Balance of Power
orists expect to happen in international
MORTEN SKUMSRUD ANDERSEN
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI),
Norway
The balance of power is historically one of
the most important concepts of interna-
tional politics and the academic discipline of
international relations (IR). “No other single
proposition about international politics,”
Brooks and Wohlforth write, “has attracted
more scholarly effort than the balance of
power. It is perhaps as central in today’s
thinking as it has been at any time since the
Enlightenment” (2008: 7). Michael Sheehan
labels it “one of the most important concepts
in history” (1996: 1).
Whilst diplomats and politicians through-
out history have used the balance-of-power
concept in many different circumstances and
for many different purposes, the concept is
also a theory of international politics used
by scholars to explain phenomena in the
world around us today. Normally, scholars
take its main logic to be the following: if
there is a rising, big, and powerful state in
the international system, other smaller states
may find this Great Power threatening and
will therefore join together to oppose and
to balance it, to achieve an equal weight
in the weighing scales. However, should
one of the smaller states initially banding
together itself grow too large for comfort, the
remaining small states might join in a new
alliance – perhaps even together with the
initially big and powerful state – to balance
out the new threat. The balance of power may
therefore be shifting over time, as states form
new coalitions responding to new threats and
developments within or between states.
The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy. Edited by Gordon Martel.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118885154.dipl0339
The above is what balance-of-power the-
politics, also because traditional balance-of-
power theory assumes that states will always
put their own interests first, including the
very survival of the state. States operate in an
anarchical environment, meaning that any
and every state is in principle on its own;
there is no global emergency phone number
to call when trouble arises. Therefore, states
must increase their own power to counter
actual and potential threats from other states.
Scholars of international politics therefore
take the balance of power to be a mechanism
that ideally would make states intention-
ally or unintentionally join the weaker part
against the strong, to equal out or balance
the distribution of power amongst states
in the international system. They would do
this to assure their own survival for fear of
being usurped by a dominant state. When
every state acts this way, a balance of power
emerges where no state is predominant, and
therefore no large-scale war will take place.
The result is a stable international system of
states, although shifts in the balance could
result in instability, even war.
This is a standard definition, but the con-
cept of a “balance of power” has been used in
multiple ways with many different meanings.
For example, it could simply be a definition of
how international politics stands at a specific
moment, meaning the current distribution
of power – the status quo – whether it is in
balance according to the above definition or
not. For example, one could talk about “the
balance of power in Europe” at a particular
point in time. It can also be a policy prescrip-
tion, something successful policy-makers
should pursue. The balance of power can also
be an ideology, just like any other political
2 BAL ANCE OF POW ER
view, or be used as propaganda to sway a
public in one or the other policy direction.
What is certain is that the balance of power
has been at the center of debate in academic
IR. Three central IR publications on the
modern concept of the balance of power – by
Hans Morgenthau, Hedley Bull, and Kenneth
Waltz – are flanked by an array of writings on
the concept, debating such issues as whether it
promotes peace or war, whether it is European
or also extra-European, if there is one balance
or also various sub-balances; also, the connec-
tions between balancing and deterrence, the
balance of power as a mechanical–structural
system or as intentional foreign policy
prescription, whether it guarantees the inde-
pendence of all states or only of the “Great
Powers,” to mention only some.
What all of these debates have in common
is that they consider the balance of power as
one of our theories of international politics. A
theory is a tool that academics and scholars
use to simplify and isolate parts of reality, to
make it easier and more manageable to study.
The balance of power is one theory of how
international politics work, and how states
interact.
To show how balance-of-power theory is
useful and warranted, scholars often refer
to historical examples of how the balance of
power has been operating. Another reason
for referring to history, however, is that
academics today are not the only ones who
have been using the balance of power, or
even invented the theory, to make sense
of the world. In addition, for hundreds of
years, diplomats and politicians, who are not
necessarily scholars or trained academically,
have also been using the balance of power
to make sense of their world. So whilst the
balance of power is an abstract concept that
allows a depiction of the general patterns
of international politics, it has also been
used to formulate foreign policy and make
diplomatic maneuvers. The history of the
balance of power is therefore also important
in and of itself and adds to our historical
understanding of diplomacy. That is, the
balance of power is both a theory used by
us – students and professional scholars – and
a concept used by people in very different
times and circumstances, including many
diplomats. For the study of practical diplo-
macy, the latter part is what would interest
us the most. Therefore, the first part below
concerns how diplomats in former times have
been using the concept, whilst the second
briefly considers contemporary debates about
the balance of power as a scholarly theory of
international politics.
