BALANCE OF POWER THEORY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
- juweejr2017
- Sep 10, 2019
- 29 min read
1. INTRODUCTION
What is balance of power? Balance of power is one of the oldest and crucial concepts in the study of International Relations.[1] Kautilya theorized about it; Thucydides advocated it as a policy.[2] Whenever there was a system of multiple interacting states, some concern for balance among those states has existed (Seabury, 1965: Section I; Palmer and Perkins, 1969: 218-219). In international politics, the posture and policy of a nation or group of nations protecting itself against another nation or group of nations by matching its power against the power of the other side surfaced during the Renaissance era. As power is the driver of international politics meant to dominate others in the international system, realist assumed that it is humanity primary objective and inalterable compulsions to pursue it.[3] According to realist perspectives, the international system is characterized by anarchy where great power seeks its own survival at the experience of others. Under this condition, the strongest state has the ability to impose its will on the weaker one to achieve it aim and objectives in the international system. Against this backdrop, the equilibrium of power is sufficient to deter or prevent one nation from imposing its will on or interfering with the interests of another. States can pursue a policy of balance of power by either increasing their own power, as when engaging in an armaments race or in the competitive acquisition of territory, or by adding to their own power that of other states, as when embarking upon a policy of alliances. The anarchical distribution of power in the international system gave birth to the balance of power theory in international relations. According to Constructivist, in a broadest sense, power is cogitated as the political capacity of one actor to exercise influence over another actors for self aggrandizement.[4] Against this background, the guru of balance of power elucidated that, in International Relations, an equilibrant of power is sufficient to discourage or prevent one nation from imposing its will on or interfering with the interest of another.[5] The balance of power theory and policy of international relations portrays that the most effective check on the power of a state is the power of other states. In international relation, the term state refers to a country with a government and population.[6] However, balance of power has been defined by scholars from different perspectives and there seem to be no consensus on it definite meaning. The power equation between states is based on an assessment of each stats relative power capabilities and this assessment provides the basis for the conduct of relations between them.[7] When one state gain too much power or its alliance increases, the balance of power theory predicts that it will take advantage of its strength and attack weaker neighbor, thereby giving compiling incentive for those threatened to unit in a defensive coalition to deter state seeking to expand. In addition, the balance of power maintained that, national security is enhanced when military capabilities are distributed among great power so that no single state is strong enough to dominate others in the international system.[8] Literatures relative to the definitions of balance of power theory and it balancing behavior are enormous. Shannon Lindsey, Blanton & Charles William Kegley (2017) asserted that the term balance of power means the distribution of power capabilities of rival states or alliance. Balance of power in addition is the equilibrium process that maintains peace by counterbalancing any state that seek military superiority, distributing global power evenly through alignment or shifts by nonaligned state to or the other opposed coalitions. According to CSS Times, balance of power is the equilibrium of power among nations as a way of preventing any one of them from becoming strong enough to enforce it will upon the rest in the international system.[9] In the balancing process, great powers have several mechanisms to restore balance of power in the international system. Among the balancing tactic are internal military buildup where economic wealth is converted into military power, the formation of counterbalancing alliances, passing the buck of balancing to another state, partition and compensation in postwar peace settlements, and emulation. In the end, many scholars find that secondary and tertiary states are more likely to bandwagon or join with the more powerful state or coalition of states rather than balance against it. Based on structural realism as advanced by Kenneth Waltz in Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), the self-help anarchic system and shifts in the relative distribution of capabilities mean that balances of power recurrently form in the international system.