Great Power Competition

In December 2017, the United States National Security Strategy declared that “great power competition returned” as the central challenge to American security and prosperity—displacing terrorism, which had dominated strategic thinking since September 2001. The document named china and russia as “revisionist powers” seeking to “shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” Two months later, the National Defense Strategy went further, calling inter-state strategic competition “the primary concern in U.S. national security,” not terrorism. With these declarations, Washington acknowledged what strategists in Beijing and Moscow had understood for years: the post-Cold War era of unchallenged American dominance was over, and the world’s most powerful states were once again locked in a contest for influence, security, and the fundamental rules governing international order.

Great power competition is not a new phenomenon. It is among the oldest patterns in international relations—the dynamic that produced the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the centuries-long rivalry between France and Britain, and the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. What is new is the specific configuration of competitors, the domains of competition, and the constraints—particularly nuclear weapons and economic interdependence—that shape how this rivalry unfolds.

Defining Great Power Competition¶

Great power competition refers to the sustained strategic rivalry between states possessing the military, economic, technological, and diplomatic capabilities to project power globally and shape the international system. Unlike regional rivalries or asymmetric conflicts, great power competition involves actors capable of challenging the existing order itself—not merely contesting a border or a resource but disputing the fundamental principles and institutions that govern international life.

The concept rests on several structural features of the international system:

Anarchy: There is no world government capable of adjudicating disputes between the most powerful states. The United Nations can facilitate cooperation but cannot compel great powers to comply with its decisions—as the veto power held by the five permanent Security Council members makes explicit. In this anarchic environment, great powers must ultimately rely on their own capabilities to ensure their security.

Uneven growth: States grow at different rates. Economic, technological, and demographic shifts continuously alter the distribution of power, creating rising states that demand greater influence and declining states that resist surrendering it. China’s GDP grew from approximately $360 billion in 1990 to over $18 trillion by 2024; during the same period, the American share of global GDP declined from roughly 26% to 24%. Such shifts generate the structural tensions that drive competition.

Incompatible visions: Great powers compete not only for material advantage but over the principles organizing international order. The united-states promotes a liberal order based on democratic governance, free markets, freedom of navigation, and rules-based institutions. china advocates a system that emphasizes state sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, and a greater role for developing countries—while also claiming expansive territorial rights in the south-china-sea and asserting authority over Taiwan. russia seeks a concert-of-powers model that recognizes its sphere of influence over the post-Soviet space and rejects what it sees as Western moral imperialism.

These incompatible visions make competition more than a struggle for material advantage—it becomes a contest over legitimacy, norms, and the very architecture of world politics.

The Current Competitors¶

The United States¶

The united-states remains the most powerful state in the international system by most measures. Its $28 trillion economy is the world’s largest at market exchange rates. Its defense budget—approximately $886 billion in fiscal year 2024—exceeds the next ten countries combined. Its network of alliances spans the globe: NATO in Europe (32 members), bilateral treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and Thailand in Asia, and partnerships across the Middle East and beyond. The United States maintains approximately 750 military installations in at least 80 countries, projecting power into every region.

American advantages extend beyond military capability. The dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency (approximately 58% of global foreign exchange reserves) gives Washington unique financial leverage. American universities dominate global research; American technology companies lead in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and semiconductors. The English language, American cultural products, and the appeal of American institutions provide soft power that no competitor matches.

Yet American dominance faces erosion. The share of global GDP produced by the United States has declined steadily since 1945. Political polarization and institutional dysfunction raise questions about the sustainability of American commitments. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—costing over $8 trillion and achieving limited strategic objectives—demonstrated the limits of military power. And the rise of China presents the first peer competitor since the Soviet Union, challenging American primacy in ways that Moscow’s declining economy could not.

China¶

China’s rise represents the most consequential shift in global power since the emergence of the United States in the late 19th century. Four decades of sustained economic growth—averaging nearly 10% annually from 1978 to 2010—transformed China from an impoverished agricultural society into the world’s second-largest economy (or first, by purchasing power parity). China now produces more steel, ships, and electric vehicles than any other country. Its trade relationships span the globe, and it is the largest trading partner of over 120 nations.

