“The notion of balance of power is notoriously full of confusion.” In the light of this quotation, do you think that the concept of balance of power is relevant? (2016, 15 Marks)
The line comes from Martin Wight’s essay “The Balance of Power” in Diplomatic Investigations (1966), which judged that no statement of its “law” could command general acceptance. At its core the concept describes a distribution in which no state predominates and weaker states combine against a would-be hegemon. The confusion is real, but it can be diagnosed, and once diagnosed it does not destroy the concept’s relevance.
Why the notion is confused
- The metaphor itself: Wight traced the confusion to at least three sources, the first being the plasticity of “balance”. It can mean equilibrium (A = B) or a surplus (“the balance lies with Britain”), which is the opposite.
- Too many meanings: Wight listed nine, Ernst B. Haas (1953) eight, and Hans J. Morgenthau four. Inis L. Claude Jr. (1962) remarked that the trouble is not a lack of meaning but a surplus of it.
- Three jobs in one phrase: a description (no state now predominates), a prescription (statesmen should prevent preponderance) and a prediction (balances re-form under anarchy, as Kenneth N. Waltz argued in 1979). A critic who refutes one has not refuted the others.
The case that it has lost relevance
- It belonged to the multipolar Europe of 1815–1914. Bipolarity followed in 1945, and after 1991 unipolarity, in which no coalition could offset the United States.
- Nuclear deterrence, complex interdependence, collective security and the Western European security community changed the incentives.
- Non-state threats such as terrorism, pandemics and cyberattacks offer nothing to balance against.
- Woodrow Wilson blamed the balance for 1914, and Jawaharlal Nehru saw in its peace only an armed, anxious truce.
The case that it has returned
- Power is plural again. China’s GDP has exceeded America’s in purchasing-power terms since the mid-2010s. China builds parallel institutions such as the AIIB and the SCO, while Washington leaves multilateral bodies, including the Paris Agreement (January 2026).
- External balancing: the Quad, AUKUS, NATO’s enlargement to 32 members, and the Hague pledge (June 2025) of 5% of GDP for defence by 2035.
- Internal balancing: world military spending reached $2,887 billion in 2025 (SIPRI), its highest share of world GDP since 2009.
- Managed balance: the “constructive relationship of strategic stability” agreed by Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Washington (September 2026) is great-power management of an equilibrium, which is the concept in its English School sense.
- India is the clearest case. C. Raja Mohan (“India and the Balance of Power”, 2006) called it the emerging swing state. It builds its own capability, works with the Quad, the SCO and BRICS without alliance, and hedges.
Conclusion
The confusion shows that the concept is overloaded, not incoherent. Once description, policy and prediction are separated, the prediction that preponderance provokes counter-coalitions looks strikingly current in the Indo-Pacific and in Europe. The balance of power no longer organises the whole system, but it still organises its most dangerous regions, so it remains relevant in a reduced role.