Summary of the material for the workgroup (2021) for Introduction to International Relations (IIRs).
INCLUDES notes from Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth’s article “The Rise and Fall of
the Great Powers in the Twenty-First Century: China’s Rise and the Fate of America's Global
Position” (Total: 19 pages).
1
“The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in the Twenty-First Century:
China’s Rise and the Fate of America's Global Position” by Stephen
G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth - Notes
Table of Contents
China’s Rise and the Fate of America’s Global Position 2
How (Not) to Think About the Changing U.S. Global Position 3
What’s wrong with (uni) polarity? 4
The Solution: 1+Y+X 5
Measuring the Distribution of Capabilities in the 21st Century 5
Military Capacity 6
Technological Capacity 7
Economic Capacity 8
Why It Will Long Be a One-Superpower World 10
Scientific and Industrial Base 11
Mix of Weapons Accumulated Through Decades of Procurement 11
“Systems Integration” in Weapons Systems’ Design and Production 11
Skills and Infrastructure for Effectively Using Advanced Weaponry 12
Tracking China’s Trajectory 13
Implications for Theory, Grand Strategy, and the U.S. Military Posture 14
Balance of Power Theory in a 1+1+X World 14
US Grand Strategy in a 1+1+X World 16
US Military Posture in a 1+1+X World 17
Conclusion 18
, 2
China’s Rise and the Fate of America’s Global Position
Unipolarity: A distribution of power with only one superior state; a state that does not face any
competition.
● A popular concept used to assess the US’ position in the international system (following the
Soviet Union’s demise in 1991).
● The number of powerful States (“poles”) on top significantly influences how international
politics works.
● Used more recently to gauge change in today’s international system.
The financial The economic ascent of The US gets reduced from its
crisis (2008).
+ China.
= globally dominant position.
🠗
Multipolarity (Bipolarity) Causes a system-altering power
⇇ shift from unipolarity.
Apolarity
Unipolarity helps analysts understand why a one-superpower (unipolar) world is different in important
ways from a two (bipolar) or no-superpower (apolar) world.
➔ BUT it is too blunt to track change in different systems (it needs to consider the context of the
time that it is being analysed).
Brooks & Wohlforth’s Goal: To allow for questioning, give different perspectives and show that the
US will remain the only state (unipolar) with superpower capabilities.
Target Audience: Students, policy-makers, academics, etc...
Three ways that unipolarity leads analysts astray when assessing changes in the international system’s
distribution of capabilities:
1. The concept of unipolarity encourages dichotomous (“two-part”, opposite categories; “black
or white”) thinking. The world can only be unipolar or multipolar (bipolar); either everything
is changing or nothing is changing.
2. It requires a broad, trans-historical measure of the distribution capabilities. This fails to
capture crucial shifts of state power across time.
3. The concept is not well-equipped to capture the relationship between structure and agency
(how likely that state action can alter the system).
The US will remain the world’s sole superpower BUT China’s economic ascent is a major change that
deserves focus.
, 3
US > China > Germany, Japan, Russia
http://www.fahamu.org/ep_articles/avoiding-western-networks/
The Cold War (the US vs. the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - USSR) was the last time that the
world was bipolar (two Superpowers).
China’s speed to transform the current one-superpower system into a different type of system is
assessed. Three key differences that disprove this power transition:
1. China is at a much lower technological level than the US.
2. The distance that China must travel is a lot greater, as the US military advantage is a lot
greater than in the past.
3. The nature of power has changed; it has become more difficult to convert economic capacity
into military capacity (the transition from a great power to a superpower is much harder than
in the past).
How (Not) to Think About the Changing U.S. Global Position
For millennia, scholars have thought of states as occupying different positions or ranks in the
international system, with the highest rank receiving the most attention. This thought eventually led to
the concept of polarity in the mid-twentieth century.
For polarity scholars, the key to analyzing the international system is determining how many poles
there are.
Polarity has become a very popular concept these last 30 years, with many articles being written and
even some policymakers (China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin) making
regular assessments of the system’s polarity.
➔ According to international relations (IRs) professor Barry Buzan, polarity applies much more
strongly in the era of unipolarity than it did with bipolarity.
This concept of polarity is routinely used to discuss the change in the international system, something
that it is ill-equipped for.
➔ Following the embarrassing experience in the 1980s, where analysts struggled to see that the
bipolar era was coming to a close.
➔ “Yet, in an ironic twist, the concept is routinely used to discuss the very subject for which it is
particularly ill-suited: change in the international system.”
