Abstract
Summarily dismissed in the second half of the twentieth century by scholars and analysts of world affairs as deeply flawed conceptually and no longer relevant politically, it must now be acknowledged that the balance-of-power paradigm retains its robust explanatory power in today’s transformative international relations.
“Back to balancing” is a twenty-first-century expression of the unbroken historical process of offsetting power, prestige, influence and leverage among an indeterminate number of competitive actors. Thus understood, balance-of-power theory continues to offer theorists and statesmen alike a serviceable—not foolproof—mechanism for maintaining tolerable levels of global order and stability in the very midst of accelerated change.
A world in which the United States is less prominent is a rebalancing world. Acknowledging the re-emergence of multipolarity, this essay offers six refinements of the classic Balance of Power concept. It then proceeds to address the current geopolitics and geometrics of recalibrating power as the contemporary international system “pushes back” after successive eras of Soviet-American Cold War bipolarity and post-Cold War American hegemony.
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Notes
- 1.
Roger Cohen, “An anchorless world”, International Herald Tribune, 13 September 2013.
- 2.
The late medieval origins and development of balance as an image, phrase and concept are ably traced by Alfred Vagts in his essay “The Balance of Power: Growth of an Idea”, World Politics, 1, 1 (October, 1948), 82–101.
- 3.
On the usage and different meanings assigned the term, see: Ernst B. Haas, “The balance of power: prescription, concept, or propaganda”, World Politics, 5, 4, (1953), 442–477; and Michael Sheehan. The Balance of Power. History and Theory (London: Routledge, 1996). Chapter 1. “The Meaning of the Balance of Power”, pp. 1–23.
- 4.
John J. Mearsheimer, “Why we will soon miss the Cold War,” in The Atlantic Monthly, 266, 2 (August, 1990), 35–50.
- 5.
Harold D. Lasswell. World Politics and Personal Insecurity (New York: The Free Press, 1965), especially Chapter III. “The Balancing of Power; The Expectation of Violence”. The quote is found on page 42, with emphasis added in the original.
- 6.
Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander, “Waiting for balancing”, International Security, 30, 1 (Summer 2005), 109–139.
- 7.
For insight into the regional dynamic unfolding in the Caspian Sea region, see: Werner Hermann and Johannes F. Linn (editors). Central Asia and the Caucasus. At the Crossroads of Eurasia in the 21st Century (Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2011), especially Martha Brill Olcott. Chapter 2. “Rivalry and Competition in Central Asia”, 17–35.
- 8.
“Qatar spends to propel its global agenda”, International Herald Tribune, 7 January 2013.
- 9.
“Norway says it won’t help destroy Syria toxic arsenal”, International New York Times, 26–27 October 2013.
- 10.
Robert Singh. “The United States: the eagle untamed”, in Donette Murray and David Brown (editors). Multipolarity in the 21 st Century (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), p. 30.
- 11.
U.S. National Intelligence Council, Alternative Worlds: Global Trends 2030 (Washington, D.C.) NIC 2012-001, December 2012, p. x, p. 98. http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/GlobalTrends_2030.pdf
- 12.
F. Gregory Gause, III, “The year the Arab spring went bad”, Foreign Policy, 31 December 2012.
- 13.
The argument for America continuing to maintain its commanding lead against all prospective rivals in the major tangible elements of national power is pressed forward by many students of U.S. foreign policy, none more forcefully than Professor Robert J. Lieber. See his: Power and Willpower in the American Future: Why the United States Is Not Destined to Decline (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); “Can the U.S. retain primacy?”, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs (V, 3 (2011), 23–36; “Staying power and the American future: problems of primacy, policy, and grand strategy.” Journal of Strategic Studies, 34, 4 (2011), 509–530.
- 14.
Leon Wieseltier, “Unbelievably small”, The New Republic, 7 October 2013.
- 15.
As George Packer characterizes the change in U.S. foreign policy, “In the bipolar habit of America’s attitude toward the rest of the world, we’ve flipped from grandiose missionary zeal to sullen disengagement”. “Islamist Violence and a War of Ideas”, The New Yorker, 8 October 2013. See also: Bill Keller, “America’s new isolationism”, International Herald Tribune, 10 September 2013.
- 16.
Aaron David Miller, “Can America afford not to bomb Syria?”, Foreign Policy, 9 September 2013.
- 17.
“Obama issues call to avoid a replay”, International New York Times, 18 October 2013.
- 18.
The case for such a convergence of worldwide values, perceptions and standards of living is argued by Kishore Mahbubani in his recently published book, The Great Convergence (Public Affairs, 2013), subtitled “Asia, The West, and the Logic of One World”.
- 19.
Daniel W. Drezner, “The rise of ‘good enough’ global governance?”, Foreign Policy (8 January 2013). http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/08/the_rise_of_good_enough_global_governance
- 20.
Edmund Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Part X.I.
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Klieman, A. (2015). Pushing Back: The Balance and Balancing of Power. In: Klieman, A. (eds) Great Powers and Geopolitics. Global Power Shift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16289-8_2
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