Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Who's Afraid of a Balance of Power?

| Dec. 08, 2017

The United States is ignoring the most basic principle of international relations, to its own detriment.

If you took an introduction to international relations course in college and the instructor never mentioned the "balance of power," please contact your alma mater for a refund. You can find this idea in Thucydides's Peloponnesian War, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, and the ancient Indian writer Kautilya’s Arthashastra ("Science of Politics"), and it is central to the work of modern realists like E.H. Carr, Hans J. Morgenthau, Robert Gilpin, and Kenneth Waltz....

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For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Walt, Stephen M.“Who's Afraid of a Balance of Power?.” Foreign Policy, December 8, 2017.

The Author

Stephen Walt

Stephen M. Walt

  • Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
  • Member of the Board, Belfer Center
  • Faculty Affiliate, Future of Diplomacy Project
  • Faculty Affiliate, Middle East Initiative
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