Balance of Power Significance
Significance to International Relations
As a policy, balance of power suggests that states counter any threat to their security by allying with other threatened states and by increasing their own military capabilities. The policy of forming a geographically based coalition of states to surround and block an expansionist power is known as containment. For example, the United States followed a containment policy towards the Soviet Union after World War II by building military alliances and bases throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
As a theory, balance of power predicts that rapid changes in international power and status-especially attempts by one state to conquer a region-will provoke counterbalancing actions. For this reason, the balancing process helps to maintain the stability of relations between states.
A balance of power system can function effectively in two different ways. First, multiple states can form a balance of power when alliances are fluid-that is, when they are easily formed or broken on the basis of expediency, regardless of values, religion, history, or form of government. Occasionally a single state plays a balancer role, shifting its support to oppose whatever state or alliance is strongest. Britain played this role in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in its relations with France, Russia, and Germany. Second, two states can balance against each other by matching their increases in military capability. In the Cold War, the Soviet Union and United States both expanded their nuclear arsenals to balance against each other.
One weakness of the balance of power concept is the difficulty of measuring power. Ultimately a state’s power derives from the size of its land mass, population, and its level of technology. But this potential power-measured roughly by a state’s gross domestic product (GDP)-translates imperfectly into military capability. The effective use of military force depends on such elements as leadership, morale, geography, and luck. Furthermore, leaders’ misperceptions can seriously distort the calculation of power. During the Vietnam War (1959-1975), for example, U.S. presidents consistently underestimated the strength of the Vietnamese Communists because by conventional measures of power they were much weaker than the United States. (1)
In this Section: Balance of Power, Balance of Power Significance, Balance of Power History, Balance of Power in the Cold War and Balance of Power in the XXI Century.
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