INCLUDES notes from Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth’s article “The Rise and Fall of
the Great Powers in the Twenty-First Century: China’s Rise and the Fate of America's Global
Position” (Total: 19 pages).
1
“The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in the Twenty-First Century:
China’s Rise and the Fate of America's Global Position” by Stephen
G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth - Notes
Table of Contents
China’s Rise and the Fate of America’s Global Position 2
How (Not) to Think About the Changing U.S. Global Position 3
What’s wrong with (uni) polarity? 4
The Solution: 1+Y+X 5
Measuring the Distribution of Capabilities in the 21st Century 5
Military Capacity 6
Technological Capacity 7
Economic Capacity 8
Why It Will Long Be a One-Superpower World 10
Scientific and Industrial Base 11
Mix of Weapons Accumulated Through Decades of Procurement 11
“Systems Integration” in Weapons Systems’ Design and Production 11
Skills and Infrastructure for Effectively Using Advanced Weaponry 12
Tracking China’s Trajectory 13
Implications for Theory, Grand Strategy, and the U.S. Military Posture 14
Balance of Power Theory in a 1+1+X World 14
US Grand Strategy in a 1+1+X World 16
US Military Posture in a 1+1+X World 17
Conclusion 18
, 2
China’s Rise and the Fate of America’s Global Position
Unipolarity: A distribution of power with only one superior state; a state that does not face any
competition.
● A popular concept used to assess the US’ position in the international system (following the
Soviet Union’s demise in 1991).
● The number of powerful States (“poles”) on top significantly influences how international
politics works.
● Used more recently to gauge change in today’s international system.
The financial The economic ascent of The US gets reduced from its
crisis (2008).
+ China.
= globally dominant position.
🠗
Multipolarity (Bipolarity) Causes a system-altering power
⇇ shift from unipolarity.
Apolarity
Unipolarity helps analysts understand why a one-superpower (unipolar) world is different in important
ways from a two (bipolar) or no-superpower (apolar) world.
➔ BUT it is too blunt to track change in different systems (it needs to consider the context of the
time that it is being analysed).
Brooks & Wohlforth’s Goal: To allow for questioning, give different perspectives and show that the
US will remain the only state (unipolar) with superpower capabilities.
Target Audience: Students, policy-makers, academics, etc...
Three ways that unipolarity leads analysts astray when assessing changes in the international system’s
distribution of capabilities:
1. The concept of unipolarity encourages dichotomous (“two-part”, opposite categories; “black
or white”) thinking. The world can only be unipolar or multipolar (bipolar); either everything
is changing or nothing is changing.
2. It requires a broad, trans-historical measure of the distribution capabilities. This fails to
capture crucial shifts of state power across time.
3. The concept is not well-equipped to capture the relationship between structure and agency
(how likely that state action can alter the system).
The US will remain the world’s sole superpower BUT China’s economic ascent is a major change that
deserves focus.
, 3
US > China > Germany, Japan, Russia
http://www.fahamu.org/ep_articles/avoiding-western-networks/
The Cold War (the US vs. the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - USSR) was the last time that the
world was bipolar (two Superpowers).
China’s speed to transform the current one-superpower system into a different type of system is
assessed. Three key differences that disprove this power transition:
1. China is at a much lower technological level than the US.
2. The distance that China must travel is a lot greater, as the US military advantage is a lot
greater than in the past.
3. The nature of power has changed; it has become more difficult to convert economic capacity
into military capacity (the transition from a great power to a superpower is much harder than
in the past).
How (Not) to Think About the Changing U.S. Global Position
For millennia, scholars have thought of states as occupying different positions or ranks in the
international system, with the highest rank receiving the most attention. This thought eventually led to
the concept of polarity in the mid-twentieth century.
For polarity scholars, the key to analyzing the international system is determining how many poles
there are.
Polarity has become a very popular concept these last 30 years, with many articles being written and
even some policymakers (China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin) making
regular assessments of the system’s polarity.
➔ According to international relations (IRs) professor Barry Buzan, polarity applies much more
strongly in the era of unipolarity than it did with bipolarity.
This concept of polarity is routinely used to discuss the change in the international system, something
that it is ill-equipped for.
➔ Following the embarrassing experience in the 1980s, where analysts struggled to see that the
bipolar era was coming to a close.
➔ “Yet, in an ironic twist, the concept is routinely used to discuss the very subject for which it is
particularly ill-suited: change in the international system.”
