U.S., China and Russia: Integrated Deterrence and Escalation Management in the Decade of Concern Published March 26, 2026 By Lt. Col. Jan Egil Rekstad, Royal Norwegian Air Force An assessment of contemporary strategic rivalry reveals a multifaceted competition in which authoritarian regimes seeking hegemony aim to transform the liberal order, challenge principles of sovereignty, and displace the United States as leader of the global system. While several actors contest the current international order, China and Russia stand out as the most capable of wielding their instruments of power to exert global influence and realistically challenge the West. Historically, the liberal order has benefited from a unified front under U.S. leadership, but the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) signals a shift away from the U.S. resolve to uphold that order and toward a more unilateralist approach. This argues that such unilateralism favors U.S. rivals by eroding integrated deterrence and reducing constraints and restraints on Beijing and Moscow. Of particular emphasis is the ‘Decade of Concern’ or the ‘Davison Window’ coined by Admiral Philip Davidson, to describe the growing risk that China might attack Taiwan by the end of this decade[1]. The recommendation is a reorientation toward a collaborative, integrated deterrence strategy, supported by a refocused global force posture designed to sustain a strategy of denial and enable responsible escalation management. The first part examines Russia's and China's strategic objectives, compares their instruments of power, and assesses their success relative to the United States. Part two analyzes the integration of allies and partners and the liberal international order as cornerstones of integrated deterrence, offering recommendations for U.S. security strategy. The third and final part addresses how the U.S. military must reorient itself to provide credible deterrence and enhance escalation management in this new strategic reality. The core rivalry between the U.S. and China, the 'pacing challenge,' is defined by Beijing's objective to reshape the international order to accommodate the CCP's 'national rejuvenation' and governance system.[2] The CCP sees benefit in the current order, provided it is reformed to embrace Chinese characteristics, sovereign principles, and leadership. Russia, conversely, is the distinct 'third power' seeking to disrupt the status quo. Moscow views global politics as a zero-sum struggle in which it seeks to revise or overturn the international system to enhance its relative power at the expense of others.[3] Thus, where China seeks to alter the global system, Russia's logic is to weaken and diminish it. Security and Spheres of Influence drive Beijing and Moscow to challenge established principles of sovereignty. China aims to secure a "strategic advantage" over the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region.[4] At the same time, Russia seeks to reassert dominance in the post-Soviet Eurasian space, expand in the Arctic, and challenge European security architectures.[5] China regards sovereignty as absolute with respect to internal affairs and regime authority, but flexible in its approach to international law, evident in its aggressive maritime expansion and claims in the South and East China Seas, underpinned by the construction of artificial islands and harassments by the Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militia in the South China Sea.[6] Russia views sovereignty as hierarchical, a privilege enjoyed only by true Great Powers. The invasions of Georgia and Ukraine highlight Russia’s willingness to defy the international system and push its own principles of sovereignty to advance its security interests, dominate and influence its near-abroad through non-attributable and coercive means.[7] China's military expansion follows a three-step strategy for the People's Liberation Army (PLA): mechanization by 2020, modernization by 2035, and world-class capability by 2049. A 2027 benchmark aims to accelerate PLA to counter the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific and, if necessary, force Taiwan's alignment.[8] The PLA Navy (PLAN), now the world's largest, carries China's Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy alongside PLA Air Force 5th-generation air capabilities and the PLA Rocket Force. Simultaneously, China is developing a credible, survivable nuclear triad and low-yield weapons for a flexible nuclear doctrine.[9] Despite a smaller and less sophisticated force, Russia employs an A2AD doctrine similar to China's. Modernization of underwater and naval dual-use strike capabilities remains a priority, posing a continued conventional and nuclear threat to the continental U.S., regardless of the outcome in Ukraine.[10] Despite massive military modernization, China faces diplomatic and economic headwinds. Its 'New Development Concept', which illustrates the CCP’s drive for China’s self-reliance and stability, has shifted the focus toward state-owned enterprises, contributing to a structural decline. The economic slowdown is exacerbated by a real estate collapse, a limited financial system, and an aging population, making the goal of overtaking the U.S. economy highly improbable.[11] Diplomatically, China's 'Wolf-Warrior' approach and the stalling Belt and Road Initiative have sparked backlash. At the same time, the 'China model' has proven difficult to replicate and has been outperformed by democratic models.