“The relations of the Balance of Power to Collective Security have been at the same time complementary and antagonistic.” Elucidate. (1997)
Balance of power and collective security are rival answers to one question: how can power be prevented from being abused? Inis L. Claude Jr. (Power and International Relations, 1962) treated them, with world government, as alternative approaches to the “problem of power”. Woodrow Wilson offered collective security as the cure for a balance he blamed for 1914, yet the new system was built on the old one. That is why the relationship is complementary and antagonistic at once.
Why they are complementary
- Shared premise. Both manage power rather than abolish it. Both hold that only power checks power and rely on deterrence through superior force.
- Shared values. Both defend state sovereignty and the territorial status quo, and both treat war against a disturber as legitimate. Collective security is not pacifism.
- Collective security as institutionalised balancing. It assembles a preponderant coalition against an aggressor, as the balance does, but fixes membership in advance and acts through an organisation.
- Dependence on a balanced distribution. Collective security works only where power is diffused enough for the rest to outweigh any offender. Against a dominant state it fails.
- The Charter fuses them. The veto is a balance-of-power device inside a collective-security Charter: the Security Council is a great-power concert, descended from the Concert of Europe, with universal membership added. Article 51 lets alliances coexist with the Charter.
- Practice. The Gulf War (Resolution 678, 1990) succeeded because a US-led coalition outweighed Iraq; collective security was in effect a coalition balance with UN legitimacy.
Why they are antagonistic
| Criterion | Balance of power | Collective security |
|---|---|---|
| Nature of security | Private good, through arms and alliances | Public good, guaranteed by all |
| Target | A rising or threatening power (capability) | Any aggressor (conduct) |
| Commitments | Flexible, shifting alignments | Fixed, universal obligations |
| Neutrality | Legitimate option | Defection |
| Institution | None needed; works in anarchy | Requires the League or the UN |
| Main beneficiaries | Great powers | Small and weak states |
- Each blocks the other. Balancing makes states keep a potential aggressor as a useful counterweight. Britain and France held back sanctions on Italy over Abyssinia (1935) because they wanted Mussolini against Hitler, which wrecked the League.
- Alliances divide loyalty. Pre-committed blocs cannot act against their own members. India opposed SEATO and CENTO on precisely this ground: private pacts express no confidence in the universal guarantee.
- Conduct versus capability. Balancing may target a peaceful but rising state, whereas collective security forbids acting until aggression occurs.
The relationship today
Council paralysis over Ukraine, where a permanent member is the aggressor, has pushed Europe back to balancing. NATO, now 32 members after Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) joined, agreed at The Hague (2025) to a 5 per cent of GDP target by 2035, and its Ankara summit (July 2026) reaffirmed Article 5 and named Russia a long-term threat. In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement (August 2026): classic external balancing. In the Indo-Pacific, the Quad balances outside the UN while its members still invoke the Charter. India itself practises multi-alignment, built on what S. Jaishankar called “convergences and issue-based arrangements” (2019), while demanding reformed multilateralism.
Conclusion
Collective security did not replace the balance of power; it was layered on top of it. It needs the balance’s preponderant power to function, but denies its logic of private, flexible alignment. When the great powers agree, the two reinforce each other; when they divide, balancing returns, as it has since 2022.