparable common 

European symbol to justify imposition of EU-wide policies to resolve the migration crisis. 

Repeated references to solidarity as the basis for the formulation of new EU-wide migration 

and people movement measures have not advanced common policies.

In fact, popular sentiment points in the opposite direction. Most Europeans believe 

that the migration crisis has been mismanaged, and the continued influx of illegal migrants 

remains their top concern. This is tethered to popular fears that illegal migration increases 

the incidence of terrorism in their countries.37 The results of elections for the European 

parliament in May 2019 have indeed led to changes in the European Commission’s policy portfolios. New policy appointments may foretell further changes to the EU’s stance 

on future refugee inflows and unlawful migration. It remains to be seen whether the EU 

might begin to overcome the divide between border and nonborder states on the migration 

issue, achieve a more unified common asylum policy, enhance border security, and move 

toward a more equitable distribution of migration burden. The EU has everything to gain in 

meeting the challenge of migration—and much to lose if it does not. As it struggles to find 

a common way forward on migration, an internally divided Europe risks losing agency on 

the world stage in a new era of Great Power competition.38

European Politics in Transition 

In 2020, the major challenge of the EU is its own survival. In the past 10 years, the EU has 

faced daunting problems and disruptive crises. It has surmounted immediate perils but has 

not eliminated their root causes. Nor has it fundamentally reformed its system of governance. To do so requires unanimity among member states and, in some states, referenda 

as well—extremely difficult to achieve. The financial crisis was temporarily contained, but 

the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic could portend another severe round 
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 259

of recession and severe Euro-trauma. The challenge of migration and migrant crises threatened and can yet endanger EU survival. Brexit has destabilized the United Kingdom and 

introduced new tensions in Britain’s relationship with Europe. In the short term, whoever 

“wins” the Brexit conflict, Britain is likely to be the loser.39

The financial crisis and the demography challenge of migration have had major political 

consequences. They exacerbated longstanding political tensions within member European 

states, weakened centrist parties, strengthened right-wing extremism, and contributed to 

the development of illiberal democracy in Eastern Europe. New and unprecedented forms 

of social protest such as the gilets jaunes in France arose. France and Germany are less 

able to exercise leadership in Europe, and the Franco-German partnership, the engine of 

progress in Europe, has been immobilized. Among other Franco-German coordination 

challenges, Germany is leery about responding to President Macron’s ideas for reforming 

the EU.40 A vicious circle of weak leadership has ensued, and Russia has tried to take advantage of this EU weakness.

The postwar European model of a mixed economy and extensive social safety net 

has been eroded. This model was at the heart of European integration; its purpose was 

to prevent the kind of economic and social insecurity of the 1930s that spawned fascism 

and Nazism and resulted in World War II. But economic security is hard to guarantee in a 

postindustrial, fourth industrial revolution society, and the cost of the old European welfare 

state is becoming prohibitive.41 The impact of rapid economic and technological change 

today is only equaled by the disruptions caused by the first industrial revolution. The proposed remedy to Europe’s serious economic and political challenges of the 2000s and 2010s 

was “reform,” but reform was tantamount to an exercise in austerity. The remedy was imposed by Germany and execrated by large elements of the European population, who lost 

benefits and whose standard of living declined. Those affected were unlikely to welcome 

“More Europe.” Blame for economic crises was attributed to the governing parties.

To the fear that tomorrow might be harsher than today was added the fear of uncontrolled migration in Europe. Many Europeans were not especially comfortable with Muslim 

immigrants; thus, political parties like the French National Front thrived on xenophobia. 

Muslim immigrants often came to the continent just before the process of deindustrialization set in across Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, they suffered economic, 

social, and residential marginalization and racism, which impeded true integration. While 

many Muslims ascended to the middle class, disaffected Muslims, especially in the underclass, were susceptible to Islamism.42 The migration crisis catalyzed the immigrant problem, 

just as the financial crisis catalyzed the erosion of the European welfare state. The problem 

of Muslim minorities was exacerbated by jihadist terrorism, which reinforced the impression that the state (and the EU) are unable to guarantee basic citizen safety, which in turn 

threatens the fragile social situation of Muslims. Deadly Islamist terrorist attacks took place 

in France (Charlie Hebdo, Hyper Cacher, and Bataclan in 2015; Nice in 2016).43 In 2019, a 

police officer in the Paris prefecture killed four of his colleagues, leading to fears that terrorists could act as a fifth column within state institutions. In 2020, there is also concern about 

the return to Europe of jihadists who fought with the so-called Islamic State.

The apparent haplessness of the EU and its member states regarding uncontrolled 

migration shook confidence in the EU and in establishment political parties, including 
260 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, which had been the centrist mainstays of the 

EU. Socialist parties that had pioneered the concept of the “people’s home” now found that 

the far right was trying to appropriate the concept. The far right’s claim was that only by 

leaving the EU, erecting barriers to globalization, and keeping out immigrants could the 

people’s home be saved for the “real people”—that is, the native European population. The 

political system in Western Europe has generally managed to absorb, contain, or neuter the 

nativist extremists, but with difficulty. At the same time, some centrist political parties have 

taken on the rhetoric of the far right to protect their political bases.

In Europe’s East, however, the forces of illiberal democracy have been far more successful, especially in Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and in Poland, where the 

conservative regime attempted to undo separation of powers and insisted on acceptance of 

a nationalist version of Polish history.44 The same crisis of establishment parties occurred in 

Germany and France. In the early 2000s, before the crisis, the German Social Democratic 

Party (SPD), under then–Prime Minister Gerhardt Schroeder, had shown its “sense of national economic responsibility” by enacting the Hartz labor and market reforms. This made 

German labor costs more competitive globally but made German workers less financially 

secure. The SPD lost much of its working-class base and declined from around 40 percent of 

the electorate to probably less than 20 percent.45 Conversely, the left-wing Greens in Europe 

have experienced significant growth in both Germany and Austria (where they are now part 

of a coalition government). As noted, the migrant crisis undermined Merkel’s standing and 

that of her long-governing, right-leaning Christian Democratic Union. The very right-wing 

and hyper-nationalist Alternative fur Deutschland (AFD) became the official opposition in 

the German parliament (Reichstag) in 2017, providing a party known as a political pariah 

with a kind of legitimacy.

The old East Germany may be moving toward less, rather than more, integration with 

the rest of the country. Its major parties are anti-system. The Left Party evolved from the 

old Communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany. A vote for it is a slap in the face to the 

West German establishment. The AFD in the East is far to the right of the AFD in the 

West. In Germany’s Thuringia state, where the AFD won 23.5 percent of the vote in the 

October 2019 lander election, its leader does not hesitate to use rhetoric recalling Nazism.46

Antisemitism and antisemitic violence reemerged, and for first time since World War II, 

a significant political figure was assassinated. Beleaguered, Merkel entered 2020 in no position to lead Europe or to be a voice for change in Europe, especially if European reform 

might require financial sacrifice by German taxpayers.

Britain’s longstanding reluctance to commit to membership in an integrated Europe 

resulted in its joining late, in 1973, and remaining ambivalent. Dissension in the Conservative Party led then–Prime Minister David Cameron to call a referendum in 2016 which, to 

his surprise, rejected EU membership. The ensuing debate about what kind of British exit 

from the EU to pursue and whether to hold a second referendum divided Parliament and 

the country and paralyzed the conservative government of Prime Minister Teresa May from 

2017 through 2019. The victory of her ultraconservative Tory Party rival, Boris Johnson, 

in the elections of December 2019 meant that there would be no second referendum and 

indicated that the United Kingdom would pursue a “hard” Brexit. Initially, Brexit raised 

fears about the survival of the EU, but the process so destabilized Britain that it seems likely 
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 261

to serve as a deterrent (at least in the short term) to other member states considering a 

similar maneuver. Brexit will complicate British-U.S. relations, adding to preexisting trade 

tensions.47

In France, both establishment parties, Les Républicains and Socialists, collapsed in the 

2017 presidential and parliamentary elections. Emmanuel Macron took advantage of the 

vacuum to become president, and his brand-new political party gained an absolute majority in the National Assembly. As president, Macron is attempting to modernize France 

through neoliberal reforms, the need for which has long been proclaimed but which previous presidents have failed to accomplish because of popular resistance. The French political 

class has repeatedly stepped back from labor reform for fear of bringing on another period 

of popular uprisings like those in May 1968 and because of the ability of special interest 

groups and unions to bring France to its knees. Ironically, it was not the unions that successfully challenged Macron but rather something new and unexpected: the gilets jaunes.

48 The 

gilets jaunes crisis was an unprecedented social revolt different from anything seen before 

in France, an anti-system action of “the people” with no organization and leadership, based 

on a rural and small town population. It reflected opposition to the domestic policies of 

Macron and his elitist style. At the revolt’s high point, it was not obvious that the president 

would survive. There is no guarantee that the effort cannot be renewed.

As of late 2019, Macron had managed to nudge French unemployment down to its 

lowest figure in years. In 2020, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he took on a potentially 

explosive issue: reform of France’s 42 special pension systems, which provide privileged 

groups benefits far beyond the norm. But the people will not give them up without a fight. 

Macron’s only electoral rival is the Rassemblement National (RN), the new name of the 

National Front Party, a virulently anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, racist party. Longtime RN 

leader Marine Le Pen abjured antisemitism, but few are convinced that the party’s base has 

truly experienced a change of heart. The RN in power would be a game changer for France 

and for Europe.

Domestic politics have weakened the Franco-German partnership, which has always 

been the sine qua non of effective EU leadership. There was widespread hope that the 2017 

election of Macron in France would mark the beginning of a renewal of the partnership, 

but that positive scenario has not transpired. Given her position of weakness, Merkel has 

been especially cautious and tends to hew to the status quo on almost all issues related to 

Europe. There has been much talk about the emergence of Macron as the potential leader of 

Europe. He certainly seems eager to assume that role but has generated resentment by not 

seeking consensus. The European parliament showed this resentment by rejecting France’s 

candidate for the economics portfolio on the European Commission, Sylvie Goulard—a 

humiliating blow to Macron’s European reputation. Macron’s status in Europe is more a 

reflection of Merkel’s weakness than his own strength.49 The weakness of Franco-German 

leadership has an adverse effect on Europe’s ability to assert its interests in an age of Great 

Power competition.

Europe’s political challenges are important internally and in the context of the new 

era of Great Power competition. While China’s role in exploiting Europe’s political fracturing remains limited, Russia has been capitalizing on European vulnerability. Russia 

is the foreign state that tries to influence European politics and decisionmaking most. 
262 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

Discussed in chapters 3b and 7 of this volume, Moscow’s influence activities around the 

globe and especially in Europe support three main Russian strategic objectives: regime 

security, predominance in Russia’s near abroad, and world-power status for Russia. The 

long-term objective of Russian influence activities is to weaken NATO and the EU. In the 

shorter term, it is to lift the sanctions imposed after the Russian intervention in Ukraine 

in 2014. Russia has exploited Europe’s challenges with minorities, refugees, and extremists, using them to weaken EU cohesion. Russia also uses the energy sector, business, and 

corruption as venues for influence on the European polity. It cultivates and exploits an 

extensive network of allies and front organizations and reconstructs reality and rewrites 

history to legitimize itself and undermine European leaders.50 Among the modern Great 

Powers, Russia has the most to gain should political cohesion in Europe remain wobbly 

or further erode.

New Parameters of European Security 

The 1991 end of Cold War bipolarity and the reunification of Germany transformed the 

security landscape of Europe and led the EU and its governance institutions to gradually 

adapt their own strategic perspectives. The foundations of the EU’s Common Foreign and 

Security Policy, laid out in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, placed security and defense policy 

in a common EU-wide context. By 2016, almost a quarter-century later, the EU had formulated a more comprehensive European Agenda for Security (EAS), which prioritized 

“terrorism, organized crime, and cybercrime as interlinked areas with a strong cross-border 

dimension.”51 The EU’s global strategy, adopted in June 2016, called for greater coherence 

in EU external action and identified five security and defense priorities: “the security of the 

Union; state and social resilience to our east and south; an integrated approach to conflicts 

and crises; cooperative regional orders; and global governance for the 21st century.”52

In summer 2019, the EU’s 3-year review of its global strategy validated it as a vital 

component of a “path toward a stronger Europe.”53 That 2019 strategy review endorsed continuation of several activities and policies. First, it encouraged the EU’s role as a global 

maritime security provider in activities such as operations Atalanta (fighting piracy off the 

Horn of Africa) and Sophia (chasing smugglers and human traffickers in the Mediterranean). It also endorsed an expanded European Border Security Force, FRONTEX, to deter 

illegal migration, unlawful crossings in the Mediterranean, and illegal stays in the EU.54 The 

2019 review also advocated enhancement of its defense initiative, the Permanent Structured 

Cooperation, which has for a while aimed to provide a new framework for joint European 

defense investments and cooperation and operational readiness among 25 member states, 

covering 34 new defense cooperation projects from cyber security to military mobility. 

The EU budgeted €590 million from 2017 to 2020 for these programs and entered 2020 

planning to expend more funds to incentivize such European defense cooperation.55 The 

expanding scope of security and defense initiatives reflects the EU’s intensifying quest for 

greater strategic autonomy. In addition to the European defense initiatives listed above, the 

EU EAS announced an expansion of its security assistance in the Western Balkans; a desire 

to preserve the nuclear deal with Iran (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) despite the 

2018 U.S. withdrawal from it; and partnership with African countries in multiple policy and 

security fields, including the field of migration.
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 263

Whether the EU’s global strategy truly represents a break with the past remains to be 

seen. The EU’s budget to address global security challenges remains miniscule. Furthermore, EU’s governance rules mean that it cannot usurp the powers of national leaders on 

matters of security and defense. But a significant impetus for change in Europe’s security 

strategy is the eroding cohesion of the transatlantic alliance between Europe and the United 

States. Over the past decade, the United States has been pressuring European members 

of NATO to increase their defense spending to 2 percent of GDP from an average of 1.3 

percent in 2017. The response of several European countries, including Germany, France, 

Italy, and Sweden, has been to increase defense expenditures; total defense spending by the 

EU is planned to surpass $300 billion a year by 2021.56 But the U.S. administration also has 

objected to the EU’s global strategy on grounds that it signals a “Europe First” approach to 

industrial policy, limiting the access of U.S. producers to Europe’s domestic manufacturing 

base.57 Complicating matters further, the December 2019 NATO summit revealed chasms 

among Allies’ perspectives on their respective roles in countering China and Russia.58

As the future of the transatlantic alliance is open to question, the EU’s global strategy 

reflects the shifting balance of challenges in EU-China relations. The EU has become China’s biggest trading partner, while China is the EU’s second largest, with trade between the 

two entities worth €1.5 billion per day. But China’s expanding foreign direct investments, its 

“new Silk Road” (also known as the Belt and Road Initiative [BRI]) stretching extensively 

into multiple European states, and Beijing’s competition with the United States and the EU 

for preeminence in advanced technology have led to a reassessment of EU-China relations. 

While EU foreign direct investment in China was approximately €6.8 billion in 2014, China’s investment in the EU had grown to around €35 billion in 2016.59

A key area of concern for the EU is the increasing influence of China’s European investments in support of the BRI. China’s access to the EU’s economy and market—growing 

during the debt crisis—greatly expanded in 2016 when the China Ocean Shipping Company acquired a majority stake in Greece’s port of Piraeus, the main entry point for Chinese 

exports to Europe. Chinese investments of over $8 billion to upgrade rail transportation 

between Belgrade and Budapest are part of a larger initiative to improve infrastructure 

in Central and Eastern European countries. Similar investments are planned in Europe’s 

south. In 2019, Italy became the largest European country to participate in China’s BRI, 

through cooperation in the development of Italy’s infrastructure, civil aviation, ports, energy, and telecommunications.60 These investments are well linked to those in the port of 

Piraeus, further enhancing the transportation, logistics, and warehousing infrastructure 

required for BRI.

EU concerns center on China’s growing economic presence, potential political influence 

on EU policymaking, and Chinese funds displacing Russian energy as sources of dependency for Europe. The European Commission has promoted legislation requiring screening 

of Chinese investments, more controls over potential Chinese product “dumping,” and 

greater scrutiny of China’s offers to facilitate finance infrastructure spending.61 But Europe 

is not unified in how to approach China, allowing individual European states to pursue their 

own policies. Across Europe, China’s global technological presence has already accentuated 

competition among Great Powers Russia and especially the United States. In many ways, 

this competition has developed with Europe as the object of rivalries. For example, the EU 
264 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

has yet to develop a unified stance on China’s role in Europe’s technology base, especially its 

5G networks, connecting billions of sensitive information and communications technology 

systems in crucial sectors. At present, France and Germany seem to diverge on what to do 

about allowing Chinese telecom companies Huawei and ZTE to bid for the next-generation 

5G networks. While Paris remains silent on the topic, it appears that Berlin is about to allow 

Huawei to take part in the 5G competition in Germany.62 In its new EU-China Strategic 

Outlook in March 2019, the European Commission described its approach to China as a 

cooperating partner in some areas and a negotiating partner in others.63 But it also named 

China as “an economic competitor in pursuit of technological leadership and a systemic 

rival promoting alternative models of governance.”64

Shifts may also be evidenced in the EU’s approach to Russia. While Russia remains a 

security threat as a nuclear superpower, its geopolitical position in Eurasia is altogether different compared with the Cold War era. EU-Russia relations reflect a long history of complex 

interdependencies based on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1997.65 These 

interconnections involve an array of policy areas, including trade, science and technology, 

and transport. Russia is now the fourth largest trading partner of the EU and the fourth 

largest export destination of EU goods (€85.3 billion in 2018). Russia—the largest oil, gas, 

uranium, and coal exporter to the EU—is the third largest source of goods imports (€168.3 

billion in 2018); energy products account for nearly 70 percent of the EU’s imports from 

Russia. For its part, the EU remains a key trading partner for Russia, representing €253.6 

billion, or 43 percent of Russia’s trade in 2018. And the EU is by far the largest investor in 

Russia, with a total stock of foreign direct investment there that approached €235.2 billion 

in 2018.66

Financial interdependencies as well as geopolitical considerations will shape the future of EU-Russia relations. The energy sector will continue to dominate the EU-Russia 

trade and investment relationship, despite the controversies surrounding the Nord Stream, 

a 1,225-kilometer gas pipeline through Europe. Denmark’s recent approval of a permit for 

Nord Stream 2 virtually guarantees that more Russian gas will be pumped into Europe.67

There is widespread concern that Russia interferes in European political life, in elections, and possibly in the Brexit referendums; that Moscow subsidizes extremist parties; 

and that Moscow seeks to undermine the political cohesion of the EU and member states. 

But the perception of Russia as a security threat varies greatly among EU member states, 

depending on geography: hardly at all in the Mediterranean or Iberia, but seriously in the 

North and especially in the Baltics. While there is no fear that Russia could or would invade 

Europe as a whole, the possibility of hybrid operations in the Baltics is real.68 Yet Europe 

alone cannot defend its member states against Russia, and the EU does not have a legal 

mandate to do so. European defense remains predicated on NATO, and U.S. guarantees are 

indispensable for NATO to be meaningful. Thus, Europeans worry that the United States 

might detach itself from the continent.69 Some EU leaders (including Germany) try to avoid 

debate over the future of NATO and hope that future U.S. administrations will return to 

traditional transatlantic policies. To the extent that they feel less certain about U.S. commitment to NATO Article V (the mutual self-defense clause), Europeans may pursue and 

intensify mutually advantageous relations with Russia in as many sectors as possible. The 

EU could seek continued accommodation and deeper cooperation with China and Russia 
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 265

as the optimal path to survive and adapt to the evolving competition among the world’s 

Great Powers.

Another approach, not necessarily mutually exclusive, advocated by President Macron, 

is one of European defense autonomy. In the past, French support for European defense 

autonomy was based on neo-Gaullist opposition to perceived U.S. domination. In late 2019, 

Macron, who stated that NATO is “brain dead,” expressed far more concern that “America is turning its back on us so quickly on strategic issues.” He added that if Europe “can’t 

think of itself as a global power [it] will disappear.”70 Macron took note of how the United 

States broke with its Kurdish allies in Syria with a controversial military departure that left 

Kurdish adversary Turkey holding the cards on what to do there. Macron’s comments were 

taken by some as recognition that Europe needs to be able to defend itself—a legitimate call 

to action to create genuine European defense cooperation. If the United States follows its 

historic policy of close cooperation with Europe on security, with a focus on the primacy of 

NATO, this is unlikely to happen. If, however, U.S. policy shifts even more deliberately to 

a more unilateral approach in the period of 2020 to 2025—and if Europe feels that there is 

an existential threat to its sovereignty and that the United States could not be counted on to 

come to its aid—the EU has the means to create an autonomous defense. In that case, Europe, very much against its inclinations, could move from a post–World War II experiment 

relying on U.S. security guarantees to a more ambitious system of integrated European security and defense with a single military structure.

Europe in 2025 

When European integration began with the Schuman Plan in 1949, it was a superb strategy for transcending generations of conflict and creating new union. When the Cold War 

ended, the EU dared to expand toward the very limits of the continent. Operating in a moment of dominant U.S. power and in the absence of Great Power rivalry, Europeans thought 

large and operated boldly. That dynamism is lacking today.

At a time when other parts of the world, such as China, are exhibiting unprecedented 

economic growth, Europe is stagnating; its percentage of global GDP is in decline. The 

international context of 2020 is presenting Europe with a more aggressive Russia, growing 

Chinese power, and lack of trust in the U.S. commitment to European defense and to transatlanticism as a whole. Concurrently, the EU seems to be facing serious instability as a result 

of the weakening of its Franco-German core. Germany and France have not found common 

positions on many significant issues, including European defense.

Europe will remain vulnerable to internal and external events. Among such outside 

events, the COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping the world and hitting much of Europe 

especially hard is precisely the kind of exogenous shock that might thrust the EU into an 

entirely new paradigm. Europe did not have enough resources or time to provide robust internal assistance to member states, such as Italy, hit hardest by the virus early on. The United 

States did not have a policy focus or the independent resources to fill that humanitarian 

assistance role either. Thus, it was China—and, to a lesser extent, Russia—that provided direct assistance with forms of anti-virus expertise to Italy and then to other European states 

during the crisis.71 By assuming a traditional U.S.-led role in international humanitarian 

health assistance for Europe’s own states, China in particular demonstrated the interest and 
266 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

the capability to grow cultural goodwill and greater potential political influence with Europeans in an era of Great Power competition.

As with the pandemic, several trends now visible in 2020 could easily develop into 

major problems for EU cohesion over the course of the coming few years:

■ A significant policy change toward NATO in a second Trump administration that 

could weaken European faith in the U.S. commitment toward Article V guarantees 

to member states. This could trigger aggressive Russian behavior toward a NATO 

state or intensification of the war in Ukraine. It could also begin a decoupling of 

European and U.S. defense.

■ A renewed migration crisis or massive terrorist attacks. Even smaller attacks, like 

the murder of four policemen in the prefecture of police in Paris by a policemanturned-jihadist, can have outsized consequences on the state and public opinion. 

This might further fragment Europe’s right and center, exacerbating tensions over 

common population movement policies.

■ A new financial crisis, requiring more radical interventions to save the euro and EU 

banks. A lengthy coronavirus-generated recession or a similar serious economic 

shock could lead to increased political friction and might further undermine the 

solidarity of the EU.

■ A social or political explosion that threatens the survival of an elected government or 

the integrity of a European state. The gilets jaunes crisis indicates high levels of social 

discontent in France and, by extension, possibly elsewhere. The worker strikes of 

December 2019 through January 2020 emphasized that risk. The Catalan separatist 

crisis in Spain has not become violent, but nothing prevents it from deepening.

■ Although the December 2019 British elections resolved the immediate question 

of whether Brexit would actually take place, there remains the daunting task of 

deciding on its terms in negotiations that are supposed to terminate within only 

1 year. Brexit could still degenerate. It has bitterly divided the United Kingdom. 

It could lead to the fragmentation of the two major parties there and a shakeup 

of the parliamentary system itself. Britain may be threatened with dissolution; the 

likelihood of Scotland’s independence and even Irish unification has increased. 

British prestige has suffered. The British role in European defense may also decline. 

Britain’s problems are Europe’s problems, even if Britain leaves the EU.

At the dawn of a new era of Great Power competition, Europe finds itself at a far different place than it did a mere decade ago. Europe did not become a “superpower” in the 

post–Cold War and post-Maastricht world, as predicted by some. In the past decade, Europe has weathered a serious array of stress-inducing challenges: a debt crisis, a migration 

crisis, increasing pressure on its security and political institutions by a resurgent Russia 

and by the rise an extreme right wing, the encroachment of Chinese economic strength, 

and a decline in transatlantic solidarity. In spite of it all, European integration remains a 

reality. Europe has been resilient but troubled. The coming years will continue to test that 

resilience.
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 267

The authors are grateful to Carl F. Lankowski, Steve Szabo, and Kelly Ward for their review 

and helpful comments.

Notes

1

 In Notre Jeunesse, Notre Jeunesse, Oeuvres Complètes de Charles 

Péguy 1873–1914, Oeuvres de Prose, Notre Jeunesse, Victor-Marie, 

Comte Hugo (Paris: Nouvelle Revue Française, 1916), 59.

2

 See chapter 1 of this volume for the three-feature operational 

definition of a Great Power as derived from Thomas J. Volgy 

et al., “Major Power Status in International Politics,” in Major 

Powers and the Quest for Status in International Politics: Global 

and Regional Perspectives, ed. Thomas J. Volgy et al. (New York: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 1–26.

3

 Jack Goldstone, “The New Population Bomb,” Foreign Affairs

(January/February 2010).

4

 Discussed in detail in Irene Kyriakopoulos, “Economic and 

Monetary Union Governance: A Post-Crisis Assessment,” 

World Economics Journal 12, no. 4 (October–December 2011), 

available at <www.world-economics-journal.com/Journal/Papers/

Economic%20and%20Monetary%20Union%20Governance.

details?ID=496>.

5

 For a detailed analysis, see Irene Kyriakopoulos, “In the Name 

of the Euro: What Have the EU’s Policies Achieved in Greece?” 

Intereconomics 49, no. 6 (2014), available at <https://archive.

intereconomics.eu/year/2014/6/in-the-name-of-the-euro-whathave-the-eus-policies-achieved-in-greece/>.

6

 This is a provision of the Maastricht Treaty, which established 

Europe’s monetary union. The provision establishes that member 

states are not liable and will not assume the debts of any member 

state. Thus, if a member state defaults on its sovereign debt, other 

member states and/or the Eurozone as a whole are not liable. The 

member state is responsible for the consequences of a default. For 

further reading, see Council on Foreign Relations, “The Eurozone 

Crisis as Historical Legacy,” September 24, 2010, available at 

<www.cfr.org/report/eurozone-crisis-historical-legacy>.

7

 The Eurogroup, which manages financial affairs for the 

Eurozone, decided to finance a €10 billion rescue program 

through a levy imposed on uninsured deposits over €100,000 

($130,000 USD) in Cyprus’s banks.

8

 Verbatim of the remarks by Mario Draghi, European Central 

Bank, July 26, 2012, available at <https://www.ecb.europa.eu/

press/key/date/2012/html/sp120726.en.html>.

9

 Felix Roth and Lars Jonung, “Public Support for the Euro 

and Trust in the ECB: The First Two Decades,” VOX EU, 

December 13, 2019, available at <https://voxeu.org/article/

public-support-euro-and-trust-ecb>.

10 Understanding the Socio-Economic Divide in Europe (Paris: 

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 

January 26, 2017), available at <www.oecd.org/els/soc/copedivide-europe-2017-background-report.pdf>.

11 Andrew Walker, “Eurozone Bailout Program Is Finally Over,” 

BBC News, August 19, 2018, available at <www.bbc.com/news/

business-45186511>.

12 Jamil Anderlini, “Chinese Investors Surged into EU at Height 

of Debt Crisis,” Financial Times, October 6, 2014, available at 

<www.ft.com/content/53b7a268-44a6-11e4-ab0c-00144feabdc0>.

13 Po-Kuan Wu, “Examining the EU-China Relationship 

in the Aftermath of the Economic Crisis,” International 

Journal of Public Administration 40, no. 14 (April 

2017), available at <www.tandfonline.com/doi/

full/10.1080/01900692.2017.1295268?src=recsys>.

14 Kelvin Chan, “Europe Resists Mounting U.S. Pressure on Huawei 

5G Technology,” Associated Press, February 18, 2020, available at 

<www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/5g/2020/02/18/

europe-resists-mounting-us-pressure-on-huawei-5gtechnology/>.

15 Bettina Marx, “Merkel Demands ‘More Europe!’” 

Deutsche Welle, June 7, 2012, available at <www.dw.com/en/

merkel-demands-more-europe/a-16007150>.

16 European Central Bank, Eurosystem, “The International Role 

of the Euro,” June 2019, available at <https://www.ecb.europa.

eu/pub/ire/html/ecb.ire201906~f0da2b823e.en.html#toc1>.

17 Maximilian Kärnfelt, “China’s Currency Push: The Chinese 

Yuan Expands Its Footprint in Europe,” China Monitor, January 

9, 2020, available at <https://www.merics.org/en/china-monitor/

chinas-currency-push>.

18 The phrase “the first postmodern superpower” was coined 

in a popular book published a decade after EU integration. See 

Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the 

Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream (London: Tarcher 

Perigree, 2004). For a discussion of the EU’s failure to realize the 

most optimistic hopes of a future as a superpower, see William 

Drozdiak, Fractured Continent: Europe’s Crisis and the Fate of 

the West (New York: Norton, 2017).

19 For further reading, see Christof Van Mol and Helga de 

Valk, “Migration and Immigrants in Europe: A Historical and 

Demographic Perspective,” in Integration Processes and Policies 

in Europe, ed. Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas and Rinus Penninx 

(New York: Springer, 2016).

20 Irene Kyriakopoulos, “Europe’s Responses to the Migration 

Crisis: Implications for European Integration,” Strategic Insights 

(Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, April 

25, 2019).

21 “Europe and Right-Wing Nationalism: A Country-by-Country 

Guide,” BBC News, November 13, 2019, available at <www.bbc.

com/news/world-europe-36130006>.

22 Heather Horn, “The Staggering Scale of Germany’s Refugee 

Project,” The Atlantic, September 12, 2015.

23 European Commission, “The Dublin System,” April 6, 

2016, available at <https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/

homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agendamigration/background-information/docs/20160406/

factsheet_-_the_dublin_system_en.pdf>.

24 European Council, Council of the European Union, “EUTurkey Statement,” March 18, 2016, available at <https://www.

consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/18/

eu-turkey-statement/>.

25 Turkey is not a member of the EU, so it is not subject to its 

migration or population movement laws.

26 “EU Chief Says Greece Is Europe’s Shield in Migrant Crisis,” 

BBC News, March 3, 2020, available at <www.bbc.com/news/

world-europe-51721356>.

27 Operation Sea Guardian succeeded Operation Active Endeavour

under the operational command of Allied Maritime Command, 

Northwood, United Kingdom.

28 In October 2018, a beleaguered Chancellor Angela Merkel 

announced that she would not seek reelection as party head or as 

Germany’s chancellor in the forecast 2021 elections. See Anneken 
268 Kramer and Kyriakopoulos

Tappe, “Germany’s Merkel Confirms She’s on the Way Out, Won’t 

Seek Re-election as Party Head or Chancellor,” Market Watch, 

October 29, 2018, available at <www.marketwatch.com/story/

germanys-merkel-confirms-shes-on-the-way-out-wont-seek-reelection-as-party-head-or-chancellor-2018-10-29>.

29 “Merkel, to Survive, Agrees to Border Camps for Migrants,” 

New York Times, July 2, 2018, available at <www.nytimes.

com/2018/07/02/world/europe/angela-merkel-migrationcoalition.html>.

30 “Germany Passes Controversial Migration Law,” Politico, 

July 7, 2019, available at <https://www.politico.eu/article/

germany-passes-controversial-migration-law/>.

31 Emmanuel Macron, “For European Renewal,” March 

4, 2019, available at <https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuelmacron/2019/03/04/for-european-renewal.en>.

32 European Commission, Migration and Home Affairs, 

“European Agenda on Migration Four Years On,” 

available at <https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/news/

european-agenda-migration-four-years-marked-progress-needsconsolidating-face-volatile_en>.

33 European Border and Coast Guard Agency, available at <https://

frontex.europa.eu/>.

34 “European Border and Coast Guard: 10,000-Strong Standing 

Corps by 2027,” European Parliament News, April 17, 2019, 

available at <https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/

press-room/20190410IPR37530/european-border-and-coastguard-10-000-strong-standing-corps-by-2027>; “FRONTEX: 

The Making of ‘A Superagency,’” Refugee Support Aegean, 

December 4, 2019, available at <https://rsaegean.org/en/

the-making-of-a-super-agency/>.

35 European Commission, “Remarks by Commissioner 

Avramopoulos,” press release, June 20, 2018, available at 

<https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/

SPEECH_18_4241>.

36 See EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, available at <https://

ec.europa.eu/trustfundforafrica/index_en>; Maite Vermeulen, 

Giacomo Zandonini, and Ajibola Amzat, “How the EU 

Created a Crisis in Africa—and Started a Migration Cartel,” 

The Correspondent, December 10, 2019, available at <https://

thecorrespondent.com/166/how-the-eu-created-a-crisis-inafrica-and-started-a-migration-cartel/21953207342-46c48098>.

37 Philip Connor, “A Majority of Europeans Favor Taking 

in Refugees, but Most Disapprove of EU’s Handling 

of the Issue,” Pew Research Center, September 16, 

2018, available at <https://www.pewresearch.org/

fact-tank/2018/09/19/a-majority-of-europeans-favor-takingin-refugees-but-most-disapprove-of-eus-handling-of-the-issue/>.

38 Alina Polyakova and Benjamin Haddad, “Europe in the New 

Era of Great Power Competition: How the EU Can Stand Up 

to Trump and China,” Foreign Affairs, July 17, 2018, available 

at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/2018-07-17/

europe-new-era-great-power-competition>.

39 On the implications of British marginalization, see Gideon 

Rachman, “Britain and Russia Are Europe’s Odd Couple,” 

Financial Times, October 29, 2019. On the early development 

of British-EU relations, see Hugo Young, This Blessed Plot: 

Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (London: Overlook, 

1998). The Financial Times provides excellent coverage of Brexit 

developments. See Center for European Reform’s analyses as well.

40 On the history of Franco-German relations, see Julius W. 

Friend, The Linchpin: Franco-German Relations 1950–1990 (New 

York: Praeger, 1991), and Unequal Partners: Franco-German 

Relations 1989–2000 (New York: Praeger, 2001). Also see Gilbert 

Ziebura, ed., Les relations franco-allemandes dans une Europe 

divisée, Mythes et réalites (Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de 

Bordeaux, 2012).

41 For a definition of and detail about the parameters of the fourth 

industrial revolution, see chapter 4.

42 Steven Philip Kramer, “France’s Muslim Predicament,” National 

Interest, March 2020. For a serious study on Islam in France, 

see Sylvain Brouard and Vincent Tiberj, Francais comme les 

autres? Enquête sur les citoyens d’origne maghrébine, africaine 

et turque (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences 

Politiques, 2005).

43 On terrorism, see EUROPOL, European Union Terrorism 

Situation and Trend Report 2019 (The Hague: European Union 

Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, 2019), available 

at <https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/mainreports/terrorism-situation-and-trend-report-2019-te-sat>. On 

the problem of the return of the so-called Islamic State, see David 

Thomson, Les Revenants (Paris: Seuil, 2016). On the impact 

of violence against Jews in France, see Jerôme Fourquet and 

Sylvain Manternach, L’An prochain a Jérusalem (Paris: Editions 

in de l’Aube, 2016).

44 Paul Lendvai, “The Transformer: Orban’s Evolution and 

Hungary’s Demise,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2019).

45 On the Hartz reforms and political consequences in Germany, 

see Christian Odenahl, “Germany After the Hartz Reforms: Can 

the SPD Protect German Labor?” Foreign Affairs, September 

11, 2017, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/

germany/2017-09-11/germany-after-hartz-reforms>.

46 “East German State Lurches Right, Elevating Its Firebrand 

Leader,” New York Times, October 28, 2019.

47 Michael Marray, “Brexit Further Complicates U.S., EU, 

and China Trade Relations,” The Asset, February 12, 2020, 

available at <https://www.theasset.com/europe/39730/

brexit-further-complicates-us-eu-and-china-trade-relations>.

48 Steven Philip Kramer, “The Gilet Jaune Crisis,” Strategic Insights 

(Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, March 

11, 2019).

49 Guy Chazan, “Merkel’s Political Twilight Sees Influence Wane,” 

Financial Times, September 25, 2019.

50 Gier Hagen Karlsen, “Divide and Rule: Ten Lessons About 

Russian Political Influence Activities in Europe,” Palgrave 

Communications 5, no. 19 (February 8, 2019), available at <www.

nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0227-8>.

51 Migration and Home Affairs—European Commission, 

“European Agenda on Security,” December 6, 2016, available 

at <https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/

european-agenda-security_en>.

52 Federica Mogherini, “From Vision to Action: The EU 

Global Strategy in Practice,” in The European Union’s Global 

Strategy: Three Years On, Looking Forward (Brussels: European 

Commission, June 2019), 4–7, available at <https://eeas.europa.

eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/64034/vision-actioneu-global-strategy-practice-three-years-looking-forward_en>.

53 Ibid. Also see “The EU Global Strategy Three Years On,” in 

The European Union’s Global Strategy, 8–33.

54 FRONTEX is scheduled to expand its strength to 10,000 by 

2027.