[10] How states balance will depend on the distribution of capabilities among the greater powers. In bipolar distributions of power (two great powers) states will balance through internal military buildup. In multipolar distributions of power (three or more), states will balance through the formation of counterbalancing alliances. Finally, according to John Mearsheimer, in balanced multipolar distributions of power (three or more equally powerful states), great powers are likely to pass the buck of balancing or “buck pass” to a “buck catcher” the responsibility of balancing. In the current unipolar distribution of power, a number of scholars contended that states are engaging in soft balancing and leash slipping rather than traditional hard balancing. Others contend that no balancing is occurring and the imbalanced or unipolar distribution is both durable and stable.[11] Balance of power and alliances among Nation-States is the means realist conceived for sustaining international order.[12] However, balance of power has not been widely and comprehensively tested in pre-modern or non-European context and has not been widely accepted in the context of previous cases of unipolarity (Stuart J. Kaufman, j Richard Little, Williams C. Wohlforth, 2007). Against this background, this paper seek to examine the concept of the of balance of power in international relations since the renaissance era up to present, the significance of the balance of power in the international system, and how balance of power is maintained in the international system. In an effort to explore on this inquiry, this paper maximized data from Paul R. Viotti, Mark V. Kauppi (International Relations Theory, 2015), Wikipedia, Balance of Power (International relation), Richard Little (The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models, 2007), Steven E. Lobell, Balance of Power Theory (20417), Stuart J. Kaufman, Richard Little, Williams C. Wohlforth, Balance of Power in World History (2007) and other relevant sources.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
As portrayed in the introduction of this paper that the balance of power has been the main concept of international relations, balance of power plays a significant role in the international politics. Having laid the premises of balance of power, it concept has not widely and comprehensively been tested in the international system. According to Neorealist theory, the rise of any given great power poses a threat to the security of other states (Jervis, 1978). In a balance of power system states "act to oppose any single actor which tends to assume a position of predominance with respect to the rest of the system" (Kaplan, 1957: 23, rule 4).[13] The balance of multipolar system create little problem, as great powers can maintain their relative position through a system of condensation (Gulick, 1955: 70-2). Nevertheless, under balance multipolarity, when one great power emerges as potential systemic hegemon, its growth in power poses a potential threat to the independence of all the other states (Mearsheimer, 2001). Against this background, balance of power theory in international relations posits that great powers, and many lesser powers, should consolidate or aliens to balance against the rising potential hegemony.[14] From 1648 (Peace of Westphalia) to 1789 (French Revolution) was a golden age of classical balance of power, when the Princes of Europe began accepting balance of power as the supreme principle of foreign policy (CSS Times 2018). Literature on the balance of power is also noted in the mid-17th Century when it was directed against the France of Louis XIV.[15] Balance of power was the stated British object Diplomatic and international historical studies examine and tested the central proposals and tenets of balance of power theory. These include the classical period of balance of power of the 18th and 19th centuries highlighted by the work of Dehio 1962, Gulick 1967, Taylor 1971, and Kennedy 1987. Diplomatic international histories such as Gaddis 1986 and Schroeder 1994 have also contributed to the discussion on the balance of power in international relations. Taliaferro, et al. 2012 examines the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s, while Joffe 1995 assesses two alternative balancing strategies for the United States in the post–Cold War era. One criticism is that balance of power theory reflects a specific European historical time and place Wohlforth, et al. 2007. A number of scholars have sought to expand the instances relative to the balance of power in international relations. However, Martin Wright cogitated that the concept of balance of power is notoriously full of confusions. Inis.L.Claude also portrays: the trouble with the balance of power is not that it has no meaning but essential idea is very simple but when principle is applied to the international relations, the concept of power means that through shifting alliances and countervailing pressure, no one power or combinations of powers will be allowed to grow so strong as to threaten the security of the rest as per Palmer and Perkins. Some realists maintain that this would be more stable as aggression would appear unattractive and would be averted if there was equilibrium of power between the rival coalitions. States balance against the concentrations of power in the international system when there is a strongest hegemony at the panicle of power. They find that between 1495 and 1990, the great powers balanced against extreme concentrations of land-based military power in Europe. According to Neorealist theory, the rise of any given great power poses a threat to the security of other states (Jervis, 1978). The balance of multipolar system create little problem, as great powers can maintain their relative position through a system of condensation (Gulick, 1955: 70-2) Nevertheless, under balance multipolarity, when one great power emerges as potential systemic hegemon, its growth in power poses a potential threat to the independence of all the other states (Mearsheimer, 2001). 