Introduction
Balance of power theory, once regarded as an “iron law” of international politics, faced serious explanatory challenges in the post-Cold War era. Yet China’s rapid rise over the past two decades (2009–2025) has once again placed the logic of balancing at the center of academic debate. The significance of this study lies in the transformation of international power dynamics since the Cold War. Today's balancing process, particularly in the context of U.S.-China strategic relations, has extended beyond conventional forms of internal and external balancing toward an active U.S. strategy aimed at disrupting the process of balancing against the dominant power. This study therefore adopts a dynamic and dialectical understanding of balancing and examines how the dominant power, the United States, uses diplomatic and strategic instruments to prolong its position of primacy and impede the emergence of effective balancing against it.
The central question of this study is how a dominant power can delay its decline and prolong its supremacy. Drawing on neoclassical realism and the concepts of “underbalancing” and “resource mobilization,” the study argues that the United States has disrupted the natural process of international balancing through a pattern of “hybrid and networked balancing.” This strategy, centered on the securitization of trade and technology, seeks to prevent the emergence of competing poles in the international system by moving beyond traditional alliances and toward new forms of multilateral connectivity.
Methodology
The study combines basic and applied research. It employs a case-study approach, focusing on U.S. efforts to disrupt the balancing process vis-à-vis China, complemented by a trend-analysis approach. A mixed-methods design within an empirical-analytical paradigm is used to achieve the research objectives, combining the use of existing data with in-depth analysis. The data and information analyzed in this study are drawn from a combination of library-based sources, both print and digital, as well as credible online sources.
The theoretical framework rests on four analytical levels. First, the study makes a fundamental distinction between “balancing as a structural condition” and “balancing as an intentional process,” a distinction that is essential for understanding U.S. behavior. Second, it draws on Stephen Walt’s balance of threat theory, according to which states respond to perceived threats rather than to power alone. Third, it incorporates key insights from neoclassical realism, particularly Randall Schweller’s concept of the “underbalancing” and Jeffrey Taliaferro’s concept of “resource mobilization.” Fourth, it draws on Kenneth Waltz’s argument concerning the suppression of rival balancing, according to which a dominant power can temporarily disrupt the process through which other states seek to balance against it.
By integrating these four analytical dimensions, the study develops a theoretical model of “suppressive balancing.” To examine this model empirically, it analyzes U.S.-China strategic competition across five presidential administrations: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump’s first administration, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump’s second administration.
Findings and Discussion
The findings indicate that between 2000 and 2025, the United States gradually moved beyond conventional balancing to deliberately disrupt the natural process of international balancing through a strategy of suppressive balancing. During the George W. Bush administration, this was evident in the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the strengthening of Taiwan’s military capabilities, and the restructuring of military alignments with India and Japan. Under Obama, the 2008 financial crisis and the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to “underbalancing” in U.S. foreign policy. Rather than relying primarily on hard balancing, Obama pursued soft balancing through initiatives such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and efforts to promote norms in the South China Sea.
During Donald Trump’s first administration, U.S. policy shifted from neoclassical caution toward a more explicitly offensive realist orientation. China was identified as a “revisionist power” in the 2017 National Security Strategy. The trade war with China, sanctions and restrictions targeting Huawei, and the U.S. withdrawal from the TPP were among the major manifestations of U.S. efforts to disrupt the balancing process during this period. Under Biden, several of the measures introduced under Trump were institutionalized. Legislation such as the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act was adopted to mobilize domestic resources and strengthen internal balancing against China. At the same time, external balancing mechanisms that did not entail direct military confrontation were reinforced through arrangements such as AUKUS and the Quad.
During Trump’s second administration (2025–2026), aggressive tariff policies, controls on technology exports, and artificial-intelligence agreements in the Persian Gulf emerged as further examples of suppressive balancing in an era increasingly shaped by advanced technologies.
Overall, the findings suggest that by disrupting the natural process of balancing, the United States has been able to delay the emergence of China as a peer competitor. This strategy, however, is highly resource-intensive and is unlikely to remain sustainable over the long term. Structural pressures will ultimately push the international system toward bipolar balancing.
Conclusion
Moving beyond conventional realist approaches, this study introduces “suppressive balancing” as a third approach alongside internal and external balancing. Internal balancing involves strengthening a state’s power by expanding its domestic economic and military capabilities, whereas external balancing relies on alliances to distribute the costs of countering a rival. By contrast, a strategy of disrupting the balancing process seeks to preserve the dominant power’s position of primacy not primarily by increasing its own capabilities, but by constraining and weakening its rival through instruments such as technology controls, economic sanctions, and the securitization of trade. Although this can be effective in the short term, it requires substantial resources and is difficult to sustain over an extended period.
The empirical findings further suggest that 2025 and 2026 constitute a critical window for the United States. China’s military modernization, including the commissioning of the Fujian aircraft carrier and the expansion of its naval fleet to approximately 400 vessels, together with the emergence of China’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, has reinforced perceptions of increasingly assertive intentions on the part of Beijing. From an offensive realist perspective, the United States is therefore compelled to prevent further growth in Chinese power during this critical period. At the same time, however, the deep economic interdependence between the two countries and the enormous costs of complete economic decoupling constrain the prospects for comprehensive confrontation.
Ultimately, drawing on Waltz’s prediction, the study identifies the emergence of a bipolar international system as the most likely future trajectory of the international order. Unlike the Cold War, however, this new bipolarity is unlikely to reproduce the same fundamental ideological conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, partly because China has embraced the capitalist economic system. Moreover, the weakening of a sense of “we-ness” among U.S. allies, together with intermittent isolationist tendencies in U.S. foreign policy, has complicated Washington’s ability to balance China effectively. Thus, although the strategy of disrupting the balancing process may prove effective in the short term, its long-term viability will be constrained by structural, financial, and alliance-related limitations.