Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

T. V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations at McGill University. James J. Wirtz is Professor and Chairman of the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. Michel Fortmann is Professor of Political Science at the University of Montreal.

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BALANCE OF POWER

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

List of Tables...........................................................................................................................................viiAcknowledgments..........................................................................................................................................ixAbout the Editors and Contributors.......................................................................................................................xiIntroduction: The Enduring Axioms of Balance of Power Theory and Their Contemporary Relevance T. V. PAUL.................................................1Part I: Theories of Balance of Power and Major Powers1. What Do Great Powers Balance Against and When? JACK S. LEVY..........................................................................................292. Great Powers in the Post-Cold War World: A Power Transition Perspective DOUGLAS LEMKE................................................................523. The Political Economy of Balance of Power Theory MARK R. BRAWLEY.....................................................................................76Part II: New Security Challenges and Balance of Power4. The War on Terrorism and the Balance of Power: The Paradoxes of American Hegemony CHRISTOPHER LAYNE..................................................1035. The Balance of Power Paradox JAMES J. WIRTZ..........................................................................................................1276. A World Not in the Balance: War, Politics, and Weapons of Mass Destruction EDWARD RHODES.............................................................150Part III: Regional Subsystems and Balance of Power7. Europe Hedges Its Security Bets ROBERT J. ART........................................................................................................1798. Revisiting Balance of Power Theory in Central Eurasia WILLIAM C. WOHLFORTH...........................................................................2149. The International System and Regional Balance in the Middle East BENJAMIN MILLER.....................................................................23910. Bipolarity and Balancing in East Asia ROBERT S. ROSS................................................................................................26711. The South Asian Security Balance in a Western Dominant World RAJU G. C. THOMAS......................................................................30512. Regime Type and Regional Security in Latin America: Toward a "Balance of Identity" Theory MICHAEL BARLETTA AND HAROLD TRINKUNAS.....................334Conclusions: Balance of Power at the Turn of the New Century MICHEL FORTMANN, T. V. PAUL, AND JAMES J. WIRTZ............................................360Index....................................................................................................................................................375

Chapter One

JACK S. LEVY

The balance of power is one of the oldest and most fundamental concepts in the study of international relations. David Hume regarded the balance of power as a scientific law, and Glenn Snyder called the balance of power "the central theoretical concept in international relations." Historians talk about the "golden age" of the balance of power in the 18th or 19th centuries, but they have also applied the concept to the Renaissance and to ancient civilizations in China and Greece. Hans Morgenthau, echoing Hume, referred to the balance of power as an "iron law of politics," while others, such as Henry Kissinger, treated the balance of power as more of an art than a science, practiced more skillfully by some political leaders than by others.

Although the idea of the balance of power lost favor with the rise of idealism after World War I, it regained a prominent position with the turn to realist international theory after World War II. The writings of Morgenthau, Edward Gulick, Inis Claude, and Ludwig Dehio were particularly important, as was Kenneth Waltz's development of structural realism, which was intended to put realist theory on a more sound social science footing.

While the balance of power concept is one of the most prominent ideas in the theory and practice of international relations, it also is one of the most ambiguous and intractable ones. While some theorists use the concept to describe the actual distribution of power in the international system, others use it to refer to an ideal distribution of power or a particular kind of system, and still others see balance of power as a state strategy rather than as an international outcome. Many treat balance of power as a theory of international politics, yet theorists do not agree on the key assumptions or propositions of the theory or even what the theory purports to explain. Some say a balance of power helps maintain the peace; others say it contributes to the onset of war; still others claim that the theory makes no determinant predictions about war and peace at all. A scholar may use the balance of power concept to mean several different things, even in a single article or book, usually without being explicit about exactly what is meant in any particular context. The varied ways in which the term balance of power has been used led Richard Cobden to call it "a chimera-an undescribed, indescribable, incomprehensible nothing."

One manifestation of the ambiguity of balance of power theory is its application to the contemporary world. Despite the historically unprecedented power of the United States at the opening of the 21st century, the other leading states in the international system have not "balanced" against the United States either through the formation of defensive alliances or through a massive buildup of their own military strength. For many theorists, this behavior is a puzzle. Fareed Zakaria asks, "Why is no one ganging up against the United States?" John Ikenberry asks why, despite the unprecedented concentration of American power, "other great powers have not yet responded in a way anticipated by balance-of-power theory."