THE BALANCE OF POWER IN HISTORY
It is in realist theories of international rela-
tions that we most often encounter the
concept of the balance of power. Simply put,
realist theories claim that when it comes to
the most fundamental principles of inter-
national politics, the world is the same now
as it was thousands of years ago. There are
certain constants of international politics
and one, they claim, is the balance of power.
Accordingly, we should expect to find the
balance of power expressed throughout much
of recorded history.
Scholars even claim to find the idea of the
balance of power among the ancient Greeks,
in the Athenian historian Thucydides’s
account of the Peloponnesian War from
431 BCE. Thucydides did not write about the
“balance of power,” but some argue that there
might have been a balance-of-power think-
ing, without the exact phrase being deployed.
This, however, is difficult to ascertain. What
is true is that the Italian diplomat and writer
Niccolò Machiavelli in the 1480s talked about
the importance of the relations of strength
between the Italian city-states of the period.
Some have argued that Italy in the fifteenth
century was based on a balance-of-power

system where the city-state of Florence and
its ruler Lorenzo de Medici balanced against
the Republic of Venice. Whilst Machiavelli
might not have developed a concept of the
balance of power that we would recognize,
at least he conceived that, in addition to
“domestic” politics in each city-state, the
relations between states were of importance
for their security.
Thucydides and Machiavelli did not
explicitly mention the balance of power,
although their writings are seen to repre-
sent the balance-of-power idea, as David
Hume argued in 1742. Hume sought to
establish that the balance of power had been
a common-sensical idea, reconstructing a
historical tradition from the ancient Greeks
up until his own time. Even if not expressed,
the principle, he held, “is founded so much on
common sense and obvious reasoning, that it
is impossible it could altogether have escaped
antiquity”; it had “naturally discovered itself
in foreign politics” (Hume [1742] 1987: 337,
334). Being the first to draw the line so far
back in time, he constructed an age-old tra-
dition of the balance of power against those
seeking to question its existence. Indeed, the
balance of power had been occasionally men-
tioned throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth,
and seventeenth centuries as a metaphor to
describe a political situation. For instance,
Machiavelli’s friend Francesco Guicciardini,
in his Storia d’Italia (“History of Italy”),
described Italy as being in a “state of balance”
between the different city-states.
Guicciardini had a clearer conception of
what the balance of power was. Lorenzo de
Medici and his alliances, he wrote, argued that
“the Italian situation should be maintained
in a state of balance, not leaning more to one
side than to the other.” All states should con-
stantly watch each other, to make sure that
the system remained in balance, preventing
any one state from dominating the Italian
Peninsula. A threatening situation would
BAL ANCE OF POW ER 3
occur if one of the scales in the weight should
grow too large. One should therefore not help
the strong, as Machiavelli would have argued,
but help the weakest part, so that a balance
can prevail. Thus, as Alberico Gentili later
argued, a system of balance of power is like a
law of nature, keeping everything in its place:
The maintenance of union among the atoms is
dependent upon their equal distribution; and on
the fact that one molecule is not surpassed in any
respect by another. … This it is which was the
constant care of Lorenzo de Medici … namely
that the balance of power should be maintained
amongst the princes of Italy. (in Wright 1975:
13)
Even if authors from Guicciardini onwards
sporadically mentioned a “balance,” it is the
eighteenth century that is considered the
“golden age” of the balance of power. Even if
frequently used also in the late 1600s, many
authors of international politics and history
consider the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 the
inauguration of this golden age.
The Treaty of Utrecht established peace
after the War of the Spanish Succession, and
included the balance of power as a core prin-
ciple in the treaty text. The reason was a fear
that either Spain or France would become too
powerful – a tyranny that would dominate
Europe and all of its states. For instance, in
1705, fearing that France would take over
Spain, the British queen, Anne, said that “if
the French King continues Master of the
Spanish Monarchy, the Balance of Power in
Europe is utterly destroyed,” and he would be
able to become a despotic ruler of the whole
world (Parliament 1767–1830: 6–9). That is
why the balance of power was included as
a core principle of the European conduct of
states after Utrecht.
And it is precisely Britain that has used
the balance-of-power concept the most in its
diplomacy for the past 300 years. The English
translation of Francesco Guicciardini’s His-
tory of Italy from 1579 was dedicated to
4 BAL ANCE OF POW ER
Elizabeth I, styled as the holder of the balance
amongst Christian monarchs. The idea in
Britain was that the country played the role
of a “balancer” in the system of European
states. To establish a balance, one should aid
the weak, and Britain conceived of itself as
the country that could tip the scales in any
one direction, as they saw fit. The role of
the balancer, many argued, gave Britain an
unprecedented power – not only as a Great
Power in Europe, but also as the decisive
weight in the scale. It was Britain’s duty to
make certain that no one could become a
“universal monarch,” ruling the entire Con-
tinent, by aiding the weak part as the power
constellations on the Continent changed.
