Soft balancing

Abstract: Preface Introduction 1. The nature of international political change 2. Stability and change 3. Growth and expansion 4. Equilibrium and decline 5. Hegemonic war and international change 6. Change and continuity in world politics Epilogue: change and war in the contemporary world Bibliography Index.

Abstract: Scholars of security affairs can stop their dreary quarrels over military doctrine and balance assessments, and turn their attention to finding ways to prevent global warming and preserve the ozone layer. European leaders can contemplate how to spend peace dividends. This chapter assesses this optimistic view by exploring in detail the consequences for Europe of an end to the Cold War. It examines the effects of a scenario under which the Cold War comes to a complete end. The chapter argues that bipolarity, an equal military balance, and nuclear weapons have fostered peace in Europe. It offers an explanation for the peacefulness of the post-World War II order. The chapter examines the theories underlying claims that a multipolar Europe is likely to be as peaceful, if not more peaceful, than Cold War Europe. The peace-loving democracies theory holds that domestic political factors, not calculations about military power or the international economic system, are the principal determinant of peace.

Abstract: often with the weaker or with the stronger side in Do states ally more a conflict? In the parlance of international relations theory: do states tend to balance against or bandwagon with a rising state or coalition? The answer to this question is critical to the formulation of grand strategy and the definition of vital interests. If states resist the gains of their neighbors by drawing together to redress the balance, then conquest does not pay’ and interventions to defend far-flung commitments are not only unnecessary, but often counterproductive in causing local states to unite against the meddling great power and its protege. Conversely, if states gravitate to expanding power, then bandwagons will roll, dominoes will fall, and great powers will find it wise, even at the cost of blood and treasure, to defend remote areas of little or no intrinsic value to their national interests.2 While international relations scholars have traditionally accepted the view that states balance against threatening increases of power, paradoxically, practitioners through the ages have held a bandwagoning image of international politics. As Jack Snyder remarks, “most imperial strategists defending far-flung commitments have feared falling dominoes, and most rising chal-

Abstract: The George W. Bush administration's national security strategy, which asserts that the United States has the right to attack and conquer sovereign countries that pose no observable threat, and to do so without international support, is one of the most aggressively unilateral U.S. postures ever taken. Recent international relations scholarship has wrongly promoted the view that the United States, as the leader of a unipolar system, can pursue such a policy without fear of serious opposition. The most consequential effect of the Bush strategy will be a fundamental transformation in how major states perceive the United States and how they react to future uses of U.S. power. Major powers are already engaging in the early stages of balancing behavior against the United States, by adopting “soft-balancing” measures that do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but use international institutions, economic statecraft, and diplomatic arrangements to delay, frustrate, and undermine U.S. policies. If th...