ABSTRACT
In discussions of the balance of power one can distinguish between a prescriptive and a descriptive element: the balance of power as a policy and the balance of power as a system. As policy it endorses the creation and preservation of equilibrium, the confrontation of power with countervailing power to prevent a single power laying down the law to all others. As system it implies interdependence: ‘a collection of states, autonomous units of power and policy, involved in such intimacy of interrelationship as to make reciprocal impact feasible’ (Claude, 1962: 42). The first meaning may be seen as the logic of a balance of power response to a ‘Hobbesian’ international relations, while the latter reflects the ‘Grotian’ version of the concept. This chapter looks at the balance in the first sense, as policy, while Chapter 4 will examine the question of the balance of power as a system.