Britain protected Europe, and thereby pro-
tected itself, by means of the balance of power.
Whether this was indeed what Britain did in
practice is up for debate, but it remains a fact
that many of the political leaders and diplo-
mats who played central roles in developing
and using the balance-of-power concept
came from Britain.
However, the balance of power was also
very much a European concept. Many con-
sidered Europe as a kind of federation. What
European states were said to have in common
was politeness, manners, science, liberty,
and protection against arbitrary rule. The
balance of power was overall considered an
“associational” one; relying on a shared idea
of a European community. For example, in
1763 it was argued that “those who have ever
heard of the balance of power will consider
the states of Europe … as forming one great
republic, which interests itself in the concerns
of every individual state” (Noorthouck 1773:
403). Even so, wars would sometimes be nec-
essary in order to maintain or adjust a stable
balance of power, as in the case of Napoleon
in the nineteenth century who threatened the
European community with despotic French
rule. The goal of a peaceful and stable balance
justified the means. That the balance of power
meant occasional Great Power wars was the
basis for why the United States would oppose
the balance of power and the “old diplomacy”
in the twentieth century.
But such opposition to the balance of
power also has a long pedigree. In the 1700s,
some authors criticized the balance of power
for being merely propaganda – a politically
convenient pretext for partisan actions.
For instance, in 1726, William Wyndham
declared in Parliament that the British
Penelope-like [ … ] were continually weaving
and unravelling the same web; at one time
raising up to the [Austrian] Emperor to depress
France, and now we were for depressing the
Emperor, which could not be done without
aggrandizing France, which, in the end, may
make the latter too powerful: so that at this rate,
under the pretence of holding the Balance of
Europe, we should be engaged in continual wars.
(Parliament 1811: 530)
Later in the century, one of the most vocal
critics of the balance of power was the Ger-
man scholar Gottlob von Justi. The balance
of power had nothing to do with the nature
of the European powers, Justi declared; no
power has ever acted on the balance-of-power
principle, “but [ … ] they have only used this
theoretical system to gain allies, and to hide
their particular interest and their passions
that lead them to war.” Wars have been fought
because of the “particular interest of the state
or the passion of the rulers.” The balance of
power has been driven by envy and fear, Justi
argued, not by altruism or a concern for the
common interest of Europe. It has been a
cause of war, not the remedy. The balance of
power has camouflaged self-interests and the
“real motives” of states and diplomats (Justi
1758: 116).
Despite such criticism, the balance of
power eventually became an important prin-
ciple also of international law, regulating the
legal and lawful conduct of states. One major
influence on international law was the work

of Emer de Vattel. Vattel had been writing
on the balance of power and the nature of
great powerhood, also stressing how “Europe
forms a political system in which the nations
[ … ] are bound together by their relations
and various interests into a single body [ … ] a
sort of Republic” which is “what has given rise
to the well-known principle of the balance
of power” ([1758] 1916: 251–52). Following
Vattel, the jurist and publicist Jean Rousset
de Missy stated that conserving the balance
of power is
a matter of the PUBLIC INTEREST of all Europe
to which, according to all the laws of man and
nature the INDIVIDUAL INTEREST of any
State or Potentate whatever should be sacrificed.
(De Missy 1743: 2–3)
With the discipline of international law, the
balance of power became a central principle
for diplomacy, and could legitimize inter-
ventions to preserve the balance of power
and thereby the common interest of Europe.
Whilst these authors and lawyers argued
that intervening in other countries could
be justified by the balance of power, others
argued that the balance of power demanded
the complete independence and inviolability
of states, particularly during the nineteenth
century.
The independence of nations was a crucial
element of the diplomacy surrounding the
Concert of Europe, taken to be a particu-
larly peaceful period of European history.
Here, the balance of power was increasingly
considered a means to help states protect
their independence. The balance of power
relied on the integrity of its parts. Later, in
the twentieth century, the US diplomat and
secretary of state Henry Kissinger would look
to the diplomats of the Congress of Vienna,
like Friedrich von Gentz, Lord Castlereagh,
and Prince Metternich, in forming his view of
the importance of a stable balance of power in
world politics. However, during the Congress
BAL ANCE OF POW ER 5
of Vienna, the concept of an “equilibrium” of
social forces, and not the balance of power,
was the predominant one. Social forces
threatening the stability of the European
system were considered more urgent than the
relations between states within the system
(Andersen 2016).
