China and Russia’s actions are not inherently threatening – they are a reaction to the pursuit of US primacy and the danger is severely overinflated.

Following the 2015 Ashton Carter statement which began this article, there was a substantive shift in the threat narrative delivered by American executive branch officials. According to the 2016 threat assessment: “Emerging trends suggest that geopolitical competition among the major powers is increasing in ways that challenge international norms and institutions” (S.Hrg.114-626 2016, 29). Although the international system was seen as still possessing opportunities for the United States, and even possible cooperation with Russia and China on certain issues, the threat narrative that emerged at this time was that an inflection point had been reached in which the global security order was fundamentally slipping away from the United States. Russia and China were depicted as increasingly confident and active in their goals of establishing spheres of influence through which they could “check U.S. appeal and influence in their regions” and then use them to act extra-regionally (S.Hrg.115-278 2018, 15). From this, they would be able to transform the international system contrary to American preferences. Consistent with securitizing moves, policymakers sought to make the case that these states now constituted an existential threat to American primacy, unipolarity, and the liberal-democratic world order. They did this in four ways.

First, the separate threats of China and Russia coalesced into a single narrative in which the United States was confronted by aligned, revisionist great powers throughout the Eurasian land mass. This newfound alignment was depicted as having a directly deteriorative effect on the international system itself and America’s position within it. The fears expressed in the 1998 threat assessment – of a shift in great power competition to the “military sphere” and “the formation of an anti-US great power alliance” – were now seen as coming to pass. The latter was highlighted as particularly important. Before, cooperation between Russia and China was mentioned largely in passing and depicted as not a threat to America’s global position. Following 2016, this was no longer the case: their revisionist goals were presented as having converged into a single, existential threat. Their opposition to the U.S. was described as increasingly coordinated and intense, and occurring across an expanded number of issueareas and geographic locations. During the 2016 Q&A session, the specter of the Cold War was directly referenced by the Director of National Intelligence as a touchstone for explaining the current international system (S.Hrg.114-626 2016, 71). In 2019, policymakers depicted a new Cold War-era bloc in an unambiguous comparison made between current China and Russia alignment and their alliance during the “mid-1950s” (Coats 2019, 4).

Second, there was little sense that this geopolitical shift was a consequence of American overextension, the benefits provided to other states by hegemonic stability, or, notably, a reaction to U.S. primacy based upon these countries’ perceptions of threat. Although “perceived U.S. unilateralism and interventionism and Western promotion of democratic values and human rights” were cited as partial motivations for their policies, the cause of this newfound great power competition continued to be depicted as largely arising from Russian and Chinese internal great power ambitions (Coats 2019, 4). From the 2016 report onward, great power ambitions constituted, on average, nearly 20% of the content about both Russia and China – an increase over the previous decade of approximately 43% and 33%, respectively. There was no explanation or context for these ambitions other than simply to cite them, with the implication being that they existed as an essential part of these states themselves – something consistent with the narratives preceding 2016. More importantly, these ambitions were expressed through a variety of actions by Russia and China to overturn the international status quo. This is reflected in Figures 2 and 4, in which we see references to intentions reaching all-time, post-Cold War heights for both states. From the 2016 report onward, 61% of references to China and nearly 74% of references to Russia cited this factor. Both states were repeatedly described as “active” and “assertive”, though Russia was the most consistently referred to as “aggressive”, which can, perhaps, account for why Russia was often depicted as a more serious and immediate threat, despite the differences in objective capabilities between the two.

Third, these reports highlighted that Russia/China sought to close the power gap between themselves and the U.S. by actively eroding three key advantages that America held over other powers which are necessary for maintaining its position in the international system: military technology, geographic reach, and alliances. These advantages were now seen as slipping away, accelerating the deterioration of the international system. In terms of their respective military forces, the U.S. had acknowledged for some time that the power gap between itself and Russia/China was shrinking, as they reached certain modernization thresholds which allowed them to emerge as regional peer competitors in conventional warfare, missile technology, and space/counterspace. In other realms, such as cyberspace, foreign intelligence, and influence/information operations, threats by these states emerged as particular concerns for American policymakers, as both countries boosted their respective capacities to carry out such operations. More concerning for Washington, however, was that they demonstrated an increased willingness to utilize these against the United States in ways that “intentionally blur the distinction between peace and wartime operations” (S. Hrg.114-626 2016, 29). Thus, it was not just the fact that they were building up their capabilities, but that they were actually using them or had developed offensive doctrines which facilitated their use in the future. Moreover, while America’s global position relied on the fact that it was the only truly global power, its competitors had stepped up their efforts to limit America’s influence within their respective regions. By the latter half of the 2010s, Russia had already established its dominance over the former USSR and continued to consolidate its position. China was seeking to do something similar in the Asia-Pacific region through its attempt to control the disputed South China Sea. Worse from the American perspective was that both states were upping their capacity to carry out extra-regional operations, demonstrated most significantly by Russia’s intervention in Syria and China’s massive investment in its Indian Ocean naval presence and the Belt and Road Initiative. The latter was specifically described as intended “to diminish U.S. influence” (Coats 2019, 25). Lastly, the U.S. had built a network of global alliances since World War II, which gave Washington influence, leverage, and reach in every corner of the world. However, U.S. officials noted that this, too, was eroding. While there were some hints that U.S. policy under President Donald Trump may be responsible for this in some way,20 testimony explained that both states were also actively seeking to bring this about by increasing their ties to traditional U.S. allies through selective incentives or by acting to divide the U.S. from its allies. While the former was China’s preferred mode, Russia was using influence/information and cyberspace operations to undermine “Western cohesion” (S.Hrg.115-278 2018, 25).