Poy 003

The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2018, 23–48
doi: 10.1093/cjip/poy003
Advance Access Publication Date: 8 February 2018
Article
Article
Opposite but Compatible Nationalisms:

A Neoclassical Realist Approach to the
Future of US–China Relations
Randall Schweller*
Randall Schweller is Professor of Political Science and a Social and Behavioral Sciences Joan
N. Huber Faculty Fellow, The Ohio State University.
*Correponding author. Email: schweller.2@osu.edu.
Abstract
China’s new assertiveness and the sudden inward turn of United States are a function
of causes located in both the second and third images. The key second-image variable
is nationalism, which combines with the power trajectories (a third-image variable) of
both China and the United States to define how their relationship will unfold in the
coming years. The interaction between nationalism and power trajectory produces
entirely different foreign policy orientations in rising and declining powers—the former
embraces an outward-looking, extroverted foreign policy of expansion, while the latter
adopts an inward-looking, introverted foreign policy of restraint and retrenchment. The
resurgent nationalisms of the rising challenger and the declining hegemon are entirely
compatible with a future relationship characterized by peace and harmony. Obviously,
the two nationalisms pose no inherent conflict of interests: China currently wants more
global influence; the Unites States wants less. Hence, there is good reason to expect a
soft landing as the world moves from unipolarity to bipolarity.
Now as always, states pursue their interests by responding not only to the com-
petitive pressures of the international system but also to forces and demands ema-
nating from within their borders. While we may prefer that our theories avoid
explanations that mix causes at different levels of analysis,1 causal drivers within
these two spheres—a.k.a. the second and third images—necessarily interact with
one another. This simple, almost axiomatic insight lies at the heart of neoclassical
realism. Witness the current trend for the past several years: resurgent nationalism
(second image) and great power competition under increasingly multipolar condi-
tions (third image). This is no coincidence; the two phenomena are related.
1 For reasons not to mix levels of analysis, see J. David Singer, ‘The Level-of-Analysis Problem
in International Relations’, World Politics, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1961), pp. 77–92.
C The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Institute of International Relations,
V
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24 The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2018, Vol. 11, No. 1
Along these lines and using a neoclassical realist framework, I argue that both
rising and declining powers experience surging nationalism in their domestic poli-
tics. Their nationalisms, however, focus on opposite ends of the telescope: the
growth of nationalism within rising powers is directed outward; whereas nation-
alism that takes root in declining powers looks inward. Thus, nationalism is said
to be on the rise in both the United States and China. But the motivations for its
ascent in the two countries are entirely different owing to their opposite trajecto-
ries within the structure of the international system. This explains why
Washington and Beijing are undergoing key shifts in the direction of their foreign
policies—the United States is retreating from deep engagement and global influ-
ence, just as China is seeking more foreign influence, seizing its external opportu-
nities with both hands.2
The Argument in Brief

China’s new assertiveness and the sudden inward turn of the United States are a
function of causes located in both the second and third images. The key second-
image variable is nationalism, which combines with the power trajectories (a
third-image variable) of both China and the United States to define how their
relationship will unfold in the coming years. The interaction between nationalism
and power trajectory produces entirely different foreign policy orientations in ris-
ing and declining powers—the former embraces an outward-looking, extroverted
foreign policy of expansion, while the latter adopts an inward-looking, intro-
verted foreign policy of restraint and retrenchment.
Why the focus on nationalism? Nationalism provides a natural complement to
structural realist theory; it is rightly viewed as realism’s domestic-level counter-
part.3 The constant struggle among nations over issues of power, security, and
prestige that animates realism is in no small part a consequence of nationalism,
which ‘fuels interstate rivalry and by its sharp delineation of in- and out-groups,
abets status rivalry, accentuates stereotyping, and deepens and perpetuates per-
ceived grievances.’4 This seems obvious enough.
Thus, a rising power—especially late in its development when its economic
and military power begin to approach that of the top dog in the system—becomes
more assertive in pressing its status claims and grievances. This cannot help but
foment domestic nationalism, as the public becomes either: (i) frustrated that
the established powers are treating the country with disrespect by denying it the
global influence it deserves or (ii) emboldened by concessions granted by the
2 See Jack A. Goldstone, ‘China’s Vision of Global Leadership Takes Shape’, 31 October, 2017,
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2017/10/31/chinas_vision_of_global_leadership_
takes_shape_112608.html.
3 See John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Kissing Cousins: Nationalism and Realism’, Yale Workshop on
International Relations, Unpublished manuscript, 5 May, 2011.
4 Steve Chan, Looking for Balance: China, the United States, and Power Balancing in East Asia
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 65.

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The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2018, Vol. 11, No. 1 25
established powers that allow expansion to proceed unabated. Moreover, leaders

of rising powers often whip up domestic nationalism to back their expansionist
policies and/or to divert the public’s dissatisfaction with the pace of internal
reforms and economic progress.
Less intuitively, nationalism can also support a policy of hegemonic
retrenchment—redeploying military forces offshore, demanding that allies pay
more for their defense, and reassessing trade agreements through a mercantilist
lens with the aim of achieving favorable trade balances. Because of the redistribu-
tion of power, the costs to the declining hegemon of managing the international
system increase relative to its capacity to pay. The problem becomes, as Walter
Lippmann characterized it, the balancing of commitments and resources.5 An
important means of bringing costs and resources into balance is to reduce over-
seas commitments—that is, political, economic, or military retrenchment—either
by passing the ‘balancing’ buck to one’s allies (insisting on greater burden-sharing
within the alliance), by unilaterally abandoning commitments, by seeking rap-
prochement with less threatening, secondary rivals, by attempting to appease the
rising power, or by some combination thereof.6 All of these policies fit within the
larger context of global retreat—of a weary titan coming home. The natural com-
plement to this grand strategy is a xenophobic nationalism rooted in the rallying
cry of ‘we must do more for ourselves and less for others, who should learn to
take care of themselves and solve their own problems’—the opposite, it should be
noted, of ‘the proper maxim of an unchallenged number one’: ‘Do good for others
in order to do well for yourself.’7
Most important, the resurgent nationalisms of the rising challenger and the
declining hegemon are entirely compatible with a future relationship character-
ized by peace and harmony. Obviously, the two nationalisms pose no inherent
conflict of interests: China currently wants more global influence; the United
States wants less. Hence, there is good reason to expect a soft landing as the
world moves from unipolarity to bipolarity. Indeed, the future may well resemble
President Xi Jinping’s proposal for a ‘new type of great power relations’ (xinxing
daguo guanxi), the idea that China and the United States should share global
leadership as equals and break a historical pattern of inevitable confrontation
between rising and established powers.8 There is room in Asia for two great
5 Walter Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Boston: Little Brown,
1943), p. 7.
6 Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1981), pp. 192–93.
7 Josef Joffe, ‘Defying History and Theory: The United States as the “Last Remaining
Superpower”’, in G. John Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of
Power (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 180.
8 See, for example, ‘Wooing Donald Trump, Xi Jinping Seeks Great Power Status for China’, 7
November, 2017, http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/wooing-donald-trump-xi-jinping-
seeks-great-power-status-for-china.

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powers to coexist and cooperate, in Xi’s opinion, as long as they treat each other
as equals.9
If China continues to grow economically and militarily, then, like every other
rising power in history, it will surely seek to expand its influence in the Asia-
Pacific region and throughout the globe. The question remains, how should
Washington respond? Operating within an emerging bipolar world, Washington
should adopt a grand strategy of offshore balancing: redeploying its military
forces ‘offshore’ and passing the ‘balancing’ buck to regional powers in Asia. If
China eventually makes a bid for regional hegemony, the United States should
wait and see if its regional allies can contain it. If and only if such containment
fails, then the United States will be required to deploy enough firepower to the
region to restore a stable balance. The aim is to remain offshore as long as possi-
ble, while recognizing that it may become necessary for US forces to come back
over the horizon. If that happens, however, Washington’s Asia-Pacific allies
should still do much of the heavy lifting.10
Neoclassical Realism: The Complementarity of Structural and

Domestic Realism
The anarchic environment of international politics generates powerful incentives
for states to behave in certain ways as opposed to others. The so-called ‘third
image’ causes favored by structural realists include: (i) the competitive, self-help
nature of anarchic systems, which drives the constant search for security and
power among states; (ii) changes in the balance of power that compel states to
build arms and form alliances; (iii) irresistible opportunities in the form of power
vacuums that tempt states to make gains at the expense of others; (iv) a state’s
position—its relative power or status—within the international system, which
determines its interests and the extent of its ambitions; (v) the offense–defense
balance in military technology, which often generates intense security dilemmas
(that is, powerful preemptive incentives and spiraling arms races); and (vi) com-
petitive pressures to emulate the most successful practices of the day, especially in
the arts and instruments of force, that produces a sameness of the competitors.11
9 In June 2013, when he met with President Barack Obama at Sunnylands in California,
President Xi Jinping summarized the ‘new relations’ in three points: ‘no conflicts or confron-
tations, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation’, which is now the official definition of the
new type of great power relations. Xi Jinping, as quoted in Qi Hao, ‘China Debates the
“New Type of Great Power Relations”’, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 8, No.
4 (2015), p. 350.
10 See John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, ‘The Case for Offshore Balancing: A
Superior U.S. Grand Strategy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 95, No. 4 (2016), pp. 70–83; and Barry R.
Posen, ‘Pull Back: The Case for a Less Activist Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 92, No. 1
(2013), pp. 116–29.
11 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1979),
pp. 127–28.