For one liberal critic, Richard Cobden, the
social relations between peoples were more
important than any balance of power, which
was the treacherous dealings of princes and
governments. In the 1830s, attacking the
British foreign secretary Lord Palmerston’s
traditional ideas of Britain as a “holder of the
balance,” he argued that the balance of power
was
not a fallacy, a mistake, an imposture – it is an
undescribed, indescribable, incomprehensible
nothing; mere words, conveying to the mind
not ideas, but sounds like those equally barren
syllables which our ancestors put together for
the purpose of puzzling themselves about words,
in the shape of Prester John or the philosopher’s
stone! (Cobden [1836] 1867: 257–58)
For Cobden, the balance of power was so
inconsistent that it was nothing more than
a myth.
But the tendencies of associating the bal-
ance of power with independent nation-states
continued as nationalism grew in Europe.
The outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853
may be considered the end of the Concert
system in Europe and a result of privileging
national interests in calculations of the bal-
ance of power. Further, many considered the
balance-of-power idea to be partially respon-
sible for the outbreak of the First World War,
justifying wars and nation-states clashing.
The balance of power had become less about
managing a European community, and more
about raw power politics between isolated
nation-states. The same arguments as Justi’s
in the 1700s and Cobden’s in the 1800s were
also presented as a case against the balance
of power in the United States preceding the
6 BAL ANCE OF POW ER
First World War, a war which inaugurated a
new decade of criticism against the balance
of power.
The balance of power was increasingly
associated with a past world of deceitful and
secret old diplomacy. Liberals considered the
lack of transparency as a leading cause of the
war – decisions were taken behind closed
doors, and there was no accountability for
the diplomats and politicians only following
their own interests. The balance of power
was one expression of this, it was argued in
the United States – a state founded on the
principle that it would be different from the
old Europe and their Great-Power wars and
therefore different from the operation of the
balance of power.
The British scholar G. Lowes Dickinson’s
widely read 1916 book The European Anarchy
came to define much of the subsequent dis-
cussion about the role of the balance of power
in the “new world” that was at hand after the
First World War. Dickinson’s book implied
that individuals such as the German kaiser
and the Russian tsar were not to carry all
blame for the war: there was something about
the system of international relations that
had gone awry. Dickinson maintained that
this system of “anarchy” and the traditional
practices of European diplomacy had led to
the Great War, and the new Great Power, the
United States, would now have to ensure a
transition from anarchy and the balance of
power to a lawful international order.
The argument resonated well in the USA,
where the balance of power was tradition-
ally an object for many to despise. After US
president James Monroe had proclaimed his
“Monroe Doctrine” in 1823, which claimed
the American continent as the exclusive
domain of US foreign policy and urging
US withdrawal from European affairs, the
country had defined its moral purpose in
opposition to the balance of power. The
nineteenth-century liberal Richard Cobden
had considered the United States an ideal in
this respect: “America, with infinite wisdom,
refuses to be a party to the ‘balance of power’”
(Cobden [1836] 1867: 280).
Therefore, in the First World War, when the
United States had involved itself in European
power politics, it was not to mend the balance
of power, but to get rid of it altogether. After
the war, US opposition to the balance grew
even stronger, and the US political scientist
and president Woodrow Wilson hotly dis-
puted the moral value and practical viability
of the balance of power, associating it with
the destructive power politics of the “old
world.” Wilson argued that the balance of
power must be replaced by a “community of
power” – a league of nations. Wilson stated
that
the center and characteristic of the old order
was that unstable thing which we used to call
the “balance of power” – a thing in which the
balance was determined by the sword which
was thrown in the one side or the other; a
balance which was determined by the unstable
equilibrium of competitive interests; a balance
which was maintained by jealous watchfulness
and an antagonism of interests which, though it
was generally latent, was always deep-seated. (in
Kissinger 1994: 226)
The balance of power had no place in Wilson’s
“new diplomacy,” as it was considered to have
had a part in bringing about the war. Rather,
what was now needed, Wilson argued,
were “open covenants of peace, openly
arrived at.”
However, the Second World War shattered
the hopes for a new and peaceful world.