Characterizing the absence of balancing against the United States as a puzzle constitutes an erroneous interpretation of balance of power theory. Few balance of power theorists, at least in the tradition of Western international theory that includes Morgenthau, Claude, Gulick, and Dehio, would predict balancing against the United States, at least given current magnitudes of American strength and current U.S. behavior. To understand this view, we must take a long step back and outline the essential features of balance of power theory. In doing this, the chapter clarifies its key concepts, resolves many of its ambiguities, and specifies its primary propositions. It then returns to the puzzle of the absence of balancing against American primacy.

Summary of Balance of Power Theory

While some theorists use the balance of power concept to refer to the actual distribution of power in the system, that usage is confusing because it might reflect an equal balance, a favorable balance, an unfavorable balance, or any other distribution of power. If the focus is on the relative distribution of power in the system, it is better to use the term distribution of power. The concept of a balance of power system is also problematic, particularly when theorists couple it with a discussion of the "goals" of the system, such as maintaining the peace or the independence of the states in the system. This formulation confuses systems as structures with the behavior of units within that structure, and it confounds state preferences with international outcomes that are the joint product of the behavior of two or more actors. Units have goals, but systems do not. In addition, the common tendency to treat the balance of power as a system implies that systems are real and have some objective existence. It is better to think of systems as analytical constructions that theorists develop and use to describe and explain reality. Such analytical constructions are what we mean by theory. I treat the balance of power as a theory-one that purports to explain both the foreign policy behaviors of states and the resulting patterns of international outcomes.

There is no single balance of power theory, but instead a variety of balance of power theories. Most of these theories are really sets of discrete hypotheses that have yet to be integrated into a well-developed theory. All versions of balance of power theory begin with the hard-core assumptions of realist theory: the system is anarchic, the key actors are territorial states, their goals are the maximization of power or security, and they act rationally to promote those goals. Scholars then add additional assumptions and provide different nominal and operational definitions of key concepts, and this results in different and sometimes contradictory propositions. For example, while classical balance of power theorists such as Morgenthau argue that multipolar systems are more stable than bipolar systems, Waltz makes the opposite argument.

Some balance of power theorists have suggested that the purpose or function of a balance of power system is to maintain the peace. The problem with this conception, besides attributing goals or purposes to a system, is that it contradicts the argument of most balance of power theorists that states systematically rank some goals higher than peace, including maintaining their independence, avoiding hegemony, or perhaps preserving the general status quo. Given these higher-order goals, states conceive of war as an acceptable instrument to advance their interests, if only as a last resort. For this reason we cannot make the general statement that balance of power systems or balance of power strategies promote peace, though it is conceivable that a particular version of balance of power theory might specify the conditions (including particular distributions of power) under which war or peace is most likely to occur.

Balance of power theorists disagree over the relative importance of various state goals, but states' primary goals are interrelated and can be conceived as a nested hierarchy of instrumental goals. The primary aim of all states is their own survival, defined in terms of some combination of territorial integrity and autonomy. States also have secondary security goals, and these are best seen as instrumental for the higher-order aim of survival. The most important goal is the avoidance of hegemony, a situation in which one state amasses so much power that it is able to dominate the rest of the states in the system, which would put an end to the multistate system. Thus Polybius wrote that "we should never contribute to the attainment by one state of a power so preponderant, that none dare dispute with it even for their acknowledged rights." Similarly, Vattel wrote, "The balance of power ... [is] an arrangement of affairs so that no State shall be in a position to have absolute mastery and dominate over others." This is the single most important theme in the balance of power literature.

Several further goals are seen as instrumental to preventing hegemony. One is to maintain the independence of other states in the system, or at least the independence of the other great powers; another is to maintain an approximately equal distribution of power in the system, defined in terms of some combination of individual state capabilities and the aggregation of state capabilities in coalitions. Each of these instrumental goals facilitates the formation of balancing coalitions against potential hegemons. Peace may also be a goal, both to promote state autonomy and security and to attain nonsecurity goals, but in balance of power theory the goal of peace is conditional on the avoidance of hegemony and perhaps the achievement of other instrumental goals.

The argument that the highest goal of states, besides securing their own survival and autonomy, is to prevent hegemony does not imply that states intentionally limit their own power for the sake of the system. Rather, state strategies to maintain a balance or equilibrium of power are not ends in themselves but means to maximize their own security. While some realists-particularly "defensive realists"-argue that states often limit their pursuit of power to maximize their security, others argue that even if all states aimed to maximize their power, the result would still be a balance or equilibrium in the system as a whole. In other words, the maintenance of the "system" is the unintended consequence of the actions of many states as each attempts to maximize its own interests under existing constraints.

