Factors Affecting Stability of the Balance of Power

"In the rough calculations of world-politics transfer of territory has been the most important evidence of changes in political power. This is partly because territory with its potentialities in relation to population, taxation, resources, and strategy usually adds to military power, but even more because the value of territory has been accepted in the international mores and consequently the fact of acquisition gives evidence of the power to acquire not only territory but anything else, while the fact of cession gives evidence to the contrary." (Quincy Wright, A Study of War [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1942], Vol. II, p. 743.)

A rough listing might include Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Eastern Germany, Northern Korea, Manchuria, and China.

Norwa, Western Europe, Italy, the British Commonwealth of Nations, Latin America, Japan, the Philippine Islands, Iran, Turkey, Greece.

Consolidation of Soviet power in the East has been evidenced by the strengthening of the hold of the Communist party upon the governments of the vassal-states. In the West the anti-communist solidarity of North and South America and the North Atlantic Treaty are apparently part of the same trend toward consolidation.

Arthur W. Spencer , "The Organization of International Force," American Journal of International Law, Vol. IX (1915), p. 64.

Martin Wight , "Balance of Power," Current Readings on International Relations, ed. Norman J. Padel. ford ( Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Press, Inc., 1947), No. 2, p. 185.

7 Balance of power, on a numerical basis, may be classified as bi-polar, tri-polar, or multi-polar, depending on whether there are two, three, or more power units in balance. The units in a bi-polar equilibrium necessarily are of relatively equal strength, but in a tri-polar or multi-polar balance they may be of unequal power. Each power unit may be simple or complex, either a single nation forming a simple unit or several states combining to form a power cluster or complex unit. Complex units are made up of states of equal or unequal strength.

From a geographic point of view, a balance of power may be classified on the basis of its effective territorial range. Equilibriums, thus, are local, continental, or global in nature. Small states may form between themselves a local balance, enjoy some importance as secondary factors in a continental balance, and be simple pawns of a great power in a global equilibrium.

Probably the best discussion of this topic is to be found under the headings "Conditions Affecting the Stability of the Balance," and "Why Balances of Power Have Collapsed." (Quincy Wright, op cit., pp. 752-756, 760-766.)

Arthur W. Spencer, op. cit., pp. 63-64.

10 Quincy Wright, op. cit., p. 744.

Ibid., p. 755.

"Confederations would be a sure means of preserving the balance of power and thus maintaining the liberty of Nations, if all sovereigns were constantly aware of their true interests, and if they regulated their policy according to the welfare of the State. But powerful sovereigns succeed only too often in winning for themselves partisans and allies who are blindly devoted to their designs. Dazzled by the glitter of a present advantage, seduced by their greed, deceived by unfaithful ministers, how many princes become the instruments of power which will one day swallow up either themselves or their successors." (Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations [Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1916], Vol. III, Book III, chap. iii, sec. 48, p. 251.)

13 Quincy Wright , op. cit., pp. 761-762.

14 " In the balancing-of-power process, long-festering fears and hatreds lead to periodical explosions of violence because the process operates haltingly and ineffectively." (Frederick L. Schuman, International Politics [ New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1941], p. 281.)

"If ... states of different power faced each other on certain frontiers, then great separation of states would make for instability because other states would be unable immediately to help the weaker state if attacked " (Quincy Wright, op. cit., p. 755.)

Frank M. Russell , Theories of International Relations (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc. , 1936), p. 321.

Quincy Wright , loc. cit.

18 See supra, note 7.

Carl Joachim Friedrich , Foreign Policy in the Making (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. , 1938), pp. 120, 126.

Herbert Hoover and Hugh Gibson , The Problems of Lasting Peace (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co., Inc. , 1942), p. 64. See also Frederick L. Schuman , loc. cit.

Quincy Wright , op. cit., pp. 754, 764.

Edgar Snow, Stalin Must Have Peace ( New York : Random House, 1947), pp. 126-128.

33 Frederick L. Schuman , International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1948), pp. 417-418.

24 Arnold J. Toynbee , "The International Outlook," International Affairs , Vol. XXIII (1947), pp. 467, 470-472. See also Carl Joachim Friedrich , op. cit., pp. 126-129.

Quincy Wright , op. cit, p. 764.