After the Second World War, as the Cold War
set on, the concept of the balance of power
became more widely accepted, also in the
United States. In 1947 DeWitt Clinton Poole,
a centrally placed US diplomat and presiden-
tial envoy, even argued that the balance of
power was an American idea. Furthermore,
a complex balance of power was for Poole a

requirement for a working United Nations
(UN). The new invention, the atomic bomb,
had not changed this, he maintained. A bal-
ance of power was needed also in the nuclear
age. Some agreed – even more disagreed.
Shortly after the first test of a nuclear
weapon, the military strategist Bernard
Brodie had published The Absolute Weapon.
He argued that it was not the use itself, but
the threat of use of this new weapon, that
could lead to peace and stability. This seemed
to promise a revision of the workings of the
international system. In the 1950s, there-
fore, some started arguing that the balance
of power was irrelevant because of nuclear
weapons technology. Civilian scientists
increasingly challenged the authority of the
military establishment, arguing that the mil-
itary’s traditional ways of understanding war
and conflict, such as a balance of power, were
irrelevant for the nuclear wars of the future.
Whereas some held that the balance
had become irrelevant because of nuclear
weapons, others defended the old lessons
from European diplomacy, and the concept
of the balance of power. Herbert Butterfield,
an early founder of the “English School” of
international relations, defended the balance
of power also in a nuclear age. So did Robert
Ingrim, arguing that the balance of power
was still relevant, and that the concept could
not be blamed for the world wars. The United
States is not the holder of the balance, but
a defender of it. Glenn H. Snyder claimed
that the “balance of terror” was merely a
sub-category of the most general theory of
equilibrium, the balance of power. The pres-
ence of nuclear arsenals would only modify
the balance. An early realist IR scholar, Hans
Morgenthau, argued that nuclear policy was
not a foreign policy tool, but a means of ensur-
ing that the national interest can be supported
by traditional means. Nuclear policy is a
background condition that must be managed
BAL ANCE OF POW ER 7
through cooperation, where peace and sta-
bility are the ultimate goal. Thus, the balance
of power is not obsolete, he maintained: it
operates, day to day, in the shadow of nuclear
policy – which is a different matter entirely.
After the Second World War, therefore,
many debated whether, in some unprece-
dented way, there was no balance, order,
or structure to international politics at all.
Did Cold War diplomacy operate in a com-
pletely new and unprecedented world? The
initial concerns of many IR scholars went
parallel to these discussions: Who would
be the new guarantor of world order, and
how? Was there a balance of power? Who
could secure a new one? The new discipline
of international relations aimed to contribute
to resolving these questions by reintroducing
the balance-of-power concept as central to
the practice of diplomacy.
THE BALANCE OF POWER IN IR
The Cold War is the period where the
balance-of-power principle, as developed
by generations of diplomats in Europe, was
introduced to the United States in the context
of a search for a comprehensive theory of
international politics. US academics took
the practices of European diplomats as their
cue to develop the theory we now know as
Realism in IR – the practice of diplomats
should be the ultimate reality test for any
theory. Traditional diplomatic practices had
to be systematized and made readily available
for some sort of theoretical and scientific
generalization, and the balance-of-power
principle was seen as ideal for that purpose.
Here, two realist writers stand out: Hans
Morgenhau and Kenneth Waltz.
Morgenthau claimed that just as human
beings, states follow a drive for power and
domination. This behavior can be mitigated
by the balance of power, ensuring some
degree of stability and order, even in an
8 BAL ANCE OF POW ER
environment of self-seeking egoistic states.
Morgenthau argued that the balance of power
and the policies aimed at establishing and
maintaining it were crucial for the stability
of international politics. He also argued,
however, that the balance of power would
be a result of a struggle for power where
every state must aim for superiority and not
explicitly for a balance of power. Yet, supe-
riority is exactly what one should not aim
for, according to the many diplomats who
had been using the concept in former times.
Aiming for superiority is dangerous, as it will
trigger wars and counter-balancing. This is
one of various ambiguities in Morgenthau’s
work, who operates with many different
and at times contradictory definitions and
implications of the balance of power.
Kenneth Waltz therefore aimed to establish
the balance of power as a theory on a more
consistent and scientific level. Waltz, in his
Theory of International Politics, maintains that
the balance of power is the closest we come
to a “distinctively political theory of interna-
tional politics” (1979: 117). The balance of
power is the theory of realist international
politics. Because of the structure of inter-
national politics – where every state fends
for itself in an international anarchy – the
way to protect oneself as a small state is to
engage in balancing against a threatening
great power. Today’s international politics
with the United States as a sole superpower
is not normal, he would argue, as all coun-
tries historically have worked to right the
balance when one actor threatens to become
too big.
