5
Step hen M . W alt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
6
The United States was overwhelmingly the world’s most dominant country immediately after World W ar
II, surpassed the Soviet Union by a considerable margin in the primary indicators of national power
throughout the Cold War, and was left as the sole superpower after the Cold War.
7
Robert S. Pape, “The W orld Pushes Back,” Boston Globe, March 23, 2003.
8
Stephen M . Walt, “Keeping the Wo rld “Off-Balance”: Self-Restraint and U.S. Foreign Policy,” in G. John
Ikenb erry, ed ., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca , NY : Cor nell U niversity
Press, 2002), pp. 121-154, at p. 153.
9
“Op pos ing W ar is N ot ‘Ap pea seme nt’: An Interview with Step hen W alt,” at:
.
1 0
Pap e, “T he W orld Push es B ack.”
1 1
Robert A . Pap e, “So ft Bala ncing: H ow the W orld will Resp ond to U .S. Pr even tive W ar on Iraq,” article
posted on the Oak Park Coalition for Truth & Justice website, January 20, 2003, available at
.
4
aggregate power, geography, technology, and intentions and foreign policy behavior.
5
With this theoretical modification, Walt and others are able to explain why the United
States provoked less balancing in the last half-century than its sheer power would
suggest.
6
The fact that the United States is separated by two oceans from other great
powers and is thus far enough away so as not to pose a significant threat is crucial, but
Walt and others see America’s distinct history of comparatively benign intentions and
behavior as the key to the absence of real balancing until recently. According to this
view, the United States historically did not seek to conquer or dominate foreign lands and
has generally acted altruistically in international politics. As Robert Pape argues, “the
long ascendancy of the United States has been a remarkable exception [to the balance-of-
power prediction]… the key reason is America’s unparalleled reputation for
nonaggressive intentions.”
7
According to Walt, “A policy of self-restraint is most likely
to keep the rest of the world ‘off-balance’ and minimize the opposition that the United
States will face in the future.”
8
In short, balance-of-threat theory predicts little balancing
so long as the dominant power acts benevolently.
However, today balance-of-threat theorists see the United States as acting in ways
that undermine its reputation for benign intent and are causing other countries to begin
balancing against American power. For Walt, the steady erosion of America’s reputation
for pursuing a cooperative and reassuring foreign policy in recent years leads him to
compare the position of the United States today with that of imperial Germany in the
decades leading up to 1914, when that country’s expansionism eventually caused its own
encirclement. According to Walt, “what we are witnessing is the progressive self-
isolation of the United States.”
9
Pape argues that the Bush administration’s “threat to
wage unilateral preventive war” crucially “changed America’s long-enjoyed reputation
for benign intent” and is “encouraging other countries to form counterweights to U.S.
power.”
10
Pape essentially suggests that the adoption of the preventive war doctrine
converted the U.S. into a revisionist (rather than status quo) power, and is perceived
accordingly by others.
11
Balance-of-threat realists could also argue that the United States has become
more threatening to others because its newly aggressive national security strategy is
increasingly backed-up by unprecedented offensive military technology and capability.
The United States is separated from its potential peer competitors by vast oceans, but the
United States has routinely demonstrated its ability to surpass this geographic limitation
in projecting power abroad and has an extensive military presence at bases and staging
Convention