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.[16] The term balance of power came into use to signify the power relationships in the European state system from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War I. Within the European balance of power, Great Britain played the role of the “balancer,” or “holder of the balance.” It was not permanently identified with the policies of any European nation, and it would throw its weight at one time on one side, at another time on another side, guided largely by one consideration the maintenance of the balance itself. Naval supremacy and its virtual immunity from foreign invasion enabled Great Britain to perform this function, which made the European balance of power both flexible and stable.[17] The balance of power from the early 20th century onward underwent drastic changes that for all practical purposes destroyed the European power structure as it had existed since the end of the Middle Ages. Prior to the 20th century, the political world was composed of a number of separate and independent balance of power systems, such as the European, the American, the Chinese, and the Indian. But World War I and its attendant political alignments triggered a process that eventually culminated in the integration of most of the world’s nations into a single balance-of-power system. This integration began with the World War I alliance of Britain, France, Russia, and the United States against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The integration continued in World War II, during which the fascist nations of Germany, Japan, and Italy were opposed by a global alliance of the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and China.[18] World War II ended with the major weights in the balance of power having shifted from the traditional players in western and central Europe to just two non-European ones: the United States and the Soviet Union. The result was a bipolar balance of power across the northern half of the globe that pitted the free-market democracies of the West against the communist one-party states of Eastern Europe. More specifically, the nations of Western Europe sided with the United States in the NATO military alliance, while the Soviet Union’s satellite-allies in central and Eastern Europe became unified under Soviet leadership in the Warsaw Pact.[19] There were other decisive differences between the postwar balance of power and its predecessor. The fear of mutual destruction in a global nuclear holocaust injected into the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union a marked element of restraint. A direct military confrontation between the two superpowers and their allies on European soil was an almost-certain gateway to nuclear war and was therefore to be avoided at almost any cost. So instead, direct confrontation was largely replaced by (1) a massive arms race whose lethal products were never used and (2) political meddling or limited military interventions by the superpowers in various Third World nations.[20]
In the late 20th century, some Third World nations resisted the advances of the superpowers and maintained a nonaligned stance in international politics. The breakaway of China from Soviet influence and its cultivation of a nonaligned but covertly anti-Soviet stance lent a further complexity to the bipolar balance of power. The most important shift in the balance of power began in 1989–90, however, when the Soviet Union lost control over its eastern European satellites and allowed noncommunist governments to come to power in those countries. The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 made the concept of a European balance of power temporarily irrelevant, since the government of newly sovereign Russia initially embraced the political and economic forms favored by the United States and Western Europe. Both Russia and the United States retained their nuclear arsenals, however, so the balance of nuclear threat between them remained potentially in force. Base on the bipolarity of the balance of power and it disparity between the two superpowers, and all other nations, the European countries lost that freedom of movement that previously had made for a flexible system.[21] Instead of a series of shifting and basically unpredictable alliances with and against each other, the nations of Europe now clustered around the two superpowers and tended to transform themselves into two stable blocs.