55 Daniel Darling, “PESCO and the Long Road to 

European Strategic Autonomy,” Defense & Security 

Monitor, November 14, 2019, available at <https://

dsm.forecastinternational.com/wordpress/2019/11/14/

pesco-and-the-long-road-to-european-strategic-autonomy/>.

56 David Reid, “Europe’s Defense Spending Nears $300 Billion as 

Experts Say Trump’s Pressure Is Paying Off,” CNBC, November 1, 

2019, available at <https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/01/europeandefense-spending-to-hit-300-billion-by-2021-analysts-say.html>.
Whither Europe? Resilient but Troubled 269

57 Ben Hall and Richard Milne, “Europe First: How Brussels Is 

Retooling Industrial Policy,” Financial Times, December 2, 2019.

58 Kevin Baron, “NATO’s Newest Threat Is Coming from 

Inside the House,” Defense One, December 3, 2019, 

available at <www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/12/

natos-newest-threat-coming-inside-house/161634/>.

59 European External Action Service, “EU-China Relations 

Factsheet,” October 18, 2019, available at <https://eeas.

europa.eu/topics/external-investment-plan/34728/

eu-china-relations-factsheet_en>.

60 Vincent L. Morelli, The European Union and China, IF10252 

(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2019), 

available at <https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10252.pdf>.

61 Michael Nienaber, “Chinese FDI in Europe Drops, Investment 

Screening Will Cut It More—Survey,” Reuters, March 6, 

2019, available at <www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-china-fdi/

chinese-fdi-in-europe-drops-investment-screening-will-cutit-more-survey-idUSKCN1QN1T6>.

62 Janka Oertel, “Germany Chooses China Over the West,” Foreign 

Policy, October 21, 2019, available at <https://foreignpolicy.

com/2019/10/21/germany-merkel-chooses-china-over-unitedstates-eu-huawei/>; see also Philippe Le Corre, “Macron 

Goes to China: For Europe or for France?” Carnegie Europe, 

October 31, 2019, available at <https://carnegieeurope.eu/

strategiceurope/80242>.

63 European Commission and HR/VP Contribution to the 

European Council: EU-China—A Strategic Outlook (Brussels: 

European Commission, 2019), available at <https://ec.europa.

eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/communication-euchina-a-strategic-outlook.pdf>.

64 Ibid.

65 European Commission, “EU/Russia Partnership and Cooperation 

Agreement,” December 1, 1997, available at <https://cordis.europa.eu/

article/id/9433-eurussia-partnership-and-cooperation-agreement>.

66 European Union External Action, “The European Union and 

the Russian Federation,” May 30, 2019, available at <https://

eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/35939/

european-union-and-russian-federation_en>.

67 The name Nord Stream refers to a pipeline from Russia to 

western Europe under the Baltic Sea. It was officially launched in 

2010. See “Nord Stream Gas Pipeline Underwater Construction 

Starts,” BBC News, April 9, 2010, available at <http://news.bbc.

co.uk/2/hi/business/8607214.stm>. Nord Stream 2 is the name 

of the undersea pipeline that will pump Russian gas into Europe. 

See Jordan Stevens, “Nord Stream 2 Explained: What It Is and 

Why It’s Proving Controversial,” CNBC, May 21, 2019, available 

at <www.cnbc.com/2019/05/21/nord-stream-2-explained-whatit-is-and-why-its-proving-controversial.html>. See also “Nord 

Stream 2: Go-Ahead for Russian Gas Pipeline Angers Ukraine,” 

BBC, October 31, 2019, available at <https://www.bbc.com/news/

world-europe-50247793>.

68 Cf. Robert M. Klein et al., Baltics Left of Bang: The Role of 

NATO with Partners in Denial Based Deterrence, INSS Strategic 

Forum No. 304 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, November 2019), 

available at <https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/

stratforum/SF-304.pdf>. For a reappraisal of the Russian threat, 

see Thomas Graham, “Let Russia Be Russia,” Foreign Affairs

(November/December 2019).

69 See, for example, Constanze Stelzenmuller, Hostile Ally: 

The Trump Administration and Europe’s Inadequate Response

(Washington, DC: Brookings, August 2019), available at <https://

www.brookings.edu/research/hostile-ally-the-trump-challengeand-europes-inadequate-response/>.

70 “Emmanuel Macron on Europe’s Fragile Place in a Hostile 

World,” The Economist, November 7, 2019, available at <www.

economist.com/briefing/2019/11/07/emmanuel-macron-oneuropes-fragile-place-in-a-hostile-world>. See also Zaki Laïdi, 

Can Europe Learn to Play Power Politics (London: Centre for 

European Reform, November 2019).

71 Alan Crawford, Peter Martin, and Bloomberg, “‘Health Silk 

Road’: China Showers Europe with Coronavirus Aid as Both 

Spar with Trump,” Fortune, March 19, 2020, available at <https://

fortune.com/2020/03/19/china-europe-coronavirus-aid-trump/>; 

Stuart Lau, “Coronavirus: Xi Jinping Calls Leaders of France, 

Spain, Germany and Serbia with Offers of Support,” South 

China Morning Post (Hong Kong), March 21, 2020, available 

at <www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3076287/

coronavirus-xi-jinping-calls-leaders-italy-spain-germany-and>.

271

Chapter 13

Competing Visions and Actions 

by China, Russia, and the United 

States in Latin America, the Middle 

East, Africa, and the Arctic

By Bryce Loidolt, David Auerswald, Douglas Farah, Shannon Smith, and Caitlyn Yates

This chapter reviews the contours of Great Power competition across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic; it traces the motivation and scale as 

well as receptivity to, and potential repercussions of, Chinese and Russian activities across these regions. It finds the challenge of these two competitors to be 

distinct, the risks to U.S. interests to be uneven across and within each region, 

and, ultimately, regional states’ cooperation with China and Russia to rarely be 

grounded in an ideological commitment to Beijing’s global vision or Moscow’s 

cynicism. This points to the need for parallel strategies that appreciate the diverse 

challenges China and Russia pose, a broader recalibration of U.S. regional interests that moves beyond the post-9/11 focus on counterterrorism, and a discerning 

strategic approach that avoids pulling U.S. regional partners into an unrestricted, 

zero-sum competition.

The priorities of the 2018 National Defense Strategy imply a greater emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region and Europe, yet the era of Great Power competition currently unfolding among the United States, China, and Russia is not confined to these boundaries. 

Just as Russia’s targeted influence activities in selected geostrategic regions have become 

more visible in the past decade, so too does China extend its economic and, to a lesser 

extent, military reach into its far abroad.1 These activities have now begun generating some 

alarm—especially in U.S. military circles—that America’s Great Power rivals might peel 

away traditional U.S. strategic partners and allies, embolden or insulate U.S. adversaries, 

or otherwise provide China and Russia with access and resources that will magnify their 

power to the strategic disadvantage of the United States.2

How should the United States best balance its regional investments in an emerging era of Great Power competition? The answer to this important question requires an 

appraisal of the nature and stakes of U.S. competition with Russia and China outside of 
272 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

each competitor’s immediate neighborhood. This chapter thus surveys the interests and 

activities of these competitors across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic. It further evaluates regional receptivity to these activities, as well as how Chinese and 

Russian behavior could pose direct and consequential threats to U.S. regional interests.

We find the motivations, scale, and potential repercussions of Chinese and Russian 

activities across these four geographic regions to be distinct from each other. Russia has 

expanded its political and diplomatic stature by sponsoring multilateral initiatives and presenting itself as a reliable, unconditional ally to regional friends. China has also come to 

compete with the United States by establishing a narrative of a politically disinterested, 

national sovereignty–respecting power, establishing cooperative partnerships with U.S. 

friends and foes alike. Chinese economic investments have been expansive and could yield 

economic gains, opportunities for political coercion, and military access.

The emerging era of Great Power competition will confront U.S. policymakers both 

with the challenge of how to shift greater resources and attention toward Russian and Chinese traditional spheres of influence and with the questions of whether and how to compete 

with Beijing and Moscow on a global scale. Doing so will require distinct strategies for 

competing with Russia and China, a recalibration of U.S. interests across the world, and 

a discerning approach that reduces the prospects of pulling U.S. regional partners into an 

unrestricted, zero-sum competition.

Latin America 

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has generally viewed stability in Latin 

America as a central goal in the region.3 The United States seeks a Latin America comprised of “stable, friendly, and prosperous states,” in order to contain the spillover effects 

of transregional violence, criminal enterprises, and illegal immigration, as well as for the 

benefit of the U.S. economy.4 To this end, the United States has established a robust network of free trade agreements as well as regional and bilateral security initiatives, and 

it has leveraged economic assistance—more than $2 billion in 2018—to promote good 

governance in the region.5

At the same time, China and Russia are increasingly engaging in Latin America, hoping to gain access to new markets, acquire strategic ports and electronic hubs, and benefit 

geopolitically from increased proximity to the American “near abroad.” Yet each competitor 

approaches the region on a different scale—and, at times, through different partners—as 

reflected in figure 13.1.

In the past decade, China’s engagement in the region has not varied according to Latin 

American nations’ political ideologies. Beijing’s investments appear to have paid off; a 2018 

regional survey found that 55 percent of respondents in Latin America had a “good” or 

“very good” view of China.6 Beijing’s tool kit is largely based on economic instruments, 

using large-scale loans, infrastructure investments, and telecommunications projects to engage the region. The China Development Bank and China Export-Import Bank are now 

the largest lenders in Latin America, with loans totaling $141.3 billion between 2005 and 

2018, more than five times the amount of official U.S. economic loans and grants disbursed 

during the same time period.7 Currently, 19 countries in Latin America participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and China is active in more than 50 port projects across the 
Competing Visions and Actions 273

region, for both commercial and potential military use.8

 China has also at times provided 

military assistance to regional powers—second only to Russia in the value of its arms transfers to Venezuela—and has established 40 Confucius Institutes in the region that could 

serve as important platforms for Chinese soft-power projection.9

Russia lacks China’s ability to offer significant economic resources, so it instead opts 

to engage Latin America by focusing its efforts on countries that it had a strong relationship with during the Cold War. This primarily entails members of the Bolivarian Alliance, 

which is led by Venezuela but includes other ideologically likeminded countries such as 

Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, as well as some members of El Salvador’s political elite. This 

alliance shares a strong anti-U.S. ideology and operates as a likeminded network of deeply 

criminalized states. Russia’s engagement offers little more than an opportunity to challenge 

or frustrate the United States; however, by working predominantly with the Bolivarian Alliance, Russia also avoids navigating as many economic and political hurdles as China as it 

increases its activities in Latin America.

The Vladimir Putin regime’s outreach to Latin America is designed to maximize impact 

at low cost. To date, this approach consists largely of weapons sales and donations; highlevel state-to-state visits; military and police training in areas such as counternarcotics; and 

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0

40

30

20

10

 0

Figure 13.1. Russian and Chinese Aid and Investments in Latin America

Sources: Arms transfer data for both Russia and China were retrieved from Stockholm International Peace Research 

Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfers Database, available at <https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers>. Chinese 

investment data are from Derek Scissors, “China Global Investment Tracker,” American Enterprise Institute, available at 

<https://www.aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker/>. Russian Official Development Assistance data are from the 

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Web site, available at <https://stats.oecd.org/>.

Russian Arms Transfers and 

Economic Aid

(Billions USD), 2011–2018

Chinese Arms Transfers, 

Investment, and Construction

(Billions USD), 2011–2018
274 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

the opportunity for certain partner nations to access Russian financial institutions, to avoid 

being sanctioned while moving funds through the American banking system.10 Russia has 

actively opened financial operations in Latin America—including banks and a cryptocurrency—to help blunt the impact of U.S. and European Union sanctions on allies such as 

Venezuela and Nicaragua. In addition to financial access nodes, Russia works with regional 

partners to create joint space projects and to flood the region with Internet propaganda 

creating a “fog of falsehoods” designed to disorient audiences.11 All such actions bolster Russia’s brand as a reliable and predictable ally for regional states, and more than 50 percent of 

respondents in a recent regional survey held a “good” or “very good” opinion of Russia.12

Russia and China are attractive partners for Latin American countries in the new era of 

Great Power competition. Both offer their allies—Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, in particular—protection from condemnation in the United Nations (UN) Security Council and 

means to avoid U.S. sanctions. Beijing and Moscow also provide an avenue to bypass the 

rule of law and democratic accountability-based conditions the United States often imposes 

on its foreign assistance. China has been an attractive partner throughout Latin America 

since at least 2005 but more particularly in these past 3 years. Since 2016, China has named 

eight countries—including Venezuela—as hemispheric strategic partners.13

For the United States, the most immediate consequence of Russian and Chinese activities in Latin America has emerged from their support of the Nicolás Maduro regime 

in Venezuela—including purchasing oil, a violation of U.S. sanctions. In 2019, China purchased, on average, 320,000 barrels per day from Venezuela despite U.S. sanctions going 

into effect in January of the same year.14 Although China’s objectives are primarily economic 

in nature—such as securing oil and oil drilling rights—Beijing’s activities in Venezuela have 

been crucial to Maduro’s survival. China has loaned Venezuela more than $70 billion in 

recent years, a rather controversial decision given that Venezuela still owes China approximately $20 billion.15

Russia’s robust engagement in Venezuela has been mainly to disrupt U.S. engagement 

and help the Maduro regime bypass international sanctions. Actions taken by Russia in 

Venezuela include sending two long-range nuclear-capable bombers, deploying special 

forces troops and Wagner Group mercenaries, sending intelligence-collection ships to 

Venezuelan waters, and deploying underwater research ships capable of mapping undersea 

cables.16 In addition to these actions, Russia has provided Venezuela $17 billion in loans and 

credit lines from 2006 to 2018.17

Beyond Venezuela, China and Russia support authoritarian, anti-U.S. regimes across 

the region both directly and indirectly. Since 2017, China has successfully persuaded three 

countries—Panama, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador—to establish diplomatic ties 

with Beijing, abandoning their decades-old practice of recognizing Taiwan and leaving only 

nine nations in the hemisphere, primarily small Caribbean islands, that recognize the legitimacy of Taipei.18 Whereas China has been successful in securing political concessions from 

its partners, both Russian and Chinese actions threaten to erode democratic governance 

in Latin America while weakening historic U.S. alliances in countries such as Panama, Argentina, and Ecuador.19 While distinct in their approaches, the immediate consequences 

of Russian and Chinese engagement in Latin America may achieve a similar anti-U.S. end.
Competing Visions and Actions 275

The Middle East 

Since 9/11, U.S. engagement in the Middle East has been buoyed by a desire to contain or degrade terrorist safe havens, maintain a regional balance of power favorable to U.S. interests, 

and—given that the Middle East is home to three geostrategic maritime chokepoints—ensure the stability of global energy markets.20 The United States has generally secured these 

interests through the forward presence of military forces, but it has also employed security 

cooperation agreements, as well as military and economic aid, to cement key partnerships 

and secure military access in the region.21 In terms of economic and military resources, the 

level of U.S. investment in the region is considerable. In 2018, the United States is estimated 

to have transferred to the Middle East nearly $6 billion worth of armaments, comprising 

55 percent of total U.S. arms transfers for the year.22 The region also received more than $8 

billion in American economic aid in 2018 and hosts the fourth largest overseas presence of 

U.S. troops.23

Chinese interests and instruments in the region are predominantly, though not exclusively, economic in nature. China leans heavily on Gulf oil producers and routes, importing 

approximately 40 percent of its crude oil from the region in 2018.24 China also relies on 

Middle East states to absorb its excess industrial capacity, which it in part offloads through 

infrastructure development projects, having invested nearly $130 billion throughout the 

Arab Middle East alone in the past 10 years.25 In 2004, China established the China-Arab 

States Cooperation Forum as a platform for shared principles and economic exchanges with 

Arab states.26 Finally, Beijing has emerged as an important arms supplier to the region, providing military equipment primarily to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates.27

Similar to China’s approach in Latin America, President Xi Jinping has framed China’s 

engagement in the region as apolitical. He proclaimed at the League of Arab States in 2016 

that “instead of attempting to fill the ‘vacuum,’ China builds a cooperative partnership network for mutual benefits and win-win results.”28 China indeed maintains a bevy of strategic 

partnerships that transcend regional rivalries, as depicted in figure 13.2. In an attempt to 

establish soft influence in the region, China has also scattered 14 of its Confucius Institutes 

across the Middle East.29

Russia’s interventions and engagements in the Middle East are motivated by a combination of reputational and material interests.30 Among the former, Russia seeks to 

opportunistically undermine and disrupt U.S. influence and reassert its own identity as a 

global power.To a lesser extent, Russia is likely motivated to engage in the Middle East by 

a set of economic factors, including maintaining the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries + cap-and-cut oil production agreements as well as expanding its access 

to nuclear energy markets, trade, and arms sales. Russian activities in the Middle East and 

North Africa are diverse, ranging from the establishment of an enduring military presence 

in Syria to attempts at expanding arms sales to regional powers and the sponsorship of 

parallel conflict resolution initiatives—which have allowed Russia to posture as a neutral 

mediator. Much like China, Russia has adopted a diverse portfolio of partners in the Middle 

East rather than binding solely to its historical allies from the Cold War era.

In some instances, Russia and China have been willing to work together toward common objectives in the region. For instance, both Russia and China have signaled their 

support for Iran. As tensions between Washington and Tehran mounted through the end 
276 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

of December 2019, Russia, China, and Iran held a joint naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman, 

which Beijing’s defense spokesman claimed was aimed at “displaying the three sides’ strong 

will and capabilities to jointly maintain world peace and maritime security.”31 Both Russia 

and China have vetoed UN Security Council resolutions that condemned Bashar al-Asad’s 

conduct in the Syria civil war, and both have provided avenues for humanitarian aid.32

The emergence of alternative external patrons is a boon for regional states vulnerable to domestic unrest and seeking to manage local civil conflicts. Through its economic 

investments, China has proved to be an attractive economic partner for regional states. 

For example, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have launched ambitious domestic development programs to stabilize and diversify their economies without political liberalization, approaches 

that mirror in many ways China’s model of economic ascent.33 Israel has also pursued a relationship with Beijing as a way to diversify its economic portfolio.34 Regional polls suggest 

positive views of Russia and China in the region; 27 percent of respondents to a regionwide 

survey viewed Putin favorably, and only 12 percent held the same views of Donald Trump.35

Nearly 50 percent of survey respondents preferred that their country’s economic relations 

with China become stronger in the future, compared with 38 percent for the United States.36

Maintaining a partnership with Russia and China has allowed regional countries to 

circumvent Western conditions or restrictions on military aid and economic sanctions. The 

Relationship

Category

Sources: Kenneth Allen, Phillip C. Saunders, and John Chen, Chinese Military Diplomacy, 2003–2016: Trends and 

Implications (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2017); Jonathan Fulton, China’s Changing Role in the Middle East (Washington, 

DC: Atlantic Council, 2019), 4; “Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Lebanese Foreign Minister Mansour Exchange 

Congratulatory Messages on the 40th Anniversary of Diplomatic Ties Between the Two Countries,” Chinese Embassy in 

Lebanon, November 9, 2011, available at <http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zgyw/t876100.htm>.

Comprehensive

Strategic

Strategic

Friendly

Cooperative

None

Figure 13.2. Chinese Strategic Partnerships in the Middle East
Competing Visions and Actions 277

United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq have all purchased armed Chinese 

unmanned aerial vehicles, which the United States is prohibited from selling.37 To dampen 

the effect of international sanctions, Iran has relied on China as a continued economic lifeline, though China has demonstrated a degree of reticence to deepen economic relations 

with Tehran.38

The implications and future trajectory of Chinese and Russian engagement in the 

Middle East are unique. In the most immediate term, Russia’s military presence in Syria 

could constrain U.S. counterterrorism operations.39 Russia can also continue to exploit the 

relational seams between the United States and its regional partners and allies—in some 

instances taking advantage of perceived U.S. failures or missteps, both to undermine U.S. 

standing in the region and to present itself as an all-weather ally.40 Nevertheless, Russia 

lacks the longer term vision, strategic interests, and resources to accomplish much more 

beyond selectively disrupting U.S. regional initiatives.

The nature of Chinese activities will pose both short-term and longer term challenges 

for the United States. Any Chinese willingness to purchase Iranian crude oil in defiance of 

U.S. and international sanctions could continue to insulate Iran from the economic costs 

of its provocative behavior, just as its weapons sales could fuel risky, destabilizing regional 

wars. Continued economic investments may also provide China access and leverage to gain 

competitive advantages over the United States. For instance, Chinese investments in the 

Suez Canal could allow Beijing to monitor U.S. ships and could also serve as an initial 

step toward establishing a platform for expeditionary military operations or disrupting U.S. 

military access. Investments in Israel’s technology sector could also allow China to acquire 

dual-use technologies that it could exploit for military advantage.41

Africa 

In Africa, the United States hopes to access the continent’s growing economies as markets 

for American goods and services and to counter violent extremists who could pose a threat 

to Western interests. Increasingly, U.S. strategic documents highlight competition with 

China as an interest in and of itself.42 Africa receives a major share of U.S. development and 

humanitarian assistance, which in 2018 amounted to more than $10 billion, and the United 

States has instituted several capacity-building programs to help establish more proficient 

African security forces.43 U.S. direct investment in the region is also considerable, amounting to $47 billion in 2018.44

Beijing’s interests in Africa span the military, geopolitical, and economic sectors: access 

to markets, investments, and raw materials—particularly oil and strategic minerals—and 

ports. The long-term vision of China’s Belt and Road Initiative includes embracing Africa 

as part of its expanding web of Silk Roads, for both digital and maritime byways.45 In 2018 

alone, China invested on the African continent $26 billion, a significant portion of recipient 

states’ gross domestic products (GDPs) (see figure 13.3).46 Yet China likely views Africa as 

a strategically important locus for military access as well, having established a base in Djibouti in 2017 and expanded its military presence in the Red Sea region.47

Chinese investment in Africa is increasingly diverse (beyond natural resources), private 

sector based (within the blurred Chinese context), and integrated with local labor. China 

is also the largest creditor in Africa, controlling about one-third of African external debt. 
278 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

Chinese tech giant Huawei provides 4G networks to over half the continent.48 In 2017, China’s trade with Africa was more than four times greater than that of the United States, and 

commercial relationships have matured beyond extractives.49 Ongoing since October 2000, 

the annual Forum on China-Africa Cooperation also draws virtually every African head of 

state for discussions of loans, grants, and pledges of noninterference. Chinese leaders regularly visit the continent. China has also built some 70 Confucius Institutes in Africa—the 

most of any region explored in this chapter—all while tens of thousands of Africans study 

in China.50 On the security front, the People’s Liberation Army participates actively in UN 

peacekeeping operations, and China has become the largest arms exporter to sub-Saharan 

Africa, including heavy and advanced weaponry.51 Finally, China is reportedly providing 

software and artificial intelligence technologies that buttress repression in certain African 

countries while affording Beijing important data-collection opportunities.52

Although China’s involvement tends to align with a desire for stability in Africa, Russia’s interests and activities seem to feed on regional insecurity. Africa offers Russia a source 

of patronage for Kremlin cronies through business deals and private security company contracts. Moreover, Russia likely views the African continent as an attractive source of mineral 

resources and, ultimately, as a region that has an opportunity to undermine Western and 

U.S. interests at moderately low cost.53

Percent of Recipient

2018 GDP

> 80

60–80

40–60

20–40

< 20

0

Figure 13.3. Total Chinese Investment and Construction in Africa 

(2005–2018) as a Percent of Recipient 2018 GDP

Sources: GDP data retrieved from World Bank Databank, available at <https://databank.worldbank.org/home.aspx>. 

Eritrea GDP is from 2011 and South Sudan GDP is from 2015, the last years data were available. Chinese investment 

data are from Derek Scissors, “China Global Investment Tracker,” American Enterprise Institute, available at 

<https://www.aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker/>.
Competing Visions and Actions 279

Russia’s reentry into African affairs, after a relative post–Cold War hiatus, is smaller 

than that of China; nonetheless, its maneuvers can have a negative effect on governance and 

stability. Russia’s approach often opportunistically targets fragile or corrupt partners.54 This 

pattern stretches from Libya, where Russian mercenaries are fighting with Khalifa Haftar 

against the UN-backed government; to the Central African Republic, where Russian funding, weapons, and mercenaries have yielded mineral rights and political influence; and to 

Madagascar, one of many states where Kremlin operatives allegedly deployed cash and fake 

news in recent elections. Africa also offers geopolitical opportunities, and Russia’s engagement employs a range of diplomatic and military tools to exploit them. In addition to an 

October 2019 summit in Sochi with more than 40 African leaders, Russia also offers educational opportunities, arms sales, and some debt relief.55

Notably, African states do not perceive themselves in a three-way zero-sum game of 

Great Power competitive influence among Russia, China, and the United States. Africa’s 54 

countries are actively engaging with external actors in terms of their own priorities, with 

varying levels of success and transparency. African leaders seek infrastructure, economic 

development, and job creation for the 33,000 young people entering the labor market every 

day.56 For those nations seeking surveillance technology or arms, Russia and China have 

offerings. Countries facing terrorist threats or instability also may view Russian and Chinese training, equipment, and support for peace operations as an alluring alternative to U.S. 

assistance, which is often viewed as slow and restrictive. Chinese activities appear to have 

yielded some local goodwill; according to a 2014–2015 public opinion survey, nearly twothirds of Africans regard China’s influence as “somewhat” or “very” positive.57

The consequences of Russian and Chinese activities in Africa have thus manifested 

themselves in distinct ways. Russian interventions in local civil conflicts and political interference serve to prop up corrupt, unstable regimes in the region, and Russia’s alleged 

involvement in more than a dozen elections can undermine more democratic states as well. 

Africa has provided Russia access to valuable mineral resources. China, too, has been able 

to secure key minerals through its activities in Africa, including reportedly taking control of 

more than 52 percent of the cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.58

Although few African countries are currently classified as being under debt stress to China, 

growing debt burdens will affect national development prospects and international relationships and thus create at least the potential for future pressure or exploitation.59 China indeed 

already appears to have been able to leverage its diplomatic and economic investments. In 

1971, 20 African countries recognized Taiwan; today, only Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) 

does.60 As in Latin America, Chinese economic engagement and political pressure in Africa 

have generated important diplomatic results. Ultimately, Chinese and Russian activities on 

the continent, in the emerging era of Great Power competition, enhance access to resources 

and offer opportunities for political coercion.

The Arctic

The United States relies on access to the Arctic to safeguard its freedom of navigation and 

overflight, both of which allow it to project power globally.61 The United States has come 

to view the Arctic as a region that could afford important strategic advantages from both 

Russia and China, describing the Arctic as a competitive rather than cooperative space. For 
280 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in his remarks at the May 2019 Arctic Council 

ministerial meeting, rejected China’s claim to be a near-Arctic state, warning about growing Chinese influence in the region while also pointing to Russian actions in the Northern 

Sea Route (NSR) as “part of a pattern of aggressive Russian behavior here in the Arctic.”62

The June 2019 Department of Defense Arctic Strategy echoes this sentiment, calling the 

Arctic “a potential avenue for expanded Great Power competition and aggression,” noting 

that the United States has an interest in “limiting the ability of China and Russia to leverage 

the region.”63

The United States has historically pursued its interests in the Arctic through cooperation and consensus-building in the Arctic Council. As the United States has come to view 

the Arctic region through a competitive lens in the emerging era of Great Power rivalry, 

Washington has increasingly preferred unilateral or bilateral actions in the region.64 In August 2019, President Trump offered to buy Greenland from Denmark, rather than working 

cooperatively with Denmark on joint investment. In short, U.S. leaders no longer see the 

Arctic as a zone of peace and stability; rather, they see it as another competitive arena that 

is best addressed through unilateralism.

In January 2018, China introduced its Arctic Policy, declaring itself to be a “near Arctic” 

state, affording itself weight in regional governance decisions.65 According to this policy, all 

Arctic stakeholders should “ensure that the benefits are shared by both Arctic and non-Arctic States as well as by non-state entities, and should accommodate the interests of local 

residents including the indigenous peoples.”66 For China, the Arctic is attractive, in part, 

due to the potential viability of maritime shipping routes, which could shorten the shipping 

time between China and Europe by 2 weeks.67 Given the region’s abundance of natural resources, China also has expressed an interest in “resource exploration and exploitation.”68

China has relied on investing in research stations and economic instruments of statecraft to pursue these Arctic interests. This approach has included steadily increasing the 

manpower in the Polar Research Institute of China, headquartered in Shanghai, which 

oversees China’s increasing number of ice-breaking research transits and manages Chinese 

research stations in the Arctic.69 Moreover, from 2012 to 2017, China invested $2 billion 

in Greenland and $1.2 billion in Iceland, constituting 11.6 percent and 5.7 percent of each 

country’s respective GDP.70

The official responses to Chinese behavior are mixed and, where positive, are likely 

driven by demand for Chinese investment rather than genuine political alignment with 

Beijing. For instance, China’s activities in the Arctic found a somewhat sympathetic ear 

from officials with responsibility for Arctic scientific research, fisheries management, and 

shipping standards, in addition to some politicians in Greenland and Iceland, all seeking 

Chinese investment.71 Arctic nations, however, have rejected China’s appeals for inclusive 

governance, viewing Chinese research behavior as a potential mask for longer term security 

goals.72 Most famously, Secretary Pompeo singled out China in May 2019, stating that “China’s words and actions raise doubts about its intentions” in the region.73

Unlike those of China or the United States, core Russian economic, security, and ideational interests are directly at stake in the Arctic. A significant portion of Russia’s gross 

domestic product—by some estimates more than 30 percent—comes from natural resources 

in the Arctic.74 Russia’s own longstanding Policy for the Arctic calls for the “transformation 
Competing Visions and Actions 281

of the Arctic zone . . . into a leading strategic resource base of the Russian Federation.”75

Russia also must maintain a military presence along the NSR to protect its nuclear deterrent, as it is home to Russia’s North Sea Fleet, including a large portion of ballistic missile 

submarines.76 Finally, Russia’s Great Power ambitions and national identity as an Arctic 

nation are intertwined with its behavior in the region.77

Even so, Russia has a history of constructive interactions within the Arctic Council 

and routinely expresses a desire to maintain peace and stability in the region.78 To defend 

its critical security interests in the Arctic, Russia has become more assertive: It has claimed 

unilateral control of its Arctic waters, and specifically the NSR along its northern coast, 

fortifying its presence in the area while also building at least seven additional bases since 

2013.79 Russia has demanded that transiting ships pay tolls, take aboard a Russian ice pilot, 

and allow inspections when required. Noncompliant ships are subject to being stopped, 

boarded, impounded, and even destroyed. Russia justifies these actions under Article 234 

of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which states that countries with ice-covered 

waters in their exclusive economic zones—but beyond their territorial waters—can regulate 

those zones if doing so will protect the environment.80

Russian and Chinese activities in the Arctic will thus likely produce a different set of 

challenges for the United States in this emerging era of Great Power competition. China 

could leverage its sizable investments in Greenland and Iceland to constrain the U.S. military’s regional access or monitor its behavior for future strategic advantage. Conversely, 

Russia already maintains a substantial material advantage in the Arctic vis-à-vis the United 

States, which could complicate the U.S. ability to challenge Russia’s claim to the NSR and 

obstructions to freedom of navigation.

Conclusion and Implications 

Expanding the aperture of Great Power competition beyond Russia and China’s “near 

abroad,” this chapter explores the competitive advantages these two countries continue to 

gain through their engagements in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic. 

The analysis reveals considerable diversity in the nature, intensity, and potential stakes in 

Great Power rivalries across these regions, which, in turn, carries several implications for 

U.S. policymakers.

First, although these countries will at times coordinate to frustrate U.S. objectives 

or pursue their own, Russia and China often present distinct competitive threats to the 

United States. In many regions, Russia poses the more immediate challenge, whereas 

the repercussions of Chinese economic investments manifest themselves subtly and will 

likely undermine U.S. strategic interests more gradually. Beyond differences in temporal 

urgency, there remains daylight between the two competitors’ long-term strategic visions 

and behavior. Both countries are only nominally united in their desire to compete with 

and displace U.S. influence across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic. 

China’s behavior is grounded in its global investment strategy and desire to create a Sino-centric international political order, whereas Russia’s desire to be a global Great Power 

is not based in a proactive vision of a new global geopolitical order.81 China often invests 

broadly within these regions, whereas Russia’s capacity limitations compel Moscow to be 

more discerning in its partnerships. China’s tool kit relies on regional stability; Russia’s 
282 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

often produces instability. Both nations sometimes seek to extract the same resources from 

the same region, which may bring them into zero-sum competition.

Even though Russia and China are conflated in U.S. strategic documents, the instruments and overall strategic approach required to effectively compete with, manage, and 

counter Russian influence will not necessarily translate into progress against China’s activities, and vice versa. Addressing the Russian rivalry may require military and economic 

assistance designed to insulate key U.S. partners from the spillover effects of Moscow’s behavior, while also conveying U.S. staying power and commitments to allies who may view 

Russia as more reliable. Competition with China will not only necessitate greater emphasis on economic, diplomatic, and other soft-power instruments of U.S. national influence 

but also require the United States to recognize select shared interests with China, particularly when it comes to containing regional pandemics, natural disasters, maritime piracy, 

and terrorist threats. The United States should adopt parallel but coordinated strategies to 

compete with Beijing and Moscow—approaches that recognize the more immediate threat 

posed by the latter and the longer time horizon of the former.

Second, the stakes involved in competition across these regions are uneven for the 

United States. In the Middle East, the United States risks losing access to strategic maritime 

chokepoints. In Africa, growing Russian and Chinese influence undermines the stability 

of U.S. partners and allows China to fuel its economic growth by accessing and extracting 

minerals. In Latin America, the risks to the United States relate more to the externalities of 

regional instability within the U.S. backyard; in the Arctic, more assertive policies by Russia 

and China could limit U.S. access to and freedom of navigation.

In terms of intrinsic American interests, deciding which of these consequences deserves higher priority necessitates a reevaluation of U.S. strategic interests across and within 

each of these regions in light of Great Power competition. Put simply, U.S. policymakers 

need to refresh how they define these interests both globally and regionally, viewing them 

through the lens of Great Power competition rather than counterterrorism. The presence 

of Russian or Chinese activities should alone be insufficient to warrant prioritization or 

a competitive response from the United States. Instead, U.S. policymakers need to adopt 

a more discerning approach grounded in each region’s geopolitical significance, thinking 

carefully about ramifications of Russian and Chinese success. This pivot should help the 

United States avoid unnecessarily wasting finite time and resources competing with Russia 

and China in areas or countries of limited importance.

Finally, states in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic are often eager 

recipients of Russian and Chinese attention and resources due to convenience rather than to 

ideological commitment. With few exceptions, many countries’ willingness to accept these 

resources is not grounded in a sincere dedication to China’s global vision or Russia’s cynicism vis-à-vis Western norms and institutions; instead, it is often the scale and unrestricted 

nature of Russian and Chinese largesse that makes each country an attractive partner. With 

this convenience sometimes come hidden costs and clear limitations. China, for instance, 

continues to leverage economic investments to coerce recipient states and, without a military presence, cannot offer its partners credible security guarantees. Russia has less material 

power to invest globally.
Competing Visions and Actions 283

These motivations and limits in Russia’s and China’s respective approaches—as well 

as the hedging strategies that smaller states have adopted as they balance relationships 

with Russia, China, and the United States—warrant a cautious response from Washington. 

Where necessary, policymakers should emphasize U.S. strengths as an economic partner, 

juxtaposing the profit-driven motives of American private sector investment with the risks 

of China’s sometimes more coercive state-driven model; they should also highlight the long 

history of U.S. foreign assistance versus the short track record of China’s economic activities. The United States also has an advantage in the quality and transparency of its military 

assistance, as well as its military superiority and forward presence.

Each of these advantages can convey a strong commitment to U.S. partners that is 

not evident from Russia or China. The United States should avoid, however, systematically 

imposing a regional strategy that views Russian or Chinese activities as uniformly harmful 

to U.S. interests and detrimental to the stability of recipient states across these regions. 

Doing so might unnecessarily damage U.S. relations with key partners and allies seeking 

sources of economic investment, military hardware, or alternative political forums. Few, if 

any, countries wish to be pulled into a zero-sum U.S.-China or U.S.-Russia competition in 

this dawning era of Great Power competition.

The authors thank Peter B. Zwack, Joel Wuthnow, and the volume editors for their thoughtful 

comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

Notes

1

 For overviews, see, for example, David Shambaugh, China 

Goes Global (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Scott 

McDonald and Michael Burgoyne, eds., China’s Global Influence: 

Perspectives and Recommendations (Washington, DC: Asia-Pacific 

Center for Security Studies, 2019); Phillip C. Saunders, China’s 

Global Activism: Strategy, Drivers, and Tools (Washington, DC: 

NDU Press, 2006); Robert Sutter, Chinese Foreign Relations: Power 

and Policy Since the Cold War (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 

2012); Peter B. Zwack and Marie-Charlotte Pierre, Russian 

Challenges from Now into the Next Generation: A Geostrategic 

Primer, INSS Strategic Perspectives 29 (Washington, DC: NDU 

Press, 2019); Paul Stronski and Richard Sokolsky, The Return 

of Global Russia: An Analytic Framework (Washington, DC: 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2017).

