(Page 2 of 42) - Waiting for Balancing: Why the World Isn't Pushing Back authored by Lieber, Keir. and Alexander, Gerard.

Waiting for Balancing: Why the World Isn't Pushing Back

Keir Lieber and Gerard Alexander

1. Introduction

Many scholars and policy analysts predicted balancing against the United States

in the wake of the Cold War. In the fifteen years since then, great power
counterbalancing failed to emerge, despite the fact that America’s preponderant power
only increased. Over the past two years, the prospect and then onset of the American-led
invasion of Iraq generated renewed warnings of an incipient global backlash. Some
claim that signs of traditional balancing by states – i.e., internal defense build-ups or
external alliance formation – can already be detected. Others suggest that such “hard”
balancing may not be occurring, but instead argue that we are witnessing a new
phenomenon of “soft balancing,” in which states seek to undermine and restrain U.S.
power in ways that fall short of classic measures. But in both these versions, many
believe the wait is over and the world is beginning to “push back,” in one way or another.

This paper argues, in contrast, that both these lines of argument are unpersuasive.

There is still no great power balancing behavior against the United States. America’s
nearest rivals are not ramping up defense spending to counter U.S. power, nor have these
states sought to pool their efforts or resources for counterbalancing. We argue, further,
that discussion of “soft balancing” is much ado about nothing: It is difficult to define or
operationalize the concept; the behavior typically identified by it seems identical to
traditional, normal diplomatic friction; and, regardless, the specific predictions suggested
by those advancing the concept are not supported by the evidence. In fact, global
interactions during and after the Iraq war are filled with both a great deal of stasis – as
many states leave their policies toward the U.S. fundamentally unchanged – and ironies,
such as repeated requests by the United States for its allies to substantially boost their
military spending and capabilities, requests which so far have gone unfilled. Moreover,
U.S. relations with important regional powers like Russia, China, and India and other key
states (such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan) have actually improved in
recent years. These important and revealing events and trends are underappreciated by
many, perhaps most, analyses in search of balancing.

The lack of balancing behavior constitutes a genuine puzzle, with serious

implications both for theorizing and for foreign policy-making, and so is a puzzle worth
explaining.

The next section of this paper reviews approaches which predict balancing under

current conditions. Section 3 presents evidence that classic forms of balancing are
demonstrably not occurring. Section 4 argues that claims of soft balancing are
unpersuasive, because evidence for them is poor, and especially because they rely on
criteria that cannot effectively distinguish between “soft balancing” and routine
diplomatic friction. These claims are, in that sense, non-falsifiable. The final sections
argue that balancing against the United States is not occurring because the U.S.’s post-
9/11 efforts of intervention have been highly selective. U.S. policy, despite widespread
criticism, poses a threat only to a very limited number of regimes and terrorist groups.