Great Power Rivalry Research Articles

Algorithms and Decision-Making in Military Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT Along the line of exploring the implications of algorithmic decision-making for international law, Garcia highlights the growing dehumanization process in the military domain that reduces humans to mere data and pattern-recognizing technologies. ‘Immoral codes’ containing instructions to target and kill humans raise the likelihood of unpredictable and unintended violence. Compounding this challenge is a lack of international law that puts restraints on the pervasive use of algorithms in society and the ongoing military AI race. Garcia argues that current international mechanisms under international humanitarian law developed to regulate ‘hardware’ are not sufficient to withstand ‘software’ challenges posed by algorithmic-based weaponry. Instead, the human-centricity of international law is eroded by algorithmic decision-making and more violence and instability triggered by great power rivalry. International rules need to be updated to ensure the prohibition of killing that is outside human oversight.

Polar Stars: Toward an Epistemological Understanding of Security Constellations and the Arctic Case

Abstract The reemergence of great power competition, seen most significantly in the tension over Taiwan between the People’s Republic of China and the United States and in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has sparked interest in the Arctic literature on whether and how great power competition might be emerging in the region. State-centric frameworks have emerged as the primary analytical frameworks within this burgeoning literature. While they offer important insights, the dynamics of security in the region make state-based appraisals limited. Because the Arctic region is a frontier, normative structures upon which state-centric paradigms are predicated—such as state sovereignty—hold less sway than in more traditional arenas of great power competition. As a result, a range of subnational and supranational actors and organizations play a more significant role in terms of security processes and outcomes. Thus, a more comprehensive model of security analysis is needed to understand the drivers of security in the Artic region. To that end, in this article, I analyze the main securitizing moves in the Arctic region, arguing that they incorporate different levels of analysis and present broad degrees of comprehensiveness. I turn to security constellation theory, hitherto a relatively underdeveloped approach that nonetheless offers the potential to accommodate the multifaceted security dynamics of the region.

Status of Taiwan and the evolution of Taiwanese identity

The Taiwan issue, which originated from China’s civil war, not only defines the complex relationship between Beijing and Taipei but also has significant implications for security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. The article examines the evolution of Taiwan’s status and the formation of Taiwanese identity within the context of the escalating geopolitical confrontation between China and the United States. The study focuses on historical, political, and cultural factors that have shaped Taiwanese identity, offering a fresh perspective that goes beyond previous binary ideological assessments. The authors highlight the influential role of historical heritage, including Chinese cultural influence, Polynesian culture, the Japanese colonial period, and Taiwan’s interaction with the United States, in shaping a unique hybrid Taiwanese identity. The analysis presented in the paper makes it evident that the Taiwan issue is not only intensified by the increasing US support for «separatist forces» on the island but also by the inherent dynamics of great-power competition. Taiwan aims to leverage global uncertainty to strengthen its international standing and assert its own agency. The findings of this study demonstrate that amid the intense US-Chinese competition, the expression of Taiwanese identity becomes magnified, thereby further complicating the pursuit of a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan issue in the long run. The conclusion derived from this research is relevant for understanding and forecasting the future dynamics of the situation in the Taiwan Strait.

Polarity and Strategic Competition: A Structural Explanation of Renewed Great Power Rivalry

Abstract Strategic competition, or great power competition, has become a new buzz-word in international politics. Yet, few studies have undertaken any systematic examination of what caused its return to the centre stage of international relations. This study hence formulates a parsimonious structural explanation of renewed great power rivalry. Relying on the insights of neorealism and its two structural variants—defensive realism and offensive realism—the study first suggests that current definitions of strategic competition are, due to their emphasis on power competition, overly imbued with offensive realist nuances. However, security competition, which originates in the security dilemma, also underlies strategic competition. Employing neorealism’s polarity perspective, this study then posits that the end of US-led unipolarity and ongoing power deconcentration in the international system are major causes of renewed great power rivalry. While unipolarity harnesses the anarchic effect and compels second-tier major powers to exercise strategic restraint, multipolarity resurrects insecurity and removes disincentives for the aggressive pursuit of power, influence, and status. Ever intensifying security competition and power competition have thus shifted international politics into a new paradigm defined by great power conflict.