Instead of focusing on each and every com-
ponent of a system – such as all the various
states with all their different characteristics
and foreign policies – Waltz wanted to make
a simpler theory by focusing on what all have
in common, namely the structure within
which they are acting. The assumption is that
all states are alike in the way they function
as a part of the system, as every state has one
overriding wish: to survive. They differ only
in their capabilities: some states are powerful
and big, others have fewer capabilities. Still,
as all states learn from the successful states in
the system, a balance of power will eventually
emerge. Waltz’s balance-of-power theory
is therefore all about how an anarchical
system characterized by self-help imposes
constraints on states. Contrary to former
theorists, it is not the skillful diplomatic
maneuvering or political traditions that
decide the balance of power but the recurring
patterns of politics he calls the international
structure. The balance of power will emerge
whether politicians and diplomats intend it
or not.
In 1757, Antoine Pequet had argued that
balance is not a physical equality of strength,
but the “balance can be estimated exactly
only by the more or less judicious and intelli-
gent use” states make of their “forces” (1757:
191–206). The balance of power is therefore
shifting constantly, because “a Power better
governed than others” can “shift the real
balance and that of opinion in its favour.”
Already then, in the mid-1700s, we see
one of the precursors to another of Waltz’s
arguments; that there is a difference between
internal and external balancing.
Waltz argued that balancing can be done
through external or internal means. Inter-
nal balancing means channeling a state’s
resources to armaments, extracting resources,
organizing the state properly, preventing
revolts and infiltrations, and so on, to protect
and strengthen oneself to be able to compete
more effectively. States do external balancing
through making alliances with others to halt
a rising power. Even if cooperation is difficult
between states, when facing a common or
existential threat, states may temporarily put
aside their disputes and band together against
the dominant state.

These accounts have a strong hold on the
discipline of IR, but today authors are also
challenging these classical theories of the
balance of power. John Mearsheimer, a pro-
ponent of “offensive realism,” takes Waltz’s
arguments a step further. Whilst Waltz
implies that a state can be safe enough only
having to defend itself, Mearsheimer argues
that maintaining the status quo is never a
successful strategy – there is no time to rest,
states have to be on the offensive and work
constantly to maximize their power, because
that is what everyone else is doing. No
cooperation is possible; the structure of the
international system compels states to engage
in unrelenting competition to tip the balance
in one’s favor. The possibility of defecting
from balance-of-power coalitions is therefore
always present. Consequently, he argues that
all states at all times are relentlessly engaging
in internal balancing. States must spend all
their resources on maximizing power to avoid
falling behind in the international competi-
tion; there is no time to be complacent.
These are all realist scholars. A differ-
ent perspective on the balance of power
comes from authors pertaining to the English
School, who argue that the balance of power
is an institution of international society, bind-
ing states tighter together. Hedley Bull argued
that one function of the balance of power has
been to foster an international society resting
on shared understandings between states. It
is not only a factor in an international system.
The English School emphasizes the earlier
historical theorists’ emphasis on the balance
as part of a European community and social
order, rather than an exclusive focus on raw
power-politics and national competition.
Many authors of this school, such as Richard
Little, adopt a historical perspective on the
balance of power, whilst also arguing that it
is analytically useful to explain international
stability and community.
BAL ANCE OF POW ER 9
Whilst not a member of the English
School, Stephen Walt also adds a social aspect
to the balance of power, arguing that not
only material capabilities count. Perceptions
also matter. He uses the concept “balance of
threats” in arguing that what states perceive
as a threat matters a great deal in addition to
material capabilities and geography. States,
that is, will ally against what is seen to be the
most threatening state. They balance against
perceived threats, not against any objective
measure of power seen in isolation. For
instance, a rising state could be considered
friendly and similar to oneself, and therefore
not be seen as an impending threat.
The implication is that another option is
to join a rising power, rather than to balance
against it. Technically, this is called “band-
wagoning.” Waltz argued that states would
join the weaker side, because it is the stronger
side that threatens them. Bandwagoning,
Waltz argued, is too risky because it allows
the enemy to grow stronger. Therefore, band-
wagoning will only happen as a last resort.
Randall L. Schweller, however, points out that
there are also revisionist states in the system
that will work to overthrow the existing
order – the status quo. Bandwagoning may
therefore become more prominent. When
large states successfully challenge the existing
international order, small states may ally with
the dominant, rising power to assure their
own survival. They will not primarily try the
risky strategy of balancing against a state that
can do whatever it wants anyway.
Yet another alternative response to rising
powers might be so-called “soft balanc-
ing.” The capabilities of the dominant state
may be so overwhelming that traditional
balancing is futile or too risky. Then, some
have argued, an alternative is soft balancing.
