RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AMERICAN HEGEMONY
RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AMERICAN HEGEMONY

Summary/Abstract: Realists such as Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer have viewed the escalation of the Ukraine crisis as detrimental to the US strategic interests on the assumption that it would push Russia further towards rising China. This paper proposes an alternative account that the dual containment of Russia and China is an inevitable choice for the US to ensure its predominance in the world and the Ukraine war could contribute to the success of such a strategy. It does not only consider traditional geopolitics based on military means but also the current era geoeconomics that relies on economic instruments and plays an increasingly crucial factor in reshaping the global balance of power. The Ukraine crisis could boost geopolitical threat perceptions from authoritarian and revisionist powers and produce centripetal forces in international politics. The increasing leverage of Washington on its traditional allies throughout the world may remove the greatest handicap of the US strategic rebalance to Asia and consolidate the American political, economic, and military influence both in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. However, the success of the American dual containment strategy also depends on how China will react to the crisis and how Beijing’s behavior in its neighborhood will be affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war.

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