<P> The U.S. pre-eminence has not been balanced against over the last decades mainly because the superpower exhibited non-aggressive approaches without seeking to dominate or challenge the sovereign existence of others but rather promote security and autonomy of all . However, it is argued that increasing U.S. unilateralism, especially under the Bush administration, has changed its image of a benign superpower and made foreign governments uneasy regarding its ambitions . A number of aggressive and unilateral foreign policies, most significant ones being the abandonment of Kyoto Protocol, withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and most importantly the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 despite great opposition from other states have led secondary powers to pursue indirect, soft - balancing strategies towards constraining the U.S. power and preventing it from becoming an "unrestricted global hegemon". </P> <P> The Iraq invasion is often used as one of the key incidents that provoked major states to rethink their own security and resort to soft balancing against the unipole since it proved not simply a strategy aimed at stopping proliferation of nuclear weapons by rogue states but rather a challenge to the norm of territorial integrity--an aggressive U.S. intervention into a region outside of its own that demonstrated the U.S. commitment to taking any necessary actions to ensure that their superiority and primacy is not challenged by anyone . </P> <P> The notion of soft - balancing, while relatively new and not universally accepted, is shaping up to be the way in which states will engage in balancing in the future . Even though it is unlikely to bring any substantial changes to the balance of power within the international realm, it does show potential in constraining the major power and allowing secondary powers to have their input in international affairs and maintain their autonomy under the dominance of a unipolar leader . </P> <P> However, this is not to say that traditional, hard balancing is a thing of the past . Indeed, some powerful arguments are emerging both from the political and academic realms pointing to the rapid emergence of rising powers, namely China and India, as balancers and competitors of the U.S. in a bid for power, dominance and ultimately hegemony . </P>

Asymmetric balancing in modern balance of power theory