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. Future 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. 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. For robust critics on soft balancing and unipolar stability, see Dall'Agnol. The author's main argument is that balance of power, as proposed by Waltz, still applies to the post-Cold War era. China is undoubtedly surfacing as the most credible power, one with the greatest potential over the next decade or two to alter the balance of power away from U.S. primacy. China has come through as a "formidable political, strategic and economic competitor" to the United States, increasingly challenging its regional and global leadership. Despite claims of peaceful rise mainly focused on economic prosperity, the world is becoming increasingly aware and anxious of China's military expansion and modernisation, with its military budget rising 17.5 percent in 2008 and 18.5 percent in 2009 over the previous year. Seeing how China's economic and military growth corresponds to the logic of internal balancing, it comes as no surprise that its claim of "peaceful growth" is increasingly being suspected of implying a challenge to the current world order and balance of power. In addition, soft-balancing mechanisms can also be detected, as the