Security without Exclusivity: Hybrid Alignment under U.S.-China Competition

This article explores an emerging dynamic in the international system: Countries engage in simultaneous security cooperation with both China and the United States. But these great powers do not provide the same types of security goods. The United States primarily offers regional security while China primarily offers regime security. The article demonstrates that this phenomenon, security hybridization, is theoretically and empirically distinct from traditional balancing and omnibalancing. Case studies on Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates illustrate this argument.