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More broadly, systems theories tell us that: (i) outcomes are often unforeseen and
do not follow from actors’ intentions (the logic of unintended consequences); (ii)
the whole is unknowable from an examination of its component parts (the logic
of emergent properties); and (iii) dense interconnections mean that actors can
never do just one thing, and their fates are strongly influenced by complex and
unpredictable interactions (the logic of perverse effects).
If system structure were the sole determinant of unit behavior, then similarly
placed states within the system would be structurally constrained to act similarly,
regardless of any variations at the unit level. Accordingly, the behavior of states
would be relatively unaffected by differences in domestic political systems, histor-
ical experiences, national traditions, ideological legacies, or deeply rooted ideas
about foreign policy and world politics. In other words, the more we assume that
a state’s position within the international system determines its preferences, poli-
cies, and actions, the less we need to reference country-specific ‘baggage’—idea-
tional, historical, or domestic—that might otherwise inform and shape how it
behaves on the international stage and what it seeks to achieve. Such a structur-
ally dominant world conforms to Kenneth Waltz’s claim that, in ‘self-help sys-
tems, the pressures of competition weigh more heavily than ideological
preferences or internal political pressures’.12
When systemic causes dominate unit-level actions and performance, there are
no uniquely American, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, or Korean explanations for
these countries’ behaviors or foreign policy preferences. It is a world driven by
massively intense structural incentives and constraints consistent with Arnold
Wolfers’s famous ‘house on fire’ and ‘racetrack’ analogies, where external com-
pulsion determines behavior.13 Structural theories of this kind must posit strict
situational determinism—a ‘straitjacket’ or ‘single exit’ notion of international
structure—in which actors are forced to act in certain ways under certain condi-
tions, such that no outcomes can occur other than the ones predicted by the
theory.14
Waltz himself, however, clearly does not subscribe to such a view. Instead, he
argues that international structure (anarchy and the system-wide distribution of
capabilities) provides only ‘a set of constraining conditions’ for state action. The
external environment, in Waltz’s words, ‘can tell us what pressures are exerted
and what possibilities are posed by systems of different structure, but it cannot
tell us just how, and how effectively, the units of a system will respond to those
pressures and possibilities’.15 He further asserts: ‘Each state arrives at policies and
decides on actions according to its own internal processes, but its decisions are
12 Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘A Reply to My Critics’, in Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its
Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 329.
13 Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962).
14 Spiro J. Latsis, ‘Situational Determinism in Economics’, British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science, Vol. 23 (1972), pp. 207–45.
15 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 71.

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shaped by the very presence of other states as well as by interactions with them.’16
In this view, international structure accounts for continuities and uniformity of
outcomes despite the variety of inputs over time and space. Conversely, unit-level
theories explain ‘why different units behave differently despite their similar place-
ment in a system’.17
The key point for present concerns is that Waltzian neorealism makes no asser-
tions about what domestic processes look like, where they come from, and how
they influence the way nations assess and adapt to changes in their environ-
ment.18 Neorealism is a theory of international politics; it makes no claim to
explain or predict specific foreign policies or historical events.
Unhappy with this limitation, young realist scholars in the early 1990s sponta-
neously formed a new school of political realism, called neoclassical realism.
Placing the rich but often discursive insights of early realist works within a more
theoretically rigorous framework, these scholars embraced the more densely tex-
tured formulations of traditional, pre-Waltzian realists—formulations that per-
mitted a focus on foreign policy as well as systemic-level phenomena.
Neoclassical realism does not reject systemic theory but instead combines it with
domestic-level theorizing, exploring the internal processes by which states arrive
at policies and decide on actions in response to pressures and opportunities in
their external environment. It acknowledges that compelling accounts of why
countries do the things that they do will often include systemic, domestic, and
other influences; and this is fine as long as the theory holds some variables con-
stant and specifies what aspects of a given policy can be explained by what fac-
tors.19 In his seminal article on the subject, Gideon Rose, who coined the term
‘neoclassical realism’, explained it this way:
16 Ibid., p. 65.
17 Ibid., p. 72.
18 This is precisely why structural realism not only can incorporate domestic-level processes
as causal variables in a consistent and rigorously deductive manner but must do so to offer
a complete explanation of the core processes the theory itself identifies: balancing, uneven
growth rates, and the ‘sameness effect’. See Jennifer Sterling-Folker, ‘Realist Environment,
Liberal Process, and Domestic-Level Variables’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 41,
No. 1 (1997), p. 22. Even Christopher Layne—one of the staunchest proponents of Waltzian
structural realist—admits that structural effects, such as great power emergence, result
from unit-level actions and decisions. See Christopher Layne, ‘The Unipolar Illusion: Why
New Great Powers Will Rise’, International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1993), p. 9.
19 See Fareed Zakaria, ‘Realism and Domestic Politics: A Review Essay’, International
Security, Vol. 17, No. 1 (1992), p. 198. Likewise, Jack Snyder writes: ‘Theoretically, Realism
must be recaptured from those who look only at politics between societies, ignoring what
goes on within societies. Realists are right in stressing power, interests, and coalition mak-
ing as the central elements in a theory of politics, but recent exponents of Realism in inter-
national relations have been wrong in looking exclusively to states as the irreducible atoms
whose power and interests are to be assessed.’ Jack L. Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic

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[Neoclassical realism] explicitly incorporates both external and internal variables . . . . Its adher-
ents argue that the scope and ambition of a country’s foreign policy is driven first and foremost
by its place in the international system and specifically by its relative material power capabil-
ities. This is why they are realist. They argue further, however, that the impact of such power
capabilities on foreign policy is indirect and complex, because systemic pressures must be trans-
lated through intervening variables at the unit level. This is why they are neoclassical.20
In practice, neoclassical realists have explained foreign policy decisions and par-
ticular historical events by supplementing ‘top-shelf’ third-image theories with
various first- and second-image variables, such as domestic politics, internal
extraction capacity and processes, state power and intentions, and leaders’ per-
ceptions of the balance of power and the offense–defense balance.21 Just as
important, ‘neoclassical realism uses domestic politics and ideas to flesh out the
concept of power, the central variable in neorealism’.22
Returning to Wolfers’s ‘house on fire’ analogy, the emergence of powerful
aggressors—states that make security scarce and war appear inevitable—raises
the temperature to the point where we can speak of compulsion in the external
environment. In terms of international politics, the third image provides a
straightforward prediction for how states can be expected to respond to powerful
aggressors: just as rational people within a house on fire will rush to the exits,
states confronted by dangerous rising powers will build arms and form alliances
to counterbalance the threat. Third-image causes also partly explain why the
house is on fire (that is, why a country becomes aggressive and threatening to its
neighbors): a rapidly rising state will seek changes in the status quo order
Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991),
p. 19.
20 Gideon Rose, ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy’, World Politics, Vol. 51,
No. 1 (1998), p. 146. For a critique of neoclassical realism, see Kevin Narizny, ‘On Systemic
Paradigms and Domestic Politics: A Critique of the Newest Realism’, International Security,
Vol. 42, No. 2 (2017), pp. 155–90.
21 See, for example, Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s
World Role (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998); Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, ‘State
Building for Future Wars: Neoclassical Realism and the Resource-Extractive State,’
Security Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2006), pp. 464–95; Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders: Power,
Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2006); Randall L. Schweller, Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of
Power (Princeton: Princeton University, 2006); William C. Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance:
Power and Perceptions During the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993); and
Thomas J. Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and
Sino-American Conflict, 1947–1958 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
22 Brian Rathbun, ‘A Rose by Any Other Name: Neoclassical Realism as the Logical and
Necessary Extension of Structural Realism’, Security Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2008), p. 301;
also see Randall L. Schweller, ‘Neoclassical Realism and State Mobilization: Expansionist
Ideology in the Age of Mass Politics’, in Steve Lobell, Jeffrey Taliaferro, and Norrin
Ripsman, eds., Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), pp. 227–50.

