Era Of Great Power Competition Research Articles

Measuring Public Preferences for Strategic Choices in an Era of Great Power Competition: Taiwan as a Case Study

As the U.S.–China relationship tilts toward competition and confrontation, scholars and policymakers have focused on the strategic choices faced by the citizens of small and medium-sized countries caught between the two great powers. However, methodological deficiencies remain in how public preferences for these strategic choices are measured. This paper attempts to fill this gap by developing a new means of measuring public opinion regarding strategic choices. Using survey data collected in Taiwan in March 2023, we demonstrate how this measure is constructed and why it aligns more closely with the theoretical concept of strategic choices. Our findings indicate that preferences for different strategies in Taiwan follow a U-shaped distribution that is centered either on hedging with the United States or with China. Multivariate analyses show that factors such as the threat of China, the U.S. security commitment to Taiwan, skepticism toward the United States, confidence in Taiwan’s military, and partisanship are all correlated with public preferences for different strategies. This paper helps us understand these preferences among citizens in small and medium-sized countries and contributes to the literature on public opinion, international relations theory, and policymaking.

Charting a Course in Troubled Waters: Towards a New Cold War in Global Commons

The global commons, encompassing the vast expanses of the world’s oceans and beyond, have emerged as the battlegrounds of a new era of great power competition. This article scrutinises the escalating great power competition in the global commons. Integrating geopolitics, maritime strategy, international relations theory and historical perspectives, we illuminate the multifaceted dimensions of this rivalry and its implications for global security. Our analysis examines U.S. naval strategies, China’s ascendance and the role of emerging technologies in naval power. Our findings unveil a rapidly evolving landscape where nations escalate their contest for pivotal sea routes, resources and strategic locales—a rivalry deeply rooted in historical precedents; within this context, China’s naval modernisation and Belt and Road Initiative are recalibrating the extant power equilibrium. As we enter a new era of competition, the global commons present both opportunities and challenges, requiring collective action for mutual benefits.

Прогноз изменения военных расходов Великобритании

The new era of great power competition against the backdrop of challenging situation in the global economy raises the importance of military expenditures analysis and forecast. The United Kingdom is one of the leading military powers, one of the key NATO members and a country actively involved in the competition and confrontation with Russia and China. Therefore, the UK’s defense spending is worth studying to develop and assess new methods, approaches and factors of military expenditures analysis and forecast as well as an insight for further research of the country’s national security strategy, defense and foreign policy. Among key factors affecting the evaluation of defense spending are: an uncertainty of future technological developments given rapid progress of advanced technologies; a possibility of a technological gap among great powers; the convergence between economy and national security, civil and military technologies, between different warfare domains. Another issue is the broader introduction of the Wholeof-Government Approach to the national security and interstate confrontation. Analysis of past military expenditures and military burden allows to better understand patterns, trends, most probable limits and dynamics of future changes. The article contains a forecast of Great Britain’s future long-term defense spending in four scenarios. It is based on the evaluation of past expenditures, current discussions in the British government and parliament, budgetary plans, and on the analysis of the UK’s attitude to NATO’s Defense Investment Pledge. All scenarios assume that the United Kingdom’s future military expenditures will increase but vary in the degree of the average annual real growth. The article also provides a list and brief description of factors which might significantly affect the UK’s defense spending in the future.

Build Back Better World versus the Belt and Road Initiative: Why may the DRC Find Itself in a Complex Dilemma?

We are undoubtedly in a new era of great-power competition. The USA and its G7 counterparts recently launched the transcontinental long-term policy and investment program ‘Build Back Better World’ (B3W) aimed at boosting infrastructure financing in low and middle-income developing countries, like China's ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI,) which focused on financing of strategic infrastructure development such as ports, transport networks, energy pipelines and projects. Interestingly, both the B3W and the BRI shared the goal of developing green and sustainable infrastructure to minimize environmental impact, reduce pollution, and increase energy efficiency to combat climate change by supporting fragile states. This article therefore presents a balanced perspective on the B3W versus the BRI, and seeks to further explain why the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and many other developing countries may find themselves in a ‘complex dilemma.’ The complexity of this dilemma is viewed in the strategic choice to be made and the possible costs in the aftermath of its choice for its survival. The metho-dology, based on secondary data from international and national repositories, adopted a qualitative approach. However, we critically explained the reasons why the DRC might find itself in a ‘complex dilemma’, based on different learned insights and perspectives gathered and illustrated in numerical illustrations via figures and statistical tables. After analysis and discussion, the results of this paper clearly show that, beyond the different possible imaginations and strategic opportunities offered by the confrontation between the B3W and the BRI following to the ‘conservative-progressive competition,’ the DRC, like some developing countries, is in the prey of this ‘complex dilemma’ due to its different assets, weaknesses and problems. This is due to a number of fundamental reasons: its strategic character in the eyes of both ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’; its pronounced dependence on both China and the Western world; and its fragility due to problems of leadership and political governance. To con-clude, this paper reasoned that it is up to the DRC to prepare and preserve itself and learn from its past mistakes in order to better redefine the fundamental strategic options for its best survival. It is also up to the DRC to reshape its political model, in particular by strengthening its political governance, but above all by working towards the formation of an innovative leadership capable of capitalizing on the opportunities arising from such a confrontation – while at the same time trying to contain, limit, and even prevent the possible risks.