China’s Policy Toward Afghanistan and Its Impact on India

The South Asia subcontinent is witnessing new security and political dynamics after the United States withdrew its troops in mid-2021. Even as the Taliban-led government is stepping up engagement with the outside world to earn wider diplomatic recognition and exhibit its governing credentials, Beijing and New Delhi are adjusting their regional policies in a bid to acquire more influence in a changing geopolitical landscape. Assuming nation states to be rational actors, this paper uses the stag hunt game to analyze the potential maximum payoffs for Beijing, Kabul, and New Delhi, respectively, if they could make the right strategic calculations about their short-term interests and long-term goals. Even though the subcontinent is not immune to the effect of great power rivalry that is unfolding on the world stage, regional stakeholders could still choose to cooperate on issues of common concern while limiting the fallout of competition and confrontation on other more contentious challenges.

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.

“Wars without Gun Smoke”: Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft

Abstract Conventional wisdom holds that conflict is highly likely during a power transition between declining and rising powers. The spread of global supply chains has provided new economic weapons for great powers waging these conflicts, but the businesses that constitute global supply chains can make it harder or easier for them to do so. A structural theory of business-state relations shows how power transitions affect a state's ability to exercise economic statecraft. As a dominant power and a rising power approach parity, they face structural incentives to use economic statecraft to decouple their economies. The resulting threat to businesses’ profits changes business-state relations: high-value businesses within the dominant power tend to oppose their state's use of economic statecraft, whereas low-value businesses within the rising power tend to cooperate with their state's use of economic statecraft. The Anglo-German power transition from 1890 to 1914 and the U.S.-China power transition since 1990 illustrate the theory. The findings shift scholarly debates on the use of economic statecraft in modern great power competition and have policy implications for weaponizing supply chains against rising powers like China.

Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Arms Race, Diplomacy, and Economy: A Case Study of Great Power Competition between the US and China

In the contemporary era, the demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) is paramount, with existing applications in weak AI seen in products like smartphones, employing features such as Siri, voice recognition, and image recognition. The proliferation of AI extends beyond consumer goods to impact the arms race, diplomacy, and the economy. The emergence of advanced AI models like ChatGPT has intensified the global AI competition among states and tech companies. While nations integrate AI into military technologies, concerns arise about the implications of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Scholars debate its potential role in global dominance, job displacement, and economic impact. Despite predictions of job creation, the shift towards AGI requires careful consideration to ensure positive outcomes rather than detrimental consequences for humanity's future in the realm of Artificial Intelligence.

Africa between East and West: Searching for its own path. Book review of ‘La Russie face aux occidentaux en Afrique centrale: Pour un arrimage des Africains aux enjeux de puissance post-bipolarité’ by F.X.N. Edzimbi

The book under review is a new research by Cameroonian scholar Francois Xavier Noah Edzimbi ‘Russia and the West in Central Africa: How African countries can adapt to the challenges of the post-bipolar era’ (‘La Russie face aux Occidentaux en Afrique centrale: Pour un arrimage des Africains aux enjeux de puissance post-bipolarite’), published in France in 2022. The reviewer emphasizes that in the context of a new exacerbation of great power rivalry on the African continent this research is particularly relevant since it shows how the situation is perceived directly in Africa, which in turn can help Russia better understand the worldviews of Central African partners and develop a more balanced policy in the region. The book under review synthesizes the elements of realist and constructivist approaches in order to provide a comprehensive view of interactions between African states and extra-regional powers, their respective interests and values. The research focuses on the reasons for Russia’s growing presence in Central Africa. It is in this context, and in order to illuminate the specifics of Russia’s foreign policy in the region that the author addresses the approaches of other actors (namely, the United States and France) towards the relations with African states in the post-bipolar era. According to N. Edzimbi, Russian foreign policy in Central Africa is rather ambiguous: on the one hand, Russia counterbalances the influence of the United States and France, but, on the other hand, it pursues its own pragmatic goals and in this sense differs little from other leading powers. The author argues that despite seemingly friendly rhetoric, all global actors regard Central Africa as yet another arena of interstate rivalry, and suggests that the African countries should develop an independent foreign policy strategy, including, among other things, a force component. At the same time, the Cameroonian researcher emphasizes that this issue can be addressed if African states overcome the ‘learned helplessness syndrome’ and abandon the subordinate role in favor of developing their own power policy. The reviewer concludes that this work may be of interest to a wide range of readers, but it will be especially useful for specialists in African studies and international relations experts who specialize on the challenges faced by Africa and on the Russian-African relations.

