The United States, according to official U.S. national security statements and an avalanche of commentary since about 2016, is engaged in a long-term strategic rivalry with China and a lesser — but still critical — rivalry for influence with Russia. Many U.S. strategy documents refer to the concept of strategic competition, but the core idea — and increasingly the reality — of these relationships matches the classic historical concept of a great power rivalry. These rivalries, especially with China, promise to define U.S. foreign policy and national security challenges for decades. Yet most assessments of these rivalries tend to ignore the critical question of outcomes. This report is part of a larger project on the societal sources of national dynamism and competitive advantage. This research aims to identify historical modes of strategic success and failure in great power rivalries that offer lessons for the United States. The authors define categories of success and failure (in terms of such variables as control over territory, relative power, victory or defeat in war, international legitimacy, and social stability) and present detailed case studies on specific historical examples that are associated with success and failure. They also discuss the implications of the typologies of both kinds of outcomes for the rivalry with China.

This report is part of a larger RAND study on the societal foundations of national competitiveness. Building off that study's identification of the qualities that contribute to national dynamism and success in international rivalries from a Western perspective, the authors surveyed Chinese and Russian thinking about the qualities that tend to produce competitive advantage. The authors aimed to find general themes and patterns of thinking, not actual plans. Both China and Russia hold starkly different views from most U.S. and Western officials and analysts about the societal sources of competitive advantage. Unsurprisingly, the countries' concepts emphasize the claimed advantages of their distinct models, grounded in the unity and coordinated policy allowed by nationalistic autocratic regimes. Chinese and Russian conceptions of societal advantage carry at least an implicit message that an effective combination of three societal characteristics (national ambition and will, unified national identity, and an active state), when layered on top of the cultural values of their respective societies, can provide a winning formula in a long-term rivalry regardless of other factors associated with dynamism and competitive advantage. The contest between the United States and these two rivals may pivot around this essential standoff: a narrower recipe for national success based on nationalism, centralized authority, and willpower versus a more expansive formula built on networked power, grassroots dynamism, and the values of openness and freedom.