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OSSERVATORIO INTERNAZIONALE

1. Summary
Great Power Competition (GPC) will be shared as the main security chal-
lenge for a long time to come as determined by the discourse that the U.S. has
developed and has been adhering since 2017. This means a departure from the
priority attributed to other security issues, first of all a transnational threat: ter-
rorism. As the competition is between the U.S. and China and not confined to
classical hard security matters it raises the question how other countries should
relate to it and position themselves in an emerging bipolar international order.
The U.S. can count on many other states, allies and strategic partners in Europe,
and the Asia-Pacific. The fact the competition is also about positioning in the
world economy many western leaning states would not like to lose benefits
from cooperation with Beijing that will complicate the situation and reduce the
predictability of the outcome in the competition. The securitization of the
competition contributes to the perception that states will have to choose one
side or the other. In this zero-sum context, the international attraction of China
(and to some extent also Russia) may be as an alternative: representing a value-
neutral approach and ready to cooperate with states boasting a variety of poli-
tico-economic systems. Beijing is particularly popular with regimes where lea-
ders hi-jacked democracy and happy not to face challenges based on democra-
tic values. The challenge posed by Russia is more concentrated on traditional
security matters and hence will be easier to manage by the West.

2. Introduction: From Cold War to Great Power Competition
While there is uncertainty about the beginning and end of the Cold War,
there is rough consensus that the focus was on two mutually exclusive ideolo-
gies and that the existential contradiction could only cease when one of the
socio-political systems has been discontinued . Another debate concerns the
(1)
level of analysis problem . Does the international system make its mark as far
(2)
as specificities of the state system, or do states remain free in what system they
create and how they are oriented? Structural realists pride themselves that the
international system has a decisive impact on the constituent entities, the states,
and the influence of the state extends as far as the range of its battle tanks .
(3)
(1) MANDELBAUM, Michael, The Dawn of Peace in Europe. New York, 1996. Somewhat later he rai-
sed the same question in his article: Is major war obsolete? Survival, 40 (1998), 4, pp. 20-38.
(2) SINGER, David J., The Level of Analysis Problem in International Relations, World Politics, 14 (1961) 1, pp. 77-92.
(3) KENNAN, George F., The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State. 861.00/2 –
2246. Telegram Moscow, February 22, 1946. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/docu-
ments/episode-1/kennan.html. Accessed July 27, 2021.

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