2

 The challenge of Russia and China is described in each of 

the geographic combatant command’s posture statements, 

as well as in the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy. See 

Admiral Craig S. Faller, USN, Posture Statement of Admiral 

Craig S. Faller, United States Southern Command, Before the 

116th Congress Senate Armed Services Committee, February 7, 

2019, available at <www.southcom.mil/Portals/7/Documents/

Posture%20Statements/SOUTHCOM_2019_Posture_Statement_

Final.pdf>; General Joseph L. Votel, USA, Statement of General 

Joseph L. Votel, Commander, U.S. Central Command, Before the 

House Armed Services Committee on the Posture of U.S. Central 

Command Great Power Competition: The Current and Future 

Challenges in the Middle East, March 7, 2019, available at <https://

armedservices.house.gov/_cache/files/0/2/02f463d7-e06a-4a7f8004-4bb619eb17e3/F446D6AEBBD598956E1429E5AD3243AB.

centcom-posture-statement-hasc-march-7.pdf>; General 

Thomas D. Waldhauser, USMC, 2019 Posture Statement to 

Congress, February 7, 2019, available at <www.africom.mil/

about-the-command/2019-posture-statement-to-congress>; 

Report to Congress on the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy

(Washington, DC: Department of Defense, June 2019), available 

at <https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jun/06/2002141657/-1/-

1/1/2019-DOD-ARCTIC-STRATEGY.PDF>.

3

 In this chapter, we define Latin America as an area including 

Mexico, as well as states in Central America, the Caribbean, 

and South America.

4 National Security Strategy of the United States of America

(Washington, DC: The White House, December 2017), 51, 

available at <www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/

NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf>.

5

 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Economic 

Analysis and Data Services, U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, 

Obligations, and Loan Authorizations Greenbook, available 

at <www.usaid.gov/developer/greenbookapi>; U.S. Trade 

Representative, “Free Trade Agreements,” available at <https://

ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements>; Peter J. 

Meyer, U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America: Policy 

Issues for Congress, R44812 (Washington, DC: Congressional 

Research Service, November 2019), available at <https://

crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44812>.

6

 “Latinobarometer 2018,” available at <www.latinobarometro.org>.

7

 Of the $141.3 billion of Chinese investment, $67.2 billion was 

loaned to Venezuela, $29 billion to Brazil, and $18.4 billion to 

Ecuador. See China-Latin America Finance Database, Dialogue, 

available at <www.thedialogue.org/map_list/>. U.S. loans and 

grants data are from USAID Economic Analysis and Data 

Services, U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, Obligations, and Loan 

Authorizations Greenbook.

8

 Admiral Craig S. Faller, USN, Commander U.S. Southern 

Command Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 

July 9, 2019, available at <www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/

media/doc/Faller_07-09-19.pdf>.
284 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

9

 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 

Arms Transfers database, available at <www.sipri.org/databases/

armstransfers>; “Confucius Institutes Around the World—2019,” 

Digmandarin, February 15, 2020, available at <www.digmandarin.

com/confucius-institutes-around-the-world.html>.

10 Douglas Farah and Kathryn Babineau, “Extra-Regional Actors 

in Latin America: The United States Is Not the Only Game in 

Town,” PRISM 8, no. 1 (2019), 96–114.

11 Faller, Commander U.S. Southern Command Testimony Before 

the Senate Armed Services Committee.

12 “Latinobarometer 2018.”

13 China’s other strategic partners include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, 

Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Uruguay. See Mark P. Sullivan 

and Thomas Lum, “China’s Engagement with Latin America and 

the Caribbean,” Congressional Research Service, last updated 

April 11, 2019, available at <https://crsreports.congress.gov/

product/pdf/IF/IF10982>.

14 Lisa Viscidi and Nate Graham, Reviving Venezuela’s Oil Sector: 

The Role of Western Oil Majors (Washington, DC: Inter-American 

Dialogue, January 2020), available at <www.thedialogue.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/01/VENEZUELA-FINAL-PDF-1.pdf>.

15 “China to Lend Venezuela $5 Billion as Maduro Visits 

Beijing,” Bloomberg, September 13, 2018, available at <www.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-13/china-to-givevenezuela-5-billion-loan-as-maduro-visits-beijing>; Jeremy 

Page, “China Counts the Costs of Its Big Bet on Venezuela,” 

Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2019, available at <https://

www.wsj.com/articles/china-counts-the-costs-of-its-big-beton-venezuela-11549038825>.

16 Faller, Commander U.S. Southern Command Testimony Before 

the Senate Armed Services Committee.

17 “Factbox: Oil, Loans, Military—Russia’s Exposure to Venezuela,” 

Reuters, January 24, 2019, available at <www.reuters.com/article/

us-venezuela-politics-russia-factbox/factbox-oil-loans-militaryrussias-exposure-to-venezuela-idUSKCN1PI1T4>.

18 Michael D. McDonald and Keith Zhai, “Panama to Establish Ties 

with China in Latest Blow to Taiwan,” Bloomberg, June 12, 2017, 

available at <www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/

panama-to-open-ties-with-china-in-blow-to-taiwan-reportsays>; Steven Jiang, “China Snatches Dominican Republic from 

Taiwan in Diplomatic Blow,” CNN, May 1, 2018, available at 

<www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/asia/china-taiwan-dominicanrepublican-intl/index.html>; Douglas Farah and Caitlyn Yates, 

El Salvador’s Recognition of the People’s Republic of China: A 

Regional Context, INSS Strategic Perspectives 30 (Washington, 

DC: NDU Press, 2019).

19 Of note, Brazil is an interesting outlier in this regard, 

aligning more closely with the United States. See Ney Hayashi 

Cruz, “Brazilian President Streams Himself Watching 

Trump’s Iran Speech,” Bloomberg, January 8, 2020, available 

at <www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-08/

bolsonaro-streams-himself-watching-trump-s-speech-on-iran>.

20 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 48–50.

21 Votel, Statement of General Joseph L. Votel, Commander, U.S. 

Central Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee 

on the Posture of U.S. Central Command Great Power Competition.

22 SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.

23 Votel, Statement of General Joseph L. Votel, Commander, U.S. 

Central Command, Before the House Armed Services Committee 

on the Posture of U.S. Central Command Great Power Competition; 

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Activity, 

“Direct Investment by Country and Industry,” July 24, 2019, 

available at <www.bea.gov/data/intl-trade-investment/directinvestment-country-and-industry>; USAID Economic Analysis 

and Data Services, U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, Obligations, 

and Loan Authorizations Greenbook.

24 Annual Report to Congress on the Military and Security 

Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019

(Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense,

May 2019), available at <https://media.defense.gov/2019/

May/02/2002127082/-1/1/1/2019_CHINA_MILITARY_

POWER_REPORT.pdf>.

25 Derek Scissors, “China Global Investment Tracker,” American 

Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC, available at <www.

aei.org/china-global-investment-tracker>; Brett McGurk, 

“China’s Risky Middle East Bet,” The Atlantic, April 29, 2019, 

available at <www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/

chinas-risky-middle-east-bet/588166/>.

26 The China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (Rio 

de Janeiro, Brazil: BRICS Policy Center, May 

2016), available at <www.bricspolicycenter.org/en/

forum-de-cooperacao-china-paises-arabes/>.

27 Annual Report to Congress on the Military and Security 

Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2019.

28 “Xi Jinping Delivers Important Speech at Headquarters of 

the League of Arab States, Stressing to Jointly Create a Bright 

Future for Development of China-Arab Relations and Promote 

National Rejuvenation of China and Arab States to Form More 

Convergence,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic 

of China, January 1, 2016, available at <www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_

eng/topics_665678/xjpdstajyljxgsfw/t1334587.shtml>; China’s 

Arab Policy Paper (Beijing: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the 

People’s Republic of China, January 2016), available at <www.

fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1331683.shtml>.

29 “Confucius Institutes Around the World—2019,” Digmandarin, 

February 23, 2019, available at <www.digmandarin.com/

confucius-institutes-around-the-world.html>.

30 For overviews, see Dmitri Trenin, What Is Russia Up To 

in the Middle East? (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2017); 

Eugene Rumer, Russia in the Middle East: Jack of All Trades, 

Master of None (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace, 2019); Mark N. Katz, Support Opposing 

Sides Simultaneously: Russia’s Approach to the Gulf and the Middle 

East (Doha: Al-Jazeera Center, August 2018); Becca Wasser, The 

Limits of Russian Strategy in the Middle East (Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND, 2019).

31 Ben Westcott and Hamdi Alkhshali, “China, Russia, and Iran 

Hold Joint Naval Drills in Gulf of Oman,” CNN, December 27, 

2019, available at <www.cnn.com/2019/12/27/asia/china-russiairan-military-drills-intl-hnk/index.html>. For an overview of 

Iran-Russia-Chinese cooperation, see Ariane Tabatabai and Dina 

Esfandiary, Triple-Axis: Iran’s Relations with Russia and China

(New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018).

32 Tom O’Connor, “Russia Not Alone in Syria’s West, China 

and Iran Are Also Moving in Near Sea,” Newsweek, April 23, 

2019, available at <www.newsweek.com/russia-west-syria-warchina-iran-1404051>; “Russia and China Block Cross-Border 

Aid Deliveries to Syria,” New York Times, December 20, 2019, 

available at <www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/world/middleeast/

syria-aid-russia-un.html>.

33 “President El Sisi Unveils ‘Egypt Vision 2030’ Sustainable 

Development Strategy,” Embassy of Egypt, February 24, 2016, 

available at <www.egyptembassy.net/news/news/president-el-sisiunveils-egypt-vision-2030-sustainable-development-strategy/>; 

“Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Vision 2030,” available at <https://

vision2030.gov.sa/en/themes/2>.

34 Shia Efron et al., The Evolving Israel-China Relationship (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 2019).

35 Arab Barometer Wave V (2018–2019), available at <www.

arabbarometer.org/survey-data/data-downloads/>.
Competing Visions and Actions 285

36 Ibid.

37 Assessment on U.S. Defense Implications of China’s Expanding 

Global Access (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 

December 2018), available at <https://media.defense.gov/2019/

Jan/14/2002079292/-1/-1/1/EXPANDING-GLOBAL-ACCESSREPORT-FINAL.PDF>. China has been willing to make these 

arms sales despite its pledges to adhere to the Missile Technology 

Control Regime. See Michael D. Swaine and Alastair Iain 

Johnston, “China and Arms Control Institutions,” in China 

Joins the World: Progress and Prospects, ed. Elizabeth Economy 

and Michael Oksenberg (New York: Council on Foreign Relations 

Press, 1999), 112–114.

38 See chapter 10 of this volume, and Dan Katz, “Despite Sanctions, 

China Is Still Doing (Some) Business with Iran,” Atlantic Council, 

October 1, 2019, available at <www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/

iransource/despite-sanctions-china-is-still-doing-some-businesswith-iran/>.

39 Prior to the raid that killed so-called Islamic State’s Abu 

Bakr al-Baghdadi, the United States indeed needed to 

deconflict its operations with both Turkey and Russia. See 

Jim Garamone, “Central Command Chief Gives Details on 

Baghdadi Raid,” Defense.gov, October 30, 2019, available 

at <www.defense.gov/explore/story/Article/2003960/

central-command-chief-gives-details-on-baghdadi-raid/>.

40 “Russia Ready to Sell Its Advanced Weaponry to Saudi Arabia—

Putin,” TASS, September 16, 2019, available at <https://tass.com/

defense/1078433>; James Dorsey, Will There Be a New RussianChinese Security Architecture in the Gulf? Begin-Sadat Center for 

Strategic Studies (BESA) Perspectives Paper 1287 (Ramat Gan, 

Israel: BESA, September 2019), available at <https://besacenter.

org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/1287-Security-Architecturein-the-Gulf-Dorsey-final.pdf>; Wasser, The Limits of Russian 

Strategy in the Middle East.

41 Shia Efron et al., The Evolving Israel-China Relationship; 

see also “DASD Michael Mulroy Opening Statement: Israel 

and Great Power Competition,” Foundation on the Defense of 

Democracy, July 31, 2019, available at <www.fdd.org/wp-content/

uploads/2019/07/DASD_Mulroy_Remarks.pdf>.

42 The National Security Strategy notes, “We will offer American 

goods and services [in Africa], both because it is profitable 

for us and because it serves as an alternative to China’s often 

extractive economic footprint.” See National Security Strategy of 

the United States of America. See also “President Donald J. Trump’s 

Africa Strategy Advances Prosperity, Security, and Stability,” fact 

sheet, The White House, December 13, 2018, available at <www.

whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumpsafrica-strategy-advances-prosperity-security-stability/>; Tibor P. 

Nagy, “The Enduring Partnership Between the United States and 

South Africa,” remarks at the University of the Witwatersrand, 

Johannesburg, South Africa, June 21, 2019, available at <www.

state.gov/the-enduring-partnership-between-the-unitedstates-and-south-africa/>; Statement of General Thomas D. 

Waldhauser, United States Marine Corps, Commander, United 

States Africa Command, Before the Senate Committee on Armed 

Services, February 7, 2019, available at <www.africom.mil/

about-the-command/2019-posture-statement-to-congress>.

43 For an overview, see U.S. Africa Command, “What We Do—

Security Cooperation,” n.d., available at <www.africom.mil/

what-we-do/security-cooperation>. For an assessment of these 

programs, see Steve Watts et al., Building Security in Africa: 

An Evaluation of U.S. Security Sector Assistance in Africa from 

the Cold War to the Present (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018).

44 Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Activity, 

“Direct Investment by Country and Industry,” July 24, 2019, 

available at <www.bea.gov/data/intl-trade-investment/

direct-investment-country-and-industry>.

45 Paul Nantulya, “Chinese Hard Power Supports Its Growing 

Strategic Interests in Africa,” Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 

Washington, DC, January 17, 2019, available at <https://

africacenter.org/spotlight/chinese-hard-power-supports-itsgrowing-strategic-interests-in-africa/>; Assessment on U.S. 

Defense Implications of China’s Expanding Global Access; see 

also Larry Hanauer and Lyle J. Morris, Chinese Engagement in 

Africa: Drivers, Reactions, and Implications for U.S. Policy (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND, 2014).

46 Scissors, “China Global Investment Tracker.”

47 Sarah Zheng, “China’s Djibouti Military Base: ‘Logistics Facility,’ 

or Platform for Geopolitical Ambitions Overseas?” South China 

Morning Post (Hong Kong), October 1, 2017, available at <www.

scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2113300/

chinas-djibouti-military-base-logistics-facility-or>; Joel 

Wuthnow, The PLA Beyond Asia: China’s Growing Military 

Presence in the Red Sea Region, INSS Strategic Forum 303 

(Washington, DC: NDU Press, January 2020).

48 Phillip Carter III et al., “China in Africa: Opportunities, 

Challenges, and Options,” in China’s Global Influence: Perspectives 

and Recommendations, ed. Scott D. McDonald and Michael C. 

Burgoyne (Honolulu: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for 

Security Studies, 2019), 111–113; “Huawei Strengthens Foothold 

in Africa to Offset U.S. Ban,” Agence France-Presse, June 9, 2019, 

available at <www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3013717/

huawei-strengthens-foothold-africa-amid-us-ban>.

49 Judd Devermont, The World Is Coming to Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Where Is the United States? Center for Strategic and International 

Studies (CSIS) Briefs (Washington, DC: CSIS, August 24, 2018), 

available at <www.csis.org/analysis/world-coming-sub-saharanafrica-where-united-states>; Carter et al., “China in Africa,” 

in McDonald and Burgoyne, China’s Global Influence, 111; 

Luke Patey, “The Chinese Model Is Failing Africa,” Financial 

Times, August 26, 2018, available at <www.ft.com/content/

ca4072f6-a79f-11e8-a1b6-f368d365bf0e>.

50 Shannon Tiezzi, “FOCAC 2018: Rebranding China in 

Africa,” The Diplomat, September 5, 2018, available at <https://

thediplomat.com/2018/09/focac-2018-rebranding-chinain-africa/>; Lina Benabdallah, “Spite Won’t Beat China in 

Africa,” Foreign Policy, January 23, 2019, available at <https://

foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/23/spite-wont-beat-china-in-africa/>.

51 Nantulya, “Chinese Hard Power”; Pieter D. Wezeman et 

al., Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2017 (Stockholm: 

SIPRI, 2018), available at <www.sipri.org/publications/2018/

sipri-fact-sheets/trends-international-arms-transfers-2017>.

52 Steven Feldstein, The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance 

(Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 

September 2019), available at <https://carnegieendowment.org/

files/WP-Feldstein-AISurveillance_final.pdf>.

53 Paul Stronski, Late to the Party: Russia’s Return to 

Africa (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace, October 16, 2019), available 

at <https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/10/16/

late-to-party-russia-s-return-to-africa-pub-80056>.

54 Adrian Blomfield and Peta Thornycroft, “Russia Planned to 

Influence South African Elections in Favor of the Ruling ANC, 

Report Suggests,” Telegraph (London), May 8, 2019, available 

at <www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/08/russia-plannedinfluence-south-african-elections-favour-ruling/>; Megan 

Trimble, “Fake News Found in 16 Countries’ Elections,” U.S. News 

and World Report, November 14, 2017, available at <https://www.

usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-11-14/reportrussia-like-election-meddling-discovered-in-16-countries>.

55 Sudarsan Raghavan, “Arrival of Russian Mercenaries Adds 

Deadlier Firepower, Modern Tactics to Libya’s Civil War,” 

Washington Post, November 5, 2019, available at <www.

washingtonpost.com/world/arrival-of-russian-mercenaries-adds-
286 Loidolt, Auerswald, Farah, Smith, and Yates

deadlier-firepower-modern-tactics-to-libyas-civil-war/2019/11/05/

f330820c-fa03-11e9-9534-e0dbcc9f5683_story.html>; Kimberly 

Marten, “Russia’s Use of Semi-State Security Forces: The Case of 

the Wagner Group,” Post Soviet Affairs 35, no. 3 (March 2019), 

181–204; Stronski, Late to the Party; Michael Schwirtz and Gaelle 

Borgia, “How Russia Meddles Abroad for Profit: Cash, Trolls and 

a Cult Leader,” New York Times, November 11, 2019, available at 

<www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/world/africa/russia-madagascarelection.html>.

56 Siddharth Chatterjee, “Promise or Peril? Africa’s 830 Million 

Young People by 2050,” United Nations Development Programme 

Africa, August 12, 2017, available at <www.africa.undp.org/

content/rba/en/home/blog/2017/8/12/Promise-Or-Peril-Africas-830-Million-Young-People-By-2050.html>.

57 Mogopodi Lekorwe, “China’s Growing Presence in Africa Wins 

Largely Positive Popular Reviews,” Afrobarometer, October 24, 

2016, available at <http://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/

publications/Dispatches/ab_r6_dispatchno122_perceptions_of_

china_in_africa1.pdf>. There is some evidence that this may be 

changing, as suggested by the electoral rhetoric and platforms 

in Zimbabwe, some of which evoked anti-China sentiment 

and promises to remove Chinese business. See Richard Aidoo, 

“African Countries Have Started to Push Back Against Chinese 

Development Aid: Here’s Why,” Washington Post, October 

16, 2018, available at <www.washingtonpost.com/news/

monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/16/african-countries-have-startedto-push-back-against-chinese-development-aid-heres-why/>.

58 FP Analytics, “Mining the Future: How China Is Set 

to Dominate the Next Industrial Revolution,” May 1, 

2019, available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/01/

mining-the-future-china-critical-minerals-metals/>.

59 Carter et al., “China in Africa,” 112–113; Elvis Mboya, 

“Rethinking Africa’s $124 Billion Debt to China, Ahead of 

Beijing’s September Summit,” Investigative Africa, August 2018, 

available at <https://iaafrica.com/rethinking-africas-120-billiondebt-to-china-ahead-of-beijings-september-summit/>. A recent 

study concludes that Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya are all at 

elevated risk of debt distress. See John Hurley, Scott Morris, and 

Gailyn Portelance, Examining the Debt Implications of the Belt 

and Road Initiative from a Policy Perspective, Center for Global 

Development (CGD) Policy Paper 121 (Washington, DC: CGD, 

March 2018), available at <www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/

examining-debt-implications-belt-and-road-initiative-policyperspective.pdf>.

60 Timothy S. Rich and Vasabjit Banerjee, “Running Out of 

Time? The Evolution of Taiwan’s Relations in Africa,” Journal 

of Current Chinese Affairs 44, no. 1 (2015), 141–161; “Taiwan 

on Diplomatic Eggshells with Three Remaining African Allies,” 

South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), available at <www.

scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1886336/taiwandiplomatic-eggshells-three-remaining-african-allies>; Salem 

Solomon, “Once Influential in Africa, Taiwan Loses All But One 

Ally,” VOA News, May 26, 2018, available at <www.voanews.

com/africa/once-influential-africa-taiwan-loses-all-one-ally>.

61 Report to Congress on the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy.

62 Michael Pompeo, “Looking North: Sharpening America’s Arctic 

Focus,” U.S. State Department, May 6, 2019, available at <www.

state.gov/secretary/remarks/2019/05/291512.htm>.

63 Report to Congress on the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy.

64 Established in 1996, the Arctic Council is an “intergovernmental 

forum promoting cooperation, coordination, and interaction 

among the Arctic states, Arctic indigenous communities, and 

other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular 

on issues of sustainable development and environmental 

protection in the Arctic.” Its member states include Canada, 

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the 

United States. See “Arctic Council,” n.d., available at <https://

arctic-council.org/>.

65 China’s Arctic Policy (Beijing: State Council Information Office 

of the People’s Republic of China, January 2018), available at

<http://english.gov.cn/archive/white_paper/2018/01/26/

content_281476026660336.htm>.

66 Ibid.

67 United States Coast Guard Arctic Strategic Outlook (Washington, 

DC: U.S. Coast Guard, April 2019), available at <www.uscg.mil/

Portals/0/Images/arctic/Arctic_Strategic_Outlook_APR_2019.

pdf>.

68 China’s Arctic Policy.

69 Sherri Goodman and Marisol Maddox, “China’s Growing 

Arctic Presence,” Wilson Center Polar Institute, Washington, 

DC, November 19, 2018, available at <www.wilsoncenter.org/

article/chinas-growing-arctic-presence>; Linda Jakobson and 

Jingchao Peng, China’s Arctic Aspirations, SIPRI Policy Paper 

No. 34 (Stockholm: SIPRI, 2012), available at <www.sipri.org/

publications/2012/sipri-policy-papers/chinas-arctic-aspirations>.

70 Ark E. Rosen and Cara B. Thuringer, Unconstrained Foreign 

Direct Investment: An Emerging Challenge to Arctic Security

(Arlington, VA: CNA, November 2017), 54.

71 Erik Matzen and Tom Daly, “Greenland’s Courting of China 

for Airport Projects Worries Denmark,” Reuters, March 22, 2018, 

available at <www.reuters.com/article/china-arctic-greenland/

greenlands-courting-of-china-for-airport-projects-worriesdenmark-idUSL4N1QP346>.

72 Elana Wilson Rowe, Arctic Governance (Manchester, UK: 

Manchester University Press, 2018), 63.

73 Pompeo, “Looking North.”

74 Tsvetana Paraskova, “Russia’s Oil Revenue Is About to Soar,” 

Business Insider, May 14, 2018, available at <www.businessinsider.

com/russia-oil-revenue-about-to-soar-2018-5>.

75 Russian Federation’s Policy for the Arctic to 2020, 

March 30, 2009, available at <www.arctis-search.com/

Russian+Federation+Policy+for+the+Arctic+to+2020%3E>.

76 David Auerswald, “Now Is Not the Time for a FONOP in 

the Arctic,” War on the Rocks, October 11, 2019, available at 

<https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/now-is-not-the-timefor-a-fonop-in-the-arctic/>; Tyler Cross, “Divining Russia’s 

Intentions in the Arctic,” The Maritime Executive, July 10, 

2019, available at <www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/

divining-russia-s-intentions-in-the-arctic>.

77 Anna Reynolds, ed., Arctic Narratives and Political Values: 

Russia, China, and Canada in the High North (Riga, Latvia: 

NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, 

September 2018), available at <www.stratcomcoe.org/

arctic-narratives-and-political-values>.

78 See, for example, Vladimir Putin, “Plenary Session of the 

International Arctic Forum,” video, 16:50, St. Petersburg, Russia, 

April 9, 2019, available at <http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/

news/60250>.

79 Natassia Astrasheuskaya and Henry Foy, “Polar 

Powers: Russia’s Bid for Supremacy in the Arctic Ocean,” 

Financial Times, April 27, 2019, available at <www.ft.com/

content/2fa82760-5c4a-11e9-939a-341f5ada9d40>.

80 “Lavrov: Russia Will Ensure Safety of Northern Sea Route,” 

UAWIRE, May 7, 2019, available at <https://uawire.org/

lavrov-russia-will-ensure-safety-of-northern-sea-route>.

81 For a more detailed discussion of this difference in Russian and 

Chinese ideological viewpoints and divergent levels of aspiration 

to world order leadership, see chapter 3a of this volume.
Part IV

Preparing to Compete

289

Chapter 14

U.S. Strategies for 

Competing Against China

By Frank G. Hoffman

This chapter lays out a range of potential strategies, drawn largely from academic 

literature and security studies, to address approaches for a competitive U.S. response to its main Great Power strategic rival: China. Described are the general 

outlines of five distinct strategies employing the five elements of strategic interaction defined in chapter 2 of this volume. The strategies are then assessed in general 

terms for their suitability, feasibility, and sustainability. Each example varies in 

how it leverages the relative strengths and weaknesses of the protagonists, and how 

international and domestic support might impact implementation. The author 

contends that a strategy of enhanced balancing is an appropriate approach.

At the turn of the 21st century, Washington’s position on the world stage seemed unrivalled, and analysts sought to preserve and extend the unipolar moment.1 However, the 

era of American preeminence proved short lived. As discussed in chapter 2 and developed 

in chapter 3a, the post–Cold War international order has entered a new historical cycle that 

U.S. policymakers believe will be characterized by Great Power competition (GPC). Far 

from being an arcane term, GPC has a long pedigree in international relations.2 However, 

after nearly 30 years of unipolar dominance and counterinsurgency and counterterrorism/

counterextremist interventions, the United States needs to refurbish its mindset and strategic machinery to engage smartly in the lost art of strategic competition.3

Russia, China, and the United States today jockey globally in the new era of GPC. As 

noted in chapters 3a and 3b, Russia presents a serious near-term threat to U.S. interests but 

lacks the capacity to sustain a viable rivalry in the longer term. As elaborated in chapter 9, 

in the Indo-Pacific region, China’s relationship with the United States has most obviously—

and somewhat ominously—entered a new phase, one in which competition across the 

five distinct dimensions of state-to-state interaction is ongoing and one that carries a high 

risk that competition may turn to confrontation, conflict, or armed clash (see tables 2.2, 

3a.1, or 3a.2).4

 In the Indo-Pacific region, some analysts believe that China perceives U.S. 

power to have ebbed in its reach and influence and concluded that American primacy is 

over. According to this school of thought, Beijing’s ambitions are expanding in line with its 
290 Hoffman

growing power.5

 In this view, China seeks 

a return to a Great Power status that it enjoyed centuries ago, and its economic clout 

gives it both a justification and the means 

to project its power and protect its interests. 

As detailed in chapter 3a, Beijing’s strategic 

interests will inevitably, in some way, rub 

up against longstanding U.S. policy preferences and national interests.

This chapter is admittedly and unapologetically Sino-centric. However, this focus 

is not disproportionate to China’s relevance 

to global stability or future U.S. security 

strategy. While Sinolarity, a world centered 

on China, is unlikely to emerge, Beijing’s 

rising influence is of concern.6 The great 

geopolitical shift of the next few decades, 

and the greatest challenge to continued global stability, will be defined by the relationship 

between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It is not the only challenge that the United States faces, as the previous chapters show, but in the long run, it is 

the most critical.

U.S. strategy documents in 2017 and 2018 formally (albeit belatedly) recognized this 

reality. The Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) concluded that 

“China and Russia want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.”7 China, 

the NSS notes, wants to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the 

reach of its state-driven economic system and reorder the region to its advantage, and spread 

its authoritarian system and corruption. The complementary Pentagon document, the 2018 

National Defense Strategy (NDS), focused on adapting the Department of Defense’s priorities and reforms to a more contested environment of Great Power rivalry. It too defined 

China as a strategic competitor and stated the PRC was pursuing military modernization, 

seeking regional hegemony in the near term, and attempting to displace the United States 

as a preeminent global power over time.8 Some scholars reinforce this assessment: “China 

wants complete dominance; it wants to force the United States out and become the region’s 

unchallenged political, economic and military hegemon.”9

American strategists and the international relations community are wrestling with the 

implications of this pending era. Some disagree entirely with the conclusions about GPC 

and China’s ambitions laid out in the NSS and NDS.10 Yet stressing competition does not automatically lead to greater tension or catastrophe.11 We should not be afraid of calling China 

a competitor—which is well short of describing it as a hostile power or a confrontational 

adversary.12 Competition vis-à-vis China was predicted a decade ago by some scholars and 

over 5 years ago by the Council on Foreign Relations.13 Even formerly devoted advocates 

of deep engagement with Russia and China now recognize the need to alter course and actively work to defend U.S. interests. Yet, while this may be a clash of systems over political 

and ideological differences, it should not be considered a clash of civilizations.14

“The United States was once deeply 

versed in the challenges of long-term 

competition due to its 45-year contest 

with the Soviet Union. And the long history of strategic competition between the 

great powers offers a wealth of insights 

that can inform the conduct of modern 

statecraft. Yet the United States has had 

the luxury of neglecting its competency 

in long-term competition for more than a 

generation in the comparatively benign 

global environment that emerged after 

the Cold War ended.”

—Hal Brands, “The Lost Art of LongTerm Competition,” The Washington 

Quarterly 41, no. 4 (Winter 2018)
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 291

While China is not dominant today, it is clearly a rising Great Power, signaling a desired power transition. It may never obtain its China Dream, but its exceptional influence 

on the international system, its aggressive approach to diplomacy, and its military activities 

all bear watching and appropriate hedging.

Great Power competitions and accompanying power transitions are rarely resolved 

without a holistic approach that is managed within an appropriate strategic framework. 

They require leadership involvement, disciplined priorities and sustainable resourcing, and 

adaptive oversight. As noted in the U.S. NDS, success in Great Power competitions is not 

about merely fighting. Certainly, deterring a fight matters, but a comprehensive and institutional approach is needed. The United States will need to focus on “out partnering, out 

informing, out creating and innovating” Great Power competitors as well.15 Formulating 

and implementing a coherent strategy for competition requires rethinking the U.S. security 

architecture and retooling the instruments of national power for agility and responsiveness. 

As one recent strategic analyst argued, “If the United States wants to compete, it must prepare for a long campaign for influence that will test its own ability for strategic prioritizing 

and long-term planning.”16

The strategic options for the United States laid out in this chapter highlight different 

approaches, with varying degrees of costs and risks, to maximizing American chances to 

succeed against its main strategic rival, China, in the era of GPC. The first step in rebounding and regenerating is recognizing that America’s competitive edge in some but not all 

dimensions has eroded in relative terms and that a competitive mindset is needed. As observed in chapter 3b, the United States still possesses numerous advantages and a lead in 

many quantitative metrics of national power over its main rivals. Nonetheless, America has 

lost some of its relative position, including percentage of world economic output and breath 

of economic competitiveness, to China. America has also lost relative market share in secondary- and university-level education, although qualitative and language factors mitigate 

this decline.17 America’s aspects of relative decline can be renewed or their impact offset by 

creative strategies.

The task for an American strategist is to leverage natural enduring advantages and 

build up positions of strength. To be successful, the United States must become more competitive in general and not just fixate on competition against another actor.18 To think and 

act competitively requires looking as much, if not more, into America’s own capabilities and 

performance in all dimensions of strategy as it does in contesting others.

This chapter offers a suite of options for a strategic architecture and defense posture for 

that competition.19 As shown in the previous chapters and in numerous international and 

U.S. Government reports, the U.S.-China dyadic relationship at the heart of emerging GPC 

is growing into a more competitive and possibly confrontational interaction due to perceptions of interest, honor, and fear. Yet there remains potential for a competitive era defined 

by shared mutual interests where cooperation is feasible and more competitive tensions can 

occur in the political and economic categories of interaction within established bounds. 

The challenge for U.S. policymakers is to expand on the potential for cooperation while 

carefully managing this competition to keep it short of armed conflict, all the while without 

compromising vital national interests.
292 Hoffman

Competitive Strategies: Framework and Fundamentals 

The chapter is organized around an evaluation of five potential grand strategies for U.S. 

competition with China that cover the continuum of major state interactions established in 

chapter 1. Each of the five strategies is predicated on different assessments of risk and costs 

and employs different dimensions or instruments to obtain the strategy’s objectives. The 

strategies are briefly depicted and then evaluated along the five competitive categories and 

competitive elements first laid out in table 2.2. Table 14.1 lists the five strategies and defines 

the most critical categories of competitive interaction of each strategy (denoted by the X for 

major line of effort).

Bilateral Bargain Strategy 

This strategy seeks a negotiated bilateral settlement for a stable future. It is the most cooperative of the potential strategies. It focuses on diplomacy to resolve outstanding differences 

between the core national interests of the world’s two most powerful states. It also focuses 

on economic cooperation and collaboration of mutual benefit. In the words of one advocate, it entails meeting China “halfway” and creating what China has expressly desired: a 

new form of strategic relationship.20

There are several options for such a relationship. Hugh White has made the case for an 

Asia-Pacific “concert” based on U.S.-China collaboration and “shared primacy.” Another 

version of this “grand bargain” would be to create a neutral zone, with the United States 

reducing or eliminating its commitments to its Asia alliance partners in return for Beijing’s 

renunciation of military action in the region.21

The gist of a bilateral bargain strategy as presented in this chapter would establish recognized spheres of influence, which for China would probably include a clear presumption 

of control over Taiwan.22 Rather than forging responsible and shared stakeholder status for 

the entire globe, the United States and China would agree to privileged status as the principal stakeholder in defined areas.23 This strategy “would recognize that as China becomes 

a superpower, it will naturally feel entitled to the prerogatives of a superpower—most 

obviously, disproportionate influence in its home region.”24 To attain a grand bargain, 

the United States would dissolve its longstanding, limited relationship with Taiwan and 

terminate its increasingly ambiguous defense obligation there. Simultaneously, the PRC 

would need to negotiate and settle the plethora of maritime/island claims it has throughout 

the Indo-Pacific region, including with Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Japan. As 

part of this bargain, the United States should insist on the demilitarization of any disputed 

Table 14.1. Alternative Strategies (X equals Major Line of Effort)

Bilateral 

Bargain

Managed 

Competition

Enhanced 

Balancing Compression

Contested 

Primacy

Political and Diplomatic X X X X

Ideological X X

Informational X X

Military X X X

Economic X X X X
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 293

territory in the South China and East China seas that is retained by China. In turn, China 

would be assured freedom of action through the region.

Advocates see the outlines of such a grand bargain being obtained over time, via a series of negotiations and cooperation spirals to ensure reciprocity and growing confidence.25

Each side would make significant concessions. In turn, this would create problems with 

international and domestic audiences. A bilateral bargain strategy seeks an enduring negotiated bargain on geographical spheres of influence.

An economic option would adapt longstanding representation in international forums 

such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO) to 

give China more weight in these institutions and gain their approval. It could also involve 

U.S. investment in the Chinese-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a method 

of operationalizing collaboration. Presently, the United States does not participate in the 

AIIB. Barriers to investment and trade would be negotiated on the basis of discussions with 

the goal of achieving reciprocity in investment and trade levels.

There will be diplomatic costs to such a bilateral bargain option. Elimination of formal 

links such as the Taiwan Foreign Relations Act would be one possible Chinese demand. 

Cessation of arms sales to Taiwan by the United States would no doubt be another. In turn, 

China, as its part of the bargain, would agree to move coercive missile batteries directed 

against Taiwan and would agree never to insert a military presence in Taiwan.26 Treaty arrangements between the United States and the Republic of South Korea and the Philippines 

(including U.S. military bases) may also be subject to negotiation to alleviate Chinese fears 

of encirclement. Acceptance of Chinese posture in the South China Sea would be resisted 

by U.S. negotiators. However, that may be the price for this grand bargain and freedom of 

action in other regions.

Managed Competition Strategy 

A strategy of managed competition combines modes of interaction that are both collaborative and competitive. It seeks to better balance cooperation with hedging U.S. competitive 

efforts that seek more collaboration with China. There can—and arguably should—be elements of both competition and collaboration in various dimensions of state power.27 China 

has collaborated with the United States in the past in real and constructive terms.28 The 

goal of a managed competition strategy is to preserve the current power balance and keep 

the competitive dimensions of U.S.-China relations from spiraling out of control into confrontation and conflict. A stable relationship is important to regional and global stability. It 

seeks to maximize cooperation wherever possible, negotiate adaptations to economic and 

trade disputes, and minimize adversarial 

competition in the security domain.29

China and the United States are not 

destined to be enemies or engage in tragic 

confrontations.30 Managing the competitive aspects of the relationship will require 

wise leadership on both sides of the Pacific. 

Given these conditions, some experts argue 

that “mature management of a volatile re-

“The United States and China are not 

inevitable enemies, but managing the 

competitive aspects of the bilateral relationship will require wise leadership on 

both sides of the Pacific.”

