B

Balance-of-power theory rests on the idea that peace is more likely where potential combatants are of equal military, and sometimes political or economic, power. In the classic period of balance of power, which ran roughly from the end of the Napoleonic wars to the beginning of the First World War, there were always several countries of roughly equal power, none of which could guarantee to defeat a coalition of the others. The key to the balance of power maintaining international stability was that there were no ideological or other constraints on which powers could join others: any coalition was possible because all the members of the system, principally France, Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, had essentially similar internal politics and general ideologies. Thus if any one country became ambitious, or seemed to be enhancing its power, others would shift alliances to redress this potential imbalance. It should be noted that advocates of the balance of power never thought it would prevent war altogether, the intention was more that wars, if they broke out, would be fought in a limited way until the balance was restored. It was the preservation of the system, and of the identity and autonomy of the actors, that was the aim. Thus the problem of the First WorldWar was not that it occurred, but that it was fought in such a way, and for so long, that it destroyed, rather than preserved, the system. The cold war, by dividing countries between capitalist and communist,

made this shifting of alliances impossible. To keep the theory alive refinements were made to the theory. Balance was still possible in a two-headed, or bipolar, system, mainly because the development of weapons of awesome destruction had led to a `balance of terror'. Arms races become particularly characteristic of bipolar balances of power, as the fluid system of offsetting alliances is removed. The development of blocs of countries around the two superpowers, particularly in Eastern and Western Europe, was supported by the introduction of a further refinement, multipolarity. With the collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, the diminution of the power of the Soviet Union itself and the possible diminishing role of the USA in the defence of

Western Europe balance-of-power theories are likely to return to favour not only as explanations, but also as prescriptions.