The Balance of Power: An Introduction
The balance of power between more strong and weaker countries is the main topic of this essay. In this study, the term "balance of power" alludes to competition between and among nations to reach an equilibrium state in the global system that is anarchic. The paper begins by examining the definition of "balance" as it is used in other academic disciplines and how it relates to international relations. The second part of the essay looks at the factors that enable the balance of power to exist in international politics. The research also looks at different strategies used by different players in the global multistate system to balance power. Finally, the paper discusses the benefits of balance of power in encouraging peace and political stability in the World. Much of the information used in the work has been collected through desk research from secondary sources presented in the works cited page. The findings of the study indicate that balance of power can help in preserving international peace as it regulates the abuse of power by powerful states. Weaker nations can enhance their military capability through alliance formations against any nation that becomes too aggressive with intentions of dominating weaker countries and asserting it will on them.
Balance of Power around the World
Every country in the World strives to survive as an independent entity by seeking power in the anarchical universal system. A nation without such powers naturally succumbs to the will of other states and can readily lose its security and prosperity. Anarchy consequently forces countries to improve their power because they cannot separate security from power maximization. The balance of power involves competition between and among various countries around the World with each trying to displace one another or maintain the status quo (Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, 2004). The principle suggests that a country's security can only be enhanced through military authority distribution so that no nation becomes too powerful to exercise control over the other. Arguably, when one state wields more power; it may decide to dominate weaker neighbors who may form alliances against it (Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, 2004). Against this background, the paper explores the meaning of the term "balance of power, its causes and consequences, and how it assists the World in preserving peace in its various institutions. Arguably, countries can use the balance of power as a technical process of preserving peace among various states by reducing hegemon between rival countries. It does so by preventing one state from becoming too authoritative to assert its will on other weaker countries.
The Concept of Balance of Power
The balance of power has existed in global politics since the Renaissance period as a figurative notion borrowed from other spheres of study such as philosophy, ethics, and psychology among others. The concept of "balance" had gained high acceptance in most of these fields based on its relations with equipoise and counterweight (Schweller, 2010). Scholars have used the term "balance" in international relations to refer to a natural law connected to most of the things people find appealing in life such as peace, happiness, harmony, justice, and fairness just to mention a few. As a law of nature, the balance spontaneously occurs to cancel any bids for global hegemony without any effort, in that it may sink on one side and then reestablish itself on the other end on its own (Schweller, 2010). The concept, therefore, involves a spontaneous self-regulating system of various nations pursuing their different self-interests.
Ambiguities and Empirical Claims
The balance of power as a universal concept in international relations, however, has several ambiguities and empirical claims. Some international political scholars define it as an approach to equally distribute power among nations while others describe it as a principle that states how power ought to be distributed. Nevertheless, the concept rarely indicates the aspects of authority countries should share. Some researchers have to this end, suggested that the balance of power involves an exchange of soft power, others have suggested psycho-cultural equilibrate, while some have proposed political and diplomatic equilibrate. Similarly, Schweller observes that balancing can occur in economic and ideological exchanges among states (2010).
Preserving Peace and Security
The balance of power aims at preserving the decency of the global multistate system by discouraging ambitious states from meddling in the affairs of weaker nations. The theory operates on the premise that countries should never trust each other with inordinate powers as this threatens authority of other countries the system (Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, 2004). Nations with excessive authority may choose to have control of most of the essential resources in the World and subjugate the other states in the system. As a consequence, other nations always recognize countries that become inordinately powerful as threats to their survival and security and respond through individual or joint measures that ensure their safety, particularly military capability. The creation of such equilibrium as observed by Paul, Wirtz and Fortmann (2004) remains the principal role of power balance in the global geopolitics.
The Benefits of Balance of Power
Achieving an equilibrium state through power balance helps in preserving peace in the global multistate system by preventing power preponderance. Power dominance by one country or a coalition of many countries affects the operations of all members in the system since the country in question may decide to engage in aggressive behaviors (Ikenberry, 2014). The hegemony of one country may ostensibly force it to assert its will on other members of the system. On the contrary, the multistate system may realize great peace with equilibrium state among the great powers; in such a system, no country or an alliance of nations possess excess authority to launch an attack on weaker states (Paul, Wirtz and Fortmann, 2004). Power equilibrium prevents aggression against countries because no country that wages war can expect defeat because the defending nations normally have the support of other states in the system against the attacker.