Does Geopolitics Affect the Development of China’s 5G Industry?

Does Geopolitics Affect the Development of China’s 5G Industry?

The Second Cold War: US-China Competition for Centrality in Infrastructure, Digital, Production, and Finance Networks

ABSTRACT Relations between the US and China have deteriorated to their lowest point since their rapprochement in the 1970s. To make sense of contemporary geopolitics, our objective in this article is two-fold. First, we historically situate contemporary US-China rivalry to conceptualise the Second Cold War (SCW). We argue that in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, both the US and China launched ‘restorative’ political projects that harked back to imagined pasts. These projects are mutually exclusive and animate contemporary geopolitics. Second, we conceptualise the spatial logic of great power rivalry in the Second Cold War. In contrast to the first Cold War, when great powers sought to incorporate territory into blocs, the US and China currently compete on a global scale for centrality in four interrelated networks that they anticipate will underpin hegemony in the 21st century: infrastructure (e.g. logistics and energy), digital, production and finance. We review the state of competition in each network and draw two broad conclusions: (1) this mode of competition makes it difficult for either side to conclusively ‘win’ the Second Cold War, and (2) many countries are likely to remain integrated with both the US and China.

‘Great power rivalry and the securitization of humanity’: Nathan Alexander Sears' last presentation

‘Great power rivalry and the securitization of humanity’: Nathan Alexander Sears' last presentation

Indonesia’s Strategic Narrative on the New Dynamics of Great Power Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific

Indonesia’s Strategic Narrative on the New Dynamics of Great Power Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific

The Great Power Competition for North America: Western Expansion and the Conquest of Trans-Appalachia, 1680–1821

Great power competition elevates the American way of war over counterinsurgency practices, violating the need to balance these two modes of warfare. This article calls for a restoration of that balance, and does so by example. A look at the early period of settlement in North America, from East Coast lodgments to the Mississippi River, reveals a nation able to wage two wars at once. An American push to establish a permanent frontier that excluded European rivals coincided with a counterinsurgency war unleashed within newly claimed tracts of land. That effort proved effective, if immoral. Today, that balance must again take hold, with a reminder that cultural accommodation inherent in all wars means that a counterinsurgency war avoids the mandate of destruction called for in seeking victory by employing force of arms.

In the Era of Uncertainties - Middle Power Politics in a Multipolar World

The Asia-Pacific region has transformed from a colonial past to an emerging economic power hub, thus bringing fluidity to its definition. The Asia Pacific region is a powerhouse of economic, technological, demographic, and social growth, drawing the attention of several scholars to the distinctive hotbed of great power competition and the emergence of a multipolar world order. The article studies the rise of middle powers by understanding the nature of their foreign policy behaviour by re-examining the regional security complexes of the Asia-Pacific region. In trying to bridge the imbalance of power and regionality, the author argues that the geopolitical flux in the security environment has severe implications for regional integration and cooperation. Countries in the Asia-Pacific region intend to constructively engage in widening their multi track diplomacy through multi-layered alignments with numerous formal and informal agencies and thus create multiple centres of power, influence, and order. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and ASEAN-plus continue to present themselves as indispensable in order to promote converged strategic hedging, scilicet, pursuing bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral efforts on the chessboard of geostrategic competition of- Low Politics, including supply chains, trade production, cooperation on public health, and infrastructure development; and High Politics, implying defence partnerships and military modernisation agreements. Nonetheless, strategic hedging is not a preferred option for competing powers as it provides these middle power agencies (in bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral) with space, a platform, and channels for pragmatic, cooperative, yet cautious partnerships. However, the region has a myriad of options for tackling the complex nature of ASEAN consensus and self-help governance, thus overlooking its functions of regional security diplomacy and aptitudes of prioritising and advancing the member states internationally.

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.