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consistent with its newfound power, often threatening war if its revisionist
demands go unmet.
If the world follows this script, then third-image theories explain much, if not
all, we need to know. But what if the house remains on fire even when a rising
challenger stops rising and begins to decline? What if threatened neighbors do not
rush to leave the burning house? In other words, what if the regional rivals of a
powerful state do not build arms and form alliances in response to its growing
power but, instead, accommodate or even bandwagon with it? Purely third-image
theories cannot explain these puzzles. Explanations for these counterintuitive
behaviors are rooted, instead, in unit-level causes—those that reside within the
state itself.
When so-called second-image variables define international relations, the over-
all story of international (or regional) politics is not simple and straightforward—
it may not be even coherent from a ‘big picture’ perspective. Instead, international
politics will be the fractured product of many individual and often quite complex
storylines—some embedded in partisan politics, others in domestic structures and
cultural values, and still others in ideas, trials, and experiences that may have
occurred decades or even centuries ago. The complexity of second-image theories
results from their emphasis on the redistributive aspects of grand strategic
choices, highlighting the pressures within the state rather than the pushes and
pulls from outside it. This inside-out approach typical of all domestic politics the-
ories starts with the premise that leader’s foreign policy choices are often con-
strained and sometimes distorted by societal interests (e.g. bankers, industrialists,
merchants, interest groups, and the general public) that have a stake in the
nation’s foreign policy.23
Realism and Nationalism

Realists assume that states, because they operate within a dangerous and uncer-
tain anarchic realm, expand when they can.24 Part of ‘when they can’ is interna-
tional: advantageous moments when power realities—such as the opening of a
power vacuum or a weakened neighbor—allow the state to expand. The other,
mostly overlooked part of ‘when they can’ is domestic. Wars are dangerous and
costly undertakings. Prudent rulers can only wage them somewhat safely (in terms
of the survival of their regimes, regardless of the outcome) and expect victory
when their citizens viscerally identify with the territorial nation-state: when they
perceive the state as the source of both obligations and, as E. H. Carr noted of the
late nineteenth century, benefits.25
23 See, for instance, Peter Trubowitz, Politics and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American
Statecraft (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).
24 Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, pp. 23–24, 94–95. For the assumption of influence-
maximizing as the primary objective of states, especially great powers, see Zakaria, From
Wealth to Power, chapter 2.
25 Edward Hallett Carr, Nationalism and After (New York: Macmillan, 1945).

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Consistent with this reasoning, Hans Morgenthau avers: ‘National character

and, above all, national morale and the quality of government, especially in the
conduct of foreign affairs, are the most important . . . components of national
power.’26 Similarly, Robert Strausz-Hupé concludes: ‘For the determinants of a
state’s behavior in international politics, realists place greater weight than do
idealists on non-material factors, such as patriotism and nationalism.’27 The point
is that the accumulation and projection of national power depend on the prior
existence of a strong state backed by national will and unity of purpose. National
power is partly a matter of territorial size, population, and natural resources.
Nation-states that are rich in these endowments, however, are not always power-
ful. A state is only as strong as its ability to extract resources from its society.28
All of which is to say that the domestic-level counterpart to structural realism,
especially in an age of social media and mass politics, is nationalism. Arising in
response to the problems of modernity, nationalism fastened on to immutable cul-
tural attributes as the bedrock of a new identity that would endure in times of
rapid change. Nationalism, whether as a movement or an ideology, functions ‘to
bind together people in a particular territory in an endeavor to gain and use state
power’.29 At its very core, nationalism is an emotional belief. ‘Analysts view
nationalism as part sentimental, part instrumental, and differ over whether
nationalism is primarily responsible for hate of outgroups or love of one’s own
group.’30 In the emphatic words of John Breuilly, ‘nationalism is, above and
beyond all else, about politics and that politics is about power. Power, in the
modern world, is principally about control of the state. The central task is to
relate nationalism to the objectives of obtaining and using state power’.31 One
could not provide a better description of realism at the level of domestic
politics.32
26 Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), pp. 197–98.
27 Robert Strausz-Hupé, Democracy and American Foreign Policy: Reflections on the Legacy
of Alexis de Tocqueville (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1995), p. 85.
28 See Schweller, ‘Neoclassical Realism and State Mobilization’, chapter 8.
29 John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994),
p. 381.
30 Jonathan Mercer, ‘Emotional Beliefs’, International Organization, Vol. 64, No. 1 (2010), p. 6.
Also see Herbert C. Kelman, ‘Nationalism, Patriotism, and National Identity: Social-
psychological Dimensions’, in Daniel Bar-Tal and Ervin Staub, eds., Patriotism in the Lives of
Individuals and Nations (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1997), pp. 165–89; Benedict Anderson,
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York:
Verso, 1991).
31 Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, p. 1.
32 Oddly, though his account of nationalism is rooted in state power, Breuilly never once men-
tions realism. Instead, he connects nationalism to functionalist, communications, Marxist,
identity, and psychological approaches. See Breuilly, Nationalism and the State.

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Emerging Powers: Outward-Looking Nationalism of Expansion

Emerging powers are expected to be outward-looking, to show competitive inter-
national faces, to expand when and where they can. Throughout history, it has
been a commonly held belief that demographic and economic growth must, like
an irresistible law of nature, lead to territorial growth and the enhancement of
the country’s political influence in other regions. Self-interest obliges leaders of
rising states to take advantage of opportunities to augment their countries’ influ-
ence, power, and status, but not recklessly. In other words, rational leaders will
try to avoid expansion and imperial ambitions that risk triggering the formation
of powerful counter-coalitions.
Nevertheless, resistance to its prestige and status demands—that is, pushback
by the existing Great Powers—is fully anticipated and expected. A rising power
demands its rightful place in the sun knowing that the established Great Powers
who created the existing order are unlikely to concede the prestige, territory, and
privileges they enjoy under the current system. Hence, rising powers are often
portrayed as troublesome states—as revisionist challengers seeking to expand
their political and military influence by hook or by crook at the expense of the
old guard. Just as the need to expand appears to be in logic of a nation’s develop-
ment, the impulse to oppose such expansion appears to be in the logic of a hegem-
on’s decline. These two logics combine to drive a narrative of encirclement within
the emerging power—one in which the older and stronger nation(s) seek to stran-
gle the new and rising one before it is too late. All this is fertile soil for the growth
within the rising power of a powerful brand of nationalism that looks outward.
This is not to suggest that emerging powers are wholly distracted by external
opportunities. Like all states, rising powers are Janus-faced, looking inward as
well as outward. After all, sudden and dramatic national growth induces massive
social and political dislocations. As a nation grows, therefore, it becomes increas-
ingly essential for its rulers to continuously mediate between their national soci-
eties and the international economy—to recalibrate periodically the balance
between citizens, states, and markets as they simultaneously encourage stable and
sustained growth.
Within rising powers, outward-looking nationalism is a natural response to
the country’s exalted growth and the national pride and patriotism that it inspires
among its citizens. That said, there are two other more devious and less straight-
forward ways that outward-looking nationalism can arise (or rather, be whipped
up by elites) and be used for domestic purposes. First, consistent with the diver-
sionary theory of war, it redirects the public’s attention from internal troubles
and the regime’s failures—in China’s case, official corruption, lack of political
reform, pollution, youth unemployment, and a woefully inefficient capital market
due to stalled reforms that would transform China’s dominant state-owned banks
into commercial banks—to external opportunities and to enemies (an out-group),
real or imagined, who are preventing the emerging power from harvesting those
benefits. Second, as Jack Snyder argued, nationalism centered on (imperial)
expansion—whether territorial, economic, political, or any combination there-
of—may arise as a rationalization ‘for the interests of groups that derive parochial

