Executive Summary
This systematic review analyzes great power responses to rising military capabilities, identifying balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging as key strategic patterns. It highlights how emerging technologies like AI, cyber, and hypersonics are blurring traditional deterrence boundaries and increasing instability. The study also notes a shift in academic focus from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, reflecting changing geopolitical dynamics and the rise of China.
Why It Matters
This document provides a comprehensive review of how great powers adapt their strategies and alliances in response to evolving military capabilities and a shifting global order, which is crucial for understanding contemporary international security dynamics. It also highlights the destabilizing impact of new technologies on traditional deterrence, offering insights for defense planning and crisis management.
Key Takeaways
- Great powers employ hybrid strategies combining balancing, bandwagoning, hedging, moral signaling, deterrence, and institutional participation in response to rising military capabilities.
Source evidence · PDF page 1
The three strategic patterns; balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging patterns exist throughout and regularly within the data; however, more widespread in the current responses can be observed to be a combination of these practice into hybrid responses that integrate moral signalling, deterrence, and institutional participation.
- Emerging technologies such as hypersonics, AI, and cyber operations are blurring nuclear deterrence boundaries, accelerating decision-making, and increasing the risk of miscalculation.
Source evidence · PDF page 9
But, again, with the new technologies of hypersonics, artificial intelligence, and cyber operations, these boundaries are blurred with MAD. They fasten the decision-making process, blur indicators and widen the chances of erroneousness.
- The Indo-Pacific region is a primary focus of current geopolitical competition, characterized by flexible, issue-specific alliances and institutional fragmentation, contrasting with the more rigid Cold War blocs.
Source evidence · PDF page 20
The Indo-Pacific is also characterized by institutional instability with structures like the Quad and the AUKUS taking steps to deal with uncertainties associated with the rise of China by undertaking without developing a strict alliance.
Strategic Relevance
The study offers a systematic overview of strategic responses to power shifts and military advancements, informing defense analysts on evolving alliance structures, the impact of disruptive technologies on deterrence, and regional security dynamics, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.