[12] Russia's economy accounted for just over 11% of China's GDP in 2024, which is insignificant as an instrument of global power. Dependence on energy exports has become a liability, as Russia's weaponization of energy (e.g., the Nord Stream gas pipeline) failed to shatter European resolve and instead spurred diversification. While sanctions on energy have inflicted further punishment, the Russian economy has shown resilience, likely sustaining the war in Ukraine for another three years.[13] However, with the U.S. remaining the world's largest economy and China's growth arguably peaking in 2021, the U.S. appears to be winning the long-term economic competition.[14] Consequently, Beijing and Moscow continue to rely on military and informational instruments emphasizing asymmetry. The U.S. military is transitioning to peer competition to close the gap, yet the pace is insufficient. Even if the U.S. Defense Industrial Base excels in technology, it lags China in production volume.[15] Lack of shipbuilding capacity, an aging fleet, and the decommissioning of Ohio-class SSGNs (2026-2028) further erode U.S. constraints on China's military power.[16] The Joint Force must overcome the tyranny of distance, which implies home-field advantage for the PLA and a conventional deterrence gap in the Indo-Pacific.[17] While global commitments strain the Joint Force across the Indo-Pacific, Euro-Atlantic, and Middle East, China and Russia advance their A2AD capabilities and flexible nuclear doctrines to pursue military asymmetry. A first-mover advantage, specifically for taking Taiwan, may consequently become attractive to the PLA. A military conflict in the Indo-Pacific could weaken deterrence in Europe to the point where Russia chooses military action against NATO countries. Perhaps the most critical element of U.S. grand strategy is strengthening cohesion with its allies and partners and preserving the liberal international order to reinstate integrated deterrence. Jared M. McKinney offers a broader view of deterrence beyond a purely military perspective by distinguishing between external constraints (factors that bind the PLA and prevent successful aggression) and internal restraints (factors that favor peace and the status quo over war). Between 1949 and roughly 2016, China was bound by strong external constraints, among them the 'US-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty (1955-1979); superiority in US nuclear deterrence (1955-1974); US maritime dominance (1949-2014); and Taiwan Air Force air superiority (1958-2003). At the same time, the CCP's key restraints from this period include revolutionary chaos in China (1965-1975); deepening positive trade relations between China and Taiwan (1990-2016) and China and the United States (2000-2016); and Taiwan's Silicon Shield (2000-2022). The constraints on a Chinese invasion were so significant that it could not have successfully taken Taiwan, even if it had desired to do so. The restraints were such that they likely did not wish to do so.[18] This underpins a central theme in integrated deterrence as conceptualized in the 2022 NSS: deterrence must operate in concert across domains, government functions, and the spectrum of conflict, and be integrated with allies across the DIME.[19] Halfway through the 'decade of concern' (2020-2030), however, the external military constraints imposed by a U.S. deterrent and the internal policy restraints on the CCP are at their weakest, resulting in fragile strategic stability. As the PLA approaches President Xi Jinping's 2027 goal of a military capability to invade Taiwan, China's projected economic decline suggests that 'sooner rather than later' may be preferable for the CCP. While the U.S. enjoys a better diplomatic and economic position globally, it will not be able to close the military gap with the PLA in the near term.[20] Increasing the constraints on the PLA by integrating U.S. partners and allies militarily into the Joint Force to 'even the numbers' is evident. However, the effective integration of allied military forces with the U.S. remains a challenge. The U.S. has historically engaged in close coordination and intelligence exchange with allies, but this has been piecemeal or stovepiped. Even NATO support for Afghanistan and coalitions joining the U.S.-led wars after the Cold War did not require all-domain integration. Today, successful deterrence, crisis management, and joint warfighting against peer adversaries require comprehensive, if not complete, integration into AI-augmented command-and-control (C2) systems for communications, ISR, and targeting. While NATO has an integrated C2 architecture, there is no comparable structure in the Indo-Pacific region. CJADC2 (Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control) aims to integrate allies and partners, but technical challenges remain.[21] Although technical difficulties may be resolved, growing unilateralism threatens to drive a wedge into integrated deterrence. The current 2025 NSS and its 'America First Correction' shift U.S. foreign and security policy toward a transactional foreign relations framework that prioritizes national sovereignty and mercantilism over transnational collaboration. The NSS 2025 goes as far as “... reforming those [international] institutions so that they assist rather than hinder individual sovereignty and further American interests.”[22] Stephen M. Walt's arguments illustrate how trends toward unilateralism could weaken the U.S.: “... if they [US leaders] try to use their hegemonic position to impose their own preferences or to gain unilateral advantages (thereby satisfying their domestic constituents), they will inevitably provoke allied resentment.”