China’s military modernization has been equally dramatic. The People’s Liberation Army has transformed from a mass infantry force into a technologically sophisticated military capable of challenging American dominance in the Western Pacific. The PLA Navy now operates over 370 vessels—numerically the world’s largest fleet—including three aircraft carriers and a growing submarine force. China’s missile capabilities, including the DF-21D “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missile with a range exceeding 1,500 kilometers, threaten to deny American forces access to waters within the first-island-chain.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013 with cumulative investments exceeding $1 trillion across 150 countries, extends Chinese economic influence across Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America. Chinese-built ports, railways, power plants, and telecommunications networks create dependencies and goodwill while reducing China’s own vulnerability to American economic pressure.

China’s ambitions are not merely economic. Beijing explicitly seeks to reshape international institutions to reflect Chinese interests and values. It has expanded its voting share at the IMF, created alternative institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and promoted governance models that prioritize development over political liberalization. Xi Jinping’s vision of “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” frames China’s rise as a restoration of historical greatness, with implications for Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the broader international order.

Russia¶

Russia operates as a great power competitor despite an economy smaller than Italy’s (approximately $2 trillion GDP at market exchange rates). Russia’s competitive position rests on its nuclear arsenal (approximately 5,580 warheads, the world’s largest stockpile), its permanent seat on the UN Security Council, vast energy resources (the world’s second-largest natural gas producer and third-largest oil producer), and a willingness to use military force that more cautious powers lack.

Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine represented the most dramatic assertion of great power prerogatives since the Soviet era—and the most destructive war in Europe since 1945. The invasion aimed to prevent Ukrainian integration into Western institutions, reassert Russian control over its perceived sphere of influence, and demonstrate that the post-Cold War expansion of Western institutions into the post-Soviet space had limits.

The invasion’s consequences have been mixed for Russia. Militarily, initial objectives failed catastrophically; the expected collapse of Ukrainian resistance within days gave way to prolonged attritional warfare that has cost Russia an estimated 300,000+ casualties by 2025. Economically, unprecedented Western sanctions froze approximately $300 billion in central bank reserves and cut Russia off from Western technology. Strategically, the invasion triggered the very NATO expansion it sought to prevent—Finland and Sweden joined the alliance, adding 1,300 kilometers to NATO’s border with Russia.

Yet Russia has demonstrated resilience. Its war economy, buoyed by energy revenues from Asian buyers and defense production ramped to Soviet-era levels, has sustained military operations. The Sino-Russian partnership has deepened, with trade exceeding $240 billion annually by 2024. And Russia retains the capability to disrupt global order through nuclear threats, hybrid warfare, energy manipulation, and support for anti-Western movements worldwide.

Domains of Competition¶

Military¶

Great power military competition in the 21st century differs fundamentally from Cold War dynamics. Rather than preparing for a single, decisive confrontation in Central Europe, today’s competitors jostle across multiple regions and domains simultaneously.

Nuclear deterrence remains foundational. The United States and Russia maintain arsenals capable of mutual annihilation, while China rapidly expands its nuclear forces—from an estimated 200 warheads in 2019 to a projected 1,000 by 2030, according to Pentagon assessments. This triangular nuclear dynamic is more complex than Cold War bipolarity and raises questions about strategic stability, arms control, and escalation management.

Conventional military competition centers on the Western Pacific, where the United States maintains forward-deployed forces and alliance commitments that China’s growing capabilities increasingly threaten. The Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula represent potential flashpoints where miscalculation could trigger great power conflict. In Europe, NATO’s eastern flank faces Russian conventional and nuclear threats that the Ukraine war has made vivid.

New domains of competition include space (China and Russia have demonstrated anti-satellite capabilities; the U.S. established Space Force in 2019), cyberspace (where all three powers conduct operations ranging from espionage to infrastructure disruption), and artificial intelligence (which promises to transform intelligence analysis, autonomous weapons, and decision-making speed).