Reinforcing deterrence: assessing NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept

ABSTRACT At the June 29, 2022, NATO summit in Madrid the heads of state and government adopted a new strategic concept for the alliance. The eighth strategic concept is the official long-term vision of NATO, at the same time it is the second most important document after the North Atlantic Treaty. This document describes the security environment the alliance faces, reaffirms the purpose and principles of the organisation, as well as its core defence tasks for the coming decade. As a crucial NATO document, it has an impact on the security and defence policy of the alliance and its member states; and sooner or later its ideas, principles, and requirements described in the concept will be materialised in the form of different policies, priorities, and tasks. The article examines comprehensively NATO's 2022 Strategic Concept, compares it with the 2010 Strategic Concept and the NATO 2030 Report. Given that the new Concept was adopted in the wake of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the study primarily deals with the Alliance's new perception of deterrence and defence and its planned measures. The analysis concludes that the Strategic Concept represents a significant shift away from the previous one, although it is an evolutionary document, and it has brought NATO into a new era of great power competition.

The United States, China and the Gulf Arab States in the Era of Great Power Competition

The Gulf is now a focal point in the strategic rivalry between the United States and China. US China policy has shifted from engagement to strategic competition. US and China engagement in the Gulf is characterised by overlapping interests, distinctive roles and changing patterns. This article proposes ways for the United States to manage strategic competition in the Gulf responsibly, thereby moving away from nascent competition and further mutual distrust and hostility in the region.

Military Advisors, Service Strategies, and Great Power Competition

United States professional military advisors play a critical role across the spectrum of conflict within the various services’ strategies in support of the overall National Defense Strategy. In an era of great power competition, the role of advisory forces within the shadow of large-scale conflict, provide a crucial edge for the US military services fulfilling their strategic role. Within each of the services’ unique strategies - the Army’s multidomain operations, the Marine Corps expeditionary advanced base operations nested within the Navy’s broader littoral operations in a contested environment, and the Air Force’s forward projecting agile basing concept - advisors from across the force support developing doctrines with conducting interoperability, providing access, and building relationships with allies and partners across key regions in great power competition. Even so, within each of these services, there is room for maximizing the utility of the advisory forces’ support to the service strategies.

U.S.-China Arctic Cooperation in a New Era of Great Power Competition: Opportunities and Challenges

This article examines the current opportunities for and constraints on the U.S.-China cooperation in the Arctic. It argues that, despite ongoing tensions between the United States and China on many issues, there are numerous concrete opportunities for the two countries to develop dialogue and cooperation concerning the Arctic and Arctic Peoples. To substantiate this argument and enrich the existing literature on U.S.-China relations in the Arctic, this article focuses on three issue areas where the two powers could develop trust and cooperation: (1) the freedom of navigation in the Arctic Ocean, (2) the implementation of new science-based Arctic treaties, and (3) Alaska-China economic relations. Given the current state of U.S.-China relations, this article advocates a bottom-to-top approach based on the concept and practice of science diplomacy to facilitate the development of U.S.-China Arctic cooperation.

Navigating asymmetry in the Indian Ocean region: Oman in the US-India-China strategic triangle

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the options available to small states in the Indian Ocean region (IOR) in an era of great power competition, using the case of Oman’s engagement with the strategic triangle of the United States, India, and China. Motivated primarily by concerns at the domestic and regional levels, Omani decision makers perceive good relations with each of the three powers to be important in addressing their most pressing concerns and have therefore avoided balancing or bandwagoning behavior. Instead, Oman has followed an omni-enmeshment approach whereby it uses these extra-regional relationships as a means of supporting their preferences for regional order while at the same time addressing domestic pressures.

