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This research turns on concepts that are central to international politics—polarity, intervention, cooperation—but ones that remain loosely defined in the literature. This chapter addresses the following questions: What does unipolarity mean, and why does the distribution of power matter? What is an intervention? When does a particular use of force constitute an intervention? How do we know whether a particular coalition is multilateral or whether it is stacked with states that provide more window dressing than any real decision-making influence?

This chapter seeks to overcome the problem of strategic misunderstanding of China by setting out some of the cultural traditions and strategic concepts that underpin its behaviour. It does not deny that China has a long tradition of realpolitik but locates this internally in the desire for a ‘reliable defensive capability’; externally, China's strategy is geared towards institutional integration with international society. The discussion holds that China faces problems with regards to a world order centred on the United States (USA). Unipolar order means accepting US hegemony, but promoting multipolarity could mean confronting the USA and an end to China's peaceful rise. As a result, China should move away from a polarity perspective and concentrate on fulfilment of national interests by ‘joining and adapting’.

The Introduction lays the groundwork for the rest of the book by introducing the need for a theory of nuclear crisis behavior centered on third-party mediation. Specifically, how does the presence of the unipole and stronger third parties alter the crisis behavior of regional nuclear powers situated within a unipolar world? And what implications does this have for crisis management, stability, and outcomes? The chapter introduces the puzzle and explains the book’s empirical focus on South Asia by highlighting that India and Pakistan are the only regional nuclear powers to have experienced major crises since the end of the Cold War. The chapter also summarizes the key findings from the three case studies, the 1999 Kargil conflict, the 2001–2002 military standoff, and the 2008 Mumbai crisis, and confirms evidence in line with the proposed theory of brokered bargaining.

This chapter introduces brokered bargaining as a three-actor model that explains patterns of state behavior in regional crises in a unipolar global setting. The chapter presents ten propositions that are posited to collectively shape crisis behavior of the United States and other strong states acting as third-party mediators and of regional rivals. Crisis behavior of regional rivals ought to be marked by a constant tension between their incentives to pursue their maximalist objectives and their compulsion not to defy the third party completely given its power to tilt the crisis decisively against them. The third party would seek to heighten the antagonists’ sensitivity to its preference for de-escalation ahead of their ideal crisis outcomes. Brokered bargaining unpacks the processes and mechanisms that underpin this trilateral interaction. The last part of the chapter presents the methodology applied to the case studies in the next section of the book.

This chapter reflects on the theoretical and practical implications of the book. It highlights the work’s contribution to the otherwise undertheorized role of third parties in preventing war, its fresh perspectives on the optimism-pessimism debate on nuclear deterrence, and its attention to scholarship on nonnuclear subjects, primarily mediation, unipolarity theory, and sociological literature on “evaluation” by external audiences. The discussion highlights policy recommendations for decision makers in the United States, other third-party states, India, Pakistan, and other potential regional nuclear rivals. It stresses the need for a holistic U.S. policy approach to crises between regional nuclear powers.

Polarity affects alliance politics because it is related to the number of potential security-suppliers and to the relative capabilities of actual and potential allies. This chapter develops a systemic theory of military alliances that explains both the persistence of numerous Cold War alliances and the high rate of alliance formation in the post-Cold War era that has taken place without the involvement of or balancing against the United States. This chapter also explains why China’s alliance policy has so far been dormant and why it would be more active under Sino-US bipolarity. In the context of alliance politics, the chapter argues, the vice to which great powers easily succumb in a multipolar world is overreaction; in a bipolar world, overextension; in a unipolar world, inattention.

This chapter discusses the impact of the rise of China on the great power structure and the gradual transformation of the international system from post-Cold War U.S. unipolarity to U.S.–China bipolarity. It develops a hedging framework for analysis and argues that whereas hedging had characterized regional diplomacy under U.S.-led unipolarity, under emerging bipolarity balancing is becoming the dominant security policy for the United States, China, and the smaller regional powers. Since 2009, this tendency toward balancing behaviour has been reflected in China's “assertive diplomacy,” in the U.S. “pivot” to East Asia, and in the security policies of the smaller regional powers. The chapter examines the traditional sources of great power capabilities to observe China's emergence as the world's second great power.

Chapters 2 and 3 helped confirm that rising states support declining great powers when decliners can help rising states against other great power threats. In contrast, Chapters 4 and 5 assess the logic of rising state predation by examining the United States’ response to the Soviet Union’s decline in the 1980s and early 1990s. Chapter 4 first provides an overview of the Soviet Union’s waning relative position and discusses U.S. efforts to monitor the trend. Next, it reviews existing research on the course of U.S. strategy and relates this work to alternative accounts of rising state policy. The bulk of the chapter then uses extensive archival research to evaluate the factors central to predation theory and predict U.S. strategy given the argument. These predictions are analyzed in Chapter 5.

Chapter 5 discusses the course of U.S. foreign policy during the Soviet Union’s decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Leveraging recently declassified materials, it shows that the United States persistently preyed on the Soviet Union over the course of the latter’s decline. Moreover, the intensity of U.S. predation varied depending on the Soviet military threat: at times when the Soviet Union was able to military threaten the United States, U.S. leaders capped the intensity of their predation; conversely, U.S. predation intensified at times – most notably, following the Eastern European Revolutions of 1989-1990 – when the Soviet military looked impotent. These findings provide strong evidence for predation theory while challenging alternative accounts of rising state strategy.

Contrary to declinist narratives, the dominance of the United States in the contemporary world-system is increasingly solid and stable. The US economy remains vibrant, but the US benefits also from the desire of people to participate in the global economic system that has the United States at its core. The fact that the American Tianxia acts on an individual basis at least as much as on an international one massively privileges US individuals, organizations, and institutions. Others pay this price due to the network externalities gained from membership in the system. These flows counteract political entropy -- the tendency of imperial political systems to disintegrate. The American Tianxia thus does not fit the "new medievalism" model of international relations; as Vladimir Putin protests, it is a unipolar system with "one master, one sovereign." Advocates of a return to multipolarity (including Vladimir Putin) point to the rise of China as their main hope, but forecasts of China's continuing economic rise are vastly oversold.

There are five models that analysts have utilized in efforts to depict accurately the evolution of the Russian-American relationship from the late Cold War through the first part of the twenty-first century. While bipolarity characterized the early days of the Cold War, it yielded to a multipolar model in the last decades of that period. Post-Cold war patterns have centered on early American-centered unipolarity, re-emergence of multipolarity, and at times complex or chaotic patterms. In addition, five theories cast light on many of the details of the relationship. While legacy theory displays how some features of the communist past carry over into the post-communist period, the concept of critical junctures pulls our attention to key transitions in the political life and relationship of both powers. Debates about individual foreign policy decisions by both often center on the dialogue between realists and post- or revised-realist theoreticians.

This chapter uses international relations theory to conceptualize the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) as a club emulating the incumbent world powers. The BRICS operate as an informal club to increase their bargaining power and influence global economic governance. They are motivated by their common aversions to the dominant power of the G7, particularly the United States, and challenges to their autonomy. These five countries press to have a greater voice within existing multilateral institutions, including the major international financial institutions, while pursuing the outside option of founding parallel multilateral institutions. Given China’s disproportionate strength within this club, this asymmetry of capabilities among the members has enabled China to dominate their internal decisions. Nonetheless, the other members continue to find value in their collaboration with China. In adopting this stance, China within the BRICS presents some echoes of the role played by the United States within the G7.