This view is reflected in Claude's notion of an "automatic" balance of power system, in Waltz's formalization of neorealist theory, and in other conceptions of balance of power as a "law" of behavior. It is modeled after the ideas of Adam Smith and classical economics. Thus Morton Kaplan writes that "like Adam Smith's `unseen hand' of competition, the international system is policed informally by self-interest," and Arnold Wolfers notes that "though no state is interested in a mere balance of power, the efforts of all states to maximize power may lead to equilibrium." This leads A. J. P. Taylor to conclude that "only those who rejected laissez faire rejected the Balance of Power."

Others disagree with this view of an automatically functioning balance of power system and offer different conceptions. Claude identifies a "manually operated" balance of power system, in which balancing is not automatic but instead the result of "constant vigilance" and conscious and deliberate strategic choices by individual states, and a "semiautomatic" system, in which a conscious and vigilant balancing strategy is pursued by one state in particular, often known as the "balancer" or "holder of the balance." Historically this role is associated with Britain in the European system, and there is much evidence to suggest that British policymakers have self-consciously defined their role in this manner. In his famous memorandum of 1907, Sir Eyre Crowe noted Britain's historic role of "throwing her weight now in this scale and now in that, but ever on the side opposed to the political dictatorship of the strongest single State or group at a given time." Churchill echoed those words: "For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating power on the Continent."

Though scholars often refer to Claude's distinction among automatic, semiautomatic, and manual balancing systems, that distinction is in fact rather blurred. The idea of states operating automatically, without "constant vigilance" and deliberate policy choice is not really plausible. Claude himself notes that "most writers who indulge in the language of automatism would, in fact, agree that equilibrium within a balance of power system is `a diplomatic contrivance.'"

I would reconceptualize the distinction between these different balancing systems in the following way. In the automatic system, all states make choices, but those choices are basically determined by the distribution of power, so state foreign policy strategies carry little independent causal weight on international outcomes. In the semiautomatic conception, only the foreign policy strategies of the "balancer" have a causal impact on outcomes, while in the manual conception the strategies of all states, or at least of all of the great powers, determine the degree of equilibrium in the system.

Most of these conceptions of the balance of power fall within a realist theory that strictly defines balance of power in terms of power and interest. In some conceptions of the balance of power, even classical ones, one can find references to the importance of the necessary normative underpinnings of balance of power systems. Morgenthau, for example, emphasized the importance of a "moral consensus" as to the legitimacy of the system, even during the "golden age" of the balance of power. The central role of norms of restraint and of policymakers' conceptions of their own self-interest in terms of the interests of the broader community is even more explicit, more systematic, and more central in Paul Schroeder's work on the Concert of Europe and other international systems.

Let me return to the basic assumption of balance of power theory-that states act rationally to maximize their security or power in anarchic systems without a higher authority to regulate disputes. Some interpreters of balance of power theory include a number of additional assumptions: the existence of four or five great powers, an equilibrium of military power in the system, a balancer, a "flexible" alliance system, the existence of an "open colonial frontier," a consensus regarding the legitimacy of the system, the limited aims of states, and other considerations.

The problem with injecting additional assumptions into the theoretical mix is that it deprives balance of power theories of much of their explanatory power by restricting their applicability to a very narrow set of theoretical conditions and, therefore, to a small number of specific historical eras. Within such systems, several key propositions of the theory would become nearly tautological. If, for example, the system is characterized by states with limited aims and consensus regarding the legitimacy of the system, then it will not be particularly surprising if there are few major wars to overthrow the system and establish one state's hegemony. These "assumptions" are better conceptualized as variables that form the basis of hypotheses that can then be tested against the evidence. Those who introduce these additional assumptions are basically proposing a set of hypotheses about the optimal conditions for the effective functioning of the system.

Given the primacy of avoiding hegemony in the hierarchy of state goals, balance of power theorists suggest a number of strategies that states can adopt. One important distinction they make is between external balancing and internal balancing. External balancing is primarily the formation of alliances as blocking coalitions against a prospective aggressor, but it also includes territorial compensations or partitions for the purposes of redistributing the sources of power and, if necessary, threats of force, intervention, and even war. Internal balancing is an internal buildup of military capabilities and the economic and industrial foundations of military strength. Although there have been few attempts to specify the precise conditions under which each of these means is used and in what combination, it is clear that alliances play a central role in most versions of balance of power theory.

(Continues...)

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