Hard balancing would be the classical mode
of balancing between rivalrous states, to
balance internally by building up their capa-
bilities and externally by forming alliances
10 BAL ANCE OF POW ER
and counter-alliances. Soft balancing, on
the other hand, is a more indirect way of
balancing, whereby states use resources short
of military buildups to establish understand-
ings with other, often likeminded states, to
undermine the stronger one. The point is to
increase the costs of the unilateral policies of
the stronger state by undermining it through
economic, diplomatic, institutional, or even
cultural means. Collaboration in interna-
tional institutions could be one example.
However, how do we separate balancing
behavior from other “soft” diplomatic strate-
gies that are not necessarily including the
balancing component? Further, is there a
difference between “a balance of power” and
“balancing”? Normally, balancing is viewed
as something states do, whilst balances of
power are viewed as the outcome on the level
of the system. In continuation of this, Dan
Nexon (2009) has argued that it is important
to separate between balance-of-power theory,
theories of power balances, and theories
of balancing. Balancing and the balance
of power is a broader phenomenon than
what realist IR theory traditionally implies.
We should not abandon balance-of-power
theory, but expand it by rethinking realist
assumptions, incorporating other theoretical
traditions, and investigating more thoroughly
how the balance of power is used in practical
politics. This is important also given that
some historical studies find scant evidence of
traditional balances of power in operation.
Historians like Paul W. Schroeder (1989)
have questioned the presence of a static
concept of a balance of power, mustering
historical evidence to the contrary. Whilst
there is less evidence supporting traditional
balance-of-power theory, Nexon argues, a
focus on balancing behavior could be more
effective to explain international politics,
as well as being a move to disconnect bal-
ancing from realist theories of international
relations, opening up a wider field of research
on states’ power-political behavior.
THE BALANCE OF POWER TODAY
In sum, the balance of power has been used
throughout history, both in practice and
theory, and is still with us. Today, the most
debated theoretical question is, why have
no states successfully balanced against the
United States? Why is the world order in a
state of unbalance? Is this unprecedented in
the history of world politics, or does it reflect
a fault in our balance-of-power theories?
Many of the debates mentioned above, and
the suggested readings below, refer to this
problem in different ways.
Whilst the balance of power is still on the
agenda for scholarship, also in the world of
practical politics we still see the occasional
mention of a balance of power. In 2002, one
year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President
Bush’s assistant for national security affairs,
Condoleezza Rice, delivered a lecture entitled
“A Balance of Power that Favors Freedom”
(Rice 2002). President Bush’s National Secu-
rity strategy, she explained, “calls on America
to use our position of unparalleled strength
and influence to create a balance of power that
favors freedom” against “tyrants” and “ter-
rorists.” The Obama administration argued
for an “East Asia–Pacific Rebalance,” “posi-
tioning the United States to better promote
its interests as the center of global politics”
(US Department of State 2013). China has
invoked the supposed “ancient roots” of the
balance-of-power concept, arguing that the
United States and China, “the incumbent
superpower and the biggest rising developing
nation,” “face the dilemma of falling into
the ‘Thucydides Trap’” – referring to the
Melian Dialogue, where Thucydides stated
that “the strong do what they can and the
weak suffer what they must” – taken to be
an expression of the idea that changes in the

balance of power leads to war. In the context
of increasing Russian assertiveness in the
2010s, we can also find frequent references
in the media to the balance of power in the
Mediterranean, the Middle East, and globally.
The balance of power is and has been impor-
tant and useful, both as theory and as politics,
a concept to use to formulate policy positions,
and a concept from which to distance oneself.
The jury is still out on whether it is a
useful theoretical concept for us as scholars.
In any case, it has definitely been useful for
diplomats throughout history, and a central
concept of diplomatic practice in Europe and
beyond. This also means that it is difficult to
find any clear definition of what the balance
of power really is – a variety of political
actors and scholars have been and are using
the concept for very different purposes, and
often with contradictory meanings. There-
fore, in the study of diplomacy, it can be of
analytical value if used with care, but it is also
definitively worth investigating as being an
integral component of the historical practice
of diplomacy up until the present day (see
Andersen 2016).
SEE ALSO: Cold War Diplomacy; Concert of
Europe; Congress of Vienna (1815);
International Law and Diplomacy;
International Relations Theory and Diplomacy;
Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527); Medici,
Lorenzo de’ (1449–92); Morgenthau, Hans J.
