Description

At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s most powerful state, and then used that power to initiate wars against smaller countries in the Middle East and South Asia. According to balance-of-power theory—the bedrock of realism in international relations—other states should have joined together militarily to counterbalance the United States’ rising power. Yet they did not. Nor have they united to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China Sea or Russian offensives along its western border.

This does not mean balance-of-power politics is dead, argues renowned international relations scholar T. V. Paul; instead it has taken a different form. Rather than employ familiar strategies such as active military alliances and arms buildups, leading powers have engaged in “soft balancing,” which seeks to restrain threatening powers through the use of international institutions, informal alignments, and economic sanctions. Paul places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective, from the post-Napoleonic era to today’s globalized world. This book offers an illuminating examination of how subtler forms of balance-of-power politics can help states achieve their goals against aggressive powers without wars or arms races.

Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era

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Hardback by T. V. Paul

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At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s most powerful state, and then used... Read more

    Publisher: Yale University Press
    Publication Date: 13/11/2018
    ISBN13: 9780300228489, 978-0300228489
    ISBN10: 0300228481

    Number of Pages: 256

    Non Fiction , Politics, Philosophy & Society

    Description

    At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s most powerful state, and then used that power to initiate wars against smaller countries in the Middle East and South Asia. According to balance-of-power theory—the bedrock of realism in international relations—other states should have joined together militarily to counterbalance the United States’ rising power. Yet they did not. Nor have they united to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China Sea or Russian offensives along its western border.

    This does not mean balance-of-power politics is dead, argues renowned international relations scholar T. V. Paul; instead it has taken a different form. Rather than employ familiar strategies such as active military alliances and arms buildups, leading powers have engaged in “soft balancing,” which seeks to restrain threatening powers through the use of international institutions, informal alignments, and economic sanctions. Paul places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective, from the post-Napoleonic era to today’s globalized world. This book offers an illuminating examination of how subtler forms of balance-of-power politics can help states achieve their goals against aggressive powers without wars or arms races.

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