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 functions effectively in two different ways: 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. 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. Against this background, balance of power theory in international relations posits that great powers, and many lesser powers, should consolidate or aliens to balance against the rising potential hegemony. The essence and the attempt to comprehend international relations relative to the balance of power theory can be traced back for more than five hundred years ago.[22] The term balance of power came into use to signify the power relationships in the European state system from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War I. Within the European balance of power, Great Britain played the role of the “balancer,” or “holder of the balance.” It was not permanently identified with the policies of any European nation, and it would throw its weight at one time on one side, at another time on another side, guided largely by one consideration of the maintenance of the balance itself. Naval supremacy and its virtual immunity from foreign invasion enabled Great Britain to perform this function, which made the European balance of power both flexible and stable. The balance of power from the early 20th century onward underwent drastic changes that for all practical purposes destroyed the European power structure as it had existed since the end of the Middle Ages. Prior to the 20th century, the political world was composed of a number of separate and independent balance-of-power systems, such as the European, the American, the Chinese, and the Indian. But World War I and its attendant political alignments triggered a process that eventually culminated in the integration of most of the world’s nations into a single balance-of-power system. This integration began with the World War I alliance of Britain, France, Russia, and the United States against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The integration continued in World War II, during which the fascist nations of Germany, Japan, and Italy were opposed by a global alliance of the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and China. World War II ended with the major weights in the balance of power having shifted from the traditional players in western and central Europe to just two non-European ones: the United States and the Soviet Union. The result was a bipolar balance of power across the northern half of the globe that pitted the free-market democracies of the West against the communist one-party states of Eastern Europe. More specifically, the nations of Western Europe sided with the United States in the NATO military alliance, while the Soviet Union’s satellite-allies in central and Eastern Europe became unified under Soviet leadership in the Warsaw Pact. The balance of power theory in international politics is not just significant to international relations but it’s a widely practical concept of literature in the contemporary international politics, and has remained central to scholarly and policy debates in the international system over the responses to the primacy in the early 21st Century (Jervis 1997:131). It’s also the most effective theory available to account for the fundamental character of international relations. According to the advocates of this theory, the balance of power theory provides the ingredients needed to explain the reliance of the modern international system of state.[23] Because the balance of power was now bipolar and because of the great disparity of power between the two superpowers and all other nations, the European countries lost that freedom of movement that previously had made for a flexible system. Instead of a series of shifting and basically unpredictable alliances with and against each other, the nations of Europe now clustered around the two superpowers and tended to transform themselves into two stable blocs. There were other decisive differences between the postwar balance of power and its predecessor. The fear of mutual destruction in a global nuclear holocaust injected into the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union a marked element of restraint. A direct military confrontation between the two superpowers and their allies on European soil was an almost-certain gateway to nuclear war and was therefore to be avoided at almost any cost. So instead, direct confrontation was largely replaced by a massive arms race whose lethal products were never used and political meddling or limited military interventions by the superpowers in various Third World nations.
In the late 20th century, some Third World nations resisted the advances of the superpowers and maintained a nonaligned stance in international politics. The breakaway of China from Soviet influence and its cultivation of a nonaligned but covertly anti-Soviet stance lent a further complexity to the bipolar balance of power. The most important shift in the balance of power began in 1989–90, however, when the Soviet Union lost control over its eastern European satellites and allowed noncommunist governments to come to power in those countries. The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 made the concept of a European balance of power temporarily irrelevant, since the government of newly sovereign Russia initially embraced the political and economic forms favored by the United States and Western Europe. Both Russia and the United States retained their nuclear arsenals, however, so the balance of nuclear threat between them remained potentially in force. In International Relations an equilibrium of power sufficient to discourage or present one nation or prevent one nation from imposing its will on or interfering with the interests of another. 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 alliance.