Strategies for Balancing Power
As mentioned earlier, countries create power balance through arm mobilization both within and outside the country; nations can externally procure weapons or form military coalitions with other states (Paul, Wirtz and Fortmann, 2004). For example, smaller/weaker countries always form alliances against threatening authoritarian states; as such, they manage to achieve deterrent force to dissuade political adversaries. Creating power balance against preponderant states seems important because if weaker states do not merge to arise against such hegemon; they may end up consumed by these powerful countries and lose their political sovereignty (Ikenberry, 2014). Weaker nations form coalitions among themselves since other powerful nations do respect them as much as their fellow more fragile states. Balancing thus remains justified if it guarantees peace, political freedom and acts as a deterrent to war for the weaker nations against more powerful countries.
Power Balance in Society
Power balance applies to the whole society or global community; as a result, governments and global leaders strive to strike a balance between different regions such as North and South or East and West. Similarly, a balance should equally occur between producers and consumers, small factories and bigger industries and the economic system as a whole. Evidently, countries strive to balance necessary elements that matter to the society and are entitled to exist. Secondly, nations must achieve an equilibrium state to stop some elements from ascending above others within the system. Balance in this sense ensures the stability and preservation of all countries both big and small alongside all other items that comprise them. It, therefore, ensures the maintenance of some order, which ensures that no country loses its natural resources or sovereignty due to political domination.
The Role of Power Balance
A study conducted by Sun in 2014 argues that balance of power principle thrives because of the lawlessness nature of international system without any legal authority enforcement on various agents and institutions. The self-help nature leaves countries without any government to turn to in case of conflicts or problems; as a result, they only adjust their military capabilities in comparison to their neighbors and other nations in the system through internal mobilization and coalition formations. Sun further asserts that power balance thrives because of the role of countries as principal actors in international affairs; countries can, therefore, come together and set terms of engagement on political, economic, and social domains (2014). Nations set various conditions that may legitimize utilization of force within their boundaries and carry out foreign policy in unison which ensures peace and stability in a different sector of the society.
Methods of Balancing Power
Countries use different approaches to balance power among them; for example, alliance and counter alliances have existed for many decades as power balance tool. In this method, several countries enter into a union/military agreement aimed at augmenting their strength against their opponents. Formation of an alliance by one group of nations always leads to the creation of another to counter it by the opponents. For example, formation by NATO after the Second World War triggered the Soviet Union and its satellite countries to form War Saw Pact alliance to counter the actions of NATO and as an approach to balance power during the cold war period. Unions play a significant role in curbing the authority of over ambitious countries that try to threaten the existence of other nations in the system, in this sense, the alliances help preserve regional and international peace.
The Importance of Continuity
The coalitions formed between and among nations should, however, remain fluid and continuous to enable the balance of power to operate efficiently. Countries should be at a position to align and realign themselves with other like-minded nations based on power considerations and political ideologies (Schweller, 2010). On the other hand, countries face several "alliance handicaps" that hinder the formation of vibrant partnerships between and among nations to address security issues affecting a particular member in the system. Some of these factors include; differences in political or economic ideologies, national hatred, and national boundaries disputes among others (Schweller, 2010). Nations should thus strive to address these "alliance handicaps" to enable them to craft the best coalitions that can improve power balance among the members in the system. Countries can only form alliances when they have an affinity for each other and share common interests.
Alternative Approaches to Balance of Power
Nations can also employ intervention or non-intervention methods to balance power between them. Intervention approaches according to Dixon (2012) legitimate forceful interference into the activities of an independent country to alter or maintain a given aspect or issue that the competing opponents may consider dangerous or necessary. Nations have in the past forced themselves into another sovereign state's territory to alleviate severe human suffering without any economic and material motivations. Countries, particularly the great powers can intervene for various reasons to regain an old ally or restore peace and democracy in another state. Similarly, powerful nations have continually intervened in situations where a particular country conducts inhuman actions against its citizens or threatens peace and stability in the World system (Dixon, 2012). The US and other nations have always condemned and intervened in Iranian atomic bomb tests because of their threat to global peace.
