Balance of Power

BALANCE OF POWER

No concept in the study of international relations has been discussed

more often than this one. It has been defined in so many ways, however,

that it has become an ambiguous idea. Used objectively or

descriptively, the term indicates the relative distribution of power

among states into equal or unequal shares. Traditionally, it refers to a

state of affairs in which no one state predominates over others. Prescriptively,

it refers to a policy of promoting a power equilibrium on

the assumption that unbalanced power is dangerous. Prudent states that

are at a disadvantage in the balance of power will (or at least should)

form an alliance against a potentially hegemonic state or take other

measures to enhance their ability to restrain a possible aggressor. Also,

one state may opt for a self-conscious balancing role, changing sides as

necessary to preserve the equilibrium. A balance of power policy

requires that a state moderate its independent quest for power, since

too much power for one state may bring about self-defeating reactions

of fear and hostility from other states. All balance of power systems have certain conditions in common:

1 a multiplicity of sovereign states unconstrained by any legitimate

central authority;

2 continuous but controlled competition over scarce resources or

conflicting values;

3 an unequal distribution of status, wealth, and power potential

among the political actors that make up the system.

Inequality and the ever-present threat of violence combine to give

the dominant and the subordinate states a shared but unequal interest

in preserving the order of the system, whose equilibrium protects

their sovereignty. The balance of power is a kind of compromise

among states that find its order preferable to absolute chaos, even

though it is a system that favours the stronger and more prosperous

states at the expense of sovereign equality for all of them.

Great powers play the leading roles in balance of power systems

because of their preponderant military force and their control of key

technologies. A dominant or hegemonic state will often try to justify

its position either by providing certain public goods for other states

(such as a beneficial economic order or international security), or

because it embraces values that are common to a set of states. Great

powers reap a disproportionate share of the benefits of the system, but

they also bear a greater responsibility as its regulators.

It is common to make some key distinctions about the balance of

power. First is the distinction between unipolarity, bipolarity, and

multipolarity.

• Unipolarity is a situation in which one state or superpower dominates

the international system. Many would argue that the United

States is in this position today.

• Bipolarity exists when two states or blocs of states are roughly equal

in power. The term is often applied to the period of the cold war

between the United States and the Soviet Union, although it is

misleading. Simply because the two superpowers were both more

powerful than all other states, they were not equally as powerful as

each other. The Soviet pole was far weaker than its rival in economic

terms, although its ability to engage in a sustained nuclear

arms race with its rival and project its conventional military power

abroad concealed its underlying weakness.

• Multipolarity refers to a situation in which there are at least three

great powers. The classic example is nineteenth-century Europe. Inthis case, one state’s greater military and economic strength does

not necessarily give it preponderance because weaker states can

combine against it.

A second important distinction is between regional or local balances

and the balance of power in the international system as a whole.

Although historians have often spoken of the European balance of

power in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as if it were the

whole of international relations, this was effectively true only for the

brief period when European states dominated the rest of the world.

Today, we have a number of regional balances overlaid by a unipolar

pattern.

A third distinction is between a subjective and an objective balance of

power. One of the great difficulties of evaluating the balance of power

in the twenty-first century is that power resources are unevenly

distributed among the great powers and there is no simple correspondence

between possession of a resource and the ability to control

outcomes as a consequence. For example, whilst the United States

is overwhelmingly dominant in terms of military power, economic

power is much more evenly distributed between the United States,

Western Europe, and Japan.

One of the most contested issues in the study of international relations

is the relationship between the balance of power and the stability

of the international system. One should note that the term ‘stability’ is

itself contested! For example, it can mean peace but it can also refer to

the endurance of a particular distribution of power regardless of how

peaceful it is. Some scholars argue that multipolarity is less stable than

unipolarity or bipolarity. Under multipolarity, threats are allegedly

more difficult to evaluate, and there is a tendency for states to ‘pass the

buck’ and rely on others to balance against an emerging state. On the

other hand, when power is concentrated among one or two superpowers

that compete at a global level, they are likely to export their

rivalry abroad. For example, although the United States and the former

Soviet Union never fought a war directly with each other, over 20

million people died in the Third World as the superpowers intervened

in a series of so-called ‘proxy wars’ in the second half of the twentieth

century.

The debate between supporters and opponents of particular balance

of power systems is inconclusive for two main reasons. First, the distribution

of power among states is a variable located at a structural level

of analysis. Its relationship to outcomes at the level of relations among

states has to be determined in light of the character of the great powersand their particular relationships. Second, since the origins of the modern

state system in the seventeenth century, there are too few cases of

different systems across which one can make meaningful comparisons.

The balance of power is a dynamic concept which, in practice, has to

be understood in context. For example, it is difficult to draw conclusions

about the allegedly bipolar balance of the cold war when so

much of the competition between the United States and the former

Soviet Union revolved around the novel challenges of the nuclear era.