Balance of Power
Balance of Power
Balance of Power, theory and policy of international relations that asserts that the most effective check on the power of a state is the power of other states. In international relations, the term state refers to a country with a government and a population. The term balance of power refers to the distribution of power capabilities of rival states or alliances. For example, the United States and the Soviet Union maintained equivalent arsenals of nuclear weapons in the 1970s and 1980s, which helped sustain a military balance of power.
The balance of power theory maintains that when one state or alliance increases its power or applies it more aggressively, threatened states will increase their own power in response, often by forming a counter-balancing coalition. For example, the rise of German power before and during World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945) triggered the formation of an anti-German coalition, consisting of the Soviet Union, Britain, France, the United States, and other countries. (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.
Concept of Balance of Power
An introductory definition of Balance of Power is provided here: a condition in which the distribution of military and political forces among nations means no one state is sufficiently strong to dominate all the others. It may be global, regional or local in scope
Resources
See Also
- Foregin Policy
- Foreign Affairs
Leave a Reply