Throughout its 250 years of independence, US grand strategy has focused on the balance of power in its flanking trans-oceanic regions. Its approach to great power politics across the Atlantic Ocean and across the Pacific Ocean has reflected an enduring concern that no country should dominate either region and thus challenge US security in the western hemisphere. As US capabilities have increased over the past 250 years, its role in European and Asian politics has evolved. But its strategic purpose has been steady.

During its first 150 years, the US benefited from balance-of-power politics and great power competition in Europe. Its victory in the Revolutionary War reflected French and Spanish assistance to the colonies and British dispersal of its naval forces to Europe, the Caribbean and North America to contend with rival navies. The Louisiana Purchase and the US victory in the War of 1812 reflected French and British focus on the Napoleonic wars. 

The outcome of the US Civil War reflected French and British reluctance to intervene on behalf of the southern secessionists to ensure cotton supplies, lest they face a simultaneous challenge from its great power rival. American acquisition of Alaska in 1867 reflected Russian preoccupation with its security in Europe following its defeat in the Crimean war. And in 1901, Great Britain acquiesced to unilateral US construction of the Panama Canal because it was focused on the rise of the French and Russian navies.

World War I was the first time that the US intervened in European affairs to ensure a divided Europe. Its focus on the European balance of power had not changed; it intervened in the war to support resistance to German domination of Europe. But in the aftermath of World War I, US isolationism reflected outdated confidence that participation in the European balance of power was not necessary to ensure US security. Americans believed that Europeans could wage war amongst themselves with little consequence for the US.

The US intervened in World War II in Europe to prevent once again a flanking hegemon from challenging US security. It supported the allied powers to prevent German domination of Europe. The US’s growing resolve to resist Japanese military expansion in East Asia in the late 1930s through 1941 and to risk a US-Japan war similarly reflected its opposition to a great power dominating a flanking region.

The lesson of World War II was that the US required a permanent military presence in both post-war Europe and East Asia to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemon. Throughout the Cold War, it contended with the Soviet Union in Europe and, for much of the Cold War, both China and the Soviet Union in East Asia. Expansive US regional alliance commitments and extensive military deployments in two distant theatres, including two costly wars in East Asia, were the price the US paid to resist hegemony in trans-oceanic security affairs.

In the aftermath of the Cold War, the US assumed an unfamiliar role in European and East Asian affairs. Following the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989, the US filled the resulting power vacuums in Eastern Europe and in maritime East Asia. For the first time since 1776, US strategy to maintain divided flanking regions rested upon US hegemony, rather than on great power competition in balance-of-power politics.

Although the US has never defined hegemony as essential to US security, the fundamental US post-Cold War foreign policy issue has been China’s challenge to US hegemony in East Asia — whether the US should strive to maintain hegemony or accommodate China and seek security in a bipolar balance-of-power system.

In the early post-Cold War era, despite the absence of a rival great power, the US consolidated its hegemony over Europe and East Asia. With its intervention in the Yugoslav wars and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the US expanded its military presence in Europe.

In East Asia, even as the US pursued engagement with post-Mao China, following the 1996 US-China Taiwan Strait confrontation, it strengthened its military presence in East Asia. The 1997 revised US-Japan Guidelines for Defense Cooperation expanded US-Japanese alliance cooperation and US military presence in Japan. Increased US naval and air force deployments throughout East Asia focused on containing Chinese military modernisation.

But in the two decades following the Cold War, the US failed to curtail the rise of China. By the early 2010s, China had developed competitive maritime military capabilities in the Yellow Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and superior market power over nearly all of the East Asian economies.

Since the Obama administration, each US presidential administration has adopted a distinct approach to the changing balance of power in East Asia, as each administration contended with the prospect of the end of US hegemony and the emergence of bipolarity.

The Obama administration: the pivot

In response to China’s expanding region-wide military capabilities and influence in East Asia, the Obama administration adopted its pivot strategy. The pivot called for strengthened US economic, military and diplomatic presence in East Asia to counter the rise of China. 

The first Trump administration: strategic drift

The first Trump administration understood the Chinese challenge to US security. But it failed to develop a consistent policy to reverse US decline. In economic affairs, it focused on the US trade deficit with China, rather than on the implications of Chinese exports for the competitiveness of strategic US industries. After imposing high tariffs on Chinese exports, it negotiated a trade agreement that called for greater Chinese imports of US goods in return for reduced US tariffs. 

