What Do The Superpowers Want?
What Do Russia, China, and The United States Want Today, And In The Future, And Is A Deal Possible?
Contents
Introduction
What The Superpowers Want
Are Win-Win Relationships Possible Between The Superpowers?
Concluding Remarks
Bitesize Edition
No Incentive Alignment - The core argument is that modern superpowers lack the incentive structure required for a grand bargain. Unlike historical settlements, today’s system is defined by ongoing strategic competition rather than exhaustion or equilibrium. This makes cooperative breakthroughs structurally unlikely.
Different Great Power Objectives - The United States prioritises maintaining primacy through economic statecraft, military dominance, and expanded long-term resilience. China seeks expanded regional influence, reduced US constraints (especially over Taiwan), and gradual recognition of its rise. Russia focuses on legitimising territorial gains, weakening NATO expansion, and re-establishing great power status.
Fragile and Reversible Cooperation - Interactions between the United States, Russia and China show limited and unstable cooperation. Agreements tend to be partial, reversible, or undermined by deeper areas of rivalry. Even when cooperation exists, it fails to produce durable positive-sum outcomes.
Why a Grand Bargain Fails to Emerge - Even large-scale, meaningful bilateral deals involving the United States seem unlikely because trust and enforcement are weak. Competing long-term strategies ensure that cooperation in one domain is offset by conflict in another. As a result, only fragmented and temporary arrangements are likely rather than a comprehensive grand bargain.
Introduction
On Monday, I explored previous grand bargains that have unfolded throughout history before defining the consistent criteria that all of these grand bargains possess.
Due to a lack of incentives amongst the superpowers, I don’t see a grand bargain arising in our geopolitical world today.
Today, I will aim to paint a picture of why such a grand bargain won’t occur anytime soon. To do this, we first need to explore what the superpowers want in both the near-term and the long-term future.
After this, on Monday, we’ll then explore what a world after a grand bargain could look like, purely so we can argue that such a world is incredibly unlikely.
Let’s dive in for today.
