Undermining Adversaries: Unipolarity, Threat Perception, and Negative Balancing Strategies after the Cold War

This paper engages the ongoing soft balancing debate by suggesting a new analytical framework for states' countervailing strategies-a negative balancing model-to explain why states do not form alliances and conduct arms races to balance against power or threats as they previously did. Negative balancing refers to a state's strategies or diplomatic efforts aiming to undermine a rival's power. By contrast, positive balancing means to strengthen a state's own power in world politics. I argue that a state's balancing strategies are shaped by the level of threat perception regarding its rival. The higher the threat perception, the more likely it is for a state to choose positive balancing. The lower the threat perception, the more likely it is for a state to choose negative balancing. I suggest that the hegemon provides security as a public good to the international system in a unipolar world in which the relatively low-threat propensity of the system renders positive balancing strategies incompatible with state interests after the Cold War. Instead, states have employed various negative balancing strategies to undermine each other's power, especially when dealing with US primacy. China's negative balancing strategy against the United States and the US negative balancing strategy against Russia are two case studies that test the validity of the negative balancing model.