A constructivist analysis on balancing : the impact of US war on terror on China and Russia

This dissertation provides a constructivist analysis of balancing under unipolarity by examining the question of how the US war on terror has influenced China’s and Russia’s tendency to balance against the United States. To answer this question, this dissertation looks at how China’s and Russia’s security understandings have evolved as a result of their bilateral relations with the US and US security practices in international relations since the end of the Cold War. It points out that China’s and Russia’s interactions with the US have produced micro-cultures in which rivalry over international status and insecurity have become dominant. The dissertation argues that China’s and Russia’s reactions to the US war on terror were shaped by their security understandings. It states that after a temporary betterment of relations with the US, both states’ concerns about their status in international relations were intensified after US unilateralism in the Iraq war. In addition, the dissertation points out that unipolarity exists in a Lockean culture at macro-structural level in which the US has the primary status empowering it to shape the norms of international relations. It stresses that as China and Russia want to play a role in the rule-making process and management of the international order, they are concerned by US status as the system-maker. The dissertation concludes that China and Russia might balance against the US due to the insecurities produced at macro and microstructural levels.