Great-power competition: China, Russia & the contemporary agenda

From Engagement to Strategic Competition

The organizing principle of US foreign policy shifted decisively between 2017 and 2022 from post-Cold War engagement to explicit great-power competition. The 2017 National Security Strategy (December 2017), issued under President Trump, named China and Russia as 'revisionist powers' seeking to 'shape a world antithetical to US values and interests' and declared the return of inter-state strategic competition as 'the primary concern in US national security.' The accompanying 2018 National Defense Strategy (Secretary James Mattis) operationalized this by prioritizing China and Russia over counterterrorism for the first time since 9/11.

The 2022 National Security Strategy (October 2022), under President Biden, sharpened the distinction: China is 'the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,' while Russia poses 'an immediate and persistent threat to international peace.' Russia is thus framed as an acute disruptor; China as the singular long-term 'pacing challenge'—a term codified in the 2022 National Defense Strategy.

The China Track

The pivot toward China began earlier. The Obama 'Pivot to Asia' / 'Rebalance' (Secretary Hillary Clinton's 'America's Pacific Century,' Foreign Policy, October 2011) sought to reallocate diplomatic and military resources to the Indo-Pacific. The Trump administration launched the Section 301 tariffs (USTR investigation, March 2018) on roughly $250 billion of Chinese goods over forced technology transfer and intellectual-property theft, culminating in the Phase One trade deal (January 2020).

Under Biden, competition became technological. The CHIPS and Science Act (signed August 9, 2022) appropriated $52.7 billion to reshore semiconductor manufacturing, and the October 7, 2022 Bureau of Industry and Security export controls restricted advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), launched May 2022, and the AUKUS pact (September 15, 2021, with the UK and Australia) and revived Quad (US, Japan, India, Australia) constitute the latticework of alliances designed to balance Beijing.

The Russia Track

Russia's annexation of Crimea (March 2014) triggered the first wave of sectoral sanctions under Executive Orders 13660, 13661, and 13662. Congress codified and expanded these via the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA, 2017). The full-scale invasion of Ukraine (February 24, 2022) prompted unprecedented measures: removal of major Russian banks from SWIFT, the freezing of roughly $300 billion in Central Bank of Russia reserves, and a G7 price cap on Russian seaborne oil (December 2022). The US has provided tens of billions in security assistance to Ukraine, reaffirming NATO's Article 5 commitment and welcoming Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) into the alliance.

Why This Matters for the Exam

The great-power-competition framework is the single most testable theme on the contemporary FSOT, cutting across both the Job Knowledge component (US foreign policy, history, geography) and the Economics component (trade policy, sanctions, supply chains). Examiners treat the 2017 and 2022 National Security Strategies as anchor documents: candidates should be able to attribute each to its administration and recall the signature phrases—'revisionist powers' (2017) and 'pacing challenge' (2022)—because the FSOT rewards precise terminology over paraphrase.

High-Yield Facts to Retain

Memorize the instrument-to-objective mapping, because multiple-choice items frequently test whether you can match a tool to its purpose:

• Section 301 (Trade Act of 1974) — the legal authority for the China tariffs; distinguish from Section 232 (Trade Expansion Act of 1962), the national-security basis for the 2018 steel and aluminum tariffs.
• CAATSA (2017) — codifies Russia sanctions and constrains presidential waiver authority.
• CHIPS and Science Act (2022) and the October 7, 2022 export controls — the technology-denial strategy.
• AUKUS (2021), Quad, IPEF (2022) — the Indo-Pacific alliance architecture.
• OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control, within Treasury) administers sanctions; BIS (Bureau of Industry and Security, within Commerce) administers export controls. The State Department's role is coordination through bureaus such as EAP (East Asian and Pacific Affairs) and EUR (European and Eurasian Affairs).

How It Is Tested

The Job Knowledge section poses discrete factual items—dates, attributions, and the agency responsible for a given instrument. The Economics section probes mechanisms: why a reserve freeze or an oil price cap works, and the costs of decoupling versus 'de-risking' (a term Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and EU Commission President von der Leyen popularized in 2023). The Written Essay may ask you to argue a position on competition versus cooperation with China—on climate, for instance, where the US–China Sunnylands Statement (November 2023) revived cooperation even amid rivalry. A strong essay names documents, dates, and trade-offs rather than asserting generalities. Treat the PYQ pattern as a demand for the named authority behind every claim.