The United States is a nation in crisis. While Washington’s ability to address our most pressing challenges has been rendered nearly impotent by ongoing partisan warfare, we face an array of foreign-policy crises for which we seem increasingly unprepared. Among these, none is more formidable than the unprecedented partnership developing between Russia and China, suspicious neighbors for centuries and fellow Communist antagonists during the Cold War. The two longtime foes have drawn increasingly close together because of a confluence of geostrategic, political, and economic interests—all of which have a common theme of diminishing, subverting, or displacing American power. While America’s influence around the world recedes—in its military and diplomatic power, in its political leverage, in its economic might, and, perhaps most dangerously, in the power and appeal of its ideas—Russia and China have seen their influence increase. From their support for rogue regimes such as those in Iran, North Korea, and Syria to their military and nuclear buildups to their aggressive use of cyber warfare and intelligence theft, Moscow and Beijing are playing the game for keeps. Meanwhile America, pledged to “leading from behind,” no longer does much leading at all. In The Russia-China Axis, Douglas E. Schoen and Melik Kaylan systematically chronicle the growing threat from the Russian-Chinese Axis, and they argue that only a rebirth of American global leadership can counter the corrosive impact of this antidemocratic alliance, which may soon threaten the peace and security of the world.

>

Authority, Ascendancy, and Supremacy examines the American, Chinese, and Russian (Big 3) competition for power and influence in the Post-Cold War Era. With the ascension of regional powers such as India, Iran, Brazil, and Turkey, the Big 3 dynamic is an evolving one, which cannot be ignored because of its effect to not only reshape regional security, but also control influence and power in world affairs. How does one define a "global" or "regional" power in the Post-Cold War Era? How does the relationships among the Big 3 influence regional actors? Gregory O. Hall utilizes country data from primary and secondary sources to reveal that since the early 1990s, competition for influence and power among the Big 3 has intensified and could result in armed confrontation among the major powers. He assesses the state of affairs in each country’s economic, resource, military, social/demographic, and political spheres. In addition, events data, which focuses on international interactions, facilitates identifying trends in Big 3 interactions as well as their concerns and affairs with regional players. Opinion data, drawn from policy makers, scholarly interviews, and survey research data, identifies foreign policy interests among the Big 3, as well non-Big 3 foreign policy behaviors. With its singular focus on American, Chinese, and Russian interactions, policy interests, and behaviors, Authority, Ascendancy, and Supremacy represents a significant contribution for understanding and managing Post-Cold War conflicts and promises to be an important book.

This book depicts the sophisticated relationship between Russia and China as a pragmatic one, a political “marriage of convenience”. Yet at the same time the relationship is stable, and will remain so. After all, bilateral relations are usually based on pragmatic interests and the pursuit of these interests is the very essence of foreign policy. And, as often happens in life, the most long-lasting marriages are those based on convenience. The highly complex, complicated, ambiguous and yet, indeed, successful relationship between Russia and China throughout the past 25 years is difficult to grasp theoretically. Russian and Chinese elites are hard-core realists in their foreign policies, and the neorealist school in international relations seems to be the most adequate one to research Sino-Russian relations. Realistically, throughout this period China achieved a multidimensional advantage over Russia. Yet, simultaneously Russia-China relations do not follow the patterns of power politics. Beijing knows its limits and does not go into extremes. Rather, China successfully seeks to build a longterm, stable relationship based on Chinese terms, where both sides gain, albeit China gains a little more. Russia in this agenda does not necessary lose; just gains a little less out of this asymmetric deal. Thus, a new model of bilateral relations emerges, which may be called – by paraphrasing the slogan of Chinese diplomacy – as “asymmetric win-win” formula. This model is a kind of “back to the past“ – a contemporary equivalent of the first model of Russia-China relations: the modus vivendi from the 17th century, achieved after the Nerchinsk treaty.

China and Russia have grown progressively closer over the last two decades, yielding a China-Russia “axis” uniquely capable of challenging the United States and of revising key aspects of the international order. Although the scholarly literature has offered detailed descriptions and various ad hoc explanations of this trend, the Sino-Russian bilateral relationship has been the subject of very little scrutiny using rigorous theory, which has precluded the formation of logically coherent and empirically supported explanations for increasing China-Russia cooperation. Moreover, the cooperative post-Cold War trend in the bilateral relationship is puzzling for each of the major paradigms of international relations theory: realism, constructivism and liberalism. This volume brings together leading IR scholars from various theoretical perspectives, as well as theoretically-informed experts in Chinese and Russian foreign policy. The chapters develop and apply nuanced theoretical arguments to derive testable hypotheses for the cooperative trend in China-Russia relations. In contrast to existing scholarship, the book offers generalizable insights that both improve our understanding of a crucially important contemporary case, while also advancing IR theory in substantial ways.

This volume identifies the main drivers of the current Sino-Russian relationship, assesses whether-and under what conditions-China and Russia would cooperate more extensively and effectively against American interests, and recommends U.S. policies that could prevent such an outcome. Most experts argue that economic interdependence, nuclear weapons, and the U.S. contribution to maintaining the global commons mean that China and Russia will generally accept U.S. military superiority and U.S. political supremacy in managing global affairs. An agreement between these two powerful countries to work against the United States, however, would greatly increase its vulnerabilities. Relations between the governments of China and Russia with the U.S. have worsened in past years. Identifying the various pathways, events, and political, economic, and military drivers that could shape the dynamics of the China-Russia relationship is of critical importance to U.S. security. This book examines the sources, nuances, and manifestations of the ongoing Sino-Russian relationship in order to recommend strategy and policy that could work to U.S. advantage. Written by an author who traveled extensively in both countries in order to conduct research and expert interviews for the work, the book covers the latest developments to include the major changes in Chinese foreign policy under President Xi Jinping and ongoing relations with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In the name of peace, international cooperation, democracy, trade and human rights, the struggle for power is underway between the United States, Russia and China. This struggle is motivated by the natural clash of national interests, an almost preordained process in the contemporary state system. The struggle for power has been the dynamic element of history, and it is likely to be in the future. International war(s) may or may not ensue between the three major powers, but their relations will remain competitive, and at times quite hostile.