[23] A plausible counterargument is whether deeper integrated deterrence is, in fact, the best answer to these trends. Critics note that efforts to integrate allies and partners across domains, instruments, and levels of conflict can blur lines of responsibility, complicate decision-making, and risk strategic incoherence if they are not anchored in a clear theory of victory.[24] From this perspective, what the 2022 NSS describes as integrated deterrence lists attributes - multiple domains, whole-of-government tools, allied participation - without fully specifying how those elements combine to achieve decisive effects. Some therefore, argue that the United States should privilege a narrower, more unilateral approach that protects its freedom of action, limits moral hazard among allies, and reduces the risk that extended deterrence commitments or forward-deployed 'tripwires' will provoke escalation or entrapment in conflicts peripheral to vital U.S. interests.[25] Although these arguments merit consideration, they ultimately fail to account for the fundamental reality that the U.S. cannot match China's production capacity or sustain global commitments alone. Colby and Parsie argue that integrated deterrence is most useful when linked to a concrete strategy of denial and a theory of escalation management (and war termination), rather than when treated as an all-purpose slogan.[26] Likewise, McKinney and Hinck emphasize that narrowly military or purely punitive approaches to deterrence are insufficient on their own; enduring stability in the Taiwan Strait depended on a constellation of constraints and restraints that linked military balances, economic interdependence, and political reassurance.[27] The constraints imposed by alliance coordination are outweighed by the force multiplication effects of genuine partnership, and the strategic flexibility gained through unilateral action is meaningless if the U.S. lacks sufficient capability to achieve its objectives independently. While U.S. military alliances and partnerships may endure unilateralism, cohesion in exercising military, diplomatic, informational, or economic power against adversaries is likely to become increasingly complex. Achieving diplomatic access and forward basing for U.S. global power projection or succeeding in influencing a rising power such as India to partner with the U.S. would likely become more challenging. Moreover, Russia and China understand these dynamics well and value opportunities to engage smaller states bilaterally and capitalize on relative power advantages, forcing regional states to bandwagon and balance against the U.S. As the liberal order becomes increasingly incohesive and the united front against Beijing and Moscow weakens, their regime power consequently grows while internal restraints diminish. Properly understood, integrated deterrence does not require subordinating U.S. interests to allied preference or sacrificing strategic clarity. Instead, it calls for deliberate design of coalition strategies that align ends, ways, and means across the DIME to raise the restraint and constraints of aggression while avoiding steps - such as overly provocative tripwire deployments or unconditional security guarantees - that would unduly narrow U.S. options or invite miscalculation. In this sense, reinvigorating integrated deterrence through alliances and the liberal order is the primary means by which the United States can share burdens, shape the regional balance, and retain the capacity to manage escalation on acceptable terms. The U.S. military should reconstitute constraints on the PLA and reduce the risk of escalation by reorienting its global force posture toward a strategy of denial. U.S. strategists must understand the significance of China's and Russia's rise as military powers and the strategic offsets this entails for the Joint Force. During the post-Cold War unipolar era, the U.S. military strategy context implied uncontested domain superiority and the ability to impose punitive costs on adversaries at the time and place of choice. Russia and China studied the U.S. way of war, expanding their conventional and nuclear capabilities and adopting anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategies to blunt the Joint Force's ability to project power from the air and sea.[28] While Russia continues to develop asymmetric capabilities, its comparably smaller naval and air force structures are, at least in the near term, conventionally inferior to NATO and the Joint Force and reliant on a powerful nuclear arsenal to stay relevant in a conflict.[29] The growing military advantage of China, on the other hand, is compounded by the fragility of the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB). Even if the DIB was optimized to match China's, the U.S. cannot realistically expect to overmatch its peer competitor now or in the foreseeable future.[30] Consequently, the Joint Force no longer chooses the time or place of engagement, nor does it have escalatory dominance, which significantly reduces the range of strategies available within acceptable escalation thresholds. U.S. military and industrial dominance is set aside by its adversaries, and strategic decapitation or dislocation is, in essence, off the table. Asymmetric capabilities are required to offset adversary A2/AD doctrine. While new U.S. capabilities, such as the B-21 bomber and the DDG(X), are being developed to close the A2/AD disadvantage, the majority of the U.S. force structure reflects the era of dominance - and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.