US will cling – it’s status driven

This aspect of hegemonic wars is alarmingly overlooked in the traditional theories around rising states and causes of war. However, it may have even more of a place in today’s era, where the extreme stratification of states due to the structure of unipolarity, causes inherent hierarchy for the international community. The U.S is undeniably at the top for better or for worse and due to its position, its high status is guaranteed. Yet unlike bipolarity or multipolarity, the incentives for states to compete for elevation of their status is somewhat moot. It is costly to challenge the superpower and thus the incentives for direct competition are especially weak. However, as U.S power continues to weaken and the international hierarchy becomes more ambiguous, this is where Wohforth argues great war could occur over positional competition. ““Dissatisfaction arises not from dominance itself but from a dominance that appears to rest on ambiguous foundations. Thus, status competition is unlikely in cases of clear hierarchies in which the relevant comparison out-groups for each actor are unambiguously dominant materially. Applied to international politics, this begins to suggest conditions conducive to status competition. For conflict to occur, one state must select another state as a relevant comparison that leaves it dissatisfied with its status; it must then choose an identity-maintenance strategy in response that brings it into conflict with another state that is also willing to fight for its position” (Wohlforth, 45).

Status competition and the need to fight over positional status in an unambiguous unipolar system for other states does not exist. However, what should be of great concern to policy makers should the U.S find itself slipping back towards a situation of bipolar competition with China is that observation from Wohlforth. As U.S power becomes less concrete and finds itself becoming similar to China in capabilities, the chance of China assessing the U.S as a comparatively similar state may occur. In turn China may begin looking to overtake it positionally due to an increased desire for status, such as the case of Sparta and Athens. The U.S of course would then be forced to perform the aforementioned identity-maintenance strategy Wohlforth mentions, seeing as it is coming from a place of high status for so long, and will be willing to fight China over something so seemingly artificial as position. This state psychology should not be underestimated, and especially as scholars make calls for the U.S to accept a return to multipolarity, it should be kept in mind the impact a return to these different systems will have on positional competition and status for states. The triggers for great power war will not be so removed as the once were under the current unipolarity.

Additionally it should be noted that China has constantly also favored a narrative of flat hierarchy over single state dominance for many years now. Despite the fact that as Wohlforth has established, a more stratified hierarchical system is helping to keep the need for great competition and conflict over status at bay, China continues to be driven by a desire for great power status after it’s “century of shame”. This notion of what is driving China’s desire to rise has been long discussed by Western scholars. As Wohlforth mentions, “[China’s] preference for multipolarity and periodic resentment at what it sees as the United States’ assertion of special rights and privileges is also well established. Chinese analyses of multipolarity explicitly reflect the predicted preference for a flat hierarchy over one in what a single state has primacy…while many Chinese have convinced themselves that U.S power predominance cannot last, they do grudgingly acknowledge the world’s current unipolar nature…as a result Beijing adopted a ‘peaceful’ rise strategy that downplays the prospect of direct competition for global parity with the United States” (Wohlforth, 64).