1. Balancing on Land and at Sea: Do States Ally against the Leading Global Power?
- Author:
- Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson
- Publication Date:
- 08-2010
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The end of the Cold War and the emergence of the “unipolar moment” have generated considerable debate about how to explain the absence of a great-power balancing coalition against the United States. The proposition that near-hegemonic concentrations of power in the system nearly always trigger a counterbalancing coalition of the other great powers has long been regarded as an “iron law” by balance of power theorists, who often invoke the examples of Spain under Philip II, France under Louis XIV and then under Napoleon, and Germany under Wilhelm II and then under Adolf Hitler. That the United States, which is generally regarded as the “greatest superpower ever,” has not provoked such a balancing coalition is widely regarded as a puzzle for balance of power theory. Fareed Zakaria asks, “Why is no one ganging up against the United States?” G. John Ikenberry asks why, despite the unprecedented concentration of U.S. power, “other great powers have not yet responded in a way anticipated by balance-of-power theory.
- Topic:
- Cold War
- Political Geography:
- United States