(Page 2 of 26) - Balancing and War authored by Levy, Jack. and Thompson, William.

One of several paradoxes associated with balance of power arguments concerns the role of
balancing in preserving peace and stability while, at the same time, relying heavily on war - not
normally thought of as either peaceful or stable behavior - as one of its primary instruments.
Which is it? Do balances of power lead to less or more war? Does successful balancing deter
the outbreak of war? Or, does successful balancing merely lead to the expansion of war as allies
join, willingly or reluctantly, disputes already underway? For that matter, does balancing require
the acute threat of war underway to encourage war participants to coalesce against their mutual
foes, as opposed to normal proclivities to buckpass or bandwagon? If so, that would suggest that
balance of power behavior is more a strategy for waging war than deterring its outbreak.
Similarly, if balancing tends to lead to war, it may also be concluded that balance of power
behavior is more a cause of war than a restraint on its initiation.

We pursue several objectives in this paper, all of which relate to war and balancing in one
way or another. One question is whether it is possible to improve on earlier explanations of
balancing behavior by introducing information on war behavior. We already have some reason
to think that the relative power of the leading land power, whether that power is increasing or
decreasing, rivalry relationships, and distance make some difference. One of our new questions
is whether states already involved in war somewhere else are more or less likely to join or adhere
to a coalition attempting to thwart hegemonic expansion? Does information on this variable add
to our predictive ability about who is likely to join balancing coalitions and when balancing
behavior is likely to take place?

A second question is whether, or to what extent, balancing behavior is independent of war
behavior. Are decisions to join blocking coalitions easier to make when the decision-makers are
already embroiled in a war with an expanding state? Alternatively, do decision-makers join
balancing coalitions because they anticipate going to war very soon and want to make sure that
their allies are on board. If strong evidence for either one or both of these possibilities is found,
it would suggest that balancing behavior is subordinated to war behavior. We tend to think of
balancing and warring processes as two independent dynamics - with allying occurring first and
then, sometimes, warring following when the attempted deterrence effect of the balancing
coalition failed to impress the main threat.

There are natural limits to how conclusive our answers can be on these two questions. The
war as distraction question is fairly easy to answer positively. States already involved in warfare
somewhere else are less likely to join balancing efforts. That is one reason for balancing
behavior to operate less than automatically or unanimously. The second question concerning
the independence of balancing and warring is a more difficult proposition. However, our
evidence encompassing 500 years of European behavior suggests rather strongly that the two
processes are anything but independent. Balancing predicts to war and war predicts to balancing.
Neither one ensures the other. Balancing does not always lead to warfare. Warfare does not
always lead to balancing alliances. Yet the presence of one suggests that the other one will also
be present within a short time span. Nor is there a definite sequence of the two processes.
Balancing precedes warfare just about as often as warring precedes balancing. Nonetheless, the
two dynamics are sufficiently intertwined to view them as substantially interdependent. The
European version of balancing focused strongly on preparations for, and the execution of, plans