IS BALANCE OF POWER INEVITABLE?

INTRODUCTION
In the international relation as viewed by the realist, states will seek and achieve their
national interests. Along the course, states will determinedly try to dominate each other, thus
creating a power struggle among them. As such situation continues, the order in this world
still exist, credit to the working mechanism of balance of power (BoP) where they act so as
not letting any one state from dominating. States involved tried to maintain a balance through
diplomacy, but when the balance was seriously disrupted, war always followed.

Among the examples for BoP in world history, the concept of maintaining a BoP or
power equilibrium became an important influence in European politics after the rise of
national states in the 16th century. For years, the states in Europe dedicated their diplomatic
and military effort to create or maintain such a balance. The objective was to prevent any
single state or group of states from becoming powerful enough to dominate the continent.
Fine examples for the result of the BoP, were in the competition to dominate Iran by Great
Britain and Russia, competition between China, Soviet Union and the U.S to dominate states
in Southeast Asia, and the domination over Korea by Japan, China and Russia. 1 Other
examples, though debatable by scholars were the German expansionism in the World War I
and the French expansionist policies during the eighteenth century.2 In the contemporary

1 Morgenthau, Hans J, Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace revised by
Thompson ,Kenneth W, McGraw-Hill, Inc. New York, 1997, 6th ed, p. 193.
2 Sheehan, Michael, The balance of power: History and theory, Routledge, New York, 1996,
p. 21.

international relations, in the case of the Middle East region, a fragile BoP exists between
Israel and its Arab neighbours.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In order to discuss this topic, we will be looking at this theory from the perspective of realist
theory. Interestingly, this topic will also need us to understand the bigger inter related
concepts such as power and national interest. The concept of power is one of the fundamental
characteristics of realist perspective. Realist theory is that in this anarchic world, states
compete with other states for power and security. In international relations, the term state
refers to a country with a government and a population 3. It is in the interest of the state to
acquire as much power as possible and having acquired it, to exercise and maintain grasping
the power. Afterwards, in this power politics scenario, clashes between nation-states might be
unavoidable as they seek and uphold their autonomy and increase their wealth and power.4

The concept of BoP has been one of the most important ideas in history. For centuries,
scholars of international relations believed the key to understand the continuing pattern of
behaviour of states living in international anarchy is to understand the concept of BoP.
Nevertheless, it was a guide for many statesmen to secure the continuing independence of
their states. Based on the importance of understanding this concept as we are studying
international relations, this paper is intended to explore the concept of BoP and try to prove

3 Paul. R Viotti and Mark V Kauppi. International RelationsTheory:Realism, Pluaralism,

Globalization and Beyond. (3rd ed) . Allyn and Bacon.. 1999,p. 55.
4 Sheehan, Michael, The balance of power: History and theory, pp. 6.

that BoP is inevitable feature in the world politics or of any international system because it
reflects the nature of mankind and human nature.
Firstly, to understand BoP, we need to understand what is power? Nye define power as
the ability to achieve ones purposes or goal while at the same time he also quoted Dahl
defining power as the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants. 5 Waltz then
described and put the understanding of power easier by shifting the term power to capabilities
which can be ranked according to the strength in the category of size of population and
territory, resource endowment, economic capability, military strength, political stability and
competence.6 In addition, state may accrue its power using various ways such as armament,
territorial enlargement and forming alliance.7
Some of the definitions of BoP as differently defined and adopted by the scholars. As
for Morghentau in his Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, he
provided four different meanings for BoP.8
(1)as a policy aimed at a certain state of affairs
(2)

as an actual state of affairs

(3)

as an approximately equal distribution of power

(4)

as any distribution of power

5 Nye, Joseph S, Understanding international conflicts: An introduction to theory and

history, Pearson Longman, New York, 2009, 7th ed, p.61
6 Waltz K, The theory of international politics, in Baylis, Smith and Owens, The
globalisation of world politics: An introduction to international relations, OUP, New York,
2008, 4th ed, p. 101
7 Synder, Glen H, 1984, The security dilemma in alliance politics, World Politics. 36(4): 461495.
8 Morgenthau, Hans J, Politics among nations, p.187

Morgenthau also refer the concept of balance to the concept of equilibrium as applied
in many sciences. The theory on this concept is that it bring stability of the system (in this
case is international system) and whenever the equilibrium is disturbed the system will be try
to re-establish its original or create a new equilibrium.9 Other definitions of BoP that used in
this paper is the BoP maybe assumes that through shifting alliances and counter pressure, no
other power or combination of powers should be allowed to become stronger that might
threaten the other security.10