—Phillip C. Saunders, Managing 

Strategic Competition with China, INSS 

Strategic Forum 242 (July 2009)
294 Hoffman

lationship is mandatory—bounding the negative dynamics while working to expand the 

areas of positive cooperation is the principal challenge for both governments.”31 This places 

a higher demand on strategic leaders to provide the mature management of both diplomacy 

and domestic audiences to limit the negative dynamics and exploit the benefits of cooperation. This managed competition option retains some of the prior U.S. strategy of continued 

deep engagement. As one Obama-era National Security Council official notes, “Continuing intensive engagement in no way would prevent alterations in U.S. policy to respond to 

challenges from China in the economic, digital, academic, and security fields. Indeed, it 

would likely make policy changes more effective by giving China a continuing stake in the 

relationship with the United States.”32

Strategic competition does not unfold in a geopolitical vacuum; China needs economic 

access to the outside world in order to maintain rapid economic growth. Its long-term economic vibrancy and political stability depend on its ability to maintain positive relations 

with its key economic partners. Managed competition leverages that reality. Given this context, the United States will need to improve its ability to pursue a productive relationship 

with China. This should involve expanded cooperation where U.S. and Chinese interests 

are compatible, combined with active efforts to broaden areas of potential cooperation to 

influence how China pursues its interests.

Military. The first line of effort would be to minimize regional security dilemmas. Given 

U.S. security commitments to its allies and the importance of those alliances for Indo-Pacific 

stability, the maintenance of robust military capabilities should remain an important part of 

U.S. strategy. However, at the same time, the United States should not attempt to increase 

its power position in the region with any new alliance arrangements, basing, or extensive 

investments in theater-level ballistic missile arsenals now that the United States is no longer 

constrained by the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.33 In short, the United States would 

forgo efforts laid out in the NDS to enhance its regional security posture in the Indo-Pacific 

region. Strategic competition is likely to be exacerbated if the United States seeks to dominate the region or if China impinges on the security interests of key U.S. allies, such as Japan.

The second element of this approach is to expand security cooperation, including 

bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese militaries. Security 

dynamics and competing interests may limit opportunities for direct military cooperation, 

but there can be critical tasks for mutually beneficial cooperation. People’s Liberation Army 

Navy missions to the Gulf of Aden for counterpiracy operations demonstrate that China’s 

capabilities can be cooperative, too.34 Finding appropriate venues to extend the cooperation 

in governance, energy, and humanitarian tasks is key. There are a number of important 

missions—including peacekeeping, humanitarian affairs and disaster relief, infectious disease control, counterpiracy, and energy security—in which both sides contribute to global 

stability and shared interests. An increased effort to identify and build on these issues could 

help balance the more competitive aspects of strategic relations.

Managed competition would seek to enhance transparency of capabilities and intentions, including myriad military-to-military contacts such as high-level interactions of 

senior military officials, educational exchanges, and routine observer status at military exercises including Rim of the Pacific.35
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 295

Another possible means of enhancing cooperation would be to establish new venues 

to promote dialogue between China and the rest of the world, including major alliances 

such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). China has become a topic of conversation within NATO as China’s economic reach has come to Europe. A report from the 

Atlantic Council offers a platform to promote dialogue and maximize collaboration. The 

paper recommends that the Alliance establish a NATO-China Council as a mechanism to 

increase transparency and mutual understanding; raise concerns; avoid miscalculations; 

and foster, where possible, cooperation.36

Political/Diplomatic. The second line of effort of managed competition is for the 

United States to encourage and support Chinese efforts to take on more responsibility 

for sustaining and supporting the international system. The United States must recognize that doing so requires providing China a path to pursue its legitimate aspirations 

through peaceful means. The current international order is not rigid and has been flexible 

in the past in matching China’s rising power with greater influence and participation. The 

United States should acknowledge that, if China is to make more contributions to maintaining the international system, it will expect to be accorded greater voice in shaping that 

system. Chinese interests may require altering the system to reflect Chinese perspectives 

and legitimate concerns. This would include changes at the IMF or World Bank, and 

certainly the WTO.37 But the rest of the members of that international system will expect 

Beijing to honor the dispute resolution mechanisms built into the system rather than 

simply point out that it is a big country and the “small must do what they must.” Managed 

competition would place a premium on diplomatic resources at the State Department, 

outmanned by China at present, especially in the number and staffing of consulates in 

key markets.38

In summing up this option, the United States must be prepared to compete with China 

in important strategic domains, while simultaneously seeking to limit the impact of this 

competition on the broader relationship. Some call this smart competition,

39 which strives to 

manage the strategic competition effectively and with restraint. Advocates of this approach 

hold that assertive strategies would be expensive, if not dangerously counterproductive. 

Proponents of managed competition believe the United States should accept the reality of a 

growing competition but manage it at a lower level of intensity and risk.40

Enhanced Balancing Strategy 

The enhanced balancing strategy focuses on a competitive approach in two dimensions of 

strategic interaction: the military and economic ones. The strategy is predicated on two 

recognized strengths of the United States: its preeminent military power and its existing 

military alliance architecture. From an American perspective, this option would be competitive in nature, but China might perceive it as more confrontational because, in Beijing’s 

view, “balancing” is the same or an even worse form of “containment” of China and its 

aspirations.41 Unlike China, the United States has the proven ability to develop and sustain 

coalitions of countries designed to share security burdens and maximize deterrence against 

instability.42 The strategy would exploit the growing concern that many Asian and European 

countries have with China’s growing economic power and assertive foreign policy.43 Many 

countries believe they are dependent on China for their own economic development and 
296 Hoffman

prosperity. But unless they join together, Beijing will dominate the region politically, militarily, and economically and apply its preferences on the sovereign decisionmaking of each 

and every nation in the region. While China claims that it is not offering an alternative 

model or imposing its values or governance system, it does impinge on the sovereignty of 

its neighbors regularly, and it does seek political concessions to benefit its international 

standing.

Military. To implement this strategy, the United States would have to increase its security investments in defense and buttress its forward-deployed forces.44 China desires to 

build a world-class military—and with Russia’s help, it will no doubt make some progress. 

But with proper investments to sustain its competitive edge, the U.S. alliance framework 

should be able to sustain an adequate balance in the Asia theater. The first priority of this 

investment would be the deployment of systems able to blunt China’s expanding antiaccess/

aerial-denial capabilities. The second priority would be hardening U.S. bases throughout 

the Indo-Pacific region to make them more resilient to attack. A third priority would be key 

investments in space, undersea warfare, hypervelocity missiles, and theater missile defenses 

to enhance the current U.S. deterrent posture in the Indo-Pacific region. China cannot 

match the human capital assets, seasoned operational leadership, intelligence, strategic mobility, and logistics expertise of the U.S. alliance system.

Per the NDS, the United States will also have to buttress the military capability of its 

allies and some partners. Security assistance support to Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, 

and India, as well as other regional players, would be needed to offset a deteriorating balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.45 As noted by former government officials, “The United 

States needs to get back to seeing alliances as assets to be invested in rather than costs to be 

cut.” While burden-sharing is necessary, undercutting alliance cohesion works perfectly to 

China’s benefit.46 This statement tracks with the NDS:

Mutually beneficial alliances and partnerships are crucial to our strategy, providing a 

durable asymmetric strategic advantage that no competitor can rival or match. . . . By 

working together with allies and partners we amass the greatest possible strength for 

the long-term advancement of our interests, maintaining favorable balances of power 

that deter aggression and support that stability that generates economic growth.47

Economic. The second thrust in this strategy would be the rededication by the U.S. 

Government to alliances and multilateral institutions in order to reinforce the economic 

component of the international order. The battle for influence in Asia is not about security 

and will rise and fall on economics. On that score, the United States has lost significant 

influence since withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.48

Without a commensurate embrace of multilateralism within a revised TPP, potential partners in the region will remain prone to accept Beijing’s influence, direction, loans, and 

capital investment. An effective U.S. response will require a far deeper investment than 

the initial 2018 Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act, 

which made a modest ripple in development financing for the region.49 Other multilateral 

institutions would also be adapted and strengthened. The United States would increase its 

contributions and support to forums such as the World Bank and IMF to sustain a collective 
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 297

approach to managing the global economy. This strategy and all the defense investment 

will be worthless unless it is supported by a significant shift in the U.S. approach to international development and geoeconomics. In addition to limited funding for the BUILD Act, 

cuts to key agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Asian 

Development Bank have further eroded U.S. Government mechanisms to mount a robust 

alternative.50 Better incentives to private sector financing or IMF support will be needed to 

blunt China’s extensive investments in infrastructure activities.

A major test in enhanced balancing in the economic domain would be shared reciprocity, wherein Chinese companies, products, and services would be limited inside the United 

States to the same degree that they are afforded access to inside China.

Although not a major line of effort in this option, the United States would need improved information and public diplomacy to be effective. This strategy would publicly 

identify the negative impacts of debt diplomacy, internal corruption, and environmental 

damage that China’s investments in Africa and Sri Lanka have produced. To the greatest 

degree possible, this information campaign would be promulgated via multilateral institutions, including the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Compression Strategy 

A compression strategy of comprehensive pressure herein is globally oriented, extends the 

competitive interactions of the prior strategy, and seeks to alter the arc of China’s growing power and its aims of parity in critical dimensions. It includes aspects of interaction 

that China will label as confrontational since it seeks to change Beijing’s behaviors in the 

Indo-Pacific region. Balancing may be effective at securing a delay in China’s rise to dominance, but it does not restore international law or enduring stability to rising GPC. While 

increased security and economic partnering of the enhanced balancing option might give 

pause to Beijing’s leaders, it may not constrain or alter the Chinese Communist Party’s 

(CCP’s) clear regional and perceived global ambitions or restore U.S. leadership. A more 

comprehensive strategy to make China stop its current path and alter its behavior to align 

itself with existing norms and international law may be required. Such a comprehensive 

strategy, one of persistent multidimensional pressure, is one of compression.

Compression assumes that the long-term trajectory of China as a major global player 

is vulnerable and predicated on fragile aspects of its power base. Because the PRC has manifest challenges, including governance, corruption, innovation, debt, and demographics, it 

may be susceptible to the pressure generated by the strategy. This strategy relies on an assessment that China’s economy is fragile and that economic growth is susceptible to external 

pressure.51 It assumes that China still needs Western markets and technological prowess to 

sustain any growth; it also assumes that such growth is key to the CCP’s hold on power.

Compression combines multidimensional pressure to push back Beijing’s geopolitical 

and economic gains that violate norms and international law in Asia. It intends to deny 

past gains and preclude growth of China’s reach. Such an approach would be far more encompassing than the Cold War–era conceptions of containment that Washington applied 

against Moscow during the Long Peace. That anti-Soviet strategy did not have a direct 

economic component because the Soviet Union was not interdependent with international trade or fiscal systems in the way Beijing is. Compression would include intensified 
298 Hoffman

ideological, military, diplomatic, and economic initiatives meant to deflect China’s bid for 

primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and to disrupt its nascent efforts globally.

Political/Diplomatic. This strategy is founded on securing the extant international 

order, including multilateral venues to maximize U.S. leadership and sustain free and open 

societies. At the same time, in this dimension it would seek to minimize direct confrontation 

and conflict. Compression would require a renewed appreciation of two enduring advantages: our alliance architecture and the global institutions that have been created to sustain 

international stability.52 Rather than retreat from these institutions, the U.S. diplomatic 

presence would be reinforced to preclude erosion of American influence. Letting Beijing 

reshape norms and expand its own influence within those organizations is undesirable.53

Naturally, reciprocal relationships and fair burden-sharing are required to make this approach sustainable. Our allies should realize that they too have a stake in this competition.54

Economic. The Chinese model sees economics as a form of power projection to be 

deployed for political effect. The United States must respond and master the economic tools 

of Great Power statecraft to offset China’s mercantilism and malign power.55 The economic 

aspect of compression directly counters China’s trade model and its subsidies to its large 

number of state-owned enterprises. The United States relies on free markets and the private 

sector to preserve its economic prosperity and the foundation of its national power.

Some economic disentanglement is an expected price of this strategy, what some 

would describe as a partial disengagement.

56 At a minimum, the United States would decouple itself from China in sectors where the existing level of economic interdependence 

threatens America’s ability to resist Chinese advances—for example, by ending the practice of sourcing critical components of U.S. military capabilities from Chinese companies.57

Under this strategy, the United States would limit China’s access to advanced weaponry 

and critical military technologies, and with its allies “develop a coordinated approach 

to constrict China’s access to all technologies, including dual use.”58 Key elements of the 

U.S. economy, especially in dual-use technologies that benefit military capabilities, would 

be closed to Chinese commercial outlets. The United States would need to reinvigorate its 

national advantages in science and technology by focusing greater attention on securing 

global leadership in the technologies that will dominate the fourth industrial revolution.59

In particular, it would require more focused U.S. Government efforts to sustain an edge in 

these technologies, including quantum computing and artificial intelligence.60

Another part of the compression strategy would include aggressive litigation and 

sanctions over infringements of intellectual property, with appropriate penalties/sanctions 

leveled against corporate entities that sell hardware or software developed with U.S. intellectual rights. This would impose costs on those who steal investments in research and 

development, particularly on those who violate the intellectual property laws agreed to in 

international law. This approach would apply punitive retaliatory economic measures and 

targeted tariffs, or exclude China from trade agreements, in response to its violations of 

trade laws and agreements.61 Without enforcement of this portion of the international system, we cede future economic prosperity to others.

As noted by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China’s stateled, market-distorting economic system presents a challenge to U.S. interests.62 The United 

States requires a more comprehensive economic strategy to deal with China because its 
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 299

trade practices can be leveraged into improper influence.63 Some are concerned that China’s 

Belt and Road Initiative should be understood as “a grand strategy that advances China’s 

goals of establishing itself as the preponderant power in Eurasia and a global power second 

to none.”64 As noted in chapter 3a, these goals are overstated, and China is already getting 

some backlash over its debt-financing and infrastructure-building. But the United States 

cannot abandon the vast resources and markets of the Indo-Pacific region to its competitors. The first step is to rejoin U.S. allies in the TPP and formulate an acceptable form of 

national industrial policy to focus Federal funding and incentives toward the disruptive 

technologies that will drive economic production in the coming decades.65

Some recent proposals to improve U.S. economic power relative to China would be 

incorporated. The establishment of an Office of Critical Technologies and Security to better 

manage technology transfer, as in the bipartisan proposal put forward by Senator Mark 

Warner (D-VA) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), is consistent with compression.66 To improve human capital and sustain progress in cutting-edge technologies, the United States 

will continue to open its first-rate university system to the world’s best talent. A National Security Innovation Base Visa that would facilitate the travel of highly skilled foreign workers 

to contribute their education and talents to the benefit of the national security innovation 

base and American security should also be considered.67

Ideological. In Aaron Friedberg’s observation, “China’s rulers clearly believe the ideological realm to be a crucially important domain of competition.”68 The differences between 

the West and the CCP would be stressed, pitting free and open societies based on liberal 

values and democratic principles against large authoritarian powers with illiberal values and 

closed information systems. Given that Beijing readily exploits this aspect of the competition, but is also asymmetrically vulnerable in soft power terms, the ideological element of 

the competition bears consideration.69 The activities of Confucius Institutes and PRC surveillance over Chinese students inside the United States would be limited. These institutes 

were controversial from the start, as inhibiting academic freedom for students and faculty 

alike, and several university systems have closed their partnership arrangements altogether.70

Informational. This strategy has an intensive informational component.71 U.S. officials 

have to recognize that strategic competition is not only a fight over market access or trade 

policy but also an ideational contest over values and norms for the international system.72

Such a strategy would steadily apply pressure in the ideological and information dimensions 

by undermining the Great Firewall and abetting more moderate elements in China’s closed 

and repressive system.73 This line of effort would incorporate activities that would ideologically contest the legitimacy of the CCP and promote Chinese culture. The informational 

component of this strategy would seek to challenge CCP domestic political control through 

a broad campaign that ties any declining economic growth and limited personal freedoms 

to China’s single-party rule, its repressive control, and illicit actions. Legal challenges would 

be made against Chinese policymakers who are linked to human rights violations, corruption, and repression against minorities and nongovernmental organizations.

Contested Primacy Strategy 

A strategy of contested primacy takes on a more confrontational approach. It seeks dominance over any competitors in an effort to sustain the existing international order and 
300 Hoffman

American hegemony. Contested primacy 

responds in a robust way to Great Power 

competitors, employing all instruments of 

power to reassert and sustain U.S. dominance while focusing on the political/

diplomatic and military main lines of effort. 

It strives to secure defined vital U.S. interests per the NSS.74 This approach reorders 

the U.S. economy and investments needed 

to sustain U.S. superiority and preferred outcomes in all strategic interactions. It significantly increases geopolitical and economic costs against Chinese influence to ensure that 

the CCP’s ability to obtain regional primacy and global reach is thwarted.

Military. This strategy would substantially augment the Pentagon’s budget (perhaps 

as much as $100 billion per year higher than the fiscal year 2020 request) and build up 

the Defense Department’s effort to modernize the U.S. military for joint power projection 

throughout the Indo-Pacific region at first, but also wherever else U.S. interests might be 

threatened.75 This strategy would involve intensive efforts to modernize and increase interoperability among current U.S. allies and partners in the region. This interoperability 

would include arms sales and security cooperation efforts to ensure that Taiwan was not 

coerced into submission by the PRC. Implementing this strategy would require the United 

States to engage extensively with its potential partners in the region, including India, Vietnam, and Singapore; to strengthen maritime security; and to extend alliance interoperability 

with Australia, Japan, and South Korea.

The higher budget would generate and field a modernized joint force that applies 

creative operational concepts and develops advanced disruptive technologies critical to reestablishing competitive edge in U.S. military power across the long term. A number of key 

investments are needed to enhance shortfalls in the forward military posture and capabilities of the joint force if it is to deter and prevail against our major competitors.

In Asia, the United States must hedge against the PRC’s increasingly assertive actions 

and improved military modernization.76 These actions augur for an agile force that is forward deployed, in part, to assure regional access and assurance. This must be coupled with 

a layered defense posture. The most important component is a joint force that is interoperable with U.S. regional allies and partners. Power projection capabilities and strategic 

mobility assets must be increased, but creative concepts are required to offset the carefully 

designed antiaccess systems fielded by China. These will constrict freedom of maneuver 

and undercut U.S. ability to flow forces into the region and supply them. Undersea warfare 

investments in this strategy may afford a very cost-effective and competitive advantage.

Political/Diplomatic. The supporting political/diplomatic line of effort in this strategy 

would seek to expand on, in degree and intensity, the activities described with the compression strategy, including contesting China’s position within global multilateral institutions 

that it has penetrated and coopted. The principal counter to China’s rise would be a reformed and enlarged alliance system. This counter would require a diplomatic emphasis 

on expanding the present global alliance architecture and enhancing the number of 

aligned partners to ensure a favorable balance of power. While it is noted that the current 

“We must calibrate our aims with our 

resources and focus on the most consequential long-term challenge we face 

as a nation: the strategic competition 

with China.”

—Michèle Flournoy, House Armed Services 

Committee Statement, January 15, 2020
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 301

system is “badly bruised,” it was invaluable in the past, and there is little merit in a “go it 

alone” stance.77

Additionally, U.S. diplomacy would confront the legitimacy of CCP rule, and an 

augmented community of free and democratic states would resist Beijing’s advances in 

international forums. The political thrust would be to highlight the inconsistency behind 

China’s repressive domination of its people and its promotion of a benign “community 

common design for mankind.” The idea that China actively seeks an international order 

based on “fairness, justice and win-win cooperation” would be shown to be a front for its 

more authoritarian preferences. China’s long-term ambitions would be presented as a threat 

to Western democracies, due to their marked incompatibility with the freedoms and liberal 

values embedded in their political and economic systems. The United States would posture 

itself as seeking primacy for the free and open order that better reflects universal freedoms 

and justice in international affairs and within each state.

Ideological. This strategy would incorporate a strong ideological element against the 

CCP and its closed and repressive form of government. It would include a sophisticated 

campaign to delegitimize and weaken the Party’s control over information inside China. 

This line of effort would make strong condemnations of Beijing’s violations of international 

law and norms and values on human rights and individual freedom, and it would distribute 

stories on China’s repression of religion and minorities. It would identify and distribute 

stories on the unequal justice and economic benefits accrued by CCP leaders and their families. On the flip side, the progress and benefits of open societies such as Singapore, Taiwan, 

and South Korea (and even the vestiges in Hong Kong) would be distributed throughout 

the region to underscore the positive and progressive agenda of open and free societies.

Informational. There is a geo-informational aspect to GPC, and China should not be allowed to establish control of any part of the competition.78 Achieving success would require 

a renewed institutional response to countering gray zone/political warfare or influence operations by both China and Russia.79 China is becoming a global cyber power in both military 

and commercial spheres.80 A strategy seeking primacy must preserve the critical infrastructure of the U.S. homeland; at the same time, it must circumvent China’s heavy-handed 

surveillance systems in order to breach the Great Firewall and reach the Chinese people 

and the populations of Hong Kong and Tibet. Furthermore, Chinese efforts to dominate 

global 5G networks would be curtailed, especially among allies.81 The United States adopted 

a cross-functional approach during its protracted contest against global violent extremism. 

It might also need to establish a National Center for Countering Influence Operations to 

achieve the same end to confront China’s political warfare and United Front efforts.82

Analysis and Recommendation for Enhanced Balancing 

How should the United States proceed, and which strategy offers the best combination of 

tools and instruments to achieve its preferred future? This section evaluates the merits of 

the most viable three strategic options of the five discussed in this chapter. These three 

reflect suitable options for preserving the existing order and maintaining U.S. national interests within the parameters of U.S. values and feasible resource levels.

Managed competition is a more conservative strategy but assumes that shared interests 

can be found and built on. It is a complex strategy that would be difficult for both countries 
302 Hoffman

to oversee and implement and to find areas where collaboration is feasible and where a 

more competitive approach is really needed. Communicating those lines will be important. 

Domestic audiences may be unable to separate the cooperative from the competitive, and 

even diplomats may find it difficult to avoid linkages. The U.S. Government, given its more 

decentralized structure, could adapt over time to manage and sustain such a strategy. China’s more centralized control and state capitalism model give it some advantages in building 

such a relationship. But the real challenge may be isolating the economic and military dimensions. As noted by Phillip Saunders:

The implementation challenge is to keep the two elements in proper balance, so that 

overemphasis on cooperation does not leave the United States in an unfavorable 

strategic position and overemphasis on the military dimension does not stimulate 

Chinese threat perceptions and push it toward confrontation.83

Enhanced balancing strives to improve U.S. strategic performance and maintain a favorable balance of power. It builds on current U.S. economic power and its extant alliance 

system, which China seeks to undercut. Yet in the Indo-Pacific region, the present suite 

of allies and partners is uncomfortable with being forced to choose sides in a U.S.-China 

clash. These nations prefer to retain all the economic opportunities China offers, while embracing a separate security system led by Washington. Forced to choose, some may feel that 

working with the United States is not a sound bet for their future prosperity. But short-term 

economic benefits for long-term subordination to Beijing is a poor choice, and the United 

States should continue to make that clear. This strategy has been slowly implemented over 

the past two administrations and presents less risk and demands fewer resources than the 

compression option.

Compression strategy is more expensive and directly confronts China’s rise and vulnerabilities. It devotes additional resources to the military dimension of the competition. Given 

that the capacity of the U.S. joint warfighting community is officially recognized as having 

a declining edge, a stronger military response is needed. If allies perceive that the ability of 

the United States to “uphold favorable regional balances of power by deterring Great Power 

challengers is increasingly in doubt,” a significant change in the security component has to 

be realized.84 Some allies conclude that Chinese and Russian military developments “have 

irrevocably undermined America’s military primacy” in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.85

That presumption needs to be countered.86 Compression raises the cost to the Chinese for 

contesting the existing international order, by decoupling economic interaction with China 

and by the large-scale U.S. defense modernization that it engenders. Compression seeks to 

create leverage vis-à-vis Beijing to force it to reconsider its predatory economic activity and 

its efforts to undercut the U.S. alliance architecture in the Indo-Pacific region. Compression 

is designed to help the CCP realize that its future is best realized within the order established and adapted over the past 50 years. Ideally, the CCP would accept this order, and an 

eventual transition to managed competition might then occur. 

The compression strategy recognizes the significant advances made by the People’s 

Liberation Army and the need to counter its reforms and modernization strategy.87 This 

approach requires defense spending above the administration’s fiscal year 2021 budget and 
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 303

involves disciplined investments focused on increasing the posture of U.S. forces in the 

Indo-Pacific region.

Regardless of which strategy is selected, it is insufficient to merely contest the rising 

power of China and the way it seeks to satisfy its ambitions. The most appropriate strategy must include a renewal of American strategic competitiveness. This renewal includes 

investments in education, infrastructure, and research and development to spur economic 

prosperity.88 Any strategy should seek to rejuvenate America’s research and development 

base and master the transfer of commercial technology to the security sector with both 

speed and effectiveness. “The United States should focus on responsibly accelerating its 

own technological progress,” notes one former Deputy Secretary of Defense, “not simply 

obstructing potential adversaries.”89 This should play to American strengths, given the fertile U.S. innovation ecosystem buttressed by free market systems for allocation of capital 

and financial management. As noted by a panel of experts seeking to rectify the eroding 

competitive edge in the Pentagon, the consequences are substantial:

Nevertheless, it is a competition, and the side that innovates more effectively over 

time is likely to win. The result will determine whether nations relate to each other 

freely, equally, and peacefully, with a recognition of the human rights of their citizens, 

or if they devolve into a system that legitimizes authoritarianism and rewards power 

and coercion.90

There will be a major economic element to this competition, regardless of which strategy is selected. To preserve both its economic and security interests, the United States must 

safeguard an expanding suite of advanced technologies from China. As observed in chapter 

3b, China may not be the most creative generator of innovative capabilities, but it is proving 

adept at acquiring modern capabilities and building up in the commercial world national 

champions that can compete on both cost and product effectiveness. China certainly appears bent on achieving leadership, if not parity, in the key technologies that will drive 

21st-century economics. Preserving and protecting the technology base, and the resulting 

intellectual property it generates, will both slow China’s acquisition of U.S.-developed advances and drive up Beijing’s own costs as PRC struggles to keep up.91

Furthermore, the United States can best ensure its economic and technological competitiveness by expanding with additional partners the cooperative aspects of its National 

Technology and Industrial Base. Leveraging the intellectual and technical talents of our 

allies in such a manner will accelerate innovation, broaden commercial opportunities, and 

minimize costly barriers to collaboration.92

Rather than a bilateral confrontation, the United States should take a more collective 

approach to better secure success. This approach would:

work with allies to strengthen rules, set standards, punish Chinese industrial policy and 

technology theft, invest in research, welcome the world’s best and brightest, and create 

alternatives to its geo-economic statecraft. China is playing a good hand well, but the 

United States and its allies have an even better one—but only if they work together.93
304 Hoffman

A strategy of enhanced balancing offers 

the greatest opportunity to do more than 

merely contain or deflect the trajectory of 

China’s ultimate regional preeminence 

and global stature. The past decade shows 

that cooperative approaches or deep engagement only strengthened China’s power 

and accelerated its rise without appreciable 

political or economic reform. A continued 

reliance on limited approaches that do not 

counter aggressive behavior or blatant disregard for international law, multilateral norms 

and rules, and human rights will likely not be productive either. In short, success in an era 

of GPC will require creating leverage and accepting risk. It also requires that the United 

States get its own house in order. Competing successfully to sustain America’s prosperity, 

security, and way of life is ultimately about us.94 The United States is not a “weary titan” 

as much as simply a complacent leader that needs to respond to a persistent contender.95

Superpower status or economic prosperity is not a birthright, and assuming that American preeminence will be unrivalled for perpetuity is ahistorical. Instead, preserving U.S. 

leadership and advancing American interests in a dynamic era can best be secured by 

rejuvenating core strengths in human capital and education, individual freedom, infrastructure, and economic creativity. American economic competitiveness is the foundation 

for any future strategy and can be improved.96

While not without an element of risk, enhanced balancing offers more options for 

creating leverage against China’s vulnerabilities. It is a strategy that seeks to stem the geopolitical gains that China has seized while the West was distracted, and it offers a measured 

response to sustain a stable world order designed to promote stability, expand opportunity, 

adapt within a rules-based system, and preclude hegemony over first the Indo-Pacific region and then Eurasia by any hostile power. The ascent of an autocratic power that represses 

human rights, undercuts international agreements and norms, exploits its economic power 

to obtain political dominance, and pressures U.S. allies and partners does the opposite.97

Conclusion 

In many respects, today’s era is more complicated than the bilateral Cold War, but it still 

holds lessons. That contested age was precarious at times in the military aspects of the 

competition, but economic interaction was negligible. With the West’s patient pressure, the 

internal contradictions of the Soviet system finally proved inferior to the systemic advantages of democracies and free markets. There are aspects of the current competition that 

will continue to favor the United States for some time. Thus, there is no need for panic, but 

neither should complacency be seen as a virtue.

Clearly, a good deal of optimism is warranted given the current edge and enduring advantages the United States holds. Both American leadership and the liberal international 

system have been capable of regenerating themselves as needed.98 It is time to do so again.

“[I]t would be unwise to bet against the 

resilience and adaptability of the American system. But it would also be a mistake 

to take these qualities for granted, or to 

assume that they will preserve us indefinitely and without effort from the experience of relative decline.”

—Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan (2010)
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 305

Notes 

1

 On the Unipolar Moment, see Charles Krauthammer, “The 

Unipolar Moment Revisited,” The National Interest, December 

1, 2002, available at <https://nationalinterest.org/article/the-unipolar-moment-revisited-391>; Matthew Kroenig, The Return of 

Great Power Rivalry: Democracy Versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the U.S. and China (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2020). For an argument that sustained U.S. dominance 

is assured, see Michael Beckley, Unrivalled: Why America Will 

Remain the World’s Sole Superpower (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018).

2

 A detailed discussion is available in chapter 2 of this volume.

3

 Hal Brands, “The Lost Art of Long-Term Competition,” Washington Quarterly 41, no. 4 (Fall 2019). See also Ronald O’Rourke, 

Renewed Great Power Competition: Implications for Defense—

Issues for Congress, R43838 (Washington, DC: Congressional 

Research Service, December 19, 2019), available at <https://

crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43838/50>.

4

 Evan S. Medeiros, “The Changing Fundamentals of U.S.-China 

Relations,” Washington Quarterly 42, no. 3 (Fall 2019), 113.

5

 Ashely J. Telis, “Overview,” in China’s Expanding Strategic Ambitions: Strategic Asia 2019, ed. Ashely J. Tellis, Alison Szalwinski, 

and Michael Wills (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 

2019), 26. For competing viewpoints on China’s more ambiguous strategic calculus, see the discussions in chapters 3a and 

9 of this volume.

6

 Jonathan Hillman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and 

International Studies and winner of the 2019 Bracken Bower 

Prize, first applied the term Sinolarity to China’s growing business/economic challenge.

7 The National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, 

DC: The White House, December 2017), 25.

8 Summary of the National Defense Strategy: Sharpening the U.S. 

Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, December 2018), 1–2, available at <https://dod.defense.

gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf>. For elaboration, see Elbridge A. Colby and 

Wess Mitchell, “The Age of Great Power Competition,” Foreign 

Affairs (January/February 2020).

9

 Oriana Skylar Mastro, “The Stealth Superpower: How China 

Hid Its Global Ambitions,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 

2019), 31.

10 For views that oppose the National Security Strategy and the

National Defense Strategy conclusions, see Michael Swaine, 

“A Counterproductive Cold War with China,” Foreign Affairs, 

March 2, 2018, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/

china/2018-03-02/counterproductive-cold-war-china>; Michael

J. Mazarr, “This Is Not a Great-Power Competition: Why the

Term Doesn’t Capture Today’s Reality,” Foreign Affairs, May 29,

2019, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-05-29/

not-great-power-competition>.

11 Kurt Campbell and Jake Sullivan, “Competition Without Catastrophe: How America Can Both Challenge and Coexist with 

China,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2019), 25.

12 Derek Scissors and Daniel Blumenthal, “China Is a Dangerous 

Rival, and America Should Treat It Like One,” New York Times, 

January 14, 2019, available at <www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/

opinion/us-china-trade.html>.

13 Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J. Tellis, Revising U.S. Grand 

Strategy Toward China, Council Special Report No. 72 (New 

York: Council on Foreign Relations, March 2015).

14 Graham Allison, “China vs. America: Managing the Next 

Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 

2017), 80–89.

15 Summary of the National Defense Strategy, 5.

16 Odd Arne Westad, “The Sources of Chinese Conduct: Are 

Washington and Beijing Fighting a New Cold War?” Foreign 

Affairs (September/October 2019).

17 See discussion in chapter 3b of this volume.

18 Ely Ratner, Blunting China’s Illiberal Order, Testimony Before 

the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on China and 

Russia, Washington, DC, January 29, 2019. Michele Flournoy, 

former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, made this same 

critical point. See Michele Flournoy, Statement Before the House 

Armed Services Committee Hearing on the Department of Defense’s 

Role on Competing with China, January 15, 2020.

19 Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose 

in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 1–16.

20 Lyle J. Goldstein, Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the 

Emerging U.S.-China Rivalry (Washington, DC: Georgetown 

University Press, 2015). See also Charles L. Glaser, “A U.S.-China 

Grand Bargain: The Hard Choice Between Military Competition 

and Accommodation,” International Security 39, no. 4 (Spring 

2015), 49–90.

21 Hugh White, The China Choice: Why America Should Share 

Power (Sydney: Black, 2012).

22 For a rationale for spheres of influence, but without sufficient 

consideration of likely political implications, see Graham Allison, “New Spheres of Influence,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 

2020), 30–40.

23 Responsible stakeholder was a role that past U.S. administrations hoped China would grow into. See Robert B. Zoellick, 

“Can America and China Be Stakeholders?” speech delivered to 

the U.S.-China Business Council, Washington, DC, December 4, 

2019, available at <https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/12/04/

can-america-and-china-be-stakeholders-pub-80510>.

24 Richard K. Betts, “The Lost Logic of Deterrence,” Council 

on Foreign Relations (March/April 2013), available at <https://

www.cfr.org/world/lost-logic-deterrence/p30092>.

25 A cooperation spiral is an innovation proposed by Lyle J. Goldstein that applies an extended approach to mutual and reciprocal 

accommodation over time. See Goldstein, Meeting China Halfway, 12–14.

26 These bargaining outcomes are indeed bitter for Taiwan but 

are inevitable if pursuit of “Meeting China Halfway” is evaluated 

in concrete terms and in context of the difficult military odds 

outlined in chapter 9 of this volume. Proponents of “Meeting 

China Halfway” appear to defer to the People’s Republic of China 

about Taiwan’s future implicitly, although some, like Graham Allison, actually do so explicitly. In this presentation of a bilateral 

bargain option, a negotiated agreement with terms that would 

require mutual assent is advanced as a superior alternative to 

just abandoning the island nation. However, it remains hard to 

see how China would accept.

27 David Dollar et al., Avoiding War: Containment, Competition, 

and Cooperation in U.S.-China Relations (Washington, DC: 

Brookings, 2017); Ryan Hass, Principles for Managing U.S.-

China Competition, Policy Brief (Washington, DC: Brookings, 

August 2018).

28 Zoellick, “Can America and China Be Stakeholders?” 4.

29 This portion of the chapter is extensively influenced by Phillip Saunders, Managing Competition with China, INSS Strategic 

Forum No. 242 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, July 2009).
306 Hoffman

30 As some interpret the arguments of Graham Allison, Destined 

for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (New 

York: Houghton Mifflin, 2017).

31 David Shambaugh, “Dealing with China: Tough Engagement 

and Managed Competition,” Asia Policy 23 (January 2017), 5.

32 Jeffrey A. Bader, U.S.-China Relations: Is It Time to End the 

Engagement? Policy Brief (Washington, DC: Brookings, September 2018), 1.

33 Scott Cuomo, “It’s Time to Make a New Deal, Solving the INF 

Treaty’s Strategic Liabilities to Achieve U.S. Security Goals in 

Asia,” Texas National Security Review 2, no. 1 (November 2018), 

104–128; David Sanger and Eric Wong, “U.S. Ends Cold War 

Missile Treaty, with Aim of Countering China,” New York Times, 

August 1, 2019, 1, available at <www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/

world/asia/inf-missile-treaty.html>.

34 On People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military diplomacy, including humanitarian/peacekeeping, see Phillip C. Saunders and 

Jiunwei Shyy, “China’s Military Diplomacy,” in China’s Global 

Influence: Perspectives and Recommendations, ed. Scott D. McDonald and Michael C. Burgoyne (Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center 

for Security Studies, 2019).

35 Helene Cooper, “U.S. Disinvites China from Military Exercise 

Amid Rising Tensions,” New York Times, May 23, 2018, available 

at <www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/world/asia/us-china-rimpac-military-exercise-tensions.html>.

36 Barry Pavel and Ian Brzezinski, “It’s Time for a NATO-China 

Council,” Defense One, August 21, 2019, available at <www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/08/its-time-nato-china-council/159326/>.

37 Ana Swanson, “U.S. Plans to Sap WTO’s Influence in Trade 

Brawls,” New York Times, December 9, 2019, A1.

38 Bonnie Bley, “The New Geography of Global Diplomacy: China 

Advances as the United States Retreats,” Foreign Affairs, November 27, 2019, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/

china/2019-11-27/new-geography-global-diplomacy>.

39 Orville Schell and Susan L. Shirk, Course Correction: Toward 

an Effective and Sustainable China Policy, Asia Society Task Force 

Report (February 2019), 7.

40 Timothy R. Heath and William R. Thompson, “Avoiding U.S.-

China Competition Is Futile: Why the Best Option Is to Manage 

Strategic Rivalry,” Asia Policy 13, no. 2 (April 2018), 91–120; 

David Shambaugh, “U.S.-China Rivalry in Southeast Asia: Power 

Shift or Competitive Coexistence,” International Security 42, no. 

4 (Spring 2018), 85–127.