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benefits from expansion, from military preparations associated with expansion,

or from the domestic political climate brought about by intense international
competition’.33
Consistent with this logic, many observers believe that, since 2010, Beijing has
been pursuing its territorial ambitions more aggressively. China seeks to assert
territorial sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction over the bulk of the South China
Seas—between roughly 62% and 90% of this sea. Combined, Chinese territorial
and maritime demands stretch more than 800 nautical miles from the Chinese
island province of Hainan and encompass islands, rocks, reefs, and waters
claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. Moreover,
China has created more than 3200 acres of territory between 2013 and 2015—
acreage that amounts to nearly 17 times more land creation in two years than all
of the other claimant states combined in the past forty years.34 China’s ability to
station its missiles, fighter jets, and strategic bombers on these artificial islands
makes them tantamount to a fleet of ‘unsinkable aircraft carriers’.35 In the East
China Seas, China has repeatedly prompted ‘incidents’ in the Diaoyu/Senkaku
Islands. As a result, Sino-Japanese distrust has reached new heights, reflecting the
insecurities felt by both countries as they contemplate their respective positions in
Asia. China is also expanding its influence in the areas of global finance, trade,
and aid. As the United States under Donald Trump retreats from globalization,
especially from international trade agreements that fail to deliver short-term US
trade surpluses, China has dedicated itself to the opposite strategy: making long-
term investments with the aim of supplanting the United States as the world’s
dominant power.36 Key to this plan is China’s new ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy.
Launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013 to improve links between Beijing and
its neighbors within Eurasia, the ‘Belt and Road’ strategy will make it possible for
China to become the economic center of all of Eurasia. This is no fantasy.
Witness the Chinese government’s January 2017 launch of a rail freight service
between China and London. Traversing Asia and Europe, the Beijing–London
rail link, the first of its kind, is just one of China’s growing portfolio of rail con-
nections. There are presently 39 lines that connect 12 European cities with 16
Chinese cities.37
For maritime transport, China is developing new seaports in the Indian Ocean
and has purchased the port of Piraeus in Greece, which it is expanding to serve as
33 Snyder, Myths of Empire, p. 31.

34 Ronald O’Rourke, Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Disputes
Involving China: Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service,
2016), pp. 27–28.
35 Benjamin Herscovitch, ‘A Balanced Threat Assessment of China’s South China Sea Policy’,
Policy Analysis, No. 820, Cato Institute, 28 August, 2017, p. 3.
36 See Goldstone, ‘China’s Vision of Global Leadership Takes Shape’.
37 Jonathan Webb, ‘The New Silk Road: China Launches Beijing-London Freight Train Route’, 3
January, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2017/01/03/the-new-silk-road-china-
launches-beijing-london-freight-train-route/#73b353581f13.

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the hub of a transport network of China-built rail lines reaching from Greece into
Hungary and then throughout Europe. This maritime trade route is being pro-
tected by China’s fast-expanding blue-water navy, new air and naval bases built
on reefs in the South China Sea, and China’s first overseas military base in
Djibouti, which guards the Red Sea and Suez routes to the Piraeus. Moreover,
this vast continent-wide construction venture is being financed mainly by loans
from China to other countries—loans that will bind recipient countries to China
for a generation. Through these infrastructure projects and the construction of an
alternative global architecture, most notably in the area of global finance and
credit with the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China—like the
United States in the years after World War II—is spinning its economic power
into a global web of finance, construction, and trade, making it possible for
China to become the economic center of all Eurasia.38
Explanations of China’s new assertiveness have focused on both international
structure and China’s domestic politics, that is, on both third-image and second-
image causes. Regarding international structure, pundits claim that, in the wake
of the 2008 financial crisis, Chinese leaders perceived a dramatic shift in the
global balance of power—an unprecedented transfer of power and wealth from
West to East and South.39 The perceived decline of American power and onset of
a more multipolar world, so the argument goes, have emboldened Chinese leaders
to be ‘more confident in ignoring Deng Xiaoping’s longtime axiom not to treat
the United States as an adversary, and in challenging the United States on China’s
interests’.40 Here, China’s new assertiveness is consistent with the classical realist
principle that nations expand their political interests abroad when their relative
power increases. Or as Robert Gilpin explains the dynamic correlation between
power and the national interest: ‘The Realist law of uneven growth implies that
as the power of a group or state increases, that group or state will be tempted to
try to increase its control over the environment. In order to increase its own secur-
ity, it will try to expand its political, economic, and territorial control, it will try
to change the international system in accordance with its particular set of inter-
ests.’41 In this view, China’s new assertiveness is a predictable consequence of its
changed (more exalted) position within the international system.
Relatedly, Suisheng Zhao argues that China’s post-2008 ‘strident turn’ is
explained by the convergence of Chinese state nationalism and popular national-
ism calling for a more muscular Chinese foreign policy: ‘Enjoying an inflated
sense of empowerment supported by its new quotient of wealth and military
capacities, and terrified of an uncertain future due to increasing social, economic
and political tensions at home, the communist state has become more willing to
38 Goldstone, ‘China’s Vision of Global Leadership Takes Shape’.

39 Michael Swaine, ‘Perceptions of an Assertive China’, China Leadership Monitor, No. 32
(2010), p. 2.
40 Alastair Iain Johnston, ‘How New and Assertive Is China’s New Assertiveness?’,
International Security, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2013), p. 35.
41 Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, pp. 94–95; Zakaria, From Wealth to Power, pp. 19–20.

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play to the popular nationalist gallery in pursuing the so-called core national
interests.’42 Such popular nationalism in China is very much a product of the
country’s historical legacy ‘of a long and glorious past, unjust treatment at the
hands of foreigners from 1840 to 1949 (and beyond), a desire to regain interna-
tional respect and equality, an imperative for territorial reunification, and a wish
to reaffirm their collective greatness as a people and nation’.43 A shared sense of
shame and humiliation with respect to China’s experience of having been a play-
ground of foreign (Western and Japanese) intervention and encroachment is
particularly a potent driver of Chinese nationalism and its current behavior.44
Indeed, shame has been a stimulant, a call to action, for generations of Chinese
leaders and intellectuals. Though it may sound odd to most Western ears, feeling
shame was (and remains) the path to escape the bitter reality of China’s humiliat-
ing past. ‘To feel shame is to approach courage,’ reads an inscription in the
Temple of Tranquil Seas in Nanjing, where China signed one of its most unequal
treaties with a foreign power. China ‘carries the self-image of a “victim nation,”
albeit a nation with aspirations finally on a path toward greatness restored. This
victim complex, coupled with China’s aspirations and growing power, creates a
sense of entitlement—a combination that makes Beijing prickly in its dealing with
the United States’ and its neighbors.45
We see this cantankerous and touchy mood not only in Beijing’s increasingly
tough diplomacy but in the violent demonstrations over the past several years
staged by Chinese nationalists against Japanese companies with operations in
China, causing some of those companies to relocate to Vietnam. Today, more
than ever, Chinese public displays of nationalism and outrage—whether set off by
perceived unfair treatment by the West, US–South Korea naval exercises, or
insults from the Japanese—appear genuine rather than manufactured. Moreover,
whereas nationalism was traditionally confined primarily to young Chinese and
to some soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), it has spread to Chinese
businesspeople, academics, and elite politicians.46 This diffusion of Chinese
nationalism is the product of China’s rise and its domestic political system becom-
ing more participative, with different factions fighting among each other, and
China’s public sphere growing more dynamic, fueled by the Internet and social
media. ‘Beyond the party’s control,’ notes Jayshree Bajoria, ‘the emergence of the
42 Suisheng Zhao, ‘Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: The Strident
Turn’, Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 22, No. 82 (2013), p. 535.
43 David M. Lampton, Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989–2000
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), p. 251.
44 See, for instance, Zheng Wang, Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in
Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
45 Lampton, Same Bed, Different Dreams, pp. 251–52.
46 Robert S. Ross, ‘The Domestic Sources of China’s “Assertive Diplomacy” 2009–2010:
Nationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy’, in Rosemary Foot, ed., China across the Divide:
The Domestic and Global in Politics and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013),
p. 79.