Strategic hedgers? Australia and Canada's defence adaptation to the global power transition

The intensification of rivalries between the US and China, and, in recent years, between the US and Russia, has deeply affected how middle powers relate to these great powers. Scholars have argued that middle powers are increasingly adopting “hedging” strategies to maximize their benefits and limit the consequences of the great power competition for their security and status. This paper revisits the concept of hedging and assesses whether two prominent US allies—Australia and Canada—have resorted to hedging in place of conventional alternatives like bandwagoning and balancing. The paper systematically compares Australia's and Canada's threat perceptions and defence policies to ascertain whether they have shifted their policies in the wake of the US's relative decline. Since our study began, in 2008, we have found instances where the two allies resorted to hedging. However, evidence shows that when pressured to make a choice, Australia and Canada have closed ranks with the US against revisionist powers. Our paper suggests that threat perceptions play a fundamental role in this. Going forward, it would suggest that the US is in a stronger position than commonly assumed. As the competition between Washington and revisionist great powers increases, the former's ability to build credible coalitions is expected to improve as it will rely on more dependable allies.

U.S. Posture of Integrated Deterrence: China’s Response and Implications for the Asian Security

As the world is drawn increasingly into a web of shifting geopolitics, battle lines are being drawn and alliances are re-orienting themselves. Working from the premise that the competition between the United States (U.S.) and the People’s Republic of China will define the dynamics of the international system for the foreseeable future, this paper takes a look at the U.S.’s evolving posture of Integrated Deterrence and the likely Chinese response, which would have implications for Asian security. It reviews the contours of ‘Integrated Deterrence’ as it is laid out in the U.S. National Security Strategy 2022 and how this may shape the policy decisions of the U.S. and its partners, especially Taiwan, as well as how major U.S. regional allies, including India are likely to play their role in support of the U.S. interests. The paper also analyses China’s strategic thinking, national defence policy and national security objectives that are likely to influence its choices in the evolving great power competition. Taking Taiwan as the case study, the paper finds that in addition to pursuing more traditional approaches, both the U.S. and China will consider influencing domestic public opinion in China and Taiwan as a key focus of their respective policy considerations; it also finds convergences in the related responses of South Asia’s two major players, India and Pakistan.

NATO’s Approach to Multi-Domain Operations: From the Perspective of the Economics of Alliances

ABSTRACT This study presents a model that incorporates the characteristics of multi-domain operations (MDO) and analyzes the impact of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) approach to MDO on the behavior of its member countries from the perspective of the economics of alliances. NATO is wary of authoritarian states and prepared for the great power competition with them, as shown in its current strategic concept. To prepare for a possible future war against peer competitors, NATO is strengthening its capabilities to conduct MDO, in which cross-domain synergy is a key factor. The model presented in this study relates the cross-domain synergy in MDO and the complementarity between the defense activities in multiple domains using organizational and public economics methods. The implication of this model is that if the defense activities in different domains are complementary, one member country’s increasing defense activities in one domain can increase another’s defense activity in another domain that is complementary to that domain. It is particularly crucial for NATO’s future military buildup: NATO’s approach to MDO will make defense burden-sharing fairer because one member’s military buildup will motivate other members to build up theirs.

Chinese Development Aid and Finance: Effective Soft Power Tool or Public Diplomacy Liability? A Spatial Study of Project Influence

China has risen to become a significant donor of foreign aid and assistance in recent years. As with other major donors, such economic flows in the provenance of China are tied to the latterʼs strategic aims. Specifically, the use of economic outlays as a tool of soft power and public diplomacy has been identified as a key motivation in Chinese disbursement decisions. However, studies examining the empirical success of Chinese foreign aid and assistance in acting as such have, so far, come to diverging conclusions. This study offers an investigation of the spatially diffused effects of infrastructure project sites tied to Chinese funding sources on local public opinion in Ecuador, a country that offers an interesting case showcasing the effects of the unfolding great power competition on local public opinion. We find, that controlling for socio-economic and ideological individual characteristics holding the potential to affect survey respondentsʼ views on China, project influence is significantly and negatively correlated with levels of trust in the Chinese government. These results suggest that the frequently mediatized negative local spillover effects of Chinese-funded or financed infrastructure projects make it unlikely for Chinaʼs foreign aid and assistance to achieve its envisioned purpose of furthering the countryʼs soft power and positive image beyond its borders.