The new dynamics of Japan’s Official Development Assistance in an era of great power competition

ABSTRACT Escalation of great power rivalry resulting from China’s rise and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted Japan to align its foreign and security policies more closely. This paper analyzes how ODA policy, which the Japanese government regards as a crucial diplomatic instrument, has been modified in the face of these changes. The most significant transformation is the securitization of ODA, or the deployment of ODA to advance Japan’s national security interests. This trend is evident in the emergence of a new type of ODA that aims to contribute to Japan’s security interests by strengthening the deterrence capabilities of developing countries involved in territorial disputes with China. Notably, Japan is justifying this new ODA trend in the name of upholding the universal value of the international rule of law. In other words, Japan is shifting the focus of assistance away from domestic issues of democracy and human rights in each recipient country toward the rule of law in international relations. This is a manifestation of Japan’s effort to strike a careful balance between upholding universal values and avoiding the risk of offending incumbent governments in recipient countries with questionable domestic governance records.

Is The RAAF Seeking Combat Effectiveness

The question being asked is sometimes more important than the answer. WGCDR Borg’s thesis Royal Australian Air Force 2025: A new organizational structure to optimize combat effectiveness in an era of great power competition (David Earl Borg, 2021) provides a more efficient structure for the RAAF to improve combat effectiveness. This is based on the assumption that the RAAF wants to be more combat effective. This assumption needs to be scrutinised more thoroughly: does the RAAF truly want to be a more combat effective force?

Turning the Tap Off - Stopping the Flow of Pointless Jobs in the RAAF

WGCDR Borg’s monograph Royal Australian Air Force 2025: A new organizational structure to optimise combat effectiveness in an era of great power competition (Borg, 2023) included a statement that is more telling than it appears at first glance: 'We are too busy mopping the floor, we don’t have time to turn off the tap.' - Anonymous The opening quote accurately depicts the current feeling across many squadrons, wings and groups across the RAAF today.” (Borg, 2023, p. 29)

Turning the Tap Off - Stopping the Flow of Pointless Jobs in the RAAF

WGCDR Borg’s monograph Royal Australian Air Force 2025: A new organizational structure to optimise combat effectiveness in an era of great power competition (Borg, 2023) included a statement that is more telling than it appears at first glance: “‘We are too busy mopping the floor, we don’t have time to turn off the tap. - Anonymous The opening quote accurately depicts the current feeling across many squadrons, wings and groups across the RAAF today.” (Borg, 2023, p. 29)

A Future US Defense Program in an Era of Great Power Competition

The Great Power Competition requires a new defense posture that adapts to the exigencies of the Russia-Ukraine war and the rise of China. A successful defense posture will necessarily require a reexamination of US defense strategy, and, importantly, the level of resources devoted by the US and its allies to national defense. A defense real growth commitment should be initiated now and sustained for as long as this more competitive and threatening security environment remains in place

Caught in the Middle? Middle Powers amid U.S.-China Competition

executive summary: This essay provides an overview of this special issue, which seeks to better understand middle-power thinking and strategies in coping with the escalating competition between the U.S. and China. main argument Competition is now the primary format of U.S.-China relations, spanning key dimensions of international politics. The pressures radiating from this structural shift have led Indo-Pacific states to calibrate their policies to this new geostrategic circumstance. This special issue focuses on the responses of a category of regional states understood as middle powers. How have regional middle powers adapted to the intensifying U.S.-China rivalry? What are the considerations and drivers that inform their coping strategies? To address these salient, policy-relevant questions, this special issue spotlights six Indo-Pacific middle powers—namely, Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Pakistan—and unpacks their logic and ways of navigating the complexities of the Sino-U.S. rivalry. The insights derived in this issue contribute to broader policy thinking on the evolving choices of middle powers and are instructive for the strategic policies of other regional states in an era of great-power competition. policy implications • Amid the growing U.S.-China contest, regional middle powers perceive a narrowing strategic space for maneuverability. • This reduced strategic space does not equate to decreasing strategic autonomy, however. Regional middle powers retain considerable agency to mold their own paths and that of the broader strategic environment, including developing options to mitigate any fallout from the Sino-U.S. rivalry. • A considerable degree of this middle-power agency is animated by elite calculations of the respective domestic interests at stake. • Strategic ambiguity toward China and the U.S. remains the dominant policy preference of most middle powers probed in this issue.