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Internet in the last two decades has given nationalists more power to vent their
anger after particular incidents. It has also brought the huge Chinese diaspora in
places like Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Europe, and North America, into
closer contact with those residing within China’s borders’, facilitating the contin-
uous flow and escalation of nationalist rhetoric and propaganda.47 And because
social media can be used to organize large-scale, nationalist protests in Beijing
and other cities against foreign governments, the continued expansion of informa-
tion technologies throughout the population promises to accentuate the role of
nationalism in Chinese policymaking; it also threatens to raise Chinese national-
ism to dangerous and unstable levels of hypernationalism.48
Given China’s determination to avenge its past, there is every reason to expect
that Chinese nationalism will continue to grow in lockstep with the country’s
increased power. This phenomenon is already evident among Chinese policy-
makers, military officials, and average citizens. The consensus is that China must
eventually become more internationally assertive to the point where it, like the
United States, is willing to intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries to
protect its far-flung interests abroad.49 Moreover, some suggest that the goal of
global dominance lies at the core of China’s journey from humiliation to rejuve-
nation. The notion of national rejuvenation, according to the conservative
Chinese analyst Yan Xuetong, ‘conjures “the psychological power” associated
with China’s rise “to its former world status”. The concept assumes both that
China is recovering its natural position and that this means being the “number
one nation in the world”’.50
That said, there is a complex relationship between the Chinese party-state and
grassroots protesters. As Jessica Chen Weiss has argued, street protests provide an
opportunity for officials to send signals to various audiences in China and abroad.
At the same time, those protests pose a risk to the Party leadership. For the past
three decades, China’s leaders have selectively tolerated grassroots protests,
allowing nationalist demonstrations to bolster a tough diplomatic stance and
repressing such protests to show flexibility and reassurance.51 It is important to
point out, moreover, that China is still in the ‘take-off’ phase of its power
trajectory—its full potential is decades away. Consider, for example, the competi-
tion between China’s AIIB and the Japanese-led Asian Development Bank (ADB),
founded in 1966, which works closely with the American-dominated World
Bank. Compared to the ADB’s asset base of approximately $160 billion and $30
47 Jayshree Bajoria, ‘Nationalism in China’, Council on Foreign Relations, 23 April, 2008, http://
www.cfr.org/china/nationalism-china/p16079.
48 See Ross, ‘The Domestic Sources of China’s “Assertive Diplomacy”’, p. 80.
49 Mark Leonard, ‘Why Convergence Breeds Conflict: Growing More Similar Will Push China
and the United States Apart’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 92, No. 5 (2013), pp. 129–30.
50 Yan Xuetong quoted in Jacqueline Newmyer Deal, ‘China’s Nationalist Heritage’, National
Interest, No. 123 (2013), p. 49.
51 Jessica Chen Weiss, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relation (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2014).

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billion in loans, the AIIB looks downright puny at this stage in its development.
The AIIB was initially capitalized at $100 billion, but only $9 billion of it has
been paid in so far—$20 billion being the goal. Given its initially small base, the
AIIB disbursed only $1.7 billion in loans its first year, with $2 billion slated for
2017.52 So while the rate of China’s growth in global power and influence
remains impressive, its size and impact relative to that currently held by Japan
and the United States are easily overstated.
Declining Powers: Inward-Looking Nationalism of Global Retrenchment

Declining powers, in contrast, tend to be inward-looking, focusing on domestic
change and reconstruction. This is especially true for declining powers under con-
ditions of low vulnerability.53 And no state in history has enjoyed more security
than the United States. Even Britain, though considered an insular country, has
had to contend on several occasions with the prospect of an amphibious assault
from across the English Channel; the United States has never confronted such a
possibility. As the French ambassador, Jean-Jules Jusserand, remarked about the
safety of the United States from distant powers: ‘On the north, she has a weak
neighbor; on the south, another weak neighbor; on the east, fish, and the west,
fish.’54 Blessed by its providential geographic position, unparalleled nuclear
arsenal, unmatched economic productivity and innovation, and regional hegem-
ony in the Western Hemisphere, the United States exists under conditions of
extremely low vulnerability. All reasonable American decision makers calculate
that US resources in combination with those of its allies are more than sufficient
to cope with any emerging threat and, should war break out anyway, that the
United States and its allies would prevail.
Given the tendency for declining powers, especially those under conditions of
low vulnerability, to reduce peripheral commitments and look inward, a few
wonder that American citizens, after decades of political consensus, are now
questioning their country’s grand strategy of deep engagement with the rest of the
world. And, to the shock and dismay of the mainstream media, they elected a
President who, in his 2017 inauguration speech, emphasized his winning cam-
paign slogan: ‘From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America
first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be
made to benefit American workers and American families.’55
While there is no Trump Doctrine as of yet, the tone is unmistakably one of
global retreat or, more accurately, a retreat from globalism. On his third day in
office, he withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal
52 Michael Auslin, ‘Asia’s Other Great Game’, National Interest, No. 152 (2017), p. 19.
53 See Charles A. Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire (Ithaca and London: Cornell University
Press, 1994), esp. pp. 15–17.
54 Quoted in Mearsheimer and Walt, ‘The Case for Offshore Balancing’, p. 72.
55 President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Speech, 20 January, 2017, http://abcnews.go.com/
Politics/full-text-president-donald-trumps-inauguration-speech/story?id¼44915821.

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designed by the United States as a counterweight to a rising China. In June, he

announced that he would pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement on cli-
mate change, following through with a key campaign promise. Trump also
announced that he intends to withdraw the United States from UNESCO; he
abandoned United Nations talks on migration; and he threatened to terminate the
2015 Iran nuclear deal if Congress and US allies fail to amend the agreement in
significant ways; he wants to fix or rip up the free-trade agreement with South
Korea (known as Korus) and NAFTA—casting both pacts as failures for the
United States. Trump has proposed reducing US contributions to the United
Nations by 40%, and pressured the General Assembly to cut six hundred million
dollars from its peacekeeping budget. His 2018 budget proposes a 42% cut in for-
eign assistance, or $11.5 billion, and reduces American funding for development
projects, such as those financed by the World Bank.56 Of NATO, Trump said
that he would ‘certainly look at’ pulling the United States out of the international
security alliance, because it is ‘obsolete’ and ‘is costing us a fortune.’57
To be sure, there has been something of a ‘bonfire of many of the established
concepts of American grand strategy’ since Trump was elected. Some observers,
like Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former
State Department official during the George W. Bush administration, claim that
the Trump administration is engaged in an ‘abdication’ of US global leadership—
not because of any loss of military or economic power that forced America to
retrench from its global commitments but rather because the administration
‘chose to walk away from many of the institutions, frameworks,’ and to ‘intro-
duce questions into alliances that have really formed or informed American for-
eign policy now for nearly three quarters of a century’.58
President Trump and his administration revile the Washington national secur-
ity establishment’s unthinking fidelity to the idea of a liberal international order
that, for decades, has been deemed worthy of expending huge amounts of
American blood and treasure to preserve. Thus, in his first major speech on for-
eign policy, the then candidate Donald Trump said: ‘No country has ever pros-
pered that failed to put its own interests first. Both our friends and our enemies
put their countries above ours and we, while being fair to them, must start doing
the same. We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song
of globalism. The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and
harmony.’59
56 See Evan Osnos, ‘Making China Great Again’, The New Yorker, 8 January, 2018, p. 38.
57 D’Angelo Gore, ‘What’s Trump’s Position on NATO?’, 11 May, 2016, https://www.factcheck.
org/2016/05/whats-trumps-position-on-nato/.
58 Richard Haass quoted in David Wright, ‘Haass Says US Engaged in “Abdication” of Global
Leadership’, 3 January, 2018, http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politics/richard-haass-trump-
leadership-cnntv/index.html.
59 Transcript of Donald J. Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech at the Center for National Interest, 27
April, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/us/politics/transcript-trump-foreign-policy.
html.

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Viewing the phrases ‘rule-based order’ or ‘liberal international order’ as anath-

ema to US interests, the Trump administration seems more comfortable with the
call for a diverse global order—one anchored less to liberal democracy and
human rights and more to a narrow definition of the national interest, an accurate
assessment of power realities, and, above all, prudence. The question arises: Why
the groundswell of American support for retrenchment now? Structural realism
provides an answer—one rooted in system polarity.
Why American Retrenchment Now?

