Hcss report

Why only China and Russia?
This is not a self-evident choice. Our research has shown that the US is far more 
associated with assertiveness in the scholarly literature than, for instance, either 
China or Russia (Figure 2.1). We suspect that an analysis of the global media or 
other indicators would produce a similar finding.
FIGURE 2.1: GREAT POWER ASSERTIVENESS (ACADEMIC SEARCH RESULTS)
However, given the scope of this project, HCSS, in close consultation with the 
three Ministries that commissioned this research, decided to confine this analysis 
to China and Russia. There can be no doubt about these two countries’ current 
importance to the international system. They are the world’s largest countries in 
terms of land area. Both have historically been participants in Great Power wars, 
especially Russia, which has been involved in fewer wars than France, England or 
Austro-Hungary, but in far more than countries like Germany or Sweden.
Brazil
China
EU
India
Russia
US
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
4,000
4,500

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HCSS REPORT
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FIGURE 2.2: GREAT POWER PARTICIPATION IN GREAT POWER WAR 1495-2014
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Both are members of the UN Security Council, and both are nuclear powers. Both 
appear increasingly willing to challenge the United States – also in military terms – 
as illustrated by a few recent high-profile cases. These include Russia’s talk in 2013 
about dispatching fighter detachments to Belarus, Iskander short-range missiles to 
Kaliningrad, or more military forces to the Arctic
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as well as arguably quite bold 
actions in 2013 such as dispatching a military naval warship off the coast of 
Scotland, running the largest-scale military field-exercise since a long time with its 
Belarusian ally (Zapad-2013), flying bombers over NATO (including Dutch) airspace 
and even simulating an aerial attack on Southern Sweden, etc. On China’s side, 
such cases include, for example, the Chinese declaration of an air defense 
identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, the incorporation of the South 
China Sea in passport maps of China, the dispatching of their new aircraft 
carrier Liaoning further afield to Hainan island (leading to a near-collision with a US 
warship), and the test of a hypersonic missile capable of evading American missile 
defenses.
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