(1904–80); New Diplomacy; Oil Diplomacy;
Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE); Thucydides;
Treaty of Utrecht (1713); Vattel, Emerich de
(1714–67); Venetian Diplomacy; Waltz,
Kenneth (1924–2013); Wilson, Woodrow
(1856–1924)
REFERENCES
Andersen, M. S. (2016) “A Genealogy of the Bal-
ance of Power.” PhD thesis, Department of
International Relations, London School of Eco-
nomics and Political Science. Online at: ethe-
ses.lse.ac.uk/3326. Accessed April 2017.
BAL ANCE OF POW ER 11
Brooks, S. G., and W. C. Wohlforth (2008) World
Out of Balance: International Relations and the
Challenge of American Primacy. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Cobden, R. ([1836] 1867) “Russia.” In R. Cobden,
The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, Volume
1. London: William Ridgway.
De Missy, J. R. (1743) Histoire de la grande Crise de
l’Europe. London: Jean Nurse.
Hume, D. ([1742] 1987) “Of the Balance of Power.”
In D. Hume, Essays Moral Political and Literary,
332–41. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Justi, J. H. G. von (1758) Die Chimäre des Gleich-
gewichts von Europa. Altona: David Iversen.
Kissinger, H. (1994) Diplomacy. New York: Touch-
stone.
Nexon, D. (2009) “The Balance of Power in the Bal-
ance.” World Politics 61 (2): 330–59.
Noorthouck, J. (1773) A New History of London
Including Westminster and Southwark. London:
R. Baldwin.
Parliament, Great Britain (1767–1830) House of
Lords Journal, Volume 18: 1705–1709, October
27, 1705.
Parliament, Great Britain (1811) Cobbett’s Par-
liamentary History of England, Volume 8: AD
1722–1733. London: T. C. Hansard.
Pequet, A. (1757) L’Esprit des Maximes politiques
pour server de suite à L’Esprit des loix, du Prési-
dent de Montesquieu. Paris.
Rice, C. (2002) “A Balance of Power That
Favors Freedom.” Wriston Lecture, October
1. New York: Manhattan Institute. Online at:
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/
2002-wriston-lecture-balance-power-favors-
freedom-5566.html. Accessed April 2017.
Schroeder, P. W. (1989) “The Nineteenth Century
System: Balance of Power or Political Equilib-
rium?” Review of International Studies 15 (2):
135–53.
Sheehan, M. J. (1996) The Balance of Power: History
and Theory. London: Routledge.
US Department of State (2013) The East
Asia–Pacific Rebalance: Expanding US Engage-
ment. Washington, DC: Bureau of Public
Affairs. Online at: https://asean.usmission.gov/
the-east-asia-pacific-rebalance-expanding-us-
engagement/. Accessed May 2017.
Vattel, E. de ([1758] 1916) The Law of Nations.
Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution.
12 BAL ANCE OF POW ER
Waltz, K. N. (1979) Theory of International Politics.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wright, M. (Ed.) (1975) Theory and Practice of the
Balance of Power, 1486–1914: Selected European
Writings. London: Dent.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Anderson, M. S. (1970) “Eighteenth-Century The-
ories of the Balance of Power.” In R. Hatton
and M. S. Anderson (Eds.), Studies in Diplomatic
History, 183–98. London: Longman.
Bull, H. (1977) The Anarchical Society. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Butterfield, H., and M. Wight (Eds.) (1966) Diplo-
matic Investigations. London: George Allen and
Unwin.
Gulick, E. V. (1955) Europe’s Classical Balance of
Power. Ithaca, NY: Greenwood Press.
Haas, E. B. (1953) “The Balance of Power: Prescrip-
tion, Concept, or Propaganda?” World Politics
5 (4): 442–77.
Kaufman, S., R. Little, and W. Wohlforth (Eds.)
(2007) The Balance of Power in World History.
London: Palgrave.
Little, R. (2007) The Balance of Power in Interna-
tional Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mearsheimer, J. (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics. New York: Norton.
Morgenthau, H. (1948) Politics Among Nations: The
Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf.
Paul, T. V., M. Fortman, and J. J. Wirtz (2004) Bal-
ance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st
Century. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Schweller, R. L. (2008) Unanswered Threats.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Walt, S. M. (1987) The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Wohlforth, W. C., R. Little, S. J. Kaufman, D.
Kang, C. A. Jones, V. Tin-Bor Hui, A. Eckstein,
D. Deudney, and W. L. Brenner (2007) “Test-
ing Balance-of-Power Theory in World His-
tory.” European Journal of International Rela-
tions 13 (2): 155–85.