BALANCE OF POWER IS INEVITABLE

BoP is state centric and its key function has been described as to preserve the system
of states11. Waltz discussed two key requirements that must exist for the BoP to prevail.
Firstly, it is in an anarchic international system and secondly, the international systems of
states that are preoccupied with survive instincts. If these two does not exist then BoP is not
achievable12.
In the anarchic international environment, states are fearful of each other because of
mutual misunderstandings. Security thus becomes the first priority. All countries try to gain
security, obtain military superiority, and improve ones own security status by increasing
military expenditure and build up. Since an arms race is a perpetual concern, ones military
superiority will quickly be surpassed by others military building-up efforts; absolute security
is therefore impossible, thus creating security dilemma. This kind of event was found in the
9 ibid
10 Vattel (1916) as quoted in Sheehan, Michael, The balance of power: History and theory,
Routledge, New York, 1996, p. 3
11 H. Bull, 1998, The balance of power and international order, in, Little, Richard, and Smith, Michael (eds),
Perspectives on world politics, Second Edition, London: Routledge, pp. 116.

12 K. Waltz, The Theory of International Politics, pp. 121.

fifth century in the history of Peloponnesian War.13 In a modern world example, in April
2008, NATO leaders endorsed a plan to place missile defense systems in the Czech Republic.
Russia is not pleased with the decision by NATO to support the installation of 10 long-range
missile defense installations within Poland and the Czech Republic. In this development, the
effort is to provide a missile defense system in Europe to protect not only the United States,
but also European allies and countries in the Middle East. Having any type of American
missile defense anywhere near Russia poses an uncomfortable threat in their minds. The
future might see Russia looking for situations where they can place missiles in countries close
to the U.S. To overcome this situation, states will be using the BoP in order to secure them.
BoP is a natural demand by countries in this dilemma. As a way of maintaining stability, there
is a need to maintain a BoP.

In another example, the period of Cold War between the U.S and the Soviet Union
help shaped the global BoP post World War II. As a matter of fact, war between these two
(was) superpowers never occurred, the BoP does occurred and but the process beginning to
take the form of a arms race including the nuclear power and military build-ups. Ironically,
during the Cold War, the U.S. executed their policy of containment to encircle the Soviet
Union. This was done through military and political alliances in Western Europe, the Middle
East and Southeast Asia.

Another example of the inevitable of BoP is on U.S policy towards China. U.S is always
striving for global hegemony including in the Asia Pacific. They are really concerned if China
becomes stronger and threaten their global hegemony. As a rising power, China will keep on

13 Nye, Joseph S, Understanding international conflicts: An introduction to theory and

history, pp. 13.

expanding its own influence without considering the US interests. The rise of China will then
seek favorable rearrangement of power in the Asia-Pacific and to the U.S, China may engage in
conflicts with its neighbors or some outside forces. B asic principle of the US national security

since the 19th Century is to prevent Asia from being dominated by one power.14 BoP is also
pursued as a policy that encourages states to counter external threats to their security by
allying with other threatened states and to increase their own military capabilities. In this
process, sometimes states prefer to form geographically based coalition to deter threats,
including expansionist power. This process is called containment. The most conspicuous
example of the US using the security dilemma theory to contain China is the issue of Taiwan.
The US never ceased, but continued to upgrade arms sales to Taiwan in order to guarantee the
so-called military balance between the Mainland and Taiwan. President Bush proclaimed that
the US would assist in the self-defense of Taiwan at all costs, sending a clear signal to the
concerned parties that the policy goal of the US was to prolong the no war, no
independence, and no unification situation infinitely.

CONCLUSION
The concept of BoP is a very important in realist vocabulary, though there are some
confusion in term of the definitions by the scholar and its behaviour. BoP is taught as the
oldest and mostly debated in the study of international relations. In its theory and policy of
international relations, the most effective check on the power of a state is the power of other
states.
The BoP concept was not only central to an understanding the conduct of international
relations, but ultimately to the preservation of the international states system . The failure of
14 Xin, Benjian, Security Dilemma, Balance of Power Vs. US Policy Towards China in the Post-Cold War Era,
Contemporary InternationalRelations, Sep 2001

BoP to maintain international peace and security signifies its weaknesses and creates an
atmosphere of uncertainty and creates insecurity in the international system. When states
cannot rely on BoP for peace and security they begin to arm themselves to protect
themselves.
To some scholars, balance of power is inevitable and is the product of anarchy and insecurity;
to others, it was the unifying principle of a stable and cooperative international society.