41 Lyle J. Goldstein, “How China Sees America’s Moves in Asia: 

Worse than Containment,” The National Interest, October 29, 

2014, available at <https://nationalinterest.org/feature/howchina-sees-americas-moves-asia-worse-containment-11560>. 

Citing a group of Chinese military scholars, Goldstein notes that 

“China does not just [feel] confront[ed] ‘遏制’ [containment] 

by the United States, but something perhaps even more bellicose: ‘围堵’ [a condition of being under siege] or even ‘掣肘’ 

[a condition of being held by the elbows].”

42 This strategy is partially drawn from Aaron L. Friedberg, “Competing with China,” Survival 60, no. 3 (June–July 2018), 7–64.

43 Walter Russell Mead, “China Is Europe’s Problem, Too,” Wall 

Street Journal, November 25, 2019, available at <www.wsj.com/

articles/china-is-europes-problem-too-11574726800>.

44 The Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and 

Promoting a Networked Region (Washington, DC: Department 

of Defense, June 1, 2019), available at <https://media.defense.

gov/2019/Jul/01/2002152311/-1/-1/1/DEPARTMENT-OF-DEFENSE-INDO-PACIFIC-STRATEGY-REPORT-2019.PDF>.

45 Thomas Mahnken, “A ‘World-Class’ Military: Assessing China’s 

Global Military Ambitions,” Statement Before the U.S.-China 

Economic and Security Review Commission, June 20, 2019; 

Ratner, Blunting China’s Illiberal Order.

46 Campbell and Sullivan, “Competition Without Catastrophe,” 

110.

47 Summary of the 2019 National Defense Strategy, 8.

48 Ely Ratner and Samir Kumar, “The United States Is 

Losing Asia to China,” Foreign Policy, May 12, 2017, 

available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/12/

the-united-states-is-losing-asia-to-china/>.

49 More information on the BUILD Act is available at <https://

www.opic.gov/build-act/overview>. On U.S. options for enhancing geoeconomics in the region, see Daniel Kliman, To 

Compete with China, Get the New U.S. Development Finance 

Corporation Right (Washington, DC: Center for a New American 

Security, February 6, 2019), available at <https://www.cnas.org/

publications/commentary/to-compete-with-china-get-the-newu-s-development-finance-corporation-right>.

50 Joel Wuthnow, “Contested Strategies: China, the United States, 

and the Indo-Pacific Security Dilemma,” China International 

Strategy Review 1, no. 1 (2019), 6, available at <https://doi.

org/10.1007/s42533-019-00006-x>.

51 Based on Thomas Fingar and Jean C. Oi, “China’s Challenges: 

Now It Gets Harder,” Washington Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 

2020), 65–82; “China’s Debt Tops 300% of GDP, Now 15% of 

Global Total: IIF,” Reuters, July 18, 2019, available at <www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-debt-idUSKCN1UD0KD>;

Nicholas Eberstadt, China’s Demographic Outlook to 2040 and 

Its Implications (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2019). A countering view contends that it is the 

United States that is more susceptible to an economic downturn if engaged in a lengthy economic struggle with China. 

See Bloomberg View, “U.S. Needs China More than China 

Needs the U.S.,” Industry Week, April 6, 2018, available at 

<www.industryweek.com/the-economy/article/22025438/

us-needs-china-more-than-china-needs-the-us>.

52 Schell and Shirk, Course Correction, 10. For an objective evaluation of alliances, see Kathleen J. McInnis, “The Competitive 

Advantages and Risks of Alliances,” in 2020 Index of U.S. Military Strength, ed. Dakota Wood (Washington, DC: Heritage 

Foundation, 2019).

53 Campbell and Sullivan, “Competition Without Catastrophe,” 

110.

54 The recent 70th anniversary summit of NATO included the 

following statement: “We recognize that China’s growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and 

challenges that we need to address together as an Alliance.” See 

London Declaration, press release, NATO Headquarters, Brussels, December 4, 2019, available at <https://www.nato.int/cps/

en/natohq/official_texts_171584.htm>.

55 For recommendations on managing economic relations, see 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., and Aaron L. Friedberg, Answering 

China’s Economic Challenge: Preserving Power, Enhancing Prosperity, NBR Special Report No. 76 (Seattle: National Bureau of 

Asian Research, February 2019); Daniel W. Drezner, “Economic 

Statecraft in the Age of Trump,” Washington Quarterly 42, no. 

3 (Fall 2019), 7–24.

56 Aaron L. Friedberg and Charles W. Boustany, Jr., “Partial Disengagement: A New U.S. Strategy for Economic Competition with 

China,” Washington Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 2020), 23–40.

57 This section leverages insights of two distinguished strategic 

analysts. See Hal Brands and Zack Cooper, “After the Responsible Stakeholder, What? Debating America’s China Strategy,” 

Texas National Security Review 2, no. 2 (February 2019), 68–81.

58 Blackwill and Tellis, Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward 

China, 24.
U.S. Strategies for Competing Against China 307

59 Marianne Schneider-Petsinger et al., U.S.-China Strategic Competition: The Quest for Global Technological Leadership (London: 

Royal Institute for International Affairs, November 2019). Many 

of these technologies are discussed in chapter 5 of this volume.

60 For example, this would include adopting the recommendations of the National Security Artificial Intelligence Commission 

(NSAIC), First Quarter Recommendations Memo (Arlington, 

VA: NSAIC, March 2020), available at <https://www.nscai.gov/

reports>.

61 On the instruments of economic statecraft, see Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means: Geoeconomics 

and Statecraft (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016); 

Elizabeth Rosenberg et al., The New Tools of Economic Warfare: 

Effects and Effectiveness of U.S. Financial Sanctions (Washington, 

DC: Center for a New American Security, 2016).

62 U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2018 

Report to Congress (Washington, DC: U.S.-China Commission, 

November 2018), 29. See Nadège Rolland, “China’s Belt and Road 

Initiative,” in Winning Without Fighting: Chinese and Russian 

Political Warfare Campaigns and How the West Can Prevail, vol. 

2, ed. Ross Babbage, Case Studies (Washington, DC: Center for 

Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, 2019), 65–72.

63 Aaron L. Friedberg, “A New U.S. Economic Strategy Toward 

China?” Washington Quarterly 40, no. 4 (Winter 2018), 97–

114; Thomas Shattuck, “Fighting the BRI,” Orbis 63, no. 4 (Fall 

2019), 505–519.

64 Nadège Rolland, Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (Seattle: National Bureau 

of Asian Research, 2017).

65 Bonnie S. Glaser, Made in China 2025 and the Future of American Industry, Testimony Before the Senate Small Business and 

Entrepreneurship Committee, Washington, DC, February 27, 

2019.

66 The bill as drafted is available at <https://www.congress.gov/

bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/29>.

67 James Talent and Robert O. Work, The Contest for Innovation: 

Strengthening America’s National Security Innovation Base in an 

Era of Great Power Competition (Washington, DC: Ronald Reagan Institute, 2019), 24. See also James Manyika and William H. 

McRaven, Innovation and National Security: Keeping Our Edge, 

Independent Task Force Report No. 77 (New York: Council on 

Foreign Relations, 2019).

68 Friedberg, “Competing with China,” 42–43.

69 Stephen Watts et al., Alternative Worldviews: Understanding 

Potential Trajectories of Great-Power Ideological Competition

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020).

70 On the Confucius Institutes, see James Patterson, “2 Reports 

Highlight Concerns over Confucius Institutes’ Influence,” Education Dive, March, 1 2019, available at <www.educationdive.

com/news/2-reports-highlight-concerns-over-confucius-institutes-influence/549509/>; China’s Impact on the U.S. Education 

System, U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2019), 

available at <https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/

PSI%20Report%20China%27s%20Impact%20on%20the%20

US%20Education%20System.pdf>.

71 Orville Schell and Larry Diamond, “Combating China’s 

Influence Operations,” Project Syndicate, November 4, 2019, 

available at <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/

china-influence-operations-us-institutions-academia-by-orville-schell-and-larry-diamond-2019-11?barrier=accesspaylog>.

72 Michael Mazarr, “U.S./China Competition,” in Chinese Strategic Intentions, A Deep Dive into China’s Worldwide Activities, 

ed. Nicole Peterson (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, December 2019), 135.

73 “China’s Great Firewall Is Rising,” The Economist, January 

4, 2018, available at <www.economist.com/china/2018/01/04/

chinas-great-firewall-is-rising>.

74 Particularly the restoration of the “Peace Through Strength” 

section of the National Security Strategy of the United States of 

America, 25–32.

75 This is in line with recommendations of the National Defense 

Strategy Commission, Providing for the Common Defense: The 

Assessment and Recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2018), 

available at <https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2018-11/providing-for-the-common-defense.pdf>. This effort was mandated 

by Congress to offer constructive assessments and alternative 

recommendations on U.S. defense strategy. The commission 

was led by Ambassador Eric Edelman and Admiral Gary Roughhead, U.S. Navy (Ret.).

76 Oriana Skylar Mastro, “China’s Military Modernization Program,” Statement Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security 

Review Commission, September 4, 2019, 10. Mastro stated, “The 

issue is not that China has surpassed the United States in military power; it has not. The issue is that given current trends, 

China will meet or outmatch U.S. regional capabilities in the 

next five to 10 years.”

77 Mira Rapp-Hooper, “Saving America’s Alliances,” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2020), 127–140.

78 Eric Rosenbach and Katherine Mansted, The Geopolitics of 

Information (Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and 

International Affairs, May 2019). See chapter 7 for discussions 

of Chinese exploitation of social media.

79 Numerous scholars offer insights in this area, including Hal 

Brands and Toshi Yoshihara, “Waging Political Warfare,” The

National Interest (January/February 2019); Linda Robinson 

et al., Modern Political Warfare: Current Practices and Possible

Responses (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018). See also Ross Babbage, Winning Without Fighting: Chinese and Russian Political 

Warfare Campaigns and How the West Can Prevail (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, July 

2019); Ross Babbage, Stealing a March: Chinese Hybrid Warfare 

in the Indo-Pacific; Issues and Options for Allied Defense Planners

(Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, July 2019); Clint Watts, “Disinformation: A Primer in 

Russian Active Measures and Influence Campaigns,” Statement 

Prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, March 

30, 2017, available at <https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/

default/files/documents/os-cwatts-033017.pdf>.

80 Nigel Inkster, China’s Cyber Power, Adelphi Paper No. 456 

(Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016).

81 Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “Weaponized Globalization: Huawei and the Emerging Battle of 5G Networks,” Global 

Asia 14, no. 3 (September 2019), 7–12.

82 Bates Gill and Benjamin Schreer, “Countering China’s ‘United 

Front,’” Washington Quarterly 41, no. 2 (Summer 2018), 155–170; 

Toshi Yoshihara, “Evaluating the Logic and Methods of China’s 

United Front Work,” Orbis 64, no. 2 (Spring 2020), 230–248.

83 Saunders, Managing Competition with China, 3.

84 Ashely Townshend, Brenda Thomas-Noone, and Matilda 

Steward, Averting Crisis: American Strategy, Military Spending 

and Collective Defence in the Indo-Pacific (Sydney: U.S. Studies 

Centre, August 2019), 10.

85 Ibid., 15.

86 In particular, see the claims of the National Defense Strategy Commission, Providing for the Common Defense. See also 

Robert O. Work and Greg Grant, Offset Strategy with Chinese 
308 Hoffman

Characteristics (Washington, DC: Center for a New American 

Security, 2019).

87 For a rich study of Chinese military reforms, see Phillip C. 

Saunders et al., eds., Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing 

Chinese Military Reforms (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2019).

88 Ely Ratner et al., Rising to the China Challenge: Renewing 

American Competitiveness in the Indo-Pacific (Washington, 

DC: Center for a New American Security, December 2019), 

21–33, 48–52, available at <https://s3.amazonaws.com/

files.cnas.org/documents/CNAS-Report-NDAA-final-6.

pdf?mtime=20200116130752>.

89 John Hamre, “Foreword,” in Twin Pillars: Upholding National 

Security and National Innovation in Emerging Technologies Governance, ed. Sam Brannen et al. (Washington, DC: Center for 

Strategic and International Studies, January 2020), vii.

90 Talent and Work, The Contest for Innovation, 9.

91 Tai Ming Cheung and Thomas G. Mahnken, eds., The Gathering 

Pacific Storm (Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2018), 248.

92 Talent and Work, The Contest for Innovation, 25–26. See also 

William Greenwalt, Leveraging the National Technology Industrial Base to Address Great-Power Competition: The Imperative 

to Integrate Industrial Capabilities of Close Allies (Washington, 

DC: Atlantic Council, April 2019).

93 Markus Brunnermeier, Rush Doshi, and Harold James, 

“Beijing’s Bismarckian Ghosts: How Great Powers Compete Economically,” Washington Quarterly 41, no. 3 (Fall 2018), 161–176.

94 Ely Ratner, Blunting China’s Illiberal Order, 3.

95 The phrase Weary Titan is drawn from the title of a book on 

the United Kingdom’s transition at the dawn of the 20th century. 

See Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1988).

96 For recommendation on how, see Alice Rivkin et al., A Recovery 

Squandered: The State of U.S. Competitiveness 2019 (Cambridge, 

MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, December 2019), available at <https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/

Documents/a-recovery-squandered.pdf>.

97 Adam P. Liff and G. John Ikenberry, “Racing Toward Tragedy?” 

International Security 39, no. 2 (Fall 2014), 51–90.

98 Hal Brands and Eric Edelman, “America and the Geopolitics of Upheaval,” The National Interest, July 21, 

2017, available at <https://nationalinterest.org/feature/

america-the-geopolitics-upheaval-21258?page=0%2C3>.
309

Chapter 15

Conclusion

Realities, Imperatives, and Principles in a 

New Era of Great Power Competition

By Thomas F. Lynch III

This chapter summarizes the major features of the new era of Great Power competition 

(GPC). It then provides an assessment of the novel 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic 

implications, concluding that the virus’s impact is likely to accelerate ongoing geopolitical trends rather than generate new ones. The chapter analyzes three main imperatives 

for American success in GPC by observing that the Sino-American dyad is not a new 

Cold War, successful competition with China must feature a wise choice of U.S. allies, 

and the United States can succeed only if the national government smartly intervenes 

in the economy to fortify American competitive advantage. It offers historically based 

analysis demonstrating that four competitive principles are most critical to U.S. success 

in a long-term competition with China: firmness with flexibility, durable partnerships 

and alliances, the peril of reciprocal societal denigration, and playing for time.

The year 2020 began with a global health shock of a kind unobserved in a century—a deadly novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This long-predicted, but nonetheless gripping, worldwide trauma layered over the top of ongoing historically broad 

and deep international economic and geopolitical changes.1 Decades-long economic 

globalization began a sharp decline at the end of the 2010s, punctuated by a dramatic 

trade war between the world’s two largest economies: the United States and China. 

Geopolitics also witnessed dramatic change. Two distinct global rivals—China and 

Russia—rose during the late 2010s to challenge what had been a quarter-century run 

of American global dominance, or unipolarity. This era of Great Power competition 

(GPC) generated patterns of international interaction with far more confrontation and 

conflict than observed from 1990 to 2015, which largely was characterized by cooperative and collaborative behaviors among the world’s largest states.

A century ago, the Great Pandemic of 1918–1919 corresponded with a deadly inflection point within a prolonged period of GPC that ran from 1895 to 1945. The period from 

1914 to 1918, during which the major protagonists fulminated their multistate rivalry in a 

prolonged and horrifically destructive period of direct military clash, became World War I. 
310 Lynch

That so-called Great War did not end the multiparty competition. There was no clear transition from one dominant power to another and no durable arrangement to channel state 

competition away from direct military clash. Thus, the multipolar Great Power struggle 

lurched forward with most of the same prewar players and into an even more global and 

destructive military clash 20 years later in World War II.2

 In 2020, COVID-19 mixes into a 

three-state Great Power competition, wherein the United States, China, and Russia openly 

compete for international status and power and the trajectory of relative power from a 

long-dominant America to either rival remains incomplete and far from certain.

The chapters of this volume have grappled with the many issues and uncertainties surrounding the ongoing transition from a unipolar world dominated by American global 

power to one where rivals Russia and China now compete openly with the United States 

and each other. In the case of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, its contemporary power capabilities 

are mainly reimagined and repurposed military and reenabled propaganda implements 

rather than anything new. In the case of China, truly historic economic growth is catalyzing 

new wealth and imagination, generating an array of power capabilities that enable broad 

competition with the United States and growing influence with other states.

This chapter offers a collection of observations about the dawning new era of Great 

Power competition. It extends some of the numerous insights generated in the previous 

chapters but does not recite them all.3 This chapter evaluates the main elements of contemporary Great Power competition between and among the three main rivals. It situates major 

contemporary GPC dynamics in context with those of past periods of multilateral Great 

Power rivalry, including an assessment of what the COVID-19 pandemic might mean for 

dominant GPC trends. The chapter then addresses the critical question of whether ongoing 

Great Power transition must result in direct military clash and what factors might elevate 

the risk. It also analyzes the prospects for GPC to enable viable and durable partnerships 

for collaboration and cooperation to develop across the five categories of interstate interaction found in table 2.2: political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, military, and 

economic.

The chapter explicitly covers the objects for influence of contemporary Great Power 

competitors: other countries and their perspectives. It offers three major imperatives about 

the reciprocal and dynamic interaction of American competitive advantages and the needs 

of potential partners. The concluding section presents four principles most vital to U.S. success in its competitive Great Power dyad with China: firmness with flexibility, partnerships 

and alternative geometries, leaders versus peoples and the poison of mass denigration, and 

playing for time.

Essential Outlines of Contemporary Great Power Competition 

Contemporary Great Power competition is unique, but not unprecedented. Multipolar 

GPCs have been contested throughout modern history. Each contributed important insights 

to the dynamics of the contemporary world. At the same time, contemporary dynamics 

exert their own pull on the choices and risks faced by the modern Great Powers. These 

factors include, but are not limited to, the impact of modern economic advancements, the 

importance of new technologies as means of competition, and the influence of warfighting 
Conclusion 311

risks on contemporary societies. Finally, 

modern GPC is already changing patterns 

of geostrategic interaction.

Essential Elements 

There are three contemporary Great Powers 

in 2020. The United States stands atop the 

triumvirate, with China a rising competitor 

and Russia vying for top-level prestige while 

facing clear signs of decline. The emerging strategic aims of China and Russia are 

incompatible with those established by 

American power in the post–World War II 

era; this has produced the return of a historically dominant pattern of Great Power 

competition. China is the Great Power best poised to displace America from its long-dominant power position. It has a positivist perspective on what a new global order could look 

like, one loosely captured in its concept of a “community of common identity.” While a net 

power comparison between the United States and China indicates that their power transition timeline is longer than some now fear, the Sino-American competitive dyad is likely to 

be the dominant Great Power rivalry into the future.4 Russia is an urgent but transient security risk for the United States and China, with the potential to do enormous military damage 

to the world if miscalculation leads to military clash. However, Russia practices a reactive, 

disruptive strategy aimed to pacify its immediate borders (a loosely formed “Eurasia focus”) 

and to question contemporary institutions and processes that it perceives as a threat. Unlike 

China, it is a competitor without a viable vision for a new world order or the necessary 

power to generate one. China and Russia may engage in tactical entente to erode American 

power, frustrate U.S. actions and preferred institutions, and question norms and rules they 

deem threatening. Their long-term interests, however, diverge too much for a durable partnership. Thus, Washington must remain careful not to misunderstand tactical cooperation 

as some form of deeper anti-American strategic alliance.

Essential Backdrop 

The realignment of Great Power relations from an era of singular American dominance to 

one with three main actors playing parts in a multipolar competition has evolved slowly. 

Cooperative relations began to erode in 2008. By 2014–2015, the three protagonists were 

in a de facto GPC, which was formalized in U.S. strategic documents in late 2017 and early 

2018. GPC emerged against a backdrop of major economic change. More than two decades 

of rapid economic globalization came under increasing scrutiny for a record of fragility 

and unfulfilled expectations. Mainly, but not exclusively, globalization lost prestige from 

repetitive boom-and-bust cycles and a propensity for creating an ever smaller circle of 

extraordinarily rich and comfortable elites juxtaposed against a growing circle of underserved constituent groups.5

 Today, a fourth industrial revolution is fueling deglobalization 

and eroding global markets and supply chains. On one level, it is exacerbating the socio-

“[T]he official mind in Washington 

clearly has moved toward the view that 

China is today, and will be for the foreseeable future, the principal challenger 

to overall U.S. hegemony in the international system. No other countries come 

close because they lack comparable 

levels of comprehensive national power, even though several states, such as 

Russia, North Korea, and Iran, oppose 

the United States locally or on important 

specific issues.”

—Ashley J. Tellis, Alison Szalwinski, and Michael 

Wills, eds., Strategic Asia 2020 (2020)
312 Lynch

economic disruption of the digital age with widening inequality in incomes and greater 

unemployment among low-skilled workers. On another level, it is reducing the price of 

precision and advanced manufacturing and creating a new generation of smaller, smarter, 

and cheaper weapons. The inexorable movement of product manufacturing closer to domestic markets will continue to be a factor with great impact on GPC.

The foundation of modern Great Power wealth and competitive advantage has fundamentally changed from one dominated by industrial era technology to one in which 

information technology (IT) has become the source of geopolitical power. China has been 

the early beneficiary of this change, leveraging an ability to appropriate (and misappropriate) global intellectual property to accelerate technological growth while maneuvering to 

control global information flows it finds threatening. Russia and China have determined 

that information power is more likely than industrial power to determine the outcome of 

long-term geopolitical contests.6

 Thus, both Russia and China have been increasingly waging foreign propaganda campaigns on social media platforms and other online channels of 

international influence. To keep pace, the United States must rethink its competitive posture, work with other developed nations, and, via public-private partnerships, reprioritize 

resources into key information technology and capabilities in order to pursue broad, agile 

approaches to limiting the foreign propaganda threat.

The United States has distinct advantages over both China and Russia as the fourth 

industrial revolution begins to reshape the world. Working with partners and allies—and 

while adjusting American laws and regulations to the new economic forces—the United 

States is well-poised to exploit its natural advantages in higher education, innate innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, and global market share. China also may benefit greatly from 

the fourth industrial revolution by prioritizing government investment in its high-tech 

manufacturing sectors. However, it must grapple with looming economic challenges from 

growing unemployment, an aging and less productive workforce, and a potential for social 

unrest. Russia, meanwhile, is not well poised for future economic competition, as it lacks 

the public- or private-sector elements necessary to participate fully in the modern economy.

Geostrategic Interactions 

Russia and China present distinct competitive threats to the United States around the 

globe. In many regions, Russia often poses the more immediate challenge, whereas the repercussions of Chinese economic investments manifest themselves subtly and will likely 

undermine U.S. strategic interests more gradually.

The United States and China have primary and conflicting interests in the Indo-Pacific region. The importance of those interests to both countries makes the region a central 

venue for Great Power competition. The U.S. Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision is not 

compatible with China’s aspirations for increasing control within its First Island Chain and 

wider Chinese regional aims, sometimes espoused as a community of common destiny. 

Here, Sino-American competition could turn toward confrontation or a military clash if 

careful diplomacy is not exercised. China has economic dominance in markets and investment across most of the region. It also has eroded U.S. military advantage in potential 

locations of confrontation near its shores and inside the First Island Chain. The United 

States retains an overall advantage in military technology and power projection across the 
Conclusion 313

wider Indo-Pacific region, commercial financial dominance, and a resonant ideology and 

ability to communicate it, along with a regional political and military alliance structure 

unmatched by China.

Russia has a primary interest in Europe, with special sensitivity to sovereignty in its near 

abroad—including former Soviet Union provinces. American and European diplomacy will 

remain challenged to stanch Russian misadventures without generating overt confrontation 

or clash. While Europeans mistrust Russia generally, their perception of Russia as a security 

threat varies greatly. Europe cannot alone defend member states from Russia. Thus, Europeans worry that the United States may detach itself from Europe—particularly the North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization. Today—and in the foreseeable future—Europe remains unable to create an autonomous system of security and defense. Should the United States move 

to depart the Alliance, Europe may intensify accommodation with Russia—and even with 

China.

Moscow and Beijing are only nominally united in their desire to compete with and 

displace U.S. influence across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic. The 

United States retains a historic strategic interest in primacy across the Western Hemisphere, 

and the region appears unlikely to be similarly important for the other two Great Powers 

in the near term, making it a less intense area of competition absent unforeseen miscalculation. Conversely, the Middle East promises to be an area of dynamic competition and 

occasional nonmilitary confrontation in the coming decade—with access to resources the 

principal focal point.

As U.S. and Russian interests in external energy sources wane, however, the competitive focus in the Middle East may shift to prestige and resonance of ideological narratives. 

States in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Arctic are often eager recipients 

of Russian and Chinese attention and resources out of convenience rather than ideological 

commitment. Thus, the United States should avoid imposing regional strategies that treat 

Russian or Chinese activities as uniformly harmful to U.S. interests. A Washington focus 

on American strengths as an economic partner, the quality and quantity of its military 

assistance, and the positive and benign nature of its military forward presence should best 

safeguard U.S. interests in these regions of less intense contemporary GPC.

Weapons of mass destruction remain a critical feature and potentially dynamic factor 

in GPC. The system of arms control treaties that, for decades, limited U.S. and Russian 

nuclear forces is under great strain and could collapse. Russia began a slow modernization 

of its aging nuclear forces in the 2000s. In March 2018, Vladimir Putin announced that 

Russia was developing new types of nuclear systems, including a multi-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile, along with hypersonic, autonomous, and nuclear-powered delivery 

systems. It is unclear whether Moscow has begun to place a greater reliance on nuclear 

weapons or the threat to use them during regional conflicts.

The United States is engaged in an expensive recapitalization and modernization of its 

nuclear forces and plans to begin fielding new systems in the late 2020s. China is investing 

more in nuclear capabilities, modernizing and expanding strategic systems and developing 

dual-capable theater-range platforms that would heighten the nuclear risks in Indo-Pacific 

conflicts. For now, Sino-American nuclear weapons activities do not appear likely to lead 

to a Cold War–style nuclear arms race. Yet the risk of a new multistate arms race in nuclear 
314 Lynch

weapons, delivery systems, and missile defenses is growing, as Great Power relations become more competitive and even confrontational. The three Great Powers today signal that 

they do not anticipate that an unwelcomed conventional clash would escalate to the nuclear 

level, but risks of threshold miscalculation remain. At the same time, chemical or biological 

attacks could be difficult to attribute and may be well suited to support Russian and Chinese 

objectives in operations below the threshold of open armed conflict.

Despite the focus on GPC, threats to peace, stability, and American interests from 

rogue states and terrorism are far from eradicated. Rogue states such as Iran and North 

Korea lack the military and long-term economic power and/or transnational cultural appeal to match U.S. power globally or stabilize an alternative international political order. 

They are motivated by a combination of regime survival, aspirations for regional dominance, and sometimes global relevance, as well as an inclination to confront the United 

States, which they all believe is the main obstacle to their own aspirations. They tend to 

confront the United States below the threshold of direct armed conflict and across multiple 

domains. While a menace to be managed by the United States, there is little prospect for a 

fully cooperative anti-U.S. rogue state axis. Moreover, China and Russia must fear spillover 

to their own economic and strategic interests, so Beijing and Moscow are unlikely to join 

fully in disruptive rogue adventurism, instead pursuing a mixture of cooperative and obstructive responses on a case-by-case basis.

American counterterrorism efforts will confront a set of new realities. Recent American counterterrorism operations in Syria likely will be the model of the future. Russia must 

be expected to undermine U.S. counterterrorism objectives, either directly or indirectly. As 

in Syria, Russia will combine diplomatic initiatives, proxy warfare, and electronic warfare 

to foil U.S. military dominance. Regional states will continue to pursue their own counterterrorism objectives—some that align with U.S. objectives and others that do not. To 

be effective in this new environment, the United States will require new counterterrorism authorities, new technologies, and other tools that can help manage the risks from 

small-footprint deployments. It also must hold sponsor states accountable for actions by 

proxies against U.S. counterterrorism forces.

Finally, two nontraditional competitive venues—space and cyberspace—are those 

where all three Great Powers have primary interests engaged and growing. There is high risk 

that intensifying competition in space could lead to greater confrontation there. Agreement 

on some viable rules and norms for collaborative use and cooperative actions in space could 

reduce the growing risks of confrontation and miscalculation leading to clash. Likewise, the 

absence of cooperative rules and norms in cyberspace has contributed to a darkening turn 

toward confrontational dynamics.

Relevant History and Contemporary Dynamics 

The contemporary era is characterized by heightened competition among more than two 

Great Powers—a multipolar competition. This makes it distinct from the most recent period of GPC, a bipolar rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that played 

out over a 45-year Cold War. In past multipolar Great Power competitions, rivalrous dyads 

ebbed and flowed. These dyads normally involved a rising power and a dominant one, raising the strategic question about the inevitability of relative power decline by the dominant 
Conclusion 315

state and a power transition between them. Great Power transition challenges rising states 

with the dilemma of how to assert their relative power gains without provoking outright 

clash with the dominant state. Transition also confronts the dominant, but relatively declining, state with the vexing question of whether its rising challenger could be accommodated 

in a manner that avoids destructive military clash and an unacceptable change in the status 

quo. These transitions play out over decades and centuries, not years.

Although three-quarters of Great Power transitions since 1500 have featured a destructive period of war between them, this outcome is not foreordained. Great Power competitors 

joined in a relative power transition can culminate their interactions with accommodation 

or acquiescence short of war, but those peaceful outcomes require hard work and astute 

leadership. When one side (or both) in a relative power transition dyad recognizes a shift 

in the relative alignment of economic and military power moving decisively against it, it 

is much more inclined to risk a preemptive conflict than when it perceives a stable power 

status quo. Too often, Great Power leaders misperceive relative power, eschewing detailed, 

empirical assessments of power to inform decisionmaking and abet strategic planning. 

Even when accurate assessments of relative decline or vulnerability are made, domestic 

or bureaucratic interests may retard agile adaptation necessary to mitigate risks of Great 

Power war. Thus, success in GPC requires extraordinary political leadership in both international statecraft and generating domestic renewal and adaptation.

The Sino-American competitive dyad is likely to be a dominant Great Power rivalry 

well into the future.7

 It is the competitive dyad most fraught with the dangerous dynamics of Great Power transition, although any misstep leading to accidental war with Russia 

would be enormously destructive and consequential, especially if Russia escalated to a nuclear weapons threat or use in order to end a conventional conflict. While some Western 

pundits stoke fears of an imminent and disastrous power shift in favor of China on the 

horizon, a net power comparison between the United States and China indicates that the 

transition timeline is longer than some now predict. Properly understood, this elongated 

transition affords China and the United States time to better appreciate the risks of unbridled rivalry and seek a path of modulated competition with elements of confrontation and 

collaboration underpinning the search for mutually acceptable strategic outcomes.

Geopolitical Shocks and GPC: COVID-19 

The big geostrategic question of 2020 is how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect contemporary Great Power competition. As a once in a lifetime, truly global health crisis, COVID-19 

must be understood as a factor in evaluating GPC and the future trajectory of relative 

power transitions between them. An in-stride assessment of likely pandemic impacts on 

GPC suggests that, while each competitor will suffer absolutely from this significant exogenous shock, none seems likely to endure a mortal blow or one that alters the relative 

balance of power immediately or shifts the trajectory of relative power transition. This can 

be established with an overall assessment of historic pandemic geostrategic effects followed 

by an evaluation of likely impacts from COVID-19 on the three Great Powers.

The Spanish flu, or Great Pandemic of 1918–1919, is the most analogous global health 

shock in modern memory. Its impact on the world order and the Great Powers of the time 

remains debatable. The Spanish flu added to an already enormous death toll during World 
316 Lynch

War I. Along with the Great War, it was a factor that ended the prewar phase of economic 

globalization, but the pandemic might have had an important effect on the postwar order 

in general, and the United States in particular, due to the health of the American President, 

Woodrow Wilson.

While in Paris to negotiate the end of World War I and the framework for the postwar 

world in April 1919, Wilson contracted the flu and was taken “violently ill.”8

 Prior to getting 

sick, Wilson had been a forceful voice in Paris, challenging the leaders of Britain and especially France to adopt limited war reparations against Germany and for a genial peace that 

would bind the wounds of war, give voice to oppressed peoples, and widen the space for 

peace and global integration. After becoming ill, Wilson reportedly grew disoriented and 

distracted—a symptom attributed to severe influenza and fever. Exhausted, he gave up on 

the demands he had been making against reparations and forceful occupation of Germany. 

While hard to know if a healthy Wilson would have won his point against a determined 

French position to seek a punitive peace, Wilson’s physical decline was noteworthy.9 The 

“victor’s peace” demanded in the final version of the Versailles Treaty set up the humiliation 

of Germany and a cause that German fascism exploited in its subsequent interwar rise.

Six months later, back in the United States and while in the middle of a bitter political 

battle with the U.S. Senate to secure ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and entry into the 

League of Nations, Wilson suffered a severe stroke and withdrew from public life. Again, 

it is impossible to know whether Wilson’s stroke was abetted by his earlier bout with the 

Spanish flu, but doctors have subsequently linked weakened organs to prolonged oxygen 

loss and inflammation experienced by survivors of severe influenza bouts. A bedridden 

Wilson saw his campaign for ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and participation in 

the League of Nations defeated by the Senate in March 1920.10 The result was American 

withdrawal from leadership in world politics for over 20 years—throughout the interwar 

period—and an absence of American wealth and power as a counterweight to increasing 

global fragmentation, radicalization, and war.11

Fifty million people died during the Spanish flu without redirecting the course of 

global politics, the framework for domestic politics, or basic human behaviors.12 The insight 

of Spanish flu history is that, while a traumatic global pandemic may not alter broad global 

patterns or trends for key countries, it may have important indirect impact on geopolitical 

futures should the virus badly afflict an important political leader.

But what about after overarching geopolitical changes from COVID-19? Henry 

Kissinger wrote in April 2020 that COVID-19 will forever alter the world order, asserting 

that the pandemic’s sweeping global impacts confirm that purely national solutions cannot 

solve major global issues. Kissinger argued that the ongoing movement toward nationalism 

must be understood as a danger, and collaborative approaches arising from the pandemic 

extended toward cooperation to protect the “liberal world order.”13 Skeptics assert that 

Kissinger wrote earlier, and more accurately, that world orders last until their foundations 

are fundamentally shattered by events, and a pandemic is not that kind of event.14 Major 

trends in early summer 2020 seem to be bearing out an earlier, more skeptical Kissinger. 

The crisis has undercut support for globalization, but that was already trending, with rising populism around the world. It has exposed an already identified yawning gap between 

major contemporary security, climate, and health challenges and the insufficient power of 
Conclusion 317

any one country to address these challenges.15 Thus, the pandemic shows that the modern 

era needs more global governance, not less—but without enough shock to the system to 

force significant change.16

Then there is the question of whether COVID-19 portends a change in the relative balance of power among Great Power protagonists. Some American political observers worry 

that the United States could lose the global leadership contest with China if it holds to an 

“America First” approach and does not seek its historic post–World War II role of leading 

collective responses to global challenges.17 These worries are most acute with respect to 

U.S. relationships in the Indo-Pacific region. There, pundits fear that American regional 

legitimacy is at risk due to Washington’s comparatively feeble pandemic responses vis-àvis those of partners such as South Korea and Taiwan, China’s obvious interest in reviving 

East Asian economies with an eye to cement its role as a hub, and the risks to U.S. multinational credibility should Washington remain idle and aloof from coordinated regional 

response and recovery.18 But China and Russia confront their own challenges in recovering 

from COVID-19. There is a chance that the virus’s economic impact may be harsher on 

the United States than on China. Should this happen, it would accelerate the power shift to 

Asia, but that was already under way.19

And there are real limits to China’s capacity to take advantage of the current crisis. 

China’s economy will not be able to return to its prior growth trajectory of some 5 to 6 

percent annually until the economies of the United States and the European Union recover 

as well. Funding another credit-fueled stimulus as the Chinese did in 2008–2009 is off the 

table due to China’s high overall debt levels and the real risk of triggering a collapse of its 

financial system.20

As of summer 2020, a unique characteristic of the current crisis has been the conspicuous absence of U.S. global leadership. The United States has not rallied the world in 

a collective effort to confront either the virus or its economic effects. Nor has the United 

States inspired the world by its approach to the pandemic at home.21 Should Washington 

recover its footing and lead a G20 effort at expanded financial cooperation working with 

regional friends and tying in China and Europe, it might emerge with a stronger reputation 

regionally and globally. This hopeful outcome seems unlikely given the main policy focus 

of the Trump administration.