Economic and Technological¶

Economic competition may prove more consequential than military rivalry. The struggle for technological supremacy—particularly in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology—will likely determine the balance of power for decades.

Semiconductors illustrate the intensity of this competition. Advanced chips power everything from smartphones to missile guidance systems. Taiwan’s TSMC manufactures approximately 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors—a concentration of strategic capability without historical parallel. The United States has imposed increasingly stringent export controls on advanced chip technology to China, including restrictions on equipment from Dutch firm ASML and Japanese manufacturers. China has responded with massive investment in domestic semiconductor production, spending over $150 billion on its “Big Fund” and related initiatives.

Artificial intelligence represents what many strategists consider the decisive technology of the 21st century. Chinese AI research now rivals American output in quantity and increasingly in quality. China’s data advantages (1.4 billion people generating vast datasets with fewer privacy constraints) may offset American advantages in talent and computing power. Both countries pour billions into military AI applications—autonomous systems, intelligence analysis, cyber operations, and decision support.

Economic statecraft has become a primary tool of competition. sanctions, export controls, investment screening, and industrial policy blur the line between economics and security. The United States has weaponized access to the dollar-based financial system; China has deployed economic coercion against countries that cross its political red lines; Russia has wielded energy exports as strategic leverage. This weaponized-interdependence transforms economic relationships from sources of mutual benefit into instruments of competition.

Institutional and Normative¶

Great powers compete to shape the rules and institutions governing international life. This institutional competition is less dramatic than military rivalry but may prove equally consequential.

The united-states built the post-1945 institutional order—the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO, NATO—and has sustained it for eight decades. These institutions reflect American values and interests while providing public goods (open trade, freedom of navigation, a stable currency) that benefit most participants. American institutional power is formidable: Washington holds effective veto power at the IMF and World Bank, dominates the UN Security Council alongside its Western allies, and controls access to the dollar-based financial system.

china increasingly challenges this institutional order. Beijing has created parallel institutions—the AIIB, the BRICS New Development Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation—that offer alternatives to Western-dominated structures. China has expanded its influence within existing institutions, becoming the second-largest funder of UN peacekeeping operations and increasing its representation in UN specialized agencies. Xi Jinping’s “Global Development Initiative,” “Global Security Initiative,” and “Global Civilization Initiative” articulate a Chinese vision for international order that competes with the liberal framework.

russia pursues institutional disruption rather than construction. Moscow uses its Security Council veto to block Western initiatives, supports anti-Western movements and governments worldwide, and promotes narratives that undermine the legitimacy of liberal institutions and norms.

Information and Influence¶

The competition for narrative dominance and political influence extends into domains that previous generations of strategists barely considered. State-sponsored disinformation, social media manipulation, political subversion, and media warfare have become standard tools of great power competition.

Russia’s Internet Research Agency and its successors have conducted influence operations targeting elections and social cohesion in the United States, Europe, and beyond. China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy and extensive United Front Work Department operations seek to shape perceptions of China abroad while suppressing criticism. The United States, through its own public diplomacy, media influence, and intelligence operations, competes in the same space—though with greater domestic and international scrutiny.

Historical Parallels and Differences¶

Parallels to the Cold War¶

The current competition shares features with the Cold War: two (or three) major powers competing across military, economic, technological, and ideological domains; alliance systems aggregating power; proxy competition in the developing world; and the specter of nuclear conflict restraining direct confrontation.

The structural similarity is striking. Just as the Cold War pitted a maritime, liberal, capitalist superpower against a continental, authoritarian, state-directed competitor, today’s competition features a maritime United States leading a coalition of democracies against a continental China that offers a state-capitalist alternative—with Russia as a disruptive third party.

Critical Differences¶

Yet the differences are profound:

Economic interdependence dwarfs anything in the Cold War. US-Soviet trade was negligible; US-China trade exceeded $750 billion annually before the trade war. Supply chains interlinking American design with Chinese manufacturing make economic decoupling enormously costly. This interdependence creates both incentives for peace and tools for coercion that the Cold War lacked.