2.1. BALANCE OF POWER IN ANCIENT ERA
Historical examples of power balancing are found throughout history in various regions of the world, leading some scholars to characterize balance of power as a universal and timeless principle. During the Period of the Warring States in China (403-221 BC), the development of large, cohesive states accompanied the creation of irrigation systems, bureaucracies, and large armies equipped with iron weapons. These Chinese states pursued power through a constantly shifting network of alliances.[24] In ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), the rising power of Athens triggered the formation of a coalition of city-states that felt threatened by Athenian power. The alliance, led by Sparta, succeeded in defeating Athens and restoring a balance of power among Greek cities.[25] In the 17th century the Habsburg dynasty, which ruled Austria and Spain, threatened to dominate Europe. During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), a coalition that included Sweden, England, France, and The Netherlands defeated the rulers of the Habsburg Empire. Early in the 19th century, French emperor Napoleon repeatedly made efforts to conquer large areas of Europe. A broad coalition of European states including Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia defeated France in a series of major battles that climaxed with Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.[26] The classical European balance of power system emerged thereafter in an alliance known as the Concert of Europe, organized in 1815 by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich. This loose alliance between Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France ensured that a handful of great powers would coexist, with none able to dominate the others. Under this system, and with Britain playing a balancer role, peace largely prevailed in Europe during the 19th century. During World War II, Germany's rising power, aggressive conquests, and alliance with Italy and Japan triggered yet another coalition of opposing states notably the capitalist democracies of Britain and the United States, and the Communist Soviet Union.[27]
2.2.BALANCE OF POWER AND COLD WAR
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 Richard Little (2007). 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.[28] 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 functions effectively in two different ways: 1. 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. 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 Little (2007). 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.[29] 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.[30] A Balance of power system can functions effectively in two different ways: 1. 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.[31] 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. 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.[32]
Balance of power so perfectly described the polarity of the Cold War that it became integral to, indeed practically synonymous with, the concept of the East-West order. Although the image was so familiar as to be almost transparent, a great deal of political presumption was locked within its crystalline structure. East and West existed, and there was a "balance" between them that presumably somehow "weighed" a quality called power, possessed by the enemies, each side, in the way material objects possess mass. This enemy, real enough, but also postulated by the balance of power-without an enemy, what would be balanced? Served to solidify political alliances and political identity on both sides.[33] Throughout the Cold War, divisions among states party to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the Warsaw Pact, as well as divisions within each state, were obscured by the need to maintain a common front against the enemy. Strategy that would confront such threats requires a view of politics considerably more nuanced than polarity; policy cannot be determined by argument that one "side" enjoys some military advantage over the other. Strategic thinking now entails politics, economics, and history, in addition to its traditional focus on military capability, because a strategic world where security is threatened by dangers rather than enemies is complex and vague in ways that the old strategic world was not. In response to uncertainty, the new strategic thinking seeks stability more avidly than it seeks some ill-defined "advantage." Stability is hardly a new concern; what is new is that stability has become virtually the only concern. So, for example, it recently appeared to make strategic sense to cut the size of our military, in part because the federal deficit was thought to hamper national competitiveness and economic unrest was seen as a greater threat to our security than invasion. Similarly, it makes strategic sense for Western European states to give money to help the young governments of Central and Southern Europe stabilize their economies, not because those governments plan to invade, but because their failure may lead to massive immigration or civil war. Rather than the purchase of military hardware, security concerns now impel the provision of loan guarantees. Strategy used to mean the attainment of military superiority, or at least deterrence; it now means the pursuit of social stability.[34] Politics writ large has absorbed strategic studies.
The vague character of threats to social security means that when we cannot quarantine social instability (as we frequently do with those chaotic Africans), intervention is likely. In a dangerous world, security is obtained by proactive measures designed to shore up the social order. In contrast, in the traditional world of enemies, security is the capability to respond to the threat posed by the enemy. (Only rarely has security been thought best obtained by preemptive attack.) So we long preserved the capacity to respond to Soviet aggression with nuclear force, if necessary. The very language of the clichA is reactive. Today, the United States is criticized not for its lack of readiness, but for not taking enough action within the former Soviet Union to help ensure that the weapons of mass destruction remain in sane hands. In this light, the invasion of Panama and the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement may be understood as attempts to establish a viable social order in situations that present profound threats to our security, our lust for drugs and the weaknesses peculiar to a highly technological economy.