Trump’s restrictions on technology transfers were more symbolic than strategic and were ineffective in restraining Chinese technology modernisation. The administration did not develop a strategy to strengthen US civilian and military industries. And after Trump’s personal diplomacy failed to elicit Chinese compromises regarding Taiwan, the administration expanded defence and political cooperation with Taiwan and US naval operations in East Asia. By the end of his first term, Trump had neither developed a coherent response to the rise of China nor arrested the decline of US hegemony.

The Biden administration: doubling down on containment

From the start, the Biden administration made clear that American security required economic, technology and military superiority over China. In economic affairs, it initiated a trade war, imposing high tariffs on Chinese automobiles, steel, aluminium, solar cells, batteries, medical supplies, semiconductors. minerals and infrastructure equipment. It escalated Trump’s technology war, significantly expanding restrictions on US corporate cooperation with a wide range of Chinese technology corporations. 

In military affairs, it went all out to strengthen US Cold War security partnerships and its regional military presence. It gained access to four additional Philippine military facilities, deployed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system in South Korea, reached agreement with Japan for greater integration of US and Japanese forces, and organised the Quad for US, Japanese, Australian and Indian maritime cooperation against China. Nonetheless, by the end of the Biden presidency, Chinese economic, technology and military capabilities had approached parity with US capabilities in a bipolar regional order.

The second Trump administration has rejected the Biden’s administration’s strategy to sustain US hegemony, rejecting the costs of a trade war, of comprehensive restrictions on technology cooperation, and of strengthened US Cold War strategic partnerships. Trump’s summitry with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his calls for a US-China G2 suggest acknowledgement of East Asian bipolarity and US inability to engage in unconstrained competition with China. Rather than deal with China as susceptible to US coercion, it negotiates with China as a peer great power.

In trade policy, after unilaterally imposing punishing tariffs on Chinese exports, the Trump administration reached agreements to open negotiations for reciprocal tariff reductions and reciprocal opening of markets to trade and investment. In technology matters, rather than imposing comprehensive restrictions on technology cooperation, Trump has focused on regulating the most advanced militarily relevant technologies, while licensing exports of less-advanced technologies. He has restrained defence cooperation with Taiwan and reduced US naval presence in the Taiwan Strait. Reflecting declining US capabilities and the cost of heightened tension and conflict with China, he has signalled reduced defence commitments to South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.

But as has been the case since 1776, in 2026 the US seeks security by assuring divided trans-oceanic regions. Even as it tacitly acknowledges the end of US hegemony in East Asia, it is determined to develop the capabilities required to resist Chinese hegemony. Its industrial policies seek to maintain competitive US manufacturing and cutting edge military technology industries through direct government investments, as well as through tariffs and regulatory policies. It has strengthened efforts to revitalise the US military industrial base, especially regarding shipbuilding. In regional security affairs, it has expanded US military presence in the Philippines to three more facilities and, with deployments of advanced weaponry, it has strengthened defence cooperation with Japan to constrain Chinese naval expansion, and expanded maritime defence cooperation with Australia.

US policy instability and the continued rise of China suggest that there remains much uncertainty regarding the future of American security policy. A post-Trump presidency may seek to resurrect containment policies to pursue American hegemony. Many former Biden administration officials criticise Trump for weakness regarding the defence of Taiwan and for his trade and technology policies. They assert that a post-Trump Democratic Party administration would restore Biden-era policies that seek US dominance. Many Republican Party leaders are similarly critical of Trump’s technology, trade, and Taiwan policies.

However, it is not clear that the next US administration, regardless of which party occupies the White House, can make the investments and sustain the costs and risks of Cold War containment policies in the face of China’s continued rise and the changing balance of power. It is also uncertain whether Trump’s disruptive trade and alliance policies will undermine the US’s ability to contend with the rise of China. Thus, despite domestic political change, the US may well accommodate the trend toward bipolarity.

But US management of decline alone will not determine the prospects for East Asian stability. As much as the US must manage its decline, China must manage its rise. It is uncertain whether China will restrain its ambitions or will seek regional hegemony and drive escalated US-China competition. It is uncertain if China will continue to pursue peaceful unification with Taiwan. And it is uncertain if China will resist spiralling protectionist retaliation against other countries’ efforts to protect their declining industries and their economic prosperity.

The US has had a consistent strategic approach to its trans-oceanic flanks since 1776. But over the past 250 years, US policy has adjusted to changes in the balance of power in both Europe and East Asia. In 2026, as the rise of China has eroded US hegemony in East Asia, US policy is in flux as the US once again adjusts to a changing balance of power in a flanking region.

This article benefited from participation in projects organised by the Security in Asia Program, Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.

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