European strategies in post-pandemic peer competition: implications for America

ABSTRACT The recent reconceptualization of national and/or defense strategies, hangovers from the sovereign debt crisis, and the impact of the pandemic-induced recession in four of the most powerful European countries – France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom – will have profound implications for the United States. Through Republican and Democratic administrations, most American political leaders, experts in academia and think tanks, and other opinion leaders in the media and elsewhere have consistently held that Europe is vital to American national security. This is particularly true during an era of great power competition, as the United States works to prevent China’s authoritarian governance system and its statist economic model from becoming dominant. Given recent changes in the grand strategies of America’s most important European allies and their shifting abilities to fulfill those strategies, Washington will have an increasingly difficult time fulfilling its own goals and objectives. American strategy relies on European allies for competition with near-peers as well as defense of the global commons and projection of hard and soft power overseas to favorably influence events. Shifting capabilities, capacity, and will within Europe – all framed within evolving European strategies – will make it difficult for Washington to rely on its allies.

U.S.-China trade relations in an era of great power competition

The tech war is having an effect on U.S.-China trade. For high-tech products like telecommunications equipment, semiconductors, and computer accessories, there has been a sharp drop in trade in both directions. This is not simply a drop in demand in the U.S. for these items because imports of them from other partners has soared. Vietnam’s exports to the U.S. jumped in the sensitive categories, and overall Vietnamese exports to the U.S. more than doubled between 2018 and 2021. Despite these effects from the tech war, however, overall U.S.-China trade has held up surprisingly well. The year 2022 will almost certainly see a new historical high for trade in both directions. This resilience of trade, in the face of tariffs and tech sanctions, indicates that there is a strong economic foundation for the two-way relationship. For both China and the U.S., it is hard to replace the other one as a trade partner. It is possible for production of a few specific items to shift from China to Vietnam, but there is no way to replace China’s huge manufacturing output. From China’s point of view, the technologically advanced countries are all allies of the U.S., and it is not easy for China to turn to Europe for the technology it cannot get from America. Because U.S.-China trade is based on strong fundamentals, it will probably continue at a high level, in an uneasy equilibrium in which certain trade and investment is off-limits, while other business goes on.

State-Building 101: Hard Lessons From Afghanistan

The American war in Afghanistan was originally an act of retaliation and retribution. Over time it assumed the moral burden of state-building. The state-building effort however was undermined by inadequate planning, inadequate knowledge, and inadequate understanding of the complexity and difficulty of the state-building process. Ultimately, the Afghanistan state-building effort failed. The commentary assumes the premise that even in an era of great power competition, the West cannot escape the challenge of state-building as fragile and failing states will continue to threaten global security. The commentary suggests a set of considerations for those responsible for the inevitable state-building challenges of the future.

American and Chinese public opinion in an era of great power competition: Ingroup bias and threat perceptions

ABSTRACT As the US-China great power competition intensifies, public opinion polling may help gauge internal drivers of foreign policy decision-making. Using Pew Research Center data, the authors analyzed how American and Chinese respondents viewed their own and each other’s countries between 2008–2016. They further examined how American attitudes towards China varied by political affiliation between 2008–2019. Both Americans and the Chinese displayed ingroup bias (i.e. rating their own country more positively than the other) and viewed China as a challenger to US hegemony. However, while the Chinese exhibited higher levels of ingroup bias overall, there was no evidence of increasing bias over time. Meanwhile, Americans showed increasing ingroup bias, primarily due to their souring evaluations of China, a tendency that was strongest among Republicans.

United States’ Use of Coercive Economic Statecraft in an Era of Great Power Competition

In the era of renewed great-power competition, the Unites States is expanding the use of sanctions and other restrictive measures to ratchet up political and economic pressure on its major competitors – China and Russia. Since late February 2022, in response to Russia’s recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic and Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the U.S. and it allies have unleashed an unprecedented array of restrictive measures against Russia. These coordinated measures include personal and economic sanctions, financial and technology restrictions, export controls, travel and import bans. Although the restrictive measures imposed on Russia following the Ukraine crisis of 2014 failed to achieve their political objectives, the U.S. continues to escalate sanctions against Russia. Recessionary trends in the sanctioning economies (for instance, rising inflation and unemployment rates) do not stop them from looking for additional restrictive measures and tightening the existing ones. Geostrategic and geopolitical ambitions of the U.S., its allies and partners prevail over economic pragmatism. The purpose of this article is to analyze the U.S. sanctions policy towards Russia following Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Specifically, it seeks to explore the logic of decision-making by the Biden administration regarding the use of sanctions as a foreign policy tool. The article also analyzes the prospects of escalation and de-escalation of the sanctions imposed on Russia. The author concludes that the U.S. sanctions, especially those that have been passed by Congress, will be in place for a long time. As the U.S. is enhancing its enforcement efforts, it will likely tighten the existing enforcement measures and introduce the new ones to punish sanctions evaders. The U.S. and its allies are likely to continue pursuing their long-term goal of containing Russia, degrading its capabilities and weakening its national power.