If security is now better procured than defended, then early intervention will often be more effective and cheaper than late intervention. Contemporary strategic thinking inclines to the adage "a stitch in time saves nine." Diffuse threats to security should be addressed before they have time to gain focus and momentum. The task for contemporary strategic thinking is therefore the avoidance, rather than the development, of the logic of war. For example, it is has for some time been argued that more decisive action by the European Community (and then the European Union) and the United Nations at the outbreak of violence in Yugoslavia might have prevented at least some of the carnage and associated risks. War, even civil war, has its own awful logic and the various factions in what was Yugoslavia fought within that logic, to regain territory lost by military action, to avenge loved ones, and so bloody on, in the gyre of public and private violence bemoaned since the Oresteia. Had the logic of violence not been established, Yugoslavia might be merely politically fractious, like Belgium or even what Czechoslovakia was. The transformation of strategy amounts to an imperative to intervene, militarily if necessary, in the service of order.[35]
2.3.LIBERAL REALISM AND BALANCE OF POWER
Liberal realism's concern with the balance of power necessitates that liberal states must be willing to use power and force to support the balance of power against threats hostile to self-interest and liberal values.[36] The Reagan administration believed that it was necessary to counter the Soviet threat in order to purge the "intense emotional resistance against the use of U.S. power for any purpose" created by the American experience in Vietnam.[37] Again, the Reagan administration's perspective included prudence and liberal conviction. Kirkpatrick suggested that what is called the conservative revival is just this: the return of American confidence in our values, and in our capacities, and of American determination to protect ourselves from war and defeat." Kirkpatrick also emphasized the broader liberal conviction in the Reagan administration's willingness to use American power. The restoration of the conviction that American power is necessary for the survival of liberal democracy in the modern world is the most important development in U.S. foreign policy in the past decade. It is the event which marks the end of the Vietnam era, when certainty about the link between American power and the survival of liberal democratic societies was lost. The Reagan administration's sensitivity to the prudential and liberal aspects of the balance of power and its willingness to use American power to confront threats to self-interest and liberal values illustrate well the liberal realist tradition's perspective on the balance of power.[38]
2.4.BALANCE OF POWER TODAY
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower.[39] Balance of power theory suggests that without the Soviet threat the United States, as the dominant world power, will face difficulties in its relations with such states as China and the European powers. For example, key countries such as China, Russia, France, and Germany all opposed the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 in diplomatic arenas such as the United Nations. Yet this opposition did not stop the United States from acting, exposing the significant gap in military capability that now exists between the United States and the rest of the world Little (2007).
Small states that fear the United States are no longer able to join a counterbalancing coalition to protect their security. Instead, many are developing nuclear weapons in an attempt to dramatically expand their military capability. For example, North Korea claimed in 2003 that it was developing nuclear weapons to balance against U.S. power.[40] The changing nature of power in the contemporary international system further complicates the operation of the global balance of power. Globalization, the Internet, weapons of mass destruction, and other technological developments have made it possible for small states and even non state groups to acquire significant power. These factors also dilute the relative importance of military power. For example, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States assembled a broad coalition to invade Afghanistan, using military force to topple the Taliban government and end the Taliban's support for al-Qaeda terrorists.[41] This application of military power did not provoke a balancing coalition of other states, but it also did not end the terrorist threat to the United States. In the future, the balance of power may continue to operate among states engaged in prolonged disputes, but it is less applicable to conflicts involving terrorists and other non-state groups.[42]
3. CONCLUSION
The balance of power has been a central concept in the theory and practice of international relations for the past five hundred years. It has also played a significance role in some of the most important attempts to develop a theory of international politics in the contemporary study of international relations. Another basis for the realist theory is the idea of a balance of power and the anarchic nature of the global system as there is no effective global government and the world system is anomic (without rules). This ties in well with the idea of global relations being one of self-help and each state striving to promote its own interests at the expense of others. In short, realists see the global system as one of self-help. The idea of the balance of power is put in place to explain the situation where states will ally themselves to prevent the hegemony of one state over all others. Balance of Power, theory and policy of international relations affirms that the most effective check on the power of a state is the power of other states. Among the international relations theories, balance of power theory remained central to the equilibrium of power in the international system.
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