Under bipolarity, the motivation was to contain and, if possible, defeat the Soviet
Union and its allies. As one of two superpowers, the United States bestrode the
world as an institution builder, providing public goods in the form of, inter alia,
security guarantees, trade liberalization, and monetary stability to its allies.
Because the Cold War was fueled by both the bipolar distribution of power and a
deep rift between two universalistic ideologies, realist and liberal prescriptions
mostly overlapped. When there were contradictions—for instance, whether to
support an anti-Communist but otherwise repugnant regime or, instead, promote
human rights and democracy—realist power politics usually triumphed over
American ideals.60 The key point is that, once the Cold War started, there was no
longer a US debate centered on internationalism versus isolation, as in the past:
competition with the Soviet Union was global, and so the periphery was no longer
seen as peripheral.61 In this zero-sum game, America’s deep engagement, whether
driven by a grand strategy of liberal hegemony or the global distribution of capa-
bilities, became axiomatic. Put differently, the social purpose of American hegem-
ony and power politics tended to complement each other.
After the Cold War, the United States—acting as the lone superpower in a uni-
polar world—remained deeply engaged with the world, but its intent was very
different: revisionism in the guise of liberal hegemony. As an unchallenged Mr.
Big, America would now endeavor to remold large swaths of the world to fit its
60 For the dilemmas that American policymakers faced as they tried to balance security and
reform goals, see Douglas J. Macdonald, Adventures in Chaos: American Intervention for
Reform in the Third World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).
61 On this point, Waltz’s structural realist theory contains an important contradiction. The
theory explains bipolar stability as a result of the two superpowers’ reliance on internal bal-
ancing; simply put, in bipolar worlds, unlike multipolar ones, the two polar powers are unfet-
tered by the structural uncertainty associated with alliances—who will align with whom—
and the dangers of entrapment, that is, being dragged into war by reckless partners. That
said, Waltz also claims that bipolarity, though not plagued by the danger of miscalculation,
encourages the danger of overreaction—because, in a two-power competition, a loss for
one appears as a corresponding gain for the other. Waltz, Theory of International Politics,
pp. 170–72; Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘The Stability of a Bipolar World’, Daedalus, Vol. 93 (1964), pp.
881–909; Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 118–22.

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image of international order. Washington not only aligned itself with democracy,
human rights, and justice but actively promoted these liberal values. Doing so
marked the end of Cold War pragmatism and the resurgence of a crusading style
of American foreign policy.62 All states, including authoritarian major powers,
such as Russia and China, would now become supplicants in an American-
dominated world order.
America’s transformation from a status quo to a revisionist power is easily
explained by structural realist theory in both its Waltzian and Gilpinian variants.
From a Waltzian perspective, the structural incentives of unipolarity—unchecked
power—provided powerful external compulsion for the United States to pursue
grand policies of revisionism on a global scale, even though it was free to choose
a foreign policy of retrenchment and restraint, and such a strategy would have
better served its national interests. The logic is that of Arnold Wolfers’s ‘racetrack
analogy’, wherein individuals who cannot see the horse race clearly because of
the crowds who arrived before them can be expected to rush to fill an opening
that occurs in front of them—thus illustrating compulsive action arising not from
external danger but from an irresistible opportunity for gain.63
From a Gilpinian perspective, America’s victory over the Soviet Union, though
peaceful, served with one exception all the same systemic functions as victory in a
hegemonic war: it did not entirely obliterate the old order; that is, it did not wipe
clean the old institutional slate so that a new global architecture could be built
from ground zero. It did, however, concentrate enormous power in the hands of
one dominant state possessing the capabilities, will, and legitimacy to transform
the world and enforce its preferred order.64 Remember, the core logic behind
Gilpin’s theory of hegemonic war is that major powers will attempt to change the
international system if the expected benefits exceed the expected costs. ‘As the
power of a state increases, the relative cost of changing the system and of thereby
achieving the state’s goals decreases (and, conversely, increases when a state is
declining),’ Gilpin asserts. ‘Therefore, according to the law of demand, as the
power of a state increases, so does the probability of its willingness to seek a
change in the system.’65
Prior to the end of the Cold War, this logic seemed to pertain only to rising
challengers. There is no good reason, however, why it should not apply equally
62 The seeds of a new ‘human rights’-oriented American foreign policy were, arguably, sown
in the 1970s. See Daniel J. Sargent, A Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American
Foreign Relations in the 1970s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). The full-blown promo-
tion of liberal values, however, only became the centerpiece of US foreign policy after the
Cold War ended.
63 Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, p. 14.
64 Like a hegemonic war, the end of the Cold War also clarified the bargaining situation among
the great powers—confusion over which is the root cause of war in the first place. For
these global functions served by hegemonic wars, see Gilpin, War and Change in World
Politics.
65 Ibid., p. 95.

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well to a hegemon that outlasts a rising challenger in a failed power transition.

After all, the collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in a major power shift in the
US’ favor, increasing the net expected benefits of system change. This explains
not only why the United States remained deeply engaged with the world but,
more importantly, why it did not emerge as a powerful defender of the interna-
tional status quo—one committed to preserving the global arrangements that
suited it so well.66 Instead, the United States became, as Robert Jervis argues, ‘a
truly revolutionary power, [seeking] not only to shape international politics but,
as both a means to that end and a goal in itself, also to remake domestic regimes
and societies around the world’.67 The motive for deep engagement was no longer
system maintenance (containment) but system transformation.
Predicting a short life for unipolarity, Waltz wrote, ‘Those who refer to the
unipolar moment are right.’68 Here, the structural realist logic is two-fold. First,
the misuse of power follows inevitably from its concentration; a unipolar power
is, therefore, prone to take on too many tasks beyond its own borders, weakening
it in the long run. Second, excessive power, no matter how it is wielded, is inher-
ently dangerous to others: ‘With benign intent, the United States has behaved,
and until its power is brought into a semblance of balance, will continue to
behave in ways that annoy and frighten others.’69
But after a decade of unipolarity (and then another decade), the puzzle for real-
ists became how to explain the absence of any meaningful semblance of pushback
against unchecked US power. William Wohlforth argued that the enormous dis-
parity in relative power between the United States and other major powers pre-
vented the return of a global balance of power. Stephen Walt agreed and added
that, consistent with his balance-of-threat theory, the ‘formation of a cohesive
anti-American coalition is not inevitable, and may not even be likely’, so long as
the United States does not act in ways that needlessly threaten others.70
66 Indeed, ‘realist theory would predict that the revitalized hegemon will have every incentive
to exercise its newfound power to extract whatever concessions it can from the defeated
challenger. In so doing, the hegemon will bring the international system back in to equili-
brium—albeit, an equilibrium that is likely to differ markedly from the “status quo ante”’.
Randall L. Schweller and William C. Wohlforth, ‘Power Test: Updating Realism in Response
to the End of the Cold War’, Security Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2000), p. 84. See also William C.
Wohlforth, ‘Gilpinian Realism and International Relations’, International Relations, Vol. 25,
No. 4 (2011), pp. 505–06.
67 Robert Jervis, ‘Unipolarity: A Structural Perspective’, World Politics, Vol. 61, No. 1 (2009),
p. 205.
68 Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Structural Realism after the Cold War’, International Security, Vol. 25,
No. 1 (2000), p. 30.
69 Kenneth Waltz, ‘America as a Model for the World? A Foreign Policy Perspective’, PS:
Political Science and Politics, Vol. 24, No. 4 (1991), p. 69.
70 Stephen M. Walt, ‘Keeping the World “Off-Balance”: Self-Restraint and U.S. Foreign Policy’,
in Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled, p. 153.

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Josef Joffe explained how the United States managed to keep the world off-
balance through the genius of its grand strategy. Unlike prior hegemons that were
in business only to enrich themselves, the United States provides global public
goods that not only project American power and influence but also serve the
needs of others. American leaders have understood that the proper maxim for an
unchallenged number one is: ‘Do good for others in order to do well by
yourself.’71 The United States’ transcendence of narrow self-interest, its willing-
ness to take on global obligations and responsibilities, has allowed it be alone
among hegemons to ‘defy history’ by overcoming the law that power will always
beget power.
Then came the global financial and economic crisis of 2007–2008. The world
no longer seemed unipolar as far as the eye could see. The Great Recession—
coupled with the rise of China, India, and a resurgent Russia—cast doubts on the
state of American relative power that found official expression in the US National
Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2025 and Global Trends 2030 reports.72 It
has become commonplace to claim that the unipolar era is over or fast winding
down. Predictions of continuing unipolarity have been superseded by premoni-
tions of American decline and emerging multipolarity.73 Indeed, a February 2016
Gallop poll found Americans evenly split when asked if the United States is No. 1
in the world militarily, with 49% saying ‘yes’ and 49% saying ‘no’. The poll also
showed that half of Americans see the United States as one of several leading mili-
tary powers.74 This widely held perception of coming structural change largely
explains the appeal of Donald Trump’s ‘American First’ doctrine. Simply put, the
American era is over, and Washington must devise a new grand strategy to deal
with the new situation.75 Realism, which the American body politic has sup-
ported for decades, offers just such a strategy.76
71 Joffe, ‘Defying History and Theory’, p. 180.