Balance of Influence
Some countries have, however, shifted from the traditional balance of power strategies to balance of influence approach. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries utilizes such an approach by inviting most of World's great powers to take part in the region's diplomatic and economic issues to enable them to have a stake in the affairs of the area (Ciorciari, 2008). The approach has proved useful as it promotes inclusiveness of all member states and promotes peace and prosperity among the ASEAN nations. Ciorciari further argues that power of influence helps in balancing power in a multidimensional and resilient manner that places stringent constraints on external authorities with excessive ambitions that may lead to political or economic dominance (2008). Foreign powers such as India and China have substantially contributed towards political, ideational, and economic prosperity among the ASEN member states without interfering with their sovereignty.
Political Interdependence
Power balance encourages political interdependence among nations; as a result, countries should aim at avoiding war at all cost or pursue moderate war objectives without eliminating the principal actors in the system. The World cannot achieve an equilibrium state unless member countries preserve the essential components of such a system; any destruction to one member destroys the whole system politics (Elman and Jensen, 2014). This argument implies that countries should not have permanent enemies since they need one another for different reasons. A nation that appears reckless or too forceful with expansionist motives may make other states form an alliance or mobilize against it in the system. In this regard, a country should subordinate national interests to balance of power in the region or global politics (Elman and Jensen, 2014).
An International Order
Power balance represents a type of international order since various objects that make it have a close relationship with one another in the system. The interrelationship between different components within the power balance system does not occur haphazardly or by chance but through some discernible principles (Kaufman, Little and Wohlforth, 2007). Such international order can only exist when the system's components display a high degree of predictability and regularities with patterns that seem to follow some established and comprehensible logic. Schweller (2010) posits that stability results when the economic, social, and political components of a system exhibit order and operate harmony with one another. A stable system can readily restore itself to its former position before the disruption from a state of equilibrium. Unstable systems include those in which a slight disturbance creates massive disruptions that hinder the realization of original conditions and produce adverse perturbations.
Critiques of Balance of Power
The concept of balance of power has, nonetheless, received criticism from some scholars who charge that it became obsolete with the end of cold war era. These scholars argue that international politics has been undergoing transformations as democracy matures and independence becomes a guiding principle in many countries as they come to realize the relevance of peace in the World (Schweller, 2010). The critics suggest that the World has shifted away from a multipolar power balance relationship to a multi-partner one with other nations emerging to compete with the current major powers such as the US, China, Britain, and Russia among others. The multi-partner approach increases cooperation among various actors while reducing competition in the system.
Conclusion
In summation, the discussions above indicate that countries can use the balance of power as a technical process of preserving peace among various states by reducing hegemon between rival countries. It does so by preventing one state from becoming too authoritative to assert its will on other weaker countries. The balance of power plays important roles in international relations and geopolitics; power imbalance may make weaker nations form alliances to deter powerful countries' aggression or adversarial actions. Without the balance of power, most of the weaker countries can lose their natural resources and sovereignty to more powerful nations, which may use their power to dominate such nations. In this regard balance of power contributes to reduced political hostility while expanding diplomatic relationships and liberating global economic order.
References
Ciorciari, J. D. (2008). The balance of great-power influence in contemporary Southeast Asia. International relations of the Asia-Pacific, 9(1), 157-196.
Dixon, S. (2013). Humanitarian Intervention: A Novel Constructivist Analysis of Norms and Behaviour. Journal of politics and international studies, 9, 126-172.
Elman, C., & Jensen, M. (Eds.). (2014). The realism reader. Routledge.
Ikenberry, G. J. (2014). From hegemony to the balance of power: the rise of China and American grand strategy in East Asia. International Journal of Korean Unification Studies 23 (2).
Kaufman, S. J., Little, R., & Wohlforth, W. C. (Eds.). (2007). The balance of power in world history. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Paul, T. V., Wirtz, J. J., & Fortmann, M. (2004). Balance of power: theory and practice in the 21st century. Stanford University Press.
Schweller, R. L. (2010). Unanswered threats: Political constraints on the balance of power. Princeton University Press.
Sun, M. (2014). Balance of power theory in today’s international system. University of Pennsylvania