[31] Given the urgency of Taiwan, it is necessary to leverage inventory capabilities to counter adversary A2/AD dominance and develop low-cost, scalable constraints for immediate fielding.[32] As the land, air, surface, space, and cyber domains are contested and even dominated by China, U.S. carrier groups and surface combatants are placed at risk, limiting the Joint Force's ability to project power from the surface or through the air, suggesting an increased emphasis on underwater warfare.[33] The largest and most capable submarine fleet in the world, belonging to the U.S. Navy, continues to stay ahead of its adversaries, even as Russia is closing the gap in terms of stealth and submarine-launched strike capability. The PLA, by contrast, remains a less sophisticated submarine force and lacks a robust deep-water anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability.[34] While U.S. submarines do not constitute a red line or tripwire in the event of a Taiwan invasion, they would be instrumental in breaking a PLAN blockade and conducting maritime interdiction. The war in Ukraine has highlighted how relatively low-cost unmanned systems can be produced and fielded at scale to create asymmetric effects on a larger military adversary. Unmanned vehicles capable of targeting the Russian Navy from or below the surface, combined with modern sea mines, have proven especially effective in denying Russia access to its naval assets.[35] Such systems align well with the strategic threat posed by a salami-slicing PLA, as they can establish red lines against invasion and reinforce 'Fortress Taiwan,' making an amphibious assault perilous and very costly for the PLA. Perhaps the most fundamental challenge, is deterring Chinese aggression against Taiwan while managing escalation under the nuclear threshold. China's achievement of a secure second-strike capability demands that the U.S. no longer can enter a conflict with China and rely primarily on offensive conventional operations against the mainland without accepting catastrophic nuclear risks.[36] While China currently articulates a No First Use (NFU) policy, U.S. strategy cannot assume this will hold in the most critical escalation scenarios. Although strikes on the mainland are not a binary red line for Chinese nuclear use, several causes are suggested for Beijing to lower its nuclear threshold and inadvertently trigger nuclear first use, particularly if the regime in Beijing is under direct threat or its nuclear arsenal is being targeted.[37] Historical precedent also suggests U.S. political leaders may hesitate to authorize mainland targeting due to escalation concerns, as they did even before China possessed nuclear weapons.[38] While nuclear escalation is indeed at stake, the advent of hypersonic and conventional ballistic strikes against Guam or U.S. carrier strike groups may lead to a level of attrition intolerable to the U.S. public. Closing the deterrence gap, as McKinney and Hinck argue, thus ultimately depends on Taiwan's capacity for asymmetric denial rather than the U.S. willingness to accept catastrophic escalation.[39] Therefore, the United States' best strategy to prevent aggression against allies and partners in Asia is deterrence by denial. Denial discourages the aggressor from offensive action by reducing the probability of success. Furthermore, denial sets a more modest and negative standard for deterrence than, for instance, dominance. Frustrating the adversary's objectives is sufficient and does not require total victory or submission. The U.S. should consequently facilitate Indo-Pacific partners under Chinese threat to deny China's military objectives, with Taiwan as the pacing scenario.[40] The shift toward unilateralism in U.S. foreign policy favors revisionist powers by eroding the integrated deterrence essential for global stability. As China seeks to reshape the international order and Russia aims to disrupt it, their growing military capabilities and Anti-Access/Area Denial strategies have created a conventional deterrence gap, which is particularly critical in the Indo-Pacific over this decade. The unilateral approach erodes coalition cohesion, which reduces the external constraints and internal restraints on Beijing and Moscow, and invites aggression rather than preventing it. To prevail in great power competition, the U.S. must reverse this trend and reorient toward a collaborative strategy that leverages the collective strength of the liberal international order. Furthermore, the Joint Force must transition from a perceived condition of U.S. dominance to a strategy of denial, in which asymmetric capabilities and resilient alliances underpin credibility. By prioritizing asymmetric capabilities - such as underwater warfare and unmanned systems - and empowering partners like Taiwan to frustrate adversary objectives, the U.S. can more effectively deter and manage escalation without triggering nuclear risks. Ultimately, is sustaining the rules-based order the very foundation of a unified front and a force posture designed for deterrence by denial, that combines credible military capabilities with diplomatic, economic, and informational instruments of power. Lt. Col. Jan Egil Rekstad is a distinguished officer of the Royal Norwegian Air Force with over 27 years of service. He has extensive experience in leadership, maritime operations, and strategic development, having served as a senior advisor to the Norwegian Chief of Defence. He is currently completing a Master's Degree in Military and Strategic Leadership at the U.S. Air Force Air War College, with an emphasis on strategy, innovation, and emerging technologies. 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