72 National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, DC:
US Government Printing Office, 2008); National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2030:
Alternative Worlds (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2012).
73 See Christopher Layne, ‘This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax Americana’,
International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 1 (2012), pp. 203–13.
74 Gallup, ‘Americans Less Likely to See U.S. as No. 1 Militarily’, 15 February, 2016, http://www.
gallup.com/poll/189191/americans-less-likely-no-militarily.aspx.
75 See Stephen M. Walt, ‘The End of the American Era’, National Interest, No. 116 (2011), pp.
6–16.
76 As Daniel Drezner points out, ‘surveys about foreign policy world views and priorities, the
use of force, and foreign economic policies all reveal a strong realist bent among the mass
American public. The overwhelming majority of Americans possess a Hobbesian world
view of international relations’. Daniel W. Drezner, ‘The Realist Tradition in American Public
Opinion’, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008), p. 63.

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An Inward-Looking Nationalism Takes Root

The public rightly sees emerging multipolarity as a more competitive realm than
the unipolar world that the United States has enjoyed since 1991. The people see
America’s dismal record in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya and understand that the
United States has no vital interests at stake in the places it has chosen to intervene,
let alone the capacity—military or otherwise—to fix the problems afflicting those
countries.77 A majority of Americans now say that the United States should be
less engaged in world affairs and, for the first time in recorded history, believe
that their country has a declining influence on what is happening around the
globe. Americans are rejecting hard power and high politics; in their eyes, history
is shaped more by networks of peoples spontaneously gathering in squares than
by the military capabilities of powerful states.78 An April 2016 Pew poll found
that 57% of Americans agree that the United States should ‘deal with its own
problems and let others deal with theirs the best they can’.79
America’s retreat from deep engagement with the rest of the world did not
start with Donald Trump’s election. The Obama administration tried to reconcile
its desire to preserve American hegemony in the face of a rising China, danger-
ously high national indebtedness, a war-weary public, and dwindling domestic
support for anything international—much less foreign entanglements—by devel-
oping a low-cost model for US global management. In practice this meant relying
on economic sanctions to punish enemies, targeting terrorists with drones, fight-
ing wars with robots and smart computerized weapons, avoiding unilateralism in
favor of ‘leading from behind’, and pivoting to Asia within an overall grand strat-
egy of ‘selective engagement’ and balancing China.
Then came Donald Trump, whose campaign rhetoric, organized around the
theme of making America great again by putting ‘America First,’ did not mince
words: ‘Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t win anymore. We don’t beat
China in trade,’ he lamented, ‘We can’t do anything right.’ And the problem is
not just economic but military as well: ‘I don’t mind fighting, but you have got to
win, and . . . we don’t win wars, we just fight, we just fight. It’s like. . .you’re vom-
iting: just fight, fight, fight.’80
Trump embraces what some observers have described as a kind of blood-and-
soil nationalism—a new edition of ‘Little England’ that aims to wall out the rest
of the world. It is a vision of America that resonates with white working-class
voters, who see United States decline as a result of the external and seemingly
uncontrollable forces associated with globalization. Indeed, Trump voters seem
suspicious in general of people who move around—immigrants, refugees, and
77 John Mearsheimer, ‘America Unhinged’, National Interest, No. 129 (2014), pp. 9–30.
78 David Brooks, ‘The Leaderless Doctrine’, New York Times, 10 March, 2014, https://www.
nytimes.com/2014/03/11/opinion/brooks-the-leaderless-doctrine.html.
79 Quoted in Mearsheimer and Walt, ‘The Case for Offshore Balancing’, p. 70.
80 Donald Trump, interview on Morning Joe, 8 February, 2016, https://www.realclearpolitics.
com/video/2016/02/09/trump_we_dont_win_wars_anymore_we_just_fight_like_vomiting_
fight_fight_fight.html.

by guest
on 28 March 2018
globalized elites—to the point where staying at home and putting up walls has
become a Trumpian value. Nearly 60% of white people who still live in their
home town voted for Trump; this percentage declines significantly for those who
live more than two hours away from their home town.81
Trump’s successful campaign themes—that America needs its allies to share
responsibility for their own defense, better trade deals, and protection from cur-
rency manipulation—stem from his embrace of realist political economy.82
Trump is an economic nationalist. He believes that political factors should deter-
mine economic relations; that globalization does not foster harmony among states
but rather creates yet another arena of interstate conflict; that economic interde-
pendence increases national vulnerability, and constitutes a mechanism that one
society can employ to dominate another; and that the State should intervene
when the interests of domestic actors diverge from its own.
We see Trump’s support for economic nationalism when, in February 2016, he
called for a boycott against Apple until the technology giant helps the FBI break
into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. We see it in his intended
use of tax policy to support particular companies (e.g. tax incentives to Carrier to
keep jobs in Indiana) and regulatory policy to assist entire industries (e.g. repeal-
ing Clean Air Act regulations to help the coal industry); in his proposals to unilat-
erally impose 35–45% tariffs and to renegotiate trade agreements such as
NAFTA; in his embrace of industrial policy (federal efforts to promote certain
industries); and in his coercing companies—recriminating Ford, Carrier, and
Toyota—to get them to change their ways: ‘We’re gonna get Apple to start build-
ing their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other
countries,’ he declared during a speech at Liberty University.83 On Toyota,
Trump tweeted: ‘Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to
build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border
tax.’84 As these examples suggest, Trump’s economic philosophy could scarcely
be more in opposition to traditional Republican conservatism and its core philos-
ophy that financial markets, not the federal government, do the best job of allo-
cating investment capital where it will be most productive.
81 Larissa MacFarquhar, ‘Our Town: As America’s Rural Communities Stagnate, What Can We
Learn from One That Hasn’t?’, The New Yorker, 13 November, 2017, p. 58.
82 See Jonathan Kirshner, ‘The Political Economy of Realism’, in Ethan Kapstein and Michael
Mastanduno, eds., Unipolar Politics: Realism and State Strategies After the Cold War (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999), chapter 3.
83 Donald Trump, speech at Liberty University, 18 January, 2016. Quoted in T. C. Sottek, ‘Donald
Trump Says He Will Get Apple to “Start Building Their Damn Computers and Things” in the
US’, 18 January, 2016, http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/18/10787050/donald-trump-apple-
fantasy.
84 Donald Trump tweet, as quoted in David Shepardson, ‘Trump Hits Toyota in Latest
Broadside Against Carmakers and Mexico’, 6 January, 2017, http://www.reuters.com/
article/us-usa-trump-toyota-idUSKBN14P27S.

by guest
on 28 March 2018
It is not surprising, however, that economic nationalism resonates with mid-

dle- and working-class Americans, who think that China, among other countries,
has taken advantage of US free-trade policies and the lack of protection for
domestic industries to steal jobs and manufacturing businesses that should be
those of Americans. As the incoming White House chief strategist Steve Bannon
told the Hollywood Reporter after Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton: ‘I’m not
a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist.’ He went on to
say, ‘The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class
in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f—ed over.’85
Nevertheless, this hardnosed understanding of Sino-American relations does
not, in my view, portend conflict, much less war, with China. It requires an
adjustment of bilateral relations—one in which the United States sticks up for its
own interests and plays the game as expertly (ruthlessly, perhaps) as China has
done. Thus, on his recent visit to Beijing, President Trump gave China credit for
working to benefit its citizens by taking advantage of the United States.
Characterizing the relationship as ‘very unfair’ and ‘one-sided’, Trump did not
fault China but, instead, blamed previous US administrations. ‘I don’t blame
China. After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of
another country for the sake of its citizens?’ He added, ‘I give China great cred-
it.’86 On this, Trump’s vision of the world is consistent with the Millennial
Generation, those roughly 87 million adult men and women born between 1980
and 1997 who outnumber all other generations. Millennials, for instance, are ‘far
more likely to see China as a partner than a rival and to believe that cooperation,
rather than confrontation, with China is the appropriate strategy for the United
States’.87
More generally, Americans no longer perceive the United States as a lone
hyperpower without peer competitors. They realize what many of their political
elites seem unable to grasp or accept: that even if the United States remains the
strongest global power, and there are good reasons to believe that it will,
Washington will be unable to exercise the outsized influence it once enjoyed. As
the United States turns inward, American hegemony no longer appears to be an
adequate framework to support any global order, much less a liberal international
one. The authority of the United States, its hegemonic bargains with other states,
and the rules and institutions of its global order are increasingly contested. For
seven decades, countries received services and benefits from America’s
exalted global power position, first under bipolarity, then under unipolarity.
85 Steve Bannon, as quoted in Louis Nelson, ‘Steve Bannon Hails Trump’s “Economic
Nationalist” Agenda’, 18 November, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/steve-ban
non-trump-hollywood-reporter-interview-231624.
86 President Donald Trump, as quoted in ‘Trump Does Not Blame China for “Unfair” Trade’, 9
November, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41924797.
87 A. Trevor Thrall and Erik Goepner, Millennials and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Next
Generation’s Attitudes toward Foreign Policy and War (and Why They Matter)(Washington,
DC: Cato Institute, 2015), p. 3.

