ABSTRACT
This chapter makes a theoretically informed contribution to the current debate over the present ‘unipolar’ distribution of power and highlights the growing importance of ‘space’ as a dimension of the political environment and so determining the distribution of economic, military and political power on Earth. Contrary to the assessments of several scholars, this chapter finds evidence of significant and substantive attempts to ‘balance’ against the power of the United States (US) since the end of the Cold War. The objectives of the present analysis are twofold. First, it shows how the criteria of what empirically constitutes evidence of ‘balancing behavior’ has led some research efforts to overlook other ways in which states can attempt to improve their security in response to an imbalance of power. Second, this chapter provides a detailed examination of the European Union’s Galileo program and illustrates how this collaborative effort constitutes an attempt to balance against the power of the US in the post-Cold War international system. The analysis then concludes with a review of the central argument and a discussion of the empirical evidence and the implications for future inquiry.