Considering these contemporary factors, the post-COVID-19 world is unlikely to be 

radically different from the one that preceded it. The pandemic and response are reinforcing fundamental geopolitical traits.22 Deglobalization, rising anti-immigration sentiment, 

and Great Power competition all were established before the pandemic. It seems unlikely 

that the pandemic will shift general trends back toward global cooperation and multilateralism. A lack of global cooperation is likely to continue, resulting in a weakly coordinated 

response to the health crisis and slow global economic recovery.23

But the case of Woodrow Wilson shows individual leaders matter and contingency has 

to be considered. President Wilson’s bout with the Spanish flu occurred in its “second wave” 

during the winter of 1918–1919. If a second COVID-19 wave in the winter/spring of 2020–

2021 were to metastasize and incapacitate or kill senior Great Power leaders, could this 

generate a major geopolitical shift? For Russia, Vladimir Putin has enormous power and 

has maneuvered to retain it through 2036. But Putin’s death or incapacitation is unlikely 
318 Lynch

to change the trajectory of Russian strategy or relative power capabilities. Some Western 

foreign policy experts worry that a Russia under Putin that is weakened by COVID-19 and 

the collapse of world oil prices might be more openly aggressive and prone to risk military 

conflict. But others think a weaker Russia would likely become less assertive and more 

dependent on China.24 On balance, the trends with Russia seem more likely to accelerate 

than change. Moreover, major pundits agree that the systems over which Putin presides—

political, economic, military, and informational—are rooted in Russian history and likely 

to outlast him.25

In China, President Xi Jinping is powerful and the clear head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but China’s strategic vision and development trajectory are deeply 

grounded and supported by other top CCP leaders. Xi has taken greater risks than some 

of his predecessors in pursuing CCP aims globally and across the Indo-Pacific region in 

particular. Nonetheless, the exit of Xi as China’s leader would do little to alter China’s basic 

strategic framework or its plans for moving forward—particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. As American policy analyst Richard Haass observed, “nothing about the current crisis 

will change China’s view that the U.S. presence in Asia is a historical anomaly or reduce its 

resentment of U.S. policy on a range of issues, including trade, human rights, and Taiwan.”26

In the United States, COVID-19’s effect on individual leaders might have modest impact given that 2020 is a Presidential election year. As of fall 2020, major party candidates 

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are basing campaign strategies on contrasting views of America’s proper role in such a sweeping global pandemic. The 

Trump administration is touting its record of success in America First policies, abstaining 

from wider global leadership to combat the crisis, and attacking the World Health Organization and China for enabling the pandemic. The Biden campaign promises a less combative 

United States, and one more focused on leading a collective international response.

Should President Trump suffer incapacitation or death from the virus, a Biden victory would not be certain. Trump’s Vice President, Mike Pence, seems a likely torchbearer 

for the same kinds of policies pursued during 2020, and a Pence election seems likely to 

entrench America First strategic aims for another 4 years. Conversely, a defeated Donald 

Trump in November 2020 would have resulted—at least in some part—from the electorate’s disapproval of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. This would open the door 

for some greater international collaboration and American leadership, but this door may 

open only a little bit. A post-Trump Democratic President would still confront some 30 

to 35 percent of American voters who are jaded about international commitments and 

unwilling to sign up for spending American resources leading other “rich” nations in 

combating major international problems.27 A new administration might find some support for a late-breaking American-led global initiative to find a vaccine and underwrite 

its mass distribution, but asking the American people again to tackle all the global problems at the heart of U.S. foreign policy will continue to be a tough sell.28 The impetus for 

America and its allies to decouple from the Chinese economy seems likely to grow as a 

result of the pandemic, and only partly because of concerns about China. There will be 

renewed focus on the potential for interruption of supply chains along with a desire to 

stimulate domestic manufacturing. Global trade will partly recover, but more of it will be 

managed by governments rather than markets.29
Conclusion 319

So the other side of the COVID-19 crisis is likely to look as it did before, with Great 

Power strategies and relative power positions much the same. New technologies and 

challenges will continue to outpace the collective ability to contend with them. No single 

country enjoys the standing the United States did in 1945 or in 1990, and no other country, 

neither China nor anyone else, has both the desire and the ability to fill the international 

leadership void the United States has created.30

Thus, a viable approach to the new era of Great Power competition must begin with a 

clear-eyed understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the major protagonists in the 

five main categories of interstate competition: political and diplomatic, ideological, informational, military, and economic. As the dominant GPC dyad, China and the United States 

are the critical nations for comparison. Their relative advantages in these five categories 

inform the realm of the feasible and establish the unworkable. For Washington, a sober 

analysis suggests that it must eschew highly confrontational policies in places where it lacks 

advantage and seek collaboration whenever feasible, while at the same time compete with 

firmness in categories where it has advantage. America needs to revisit and clearly appreciate that the main source of its ability to project power and exert influence now, as since 

World War II, is its global networks of allies and partners.

How to Compete Wisely: The Important 

Role of Alliances and Partnerships 

An America that competes smartly with China must understand both the value of time 

and where it can leverage its major advantages. The United States retains a commanding 

advantage in military power, although not to the degree it did 20 years ago. But its global 

military advantages can be offset if China (or Russia) is able to pick favorable physical and 

political ground for a short, decisive military conflict. Washington must acknowledge this 

and compensate for it. America’s ideology resonates well globally and especially in the IndoPacific region. Similarly, its ability to promulgate information and sustain support remains 

superior to China’s, despite Beijing’s serious efforts to articulate and reinforce a clear message—a message often undercut by the fact that it features CCP talking points inconsistent 

with Chinese actions at home and abroad. China is upping its efforts to use political and 

diplomatic tools to undercut U.S. alliances and partnerships internationally and especially 

in the Indo-Pacific region, but Washington—despite some obvious recent self-sabotage of 

its diplomatic advantage—retains strong ties and bonds established over decades that are 

not easily destroyed. At the same time, China has significant economic advantages over the 

United States, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. Beijing can mobilize direct trade and 

investment resources and provide countries with valued opportunities for growth that the 

United States cannot alone match.

America’s relative advantages in ideas, information dissemination, political and military alliances, and conventional military power—when applied away from regions of local 

Chinese (or Russian) advantage—inform where the United States can build on strength. 

Concurrently, American weaknesses in relative economic strength compared with China or 

the conventional military capabilities to defend allies and partners near China (or Russia) 

informs Washington about how it must proceed for competitive success. The United States 
320 Lynch

will succeed in competition over time by working with friends and partners and eschewing 

the strategic error of posing stark binary choices to would-be partners and friends.

These understandings translate into three major imperatives that should inform competition between the United States and China. First, the Cold War was a Great Power 

competition but not analogous to contemporary GPC. Cold War dissimilarities are important to understand so that policy choices for GPC do not err in applying Cold War lessons. 

Second, Great Power competitors do best when they form durable partnerships with capable allies and friends. These partnerships are not risk free; Great Powers can make bad 

choices. However, chosen wisely, Great Power alliance networks expand security options, 

generate diplomatic leverage and helpful lines of communications, and bolster political legitimacy.31 Finally, Great Power competitors do not have the luxury of “hands off the wheel” 

economic and technology policies. In reality, the myth of American capitalism as a laissez-faire, private-market enterprise does not comport with fact—even in times of broad 

geopolitical and geoeconomic cooperation. During times of Great Power rivalry, the U.S. 

Government must shake off the myths that constrict competitive decisionmaking and understand the importance of deliberate government-sponsored development in key security 

and wealth-making technologies and processes.

Despite some contrary commentary, the world is in a new era of GPC.32 Although the 

Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was a Great Power competition, 

it was unique in modern history and without great resonance with contemporary GPC dynamics.33 Nostalgic U.S. calls for broad application of Cold War competitive strategies such 

as containment fail to appreciate that its unique features make it a poor strategic template 

for today.34 However, some aspects of a competitive mindset from that time can be useful 

in the present.35

First, the Cold War was always bipolar and never multipolar. From 1945 to 1991, no 

other country in the world possessed the global strategic ambitions or the levels of power 

held in Washington and Moscow. In 2020, GPC is multipolar and has been so from inception.36 Second, the bipolar competition of the Cold War did not feature a clear rising power 

challenging a dominant one. Instead, the United States and the Soviet Union each claimed 

primacy and jousted as presumptive equals in every dimension of state interaction. There 

was no Great Power transition process during the Cold War. Contemporary GPC features a 

transition framework consistent with historical precedence with a clearly dominant power, 

the United States; a clear rising power, China; and another Great Power, Russia, contesting 

geopolitical primacy but with limited and suspect power capabilities. The ongoing transition raises uncertainties and risk calculations that were not present during the Cold War.

Third, the Cold War began with sharply divided Great Power geographic spheres of 

influence and little interaction between them. A Soviet bloc and a U.S.-led Western bloc 

of states quickly formed after 1945, and almost no economic, social, communications, or 

political interactions existed between them—beyond basic diplomacy and some limited 

mechanisms for travel and cultural exchange. In a starkly different fashion, the Great Power 

rivalry dyad of the United States and China evolved after more than 30 years of broadly 

cooperative interaction and engagement in diplomatic, social, and political activities. In all 

but the military sphere—and even in the hotly contested communications sphere—American and Chinese competitive tensions evolved against a high degree of interactions and 
Conclusion 321

interdependence. So in the Cold War, an American strategic imperative became one of 

increasing transparency, openness, and resonance with Soviet bloc peoples in a manner that 

bypassed Communist leaders and provided greater intellectual and physical opportunities 

to the masses.37 In contemporary GPC, the United States, along with its allies, confronts a 

different competitive challenge: how to selectively disengage itself from China in places of 

strategic vulnerability without squandering the kinds of beneficial connectivity, transparency, and access that now exist and that remain desirable.

The Cold War bifurcation into trade blocs was outside the historic norm for multipolar 

GPC. Past Great Power competitions and transitions featured a mosaic of simultaneous economic confrontation and collaboration. The United Kingdom and Imperial Germany had 

steadily increasing trade volume—although an evolving character of exports—throughout 

the 25 years before World War I.38 Napoleonic France retained extensive economic ties 

with Great Britain beyond its 1803 declaration of war, and when Napoleon tried to impose 

an end to all British trade on the continent in 1806, extensive British merchant activities 

through Spain and Russia continued to supply France and Europe.39 At its Cold War height, 

Soviet exports to the United States totaled only $1 billion (in 1990).40 In 2017, Chinese exports to the United States were $500 billion, and U.S. company affiliates in China that year 

made $544 billion.41 Severing such well-established economic ties between Great Power 

rivals is difficult to do. Thus, it cannot be surprising that fully decoupling America from 

the Chinese economy would be difficult and with a cost that would be unacceptably high.42

The United States and China already have been gradually disengaging in multiple economic 

areas. Reciprocal direct foreign investment has been declining for 5 years. Some U.S. technology firms abandoned China as its “Great Firewall” grew, and more have become wary 

of doing business in China since its 2015 announcement of Made in China 2025 goals for 

IT and artificial intelligence (AI) dominance. Finally, the number of Chinese students in 

American universities began to decline in 2018. At the same time, Chinese and American 

interdependence in trade, capital markets, and currency markets run deep. Until the United 

States launched a trade war with China in 2018, these areas were not decoupling—thus 

demonstrating they will be difficult to disentangle.43

Past Great Power challenges inform critical dynamics of competition today. Great 

Power ability to win influence through durable alliances and valuable partnerships with less 

powerful states matters to successful competition.44 A dominant power best wins influence 

with other states by amplifying points of strategic commonality and minimizing points of 

friction. Today, the United States enjoys common ideological and political objectives with 

a robust array of states around the world, including across the Indo-Pacific region. Among 

other regional agreements and treaties establishing this strength are two major, complementary, bilateral vision documents: the U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision of January 2015 

and the India-Japan Vision 2025 strategic document signed in December 2015.45 Beyond 

this convergence with liberal democratic states, most countries prefer military cooperation 

with the United States to the limited and transactional cooperation offered by China.

At the same time, most states do not believe that severing economic ties with China is in 

their best interests.46 While American commercial finance stands supreme, China’s economic 

strength in trade supply chains, direct investments for infrastructure, and consumer market 

power are too large and important for smaller states to summarily jettison.47 Washington 
322 Lynch

lacks the economic capability to enforce a full-blown economic decoupling from China on 

its most important partner states.48 Thus, the United States will compete best with China by 

gaining and sustaining influence with ideologically and politically aligned states—without 

making them choose severing economic ties with China as a cost of participation. It must 

pick its grounds carefully when urging partners not to engage in particular forms of trade, 

finance, or technology ventures that would help China build its power and compromise U.S. 

partners’ sovereignty.

America’s best choice to compete with China is to anchor a partner/alliance structure on common ideology and political philosophy while leading it into a period of partial 

economic disengagement.49 The United States will have to negotiate partner assent to a 

framework that limits the most dangerous exposure of Western markets, labs, and innovative institutions to CCP control over Chinese economic actors, while continuing mutually 

beneficial trade and financial activities between China and America and its allies. This approach would require a measured and deliberate move toward restricting some forms of 

Chinese access to the United States and its partner economies and societies. The start point 

would see America and its partners agree to three major defensive economic goals from 

reduced trade with China: Limit vulnerability to CCP surveillance and sabotage, eliminate 

supply chain dependencies on China that may enable the CCP to credibly coerce or actually 

disrupt critical Western economic functions, and slow diffusion of innovation and technologies to China that are critical to Western commercial and military competitive edge.50

A network of cooperative advanced industrial democracies—each committed to common 

core values and interests—would leverage U.S. competitive advantages in ideological resonance, alliance-building, and partnership reliability without demanding severance of all 

economic interactions with China.

The network would continue genuine and reciprocal trade with China but take collective steps to monitor and constrain Chinese trade and investment activities aimed to 

steal advanced technologies from their commercial companies. It would cooperate and 

participate in collective public-private ventures that offer practical alternatives to Chinese 

critical information technologies at viable pricing and that form trusted networks that protect sensitive and proprietary data. It would band together in challenging Beijing’s most 

outrageous trade and industrial policies, increasing the odds that China will reconsider 

uncompetitive and illegitimate practices developed over many years. Finally, it would seek 

to prioritize meaningful reform of international institutions committed to a truly liberal 

global economy, overcoming the rise of nontariff barriers and national protectionism while 

establishing new standards for expanded free trade, investment, and growth in cutting-edge 

technologies featured in the fourth industrial revolution.51

An important catalyst for this kind of a U.S. partnership initiative featuring partial economic disengagement from China would involve high-standard trade agreements linking 

the economies of North America, Europe, and key parts of Asia. The United States need 

not begin this task from scratch; it needs only to rethink the opportunities already available 

to it. The 11 members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific 

Partnership (CPTPP) left the door open to American membership.52 A bridge from CPTPP 

through the United States to Mexico might be an important subsequent step. Although a 

number of Indian impediments to a free and full multilateral trade and finance partnership 
Conclusion 323

remain, earnest dialogue between CPTPP and India could chart a path for future inclusion. That path would include systematic attention to and investment in an enormously 

important economy in a liberal democratic country that shares Western ideological beliefs 

and that has great economic potential.53 A major trans-Atlantic agreement would be an 

additional logical step.

Exploiting America’s comparative advantages in ideological, political, and alliance 

formation realms—while evolving an alignment of partners committed to partial disengagement from China’s economy instead of a stark choice to decouple—best leverages 

U.S. competitive strength and minimizes risks from abrupt economic stagnation or unintentional war. Nonetheless, such an approach would require an uneasy truce within the 

American polity. Given its relative economic disadvantages with China, America cannot 

today swoon to the muse of laissez-faire economics and be properly competitive. Certain 

segments of the American polity hold to a dogma that unbridled free markets and unshackled private corporations are all that is necessary to ensure American economic success 

worldwide. This is a misreading of geopolitical competitions and U.S. economic history.

The United States has a clear record of government interventions to favor critical economic activities.54 It has consistently subsidized American agriculture to sustain farmers 

from the challenges of foreign competitors with both subsidized and natural comparative 

advantage. Washington also has favored protective tariffs and quotas against foreign competition in all but brief periods of its history. In times of extreme competition with Great 

Power rivals, American politicians have moved with great alacrity to subsidize economic 

programs and segments of the economy deemed to be vital to succeed against international 

competitors. Before America entered World War II, such subsidies came from U.S. Government loan guarantees for ships, planes, tanks, and industrial products needed by Great 

Britain and later Russia. During the Cold War, American-targeted investment and complementary tariff barriers “put a finger on the scale” in favor of advanced technologies, defense 

equipment, and even American mass agriculture in an effort to ensure competitive U.S. 

advantages against the Soviet Union.55 During the Cold War, Washington also indulged discriminatory tariffs and quotas for its junior anti-Soviet partners—countries such as Japan, 

South Korea, Taiwan, and those in Europe—to secure long-term geopolitical advantage 

despite short-term economic costs.

Educating the public would be necessary to generate political support for domestic 

economic renewal of a kind necessary to capitalize American government investment in competitive technologies and processes—like those involving IT, 5G, AI, quantum, and space. 

Here, the mindset of public direction and incentives for competitive and innovative technology that informed American policy in the Cold War is a relevant legacy.56 As in the Cold War, 

American policymakers will need to subsidize priority elements for competitive advantage 

in the economic sphere. Public investment will require investment capital. The need is clear: 

Federal-level investment in American research and development activities in 2018 was at its 

lowest level since 1955.57 To develop that pool, national political leaders will need to confront 

the extreme concentration of power and wealth in the hands of modern multinational corporate technology giants. With 50 percent of American wealth concentrated in 1 percent of 

its population, U.S. politicians will need to look at breaking up monopolistic companies and 

taxing exorbitant wealth as a means to incubate public investment and subsidies to rejuvenate 
324 Lynch

critical technologies, new businesses, and education to spur innovation.58 Thus, it will take 

leadership and political risk, but American national leaders can expose the myth that the 

U.S. Government is not an essential participant in competitive economics for what it is. Then 

it may take steps to ally with friendly countries and partner states to advance a program of 

managed disengagement and enhanced competition with China.

Seen through the lens of applied history, these three imperatives for U.S. success in 

contemporary Great Power competition—distinguishing modern GPC from the Cold War, 

building on American competitive advantages with partner states, and acknowledging the 

role for government management of critical economic programs in GPC—are complemented by four competitive dynamics with relevance for at least the next decade.

Four Competitive Principles 

The study of historic Great Power dyadic rivals offers a number of principles that can enable 

effective competition while minimizing the prospect of Great Power transition collapsing 

into Great Power war. Four stand out: firmness with flexibility, durable partnerships and 

alliances, the peril of reciprocal societal denigration, and playing for time.

Firmness with Flexibility 

First, the dominant Great Power must demonstrate firmness with flexibility. It must clearly 

signal the strategic aims that it will defend at all costs and then offer the prospect of dialogue 

on those it may be willing to negotiate. While firm on its nonnegotiable aims, it should be 

flexible in finding issues and venues where win-win outcomes are possible. For example, 

the United Kingdom accepted American primacy in the Western Atlantic as a better path 

to sustaining high seas primacy on vital routes for its Middle East and Asian colonies—and 

preferable to naval confrontation in recognition of growing American power. At the same 

time, the rising United States came to accept the once-abhorrent British monarchy in recognition of growing political enfranchisement for a great number of British citizens. Is there 

such trade room today for the United States and China to agree on rules for collaboration 

in space and cyberspace while at the same time negotiating over reduced CCP domestic 

economic and human rights constraints?

Flexibility must be paired with firm resolve. Strong security arrangements, backed by 

formidable U.S. military power, might harden feelings of antagonisms and suspicion, but 

they are indispensable to preserving the peace with China.59 If the CCP expects resistance 

from the United States and several mid-sized U.S. security partners, it is unlikely to fight for 

regional hegemony in the near term.60 There is a discernible degree of caution in China’s behavior that is wary of demonstrated strength and exploits perceived weakness.61 The United 

States and its Indo-Pacific partners must stand firm in resistance to China’s illegal maritime 

claims by demonstrating the will to operate in international waters and airspace with freedom of navigation operations and other joint activities. They also must stand firm with 

Japan on disputed islands. Concurrently, the United States must demonstrate flexibility and 

adaptability in defense activities within the First Island Chain. It should proceed with a 

mobile and unpredictable basing posture for American forces. In particular, Washington 

also should work with Taiwan on development of weapons and tactics for self-defense that 

emphasize the advantages of smaller, smarter, and cheaper. This kind of flexibility is not the 
Conclusion 325

same as ceding de facto spheres of influence to China with the First Island Chain or elsewhere in the Pacific.62 Instead, it is an acknowledgment that basic premises about sticking 

with allies and partners can remain firm even as tactics and techniques adapt.

The United States also can firmly support democratic institutions, individual liberties, 

and human rights in its alliances and in its interactions with China while demonstrating flexibility in pursuing aspirations for Chinese political reform. After first defending allies and 

partners from encroachment of Chinese authoritarian tendencies, America can demonstrate 

flexibility and patience in modeling patterns of individual liberty, freedom of information, and political participation to the people of China. During the Cold War, U.S. efforts 

to strengthen non-Communist elements within the Soviet bloc often met frustration in the 

near term. Western radio transmissions were blocked and censored, humanitarian assistance 

was refused, greater transit and tourism opportunities were blunted, and people-to-people 

programs declined. But over the long term—and especially after the Helsinki Accords of 

1975—these activities gave hope to those laboring for a freer future behind Moscow’s Iron 

Curtain. American support for democracy and liberty in regions around the world during the 

1970s and 1980s made the global ideological climate steadily less friendly to the Soviet Union’s 

repressive regime.63 This kind of a Cold War competitive mindset is applicable for competition 

with China today and must be melded with modern collective approaches that portray Chinese political and ideological representations as inappropriate. Today, as then, a large amount 

of America’s appeal is the power of an uncensored world.64

Durable Partnerships and Alliances 

The second competitive principle reinforces the imperative of alliances discussed earlier. 

This is both an imperative and a principle so important for successful GPC that it is worth 

reinforcement and extension. History demonstrates that the dominant Great Power must 

look to build and maintain durable, reciprocal interstate alliances that provide would-be 

partners with alternatives to the either-or choices posed by a hard-charging rival.65 Great 

Britain was right to seek strategic partnerships and allies in its rivalry with Napoleonic 

France, parlaying these alliances into first containment of the threat and later its defeat. 

Napoleon largely relied on territorial conquest and installation of family in positions of 

political power to expand French national power and elements of the French Revolution.66

Today, the United States has a far greater base for building economic and military partnerships than any other Great Power in modern history. It also confronts a rising Great 

Power in China with little experience or inclination in this area. The United States has invested in critical global alliances and partnerships over the years for precisely this kind of 

moment. Japan is an important illustration. Before the United States sought to secure China’s entry into the World Trade Organization—a push in the late 1990s—it first reaffirmed 

the U.S.-Japanese alliance formally in 1995. This was a prudent hedge of the American bet 

on China’s rise to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the world order and an investment 

that today blunts Chinese aspiration to dominate the Indo-Pacific beyond its First Island 

Chain—because Japan sits there.67 The U.S.-Japan alliance is an example of America’s “high 

card” of alliances and international institutions in its competition with China—and these 

should be cherished and well played.
326 Lynch

Washington has an enormous opportunity to construct alternative economic, diplomatic, and political geometries with an array of partners to give them alternatives to Chinese 

enticements and blandishments. However, many of America’s eager partners are today apprehensive about the recent unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy conduct. They want and 

value American partnership but worry that, unlike all its post–World War II predecessors, 

the current U.S. administration views commitment to rules-based international order and 

institutions to be more of a self-imposed constraint than a competitive advantage.68 Among 

other signs they desire in an American strategic partner is a future foreign policy free from 

sanctions, tariffs, and restricted access to U.S. dollars as major instruments unconstrained 

by allies, rules, or institutions.69 To be fully competitive with China, American policy must 

overcome this apprehension and practice a competitive foreign policy that views alliances 

as assets to be invested in rather than costs to be cut.70

The Peril of Reciprocal Societal Denigration 

Third, successful GPC short of direct military clash is extremely unlikely if the rivals 

descend into a poisonous, open, and reciprocal denigration of one another’s people. The 

choice to criticize the government of a rival state while distinguishing it from the people 

is not as risky—although a tightrope must be walked to maintain the difference. Once the 

British and Imperial German press went after the character of the other’s societies, the 

march toward World War I accelerated. So, too, World War II in the Pacific loomed ominously once the United States and Tojo’s Japan devolved to mutual societal recrimination, 

but the U.S. Government’s conscious Cold War effort to distinguish the Soviet Union’s 

Communist Party from the Russian people, reserving greatest criticism toward the Party 

and offering outreach to its people, generated a far different result. American leaders are 

likely to compete best with China while clearly distinguishing between its criticism of the 

CCP and its feelings for the Chinese people.

The growing acrimony and invective between China and the United States during the 

months from 2018 to 2020 is worrisome. In 2018, the Trump administration reportedly 

considered blocking Chinese citizens from receiving any student visas as part of its package 

of economic pressure but backed away.71 In March 2020, the U.S. Secretary of State pressed 

major industrialized nations to call the COVID-19 pandemic the “Wuhan virus.” This 

action during the G7 Foreign Ministers 

Meeting was later walked back, but it disrupted American leadership of the global 

pandemic response and gave CCP propagandists an incident with which to whip 

up anti-Western Chinese nationalism.72

President Trump threatened to “cut off the 

whole relationship” with China during a 

May 2020 interview.73 Such broadly critical 

rhetoric risks reinforcing a tactic already at 

the top of the CCP playbook: ceaselessly exploiting Chinese nationalism to shore up its 

legitimacy.74

“We must reject the notion that the competition with China is a ‘clash of civilizations’ and that conflict is inevitable. Our 

concerns are with the CCP and not the 

Chinese people. We can collaborate 

where possible but compete aggressively to protect our national interest 

and the international order that has kept 

us safe since 1945.”

—Michael Brown, Eric Chewning, and 

Pavneet Singh, Preparing the United States 

for the Superpower Marathon with China

(Brookings Institution, April 2020)
Conclusion 327

The dangers of reciprocity from China are real. While the Chinese foreign minister and 

other senior government officials often frame their criticism of the United States in ways 

that target the government in Washington, its activities abroad and at home often cross the 

line into mass denigration of Americans or other Westerners.75 Since late 2019, normally 

taciturn Chinese diplomats are now observed openly criticizing not only Western policies 

but also the social and cultural aspects of Europeans, Australians, and Americans in what 

has been coined “Wolf Warrior diplomacy.”76 Inside China, the CCP has co-opted Chinese 

nationalism as a tool to indoctrinate citizens and its diaspora to a narrative that America 

and its allies once colonized China and today victimize China by preventing its rise to a 

superpower, and that the CCP is China’s only savior.77 While the risks from such unbridled 

and growing mutual denigration do not now seem to include direct military clash, history 

indicates they will trend toward deepening risks of war in the future should implacable 

people-to-people hostility grow unabated.

To reduce the risk—and channel competition appropriately—the United States should 

focus legitimate criticism on the CCP and its policies in a manner that counters Chinese 

narratives feeding nationalist xenophobia. The line between criticizing the CCP and Chinese society is a fine one to walk—and will require calibration. An American effort to toe 

this line took place in early May 2020 when the Trump administration deputy national 

security advisor for Asia delivered a speech in Mandarin Chinese intended for the Chinese 

people that critiqued CCP efforts to clamp down on free speech while praising brave Chinese doctors and front-line workers in the response to COVID-19.78 An American program 

of communication should concentrate on countering CCP-driven disinformation.79 It also 

should work to counter the clear CCP domestic narrative that it is all that stands between 

China and chaos.80 At the same time, the United States should try to maximize positive interactions and experiences with the Chinese people. The United States and its free-and-open 

partner societies should consider issuing more visas and providing paths to citizenship for 

more Chinese, with proper safeguards in place. Chinese who engage with citizens of free 

countries are the ones who are most likely to question their government’s policies whether 

from abroad or when they return home. In this approach, the United States would do what 

it did with expatriate Russian communities during the Cold War: View Chinese expatriate 

communities as valuable citizens while discriminating between Ministry of State security 

agents for expulsion.81

Playing for Time 

Finally, some argue that time works in favor of the rising Great Power in a competitive dyad, 

putting the dominant Great Power at dire risk if it does not take swift confrontational action 

while its relative power is high. But this thesis rests on at least two dubious assumptions: 

that the rising power’s ascent is likely to be rapid and that the rising power will continue to 

ascend in a mainly linear fashion and not confront problems or challenges on the way. In 

the present moment, there is a strong case to be made that the critical factors confronting 

China at home and abroad make time work in favor of the United States.82

First, America has its own domestic inconsistencies and challenges, but these pale in 

comparison with those certain to play out within China over the coming couple of decades. The CCP faces multifaceted challenges to safeguard both its political position and 
328 Lynch

an economic rise that seems critical to 

CCP legitimacy. These multifaceted challenges include rampant environmental 

degradation; rising income inequalities; a 

rapidly aging and less productive population; chronic worry about abuses of political 

power; widespread corruption; restive domestic regions including Tibet, Xingxang, 

and Mongolia; and a poor record on human 

rights.83 As China’s economy shifts toward 

more reliance on domestic economic 

consumption, its economic growth decelerates, and its national debt continues to 

grow, these many domestic challenges are 

moving to the fore.84 Second, China faces 

serious unresolved challenges along its own 

borders, rendering its ability to dominate 

the Indo-Pacific region doubtful in the 

near term and making any global push by 

Beijing to reorder international norms and 

institutions a truly long-term proposition. 

China’s neighbors include formidable economic and military powers such as Japan, South 

Korea, Australia, and India. Each of them is increasingly apprehensive about China’s strategic ambitions and is deepening security ties with one another and the United States in 

response. Beijing’s ham-handed efforts to crush democratic resistance in Hong Kong and 

nationalism in Taiwan have stiffened regional headwinds for Chinese messaging.85

It is unwise for the United States to assume that China will succumb to these challenges. 

Such complacency could distract necessary attention to a serious Great Power rival. At the 

same time, a U.S. conclusion that China is destined for global dominance—particularly in 

the near term—is both unsupported and likely to generate strategic overreaction.86 China’s 

economic rise will make it a long-term challenge for the United States to manage rather 

than one to be conquered or converted.87 The United States and China are destined for a 

lengthy, uneasy coexistence, not decoupling or appeasement.88 Thus, a U.S. strategy that 

plays for time as China’s contradictions grow and as American resilience, regeneration, and 

the realization of a new competitive mindset emerge from more than two decades of torpor 

seems the one best suited for U.S. success in contemporary Great Power competition.89

The Way Forward 

Knowing the imperatives and principles of what the United States should do to succeed in a 

new era of Great Power competition is not the same as figuring out how to do it. Galvanizing 

American resolve to compete with the Soviet Union and move into a Cold War was a challenging process. Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson famously stated that the U.S. Government 

had to make arguments “clearer than truth” to get the American people and Congress to buy into 

“Beijing is learning, as have other nations, that building advanced equipment 

is the relatively easy and inexpensive part 

of becoming a major military power. Its 

characterization of the international environment, pressures from its military-industrial complex, and the arms race it has 

triggered will require increased funding 

and shape debate on how much money 

can be spent on other national priorities. 

It will also shape the challenges China 

faces in the international system because 

nations will respond to China’s buildup 

by arms purchases of their own and efforts to use alliances, alignments, and 

other instruments of geopolitics to counterbalance Chinese power.”

—Thomas Fingar and Jean C. Oi, “China’s 

Challenges: Now It Gets Much Harder,” The 

Washington Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 2020)
Conclusion 329

the effort to contain the Soviet Union. Acheson’s work on National Security Council Paper 68 

made the necessity of containment clear but was later critiqued as overreach.90

In 2020, the operative U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2017 stands as a stark 

contrast to its 2002 predecessor, a mere 15 years prior. The 2002 version of the NSS began 

with this preamble:

The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism 

ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable 

model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human 

rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom will be able to unleash the 

potential of their people and assure their future prosperity.91

The 2017 NSS successor paints a starkly different landscape:

China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting 

to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies 

less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data 

to repress their societies and expand their influence. . . . These competitions require 

the United States to rethink the policies of the past two decades—policies based on 

the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy 

partners. For the most part, this premise turned out to be false.92

In today’s new era of GPC, the Sino-American dyad is the rivalry of greatest significance. This contest features an ongoing power transition—always a dangerous dynamic 

of international politics in modern history. China is clearly growing in relative economic 

power, but the United States is a dominant state with clear comparative advantages—“high 

cards” in its hand—that it can build on to advantage.93 Alliance maintenance and cultivation 

is the most critical card. Firm and flexible confrontation when necessary and collaboration 

with China where possible is a second. Avoiding a regressive game of reciprocal societal 

invective is the third. And playing the long game—playing for time—is the fourth.

The NSS properly recognized the China challenge for what it was—formalizing a de 

facto new era of Great Power competition—but this overdue recognition could go terribly wrong if it generates unwarranted American hysteria and overreaction against Beijing. 

Overreaction in Washington could lead to high cards played badly.

The NSS culminates its geopolitical evaluation with a highly relevant rejoinder:

We learned the difficult lesson that when America does not lead, malign actors fill 

the void to the disadvantage of the United States. When America does lead, however, 

from a position of strength and confidence and in accordance with our interests and 

values, all benefit. Competition does not always mean hostility, nor does it inevitably 

lead to conflict—although none should doubt our commitment to defend our interests. An America that successfully competes is the best way to prevent conflict. Just as 
330 Lynch

American weakness invites challenge, American strength and confidence deters war 

and promotes peace.94

These words are measured, historically informed, and wise. Applied well—without resort 

to overreaction or backsliding into complacency—these words can inspire American confidence in the way forward for this new era of GPC. They also can give U.S. allies and potential 

partners confidence in American leadership and resolve. China’s behavior is galvanizing opposition among countries that do not want to be vassal states.95 A rejuvenating United States, 

with reframed domestic priorities and renewed focus on well-established and well-treated 

allies and partners, will have a clear advantage in what is likely to be a drawn-out era of Great 

Power competition with China.

The author thanks Frank Hoffman and Phillip C. Saunders for their thoughtful observations 

and critiques on early versions of this chapter.

Notes 

1

 Among a long list of public testimony, detailed studies, and 

published works of nonfiction and fiction predicting that such 

a novel and deadly virus was increasingly likely and the United 

States was vulnerable, see Daniel Coats, Statement for the Record: 

Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community 

to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Washington, DC: 

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2019), 21; Katie 

Pearce, “Pandemic Simulation Exercise Spotlights Massive 

Preparedness Gap,” Johns Hopkins University Hub, November 

6, 2019, available at <https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/11/06/event201-health-security/>; Crimson Contagion 2019 Functional 

Exercise Key Findings—Coordinating Draft (Washington, DC: 

Department of Health and Human Services, December 3, 2019), 

available at <https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-

2019-10-key-findings-and-after/05bd797500ea55be0724/

optimized/full.pdf>; Sonia Shah, Pandemic: Tracking 

Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (New York: 

Sarah Crichton Books, 2016); Lawrence Wright, The End of 

October: A Novel (New York: Knopf, 2020).

2

 The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and Austria-Hungary emerged 

from World War I so wounded that they would no longer compete 

as Great Power competitors in the interwar period. For further 

discussion, see chapter 2.

3

 For a detailed listing of the major insights from the 15 total 

book chapters (one of which is a couplet chapter, chapter 3), 

see the Major Findings section at the beginning of this volume.

4

 See this described in detail at Aaron L. Friedberg, “Competing 

with China,” Survival 60, no. 3 (2018), 7–64.

5

 For a detailed critique of the most conspicuous failures of 

modern globalization and hyper-interdependence in supply and 

finance chains by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the originator of the 

terms black swans and economic fat tails, see Bernard Avishai, 

“The Pandemic Isn’t a Black Swan but a Portent of a More Fragile 

Global System,” The New Yorker, April 21, 2020, available at 

<www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnta-black-swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system>; 

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from 

Disorder (New York: Random House, 2012).

6

 For a detailed discussion of this valuation of information power 

over industrial power, see chapter 6 of this volume.

7

 As demonstrated in chapter 3b of this volume, China does 

not today possess and is unlikely to attain sufficient power 

assets in the coming decade to enable a strategy of remaking 

the international order in its favor before domestic risk factors 

collapse the rule of the Chinese Community Party (CCP)—even 

if that was its actual strategy. For an opposite view that asserts 

China possesses a global grand strategy aspiring for leadership of 

a new tributary system soon to be resourced through a massive 

effort organized under three overlapping policies—carrying 

the names “Made in China 2025,” “Belt and Road Initiative,” 

and “Military-Civil Fusion”—see H.R. McMaster, “How China 

Sees the World: And How We Should See China,” The Atlantic, 

May 2020, available at <www.theatlantic.com/magazine/

archive/2020/05/mcmaster-china-strategy/609088/>.

8

 Steve Coll, “Woodrow Wilson’s Case of the Flu, and How 

Pandemics Change History,” The New Yorker, April 17, 2020, 

available at <www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/

woodrow-wilsons-case-of-the-flu-and-how-pandemics-changehistory>.

9

 Jon M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest 

Pandemic in History (New York: Penguin, 2004), 383–388.

10 Lloyd E. Ambrosius, “Woodrow Wilson’s Health and the Treaty 

Fight, 1919–1920,” The International History Review 9, no. 1 

(February 1987), 73–84.

11 Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939

(Berkley: University of California Press, 1973).

12 Barry, The Great Influenza, 449–455; Shah, Pandemic, 5–6, 

97–119, 201–217; James Traub, “After the Coronavirus, the Era of 

Small Government Will Be Over,” Foreign Policy, April 15, 2020, 

available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/coronaviruspandemic-small-government-aftermath-nationalism/>.

13 Henry A. Kissinger, “The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Forever 

Alter the World Order,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2020, available 

at <www.wsj.com/articles/the-coronavirus-pandemic-willforever-alter-the-world-order-11585953005>.

14 Traub, “After the Coronavirus, the Era of Small Government 

Will Be Over”; Henry Kissinger, World Order (New York: Penguin, 

2014), 361–374.

15 Richard Haass, “The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather 

Than Reshape It,” Foreign Affairs, April 7, 2020, available at 
Conclusion 331

<www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-04-07/

pandemic-will-accelerate-history-rather-reshape-it>.

16 Traub, “After the Coronavirus, the Era of Small Government 

Will Be Over.”

17 See Kurt M. Campbell and Rushi Doshi, “The Coronavirus 

Could Reshape Global Order,” Foreign Affairs, March 18, 2020. 

This is also implied in Kissinger, “The Coronavirus Pandemic 

Will Forever Alter the World Order.”