No ideological crusade: China does not seek to export communism or convert the world to its political system. Beijing’s authoritarianism is pragmatic rather than messianic—it offers development partnerships, not revolutionary visions. This reduces the zero-sum character of competition compared to the Cold War’s existential ideological contest.

Multipolarity: The Cold War was bipolar. Today, the European Union, India, Japan, and emerging powers like Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria exercise independent influence. India, the world’s most populous country, participates in both the Quad (aligned against China) and BRICS (alongside China). This complexity creates both instability and opportunities for flexible alignment.

Technological velocity: The pace of technological change—artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, hypersonic weapons—exceeds anything in the Cold War. The strategic implications of these technologies are not yet understood; the risk of destabilizing breakthroughs is high.

Climate and transnational threats: Competition occurs alongside existential challenges—climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation—that require cooperation among the very powers that are competing. The inability to separate competition from cooperation makes today’s rivalry more complex than the relatively clean divisions of the Cold War.

Geographies of Competition¶

The Indo-Pacific¶

The Indo-Pacific has emerged as the primary theater of great power competition. China’s growing military capabilities challenge American dominance in waters that carry over half of global trade. The taiwan-strait represents the most dangerous flashpoint—a conflict over Taiwan could draw in the United States, Japan, and potentially other allies, with consequences dwarfing any post-1945 conflict.

The south-china-sea, through which approximately $3.4 trillion in trade passes annually, remains contested. China’s construction of seven artificial islands with military facilities has created facts on the ground that international law (the 2016 Hague tribunal ruling against Chinese claims) has been unable to reverse. The first-island-chain—running from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines—represents a potential barrier to Chinese naval expansion and a critical defensive perimeter for American strategy.

Europe¶

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revived great power competition in Europe with an intensity not seen since the Cold War. NATO’s eastern flank—the Baltic states, Poland, Romania—faces the possibility of Russian military action, whether conventional, hybrid, or nuclear. European states have responded with unprecedented defense spending increases: Germany announced a €100 billion defense fund; Poland committed to 4% of GDP; and Finland and Sweden joined NATO.

Yet Europe’s role in great power competition extends beyond the Russian threat. The European Union, with a combined economy rivaling America’s, represents a potential independent pole in multipolar competition. European decisions on technology standards, trade policy, energy transition, and defense investment will shape the competitive landscape. Whether Europe acts as an American partner, an independent strategic actor, or a divided and vulnerable arena will significantly affect outcomes.

The Middle East¶

The Middle East has become an arena where all three great powers compete for influence, albeit with different tools and objectives. The United States maintains its network of military bases, arms relationships, and diplomatic ties—though its credibility has eroded through inconsistent engagement. China has become the region’s largest trading partner and a major infrastructure investor, particularly through BRI projects. Russia intervened militarily in Syria, becoming a power broker in the region for the first time since the Cold War.

The Abraham Accords, OPEC+ dynamics, and Iran’s nuclear program all intersect with great power competition. Saudi Arabia’s willingness to engage with China and join brics as a partner signals that American influence in the region is no longer uncontested.

Africa and the Global South¶

The developing world has become the newest arena of great power competition—and potentially the most consequential. Africa’s 1.4 billion people, vast mineral resources, and growing economies make it strategically significant. China has invested heavily through BRI projects, becoming Africa’s largest bilateral trading partner with trade exceeding $280 billion annually. Russia has deployed military contractors (formerly the Wagner Group, now Africa Corps) to several African states, offering security assistance without governance conditions.

The competition for the “Global South” extends beyond Africa. Latin America, Southeast Asia, and South Asia all face choices about alignment and partnership that will shape the international order. Countries in these regions increasingly resist pressure to choose sides, preferring “multi-alignment” strategies that maximize their options.

