Sino-Russian Military Alignment and Its Implications for Global Security

Abstract

What is the nature and impact of Sino-Russian alignment? What are the conditions under which each is likely to support the other militarily and with what type of support? To answer these questions, this article presents a novel alignment framework that best captures war fighting capabilities and how great powers align and determines the values of each indicator based on English, Chinese and Russian sources. I argue that China and Russia are significantly aligned and trending towards an even more extensive alignment relationship. However, the scope of their military alignment is limited to facilitating China’s challenge of US hegemony in Asia. Additionally, Russian support comes in the form of enhancing China’s independent combat capacity and potentially providing support functions in wartime but does not extend to direct involvement. These findings have implications for the literature on alignment, deterrence calculations and ourunderstanding of Russian and Chinese strategic thinking.