(Page 3 of 31) - Balancing and Balancing Failure in Biblical Times authored by Kaufman, Stuart. and Wohlforth, William.

distribution of capabilities is unprecedented in modern history, hence
comparison to ancient systems may help to illuminate some of its features.

The pages that follow address the two fundamental questions any

international relations scholar would pose concerning our research. First, is
the case truly probative for the theory? To answer that question, we show in
the first section that Iron Age Mesopotamia was an international system to
which the theory does apply, and that there is sufficient evidence concerning
the system to test the theory’s core proposition. Having shown that the theory
applies to the case, the next question is, does the evidence affirm or infirm the
theory? The second presents a theoretically informed narrative of Assyria’s rise
that answers this question. The take away finding is that brute outcomes are
inconsistent with the theory: balancing failed to prevent Assyria from creating
an empire that dominated a unipolar system and marginalized balancing
dynamics for a century. Moreover, key causes of the emergence, suppression,
and then reemergence of a balancing order in the Iron Age system lie outside
current renderings of the theory. Nevertheless, our more detailed findings—even
if they were replicated in many other new cases—would not warrant jettisoning
the theory, for balancing tendencies were observable in Biblical times. These
tendencies were simply much weaker and less consequential than standard
treatments of balance of power theory would lead us to expect.

I. T

HEORY AND

ASE

alance of power theory posits that because states in anarchy must have a
preference for maximizing their long-term odds of survival (“security-

maximization”), they will check dangerous concentrations of power
(“hegemony”) by building up their own capabilities (“internal balancing”) or
aggregating their capabilities with other states in alliances (“external
balancing”). The theory yields a core hypothesis, best put by Kenneth N. Waltz
(1993: 77): “hegemony leads to balance.” Waltz goes on to assert that the thesis
holds true “for all the centuries we can contemplate.” To see whether this
assertion runs afoul of the Assyrian case, we need to define the key
terms—hegemony and balance—and determine that they can be applied to a
system about which the evidence is comparatively thin.

EGEMONY AND

ALANCE

Balance of power theorists disagree over what exactly the term “hegemony”
means. There are at least four distinct balance of power theories in common
use, each of which uses a different definition. The theory may be
unconditional, applying to any and all states systems, in which case
“hegemony” means simply “unrivaled power” (Waltz 1979; 2002). Or it may be
conditional, in that it applies only to contiguous states systems, in which
“hegemony” means a concentration of military power that raises the specter of
the conquest or subjugation of all the other great powers in a given system
(Levy 2003). Both the universal and contingent theories, in turn, come in
balance-of-power and balance-of-threat versions (Walt 1987). That is, some
scholars insist that material and non-material measures of intentions must be
included in the operational definition of “hegemony.”