18 Matt Burrows and Peter Engelke, What World Post COVID-19? 

Three Scenarios, Atlantic Council Strategy Paper (Washington, 

DC: Atlantic Council, April 2020), 3–4, available at <www.

atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/What-WorldPost-COVID-19.pdf>.

19 Amitav Acharya, “How Coronavirus May Reshape the World Order,” 

National Interest, April 18, 2020, available at <https://nationalinterest.

org/feature/how-coronavirus-may-reshape-world-order-145972>.

20 Michal Green and Evan S. Medeiros, “The Pandemic Won’t Make 

China the World’s Leader,” Foreign Affairs, April 15, 2020, available 

at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-04-15/

pandemic-wont-make-china-worlds-leader>.

21 Haass, “The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than 

Reshape It.”

22 Ibid.

23 Burrows and Engelke, What World Post COVID-19, 3–4.

24 For a review of these offsetting opinions about Russia’s future, 

see Tom McTague, “The Pandemic’s Coming Geopolitical Second 

Wave,” The Atlantic, May 18, 2020, available at <www.theatlantic.

com/international/archive/2020/05/coronavirus-pandemicsecond-wave-geopolitics-instability/611668/>.

25 See for example, Tony Wood, Russia Without Putin: Money, 

Power, and the Myths of the New Cold War (London: Verso 

Books, 2018), 1–9; Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: 

Operative in the Kremlin (Washington DC: Brookings, 2015), 

especially 190–226, 312–341.

26 Haass, “The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than 

Reshape It.”

27 In 2019, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey 

found that 30 percent of Americans wanted the United States 

to play no active part in the world. A Gallup Poll that same 

year recorded up to 35 percent of Americans felt the United 

States should play much less of a role internationally than it 

did before the Trump administration. See Dina Smeltz et al., 

Rejecting Retreat: Americans Support U.S. Engagement in Global 

Affairs (Chicago: The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2019), 

available at <https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/

files/report_ccs19_rejecting-retreat_20190909.pdf>; V. Lance 

Tarrance, “Public Opinion and U.S. Engagement with the World,” 

Gallup, April 11, 2019, available at <https://news.gallup.com/

opinion/polling-matters/248588/public-opinion-engagementworld.aspx>.

28 Haass, “The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than 

Reshape It.”

29 John Lee, Decoupling the U.S. Economy from China After 

COVID-19 (Washington, DC: Hudson Institute, May 7, 

2020), available at <https://www.hudson.org/research/16009-

decoupling-the-us-economy-from-china-after-covid-19>; Haass, 

“The Pandemic Will Accelerate History Rather Than Reshape It.”

30 Green and Medeiros, “The Pandemic Won’t Make China the 

World’s Leader”; Haass, “The Pandemic Will Accelerate History 

Rather Than Reshape It”; Kissinger, “The Coronavirus Pandemic 

Will Forever Alter the World Order.”

31 Hal Brands and Peter D. Fever, “Reevaluating Diplomatic 

and Military Power: What Are America’s Alliances Good For?” 

Parameters 4, no. 2 (Summer 2017), 25–30.

32 A leading voice against calling this a period of Great Power 

competition (GPC), Michael Mazarr of RAND rests his 

contrarian view on a very narrow definition of classic Great 

Power competition, which he argues must feature a set of potential 

enemies with constantly shuffling allegiances and rivalries that 

typically manifest in military forms of competition. As detailed 

in chapter 2 of this volume, Mazarr’s stimulating viewpoint 

does not comport with a detailed examination of modern 

GPC—a history that has included bipolar competition as well 

as multipolar competition and has consistently involved a wide 

array of overlapping patterns of collaboration and confrontation 

in economics, ideas, information exchange, diplomacy, and 

militaries. See Michael J. Mazarr, “This Is Not a Great-Power 

Competition: Why the Term Doesn’t Capture Today’s Reality,” 

Foreign Affairs, May 29, 2019, available at <www.foreignaffairs.

com/articles/2019-05-29/not-great-power-competition>.

33 Kurt M. Campbell and Jake Sullivan, “Competition Without 

Catastrophe,” Foreign Affairs 98, no. 5 (September/October 

2019), 98–101.

34 For examples of some overwrought calls for Washington to 

invoke a Cold War against China, see Newt Gingrich, Trump 

vs. China: Facing America’s Greatest Threat (New York: Hachette 

Book Group, 2019); Giselle Donnelly, “What America Needs 

Is a ‘Good,’ Long Cold War,” American Enterprise Institute, 

February 10, 2020. For a concise listing of five reasons why the 

Sino-American strategic competition is not a new Cold War, 

see Michael Brown et al., Preparing the United States for the 

Superpower Marathon with China (Washington, DC: Brookings 

Institution, April 2020), 3−5.

35 Valuable competitive mindset dynamics from the Cold War 

are different from Cold War strategies and are detailed below, 

including those found in Stephen M. Walt, “Yesterday’s Cold War 

Shows How to Beat China Today,” Foreign Policy, July 29, 2019, 

available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/29/yesterdayscold-war-shows-how-to-beat-china-today/>. Also see Campbell 

and Sullivan, “Competition Without Catastrophe,” 101–107.

36 Other key differences between today’s Sino-American dyadic 

competition and the Cold War are mentioned in chapter 3a of 

this volume. By way of extension, China is the one rising Great 

Power with the positivist ideology and power potential to supplant 

the preferred U.S. international order. However, in 2020, China 

is not exporting its ideology aggressively or globally. Unlike 

the Soviet Union, which aggressively sought the destruction 

of the United States in the hearts and minds of countries it 

wanted to become future Communist states, China today has 

not called for the destruction of the United States and wants 

the world to be tolerant of its CCP-driven ideology. See Evan 

Osnos, “The Future of America’s Contest with China,” The New 

Yorker, January 6, 2020, available at <https://www.newyorker.

com/magazine/2020/01/13/the-future-of-americas-contest-withchina>; Odd Arne Westad, “The Sources of Chinese Conduct: 

Are Washington and Beijing Fighting a New Cold War?” Foreign 

Affairs 98, no. 5 (September/October 2019), 86–95.

37 See Walt, “Yesterday’s Cold War Shows How to Beat China 

Today.”

38 Edgar Crammond, “The Economic Relations of the British and 

German Empires,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 77, no. 

8 (July 1914), 777–824.

39 Alexander Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe

(New York: Palgrave, 2003), 28–33.

40 See “1991: Trade in Goods with USSR,” United States Census 

Bureau, available at <https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/

balance/c4610.html#1991>.

41 Osnos, “The Future of America’s Contest with China.”

42 In addition to the extremely high economic costs to the United 

States from fully decoupling all intertwined supply chains, China 

could take punitive steps that would impose high costs on an 
332 Lynch

array of other activities that today are taken for granted in the 

United States, including, but not limited to, large restraints 

or high taxes on commercial travel, greater use of non–dollar 

denominated currencies for international transactions, disruptive 

manipulation of its own currency and international commercial 

financial markets, and a resistance to working jointly on a wide 

array of other mutual issues and interests. See Keith Johnson and 

Robbie Gramer, “The Great Decoupling,” Foreign Policy, May 

14, 2020, available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/14/

china-us-pandemic-economy-tensions-trump-coronaviruscovid-new-cold-war-economics-the-great-decoupling/>; 

Henry M. Paulson, Jr., “Delusions of Decoupling,” remarks at 

the New Economy Forum, Beijing, November 2019, available at 

<https://www.paulsoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/

Delusions-of-Decoupling.pdf>; Osnos, “The Future of America’s 

Contest with China”; Campbell and Sullivan, “Competition 

Without Catastrophe,” 99.

43 Kevin Rudd, “To Decouple or Not to Decouple?” Robert F. 

Ellsworth Memorial Lecture, University of San Diego, November 

4, 2019.

44 This is not to imply that there are not costs and frustrations to 

alliances and partnership; there are. But the costs of American 

alliances are actually less burdensome than they are portrayed 

and more diverse and significant than appreciated. See Brands 

and Fever, “Reevaluating Diplomatic and Military Power,” 25–30. 

For similar points, see Walt, “Yesterday’s Cold War Shows How 

to Beat China Today”; Mira Rapp-Hooper, “Saving America’s 

Alliances: The United States Still Needs the System that Put It 

on Top,” Foreign Affairs 99, no. 2 (March/April 2020), 127–140.

45 See U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and 

Indian Ocean Region (Washington, DC: The White House, January 

25, 2015), available at <https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

the-press-office/2015/01/25/us-india-joint-strategic-visionasia-pacific-and-indian-ocean-region>; Japan and India Vision 

2025 Special Strategic and Global Partnership (Tokyo: Ministry 

of Foreign Affairs of Japan, December 12, 2015), available at 

<https://www.mofa.go.jp/s_sa/sw/in/page3e_000432.html>.

46 See Ashley Tellis, Alison Szalwinski, and Michael Wills, Strategic 

Asia 2020: U.S.-China Competition for Global Influence (Seattle: 

National Bureau of Asian Research, 2019), 41–42; Joseph S. Nye, 

Jr., “Power and Interdependence with China,” The Washington 

Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 2020), 15, 19.

47 As of 2018, 70 percent of countries traded more with China than 

they did with the United States. In 1980, 80 percent traded more 

with the United States than China. See Alyssa Leng and Roland 

Rajah, “Chart of the Week: Global Trade Through a U.S.-China 

Lens,” The Interpreter, December 18, 2019, available at <https://

www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/chart-week-global-tradethrough-us-china-lens>. At the same time, the United States 

continues to enjoy unrivaled power from its large commercial 

financial institutions and the dollar’s unrivaled status as the global 

reserve currency—neither of which is likely to be challenged by 

China in the near term. See Nye, “Power and Interdependence with 

China,” 15; see also appendix B of this volume, available at <https://

ndupress.ndu.edu/Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/>.

48 Ali Wyne, “How to Think About Potentially Decoupling from 

China,” Washington Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 2020), 47.

49 The concept of partial disengagement is derived from Charles 

W. Boustany, Jr., and Aaron L. Friedberg, Partial Disengagement: 

A New U.S. Strategy for Economic Competition with China, NBR 

Special Report No. 82 (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 

November 2019); Aaron L. Friedberg and Charles W. Boustany, 

Jr., “Partial Disengagement: A New U.S. Strategy for Economic 

Competition with China,” Washington Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 

2020), 23–40. A similar construct that focuses beyond economics 

and on the military, political, and diplomatic domains of SinoAmerican competition is found in Campbell and Sullivan, 

“Competition Without Catastrophe,” 101–110.

50 Boustany and Friedberg, Partial Disengagement, 26–35.

51 Most of these ideas are developed in some detail in Boustany and 

Friedberg, Partial Disengagement, 22–25. This approach requires 

the United States and its allies to cooperate in the reform and 

advancement of existing international organizations rather than 

abandon them. The dangers of abandonment are clear, for China 

has demonstrated an ability to fill the vacuum left by the United 

States and push for its own interests and agendas. See Colum 

Lynch and Elias Groll, “As U.S. Retreats from World Organizations, 

China Steps in to Fill the Void,” Foreign Policy, October 6, 

2017, available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/06/

as-u-s-retreats-from-world-organizations-china-stepsin-the-fill-the-void/>; Alex Pascal, “Against Washington’s 

‘Great Power’ Obsession,” The Atlantic, September 23, 2019, 

available at <www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/

multilateralism-nearly-dead-s-terrible-news/598615/>.

52 Among the many appealing for America to rethink and join 

the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific 

Partnership, see Boustany and Friedberg, Partial Disengagement, 24.

53 The challenges to fully engaging India economically are 

significant, but India continues to look seriously at beginning 

the vital processes of reducing economic protectionism and 

modernizing land, labor, and environmental laws. See Bill Spindle 

and Rajesh Roy, “India’s Coronavirus Crisis Spurs a New Look 

at Self-Reliance,” Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2020, available at 

<www.wsj.com/articles/indias-coronavirus-crisis-spurs-a-newlook-at-self-reliance-11589724001?mod=itp_wsj&ru=yahoo>.

54 Harvard Economist and Asia Center Senior Fellow William 

Overholt makes this point powerfully in many venues, including 

William H. Overholt, China and America: The Age of Realist 

Geoeconomics (Atlanta: The Carter Center, January 2018); William 

H. Overholt, “The Enemy Is Us,” The International Economy

(Summer 2015), 46–53.

55 For the important role U.S. Government subsidization and 

promotion of agriculture played during the Cold War, see Shane 

Hamilton, Supermarket USA: Food and Power in the Cold War 

Farms Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018).

56 For detail, see Walt, “Yesterday’s Cold War Shows How to 

Beat China Today.”

57 Osnos, “The Future of America’s Contest with China.”

58 These ideas are from Taleb in Avishai, “The Pandemic Isn’t 

a Black Swan.”

59 Charles Edel and Hal Brands, “The Real Origins of the U.S.-

China Cold War,” Foreign Policy, June 2, 2019, available at 

<https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/02/the-real-origins-of-theu-s-china-cold-war-big-think-communism/>.

60 Many Chinese leaders cannot believe that the Obama 

administration did not react more strongly to the 2010 seizure 

of Scarborough Shoal and the 2014 arming of it despite Chairman 

Xi Jinping’s promise to Obama that year that China had no 

intention of doing so. These Chinese officials indicate that a 

firm U.S. and allied response can moderate intemperate Chinese 

aggression in the Indo-Pacific region. See Osnos, “The Future of 

America’s Contest with China.”

61 Denny Roy, “China Won’t Achieve Regional Hegemony,” 

Washington Quarterly 43, no. 1 (Spring 2020), 105–106.

62 For variations on this misguided notion, see Graham Allison, 

“The New Spheres of Influence: Sharing the Globe with Other 

Great Powers,” Foreign Affairs 99, no. 2 (March/April 2020), 

30–40; Fareed Zakaria, “The New China Scare: Why America 

Shouldn’t Panic About Its Latest Challenger,” Foreign Affairs 99, 

no. 1 (January/February 2020), 52–69.

63 Edel and Brands, “The Real Origins of the U.S.-China Cold War.”

64 Osnos, “The Future of America’s Contest with China.”
Conclusion 333

65 Choosing proper allies also was a competitive mindset success 

for the United States during the Cold War. See Walt, “Yesterday’s 

Cold War Shows How to Beat China Today.”

66 Michael Broers, “Pride and Prejudice: The Napoleonic Empire 

Through the Eyes of Its Rulers,” in Napoleon’s Empire: European 

Politics in Global Perspective, ed. Ute Planert (Houndmills, 

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 307–317; Michael 

V. Leggiere, “Enduring Strategic Rivalries: Great Britain vs. 

France During the French Wars (1792–1815),” in Great 

Strategic Rivalries: From the Classical World to the Cold War, 

ed. James Lacey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 

289–390, available at <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/

great-strategic-rivalries-9780190620462?cc=us&lang=en&#>.

67 Nye, “Power and Interdependence with China,” 16.

68 “Don’t Be Fooled by the Trade Deal Between 

America and China,” The Economist, January 2, 2020, 

available at <www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/02/

dont-be-fooled-by-the-trade-deal-between-america-and-china>.

69 Nye, “Power and Interdependence with China,” 15–17.

70 Campbell and Sullivan, “Competition Without Catastrophe,” 

110.

71 See Stuart Anderson, “What Will Trump Do Next with Chinese 

Student Visas,” Forbes, October 18, 2018, available at <www.

forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/10/18/what-will-trumpdo-next-with-chinese-student-visas/#453fb89757a4>.

72 See John Hudson and Souad Mekhennet, “G-7 Failed to 

Agree on Statement After U.S. Insisted on Calling Coronavirus 

Outbreak ‘Wuhan Virus,’” Washington Post, March 25, 2020, 

available at <www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/

g-7-failed-to-agree-on-statement-after-us-insisted-oncalling-coronavirus-outbreak-wuhan-virus/2020/03/25/

f2bc7a02-6ed3-11ea-96a0-df4c5d9284af_story.html>; Jo Kim, 

“The Chinese People Step Up to Enforce China’s Nationalist 

Propaganda,” The Diplomat, May 5, 2020, available at <https://

thediplomat.com/2020/05/the-chinese-people-step-up-toenforce-chinas-nationalist-propaganda/>.

73 Demetri Sevastopulo, “Trump Threatens to Cut Off Relations 

with China,” Financial Times, May 15, 2020, available at <www.

ft.com/content/cfbba6bf-3de5-458d-92d1-a62fb958a354>.

74 Minxin Pei, “China’s Coming Upheaval: Competition, the 

Coronavirus, and the Weakness of Xi Jinping,” Foreign Affairs

99, no. 3 (May/June 2020), 82–106.

75 See Eva Dou, “In China-U.S. Showdown, Beijing’s 

Steely Propagandist Sharpens Her Attack,” Washington 

Post, May 21, 2020, available at <www.washingtonpost.

com/world/asia_pacific/in-china-us-showdown-beijingssteely-propagandist-sharpens-her-attack/2020/05/21/

f71133e4-94bd-11ea-87a3-22d324235636_story.html>.

76 Chun Han Wong and Chao Deng, “China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ 

Diplomats Are Ready to Fight,” Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2020, 

available at <www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomatsare-ready-to-fight-11589896722>; Jamie Dettmer, “China’s ‘Wolf 

Warrior’ Diplomacy Prompts International Backlash,” Voice 

of America, May 6, 2020, available at <www.voanews.com/

covid-19-pandemic/chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomacy-promptsinternational-backlash>; Lily Ko, “Australia Called ‘Gum Stuck to 

China’s Shoe’ by State Media in Coronavirus Investigation Stoush,”

The Guardian, April 28, 2020, available at <www.theguardian.

com/world/2020/apr/28/australia-called-gum-stuck-to-chinasshoe-by-state-media-in-coronavirus-investigation-stoush>; John 

Ross, “China Warns of Student Boycott of Australia,” Inside Higher 

Education, May 1, 2020, available at <www.insidehighered.com/

news/2020/05/01/china-warns-australia-student-boycott>.

77 Kim, “The Chinese People Step Up to Enforce China’s 

Nationalist Propaganda”; Vicky Xiuxhong Xu, “China’s Youth 

Are Trapped in the Cult of Nationalism,” Foreign Policy, October 

1, 2019, available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/01/

chinas-angry-young-nationalists/>.

78 Remarks by Deputy National Security Advisor Matt 

Pottinger to the Miller Center at the University of Virginia

(Washington, DC: The White House, May 4, 2020), available 

at <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/

remarks-deputy-national-security-advisor-matt-pottingermiller-center-university-virginia/>.

79 For details on the organizations involved in international 

propaganda and influence activities, see appendix 1 in Larry 

Diamond and Orville Schell, eds., China’s Influence & American 

Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance (Stanford: Hoover 

Institution Press, 2019), 133–141. Some former policymakers 

specifically focus on the Chinese Ministry of State Security, 

the United Front Work Department, and the Chinese Students 

and Scholars Association as ones for attention to counter CCPdriven propaganda. See McMaster, “How China Sees the World.”

80 Osnos, “The Future of America’s Contest with China.”

81 Proper “safeguards” for Chinese student, teacher, and research 

visas should include very tight limitations on Confucius Institutes 

in the United States to eliminate their revealed role in espionage, 

monitoring, and thought-policing on behalf of the CCP. The ideas 

for American policy valuing the Chinese people while holding the 

CCP accountable includes McMaster, “How China Sees the World.”

82 Strategic patience during the Cold War also was an American 

competitive mindset virtue. See Walt, “Yesterday’s Cold War 

Shows How to Beat China Today.”

83 See Pei, “China’s Coming Upheaval”; “Revised Demographic 

Forecasts for China: Key Takeaways,” The Economist, July 2, 

2019; William H. Overholt, China’s Crisis of Success (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 2018).

84 See William H. Overholt, “The West Is Getting China Wrong,” 

East Asia Forum, August 11, 2018, available at <https://www.

eastasiaforum.org/2018/08/11/the-west-is-getting-chinawrong/>; Yasheng Huang, “China Has a Big Economic Problem 

and It Isn’t the Trade War,” New York Times, January 17, 2020.

85 Wyne, “How to Think About Potentially Decoupling from 

China,” 41–64.

86 For similar conclusions, see Nye, “Power and Interdependence 

with China,” 13; Wyne, “How to Think About Potentially 

Decoupling from China,” 50–52.

87 Osnos, “The Future of America’s Contest with China”; Martin 

Wolf, “The Looming 100-Year U.S.-China Conflict,” Financial 

Times, June 4, 2019.

88 Osnos, “The Future of America’s Contest with China.”

89 For a detailed assessment of options for a U.S. strategic mindset 

for competition with China, see chapter 14 of this volume.

90 On Acheson, see Robert Kagan, “How Dean Acheson Won 

the Cold War: Statesmanship, Morality, and Foreign Policy,” 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 14, 

1998, available at <https://carnegieendowment.org/1998/09/14/

how-dean-acheson-won-cold-war-statesmanship-morality-andforeign-policy-pub-260>.

91 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 

(Washington, DC: The White House, September 2002), available 

at <http://nssarchive.us/national-security-strategy-2002/>.

92 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 

(Washington, DC: The White House, December 2017), available 

at <http://nssarchive.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2017.pdf>.

93 See Nye, “Power and Interdependence with China,” 16.

94 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

(2017).

95 McMaster, “How China Sees the World.”

335

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349

Appendix B

Contemporary Great Power 

Dynamics Competition Matrix

Available at <https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Contemporary-GPC-Dynamics-Matrix/>

351

Contributors

Dr. Thomas F. Lynch III is Acting Director of the Center for Strategic Research (CSR), 

Institute of National Strategic Studies (INSS), at the National Defense University (NDU) 

in Washington, DC. He also is the INSS Distinguished Research Fellow for South Asia, the 

Near East, and Countering Radical Islam. His primary ongoing research is about India’s strategic rise and implications for Great Power rivalry and Indo-Pacific security and stability. 

Among his many open-source publications are “The Growing Entente Between India and 

Japan,” The National Interest (March/April 2019) and “The Decades-Long ‘Double-Double 

Game’: Pakistan, the United States, and the Taliban,” Military Review (July/August 2018). 

Dr. Lynch received a bachelor of science in engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at 

West Point, a master of public administration, and a master of arts and doctor of philosophy 

in international relations from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Dr. Hassan Abbas is Distinguished Professor of International Relations in the Near 

East South Asia Strategic Studies Center in Washington, DC, and a former Professor of 

International Security Studies in the College of International Security Affairs at NDU. 

He serves as a senior advisor at Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs in the Weatherhead 

Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He is the author of The Taliban 

Revival: Violence and Extremism on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier (Yale University Press, 

2014) and Pakistan’s Nuclear Bomb: A Story of Defiance, Deterrence and Deviance (Oxford 

University Press, 2018). Dr. Abbas received a doctor of philosophy and master of arts in law 

and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a master of laws in international law from Nottingham University in the United Kingdom, and a 

master of arts in political science from Punjab University in Pakistan.

Dr. Zachary M. Abuza is a Professor of National Security Strategy in the National War 

College at NDU, where he focuses on Southeast Asian politics and security issues, including governance, insurgencies, democratization and human rights, and maritime security. 

He is the author of five books, including Forging Peace in Southeast Asia: Insurgencies, 

Peace Processes, and Reconciliation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); Conspiracy of Silence: The 

Insurgency in Southern Thailand (United States Institute of Peace, 2009); and Militant Islam 

in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (Lynne Rienner, 2003). In addition, Dr. Abuza has 

authored four monographs on security issues in Southeast Asia. He is currently working 

on a study project about Thai counterinsurgency strategy. Dr. Abuza received a doctor of 

philosophy and master of arts in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and 

Diplomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor of arts in Asian studies from Trinity College.
352 Contributors

Dr. Justin Anderson is a Senior Policy Fellow in the Center for the Study of Weapons of 

Mass Destruction (CSWMD), INSS. He conducts research on deterrence, arms control, 

and nuclear weapons issues, and he also serves as a Special Advisor to the Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency. He is co-author of “The INF Treaty: A Spectacular, Inflexible, TimeBound Success,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 13, no. 2 (Summer 2019). Dr. Anderson is a 

2003 Marshall Scholar and received a doctor of philosophy and master of arts in war studies 

from King’s College London.

Dr. Richard Andres is a Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College, 

where he directs the college’s course of study on strategy. He has served in a number of 

policy positions, including advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force, Commandant of 

the Marine Corps, and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command/Director of the National 

Security Agency. He currently holds faculty or board positions in the School of Advanced 

International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, Security Studies Program at 

Georgetown University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and American Enterprise 

Institute. Dr. Andres’s research focus is on the national security implications of information technology. He received a bachelor of arts in international finance from Fresno Pacific 

University and a doctor of philosophy in political science from the University of California, 

Davis.

Dr. David Auerswald is a Professor of Security Studies at the National War College, a position he has held since 2001. He has written books and articles on the geopolitics of the 

Arctic, North Atlantic Treaty Organization interventions, and the U.S. national security 

policy process. Dr. Auerswald is a former congressional staffer. He received a doctor of philosophy and master of arts in political science from the University of California San Diego 

and bachelor of arts in both political science and English literature from Brown University.

Mr. Paul Bernstein is a Distinguished Policy Fellow in CSWMD. He leads the center’s practice in strategic security analysis and is engaged in policy support, research, and professional 

military education activities related to WMD, nuclear policy, deterrence, missile defense, 

threat reduction, and regional security. He works in collaboration with the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, combatant commands, and defense agencies. He is co-author most recently of “Russia’s Hypersonic Weapons,” Georgetown Journal of International 

Affairs (December 2019) and a subject matter expert contributor to John A. Stevenson, 

Power Under Parity (NSI, Inc., September 2019). Mr. Bernstein holds a master of arts in 

international affairs from Columbia University.

Dr. R. Kim Cragin is the Senior Research Fellow for Special Operations and Counterterrorism 

in CSR. Dr. Cragin has conducted research on irregular warfare for over 20 years. Prior to 

joining INSS in 2015, she was a senior political scientist at RAND. Dr. Cragin has published 

widely in academic and policy journals. Her ongoing research focuses on proxy warfare 

in the Middle East and North Africa. Other recent publications include “Preventing the 

Next Wave of Foreign Terrorist Fighters,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (February 2019) 

and “Metastasis: Exploring the Impact of Foreign Fighters in Conflicts Abroad,” Journal 
Contributors 353

of Strategic Studies (November 2017). Dr. Cragin’s book, co-authored with Sara A. Daly, 

Women as Terrorists: Mothers, Recruiters, and Martyrs (Prager Security International) was 

released in 2009. She received a master of public policy from Duke University and a doctor 

of philosophy in history from Cambridge University.

Dr. Diane DiEuliis is a Senior Research Fellow in CSWMD. Her research focuses on emerging biological technologies, biodefense, and preparedness for biothreats. Her expertise 

includes synthetic biology; the U.S. bioeconomy; dual-use life sciences research; and behavioral, cognitive, and social sciences. She is author most recently of “Key National Security 

Questions for the Future of Synthetic Biology,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 43, no. 1 

(Winter 2019). Dr. DiEuliis received a doctor of philosophy in biology from the University 

of Delaware.

Dr. Gerald Epstein is a Distinguished Policy Fellow in CSWMD. He works at the intersection of science, technology, and security policy, particularly on the governance and 

security implications of advanced life, biotechnologies, and other emerging and converging technologies. He recently completed service on the National Academies of Sciences, 

Engineering, and Medicine committee responsible for writing Safeguarding the Bioeconomy

(The National Academies Press, 2020). Dr. Epstein received a doctor of philosophy in astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mr. Douglas Farah is a Visiting Senior Fellow in CSR. He is the president of IBI Consultants, 

a national security consulting firm. Previously, he worked as a foreign correspondent 

and investigative reporter to the Washington Post for more than 20 years, covering Latin 

America and West Africa. He is an expert on national security, transnational crime, illicit 

finance, and nonstate armed actors. Mr. Farah has provided testimony before House and 

Senate committees, presented at security conferences across the hemisphere, and published 

two books. He received a bachelor of arts in Latin American studies and bachelor of science 

in journalism from the University of Kansas.

Dr. T.X. Hammes is a Distinguished Research Fellow in CSR. He has served at all levels 

in the operating forces, including commanding an intelligence battalion, infantry battalion, and the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force during his 30-year career in the 

Marine Corps. He participated in stabilization operations in Somalia and Iraq as well as 

training insurgents in various places. He is the author of 3 books and over 170 articles. He 

lectures extensively on the future of conflict, strategy, and insurgency in the United States, 

Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Dr. Hammes received a bachelor of science in operations 

analysis from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master of arts in historical research and a doctor of philosophy in modern history from Oxford University.

Dr. Todd C. Helmus is a Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND and a faculty member at the 

Pardee RAND Graduate School. His specializations include disinformation, terrorism, and 

strategic communications. His most recent work has focused on countering Russian disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe and countering violent extremism 
354 Contributors

through analyzing Twitter networks. Dr. Helmus served as a deployed advisor to U.S. commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan and has led studies on U.S. training of Afghan special forces. 

He received a doctor of philosophy in clinical psychology from Wayne State University.

Dr. Frank G. Hoffman is a Distinguished Research Fellow in CSR. His principal research 

focus is national security and defense strategies, defense economics, and joint force development. In addition to his research duties, Dr. Hoffman teaches strategy at the National 

War College and future warfare in the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security 

and Resource Strategy at NDU. His most recent article is “The Missing Element in Crafting 

National Strategy: A Theory of Success,” Joint Force Quarterly 97 (2nd Quarter 2020). His 

forthcoming book is Mars Adapting: Military Change in War (Naval Institute Press). Dr. 

Hoffman received a bachelor of science in economics from the Wharton Business School at 

the University of Pennsylvania. He also received a master of education from George Mason 

University and a master of arts in national strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College. 

He holds a doctor of philosophy in war studies from King’s College London.

Dr. Steven Philip Kramer is Professor of History at NDU, serving in INSS. He focuses 

on the application of history to the development of policy and national strategy. He is an 

authority on French and European history and politics and was a senior policy advisor 

in the Department of State. His books include Socialism in Europe: The Experience of a 

Generation (Westview Press, 1984); Does France Still Count? The French Role in the New 

Europe (Praeger, 1994); and The Other Population Crisis: What Governments Can Do About 

Falling Birth Rates (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2013). Dr. Kramer has written articles 

in Foreign Affairs, Washington Quarterly, and Politique Etrangère. His most recent publication is “France’s Muslim Predicament,” The National Interest (April 2020). He received a 

doctor of philosophy in history from Princeton University.

Dr. Irene Kyriakopoulos is Distinguished Professor of National Security Policy in INSS, 

where she teaches and co-leads the European Studies Concentration program. She has 

lectured and written widely on the economic dimensions of security and the political economy of European integration. Her work has been published by the Brookings Institution, 

NDU Press, Defense Management Journal, Joint Force Quarterly, Mediterranean Quarterly, 

Intereconomics, and World Economics. The focus of her recent research has been on Europe’s 

debt crisis and migration policies with related publications, including “In the Name of 

the Euro: What Have the EU’s Policies Achieved in Greece?” Intereconomics (November/

December 2014) and “Europe’s Responses to the Migration Crisis: Implications for 

European Integration,” INSS Strategic Insights (April 2019). Dr. Kyriakopoulos received a 

bachelor of science in economics from the University of Maryland and a master of arts and 

doctor of philosophy in economics from The George Washington University.

Dr. Bryce Loidolt is a Research Fellow in INSS, where his research focuses on security cooperation and unconventional warfare. Previously, he was a defense analyst at RAND. His 

work has appeared as RAND monographs, as well as in academic journals such as Terrorism 

in Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. 
Contributors 355

Dr. Loidolt received a bachelor of arts in Middle East studies from Middlebury College, a 

master of arts in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and 

a doctor of philosophy in political science from The George Washington University.

Ms. Amanda Moodie is Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders and a Policy Fellow 

in CSWMD. Her policy support focuses on the international legal regimes that regulate 

the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons. Her research interests include the 

history of chemical and biological weapons, compliance and enforcement of chemical and 

biological weapons law, and international assistance in the event of a chemical or biological 

weapons attack. Ms. Moodie is co-author of “The Virus of Disinformation: Echoes of Past 

Bioweapons Accusations in Today’s COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories,” War on the Rocks

(April 2020). She received a bachelor of arts in political science and English from Duke 

University and a master of arts in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts 

University.

Dr. Mariya Omelicheva is a Professor of Strategy at the National War College. Her research 

and teaching interests include international and Eurasian security, counterterrorism and 

human rights, democracy promotion in the post-Soviet territory, Russia’s foreign and security policy, and terrorism/crime nexus. She is the co-author, with Lawrence P. Markowitz, 

of Webs of Corruption: Trafficking and Terrorism in Central Asia (Columbia University, 

2019) and author of Democracy in Central Asia: Competing Perspectives and Alternate 

Strategies (University Press of Kentucky, 2015) and Counterterrorism Policies in Central Asia

(Routledge, 2011), which received an Outstanding Academic Title Award by Choice. Dr. 

Omelicheva received a doctor of philosophy in political science from Purdue University and 

a doctor of jurisprudence in international law from the Moscow National Law Academy.

Dr. James Przystup is a Senior Research Fellow in CSR. For over 30 years, he has concentrated on U.S. relations with the Indo-Pacific region. He has served on the U.S. House 

of Representatives Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, as Deputy Director of the 

Presidential Advisory Commission on U.S.-Japan Relations, on the Policy Planning Staff of 

the State Department, as Director for Regional Security Strategy in the Office of the Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy, and as Director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage 

Foundation. Dr. Przystup graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts in history 

from the University of Detroit. He received a master of arts in international relations and a 

doctor of philosophy in diplomatic history from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Phillip C. Saunders is Director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, 

INSS. He previously worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he 

served as Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program from 1999 to 2003, and worked 

on Asia policy issues as an officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1989 to 1993. Dr. Saunders is 

co-author, with David Gompert, of The Paradox of Power: Sino-American Strategic Restraint 

in an Era of Vulnerability (NDU Press, 2011) and co-editor of seven books, including 

Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms (NDU Press, 2019) and 

PLA Influence on China’s National Security Policymaking (Stanford University Press, 2015). 
356 Contributors

He also has edited NDU Press books on Chinese contingency planning, China-Taiwan relations, the Chinese navy, and the Chinese air force and published numerous articles and 

book chapters on China and Asian security issues. Dr. Saunders received a bachelor of arts 

in history from Harvard University and master of public administration and doctor of philosophy in international relations and affairs from Princeton University.

Dr. Shannon Smith is a Professor of Practice and Director of Engagement in the Africa 

Center for Strategic Studies at NDU. Prior to joining the Africa Center, she served as 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, where she oversaw U.S. East and Southern 

Africa policy and led Africa Bureau efforts on Sudan and South Sudan, global health, and 

the environment. Dr. Smith has also served as the Senior Policy Adviser for the Senate 

Foreign Relations Committee on Africa, global health, and peacekeeping issues and previously as the National Security Adviser for the Assistant Majority Leader of the Senate. She is 

a summa cum laude graduate of Texas A&M University and received a doctor of philosophy 

from Cornell University.

