From the Editors

The balance of power is a core concept in international relations theory and strategic studies, but it is also the source of intense and enduring debate. IR scholars disagree about how to characterize the balance at any given time, how to measure it, and whether a balance among states is a source of stability or instability. Strategists wrestle with the practical process of balancing, and they often disagree about how states should respond to possible threats. These debates are sure to continue, especially given the renewed US focus on great power politics and long-term strategic competition.

This issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies offers four new perspectives on the balance of power. The authors recognize the importance of the concept, yet they all seek to open the conceptual aperture on balancing behavior. In ‘Classical geopolitics, realism, and balance of power theory,’ Zhengyu Wu makes the case for integrating classical geopolitics with realist theory. Wu argues that while the two fields drifted apart after World War II, they share core assumptions about anarchy, states, and military power. Bringing in geopolitics, with its focus on technology and geography, will provide a more comprehensive view for theorists, and more practical guidance for strategists.¹

In ‘Beyond balancing? Intrastate conflict and US grand strategy,’ Doug Stokes and Kit Waterman point to a different limitation in the current literature. They note that although analysts focus on interstate balancing, the majority of US military interventions have to do with intrastate conflicts. To the extent that Washington engages in balancing behavior, most of it has to do with efforts to coerce local actors to achieve local stability. Debates about appropriate US grand strategy, the authors contend, should start with a theory that encompasses ‘the full range of conflict.’²

One of the most important mechanisms for peacetime balancing is through transferring arms. But as Hugo Meijer, Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Paul Holtom, and Matthew Uttley argue in ‘Arming China: Major powers’ arms transfers to the People’s Republic of China,’ such decisions reflect more than states’ beliefs about the balance of power. According to the authors, states take into account both international and domestic pressures. Specifically, they weigh the degree to which their defense base depends on foreign imports and exports. More autonomy means they can allow balance of power considerations to determine their decisions, but less autonomy means forces them to think about the effects on their own economies. The authors argue that their neoclassical realist model, in which domestic factors mediate international concerns, provides a better understanding about the nuts and bolts of balancing. It also provides a neat explanation for patterns of arms transfers to China over the last three decades.³

The final article turns the question around by asking why balancing sometimes does not occur, even when an especially powerful state is capable of threatening others. In ‘Theories of Non-Balancing and Russia’s Foreign Policy,’ Alexander Korolev proposes that several conditions that lead to non-balancing. States facing a powerful rival will not try to balance if they believe the leading power has an insurmountable lead; when they believe its intentions are benign; and when there are no obvious allies who might take part in a counter-balancing coalition. Korolev argues that in the aftermath of the Cold War, the United States possessed all the advantages that made balancing unlikely. Today, however, it can only count on its material advantages, as faith in the United States has declined, and as other powers have gained enough strength to be seen as possible partners. According to Korolev, these changes explain Russia’s more assertive recent behavior, and they foreshadow more balancing to come.⁴

Notes

¹ For more on geopolitics, see Geoffrey Sloan and Colin S. Gray, (eds.), Special Issue on Geopolitics, Geography, and Strategy, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 22/2–3 (1999); Jon Sumida, ‘Alfred Thayer Mahan, Geopolitician’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 22/2 (1999), 39–62; and Thomas P. Cavanna, ‘Geopolitics over Proliferation: the Origins of US Grand Strategy and Their Implications for the Spread of Nuclear Weapons in South Asia’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/4 (2018), 576–603.

² For recent treatments of grand strategy, see Jacqueline L. Hazelton, ‘Drone Strikes and Grand Strategy: Toward a Political Understanding of the Uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Attacks in US Security Policy’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017), 68–91; and Ionut C. Popescu, ‘Grand Strategy vs. Emergent Strategy in the conduct of foreign policy’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 41/3 (2018), 438–60.

³ Analyses of Chinese military growth include Tai Ming Cheung, ‘Innovation in China’s Defense Technology Base: Foreign Technology and Military Capabilities’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5–6 (2016), 728–61; Richard A. Bitzinger, ‘Reforming China’s Defense Industry’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 39/5–6 (2016), 762–89; Yves-Heng Lim, ‘Expanding the Dragon’s Reach: The Rise of China’s Anti-access Naval Doctrine and Forces’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017), 146–68; and Joel Wuthnow, ‘A Brave New World for Chinese Joint Operations’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/1–2 (2017), 169–95.

⁴ Discussing different styles of Russian activism are Reuben Steff and Nicholas Khoo, ‘Hard Balancing in the Age of American Unipolarity: The Russian Response to US Ballistic Missile Defense during the Bush Administration (2001–2008)’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 37/2 (2014), 222–58; Martin Kragh and Sebastian Åsberg, ‘Russia’s strategy for influence through public diplomacy and active measures: the Swedish case’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/6 (2017), 773–816; Luigi Scazzieri, ‘Europe, Russia and the Ukraine crisis: the dynamics of coercion’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 40/3 (2017), 392–416; and Dmitry Adamsky, ‘From Moscow with coercion: Russian deterrence theory and strategic culture’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 41/1–2 (2018), 33–60.