Managing Great Power Competition¶

The central challenge of 21st-century statecraft is managing great power competition without catastrophic war. Several frameworks compete for influence:

Competitive coexistence accepts rivalry as a structural reality while establishing guardrails against escalation. This approach seeks to maintain open channels of communication, establish norms for military interaction (particularly in contested spaces like the South China Sea and cyberspace), and identify areas for selective cooperation (climate, pandemics, nuclear security). Proponents argue that competition can be managed, as the Cold War demonstrated, through a combination of military deterrence, diplomatic engagement, and institutional constraints.

Containment 2.0 adapts the Cold War strategy of containment to current conditions—building coalitions of democracies to check Chinese and Russian expansion while strengthening allied military capabilities and reducing economic dependencies that create vulnerability. Critics argue this approach risks self-fulfilling prophecy, driving China into more aggressive behavior by treating it as an enemy.

Accommodation proposes recognizing legitimate Chinese and Russian interests—Chinese influence in East Asia, Russian security concerns in its near abroad—in exchange for commitments to respect core Western interests and international norms. Critics counter that accommodation rewards aggression and encourages further expansion.

Strategic competition without conflict represents the stated American objective—competing vigorously in technology, economics, and influence while maintaining guardrails against military escalation. Whether this balance is sustainable as competition intensifies remains uncertain.

The Risk of Escalation¶

History suggests that great power competition frequently results in war. Graham Allison’s thucydides-trap research found that twelve of sixteen historical cases of rising powers challenging established ones ended in conflict. The structural pressures identified by Thucydides—fear in the established power, ambition in the rising one—are clearly present in today’s competition.

Several factors could trigger escalation:

Taiwan: A Chinese attempt to take Taiwan by force would likely draw American intervention, risking direct great power war. As Chinese military capabilities grow, the window in which the United States can credibly deter an invasion may narrow, creating incentives for either side to act preemptively.
Accidental escalation: Military forces operating in close proximity—American and Chinese ships in the South China Sea, NATO and Russian aircraft along European borders—risk incidents that could escalate beyond either side’s intentions.
Domestic politics: Political incentives to demonstrate toughness against rivals can narrow the space for compromise and empower hardliners who favor confrontation.
Technological surprise: A breakthrough in missile defense, cyber warfare, or artificial intelligence could convince one side that it has achieved decisive advantage—the most dangerous moment in any rivalry.

Yet powerful constraints also operate. Nuclear weapons make the costs of great power war potentially civilization-ending. Economic interdependence means that conflict would devastate the economies of all participants. And the experience of two world wars provides a historical warning that previous great powers lacked.

Conclusion¶

Great power competition has returned not because policymakers chose it but because the distribution of power in the international system has shifted. China’s rise, Russia’s revanchism, and America’s relative decline have created structural conditions in which competition is inevitable. The question is not whether great powers will compete but how—and whether competition can be managed without catastrophic conflict.

The stakes extend beyond the competitors themselves. The outcome of great power competition will determine the rules governing trade, technology, navigation, and human rights for billions of people who have no voice in the rivalry. Whether the 21st century is defined by managed competition, institutional evolution, or devastating conflict depends on the wisdom of leaders in Washington, Beijing, and Moscow—and on the structural constraints and incentives that shape their choices.

History offers both warnings and encouragement. The Cold War demonstrated that great powers can compete for decades without direct conflict. But World War I demonstrated that structural rivalry, once ignited by miscalculation, can produce catastrophe that no participant intended or desired. Understanding these dynamics—and acting on that understanding—may be the most important challenge of our time.

Sources & Further Reading¶

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics by John J. Mearsheimer — The foundational text of offensive realism, arguing that great powers are structurally compelled to compete for hegemony and that conflict is an inherent risk of the international system.
Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? by Graham Allison — Examines sixteen historical cases of rising powers challenging established ones, with sobering implications for US-China competition.
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski — The classic statement of American strategy in Eurasia, arguing that preventing any single power from dominating the landmass is the paramount objective of U.S. foreign policy.
The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership by Clyde Prestowitz — Analyzes how China’s economic rise has created the conditions for strategic competition across every domain.
The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order by Rush Doshi — A detailed examination of Chinese strategic thinking and how Beijing has systematically built the capabilities to challenge American primacy.