by guest
on 28 March 2018
America needed allies and allies needed America. This provided the basis for
bargains—and it created incentives for cooperation in areas outside of national
security. The end of the Cold War altered and weakened these incentives.
Emerging bipolarity dramatically weakens them.
Policy Implications
A ‘flatter’ international structure compels the United States to play a less central
role in providing functional services—generating public goods, stabilizing mar-
kets, and promoting cooperation. Pax Americana—the integrated militarized sys-
tem of alliances and economic relationships that institutionalized American
leadership of the non-Communist world—is coming to a close. Global leadership
is costly; it means asking your citizens to pay for others’ well-being, to send young
soldiers to die in faraway places. So far, China has shown little interest in replac-
ing the United States as ‘a kind of chairman of planet Earth,’ in the words of
Daniel Russel, an American diplomat who served as the Assistant Secretary of
State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2013 to 2017; the Chinese display
‘no intention of emulating the U.S. as a provider of global goods or as an arbiter
who teases out universal principles and common rules’.88 As it enters this new
leaderless age, Washington must devise a grand strategy that properly deals with
the new situation, one that fundamentally alters America’s role in the new
world.89
Realists have proposed just such a change in American grand strategy—a for-
eign policy approach that essentially falls under the rubric of ‘offshore balancing’.
Under this grand strategy, the United States would no longer attempt to police the
planet. Instead, Washington would encourage other countries to take the lead in
checking rising powers in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf, interven-
ing itself only when absolutely necessary to preserve the regional balance of
power. Calibrating its military posture according to the distribution of power in
the three key regions, the United States would allow regional forces to be its first
line of defense in the event that a potential regional hegemon emerges. This
means, as Barry Posen maintains, ‘demobiliz[ing] most U.S. Army troops based
abroad’ and closing most US bases across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East—
about 800 of them in more than 70 countries.90
By passing the costs to more threatened allies, offshore balancing aims to pre-
serve US primacy far into the future and safeguard liberty at home. As John
Glaser points out, ‘A globe-straddling forward-deployed military presence is a
88 Daniel Russel as quoted in Osnos, ‘Making China Great Again’, p. 45.

89 See Randall L. Schweller, Maxwell’s Demon and the Golden Apple: Global Discord in the
New Millennium (Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Richard N. Haass,
A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order (New York:
Penguin Books, 2017).
90 Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press, 2015), pp. 158–60.

by guest
on 28 March 2018
costly burden that elevates peripheral interests to the level of vital ones, takes on
security responsibilities that can and should be fulfilled by other states, and pro-
duces negative unintended consequences for U.S. interests.’91 The trick, however,
is implementing a retrenchment strategy—that is, how to wean the world off of
American power while avoiding a hard landing (e.g. regional arms races and
intense security dilemmas). Even with the most skilled leadership, we should
expect a very bumpy ride.
We see this happening already. Trump’s visit to Asia created unease among
allies about the role the United States will play in the Asia-Pacific region. Seeking
Beijing’s help to deal with North Korea, President Trump failed to press China on
its military buildup in the South China Sea, reinforcing the perception that
America is beginning to retreat from the region and, quite understandably, fueling
Japan’s underlying fear of abandonment. Tokyo now strongly suspects that the
United States may make some kind of deal with China that could put Japan at a
disadvantage.
As Japan and China recognize the altered dynamics around the Pacific Rim,
some observers believe that they may inch toward a possible reconciliation. Such
a Sino-Japanese rapprochement is unlikely, however, given their long-standing
historical enmity. Negative attitudes toward Japan are widespread among main-
land Chinese. According to a recent Pew survey, less than 10% of Chinese think
that Japan can be trusted—and the feeling is mutual. Young Chinese, who did not
personally experience the war, express surprisingly vehement anti-Japanese
feelings—sentiments that are due in no small part to state propaganda and patri-
otic education in schools that make criticism of Japan politically correct.92
Moreover, the Chinese see themselves as the natural hegemon, and in their—
worldview, the Japanese should be subordinate to them—in other words, Chinese
elites refuse to accept Japan’s legitimacy as a major Asian state. Neither Shinzo
Abe nor his successors will tolerate such a future for Japan, which is why Japan is
offering maritime and development assistance to countries like Vietnam and the
Philippines. Ultimately, however, China’s rise and America’s retreat to a more
offshore posture will force into existence a military alliance between Japan and
India (and, perhaps, Russia as well) to restore a regional balance of power to
counter growing Chinese power.
In conclusion, the key to managing the future of US–Chinese strategic rivalry
is prudence and perspective. Short of a military confrontation on the Chinese lit-
toral with the United States and its allies, China is unlikely to avail itself of the
elements of its A2/AD capabilities that could be deployed to materially block free-
dom of navigation and overflight operations (e.g. sinking vessels or shooting
91 John Glaser, ‘Withdrawing from Overseas Bases: Why a Forward-Deployed Military Posture
is Unnecessary, Outdated, and Dangerous’, Policy Analysis, No. 816, Cato Institute, 18 July,
2017.
92 Edward Wong, ‘Q. and A.: Jessica Chen Weiss on Nationalism in Chinese Politics’, 24
September, 2015, https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/china-nationalism-jes
sica-chen-weiss/.

by guest
on 28 March 2018
down aircraft). Recognizing this fact, US leaders would be wise to heed the nonin-
terventionist vision of US foreign policy espoused by Secretary of State John
Quincy Adams and, accordingly, not go ‘abroad in search of monsters to
destroy’.93 Remaining alert to possible security threats emanating from China’s
East and South China Seas policies, Washington must place such threats in per-
spective. As Benjamin Herscovitch puts it, ‘no armies are being launched into bat-
tle, no civilians are being slaughtered, and no cities are being reduced to
rubble’.94 A balanced threat assessment of an outward-looking China suggests
that it poses only a modest danger to American vital interests. If prudence prevails
on both sides, a stable regional balance of power will emerge among the local
states—one nested within an even more stable Sino-American bipolar system
that, unlike its US–Soviet predecessor, is not rooted in a zero-sum battle between
the totalist ideological tenets of Marxism-Leninism and Western-style democratic
capitalism.
93 John Quincy Adams, ‘“She Goes Not Abroad in Search of Monsters to Destroy”’, 2013,
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/repository/she-goes-not-abroad-in-search-of-
monsters-to-destroy/.
94 Herscovitch, ‘A Balanced Threat Assessment of China’s South China Sea Policy’, p. 18.

by guest
on 28 March 2018

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The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2018, 23–48

Opposite but Compatible Nationalisms:

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The Argument in Brief

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established powers that allow expansion to proceed unabated. Moreover, leaders

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Neoclassical Realism: The Complementarity of Structural and

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Realism and Nationalism

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Consistent with this reasoning, Hans Morgenthau avers: ‘National character

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Emerging Powers: Outward-Looking Nationalism of Expansion

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benefits from expansion, from military preparations associated with expansion,

33 Snyder, Myths of Empire, p. 31.

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38 Goldstone, ‘China’s Vision of Global Leadership Takes Shape’.

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Declining Powers: Inward-Looking Nationalism of Global Retrenchment

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designed by the United States as a counterweight to a rising China. In June, he

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Viewing the phrases ‘rule-based order’ or ‘liberal international order’ as anath-

Why American Retrenchment Now?

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well to a hegemon that outlasts a rising challenger in a failed power transition.

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71 Joffe, ‘Defying History and Theory’, p. 180.

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An Inward-Looking Nationalism Takes Root

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It is not surprising, however, that economic nationalism resonates with mid-

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88 Daniel Russel as quoted in Osnos, ‘Making China Great Again’, p. 45.

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