Ms. Caitlyn Yates is the Research Coordinator at IBI Consultants and in CSR. Previously, 

she worked as a Research Associate in the Mexico Security Initiative, Strauss Center for 

International Security and Law, at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work focuses on 

human security, organized crime, transit migration, and borders in Latin America. She has 

presented her work before the United Nations, to government agencies and departments, 

and at academic conferences. Ms. Yates received a bachelor of arts in anthropology from 

Trinity University and a master of global policy studies from the Lyndon B. Johnson School 

of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
357

Index

3D printing, 108–109, 133–134

Abe, Shinzo, 188–189

ABI Research, 107

Abkhazia, 51

Acheson, Dean, 328–329

Aerovel, 123

Afghanistan, 123, 188

Africa, 157, 222, 223, 229, 277–279, 313

Air Force Research Lab, 124

Airbone Warning and Control Systems, 128–129

Al-Asad, Bashar, 179, 222, 240–241, 276

Al-Awlaki, Anwar, 161

Al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr, 237–238

Al Qaeda, 161, 233–234, 235–237, 242

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, 243, 244

Allison, Graham, 19, 22

Alternative fur Deutschland, 260

American Cultural Centers, 91

Andres, Richard, 6–7

Anti-Defamation League, 239

Arctic Council, 280, 281

Arctic region, 279–281, 313

arms control agreements, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 176

artificial intelligence, 105, 107–108, 115, 124, 127, 

146–147

ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), 194, 196–197

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), 195, 199

Asian Development Bank, 297

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), 53, 89, 

193, 210, 293

Aso, Taro, 188–189

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 

194, 210, 297

asylum seekers in Europe, 255–256, 257–258

Australia, 132–133, 135, 202, 209, 235

and China, 199–200

as a terrorism risk mitigator, 244–245

U.S. alliance with, 186–187, 196–197, 198, 199, 

200, 205, 296

Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 159

Autodesk, 108

Azerbaijan, 125

Bageri, Major General Mohammad, 223

Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical 

and Economic Cooperation, 197

Beckley, Michael, 75, 97

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 54–55, 86, 89–90, 115, 

193, 196, 199, 210, 263, 272–273, 277, 299

Berger, J.M., 162

Bernstein, Paul, 7

Better Utilization of Investments Leading to 

Development Act (BUILD Act), 195–196, 209, 

296–297

Biden, Joe, 318

Biological Weapons Convention, 176, 177

biotechnology, 112–113, 115, 177–178

Bodine-Baron, Elizabeth, 155

Bolivarian Alliance, 273

Bolsover, Gillian, 157

Brands, Hal, 290

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) 

grouping, 53, 58, 96

Brown, Michael, 326

Bush, George W., 52, 188, 195

Canada, 114–115

Carbon3D, 108

Central African Republic, 222

Changying Precision Technology Company, 106

Chemical Weapons Convention, 178–180

Cheney, Dick, 188

Chewning, Eric, 326

China

activities in the Arctic, 280, 281

Arctic Policy, 280

attitudes of foreigners toward, 81, 91, 201–202

authoritarian capitalism as a model for 

development, 49, 55, 201, 212

as the benefactor of American unipolarity, 

19–20, 189–190

censorship by, 90, 157

challenge to American global dominance, 20, 

55–57, 60, 61–64, 89, 289–291

challenges to U.S. airpower, 128–129

charm offensive, 53, 191

“community of common interest” framework for 

the Indo-Pacific region, 90, 185, 197, 199, 201, 

202, 210, 301, 311, 312

competition with the United States in the IndoPacific region, 57, 185–213, 289–304, 319

and control inside the First Island Chain, 

134–135, 197, 212, 312–313, 324–325

and control of the global information 

infrastructure, 139–149
358 Index

cooperation with Russa to promote a multipolar 

world, 55, 58, 96, 227, 311, 313, 314

and COVID-19, 91, 92, 159–160, 163, 199–200, 

203–204, 265–266, 317, 318, 326

and cyber warfare, 130–131

defense budget, 88, 92, 188

desire for greater influence over global rules, 

norms, and institutions, 20, 53, 54–57, 60, 61–64, 

89, 193, 227, 289–291, 293, 295, 297–298, 299, 

301

and development of chemical weapons, 179, 180

diplomatic effort to obscure relative power in the 

Indo-Pacific region, 56

domestic vulnerabilities, 187, 191, 199, 297, 301, 

325, 327–328

and economic competition, 53, 63, 77–80, 84–86, 

98–99, 187, 194–195, 199, 209–211, 254–255, 

272–273, 275, 276, 295–297, 319, 321–322

economic development plan, 54–55, 85

economic diplomacy, 189, 199, 209–210, 301

economic power, 48–49, 50, 53–55, 84–86, 91, 

92, 143, 189, 190–191, 294, 295–297, 310, 312, 

317, 321–322

effectiveness of propaganda efforts, 90–91, 92, 

201, 203, 319, 328

engagement in Latin America, 272–273, 274

engagement in the Middle East, 275–277

and establishment of new regional and global 

institutions, 53, 63, 89–90

and ethnic minority population, 189

and the European economy, 254–255

foreign students in, 201–202, 278

and freedom of navigation, 54, 89, 192–193, 194

GDP (gross domestic product), 74, 77, 85

ideological capabilities, 90, 92, 98–99, 201–202, 

212–213, 272, 276, 279, 282, 299

infection of U.S. infrastructure with malware, 

143

informational and communications capabilities, 

53, 83–84, 90–91, 92, 139–149, 157–160, 

203–204, 254–255, 278, 319

integration into global economic and governance 

structures, 19–20, 47, 54, 55, 60, 89, 187, 188, 

193, 194

intellectual property policies, 139, 140–143, 

145–146, 147–148, 194

investments in Africa, 277–279, 297

investments in the European Union, 254–255, 

263

Japanese territorial interests in, 33–34, 35

lack of interest in alliances, 53, 199, 325

limited military power projection capability, 

87–88

military assistance programs, 273

military capabilities, 56, 80, 86–88, 91–92, 190, 

204–207, 296, 300

modernization of the military, 56, 86, 188, 190, 

296, 300

“nine-dash line” claims in the South China Sea, 

190, 192–193

nuclear weapons, 87, 173–175

objectives for Asia-Pacific security cooperation, 

56

and Pakistan, 88, 91, 199

Polar Research Institute, 280

and political and diplomatic competition, 56, 61, 

89, 92, 198–200

pursuit of strategic partnerships, 53

relationship with Europe, 254–255, 263–264

relationship with Iran, 227

relationship with North Korea, 227

relationships with rogue states, 220–221, 

226–229

and satellite technology, 129–130

and the Second Island Chain, 197

sensitivity to U.S. alliances and partnerships in 

the Indo-Pacific region, 49, 189, 205–206, 207, 

212, 324–325, 328

strategic objectives, 53–57, 65–66, 189–197, 328

Strategic Support Force (SSF), 130–131

support for infrastructure development, 54–55, 

86, 89–90, 115, 193, 196, 199, 209–210, 263, 

272–273, 277, 299

and Taiwan, 56, 57, 157, 158–159, 160, 189, 190, 

191–192, 205, 206–207, 212, 324–325, 328

and technological competition, 105, 113, 115, 

298

territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea, 

20, 189, 190, 191, 192–193, 194, 211, 292–293, 

324

theft of intellectual property by, 139, 140–143, 

145–146, 147–148, 298, 301, 303–304, 312, 322

threats from terrorist organizations, 234–235

trade agreements, 209–210, 322–323

trade war with the United States, 78, 86, 209, 211, 

321–322

troops for UN peacekeeping missions, 89

and the United Nations, 55, 60, 61, 89

unresolved territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific 

region, 20, 189, 190, 191, 192–193, 194, 197, 199, 

201, 205

use of gray zone tactics to reinforce maritime 

claims, 205
Index 359

use of social media for propaganda, 153, 154, 

156, 157–160, 163

weapons development, 126, 127, 134

China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, 275

China-ASEAN Forum, 199

China Central Television (CCTV), 203

China Daily, 158

China Development Bank, 272

China Export-Import Bank, 272

China Global Investment Tracker, 86

China Global Television Network (CGTN), 90, 158, 

203

China News Service, 160

China Open Shipping Company, 263

China Radio International, 90, 203

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

censorship and propaganda by, 90, 301

and the China Dream of national rejuvenation, 

56

communications and influence strategy, 

157–158, 319

concern about vulnerability to U.S. power, 

190–191

domestic legitimacy of, 48, 49, 50, 57, 157–158, 

187, 297, 299, 301, 324, 327–328

economic objectives, 49, 85, 115, 322

global ambitions, 297, 300

Indo-Pacific policy, 191, 194–195, 201, 297, 302

and international propaganda, 203–204, 212

and nationalism, 327

“socialism with Chinese characteristics,” 47

Clausewitz, Carl von, 134

Climate change, 11–12

Clinton, Hillary, 193

Clinton, William, 187, 188

Coats, Daniel R., 90

Cold War, 83, 141–142, 147, 320–321, 323, 325, 326, 

327, 328–329

Collaborative robots, 106–107

colonies, competition for, 25, 26–27, 28–29, 30, 32

Comprehensive Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership (CPTPP), 208, 211, 322–323

Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building 

Measures in Asia (CICA), 53, 193

confluence of the Two Seas vision, 188–189

Confucius Institutes, 90–91, 202, 273, 275, 278, 299

Constructivist theory, 18, 19, 23

Conway, Maura, 163

Cook, Sarah, 157

Coronavirus (COVID-19), 78, 80, 82, 84, 85, 91, 

92, 95, 109–110, 159–160, 163, 178, 199–201, 

203–204, 209, 251, 255, 258–259, 265–266, 309, 

310, 315–319, 326

Council on Foreign Relations, 290

Counterterrorism, 7–8, 233–246, 277, 314

Cragin, Kim, 7–8

Crimea, 20, 51

cruise missiles, 127, 129, 131, 133

Cuba, 273, 274

cyber capabilities

Chinese, 130–131, 301

Russian, 130, 131, 221–222, 223

of small states and nonstate actors, 131–132, 224, 

226

United States, 150, 301

cyberspace

and 5G technologies, 144–145, 254–255, 264, 

301

and artificial intelligence, 146–147

and control of the electromagnetic spectrum, 

130–131

and Great Power competition, 10, 65, 67, 

130–131, 144–147, 227, 314, 324

and quantum computers, 146

Cyprus, 253, 254

Dabiq, 162

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, 107, 124

Defiant Lab, 122–123

Deng Xiaoping, 48

Denmark, 264, 280

Department of Defense Arctic Strategy, 280

Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, 189, 194

DiEuliis, Diane, 6

DiResta, Renee, 158

Djibouti, 277

drones

anti-drone technology, 124, 133

cost advantages of the use of, 122–123

and defense of Europe, 135

ground, 123–124, 126–127

maritime, 123, 127–128

operational implications of, 131–134

produced by 3D printing, 133–134

surveillance, 122–123, 125–126, 129–130

in swarms, 124, 125

tactical impact on warfighting, 126–130

use of artificial intelligence in, 124, 127

use of by small state and nonstate actors, 134

Dublin Regulation, 256

Dunford, General Joseph, 9–10

East Asian Summit (EAS), 199

East China Sea, 189, 191, 194, 205, 292–293
360 Index

economic competition, 6, 63–64, 84

in Africa, 277–279, 281–282

between the UK and Germany, 27–28, 30

between the UK and the United States, 30–33

between the United States and China, 48, 77–80, 

91, 191–192, 207–211, 272–273, 275, 276, 277, 

281–282, 291, 295–297, 303–304, 319

between the United States and Japan, 33, 35

between the United States and Russia, 77, 79, 94, 

272, 273–274, 281–282

Economist, The, 109–110

Egypt, 276–277

Energy trends, 109–112, 122

Erdogan, Recep Tayyip, 241

Europe, 8, 251–266

China’s role in the economy, 254–255, 263–264

concerns about U.S. commitment to the defense 

of, 263, 264, 266, 313

defense industries, 132–133

and far-right extremists, 260

Russian interference in, 261–262

weakening of the Franco-German partnership, 

259, 261, 265

European Border and Coast Guard Agency 

(FRONTEX), 257, 262

European Central Bank (ECB), 253

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), 251

European Commission, 256, 257, 258, 261, 263, 264

European Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, 258

European Union (EU), 251

Common Foreign and Security Policy, 262

European Agenda for Security, 262

global strategy, 262–265

Permanent Structured Cooperation, 262

relationship with Russia, 264–265

Eurozone, 252–253

Facebook, 147, 153, 155, 156–157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 

163–164, 202

Federal Bureau of Investigation, 238

Fingar, Thomas, 328

Five-Power Treaty (1921–1922), 33–34

Flournoy, Michèle, 300

Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, 278

fourth industrial revolution

described, 6, 105, 106

and Great Power technological competition, 

105–116, 134–135, 139, 298–299, 311–312

and weapons, 121–122, 178–179

France, 23, 25–27, 38, 254, 259, 260, 261, 263, 264, 

265, 266, 321

Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Vision, 185, 186, 

187, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 208–209, 211, 

212, 312

Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS), 189, 

205, 245, 324

Friedberg, Aaron L., 21, 36, 38, 56, 67, 78, 197, 299, 

304

Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance, 107–108

Gao Xingjian, 202

General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), 63

General Motors, 106

geographical spheres of interest, bilateral bargain 

strategy based on, 292–293

Gerasimov, General Valery, 156, 221

German Social Democratic Party (SPD), 260

Germany, 263, 264, 321

dyadic rivalry with the UK from the late 19th to 

the mid-20th centuries, 23, 27–30, 37, 38

and the European Union, 257, 259, 260, 261, 263, 

265

Gill, Bates, 204

global financial crisis, 2008, 48, 190–191, 251, 

252–255, 256, 259

global information infrastructure, competition 

between China and the United States for control 

of, 139–141, 142–149, 312

Global Terrorism Database, 237, 239

Goldman Sachs, 107

gray zone operations

and biological weapons, 177

and chemical weapons, 179–180

China’s use of in maritime operations, 205

Russia’s use of, 221

Great Power competition

in Africa, 277–279, 281–283

application of net power calculations to current 

situation, 97–98

in the Arctic, 279–283

between the United States and China, 98, 99, 

185–213, 271–283, 289–304, 309, 311, 319–330

between the United States and Russia, 98, 99, 

221, 271–283, 311

and counterterrorism, 239–242

and COVID-19, 315–319

and Europe, 251–266

and the fourth industrial revolution, 105–106

in the Indo-Pacific region, 64, 66, 185–213, 

312–313

in Latin America, 271–274, 281–283

in the Middle East, 96, 275–277, 281–283

multipolar competition, 314–315, 320–321
Index 361

principles critical to U.S. success in, 309, 310, 

319–330

reemergence of in the 2010s, 20–21

role of rogues, disrupters, and spoilers in, 

219–229

and small, smart, and cheap weapons, 126, 127, 

134–135

universal aspects/categories of, 5–6, 17, 21–23, 

36–37

variations of, 1–4

Great Power transitions, 2

alternatives to war during, 22–23, 36, 310, 315, 

324–328

application of net power calculations to today’s 

situation, 97–98

dynamics of, 314–315

frameworks for understanding, 17–21, 320

historical, 5–6, 17, 22–37

military clash (war) as a likely feature of, 22–25, 

36, 38

Great Powers

alliances and partnerships as a source of strength 

to, 321, 325–326, 329

assets and tool sets of contemporary, 6, 74–77

characteristics of, 1, 4, 46

failure of the European Union to achieve the 

status of, 251, 252

lack of cooperation in fighting terrorism, 236, 

245–246

net power index, 97, 98

perceptions of their own powers during 

transitions, 37–38

Russian aspiration to status as, 20, 50–52, 58–59, 

60, 65, 92, 220, 221–223, 281, 310

Greece, 253, 254, 255, 256–257, 263

Greenland, 280, 281

Greer, Tanner, 207

gross domestic product (GDP), 74, 76–77

of China, 74, 77, 85

of Europe, 253, 264

as a measure of state power, 74

of Russia, 74, 77, 94, 280–281

of the United States, 74, 77, 114–115

Guam, 129, 207

Gulf of Aden, 54, 294

Guo Wengui, 159

Haass, Richard, 318

Hainan Island, 192

Hammes, T.X., 6

Hasse, Ernst, 29

Hegemonic stability theory, 18–19, 33

Helmus, Todd, 7

Hoffman, Frank, 5, 8

Hong Kong, 157, 158, 159, 160, 203, 207–208, 328

Howard, Michael, 21

Hu Jintao, 54

Huawei, 139, 145–146, 264, 278

Hungary, 260

Iceland, 280, 281

ideological competition, 5, 7, 37, 48, 50, 62, 82–83, 

90–91, 94–95, 157, 200–202, 210, 299

India, 52, 89, 175, 188–189, 195, 196–199, 205–206, 

296, 322–323

India-Japan Vision 2025, 200, 321

Indo-Pacific region

counterterrorism efforts in, 244–245

and COVID-19 response, 319

economic development in the, 207–211, 

295–297, 302, 312–313

as a focus of Great Power competition, 52, 64–66, 

185–213, 289–290, 292, 294, 295–299, 319, 324, 

328

military power competition in, 204–207, 

295–296

North Korean threats to, 225–226

trade integration in, 208–210

vulnerability of other Asian countries to 

China’s rising power as the central dynamic, 56, 

207–211, 295–297, 302

Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 196

Indonesia, 135, 198, 199, 202, 244, 245

industrial robots, 106

informational competition, 5, 6–7, 37, 60, 76, 83–84, 

90–91, 299, 312

between the United States and China, 82–83, 

90–91, 139–149, 202–204, 210

during the Cold War, 83

and fifth generation (5G) wireless 

communications technologies, 144–145

and political-psychological operations, 139, 

141–142, 143–144, 145–148, 153–164, 312

by Russia, 51, 52, 83–84, 95, 143–144, 147, 153, 

154–157, 221–222

use of social media for, 139, 143–144, 145–147, 

148, 153–164

infrastructure development, support for, 54–55, 

76–77, 84, 86, 89–90, 115, 193, 195–196, 199, 

208–210, 263–264, 272–273, 277–278, 296–297, 

299

Institute of International Finance, 115

intellectual property

theft of by China, 139, 140–143, 145–146, 

147–148, 298, 303–304, 312, 322

vulnerability to cyber theft, 142–143, 298, 303
362 Index

Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, 173, 

294

International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation 

and Political Violence, 162

International Civil Aviation Organization, 89

International Energy Agency, 109, 110, 111

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 63, 81, 253, 293, 

295, 296–297

International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 89

Internet

and 5G technology, 144–145, 254–255, 264, 301

accessibility of, 83–84, 90

isolation of Russia from, 95

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 

Numbers, 83

Internet Research Agency (IRA) – Russia, 95

INTERPOL, 89, 95, 163

Iran, 123, 143, 148, 156, 203, 219–221, 222–229, 235, 

240–241, 242–244, 262, 275–276, 277

Iraq, 123, 161, 162, 188, 224, 237, 242–243, 245, 275, 

277

Islam, 236–237, 242

Islamic State, 123, 153, 154, 161–164, 234, 235–238, 

239–241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 259

Israel, 127, 223, 224, 225, 228, 276, 277

Italy, 256, 263, 265

Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation, 244

Japan, 325

defense industry, 132–133, 135

dyadic rivalry with the United States during the 

early 20th century, 23, 33–35, 38

relationship with China, 189, 192, 199, 202, 292

threat from North Korea, 225

trade agreements, 208, 209, 210

U.S. alliance with, 186–189, 190, 196–197, 198, 

199, 200, 205

Japan Security Treaty, 194

Johnson, Boris, 260–261

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), 223, 

225, 262

Kaplan, Robert, 66

Kennedy, Paul, 21

Kim Jong-un, 225, 226, 227, 229

Kissinger, Henry, 316

Klausen, Jytte, 162

Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of (North 

Korea), 52, 148, 175, 179, 188, 219–221, 225–229

Korea, Republic of (South Korea), 132–133, 135, 

186–187, 196–197, 198, 200, 202, 205, 208, 209, 

210, 225, 293

Kramer, Steven, 8

Kurdish militias, 239–240, 241, 265

Kyriakopoulos, Irene, 8

Lacey, James, 22

Latin America, 271, 272–274, 313

Lee Teng-hui, 190

Liberal and institutionalist theory, 18, 19, 22–23, 33

Libya, 222, 279

Loidolt, Bryce, 8

Lynch, Thomas, 5, 6, 7, 8–9

Maastricht Treaty, 251–252, 253, 262

Macron, Emmanuel, 257, 259, 261, 265

Made in China 2025, 55, 85, 113, 115, 147, 321

Maduro, Nicolás, 222, 274

Malaysia, 192, 196, 198, 199, 202, 205, 244, 245, 292

Martin, Diego, 154, 155

Mazarr, Michael, 21, 22, 98, 154

McKinsey & Company, 110

McMaster, H.R., 194–195

mercantilism, 25–26

mercenaries, Russian use of, 222, 240, 241, 274, 279

Merkel, Angela, 255, 256, 257, 260, 261

Mexico, 114–115, 322–323

Middle East, 52–53, 65, 66, 96, 188, 219–229, 240–244, 

275–277, 313

migration challenge to the European Union, 255–258, 

259–260, 262, 266

Mischief Reef, 190

Mongolia, 196

Musk, Elon, 111–112

Myanmar, 198

nanotechnology and weapons systems, 122

Nansha Islands, 192

National Academy of Sciences, 113

National Cyber Strategy, 148

National Security Council Paper 68, 328–329

National Strategy for Counterterrorism, 2018, 234

Neorealist theory, 18, 22

New America Foundation, 238–239

New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), 

171–172

New Zealand, 196, 210

Nicaragua, 273, 274

Nord Stream pipeline, 264

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 50, 81, 135, 

172–173, 179–180

dialogue with China, 295

European concerns about U.S. commitment to, 

263, 264, 266, 313

and the European migration crisis, 257

and European security strategy, 263, 264–265, 

313
Index 363

and Russia, 50–51, 58, 172–173, 222–223

and Sea Guardian operation, 250

Northern Sea Route, 280, 281

nuclear weapons, 80

arms race involving, 170–172, 174–175, 176, 

313–314

China, 87, 173–175, 313–314

and Great Power competition, 170–176, 313–314

on hypersonic missiles, 175

Iranian development of, 223, 225, 262

nonstrategic, 172–173

North Korean development of, 173, 188, 220, 

225, 226, 228

and Russia, 52, 92–93, 170–173, 175, 220, 313

tactical, 174

Obama, Barack, 82, 193

Obama administration, 47–48, 49, 52, 191–192, 193, 

194, 195, 208

Oi, Jean C., 328

Operation Inherent Resolve, 235, 239–240, 243

Orban, Viktor, 260

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, 275

Osama bin Laden, 161

Pakistan, 88, 91, 199, 202

Pan-German League, 29

Paracel Islands, 189, 192

Paris Climate Agreement, 11–12

Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1997 (EURussia), 264

Péguy, Charles, 251

Pence, Mike, 318

People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

Air Force, 87

Army, 86

capabilities, 205–207, 302–303

composition of, 204–205

confidence-building exercises with Asian 

militaries, 190–191

cooperation with U.S. forces, 294

domestic missions, 87–88

and military diplomacy, 88

missions, 54, 205–206

modernization of, 56, 86, 205, 206

Navy, 87, 123, 204–205, 294

participation in UN peacekeeping operations, 

278

and protection of Chinese overseas interests, 54

Rocket Force, 87, 173

Permanent Court of Arbitration, 192–193

Perry, Commodore Matthew, 33

Pew Global Attitude Survey, 82, 91

Pew International surveys, 81, 82, 94, 202

Philippines, 135, 186–187, 190, 192–193, 196–197, 

198, 200, 202, 205, 244–245, 292, 293, 296

Poland, 125, 260

political and diplomatic competition, 5, 61–62, 75–76, 

81–82, 92–93

Chinese tools for, 36, 61, 89, 92, 198–200

in the Indo-Pacific region, 198–200, 210, 

300–301

U.S. tools for, 61, 81–82, 198, 297–298, 300–301

Pompeo, Michael, 195, 208–209, 280

propaganda campaigns, 51, 52, 90–91, 92, 143–144, 

147, 153, 154–160, 163, 201, 203, 221–222, 239, 

312, 319, 328

Przystup, James, 7

Putin, Vladimir, 62, 63, 93, 171, 313, 317–318

aspiration to Great Power status for Russia, 20, 

50–52, 58–59, 60, 65, 92, 310

international perception of, 94

and Latin America, 273–274

and the Middle East, 276

and Russian informational and communications 

capabilities, 95

and terrorists, 240, 245–246

Qardash, Abdullah, 237–238

Radio Free Asia, 203

RAND, 206–207

Realist theory, 18–19, 27, 33

refugees, 255–258

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership 

(RCEP), 193, 209, 210

robotics, 105–107, 115, 133

Rubio, Marco, 299

Rumer, Eugene, 58

Russia

aspiration to Great Power status, 20, 50–52, 

58–59, 60, 65, 92, 220, 221–223, 281, 310

control of its “near abroad,” 58, 60, 64, 313

cooperation with China to promote a multipolar 

world, 55, 58, 96, 203–204, 227, 311, 313, 314

and COVID-19, 317–318

and cyber warfare, 130, 131

defense budget, 88, 93

as a destabilizing force, 219–223, 227–229

and development of biological weapons, 177

and development of chemical weapons, 179–180

disinformation campaigns, 95, 221–222, 264, 275

domestic politics, 51

economic capabilities, 63, 94, 95–96

engagement in Africa, 278–279

engagement in Latin America, 272, 273–274
364 Index

engagement in the Middle East, 275–277

GDP, 74, 77, 94

ideological resonance, 94–95, 274, 276, 282, 313

and the Indo-Pacific region, 185

informational and communications capabilities, 

83–84, 95, 143–144, 147, 154–157, 221–222

and interference in European affairs, 259, 

261–262, 264

Internet Research Agency, 155, 156–157

invasion of Crimea, 47

military assistance programs, 273–274, 275

military capabilities, 51–52, 80, 92–94, 96, 221, 

240

modernization of the military, 93

as a near-term threat to the United States, 50–52, 

58–62, 67, 92–96, 97, 98, 99, 219–220, 221–223, 

228, 271–283, 289

and nuclear weapons, 92–93, 169, 170–173

Policy for the Arctic, 280–281

propaganda and disinformation efforts by, 51, 52, 

143–144, 147, 153–157, 163, 221–222, 239

relationship with the European Union, 264

resistance to U.S. international leadership role, 

58, 221

status as a Great Power, 7, 58–59, 65

strategic objectives, 58, 65–66, 262, 311, 313

and Syria, 240–242

and technological competition, 105, 115–116

threats from terrorist organizations, 234–235

and the United Nations, 60, 61–62

and the U.S. 2016 presidential election, 155, 156, 

163

use of ground drones, 123–124

use of gray zone tactics, 221

use of mercenaries, 222, 240, 241, 274, 279

use of social media for propaganda, 153, 

154–157, 159, 164

weapons development, 126, 127, 134

Russian Television (RT), 95, 155

Salafi-jihadists, 235–238, 242, 243, 244

Sanovich, Sergey, 156

satellite technology and Cube Sats, 125–126, 129–130

Saudi Arabia, 224, 225, 228, 235, 242–244, 275, 

276–277

Saunders, Phillip, 6, 7, 293, 302

Schuman Plan 1949, 251, 265

Schwab, Klaus, 105

Seehoffer, Horst, 257

Shanahan, Patrick, 10

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), 53, 58, 

96, 193

Shapiro, Jacob, 154, 155

Singapore, 135, 198, 200, 210, 244

Singh, Pavneet, 326

Skripal, Sergei, 222

social media

censorship of in China, 157–158, 203

Russian use of to spread disinformation, 95, 

221–222

use of by terrorist organizations, 153, 154, 

161–164, 239

use of for foreign propaganda campaigns, 

153–164

and U.S. public diplomacy and information 

dissemination, 202–203

Sokolsky, Richard, 58

South China Morning Post, 203, 227

South China Sea, 20, 89, 189, 190, 191, 192–193, 194, 

205, 207, 211, 245, 292–293, 324

Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative, 197

Southern California Edison, 111

Soviet Union, 19, 141–142, 144, 179, 304, 320, 321, 

325, 326, 328–329

space, and Great Power competition, 9–10, 65, 66–67, 

314, 324

Spain, 253, 254, 321

Spanish Flu (Great Pandemic of 1918), 309–310, 

315–316

Spratly Islands, 189, 192

Sputnik radio, 95, 155

state power, measuring of, 74–75

Steinberg, James B., 187

Strait of Hormuz, 224, 225

Stuxnet malware, 143

Sudan, 222, 226

Suleimani, Qassem, 224, 225

Sweden, 263

Syria, 162, 179, 221, 224, 225, 235, 237, 239–242, 245, 

265, 275, 277, 314

Taiwan, 48, 49, 200, 274, 279, 292

Chinese desire for reunification with, 56, 57, 157, 

158–159, 160, 189, 190, 191–192, 324–325, 328

potential U.S.-China conflict over, 205, 206–207, 

212

U.S. support for, 188, 190, 191–192, 196, 197, 

292, 293, 300

Taiwan Foreign Relations Act, 206, 293

Taiwan Straits, 188

terrorists

and 9/11 attack on the United States, 188, 

233–234

and the European Union, 159, 266

far-right and white supremacist, 238–239

as a global threat, 236, 242–246
Index 365

Iranian support for, 224

left-wing extremists, 239

and the Middle East, 242–244

and Southeast Asia, 244–245

use of biological weapons, 176

use of social media by, 153, 154, 161–164, 239

as U.S. security threat, 52, 233–246, 314

Tesla, 111–112

Thailand, 186–187, 198, 200, 202

Thicke, Alan, 201

Thucydides’s Trap Case File, 22

Tiananmen Square, 187

Tibet, 49, 191

trade war, United States and China, 78, 85, 209, 211, 

321–322

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 194, 195, 208, 211, 

296, 299

Treaty of Westphalia (1648), 21

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 

(NPT), 176

Trump, Donald

and Asian relations, 198

and COVID-19, 318, 326

international confidence in, 82, 276

offer to buy Greenland, 281

policy toward China, 194–196, 326

Russian support for, 155

Trump administration

and alliances, 196–197, 198, 205–206, 208, 296, 

326

and COVID-19 response, 317, 318, 327

immigration policy, 114

and NATO, 266

and rebalancing of priorities toward the IndoPacific region, 52

skepticism of U.S. role in international 

institutions, 82

and strategy toward China, 290

and Syria, 240

and trade negotiations, 194–195, 208–209, 

211–212, 296

and trade war with China, 85

Turkey, 223, 240–241, 256–257, 258, 265

Twitter, 153–154, 155, 156–157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 

163–164, 202–203

Ukraine, 20, 51, 125, 131, 164, 221, 222, 223, 262, 266

United Arab Republics, 243, 275

United Kingdom

and Brexit, 259, 260–261, 264, 266

dyadic rivalry with France from the late 18th to 

the early 19th centuries, 23, 25–27, 38, 321

dyadic rivalry with Imperial Germany from the 

late 19th to the mid-20th centuries, 23, 27–30, 

37, 38, 321

dyadic rivalry with the United States from the 

late 19th to mid-20th centuries, 23–24, 30–33, 

324

and the European Union, 259, 260–261

Great Rapprochement with the United States, 

32–33

United Nations, 55, 60, 61–62, 89, 95, 227, 278

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 

(UNCLOS), 89, 192–193, 205, 281

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 

Organization (UNESCO), 89

United Nations Industrial Development Organization 

(UNIDO), 89

United Nations Security Council, 55, 81, 89, 95, 96, 

222, 226, 274, 276

United States

alliance structure in the Indo-Pacific region, 

186–187, 194, 196–197, 198, 199, 204, 205, 211, 

212, 294, 295, 296, 298, 300–301, 302, 312–313, 

319, 320, 321, 322, 325

assistance to African countries, 277

assistance to Middle Eastern countries, 275

aviation fleet strength, 80–81

competition with China in the Indo-Pacific 

region, 57, 185–213, 289–304, 317, 319–320

counterterrorism operations, 235, 239–242

and cyber warfare, 130

defense against biological attacks, 177–178

defense against chemical weapons, 179–180

defense budget, 80, 300, 301–302

domestic terrorism, 238–239

dyadic rivalry with Japan during the early 20th 

century, 23, 33–35, 38

dyadic rivalry with the UK from the late 19th to 

the mid-20th centuries, 23–24, 30–33

and economic competition, 33, 35, 48, 63–64, 

77–80, 91, 187, 191–192, 207–211, 272–275, 

276, 277, 281–282, 291, 295–297, 302, 303–304, 

319–320, 321–322

European concerns about commitment to 

NATO, 263, 264, 266, 313

failure to lead in the fight against COVID-19, 

317, 318, 326

force protection, 240, 241, 242, 244, 245–246

foreign students drawn to, 200–201, 299, 321

“Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vision, 185, 186, 

187, 195, 196, 198, 208–209

and global development financing, 195–196, 

208–209, 293, 295, 296–299
366 Index

Great Rapprochement with the UK, 32–33, 37

GDP, 77–78

homeland protection, 11, 233–234

ideological resonance, 82, 83, 99, 186–187, 188, 

200–201, 202, 212–213, 299, 301, 312–313, 

319–320, 321–322, 325

immigration policy, 113–114

informational and communications capabilities, 

83–84, 90–91, 139–149, 202–203, 204, 210, 297, 

301, 319

language advantage in informational 

competition, 201

military alliances as a source of strength, 81, 204, 

205, 300, 302

military capabilities, 74–75, 76, 80–81, 98, 172, 

174, 204–207, 293, 296, 300, 302, 313–314, 

319–320

military cooperation with the Peoples Liberation 

Army, 294

nuclear arsenal, 80, 170–173

objectives in Africa, 277

objectives in Latin America, 272

objectives in the Middle East, 275

and political and diplomatic competition, 61, 

81–82, 198, 297–298, 300–301

rebalance to Asia, 49, 52, 191–192, 193, 194, 195, 

196–197, 198, 205–206, 208, 295

reliance on allies in counterterrorism efforts, 

234, 235

response to Chinese assertiveness in the South 

China Sea, 20, 194, 211, 292–293, 324 

response to Russian aggression in Crimea, 20

role of military in the Indo-Pacific region, 

204–207

Russian interference in domestic politics, 155, 

156, 163, 221–222

security assistance and arms sales programs, 81

shale oil production, 109–110

skepticism of participation in international 

institutions, 82, 208, 296, 326

social media used as a threat to U.S. interests, 

153–164

strategic competitiveness, need for renewal of, 

303

strategic engagement of China, 47, 289–304

strategic engagement of Russia, 1992 to 2008, 47

strategic objectives in the Arctic, 277, 279–280

strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific region, 

185, 186–188, 193–197

and technological competition, 105–106, 111, 

112–113, 114–115, 298

theft of intellectual property by China, 139, 

140–143, 298, 301, 303–304, 312, 322

threats to from rogue states, 219–229

trade policy in the Indo-Pacific region, 194, 195, 

207–208, 211, 296, 299, 322–323

trade war with China, 78, 85, 209, 211, 321–322

as the unipolar force, 1992 to 2008, 19, 36, 47, 

289, 309, 311

use of financial sanctions, 79

viewed by other countries as a reliable partner, 

81, 82

vulnerability of infrastructure to cyber attacks, 

143

vulnerability to theft of intellectual property, 139, 

140–143, 144–149

weapons development, 126, 127, 132–133, 

134–135

U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), 203

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 

297

U.S. Air Force, 123, 126, 128–130

U.S. Army, 126

U.S. Central Command, 244

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review 

Commission, 298–299

U.S. Coast Guard, 197

U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), 10, 143

U.S. Department of Defense, 112–113, 195, 196, 

205–206

U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 143

U.S. Department of State, 195, 198, 203

U.S. Energy Information Administration, 109

U.S.-India Strategic Vision of January 2015, 52, 200, 

321

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, 195, 204

U.S. Intellectual Property Commission, 143

U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) of 2018, 2, 11, 

20, 21–22, 48, 52, 53, 133, 135, 154, 170, 171, 

219–220, 233–234, 246, 271, 290, 291, 294, 296

U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2002, 329

U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2017, 1–2, 20, 

48, 52, 53, 148, 194–195, 219–220, 233–234, 290, 

300, 329–330

U.S. Navy, 80, 123, 127–128

U.S. News & World Report, 116

U.S. Space Command, 130

U.S. Space Force, 9–10

University of Michigan Correlates of War Project, 22

University of Oxford, 153

University of Virginia, 125

Uren, Tom, 156

USNS Impeccable, 192
Index 367

USS Enterprise, 127

USS Forrestal, 127

USS Oriskany, 127

Venezuela, 222, 273, 274

Vietnam, 192, 196, 197, 198, 199, 205, 292, 296

violent extremist organizations, 233, 234–246

Wagner Group, 222, 274

Wall Street Journal, 109

Warner, Mark, 299

Washington Post, 158

weapons

directed energy, 133

hypersonic, 122, 126, 128, 129, 175

nuclear. See nuclear weapons

precision, 121–122, 133, 134

small, smart, and cheap, 121–135

undersea, 127–128

weapons of mass destruction

biological weapons, 169, 176–178

chemical weapons, 169, 178–180, 225, 226, 240

and Chinese-U.S. competition, 169, 173–175

North Korean development of, 225, 226

nuclear weapons. See nuclear weapons

and Russian-U.S. competition, 169, 170–173, 

175, 313

Weber, Max, 3

White, Hugh, 292

Wilson, Woodrow, 34, 316, 317

World Bank (WB), 63, 81, 89, 295, 296–297

World Health Organization, 12, 81, 318

World Trade Organization (WTO), 48, 54, 63, 81, 187, 

188, 208, 293, 295, 325

World War I, 27, 30, 32, 37, 309–310, 315–316, 326

World War II, 30, 32, 33, 310, 326

Wright, Thomas J., 20

Wyne, Ali, 46

Xcel, 111

Xi Jinping

“Asia for Asians” concept, 193

and the Belt and Road Initiative, 54

centralization of power under, 47, 49–50, 194, 

212, 318

and the China Dream of national rejuvenation, 

56

and Indo-Pacific policy, 191, 192, 199, 201

and the Middle East, 275

and modernization of the Chinese military, 56

and North Korea, 227

Xinhua, 90, 158, 193, 203

Xinjiang, 49, 191

Xu, Major General Hezhen, 142

Yang Jiechi, 194

Yemen, 224, 225, 226, 242, 243–244

YouTube, 159, 161

Yuan Guiren, 201

ZTE, 264
“A tremendously thoughtful contribution to understanding and charting 

a path forward on the central national security challenge of our era. 

Contributors include some of the most creative national security thinkers 

writing today, and the volume is filled with sparkling insights. Highly 

recommended for national security practitioners and analysts alike.”

—Michael J. Mazarr

The RAND Corporation

“The unipolar moment has come and gone and Great Power 

competition is once again the defining feature of international politics. 

Strategic Assessment 2020 is a terrific resource for anyone trying to 

understand this brave new world. It is filled with top-notch chapters 

that deal with the key issues facing today’s Great Powers: China, 

Russia, and the United States.”

—John J. Mearsheimer

R. Wendell Harrison 

Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science

University of Chicago

“The renewal of Great Power competition is one of the key trends in 

geopolitics today, requiring rethink in areas that range from diplomacy 

to military doctrine. From its interplay with new technology such as 

social media and drones to age-old questions of how the competition 

plays out in battleground states, Strategic Assessment 2020 provides an 

incredibly useful primer on various facets of the problem and the new 

strategic landscape the U.S. must navigate. A valuable addition for both 

scholarship and more informed policymaking.”

—P.W. Singer

Strategist at New America and author 

of Ghost Fleet, LikeWar, and Burn-In

“At a time when Great Power competition amid interdependence can 

be more confusing than enlightening, Thomas Lynch and his colleagues 

have produced an insightful guide for the perplexed. By ranging across 

history, technology, and geopolitics, this volume not only illuminates 

the multiple dimensions of the evolving U.S.-China rivalry but also more 

importantly educates policymakers about what winning entails in a nonzero-sum competition.”

—Ashley J. Tellis

Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and Senior Fellow

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace