, Ren Mu , Muhammad YaqubThis research examines the strategic triangle of China, Russia, and the United States, clarifying how China’s rise and Russia’s resurgence condition the U.S.’s strategic response within this interdependent triad. It posits that a ‘dual-containment paradox’ where the U.S. is trying to contain both China and Russia concurrently, strengthens their alignment inadvertently, and intensifies competition. China’s military and economic ascent challenge U.S. hegemony, while Russia’s revisionist course exploits these tensions, fostering Sino-Russian collaboration in economic and diplomatic domains. The U.S. containment drives their convergence instead of isolating them, amplifying their counterweight to American hegemony. Strategic overextension and alliance fatigue plague the U.S., signaling dual containment’s unsustainability. This suggests a pivot to focused engagement, managing rivalry without cementing an anti-U.S. bloc. In this triadic dynamic, multipolarity self-sustains: China’s leverage, Russia’s disruptions, and U.S. overreach thwart any single hegemon, yielding a global order of persistent yet bounded competition, where each power’s moves reshape the triangle’s fragile balance.
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